For someone living in this particular day and age, Sebastian Waite’s life was, in itself, rather unremarkable. He was born in San Francisco in 1972 to a middle-class family. Waite didn’t exactly want for nothing, but he wasn’t deprived, either. His father was a police officer, and his mother was a teacher, so he grew up instilled both with a healthy respect for authority, and a desire to help other people reach their full potential.
Therefore, while it may not have been a natural progression for him to go into corrections, better him than a lot of other people. He wasn’t interested in power over others, nor was he a bleeding heart who believed that many if not most of the inmates he oversaw were victims of circumstance or just never had a fair shake. He was merely a believer in the notion that people’s actions have consequences, but that while those consequences were being played out in prison, they should also be treated with dignity and respect as fellow human beings, and given the chance to rehabilitate themselves if they chose to do so. A bit of a rosy outlook on the prison industrial complex, perhaps, but if you’re going to walk a line, there are worse ones to walk than one that allows you to be respected both by the officers and the inmates. Waite was one of the few corrections officers for whom that was almost universally true.
He married relatively young, and when — like so many young and perhaps ill-advised relationships do — it began to go south, had a child to attempt to cement it. In a turn of events that shocked only him and his wife, this didn’t have the intended effect. They divorced, his wife Bridgett got custody of their son, and while he certainly kept up with child support and visitation, it’s hard to be a full time dad when you’re not…full time.
Now finding himself without a family, Waite threw himself even more into his work — ironic, perhaps, since that was what had put the writing on the wall for his marriage in the first place. It certainly looked good to his superiors, though, and he moved up the ranks pretty quickly, especially considering that he wasn’t one of those who were highly connected or highly ambitious. He was just good at his job. Eventually, when the opportunity came for him to transfer to Green Haven Correctional Facility in New York, his son was old enough that he didn’t see a need to say no, and moved across the country to get something of a new start.
He hadn’t quite anticipated just how much of a new start he would get. Of course, it was hardly the fault of the move that suddenly the world began to go to shit, starting with the detonation in Midtown. Suddenly, the “evolved” were front and center in the news and everywhere, and the prison system was no exception. There was obviously a lot of fear from the populace about what these people would mean for humanity in general, but there was an added layer of uncertainty when one is talking about prison. The optics of criminals with superpowers shoved together in the same place just isn’t very good, is it? Despite the fact that reality very rarely aligns with fear mongering, there was enough real crap hitting the fan that being in his position was pretty much the worst job ever.
Throughout the years of chaos, however, Waite did what he always did — that is, his best. Control changing hands, new security measures, evolved inmates incarcerated with varying levels of trumped up charges, even more security measures, all security measures collapsing…through it all, Waite was one of the only ones still standing and trying to do the job. Because of this, he came through relatively unscathed, all things considered, and it was probably no surprise to anyone who knew anything about it that when the former director of the Liberty Island Detention Center was exposed as a collaborator with Humanis First, Waite was installed in his place. He was the epitome of a “safe pick,” and even had he not been specifically requested by DHS Secretary Vincent Lazzaro — which he was — he might have headed the list anyway. With that endorsement, there was not even the barest hint of a murmur of dissent for his succession.
Now all he has to do is…do it.
