Isabella 'Bella' Sheridan

Registry of the Non-Evolved Database

File #29 Oct 2009 19:56

Summary

Name Isabella Sheridan Aliases Dolores Rusk Dr. Joelle Van Dyne Status Registered Non-Evolved Gender Female Race/Eth. White Birthdate September 4, 1980 Age 30 Height 5'4" Build Slim Eyes Blue Hair Red Residence Ferry Safehouse - Jamaica Bay Employment Indefinite circumstantial retirement Parents Isaac and Georgia Sheridan (living in Westchester County) Siblings None Marital Status Involved with Deckard Children Not Calvin First Seen Doctor Gwen Stacy Last Seen Profile Isabella 'Bella' Sheridan is a deeply self-serving psychiatrist and experimental research director formerly of the Company and the Commonwealth Institute, now living by the grace of the Ferryman Network.

portrayed by Bryce Dallas Howard

Background

Isabella Sheridan had a charmed life. Born and raised in a posh New York suburb, she wanted for little and received quite a lot. An only child, she learned very quickly that you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, and her brattish tendencies were sublimed into a savvy if slightly ruthless sense for getting what she wanted through cuteness and vivacity rather than coercion. Her pleasant demeanor and seemingly harmless precocity won her a fine reputation with adults, and many children, even if some noticed that her feckless manner belied a slyness in her eyes.

As she grew, she blossomed into a regular high school princess. Well liked, academically successful, balancing her social life and her studies in a natural way that didn't go unnoticed by her parents and peers. It was at her father's suggestion that Isabella decided to focus her studies on psychology, a perfect blend of her interpersonal prowess and scholastic rigor. But Isabella was not keen on being any old therapist. She wanted to maintain her life of privilege, because while helping people was all well and good, she needed something out of it. So when she entered college at NYU, it was as a pre-med. Pill pushers, she knew from report, made a killing.

Isabella never made many close friends; many felt close to her, but she was not so much guarded as uninvested in most. That slyness always remained, that 'me first' attitude that served her so well, that motivated her ambitions and made her work through her program and on to med school at Columbia. Graduating with respectable grades, she was in the first year of her psych residence at the Madison East branch of Mount Sinai when the Bomb went off. Isabella was lucky; she wasn't in the hospital at the time. But she found herself tossed into trauma rotation very quickly as the terrible events of that day unfolded. Through all the tragedy, though, she divined one thing above all others: the emergence of the Evolved was an opportunity she could not afford to miss.

From that point on she directed all her free time to studying the Evolved, and what their appearance meant for the mental health of the world. Patients started turning up, believing they were Evolved themselves, or paranoiacally fearing that their loved ones were secretly Evolved. She even had a few true Evolved patients, and she focused in on them with the intensity that sprung from her self-interest. The world would never be the same, she knew, and she had to take advantage of that knowledge before her colleagues and competitors realized it too, in its fullness. Her first paper on the subject: 'White Elephant: The psychological burden of Evolved genetics' drew the attention of the one group that agreed wholeheartedly with her assessment of the history turn that was at hand: the Company.

So when the Company came calling, she quickly recognized kindred spirits, albeit somewhat more altruistic ones. But such rhetoric is something Isabella is used to in the medical community, where 'the good of mankind' is often discussed. Whatever their motto, their overarching philosophy, they shared Isabella's certainty that the Evolved were here to stay, and that the world's next great epoch might well center around them. Strings were pulled, her residency granted and then declined, and Isabella Sheridan was taken into the fold. Only now, in the Company's twilight hour, has she begun to doubt the wisdom of her choices, and the nature of her allegiances.

Psych Profile

Isabella is driven, ambitious, calculating and perceptive. She affects warmth and buoyancy, and it's not exactly a show; she likes people, but she is the furthest thing from self-sacrificing. While by no means psychopathic or actively antisocial, she possesses an occasionally dim view of humanity that conveniently excuses her own (and severe) ethical missteps. The best uncomplicated feeling she can have for someone is respect, and that respect is the minimum prerequisite for her loyalty… that and a sense that one will contribute to her happiness and success. One on one she is pleasant, cheerful, even jocular, though always professional if the setting is professional - even deviations are to a larger purpose. In groups she is assertive without being overwhelming, and usually likes to use jokes to get attention rather than direct grabs for notice. The only real hint of her inner distance is her lack of close friends, and her lack of obvious weakness or vulnerability. It's not that she doesn't have her weaknesses, her doubts, her fears. It's that she almost never shares them. To do so would put her, in her mind, at a disadvantage.

The circumstances of Bella's life have made it harder and harder to retain an obviously cheerful mien. She's a consummate actress, in her own way, but concealing her feelings takes effort, and some feelings have grown too strong to suppress efficiently. For those who know her well enough, the 'real' Dr. Sheridan is a very wry, often snide, and above all else extremely cynical person. She never thought she had much in the way of ideals before, but her hostility towards generic idealism has only grown in the face of her ever-more-screwed-up-and-at-risk life.

Due to the various life-threatening situations she has lived through, and her lack of appropriate coping mechanisms, Bella temporarily developed a conversion disorder that caused psychosomatic pain in her leg. The origin of this condition was her first life-threatening trauma, when she was kidnapped and shot in the leg - it is from the location of the gunshot wound that the pain emanates. The disorder asserted itself when she feels she is losing control in a critical fashion, particularly when said loss of control relates to her personal safety and well being. Bella is aware of her disorder, if slightly embarrassed by it, and sought treatment with Dr. Richards. The treatment seems to have worked, and her pain is gone, though particularly extreme circumstances still make that leg go weak.

"She's a nice person at heart, someone you can really trust." - An assessment of Bella, as made by former client Magnes Varlane.

"I think maybe there's something wrong with you." - An assessment of Bella, as made by client Flint Deckard.

"She's evil." - An assessment of Bella, as made by former test subject Joseph Sumter.

Appendices

Every normal person, in fact, is only normal on the average. His ego approximates to that of the psychotic in some part or other and to a greater or lesser extent. - Sigmund Freud

The soul is the prison of the body. - Michel Foucault

The Long Road to Recovery - Compiled Logs of Bella

Relationships

Relationships

Bella is good with people, on the face of things. Her whole life, even before she made it her career, has involved understanding people and their desires, the tangled knots of their personality. But this does not mean that Bella is good with personal relationships. Most human interaction, unless she is after something, getting something out of it, leaves her cold. Attachment, she suspects, is pathological - any action against one's self interest in favor of another's is irrational. But Bella is not free of pathology, and despite herself she has formed attachments and non-clinical opinions, some complex.

Cathexis

Points of libidinal energy that is invested or attached to some representation or object (person) outside the ego.

Bao-Wei Cong - Bella had heard of Bao-Wei Cong previous to their inclusion in Project Icarus, but had not known quite to expect. Grimly self assured and totally uninterested in Bella's usual tactics of collegiate chumminess, Dr. Cong was, of course, an immediate object of Bella's particularly prying psychological interest. Advances in this direction bore fruit - a remarkable admission on the topic of Bao-Wei's chimerism - which fruit was promptly dropped, splattering all over Bella's feet after an egregious fumble. Turns out, poking fun at people's deepest, darkest secrets is uncool. Who knew? But Bella found out fast enough, earning Bao-Wei's seemingly undying censure and distaste, an ill regard that, to a woman coming to terms with being compared to a maniacal Nazi 'scientist', was just about the straw that broke the camel's back. All peacemaking attempts were rejected unequivocally, and it was only by virtue of her breakthrough with Mortimer Jack that she regained Dr. Cong's professional regard. Bella realizes she should not give a shit - she has identified Bao-Wei as patriarchist, a type of individual Bella prefers to have no truck with. But she felt how she felt, and as Bao-Wei's implacability was shaken by the progressive deterioration of his state due to self experimentation (never a good idea) Bella capitalized on his moment of weakness for a strange sort of inverted revenge. She offered her help - however much in vain - and in doing forged a link. Throughout his transformation, Bella visited Bao-Wei, becoming more or less his sole human contact. At the same time, Bao-Wei became one of the few sites of honesty and openness Bella had left in her life. A too-often appropriated and grossly overused 'Chinese proverb' has it that one is responsible for the life one saves. Bella cannot be sure she has genuinely saved Bao-Wei's life at any point, but she nonetheless feels responsible. He has outright asked her why she bothers, and she has no real answer. When asked if he'd like her to stop, however, he also lacks a reply. Theme Song: Winter (Allegro N. Molto) - Antonio Vivaldi Joke Theme Song: Melt Me - Black Moth Super Rainbow

Flint Deckard - Referred to Bella by 'Brandon', and a seeming member of that very unfortunate clique of gun-toting drama queens and risk-seekers, Flint Deckard was about as difficult as cases come. Truculent, reticent, taciturn and any number of other words that are synonyms for 'stonewalling pain in the ass', Flint's progress (if progress it can be called) came at a snail's pace, though Bella held out hope. That is, she did until he found out she had been operating a human testing facility, that one of her test subjects was a close friend of his, and promptly put two rounds in her leg. It may be fair to say that this wound was as key a turning point for Bella as the previous injury it echoed, though it was realized as such only once Flint re-entered her life and professional auspices. Coming in brain-wiped after a tailspin into serial murder and self-annihilation, Flint presented Bella a remarkable opportunity – to try again. With a focus that entirely exceeded both her professional requirements the interest of her client, Bella smudged lines and pushed envelops in her impromptu sessions with Flint, pushing to reclaim his trust and, in so doing… well, in truth, Bella's intentions and goals were opaque to her. To be fair, she had a great deal else on her mind. Increasingly afraid for her life, growing more and more discontent with her position within the Institute, and all around tired of the way her life was going, Bella was desperate for some kind of escape. And after determining that Flint had no real faith in the possibility of further therapeutic progress and, perversely, that her relationship with him was the most honest and reliable she seemed to possess, she dissolved their professional relationship. And then moved into an apartment in Chelsea with him. Bella does not think of Flint like a dog. This is the best way she can vocalize her feelings. It's an insistence, really, said against a thing Flint told her in confidence and can now no longer even remember. But he doesn't have to remember; she tends to say it for herself. In part because it allows her to imagine herself as perhaps in some small way better than the other people who have been in his life - damaging, screwed up people, of which Bella basically has to admit she is one. In part because it helps keep down the murmuring concern, impossible to suppress in her relentlessly analytic mind, that she is with Flint because she thinks he will be, when it matters, loyal. That most canine of virtues. Theme Song: A Thin Line Between Love and Hate - Annie Lennox Joke Theme Song: Dawganova - David Grisman Quartet

Joseph Sumter - Subject J-1 is a sore spot for Bella. She plucked Joseph out of a support group for recovering Refrain addicts, which group was funded entirely by her project's budget, and existed solely for the purpose of selecting subjects. Really, her intentions were good. Relatively speaking. Better to use confirmed addicts than foster addiction in non-users. Apparently this act of decency doesn't quite compensate for the sin of kidnapping people and testing experimental drug cocktails on them. Some people are so testy… (pun not intended). Joseph's kidnapping is, as far as Bella is concerned, her biggest mistake, but not one she could have foreseen. Taking Joseph made the raid on her facility by his fucked up little social circle personal – she has little doubt that if she had simply not taken Joseph, the fury would have fallen less fiercely on her head. Further experience (not unwarped by her resentment) has only solidified this sentiment. But Joseph himself is a thing apart from the consequences he's produced for her. To Bella, Joseph is effectively a sucker. Someone willing to engage in rational discussion but retaining enormous naivete - exactly the kind of person she considers easiest to deal with in her chosen field of engagement. Interaction with him almost always permits avenues for progress, room for maneuver – he'll listen, he'll talk, and that means he can be lead in the direction of her preferred conclusions. As such, Joseph is an object of no small investment for Bella. Her quest is for regard, not redemption, though - not believing in the latter - she considers the former equivalent. Joseph is the perfect target for her ambitions – to gain his acceptance is to gain forgiveness from the one she has most wronged. If he considers her reformed, it will quite the coup for her. Success is not guaranteed, but Joseph's temperament, manipulable values system, and propensity for verbal interaction make her hopes as high as they possibly could be. Theme Song: I Live With It Every Day - Barenaked Ladies Joke Theme Song: Get Over It - OK Go

Sublimation

The transformation of negative emotions or instincts into positive actions, behavior, or emotion.

Magnes Varlane - One of her earliest clients, Magnes was, from the get go, an enormous relief for Bella to treat. He lacked all the irritating features so common in her other clients - intractable personality problems, deep seated resentment and truculence, defensiveness. His problems had nothing to do with a grim past or terrible traumas; he was not a gritty badass chick with a chip on her shoulder and a look in her eyes that said 'analyze me, I dare you'. Bella hates that kind of bullshit. Magnes just needed someone to talk to who wasn't going to roll their eyes or mock him. Magnes needed someone to boost his self confidence. And Bella could and did provide as best she could. For all her duplicity, she's never done anything but try to act in Magnes' best interest, and this is something he may himself realize, as he has forgiven her the very worst of her sins, almost all of which he knows. Their professional relationship is technically ended, but Bella is still more than willing to help him shoulder his burdens, should he come to her with them.

Wendy Hunter - It is difficult for Bella to make friends. It is not difficult, so much, for Bella to be friendly, but people she genuinely finds some benefit in simply being around without recourse to utility are rare. Wendy Hunter, for no reason more than the simple fact that Bella liked her, was one of these few. Bella may have employed her ability for professional gain, and may have lied to her in order to advance her standing in the Company, but what Wendy didn't know couldn't hurt her. What hurt Wendy was the man who killed her. Bella will misses Wendy all the more for the fact that she was one of very few.

Repression

The exclusion of distressing memories, thoughts, or feelings from the conscious mind.

Dema Gataullin - Bella has never payed quite enough attention to Dema to ever resolve her uncertainty as to his actual nature. Is he a principled man in a bad situation, whom love somehow saved? Is he an idiot who fell for the first pretty young woman who paid any attention to his lumbering morose self, a puppet on a new kind of string? He does his job, and that should be enough, but Bella has learned to keep this particular agent at arm's length. It's the quiet ones you have to watch, after all.

Jet - Bella doesn't think Jet is very smart, but she's quite all right with that. A deviously clever possessor would be utterly terrifying, but Jet's absurd decision to seemingly fall for her orderly is, Bella thinks, the sign of an immaturity that endures however old she may be. She'll work with Jet, because she's not hard to work with, but she is never quite sure when she might suddenly be taken by another ruling passion, one less useful to her, one less easy to predict and control.

Lynette - Lynette was feisty at first, but she proved willing to converse rationally during her testing. Bella always values subjects who will go along to get along, since it makes her life easier and often makes their lives longer - she dislikes hurting anyone, let alone killing. Still, on the other side, the reasonable and well mannered subjects are those Bella feels worst about hurting at all, producing a set of opposing feelings that Bella does not enjoy. Having encountered Lynette after her release from the Staten Island Hospital, Bella approached her (unknown to Lynette) with an appropriately contradictory kindness mixed with sure sadism. It would be fair to say that Bella sort of likes Lynette, might even want to help her, but she also gets a very dark kick out of seeing how deep the wound she inflicted runs, even as she makes motions to mend it.

Denial

Resolution of emotional conflict and reduction of anxiety by refusing to perceive or consciously acknowledge the more unpleasant aspects of external reality.

Noriko Amagi - Bella feels rather badly about the woman once called Candy for a variety of reasons. Her first regret was over ever purposefully ending a professional relationship for personal reasons, which should have been a clear sign to her that her motivations were not rational and well thought out. Her second regret was making poor Candy subject to the dangerously tangled set of control issues that Bella's kidnapping generated. She used Candy, preying on the very mental issues she had previously identified. In truth, this was the first of the serious ethical missteps that would come to redefine Bella's whole life and, strangely, one of the ones she feels most actual personal regret over, rather than simply regret over the consequences. Of course, there may yet be consequences. Considering her last meeting with 'Noriko', though, Bella would not live to regret them.

Leonardo Raphael Maxwell - Leonardo knew how to show a girl a good time. Nothing Bella shared with him remotely approached emotional intimacy, but that was really a great part of his charm. She got to feel desirable, he got to desire her, he got to give her gifts, and gifts were gotten. Everybody won. Until Leonardo died. Which was… unexpected. And right on the heels of Wendy's death. Bella has never precisely mourned Leonardo, since she never precisely knew him, but he was a bright spot in her life that winked out at precisely the wrong time.

Reaction-Formation

Converting unconscious wishes or impulses that are perceived to be dangerous into their opposites.

Richard Cardinal (and associates) - The other side of the coin, and proof that the enemy of your enemy is not by any means required to be your friend. Cardinal's band of fanatics and murders playing 'hero' are effectively worse than the Institute, as far as Bella is concerned, because they think they can either wash their hands of the blood that stains them, or romanticize the 'sacrifice' of their better morals. The only thing worse than monsters are monsters who put on masks and then are convinced by themselves when they look in the mirror. It certainly doesn't help that Bella finds Cardinal to be insufferably smug and irritating, qualities that should mean little next to the fact he was ready to torture and kill her, yet somehow manage to make it all that much worse.

Dmitri Gregor - Filth. Sadist. A practitioner of pseudo-science. A macabre cultist from a bad work of fiction. Bella harbors nothing but detestation for the late 'Doctor' Gregor. What rankles her most is that she would be, even for one instant, considered alongside such a creature. Exposure to Gregor is one of the primary reasons Bella became so rapidly disillusioned with the Institute. Not only were they monsters, they were caricatures, cartoon scientists doing cartoon science. That their 'science' worked is no excuse. Gregor is something Bella refuses ever to become.

Teodoro Laudini- - It is very useful to have someone to blame. Someone to point to and say 'this is where it went wrong, and it was not my fault'. Bella's kidnapping and injury by private practice client 'Brian' is just such a convenient event. Bella perception of the occurrence is as follows: he used her as a bargaining chip and hurt her just to make her afraid. Bella, for all her failings and ethical ambiguity, does not believe she has ever just hurt someone for the sake of it. That, to her, is one of the few things she is willing to call 'evil', and to her, thus, Teo is evil. Teo made her, for the first time, afraid for her life, a feeling that has not left her since. A feeling that motivated her to begin the Refrain experiments, a bid for retaining some sense of control and autonomy, which experiments led to the multiplication of her fear and its very real manifestation in the hate of many very dangerous people. In a way that is part rationalization, part sheer grudge, she holds Teo responsible for almost everything that has gone wrong in her life. In her darker moments, Bella considers what she'd do to him if she had the chance. She trusts it would be something… cathartic.

Current Theories

White Elephant Complex

Isabella's professional interest is in Evolved psychology, and her foundational theories revolve around the 'white elephant' complex, more formally called evolved manifestation tension syndrome.

Coined and elaborated on during the post-Bomb days, it came from Dr. Sheridan's initial observations of two polar responses to and individual's self discovery that they were Evolved. A segment of the population immediately embraced their powers, enjoying their new-found abilities, enjoying their sudden outstanding uniqueness. But just as often, if not more so, newly manifested Evolved tried to suppress or deny their powers, focusing on being 'normal'.

This 'special/normal' binary not only split the population, Dr. Sheridan found, but also individuals. The tension between the natural desire to be a secure member of the community and the undeniable fact of an essential difference with that community combines with social and cultural pressures to create a strain not unlike the realization of homosexuality. Unlike homosexuality, however, powers express themselves in such an unusual and dangerous range that occurences such as harming family members or loved ones, as well as other disturbing interpersonal events, heighten cases of evolved manifestation tension syndrome, leading to various symptoms including depression, self loathing, reckless endangerment and even homicidal behavior.

Criticisms of the theory have been raised: that it is as 'catch all' for a wide variety of unique disorders, that it is a meaningless differentiation of stress that, while its source is peculiar, need not be differentiated. Dr. Sheridan admits that her critics have a point, but insists that there is something distinct about the Evolved, and that to try and dismiss it would be scientifically irresponsible.

Psychological Manifestation Interaction

In a theory much contested by her late colleague, Dr. Mitchell, Dr. Sheridan maintains that psychological factors are of singular importance to the mechanism of Evolved manifestation. As the mind/body division is total bunk, and the source of Evolved power seems to invariably stem from the brain, Dr. Sheridan claims that the chemical conditions of the brain, and thus the psychological state of the subject at the time of manifestation, must have some effect a.) on the fact of manifestation itself and (potentially) b.) the nature of manifestation.

Evidence to support this theory consist of widespread reports of manifestation taking place at key emotional moments, as induced by situations of stress and danger, the fact that some powers produce personality changes/new urges in their possessors, that a psychotropic drug (Refrain) works only on the Evolved, and that when an Evolved subject is placed back in the emotional state the experienced while manifesting they may demonstrate a notable increase in the magnitude of their power's expression. While link between adrenal levels and Evolved power are well established, but Dr. Sheridan believes other chemical processes may be salient, and thus worth investigating.

The practical upshots of this are twofold. First, that since an Evolved's mutation has some effect on their brain, which effect asserts itself most prominently upon manifestation, they may have different psychological needs after manifestation than they did before. Second, that if manifestation is to be induced purposefully, the fine tuning of the ability manifested may rely on the specific psychological conditions at the time of manifestation, meaning said psychological conditions must be fostered to insure the desired power manifests.

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Completed Projects

Refrain Project

Excerpt from a funding request submitted by Dr. Isabella Sheridan:

The scheduling of a substance as new as Refrain is a tremendously shortsighted act, though hardly unexpected. Just as cannabis was used as a pretense for imprisoning Mexican immigrants, and lysergic acid for imprisoning peaceful protestors, so Refrain has been scheduled long before it could be properly studied in order to provide the State another excuse for oppressing Evolved. 'No therapeutic value' is a conclusion made by the uninformed, irresponsibly; there are no grounds for assuming Refrain has no use, and even less grounds for making it illegal.

Luckily, our organization understands that illegality is not synonymous with worthlessness, and is no excuse for ignorance…

Bella considered Refrain an invaluable object of study. It is a psychotropic drug that only meaningfully effects the Evolved, seemingly all Evolved, despite differences in manifestation. As a psychological researcher with a specific interest in the Evolved, its interest to her is natural. Thanks to a persuasive statement of purpose and the generosity of her benefactors, Bella was given an extremely large check and free reign over a mostly-independent project designed to study the composition, effects and practical potential of Refrain.

With a large budget and no ethical oversights, Bella wasted no time in doing whatever is necessary to further her project's goals. Through deception and kidnapping, black market dealings and imprisonment, she made what she considered to be considerable progress in the direction of understanding Refrain both as a substance in and of itself, and as a potentially useful tool for gathering intelligence.

The project came to a rather abrupt end when compatriots of a test subject raided her facility with overwhelming force. Shortly before the raid, the usually very discreet Dr. Sheridan was ID'd, and while she managed to escape without harm to her person, her association with the project has already, and will likely in the future, have serious repercussions. Bella remains philosophical about this fact. She maintains that, despite its end, the project was a success, due to two important discoveries.

First, the devising of a cocktail of Refrain and dextroamphetamine that produces a state of lucid, deep recollection, during which the subject is conscious and able to received and respond to external stimuli. This cocktail has two uses so far, first as an ostensible treatment for PTSD and related disorders, second, as an interrogation enhancer. In both cases, relevant memories can be summoned up using guiding stimuli, then relayed either by the subject's report, or mental eavesdropping by a telepath or dream manipulator.

Second (and entirely by accident), the discovery that some as-of-yet undetermined mix of power suppressive neurotoxin and Refrain (as well as other potential factors such an aroused emotional state and dextroamphetamine) produces a brief but forceful augmentation of an Evolved's power.

Whatever the mechanism, this breakthrough proved sufficient to permit the synthesis of the crude augmentation drug employed by Dr. Sheridan in her later project (see below).

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Project Icarus

"Icarus?" Bella says, a brow lifting, "Someone evidently has a sense of humor. I hope the previous project wasn't named 'Prometheus' or 'Pandora'."

The disastrous end of the Refrain project was a severe blow to Dr. Sheridan, and brought the censure of senior Company members. She purportedly escaped with her job, and thus with her memories and maybe even her life, because of her discovery of the basic chemical interaction behind the amplification drug. As she well knows, but is not known to any save herself and her assistant, Dema, is that this discovery was a total accident. She should, were it not for simple luck, have been ruined despite her best efforts. This was a deep personal blow to the extremely self-assured Bella, who has the self regard typical of a only child, born in privilege and with a distinguished career in an exciting field.

Combined with the still recent death of one of her only friends, Wendy Hunter, and her subsequent injury at the hands of former therapeutic client Flint Deckard, her temporary suspension from Company duties dipped Bella into an uncharacteristic lassitude, exacerbated by the supposed death of Raphael. Cannabis smoke and disenchantment hung heavy in Bella's apartment.

That is, until she was approached by one Dr. Suresh. It seems that certain individuals of influenced admired the lengths she was willing to go to in the name of her research. From this perspective, what Bella had before considered an stupid accident, attributable to nothing but sheer chance, was a mark of a certain experimental curiosity in the absence of typical ethical restraint. She was asked to assist in the direction of a new branch of Project Icarus. Bella was more than willing to take both the job and the new prop to her ego. She has thus begun working with Dr. Cong to redevelop the coveted Formula.

Recently, it has been revealed to her that the backers of Project Icarus are not only behind the spread of H5n10, but that the project itself is a continuation of research begun by Dr. Otto Brum, a Nazi scientist. This has shocked Bella deeply, though not perhaps as it might most people. Rather than be horrified by the legacy of atrocity this links her to - she considers herself blameless, not guilty even by association - she is instead disturbed to realize the dangerous risks and potentially fatal damage to her already tarnished reputation the project may bring. She is having doubts, not of her own abilities or culpability, but the consequences she may face. And when compared to self-preservation, little else matters to Dr. Sheridan.

Her single most significant achievement was the development of a tailored virus which restored the ability of Mortimer Jack, whose ability was 'stolen' by Arthur Petrelli. After purposeful infection and near-total immune suppression, Mortimer's SLC was cleared of the amino 'junk' - a byproduct of the ability 'theft' - that was blocking its expression thanks to a modified H5n10 strain. A full three days of close observation in a clean room, and Mortimer's ability returned to full expression. The trial has since led to a replicable treatment.

However, disturbed by the mental state of her colleagues, captured and coerced by violent radicals and generally left fearing for her life, Bella quite willingly sold out the Institute and has disavowed her relationship to the organization. While she was hoping to be quit of the Institute entirely, her treachery has apparently not been discovered (though she can't be entirely sure) and she has been called back to work. Lacking anything like the loyalty she felt towards the Company and regularly fearing for her life, Bella must labor to appear not to be the security risk she very much is.

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Claw Your Way Through This Disguise

For the daring, I present for perusal the private journal of Dr. Isabella Sheridan.

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Psychiatric Assessments

Psychiatric Subjects

Dossier of Psychiatric Patients

Bella considers the Evolved emergence to be the most crucial development in current human history; she's hardly alone in this belief. From a psychological perspective, the realization that powered individuals exist in the world represents a massive shift in the perception of reality and possibility. What this means both for the Evolved themselves, and those who now know of their existence, is of great interest to Bella on general terms. Working for the Company, however, she directs this interest towards keeping both Evolved and non-Evolved employees loyal and functional.

Bella keeps records of her clients, records she shares with the Company higher-ups so that they know the psychological status of their employees. Discovery of these files would be disastrous for her working relationships. For your OOC consideration, they are labeled by subject in the tabs above.

Magnes Varlane

Magnes Varlane
General Notes	Gravity manipulator, ex-agent, young.
Basic Complexes	Aspirations, ethical crises, responsibility.
Assessment	Magnes's progress outside the Company seems to be going very well. His romantic life, one of his main points of frustration and contention, has blossomed considerably, with his ongoing relationship with Claire seeming very promising indeed. The promise is such that Magnes requested I pass on some of my relevant medical knowledge of female anatomy, the transmission of which I consider something of a public service, honestly. Magne's new priorities lie in the use of his powers for the greater good of the world. This is a natural extrapolation of his interest in and admiration of comic book superheroes, though of course there are a fair number of real-life analogs, many among the ranks of the so-called terrorists. He has fought, struggled, even killed, and of course this has taken an emotional toll. This information, and much of what follows, was told to me in confidence outside the bounds of my office. Officially, these conversations never happened. He shot a man in the head, a man who was, admittedly, endangering the delivery of humanitarian aid to the many suffering people on Staten Island. He shot him, in part, because this man had copied Magnes' own abilities, and so any harm he might do Magnes could too easily imagine was his responsibility. He has, thankfully, taken a philosophical attitude towards the event. Employing a comic book analogy, he contextualizes the experience as part of his progression towards a coherent system of ethics. Overall, I consider this healthy. Better, certainly, than obsessing over guilt and culpability. He has begun, however, to compile information on the covert operations going on in the city. I have seen some print outs; he has heard word of the Company, has the names of some central figures in the various clandestine and semi-clandestine organizations, is investigating the distribution of Refrain, and otherwise flirting with involvement in many of the events and occurrences around New York that the Company may have interest in. I'm uncertain about what it is I should be telling Senior Agent Denton; for now I will await further developments, and hope Magnes stays out of trouble (relatively).

Kayla Reid

Kayla Reid
General Notes	Empathic healer, recent recruit, former Mid-town refugee.
Basic Complexes	Classic 'white elephant', recalcitrance, suppressed stress and trauma.
Assessment	Kayla Reid is a woman in dire need of therapeutic help, but the very nature of her distress makes her a difficult subject. Her frustrations redouble when confronted about them; her coping methods seem to primarily involve suppression and distraction. Initially this will make her a very useful employee, as she'll direct herself single-mindedly to her tasks, but given time this will create a strain that could be dangerous for her mental and physical health, not to mention her usefulness as a member of our organization. Kayla is a survivor, an individual who has dodged too many bullets, and caught too many as well. Her evolved trait is more a curse for her than it is for many, and this makes the already pronounced 'white elephant' complex even more grave. In short, there is a tension in Evolved produced by the sense of alienation due to their gift; they desire social acceptance and normality, while simultaneously wanting to express the radical individuality that their talent underscores and to some extent generates. This presents a real challenge for the psychologist, who is easily seen as both a danger to normality (in that they can diagnose pathologies, brand people as 'crazy') and individuality (they can 'put you in a box', they act like they 'understand all your problems already'). If she comes to me she cannot feel as if she is being forced to kowtow to a normalizing authority, nor that she is in any risk of being made a pariah or freak. I am not suggesting that this is a conscious anxiety. She is probably only consciously aware of being very angry that her time is being wasted with what she perceives to be, at best, well intentioned but pointless quackery. She believes her problems cannot be solved, and this is due to her inability to resolve these tensions in her life. Enough stress must be relieved so that she can resolve these issues, and giving her a position that is both unique to her and stable enough to provide her with a normalizing identity will help immensely. What such a position would be, I don't yet know, but finding it out will be one of the primarily goals of my future sessions with her.

Veronica Sawyer

Veronica Sawyer
General Notes	Non-evolved, full agent.
Basic Complexes	TBD.
Assessment	I will not say that Ms. Sawyer is a tough nut to crack. That would give the entirely wrong impression of the interaction we had during her initial evaluation. She was not truculent, she simply failed to be forthcoming. Rather than present open defiance as, say, Ms. Reid did, Veronica deftly maneuvered out of my questioning, giving little hint of pathology. This isn't to say there aren't traumas beneath the veneer of stability. The death of her father, the murder of her father more specifically, must have left marks, and even if they have healed, psychic scarring of that kind can present enduring problems. Still, she seems outwardly very functional, with a good record and a normal, socially acceptable affect, even when confronted with psychotherapy. As of right now I have to withhold judgment; I simply do not know enough. If you wish to give priority to a more comprehensive assessment, I suggest giving her the more psychologically taxing missions and requiring a debrief with me. This will give me more time and more leverage with which to extract more information on her inner state.

Colby Martinez

Colby Martinez
General Notes	Non-evolved, recent recruit.
Basic Complexes	Grief, guilt and redirected aggression.
Assessment	Ms. Martinez typifies the worst and best part of our recruitment efforts. She is an ideal candidate for induction into the Company, but such status requires considerable psychological trauma under most conditions. She is bereaved, a well loved spouse killed in an Evolved-related accident whose perpetrator she later killed in an act of vengeance. The balance of pressures and coercions is ideal, or close to ideal, but as with most cases of the 'too good to be true', it may end up being unless handled with care. She is under legal duress, being a murderer; we are all that keep her from tumbling into the system and disappearing. And she is (was) a police officer, which means that, as someone who has likely internalized the law, this stress between relief and guilt, desire for freedom and desire for justice, will be all the more personally located. This may combine and strengthen with survivor's guilt, a special breed reserved for the public protector who is powerless to save those they most care about. Combine this with the Evolved involvement in the precipitating events, and we find ourselves on a psychological knife edge. This can go one of two ways: either she is hammered and tempered, or she'll break under the stress. Her guilt is useful to us, and we should use it, assign her to tasks that allow her to tap into her personal complexes, give her the urgency that will cause her to go above and beyond. But we must not place her in a position where she can be given the chance to sacrifice herself, something that, in a fit of 'redemptive' despair, could present itself as a possibility. Similarly, we must avoid placing her in a position where a violent outburst of grief might be possible. I am not saying these extremes are likely; Colby seems to exhibit considerable self control. I am merely pointing out the dangers that might occur under the extreme pressures of field work. One last note: upon departing from our first session, Colby referred to me as 'Ariel'. This is, of course, the name of her dead spouse, a psychologist with a similar hair tint to my own. While I am far from suggesting we should actively support this comparison/relation, it may prove an asset. I will tread lightly, insisting that she be given regular sessions with me to help her through this period and into a stable position within our Company.

Alias 'Brandon'

Private Practice

Alias 'Brandon'
General Notes	FILE CLOSED
Basic Complexes	FILE CLOSED
Assessment	We have dissolved our professional relationship due to insoluble personal difficulties.

Flint Deckard

Flint Deckard
General Notes	File recently reopened
Basic Complexes	Self loathing, dysphoria, post-memory alteration emotional stress.
Assessment	Reopening Flint Deckard's file provides me with an interesting opportunity - the chance to continue a therapeutic relationship that, for very good reason, I had thought quite finally resolved. I admit a certain relief; I didn't think I was quite done yet, which is also to say that I thought there was more I can do. I now have a chance to prove it. Flint's basic pathological structure, such as I outlined it prior to our incident, has remained mostly unaltered despite extensive memory modification. He exhibits a cycle of performatively self destructive behaviors, not so much for the benefit of others but for the benefit of himself. As a coping mechanism it possesses a certain logic - he can indulge himself insofar as that very indulgence is a punishment for the sins he hates himself for. It's also cyclical, extremely dangerous to him, and may even have structured his homicides: relief through a violence he could condemn himself for. To make him an effective, functional individual again will require considerable effort and gradual change, the specific programme for which I haven't yet fully worked out. For the moment, however, he needs to be removed from situations that he can easily consider punishment for some assumed transgression. He needs better quarters and reading material - something intelligent but lighthearted, like P.G. Wodehouse or Alexander McCall Smith, or other works that will be unlikely to trigger a pathological reaction. We must ease Flint into functionality if we want him functional at all. I believe I am the best qualified individual to oversee this transition, not in spite but because of our past difficulties. He needs to believe that forgiveness is possible and, in his case, deserved.

Elisabeth Harrison

Elisabeth Harrison
General Notes	Evolved audiokinetic, law enforcement, referred through Company agent.
Basic Complexes	Post-traumatic stress disorder, guilt, fear helplessness.
Assessment	Officer Elisabeth Harrison has every reason to suffer from post-traumatic stress. She was kidnapped, tortured, threatened and then eventually killed by the terrorist organization known as Humanis First. She was resurrected by an Evolved healer, but the cranial damage she sustained erased a large portion of her memory; sadly, the obliterated memory was not that of her terrible experience. That memory persists, and haunts her, causing panic attacks and other major level anxiety. To her credit, Elisabeth doesn't show any sign of giving in. Her tactics have been avoidance thusfar, a method that is difficult in her profession, law enforcement. However, her desire to do her work is great, and thus she has strong motivation to overcome her impediment. She has wisely opted not to try and 'go it alone', and has deferred to my experience and guidance, at the behest of our mutual acquaintance Senior Agent Len Denton. After our first meeting I prescribed her Xanax so as to help her manage her distress responses enough to get through her life until a more permanent solution is found. Her encounter with picture of one of her captors, a picture of the man sleeping, set off a severe panic response and, rather than wait and attempt to go the long road to recovery, I've placed Elisabeth on an accelerated exposure treatment. Using this picture as a focal point, the hope is that we will reduce her distress response to a manageable level and, in time, shore up her confidence via cognitive-behavioral conditioning. Elisabeth is skeptical of the approach's simplicity, but I am optimistic - the variant of therapy I am using often takes a few as three sessions to be effective.

Aaron Michaels

Aaron Michaels
General Notes	Evolved, consumptive empath, private practice.
Basic Complexes	Depression, potential post-traumatic stress, ability use-dependency, anxiety, rage.
Assessment	Aaron Michaels is a persistent case. His depression, while certainly supported by external, traumatic events, seems to me to be more deep rooted than even very tragic events. His terrible losses, from the Bomb, and the suffering of his friends and companions, does not quite account for the nature of his symptoms, if my judgment doesn't fail me. Aaron's depression dates back to the explosion in midtown, an event that left him homeless, destitute and without a support network. He has, by now, formed a small group of friends: Peyton, Wendy (a personal friend of my own, awkwardly enough), and Gillian, by name. Peyton and he seem the closest, while Wendy and he have had a falling out related to her behavior inciting him to attack her with a syringe of a potent psychoactive drug. Gillian, I have recently learned, is going to die of a terminal illness. Not without some evidence, then, Aaron has described himself as 'cursed'. To quote a phrase, back luck and trouble are his only friend. Combine this with the fact that he suffered intense headaches when he doesn't use his Evolved talent, which involved consuming the ill emotions of others, a sort of 'human antidepressant' as he described it, and we have an individual who is either eating the unhappiness around him, and thus aware of it, or suffering considerable pain. He is linked to suffering in a curselike way insofar as he needs to be near it so as not to suffer. I've prescribed him Prozac, in hopes it will alleviate his depressive symptoms, but the attack on Wendy is what makes me believe there is more to this story than circumstantial, and thus acute, depression, or even post traumatic stress. Aaron's behavior leads me to believe there are some strong, underlying anxiety complexes at work, ones that I will only get access too once the more prominent symptoms are dealt with. His explosion of rage, his nervous vomiting, what look like mood swings, all point to a more deeply rooted problem that I intend, with time, to address.

Rebecca Nakano

Rebecca Nakano
General Notes	Evolved postcognitive, law enforcement, referred discreetly.
Basic Complexes	Substance dependence, chronic Evolved-ability related pain.
Assessment	- -TO BE WRITTEN- -

Candace Allard

Candace Allard
General Notes	Evolved hydrokenetic, ex-convict, recently inducted.
Basic Complexes	Denial, ambivalent violence, lack of solid self-concept.
Assessment	Candace Allard is precisely the sort of individual that is prime for induction into our organization. What our long term plans for her may be, I don't know, but she has the right mix of merciless denial, intense self-centeredness and a general lack of self-concept that will make her a useful low level agent. Simply put, hers is an attitude of constructed careless hostility. Her low opinion of psychology is certainly a contributing factor, but even after that initial hurdle was cleared, she took pleasure in alluding to her social mastery, purporting to have the power to 'play' with me by leading me from false conclusion to false conclusion. I hope I will not sound conceited if I suggest she doesn't have the necessary capacity, but her belief in her own impenetrability, the adamant inscrutability of her identity, points to her own difficulty in producing a stable identity. She defines herself through events and actions, ascribing no consistent descriptors to herself. Over the course of her evaluation she shifted between describing herself as 'average' and 'normal' to being a 'freak', views that she did not adequately differentiate from the way in which society views her and the way in which she views herself. It is a classic white elephant tension, and one that she has not resolved. Instead she externalizes the struggle, which accounts for her violence and contrariness, her insistence on the inability of others to understand her, a projected feeling since she does not understand herself. The Company can lend her purpose and action, things that she will substitute for her identity. This isn't to say she is safe or reliable. I don't attribute to her the stability necessary for any position of real command or responsibility, but as a weapon she will serve very well. Allow her to feel powerful, superior, allow her to think that she is in control, and she will be eminently controllable. Her traumas, killing a man accidentally and being imprisoned in Moab, are ones she fails to elaborate on in any extended way. She claims they do not trouble her, that she holds no hard feelings, no desire for revenge. She may not be lying, but I doubt very much, whatever she may herself believe, that this is true. Accidental violence as the result of her ability, combined with per/prosecution and isolation drives home the sense of 'freak' exceptionality. The manner in which she casually bragged about/brought up this killing points to a tense ambivalence, a suspension between guilt and revelry. We don't need to fix this problem; in fact it is a damage we can exploit. We don't need her at peace, we need her warring on our behalf. But damaged she is, quite severely, and her textbook denial is what keeps her from collapsing in on herself or exploding outwards in a self-destructive spasm of violence. In conclusion, I have cleared her for training and induction. I urge caution when dealing with her, since if she's set off against us, there will almost certainly be casualties. If handled with the appropriate caution, she'll be very useful.

Bao-Wei Cong

Dr. Bao-Wei Cong
General Notes	Private File - Former criminal, chimeric hermaphrodite, co-worker.
Basic Complexes	Protective reticence, authoritative egotism, potential cultural sexism.
Assessment	My working relationship with Dr. Cong has been somewhat vexed from the beginning. I was informed, upon this project's outset, that I provide oversight to Dr. Cong's work – that I would be, in a very real way, his superior. It became very clear, however, that this is now how Dr. Cong views our positions. It is rather the other way around, in his mind, a matter that I admit I have not contested him on, being uninterested in trivial power distinctions in what ought to be cooperative venture. Cooperation, however, does not seem to be native to Dr. Cong's temperament. By turns taciturn and dictatorial, reserved and domineering, Dr. Cong is a sketch of all the ill patriarchy does to the very gender it invests such power in. Displays of any kind of perceived weakness, failure or indecision are strictly curtailed and denied, in favor of a protective reticence that frustrates me. I believe in an open and easy dialogue among respected colleagues, not some semi-mentorial system in which the wise elder sternly passes on his wisdom to the callow youth. I am no anthropologist, but Dr. Cong's attitude smacks of Confucian hierarchical sensibilities. Upon pressing Dr. Cong, I learned of the condition that may be the source of his pathology. His chimeric hermaphrodism is both medically difficult, requiring the regular application of medication, and representative of qualities – hybridism, intermingling of masculine and feminine – that must be anathema to his very beliefs. I admit, it was an enormous and short sighted mistake of mine to make light of this fact. I have a very liberal outlook, and hoped to defuse the tension that came with such a confession through humor. This was precisely the wrong tactic, and has set me back significantly. Attempts to apologize for the egregious misstep have been stonewalled, which is precisely the reaction I should have expected; compromise, like hybridity, has no easy place in Dr. Cong's world.

Odessa Knutson Price

Dr. Odessa Knutson Price
General Notes	Private File - Co-worker, client and friend. Ethical problematic acknowledged, dismissed.
Basic Complexes	Combination histrionic/narcissistic personality style, childhood traumas, injury induced acute body dysphoria (may not be in excess of socialized feminine norms)
Assessment	I have long ago dispensed with ethical considerations that have no real bearing in my situation. Being both therapist and friend to Dr. Price is completely egregious, but sessions with Odessa have made me realize how untenable our situation is - how can I encourage her to make meaningful personal connections when I know full well that there is almost no one with whom she can be fully honest and open. Only her co-workers, and of them, only I have (and I flatter myself) the savvy to navigate the particulars of Odessa's pathology. As her physician, I am insisting she have me as a friend, as a part of treatment. Wildly conflicted though the interests may be, it's the only option I see, outside consigning her to a steadily degrading set of pathologies. Her insecurity, her flippancy, her demonstratively 'crazy' behavior - that she crosses things out in a journal she knows I read, knowing I can still make out what is crossed out typifies the greater mass of her disorder. Confession, mediated through effacement, done in performative style. Most patients like this are, quite simply, infuriating. But I like Dr. Price. A lot. I hope it is for more than her being, like I must be in some way for her, one of the only people I don't have to actively deceive (some rather obvious secrets excluded). I hope, also, that this is not another emotional predation of mine. Her attachment seems to have formed quickly, and she seems to be manifesting affection for me across a very wide spectrum. My biggest task at the moment will be to keep the coordinates of her regard for me within a comfortable, sustainable pattern. For both our goods.

I See Bella