My life story's kinda a long story … but I can tell it fast. After all, I'm a speedster!
I grew up on a farm in Kansas. Boring, right? Extremely. Except that someone decided it wasn't boring enough, and gave me extra challenges to make sure I couldn't even enjoy doing the things most farm kids get to do. You see, I had cerebral palsy. I couldn't even walk. At some point I could — for some reason, I got worse as I got older. When I was a little thing, maybe three years old, I remember walking with my mom and carrying her track medal. She was the fastest runner around. I wanted to be just like her, but apparently God has a sick sense of humor, like that song says, and instead made me crippled. Growing up wasn't much fun. I had to wear braces and crutches and even though I was smart and people said I was cute, I still held back from really trying to make any friends. I wouldn't have wanted to be friends with a cripple — why did I expect them to?
My mom kept telling me to make something of myself, but I had a chip on my shoulder. Wouldn't you? Sure, nothing's fair and no one promised me a rose garden, but there are people out in the world who have everything going for them just by some blessed accident of birth. My accident of birth damaged my body and kept me from being normal. In my mind, why even try to do the normal things? I didn't want to go to college. I didn't try to get a job. I'm a little embarrassed to say now I sat at home and felt sorry for myself. I didn't know that things could get worse — but again, God has a sick sense of humor. They did.
My mom — the person I looked up to most in my life, even if I treated her like crap most of the time — was diagnosed with cancer. They didn't give her very much time. Inoperable. Untreatable. Terminal. Words like that made me feel sick and scared and ashamed that I hadn't listened to her for so long. But, like a scared animal, instead of being kind and compassionate at the end of my mom's life, I lashed out. I bit and growled and bristled because I was scared. One day we had a horrible argument. I didn't say I was sorry. My father sent me out of the room. When I returned, she had already died.
I never got to say goodbye.
Her funeral was on October 1, 2006. The most important day of my life, really. The beginning of my life, really. It's sad that my real life began only when my mother was already gone, but she's the one who led me into my power. The funeral was horrible. Everyone saying they were sorry and that my mother was amazing, like any of that would bring her back. The eclipse seemed to fit my dark mood. I left the house to go for a walk — if you could call it that. More like a hobble. Not surprisingly, I fell out in the cornfields as far away from everyone that I could get. Suddenly my mom was there telling me to get up, to stand, to walk. To leave my cage.
For once I listened. It took me 26 years, but I listened. And she was right.
I could walk. Not only that, I could run. And fast. I zipped around the cornfields and back to my house, to hug my father and tell him somehow I was cured. My celebration only lasted a moment. There was a knock at the door, and Mr. Thompson was there, looking like someone from the Men in Black. He wanted me to come with him for testing, but I had a bad feeling. After he left, my dad and I fought. I said horrible things to him — like I wished he'd died instead of my mother. And then I took off.
My power was AMAZING! I could run fast enough to run across water, and faster than a plane could fly. I went to all of the amazing places I've dreamt of my whole life: Giza, Rome, China, Paris. I really liked Paris and decided to crash there a while — unfortunately, I had no cash and hadn't really thought out how I could use my new power to make money. I was homeless for a bit, but I guarantee you that will never happen again. I soon found I had another power — because of my first, I'm an excellent thief.
Yeah, I know, it's not moral or ethical, but I was hungry and you know what, the world owed me a few baguettes and eclairs to make up for my crappy childhood. Soon I fell in with another thief — Samir — we managed to steal the Mona Lisa together, due to his ability to phase and my ability to speed. Apparently I wasn't the only special one in the world! He gave me lists of stuff to steal after that, and soon I was gainfully employed, as they say.
It was just about then — really only a month or so after my own ability had made itself known — that the bomb went off in New York. I suddenly had a word for what I was — Evolved — and a fear of being caught. Now people knew that people like me existed, I had to be more careful. I hate being careful. It's definitely a bummer. I visited home to reconcile with Dad, but returned to Paris for a while. But while I may be the luckiest former cripple alive, I'm not lucky enough, sometimes. Samir went missing, and someone raided my stashes. They stole most of the good stuff. I decided it was time to cut my losses and return to the states, because while I'm fast and no one can catch me, they can catch me if I'm sleeping, right?
New York seemed the obvious choice. In a city this big, it's easier to hide the fact you're special. That and there's plenty to steal. In Kansas, what the hell would I take? Someone's barbecue? Anyway, it doesn't really matter where I call home, since I can jaunt across the globe faster than anyone else in the world, except I guess a teleporter. So once here, I established some connections with the Flying Dragons — always good to have the mafia on your side, right? I even did a couple of errands for Thompson, who somehow managed to catch up to me — freaked me out a little bit, but cash is cash, right? Apparently they didn't need me to be a guinea pig anymore. My first big job, though, was to steal the Brill paintings — I wasn't hired to do it, but I knew someone would pay. After all they were "priceless and significant" according to that Linderman guy.
That job, plus another stealing a jewelry set for more than half a mil, have set me up pretty well. I have a big apartment that's slowly getting decorated with nice things that I've used my five-finger discount to buy… nothing too ostentatious though. In these times, with the Evo-hate going on, the last thing I need is someone to happen to see that I have some Picasso hanging on my wall and come after me. I'm a thief and not ashamed of it, but I try not to take anything that someone needs more than me.
