Born December 8th, 1978, Joshua Ryan Timmerman lived in Passaic, New Jersey for most of his life. His parents were Catherine and Patrick and he had one older brother by the name of Patrick Junior, often called PJ. Things were pretty standard and nuclear in the Timmerman household. While he was of Dutch descent, Josh never really knew much about the culture other than there being something about clogs in there somewhere. Clogs were not interesting.
Things that were interesting to Josh as a kid were baseball, which he was miserable at, Transformers, which he was awesome at, and comic books, which he was also awesome at. Nevermind how you can be awesome at Transformers or comic books: Josh would be the first to tell you that he was awesome at them. PJ had similar interests, but PJ was good at baseball and that was the direction life took him. Kathy was a waitress at the local Appleby's, while his father was a car salesman for Ford.
Always a smart kid but never a genius, Josh did okay in school when he wasn't staring out the window or reading something he shouldn't've been reading. Despite being a smart kid, Josh had some friends growing up. There were few he was really close to, but he was a pretty happy kid with a big case of hero worship with regards to PJ.
His parents hoped he'd outgrow the comic books, but no such luck. Josh knew some other guys who were into them and they'd trade issues around. He wasn't the kind of kid who had individually bagged comics; he was more the type that would leave them lying around and bend pages. Comics were the first sign of strife between him and PJ; at around age thirteen, when Josh was ten, PJ declared they were kid's stuff. After that, Josh wrote PJ off in the manner only an offended ten-year-old can.
Comics led to an interest in WEIRDTASTIC! Magazine, which thrilled with stories of ESP, teleportation, aliens, and telekinesis. Intrigued by the idea super powers might be real, Josh determined he would be a scientist at age twelve. Nevermind which kind: the kind that studied people who could regrow limbs like lizards. Lizard people were the way to go. While his parents encouraged science and studying hard, the thing where he was into science for kind of weird reasons was a little… well, something.
The minute Josh learned what a parapsychologist was, he knew he wanted to be one. It was rough going; high school counselors don't really encourage that as a career choice, and neither did his parents. It was kindly but firmly suggested biology as an alternate field. Josh agreed, working hard to get his ass into Princeton when he was finished high school. He barely squeaked by and immediately sunk into considerable debt due to student loans, but he was on his way. And he was enthusiastic.
Princeton was his top choice not just because it was Ivy League and looked hella good on a resume; Princeton also had the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research Lab, also known as PEAR, which Joshua found highly intriguing. He managed to sneak a few more esoteric classes into his schedule and took up some side work with PEAR when he was able. Unfortunately, this led to an incident with letting a lab monkey escape (she had sad eyes) that had him ousted from PEAR and more firmly settled into more mainstream sciences. He puttered along until graduation, not having much time to do things other than study. Eating and sleeping happened less than they should've; things like 'dating' were pretty much right out, though he managed to start a relationship with a fellow lab tech by the name of Amanda when he was twenty-four through some random fluke of scheduling. She was nice and she understood his Simpsons references, so that was cool by him. He managed to sneak in some Fantastic Four and Spider-man issues here and there.
Amanda was the one who put Chandra Suresh's 'Activating Evolution' into his hands; the book was a Christmas present one year and it re-ignited his interest in the superhuman, which was never all that far from the surface anyway. He veered back toward genetics and, due to talent and hard work, was recruited into an advanced program for genetic research called TRIUMPH. The backronym's meaning changed regularly due to funding issues and the general eccentricities of the man holding said funding. In 2003, when he was twenty-five, his father was diagnosed with lymphoma cancer and died in early 2004, leaving his mother a widow and a very real, very empty space at the table for Thanksgiving and Christmas. PJ had started a family of his own, and Patrick Senior had lived to see grandchildren, but the loss was devastating.
At least Josh was good at his work. By the time he graduated, now in his late twenties, he was also deeply in debt and engaged to marry Amanda. That was his situation on November 8th, 2006, the day Peter Petrelli blew up Kirby Plaza. Josh knew a guy from Princeton who'd moved to New York with his wife to start a family who'd died, but his immediate family and Amanda were safe.
February 18th, 2007 was a dream come true. Mostly. In the real dream, Josh had some kind of super ability himself, but when he failed to manifest telepathy at around age eighteen he'd sort of given up the ghost on super powers. Learning other people did actually have these abilities was astounding. Project TRIUMPH, already on the Company's radar, was plumbed for scientists willing to study this remarkable phenomenon, and Joshua went very willingly to work in New York in June 2007, just ahead of the Linderman Act. He would've even if taking the job wouldn't be clearing his debts in under three years. Leaving Amanda in Newark with intent to marry still, he relocated to New York city.
Eager to meet some Evolved and get to work, Josh was a little surprised when self-defense classes were part of employee orientation and even more so when he was given a Company-issue gun, 'just in case'. Joshua still clung to his ideals, however, and he is mostly blind to the Company's less than humane habits. Mostly willfully blind at that. Even though it's been over a year, Josh can only do a wristlock half the time he tries and he can sort of shoot a gun, but not very well. The existence of PARIAH disturbs him; while he understands the rebellion against what could be construed as fascism, he's more of the opinion that cards are more useful than not. He still just really wants to figure out the whys and hows and go out and better humankind through science. If the reasons behind things like regeneration were learned, maybe people wouldn't have to die of cancer. Maybe Alzheimers could be cured. And who wouldn't want to be a part of that? Living in a world where comic books are real is pretty amazing, even if you don't have superpowers.
