Registry of the Evolved Database
File #22 Dec 2009 03:52
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 Nick Lachey |
Good thieves aren't made, they're born. At least in the Hughes family. Seth is the second son of Miranda and Edison Hughes, noted confidence artists and forgers. He and his sister Miriam grew up steeped in the culture and rituals of crime, though usually not under their own names. Seth's parents are good at what they do and they only ended up in jail at the same time once, so while his upbringing was anything but stable it was at least loving and the family close-knit.
Seth and Miriam always considered the 'TV-style' (since they had no actual frame of reference in reality) family to be something of a myth or at best a sort of hellish prison wherein one had to pretend to be like everybody else and NOT go to Disney World or live at a Mexican resort for a month or two afterward. Normal people lived the kind of life their parents trained them to live while setting up a con job or cover ID /for life/. That fact was driven home to them when both parents did a short stint in Federal prison for ID theft. The experience of being fostered out to a 'normal' family was something neither of them enjoyed and both rebelled against. And nothing is more of a pain for any authority figure than a pair of fairly sociopathic teenagers with a grudge. While their foster parents were truly good people, they were perhaps not without a quiet sigh of thanks when the children's parents swooped in and 'rescued' them on an informal (and entirely illegal) basis.
That period was also the time when Seth's Evolved abilities first manifested. It took a few months for him to begin to catch on that something was going on that was out of the ordinary. All of the sudden, Seth was at the top of his classes but couldn't seem to do his homework alone. When his foster parents sat with him to help, the problem mostly cleared up. With the notable exception of algebra. It turned out they really never needed it after school and forgot it. The final clue came when he picked up his sister's flute and played the piece she was learning. When she left the house, he forgot how to play. When she returned, so did Seth's musical ability. Enlisting her aid, he soon figured out his weird talent. To this day, his sister has kept his secret (as far as he knows) and she helped him explore some of the parameters of it. As far as he knows, she is not Evolved. But then again, she might not tell him if she did have abilities. It's that kind of family.
Seth attended college and received a degrees in electronic engineering and art history, though it took him almost an entire year to learn how to learn, after skating through high school. His grades never dipped, but the actual amount of information he learned on his own was very limited until he learned to turn down (if not off) his ability.
His time at University was probably his most 'normal' period. Remarkably enough, he actually formed friendships and social bonds, within the psychological limits of his upbringing, and dated for the first time. As with everything else, Seth follows his own rules when it comes to sexuality and romantic relationships and he isn't afraid to use good looks and charm on anyone receptive. Especially if it furthers his goals in some way. His more serious relationships of that period always ended as the other person figured out that Seth was more interested in the appearance and mechanics of a relationship than actually being in one, even with them.
After college, Seth apprenticed under a family friend named Ernst Helgrin, a Swiss burglar and safe-cracker. Erst is the classic 'gentleman thief', coming from a patrician family and having the sort of 'Old Money' attitude and demeanor that lets such a man move through the homes and vacation playgrounds of his prey with ease and stealth. Probably more than anybody else, Ernst shaped the way that his protege approaches life and work. From the older man, Seth learned that stealing just to live is another sucker's game. That one should make one's work an art and love the art and valuables they steal for their historical and aesthetic qualities, rather than just see them as an means to an end. From apartments in Paris to retreats in Bali, Ernst showed Seth how to live well and cultivate a personal grace that helps him blend in high society, as well as how to put up a front to keep the predators of the criminal world from sensing weakness. Ernst's recent retirement was bittersweat for Seth, as he truly hated leaving the nest, as it were. But it's also given him a chance to fly on his own.
Seth has done a good job of keeping his abilities a secret, even from his family (other than Miriam) and friends, for the most part. Being one of the Evolved has come in handy on occasion but especially after the bomb that leveled Manhattan and the repercussions of the public revelation of the Evolved, he's kept a low profile for the most part. You can't be a thief, a freak and somebody who isn't in jail. He has returned to New York because there is a great deal of art wealth left in the city under minimal protection, still lost or just waiting for somebody with the right skillset to 'liberate' them. He tends to have a very limited social circle right now, consisting of clients, buyers and fellow criminals for the most part and damned few of those.
On the other hand, he's keenly aware that the world is changing and that he could and perhaps should be using his abilities to help others. But a fear of ending up in prison and struggling with the innate selfishness installed by his upbringing are working together to perhaps stifle those altruistic leanings. At least for now. What the future may hold and what attitudes he may develop are strongly dependent on who he may meet and interact with in this brave new world.
Seth's personality is characterized by a certain roguish disregard for anything resembling social conventions, laws or morality beyond certain rough-hewn guidelines like 'don't hurt anybody who doesn't deserve it' and 'killing people is bad for business'. He was raised to believe that society's rules are for suckers and idiots and that smart people make their own way and their own rules.
That having been said, he knows that making your way in the world requires at least a working simulation of common ethical and social boundaries and he's good at presenting that appearance. In truth, his moral code is basically 'do what makes you feel good'. If that means stealing somebody blind, he'll do that. And if that means giving the proceeds away to an orphanage, he'll do that too. (Admittedly, that last circumstance is a little more rare than the first.) If Seth can be said to have a moral code, it boils down to 'don't screw with your friends or family', 'don't put fun ahead of the job or the job ahead of your life' and 'always be ready to walk away'.
One thing to remember is that Seth is a professional. He has a professional's pride in his work and when working he's focused and hard-working, like any other skilled professional. He may be a thief but he's a damned good thief.
His attitude towards the Evolved is that they (and he) are dangerous and perhaps a bad thing for the world in general. He has a lifetime criminal's distrust for power and authority and tons of power in the hands of a few people worries him. On the other hand, Registration is horrible to him. Giving the government a way to tag people and control them is the stuff of paranoid fantasies.
When the Evolved became public knowledge, Seth was at first intrigued and wanted to see who else had these abilities but it quickly became apparent to him that publicly Evolved people were going to be at the heart of controversy and attention. And he can't afford to attract attention. The idea of doing something positive with his abilities is attractive but he considers it something of a pipe dream. Trying to do good now isn't going to erase his past, after all.
Seth considers Evolved who have registered to be either stupid, crazy or very brave. Outlaws aren't tolerated by the government and to be an outlaw by virtue of your very being is to court lifetime imprisonment or even final solution style death camps. It might seem paranoid but when you're raised with an instinctive distrust for authority, thinking the worst of people with badges and guns is easy.
Compounded with the recent activities of groups like Humanis First and a general anti-Evolved sentiment in media and from (rightfully frightened) common people, that distrust and fear has made Seth very wary about telling anybody about what he can do. On the other hand, battle lines are being drawn and all it will take is something like mandatory genetic testing or a quick test for Evolved characteristics to 'out' him and make his life very uncomfortable. That self interest may actually lead him to offer his services to anti-registration groups. If he can ever find anybody he trusts.
Apparently a limited form of telepathy, this ability allows Seth to take the knowledge and skills of a person within about twenty yards and internalize them as though he himself had acquired that knowledge through study and experience. This skill duplication is both comprehensive and deep, with there being no practical difference in skills he mimics and ones learned over years of training. These skills can be mental or physical, including hand to hand or firearms skill as well as more esoteric uses. There are some significant limitations involved.
For instance, Seth can't synthesize skills from different sources. His ability focuses in on one person and Seth gains the knowledge and skills of that person as they pertain to tasks, but not things like PIN or telephone numbers, private details of the person's life or what they may be thinking. If he focuses on a surgeon, he will know how to remove an appendix and all the procedures, prep and after-care required, but not have a specific memory of the last time the doctor performed that operation.
He also is limited to the rough skill-level of the person from whom he is borrowing the skill. If he's mimicking Wolfgang Puck, he's a hell of a chef. If he's mimicking somebody on their first day at culinary school, he knows how to break eggs but probably not how to make a yummy omelet.
Seth's ability is in an 'always on' state by default and has been since the age of fourteen. It took several years for him to learn to dampen it down to the point where he only picks up on skills while within a meter or two of people. Suppressing this ability takes concentration and effort akin to juggling. By now he's good at it, but even the best juggler is a little distracted. The reason he made the effort is because his brain can't distinguish between skills acquired naturally and skills gained by use of his ability while he's in the range of someone from whom he's borrowing. Unfortunately, he can't add to his own innate skill level by building on stolen knowledge and skill. It's a lot like painting a picture in the hoarfrost on a window in winter. No matter how much work he puts in, it's going to melt away when he or the target moves out of range.
He can however, use his natural skills in conjunction with ability-granted ones. For instance, Seth has a degree in engineering. If he borrowed the skills and knowledge of a security systems analyst, he'd be able to not only know where the logical points for certain systems would be, but he'd be able to tell what the power and structural requirements would be to put them in place.
In addition, his range is severely limited in a roughly twenty meter radius or cube. Seeing Jackie Chan on TV isn't going to help him fight. And if he or the target move out of range, his abilities fade immediately.
In addition, he has to focus to pick a specific target. Normally, his powers work on a subconscious level. If he needs to know how to draw or paint, his ability quests out without his conscious volition and picks the nearest person with passable skill. If he's trying to replicate the specific skills of an individual person, he has to focus on that person and takes a second or two to 'synch up'.
Also there is something of a 'bleed' effect. The longer he holds onto a specific skill-set, the more he starts acting like the person from whom the skills are drawn. If taking military skills from a special forces type, he might start getting a little …aggressive and curt after a few minutes and start spicing his language with acronyms and phrases that are more common to military use. Seth has learned to make lemonade of that particular lemon, though. Sounding and acting exactly like a person who belongs somewhere Seth doesn't can be damned handy.
Lastly, one of the major reasons that Seth stays in shape is that this ability doesn't lend him the punching power of a boxer or the flexibility of a gymnast, just their knowledge of their sports and skills, right down to an instinctive level, which can result in injury, if his acquired instinct overrides his physical abilities. By the same token, he could mimic the skills of say, Dr. Mohinder Suresh and be able to 'read' genecharts and understand advanced biology and genetics, but the spark of genius that lets Mohinder be a genius in his field will be lacking. Seth is smart, but he's not /that/ smart.
"Of course I can steal it. The only questions are if you can pay for it and how much fun am I going to have?"