Registry of the Evolved Database
File #30 Nov 2010 15:36
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Matthew Frewer |
The first fifteen years of his life were spent being poor, dirty, and hungry. Most of it and his family he would like to forget. Living out in the middle of nowhere in the heart of Dixie didn't give him much opportunity. Tagart was the oldest of six kids, when he got too old to help Momma in the house he got in the his daddy's truck to try and find some quick jobs.
His education was never a priority, there was too much work to be done for him to be farting around a school in his parents opinion. In the middle of third grade they pulled him out saying they'd home school him. Not that they ever did, he knew numbers and letters and that was good enough his parents figured. He wasn't exactly pining to go anyway.
After that his life was simple. He woke up to feed his brothers and sisters, turned the coffee on for dad, took a dip in the rain barrel, and got ready to work. They'd be gone for about ten hours, come home to eat, he'd put his siblings to bed, and he'd sleep. The highest any of the other kids got in schooling was ninth grade and then Deborah got pregnant and left home to go live with her boyfriend.
Tagart didn't see himself staying there forever so he started to branch out, have his dad just drop him off to work different jobs. Saved up enough to get his own truck with a plywood bed. He got a job loading trucks at a local parts factory and was finally able to get a room he didn't have to share with his six siblings in the den of a coworker. Sure, his family complained, but he didn't want to get stuck with them forever.
Things were looking up and he eventually started driving the shipping trucks at about seventeen. He had a girlfriend of sorts as she didn't kick him out as soon as she was done with him. He was still living with his buddy, but he'd graduated to the spare bedroom. And he'd managed to find a place that didn't care about carding so he was able to form his six beers a night habit.
When his coworker instituted the first poker night, he found his true love. He lost all of his pay check that night. He kept on trucking, but every stop he made he tried to get into any game that involved cards and money. Tag even went so far as to get a book of card tricks which he had to have someone read to him at first before he studied up to doing it himself.
Hitting Las Vegas was a turning point for him. He had a pocket full of bills when he first got to the casino, but managed to get drunk enough to get fifty two grand in debt by the end of a long weekend. This was really, really bad for him. With the sharks circling for their money he was on his last borrowed grand chip on the poker table. Promising this would be his last hand and he'd go home and have a wife and family like every other idiot, he sat down at the table.
As each card hit the table, he saw wings on the dealer. The lights of heaven shone on him at last. Everyone was amazed when he finally fell out of his chair at a two grand profit. Even though he had paid them back, the sharks still beat the ever loving crap out of him. Going back to his coworker's house he laid down, fully intending to hold to his promise. But like many who make those rash promises, it only held till the next weekend poker game.
He tried to avoid it, but then Tag's willpower had never been legendary and soon his crutches were resting against the table. When he started losing he got frustrated, focusing on the cards and willing those aces into his hand. To his surprise he started actually getting the right combinations to win. He got kicked out that night when he took all of their paychecks. And when he went back to work he got fired.
He soon got hired for a new trucking gig, but Tag spent most of the time hitting tables. He didn't connect all the beatings, slips, other accidents, firings, and broken relationships with his flashes of good fortune until he was about thirty. Tagart had just won a good amount when he happened to be walking out of the casino and got struck by lightning.
From there he started to do experiments with the cause and effect of his luck and left his home for 27 years to go stay with a friend in New York city. Trucking was great, but it could never earn him the money poker did. This put him, at times, in touch with the criminal classes. People would talk to him, especially since drink is encouraged with a game of cards. And when they got caught he usually got a little attention from the NYPD that he never really enjoyed getting.
Too much attention and too much respect for his own skin, he started spilling. They would leave him alone and give him a little cash in return for the privilege of picking his brain. Everything from carjacking to drug shipments. Of course if the other side put pressure he'd spill the activities of the police as well, what questions and where they were looking.
Tagart had gotten big shipment that took him all the way to California when The Bomb hit. He tried to call his buddies, but all the lines were down and busy. So he ended up sitting at a bar drinking himself unconscious while he and the rest of the world watched.
The week or so afterward he finished up his shipments and spent a good amount of time in Las Vegas trying to make double his payment. When the poster Evolved were showing their powers he was glancing quickly around at the horrified expressions and praying no one looked at him. He fled to his hotel room and tried to figure out what to do.
Everything was happening in a blur for him while he tried to ignore and deny everything that was happening with the Evolved and Non. Of course that didn't work in the long run because every time he won big there were the whispers that he was one of those freaks. He switched casinos regularly, but he hadn't quite worked up going back to New York.
And then the casinos started restricting access. You had to register, get tested before they'd let you in. All of them had bouncers at the door checking status. Soon there wasn't a hole in the wall that wasn't carding. He had to bite the bullet or he'd get buried. More than a few people had already acted violent towards him, calling him all sorts of names. His luck held to avoid the mobs that killed anyone suspected.
He hatched the craziest plan he's ever thought of then. To use his luck to skew the results. He'd never used it for anything more than winning at cards though, he had no idea if it would work for something that huge. Especially with the new super accurate tests coming out.
When he showed up for the test he was praying with every fiber of his being. All during the wait he was chanting in his head and when they took his blood he kept on going. And it gave a negative. Blood was pounding in his ears so loud that he didn't even hear the results and by the time he was walking out with his card he was half delirious with panic that he didn't even look until he was drunk at home.
He lost all of his money, his girlfriend dumped him, he lost his local transport job, he apartment burned down, his car got stolen and chopped, and he couldn't win a hand for six months. This of course made him really popular with the sharks and casinos who really wanted their money. But he had a cared that said Un-Evolved so life was great.
Eventually his luck returned and he got back to the tables making money to buy a new car, pay back the Linderman Group, and try and start his life up again. And then he got a call. It was his buddy he had been staying with in New York. Things were hell. Worse even, hell would be a great vacation spot. But he needed to come back to help rebuild and try to make sense of this insanity. Sure, the buddy was one of his ex's and he really liked her, but that was a lot for him.
The decision to go back didn't come until he was at the casino bar with his company hat on and he got approached by a buxom blonde with soft brown eyes. She slid up to him and started acting like he was George Clooney all of a sudden. She wanted to know everything about him and like any lonely drunk man with no willpower he gushed to her and took her back to his room.
Once there she had a sob story about her cousin who needed to get to Mexico and wouldn't he please, please help her. With a low cut top and bottles from the mini bar he was powerless to resist. And then he fell asleep before he could get what he'd been hoping for, just his luck. The next day while he was driving his truck with her in the passenger seat he asked why she wanted his help.
Turned out she was Evolved. Her ability? Sensing other Evolveds. When she saw him sitting there she knew he had to be undercover or unregistered. When she saw his card she knew he'd be the one to help. He was miffed at this, but whatever. He couldn't push it or he'd end up dead.
And so it happened. He was mixed up as a 'coyote' for the Ferrymen. He didn't want to know, he didn't want anything to do with safehouses. Just lonely bus stops where he dropped people off and went on his way. He got three people out of the country that way and each time he's felt the jaws get closer and closer to him.
After the last time Tagart decided he had to get away. That girl knew just how to play him and she was going to get him killed, he knew it. So he called his ex back and asked if he could crash on her couch and try to figure out what the heck he was going to do after that. And that's where he is now.
Tagart is a man who likes his head in the sand. He's for the Evolved, he's one of them after all, but don't ever expect him to go out and speak for them. He's more likely to stand with the Humanis people first. He's soft spoken and uneducated tending towards religious flavored intolerance. He'll throw everyone to hell before he does something to directly put himself in the line of fire. Good thing he's never had kids, which he doesn't particularly like. Other people would call him spineless and a wimp, he'd call himself a survivor. He'll run before he'll stand up to or for anyone. But he's still trying to buy his way to heaven with occasional good deeds on his black card.
The Good - Tagarts ability to push things in or against his favor is something he has to focus on and be near to. If he stops focusing the influence goes away and of course the longer he's straining to influence things the harder it becomes and less effective.
For example: He's sitting at a table wishing intently for good cards, watching the dealer and deck closely. He's for his drug test and makes that jerk's test turn out with a false positive so he gets the job instead. He's chanting over and over in his head while sweating profusely, twisting his hands while the Evolved test slowly proofs. He's chanting over and over in his head while frantically scanning the dark empty roads for any trace of other drivers with stuff in his truck that isn't supposed to be there. He's praying for his life staring down the barrel of a .45, hoping to God that it jams or the pin doesn't strike true. He's fuming over this idiot that's running and hoping that the machine suffers an error so they all register for his candidate. That jerk's house has really bad old wiring and he's standing outside really thinking about that jerk's house on fire. He can't be the only one to win the lottery, but he could get a piece of the pie.
Not being much of a people person, he doesn't have much practice in helping other people. Even if it did, he is only able to influence things in relation to himself. In the rare instance he could be persuaded to, it wouldn't work nearly as well.
For example: Little Suzy really wants that A, but mean teacher gave her an F. Little Suzy whines, nags, and threatens to expose that Uncle Tagart has cocaine in his truck if he doesn't help her. If he was in the school really concentrating he'd have a twenty-five percet chance of the computer erroring to read another grade. Or maybe just suffering a critical error. His buddy Jack doesn't have money to pay his rent, but sent off the check anyway hoping it wouldn't get there right away. Tagart goes for a walk in the post office hoping to God it gets scanned and stamped, but ends up kicked under a desk somewhere. About twenty-five percent chance it would.
The Bad - For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Newton's 3rd law and it works even for Tagart. Every time he pushes for luck, he gets bad luck in return. . The smaller the chance, the bigger the pay back.
For example: He wins a hand, he misses a step on the stair or gets pee on his pants. He wins the game, maybe he gets his nose broken or his car won't start. He makes the wiring short and starts a fire, his tire blows out or the brake line fails. He makes his sensitive shipment without getting noticed, he ends up at the strip club about to get raided for prostitution.
There are many things beyond him. He can't influence the weather. He can't influence the markets. He can't influence people.
For example: He couldn't make himself win an election or have that hot leggy blonde ask him back to her place. He can't make it more likely for people to take pity on him or have them like him. He can't make you have that one in a million bad reaction to some medication or up your chances that the antivirals will work. He can't make you miss a step, but he can influence your shoelaces to untie so you might trip on them or that existing weakness in the wood give way under you.