Sebastian Mauer
Portrayed By
Sex Male
Status Divorced
Ability Human Cipher
Age 31
Date of Birth 12-07-1977
Occupation Security Admin
Family Ex-Wife:Andrea Son:Lincoln
First Appearance Unwelcome Reunion

Wrongly imprisoned, left by his Wife, forbidden to see his child, and framed by his best friend, Sebastian is a man who has reached the bottom. Recently released from Monteville Minimal-Security Facility, Sebastian has come to New York City to rebuild his ruined life. An unknown evolved, even to himself, he uses only the smallest potential of his true power.

Character History:

Sebastian Gavin Mauer was born in Rochester, NY to loving parents. Even as a kid he had an incredible skill for puzzles of any kind: what took some adults hours, he could finish in minutes. While Sebastian certainly had a knack for puzzles, the more Sebastian studied, the better he got: simple encryptions became second nature to his mind, and as he exercised that ability the harder codes became simple to crack as well. Unbeknownst to him, he had Evolved a gift of decryption - he could crack any cipher with just his mind. And it seemed he could only get better at it with work.

He graduated highschool and went to MIT, leaving there with honors and a wife, Andrea, before starting a job at a small, but growing, data security company called CipherSys. The company helped him get his masters in applied mathematics, during which time he and Andrea became fast friends with Terry Cowder. Between school and work, Sebastian left Andrea feeling abandoned, alone, and a two-year long affair began between his wife and best friend. Soon after getting his masters he was promoted to team-lead on a special DOD funded project. That very night his son was consceived, and the affair between Andrea and Terry ended. When she knew she was pregnant she broke things off.

It left Terry angry, hurt, and worse, the very job Sebastian had gotten him at CipherSys was his old position - once again Terry found himself working off of Sebastian's scraps. Greed and jealousy built, and soon the Evolved Terry - wielding an ability to mimic and single part of a person: voice, fingerprints, retina, even pheremones - used his powers to frame Sebastian for a cyber crime. Terry made money, Sebastian lost his job. Terry was free, Sebastian went to Monteville Minimal-Security Facility in Norwich, CT for five years. He was there when the explosion rocked New York. When he learned of the Evolved, it didn't take him long to suspect that it was one of Them that had worked to frame him.

During Sebastian's incarceration Terry moved in with Andrea, soon after she divorced her husband and was granted full custody of Lincoln, their son. Without Sebastian's knowledge, the pair were eventually married. Upon his release, after working hard to get out just a few days early to see his son on his seventh birthday, he discovered the ugly truth. It was Terry who had framed him, was now married to Andrea, and had adopted his son as his own: he had stolen Sebastian's life. Though Andrea was kind enough to bring their son to see Sebastian, Terry's presence was not wise. Sebastian attacked him, and after being pulled away from him, Andrea threatened to have him back in jail if he ever came near her or her family again.

Since that fateful day, Sebastian moved to New York, and today he has a boring network security job working with a bank, thanks to the favor of an old college professor that spoke on his behalf. Thankful that his old friend would help him so, Sebastian works diligently to prove his worth, and is settling into this new life of his. Every so often he calls his old home, hoping to hear his son's voice, but they never answer. He still enjoys his word problems, but avoids any sort of true test of his ability, his power mostly dormant, just waiting for the right challenge to re-awaken.


Evolved Human Ability:

While unknown to its possessor, Sebastian's ability is that he is a human cipher. His mind holds the keys to any encryption in any form. While cipher is more recently thought of as a term related to encryption/decryption algorithms, his ability is beyond that to the more general use of the word. He can decrypt and decode any sort of puzzle: these can range from simple cryptographic word games to actual computerized encryption. He needs enough of the encryption to work with though - too small a portion will mean that his mind doesn't have enough data to parse. Likewise, the more data he can interact with at once, or the greater the sequence, the better his power works as it has more data to churn and break down. The uses of this power are varied, and there are certainly groups who would see Sebastian as a true threat in the world were they to learn of his gift. Being able to watch an encrypted data stream, and figure out what it said for example, holds a lot of power.

His power will work with any kind of medium and is not limited to sight. In other words, if he hears an encrypted phone conversation his mind can turn it into words. If he touches a physical code (say, a brail-based encryption) he can 'read' it (this assumes he can read brail). And of course, if he sees an encrypted text, his mind translates it into the words behind the cipher. His power gives him no ability to understand a foreign language, nor will it let him 'piece together' something that has been taken apart - a thousand piece puzzle is as difficult for him as any other person.

It is important to note, that watching a flow of data is quite different than holding a whole document in his hands, for example. He needs to remember what he saw in order to recall what it said beneath the encryption before the moment his mind decrypts it. Another important note is that this power can work both ways - not only can he take an encryption or code apart, but he can put it back together, or create new ways of obfuscating information. This of course would take some training. Currently, his power extends to rather complicated 'games' and cryptographic challenges. Thanks to his work at CipherSys though, he is on the verge of breaking simple encryptions (nothing greater than 256-bit). Obviously when this happens, he'll have to face the fact that his 'skill' is perhaps more than it seems. This happens subconsciously to Sebastian, in that his mind simply reads a code as easily as it reads words; though as the encryptions grow more complicated there is every chance that some real effort will be required.



Timeline:

Date Title Synopsis
5th Unwelcome Reunion Not all reunions are the welcome kind: Sebastian learns one of the inmates he knew in Monteville is in here in New York.
6th Wounds a Mile Wide, a Fathom Deep Sebastian finds a possible new friend in Tamsine at a parents' grief support group.
7th Getting Tough While working out in Pete's Gym Sebastian makes new friends, and is greeted once more by an old one.
29th Rapping on the Past Sebastian meets up with Simon at Pete's Gym and a bit more of Seb's history is let out to the inquisitive kid.
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