Comprehension |
Where a Seer knows everything about the future, Viv knows everything about the now. With a look and some concentration (and a resulting migraine that can be anywhere from 'walk it off' to 'jesus fuck I think my brain is coming out of my nose'), Viv can discern facts out of looking at a person or a picture. She can tell you their history, their capabilities and even their powers, revealing if they are a Variant or not.

This power extends to normal people just as well, however. By looking at a M.A.D. Agent, she could discern their speciality, their equipment, even existing faults in their body, gear and psyche, down to the serial number of their sidearm - all without prior knowledge or know-how. None of this can be done on a whim without consequences and the knowledge can be far too much for her to handle, often resulting in her incapacitation, or if asking for far too much all at once, the need for medical attention.

While she would be able to discern where a person was from a picture, they would only be able to know the place the picture was taken, not where the person was at that second. As such, the category of their power has jumped into many different coloured folders, and is being relabelled all the time.

Vivian just about reaches the height of 5' 8" but with her slouched shoulders, Pariah Underground hoodie, baggy black jeans and half-shaved head - nothing about her screams authority or commands presence, but the complete opposite. Vivian is unremarkable, and seems to enjoy (or have at least accepted) that fact. Their clothing compliments their ne'er do well attitude and general passive-aggressive resistance to all kinds of authority. She cuts her own hair, dabbles in making her own punk clothing (which mostly comes to sewing badges and patches onto leather or denim) and is the stereotypical poster child for all things punk.

Vivian is a cynic and a sceptic who likes being proved right just as much as she does being proved wrong. She could just as easily be seen as having a silver tongue as much a smug bitch who has to get the last word in. The development of her powers has left her closed off and isolated. Even among other Variants, she's the only one she knows who can read other people like a book, leaving her understandably lonely. Nevertheless, her principles and rebellious nature led her to support the Pariah Underground.

None to speak of, though cons people rarely when she needs to, using her powers.

Vivian is a Variant from the United Kingdom, and technically an incarcerated citizen of the Great British Empire under the charges of domestic terrorism though her assistance to local Variant 'terrorist' groups both at home and overseas had created some unique legal problems for her. While she hadn't actually ever gone abroad, she had communicated with small groups of friends and like-minded individuals online, offering her help (and her powers) innocuously. Unfortunately, one such group of friends she'd been chatting with used the information she'd gleaned from a photograph of a US Senator who was pushing a bill to impose a curfew on all registered Variant citizens. With her help, they found his private home and killed him in his sleep. She thought they were just going to intimidate him.

While extradition to another country for crimes committed against foreign soil but not on foreign soil might have been an uproarious issue in the eyes of the law 100 years ago, the existence of Variants had swayed the court of public opinion, and though the United Kingdom had every right to keep their prisoner, they compromised instead for an almost-legal agreement to have her 'on loan' to N.O.V.A. to help in their investigations and re-purpose her ability as a Variant radar. None of this was made official or aware to the public, the media or even Vivian.

Which meant it was completely off the books.

When her plane touched down on US soil, the MADmen sent to pick her up didn't report in, and by the time the second responders hit the scene there wasn't anyone there to pick up or question, aside from the confused British PCs who had 'already overseen the transfer'.

Vivian found herself in a black car with a lot of questions. She was fairly sure that even in cases of terrorism they don't usually send men in suits to pick you up to go and take you to jail. She looked at one of the men hard. He stared back. While his steely gaze was enough to unnerve and intimidate - hers was enough to look through him.

Dylan Thomas, FBI. Bachelor's degree in Criminal Justice. Excellent patrol officer, worked for five years before being asked to make the transfer from local to federal. Never killed a man, though talked two men down from violent situations, one gunman, one Variant. Brave, honest, sympathetic, but authoritarian and a control freak. When he was younger, he was bullied for not having a mother growing up, at the age of fourteen he picked up his mothers hobby of collecting pressed flowers, his nickname was Ducky in highschool and his favourite colour is royal blue and he cries when he watches romantic comedies and he-

Her head jerked downward as she clamped her hands onto her temples and scrunched her eyes so hard she thought they were going to pop out of their sockets.

***

Still wanted by N.O.V.A. - Vivian was instead taken in by the FBI, being used for similar, if not the same reasons. While an asset to be sure in Variant cases, she is used also to weed out inter-departmental plots to steal or gatekeep information, as well as blowing the cover of any active informants working within the Bureau's own organisation. Despite being - in her own words - 'not a rat', Vivian has made the best of a bad situation. Vivian tells the truth 9/10 times to her handler and the agents who work with her so that she can lie in that 1 in 10. A lot of Variants owe their freedom to her, though for a lot more Viv is the only reason they were captured in the first place. While N.O.V.A. now know she is in the hands of the FBI, they have no evidence to suggest it, and the deal was off the books, making it impossible to call out officially.

It's hard to rebel when you're entirely on your own, but she makes the best of it in feeding small packets of misinformation that are accepted like gospel truths.