“There’s streaks of faces in the window.”
| NAME(S): |Lucas Emery Bray
| ALIAS(ES): |Luke(he prefers Lucas)
| D.O.B.: |05/05/1974
| AGE: |41
| SEX: |M
| APPEARANCE: |With brown hair, darker eyes, and tanned skin Lucas is almost plain. He’s neither particularly handsome nor awkwardly disfigured, and he doesn’t get quite close enough to symmetrical to be nobody you need to notice. His nose, being slightly bulbous, is probably his most prominent feature. He has few scars, all faded and inconsequential. Scrapes on his knees, a little circle on the sole of his right foot, a bit of acne scarring… He has no piercings, and no tattoos, just a few wrinkles starting to show. His weight could be another recognisable feature, as he has a relatively heavy frame, and often seems shorter than his actual 5’9” height. In fact, he slouches a bit and has a tendency to take up far less space with his presence than seems physically possible. He often seems younger than his years, despite the greying beard and creases around his eyes, both in his overall appearance and his behaviour. His lack of any particular fashion sense probably doesn’t help; his wardrobe is an eclectic collection of dull solid colours and Hawaiian shirts and comfortable sweats and hoodies, jeans, loose shorts and one suit jacket with nothing else to match.
His hair does lighten with a few highlights if he stays out in the sun long enough, not to mention greying a bit more every year. It grows straight without any curl, is generally dishevelled, and is only cut when it starts getting into his eyes. He’s got broad, mobile eyebrows and small close-set eyes under an overhanging brow. His chin is always covered by stubble of varying lengths. There’s a bit of red in that bristle, though it’s mostly a match for his hair, both the brown and the grey, and its length varies depending on how much it annoys him versus how much he’d really rather not put in the effort. His face rounded out as he grew up, as did the rest of him.
His natural expression is a relaxed frown and quiet air of inattention, contentment or concern, but it can shift just as easily into a bright smile, confused disbelief or an angry glare as most expressions. His hands are often fidgeting, usually with each other as that is the safest for him to touch, but sometimes they skitter over surfaces rather nervously before settling. Lucas has a loud, ragged voice, often as full of emotion as his expression. It is a low tenor, with a slight nasal quality if he raises it too far. He has a tendency to shift speeds as he talks, from pausing between every word to saying a few together all at once.
| H-CLASS: |Minerva
| ABILITIES: |Psychometry
Lucas can perceive the history of an object through proximity to it. This history can be anything from where it’s been and who or what interacted with it to how it moved and what its purpose was.
He doesn’t have to be touching the object for it to transmit whatever information it has to him, and he doesn’t choose whether or not it does, but the transmissions will remain uncontrolled until he does touch the object. Once in contact with it, he has more control over what information he receives, but it’s mostly just a method of making things clearer and easier to understand and focus on. To, in essence, make one voice or image stronger than the others to drown them out. (with the same noticeable level of difference as between a crowded room and a single, clear note) With a good deal of concentration he can siphon through the object’s memories, back and forth through time and even pick which sensory input he receives. Mostly, an object broadcasts the strongest moments of connection with it; whether this is through repetition of certain activities, like a pencil writing or a ball being tossed about, or a moment of strong emotion from whoever has possession of the object at the time, depends on the object and the moment.
Despite his inability to turn it off, he has learned a little about how it works and knows that different objects are more strongly related to different senses or methods of perception. Reflective materials(mostly mirrors and windows, though other metals and glass objects also work) can let him see what they ‘saw’ while non-reflective material won’t. Almost all objects collect sound, though walls do it especially well, and cloth, clothing in particular, absorbs a lot of emotion.
Leaving populated areas for wilderness and leaving absolutely everything behind is about the only way for him to completely turn off his power, thankfully, he doesn’t have to go too far for it to work. And he’s learned the trick of holding something with unfamiliar memories to momentarily drown out the others to help him focus if he needs to.
| LIMITATIONS: |
- He has a range of about 10’ with nearby objects, the smaller they are the closer he has to be to them, usually. But memories can bleed together through walls or connected objects and sometimes buildings, particularly large ones that see lots of activity, broadcast memories from up to 50’ away.
- In Lucas’ case, object means any inanimate thing that has been shaped by humans. A glacial boulder will give him nothing, a menhir might offer a few vague memories of the past, but a stone wall will let him know the most. Most foods don’t count, but particularly processed foods(like cheezwhiz or margarine) or combined foods(like baked goods) will sometimes have vague memories starting from towards the end of the making process.
- He can’t get a read off electronics as to what they were doing, beyond being held or poked or dropped. He can hear phone conversations, or youtube videos, or radio stations, but unless he can pick out precisely where a finger touched on a keypad or follow how the mouse moved and when it was clicked, he’s not going to know what was done on the screen unless people talked about it. And yeah, no, trying that would give him the worst migraine ever, also, basically impossible unless the electronic device can be taken somewhere without other distractions or it’s only rarely used.
- While he can generally repeat what he hears satisfactorily, if it’s in a language he doesn’t know, he won’t know what’s being said. And not all actions are easily deciphered or recorded.
- Remembering anything unless it’s been repeated often enough or written down is not easy for him.
- His main trouble with this power is a lack of focus and a tendency for it to get overwhelming. It can be hard for him to keep touch with reality and any sudden influx of recorded memories often leaves him relatively unresponsive or unaware of his immediate surroundings for a while.
- When he’s tired or sick, his mind wanders far more easily and he has a much harder time telling the difference between memory and reality.
- Being able to communicate with others clearly is a constant struggle, as is being able to think in a coherent, sequential manner.
- On familiar territory, Lucas wouldn’t get lost even if he was blindfolded, spun around three times and taken on a ludicrously circular route somewhere else, he’d know where he was without looking. And if he was able to focus, he could potentially(highly depends on his mental capacity at the time and any distractions) find his way back on an unfamiliar route provided he can go the same way as he came.
- He can learn things about individuals by the dominant emotions in their clothes and sometimes pick up on a shift in their mental state if their clothes echo whatever they’re feeling. Also, by whatever they’ve been saying and how.
- He can recognise people by their voice, and sometimes their habits. And sometimes follow them in less crowded areas.
- He can get a bit of a general picture about what happened in the area, provided it’s an urban area.
- He can put together patterns and routines, learning a keycode or a safe place to walk or finding hidden things or how some items he’s never seen before are used. He can learn how to play a song on a piano or shoot a bow by copying what each remembers. Although he admittedly probably wouldn’t manage either well without practise…
- He can generally tell when something weird that happened was done by a hyperhuman or if it was just a skilled human or fluke. Not always, but there are usually pretty good indications for or against, even when it isn’t obvious to the naked eye.
- Knows how to sail/paddle small craft, might be a might rusty. Also some rudimentary woodcraft and foraging knowledge along with camping knowhow.
- He’s not into great feats of athleticism, but he can walk forever.
- He can speak English, French, and a little bit of Spanish, and has a surprisingly prodigious vocabulary, for all he doesn’t use it much.
- He has a strong will and stubborn focus, which he usually needs for talking, but pushing it further lets him pick up tricks or facts reasonably fast enough to be useful and have more than half a brain, though he can’t always remember them later and eventually has to stop pushing through all the noise even that little bit that keeps him coherent.
He’s got a phone he can text with, reserving calls for emergencies. Keeps his wallet and house keys on hand, though he does not carry cash if he can help it. His metropass. ID. A tiny stuffed stegosaurus his dad bought him that fits in most large pockets.
| BACKSTORY: |Lucas was born and raised in the Summerhill district of Old Toronto. He grew up the only child of Gregory Bray, who raised him as a single father after a succinct divorce. It was not a difficult life, at least for Lucas. For Greg, raising a kid became a lifelong harrowing experience, but he persevered. And lucked out in having a good job, an understanding boss and parents more than willing to give advice whenever he needed it. He’ll admit he’s needed it a lot over the years, but he never regretted choosing to ask for custody.
Lucas spent his days amusing himself and making his dad laugh(or despair for a moment or two) until school started, and then he became very serious for half a year, full of a pretentious I’m learning stuff, attitude that his kindergarten teacher reminded him of right along into middle school. She was a nice little lady he couldn’t begrudge the ribbing though, and as classes got harder, he liked stopping by her room during the lunch hour, just to chat, before heading out to play football or ultimate Frisbee with his friends. Winters were for sitting in class until you were allowed to go outside and have snowball fights. Summers were for swimming and sailing and eating ice cream at the cottage they shared with a friend of his dad’s.
It was a normal, nice life broken only by the few rough spots of occasional arguments and sports induced injuries and the odd bad grade. Not that he always had good marks, but, y’know, some were worse than usual. Then, a few months before his 15th birthday, Lucas caught a football and suddenly couldn’t stand straight. The dizzy sensation of spinning uncontrollably unnerved him completely, but his friends just laughed, thinking he’d tripped, and he didn’t know where it came from. He shrugged it off; maybe he’d just needed a drink more than he thought. But that wasn’t the end of it. Gradually, he started hearing and seeing things too, sometimes clearly and other times too faintly to make out. But he found himself answering questions he hadn’t been asked or feeling people nearby when there weren’t any. He kept it quiet for a time, but anyone who knew him couldn’t help noticing the changes. He was more nervous and stopped talking as much, afraid to hear the telltale “What? What are you talking about?”
His dad noticed, Lucas had never been good at keeping things hidden, distracted as he was by these new, unbidden, complications, it was even harder than usual for him to act like everything was just fine. But he thought maybe it would solve itself, one of those phases everyone is so apt to say teenagers suffer from. He was still hoping it was an ordinary bout of teenage rebellion maybe, when Lucas’ grades slipped too low not to point out. They had a talk, and while Lucas wasn’t happy with the consequences, he didn’t bring up the real problem either, just a vague ‘having trouble focusing, think I need to get a new mattress or something…’ It didn’t work. He failed that year, and finally caved under his dad’s disappointment. It wasn’t his fault everyone preferred talking over paying attention to the teacher.
So, Greg went to the school, talking with Lucas’ teachers. They all said the same thing, their students weren’t generally unruly, there was the odd conversation they had to stop, but nothing to disrupt the class enough to explain Lucas’ poor grades. In fact, he was the one doing most of the distracting… The next talk Lucas and his dad had, and he came clean, he didn’t know who was talking, sometimes he thought he recognised a voice, sometimes it had to be a teacher. But it wasn’t just at school, and then he never knew who it was. The rest emerged more hesitantly when Gregory took Lucas to see a psychiatrist. He didn’t want to go, and Greg wasn’t sure he wanted to admit he must have done something wrong raising the kid, but they went.
The eventual diagnosis was schizophrenia and they prescribed a treatment to help with the symptoms as soon as it became obvious they were there to stay and other causes were ruled out. The effect was, unfortunately, mostly the opposite of what they’d expected. The drugs, meant to diminish or stop the hallucinations entirely, seemed to work for the first few doses, in the end, however, they left him more susceptible to the outside influence of past moments. And he lost contact with his own thoughts for a while, unable to fight the influx of sounds and scents and feelings. When he came back to himself, his dad was driving them to the cottage, getting him out of the city for a bit, he said, or had said, when he wasn’t listening. His recovery was not instantaneous, but he did benefit from that trip, and he and his dad started working together to figure out the problem. Being away from a well-populated area certainly helped, but it was Gregory’s opinion that his son couldn’t go forever living in the middle of nowhere.
They worked on figuring out how he could stay focused through what his new psychologist thought was too much stimulus. His dad wasn’t so sure it was a known disorder by that time, but he had no one to tell his suspicions to, and he didn’t know if he wanted his son to be one of ‘those people,’ a hyperhuman. Thankfully, before anyone else had the same thought and a more negative reaction, someone suggested having Lucas apply for welfare or employment services, since he was no longer a minor and couldn’t live off his dad forever. And he obviously wasn’t ready to live completely without help.
The caseworker who worked with them was a hyperhuman himself, and suggested that they visit the nearest H.E.L.P. office. Lucas, who by that time didn’t care anymore, went along because his dad wanted him to. He was unpleasantly surprised to learn that they couldn’t solve anything with a snap of their fingers either, but they did have some idea how to help him that didn’t involve drugs or camping. He spent three years at the Collegiate in BC and came back home at 25 without a job or even a high school diploma, but he could keep his head together.
Over the next few years, he earned his diploma, applied for and received support from Ontario Works and found a routine that keeps him from staying cooped up inside his apartment. He made friends of his caseworker and has tried to keep tabs on what H.E.L.P. is doing. He’s been volunteering as a dog-walker at the Humane Society for ten years now, and recently picked up a part-time job as a house painter with a boss more than willing to meet him halfway.
| SAMPLE POST: |“Hey. Yeah, allright Pig. It’s your turn. No. No, sit.”
Too many nails scratching the top of his skull, clicking like his teeth when he bit down too hard. Lucas shook his head and repeated himself as the excited dog pranced in circles behind his pen door. How many times had volunteers and staff told a dog to sit? He’d never counted, would have been there a week… Barking echoed, drowning out the words, but here, he didn’t bother wondering if it was only in his head, there was always someone barking. Bouncing off the walls. Bouncing while the gate rattled his brain and swung it sideways when he tripped the latch because some dogs jumped up, but not Pig. Pig knew better. Learned faster than Lucas did.
He crouched down to clip the collar and leash ensemble on the dog, staying there for a moment as the gate kept swinging in his head, loose on its hinges. “Ha, that’s my brain, too. Rattling. You hear it?” The man grinned at the dog paying him the utmost attention, bracing himself to push on his knees so as to not keep the poor thing waiting. All that energy and nothing to do with it.
“Allright, let’s go.” The words were permission enough, apparently, and Lucas had to step smartly after him for a few paces before catching up with the sudden charge and managing to slow the dog down. Too fast wasn’t good was what he remembered, dog’s not supposed to be leading. Only, he was sure Pig knew where to go better than he did. Even after ten years. Or he just figured Lucas was too slow. That’d be about the same as most people decided after spending any length of time with him. Slow words, slow walk, slow brain, probably. Well, not today, Pig, they were going at his pace, and he wasn’t speeding up for anybody, not even a cute bully of a dog. So, together, him keeping the leash short and holding the rest folded up so it wouldn’t dangle and start remembering gravity, the dog glancing up and forward and waggling its eyebrows as though offering a secret bargain if only they could go just a little bit faster, they walked down the hall.
Eventually, Pig’s nose distracted him, and they were both smelling ammonia while Lucas, without even realising, placed his feet to avoid messes years old and mopped up long ago. Nothing left but memories of cooling puddles warming his brain, which was still better than the scratching posts in the cat rooms. Going out the front, he gave a little girl a smile and her parents a nod as they held the door for him and Pig. “Thanks, thank you.” Just in case he said it wrong the first time, he wanted to be sure they knew he appreciated it. And he did, too. Never liked doors. Always made him want to hang on to something, with their opening and closing, warm hands on chill metal and faces flashing past the windows. But they were out and past it and now it was just sidewalks and footsteps, warmth and rain and tires in the parking lot. “Not that way, Pig.” His head was getting too full again, all that barking still echoed. But at least this was the last dog to walk for now. He’d only be going back inside once more, and it wasn’t yet. Worth it though, he figured, warming his fingers scratching at the young dog’s smooth ears. Never wasn’t.
| NOTES: |
- There are too many secrets playing in his head that nobody cares about for him to understand the value of someone sharing or keeping his mouth shut.
- His smiles, until he shows his teeth, are almost always an apology of some sort.
- Collects mementos.
- Eye movement when trying to find words for himself = towards the ceiling/sky, from the environment = towards the ground. Sideways is utter uncertainty.
- His writing is legible but distracted. Looks like this.
- Lucas cannot drive, and probably never should.
- Favourite drink is lemonade. Incidentally, he also really likes lemons straight up.
Writing the Memories1. Memories are all linked to each other; even when not writing out the connection, there should always be one.
2. Similar actions, voices, emotions, weather patterns will draw out their counterpart or opposite in the memories of things more often than not.
3. The more something has been done to or around an object, the stronger that memory grows and the greater its priority in being shared.
4. Or, if an object is given routine, a break from it will be its greatest memory when touched.
