STRING THEORY MUX - Key Persons
Ace Callahan also delights in nearly every dark thing Odessa Price ever was or ever will be. …Those that he cares to think about and acknowledge, at any rate. Odessa's guilt is lessened by his lack of reproach and challenge to do and be better than her old ways and when they resurface. That, too, is an advantage he holds.
"I'll always love you," Odessa admits easily. "And I'll always wonder what it could have been like to build a life with you properly. I'll always wonder the same about Aman, too. What we could have had if I'd been what he found a worthy war to wage." There's no sorrow when she shakes her head this time. Apology, maybe, but not sorrow. "Still, I'll never regret setting out to make a life with Harry."
Adel Lane isn't related to Colette by any blood-ties, but in a future that never was, Colette was a mentor and guide to her. In the here and now, Colette sees Adel somewhere between daughter and sister. Though Colette would prefer the two be peers, Adel's deferential treatment and adoration of Colette makes their dynamic inherently more maternal. This, furthered by Colette's growing maternal instincts and regret over her own desires to have a child all her own, have allowed Adel to foster a very complicated but deeply personal connection. As a family member, Colette sees Adel as someone who she raised right and often leans on Adel to "remind" her of the way she was in Adel's time, so as to take those lessons of nurturing and apply them to her relationship with Pippa as her niece grows older. Adel is treated like family and is welcomed into Colette's home for holidays and other special occasions.
She may never tell her to her face, but Colette sees Hana Gitelman as a maternal figure and an ideal of who she wants to be in the future. In Colette's eyes Hana is a powerful and collected woman who has deep emotional reserves and a capacity to be beautiful, compassionate, and nurturing but often conceals that behind a professional detachment and distance. Whether what Colette sees in Hana is projection or not, she sometimes subtly angles their interactions into maternal directions. Colette is remarkably open with Hana about personal issues, when appropriate, and trusts Hana's judgment in all matters. If nothing else, Colette seeks Hana's approval and recognition in lieu of ever having a real maternal figure in her life. In the years they have had a mentor-pupil role Colette has come to love her like family, even if she has never openly admitted it. Though Colette worries that her desire to affect a parental relationship with Hana draws additional and undesired frustrations from Hana's biological daughter…
At the fall of Pollepel Island, Tasha was taken captive by Heller and his soldiers. When Lene Petrelli took on Linda Tavara's powers and attacks Tavara, Tasha swiftly acted in that window of opportunity to shoot Heller - unfortunately, he shot back and with better aim, resulting in a bullet to Tasha's head. Comatose, she was spirited away by her father to a Montreal hospital, separated from the rest of the Ferry. It was a few weeks before she regained consciousness; rehabilitation and recuperation would take several months.
Alister Black was Des' employer for a time. The man tends toward the dramatic and that makes him unpredictable. While she's grateful for his assistance, she'll never be sure how far to trust him.
Alister Black is very accommodating. Bizarre, but accommodating.
Avi has been in Colette's life longer than most men tend to hang around. In many respects, Epstein should be a paternal figure to Colette, but his inability to connect with her on anything more than a professional level, and the extent to which she saw him disintegrate during his time with the Ferrymen means there is always a tarnish on his presence. But Epstein remained a constant balancing force in Colette's life, a voice of reason when she flew off the handle, or that one last pat on the back she needed to get her going. He doesn't represent the same discipline that Hana does, but something similar.
Bella Sheridan was the love of Odessa's life once. Something about Bella having had a man in her life put Odessa off from the pursuit a bit. That and the idea that spending too much time around her puts Bella in danger. Still, she advocated for Bella to be brought on at Raytech in order to provide her with the same safety she herself has been afforded. They work close as they ever did before at the Institute, but Odessa won't allow herself to fall back into the old patterns they maintained. Even though they've grown apart over the years, she still holds a deep respect for the woman. While she may not keep things professional, she's maintained the line between friendly and friendly.
Berlin Beckett is one of the few people Colette considers a friend, and only a friend. There's a wiser-than-her-years quality to Berlin that made it easy for the two to become close, and Colette sees Berlin as a peer first and subordinate second. In training Berlin to join Wendigo, Colette helped the younger woman understand some of the limitations of her ability and how it would work in conjunction with her own, and has continued a subtly mentor-like relationship that is ham-strung by Colette's desire to not alienate Berlin in a commander/subordinate manner. Maintaining their friendship requires diminishing what she could offer Berlin, and Colette consciously makes that decision for largely selfish reasons.
Duplicity, thy name is Odessa. While she's always been fiercely loyal, the people Odessa swears her loyalty are not the people who expect it from her. She's defined by her traitorous acts, but often those she has betrayed are those who enslaved her in the first place. Not always, but most often. The acts of betrayal against those who did not act against her are the ones that cause her to lose sleep. While she faced down her second death, she discovered a capacity for incredible regret and remorse. Her past choices haunt her.
This does not, however, keep her from making terrible choices. Previously, her choices were fueled by a need to survive. These days, her tendencies are more self-destructive than self-preserving. Choosing to ally herself with Valentin (and consequently Humanis First!) was a little bit of both. She saw few options for shelter other than with him, and the alternatives she did see, she felt unworthy of. Sometimes she admits to herself that she expected to - wanted to - die during the war, but fate, such as it is, had other plans.
The regret that weighs down Odessa's heart so heavily has caused her to withdraw. She does not seek out her previous contacts because she does not feel she deserves her old connections. Not the good, not the bad. She does, however, still harbor resentment toward the institutions (pun only slightly intended) and individuals that created her and molded her into what she is. There's nearly nothing left of them to seek revenge against, however. But those targets she can find… They should be very concerned about crossing paths with her again.
Once, she had asked Eric Doyle if he thought she could reform. In many ways, they traveled down parallel paths. He found the right people and found redemption. Odessa consistently found the wrong people and only buried herself deeper in her terrible deeds. Now, she wants to try again. She wants to do better, but the fear of failing is a terrifying one indeed. With no allies, few resources, and a multitude of demons, Odessa isn't even sure where to start.
While Odessa is ruthless when she feels she needs to be, she has begun to learn compassion. Her heart bleeds for children. Especially those who have been denied a childhood the way that she was.
Cindy Morrison had some connection to the Company, but it isn't clear whether she was an agent or a consultant, or what ultimately became of her…
Job Titles:
- Retired from Wolfhound and Now Protects the Safe Zone As an NYPD - SCOUT Detective
Conrad Reginald Wozniak was a petty crook with a long rap sheet of nonviolent criminal activity. He was sly and sneaky, and somehow simultaneously manages to be in someone's face a lot of the time. He had the ability to manipulate and discriminate between subtleties of sound.
Conrad can lie to Jesus. That's not to say that Jesus will believe it, but Conrad can do it with a straight face and anybody else watching would probably buy it. Not only are his fabrications typically believable and well-crafted, but he has the ability to do it with a very good poker face. This also makes him great at practical jokes, because he can say the most deadpan garbage to someone and it may be hysterical, but he's not going to bust out laughing until he feels like it.
Conrad has, through experience and comparing notes with the kind of people you meet in jails, become quite the seasoned thief. He's able to slip a car lock and hotwire a vehicle so he really can drive it like he stole it. He could get through most commercial locks with basic and sometimes even improvised tools. He's even developed a few sneaky moves such as picking pockets and becoming very adept at hiding and sneaking up on people. Included in this are various common schemes that tend to work, as well as the know-how to spot a good mark. You'll never catch him using impressive science and technology to finesse a bank vault, but once his powers are factored in even that becomes a possibility.
Conrad snaps his fingers and says as if recollecting an especially funny story. "Remember the time you caught me gettin that handjob from the co-ed in that alley in Chinatown? And you cuffed me before I had a chance to pull my pants up? Ha!" Good times! - Son of a Bitch
Without much concentration, Colette can raise or lower the levels of ambient light in her immediate surroundings. She has not focused on an area of illumination larger than fifteen feet yet, but it was postulated by Conrad that her powers have an exceptionally high potential threshold. Colette is able to brighten an area by concentrating the available light, or darken an area by displacing the light to another location nearby, effectively allowing her to make an area of shadow surrounded by an area of brighter illumination by pushing the light to the "edges". A new facet to this ability prevents Colette from being impacted by sudden changes in light level. Bright lights and the like have no negative impact on her ability to perceive, as she is capable of changing her perceptions of light around her reflexively and faster than a biological eye can.
By manipulating how light reflects off of a surface, Colette is able to change the color of objects she touches or whole areas around her. A fifteen foot area of effect is her greatest achievement so far without causing herself physical trauma. On the outside of her ability range, she was able to manipulate color over sixty feet around her, but it took a severe physical toll on her body. The color manipulation only lasts while she is within the area, and only while she concentrates directly on the effect.
By bending light around herself, Colette can plunge herself into total darkness, effectively shunting out all visible light from her location, rendering her invisible. She is still physically present in the area, and she is unable to see due to no visible light reaching her at all. However, Colette is unable to bend spectrum of light that cannot be seen by the human eye. As such, infra-red goggles and heat sensing equipment can still detect her while invisible.
By applying the above three abilities together, Colette is able to create silent figment images that at current look like crude and finger painted three-dimensional imagery. She has fine detail control down to the level of her artistic capability, which is limited to very obviously unreal images. Colette has yet to learn how to render photo-realistic images, and may be incapable of such feats.
Corbin Ayers is an old colleague of Odessa's from her days with the Company. Consequently, he testified in her defense at her trial, illustrating the kind of environment she was brought up in, and how she deserved compassion. Now, he's her parole agent. He helped her secure a new legal identity to give her her best shot at a fresh start. Yes, she's already fucking it up out of the gate, but he doesn't know that yet and he's wonderfully supportive anyway. When push comes to shove, it's likely going to be Corbin that Odessa turns to.
Devon Clendaniel joined Wolfhound not long after Colette did, though the two have never been particularly close. Devon's kind heart and good nature earns Colette's respect, but they've never connected personally in the ways she's been able to with the members of Wendigo. In spite of this, Colette sees Devon as trustworthy and capable and thinks that one day he'll become Claire's replacement as Amarok's lieutenant when Francois eventually retires and Claire assumes command.
He's kind of always right, but he also did something to my mother, so, I don't know if I should hate him or not yet. Guess I'll find out! Chromium Delusion: He looks normal, except his body is surrounded by holographic ticking clocks.
Etienne Saint James is Alister's bodyguard. And a pirate. Normally this would be precisely the sort of person Odessa would want to throw in with, but the fact that she isn't sure where she stands with him leaves her feeling wary.
She understands what I mean when I talk, and listens to me, and she's an amazing person! I don't have to try too hard, and she has a car that even I don't want to modify! So yes, we're dating now! Chromium Delusion: Glistening skin, a glowing naked goddess with hair miles long, covered in leaves and flowers.
Eve Mas was in possession of a precognitive ability that appears to have left her slightly detached from reality. Eve calls her Dorothy and seems to be in tune with the insanity that's turned Des' life upside down, so she made fast friends of the seeress. The two conspired to explore Eve's visions and Des' memories together. Time will tell how much of a disaster that turns out to be.
She has a JD from University of Toronto with an emphasis in civil rights and has passed the New York State Bar Exam. Her expertise is specifically Evolved rights. While she doesn't have much courtroom experience yet, she seems to have a knack for public speaking and coming off as very sympathetic - always a plus for a lawyer.
After having lost her eyesight in an attempt to utilize her laser generation, Colette soon discovered that she has the ability to feel visible spectrum of light more than just with tactile sensations. Colette no longer needs functional eyes to see, and has been legally blind since November 2011. Colette uses her entire body as a light-sensing organ, and can see with normal 20/20 acuity in any direction around herself at all times, but not all directions simultaneously. She is still limited to a normal human's field of vision, though she is working on expanding that range.
Tasha has friends, family, and allies in a lot of places. Her Ferry ties from Boston, New York and now Canada and her family ties with governmental and legal connections give her potential access to many more resources than many fledgling attorneys might have.
After joining Wolfhound, Colette underwent considerable combat training at the direction of Hana Gitelman. Colette's first newly developed talent allows her to emulate the effects of one half of a flash-bang. By concentrating, Colette can rapidly alter the levels of light and darkness out to a 100 foot radius, creating a blinding, irregular rhythm of strobing light that overstimulates eyes and causes nausea, headaches, and confusion as long as it persists.
Jason Mines is Gideon's personal bodyguard, a member of the inner circle that Odessa wishes to join. That one of the first impressions he set with her was roughing up Kain means that she doesn't care much for him. She also sees him as a threat to Ace's ascent to great power. All the same, she has a respect for him, because she knows she does not have enough sway nor physical ability to otherwise oppose him.
Joshua Harding is a former governor of Florida who held that position between 2006 and 2020. In 2008 he ran in the Democratic Presidential Primaries but dropped out after polling significantly lower than Allen Rickham. Harding is a veteran of the Second American Civil War and coordinated attacks against DoEA Detention Centers alongside freedom fighters in his home state. When the fighting ended, Harding reassumed his role as Governor and attempted to coordinate relief efforts to the severely battered state. Though Harding has technically served more than eight consecutive years as Governor of Florida, US President Raymond Praeger voted not to count the years of 2012 through 2017 as part of Harding's term, allowing him to stay in office until the end of 2020. In November of 2020 Harding won the US Presidential election becoming the 46th President of the United States.
Joshua Harding is a member of the Democratic party but has chosen to run against Democratic incumbent Raymond Praeger as an Independent. Harding is a civil rights activist and served in the Clinton administration as the assistant attorney general for the civil rights division. Harding is a vocal proponent of the Chesterfield Act and believes that striking a balance between private liberties and essential Registration laws is a critical path moving forward in America. Harding is also a proponent of decriminalization of marijuana and advocates for the repeal of the Patriot Act.
Juliette Luis is Odessa's mother from Arthur's timeline, but also from this one. In the insanity of November 8, 2011, she crossed into Des' timeline. She left Kara Prince and assumed the life of Sera Lang, taking up the position of receptionist at Raytech in order to determine if Desdemona Desjardins was Odessa Price after all. When she left and sought refuge with the Staten Island Trade Commission, Juliette followed and assumed the identity of Mara Angier, an auditor working for Alister Black. Odessa considers her family, even though she respects Juliette's desire not to form attachments in this world, and has promised to help her find a way back to her own, and to her real daughter. She couldn't fulfill her promise to send her back to her own world, but that was always how it was meant to be. The final life she would assume would be that of Rianna Price. It's complicated and tragic, but that seems to be love in a nutshell.
This guy's cocky and seems crazy and thinks he's some kind of bigshot crime lord. Maybe he is, but Con's gotta deal with him on behalf of Phoenix as far as getting illegal-type stuff for the organization.
Kain Leblanc is a complicated figure in Odessa's life. Via her other selves, she has positive memories of him. That he's landed with d'Sarthe disappoints her some, but her house is made of glass, so she'll be casting no stones there. It's easy to understand how people fall back into habits and what's familiar. She knows very well how difficult it can be to find a legitimate place in the world when running from an old life. Whether he likes it or not, she's protective of him and hopes to make a staunch ally of him.
Job Titles:
- Director of Operations, Yamagato Fellowship
Lisa Bradbury is a survivor from the Flood Timeline who entered this world during the Crossing. Her true identity is not known, even to SESA, and her cover identity is a part of the government's fabricated narrative of what truly happened in Sunspot, New Mexico. SESA keeps a special file on Lisa, should they ever need to leverage her ability. What she's doing since she arrived is unclear…
Job Titles:
- Staten Island Trade Commission As an Auditor
Mara Angier works for the Staten Island Trade Commission as an auditor. She seems a bit rough around the edges, but Odessa is the last to judge on that front. They share the exact same birthday, and she isn't afraid to get her hands dirty. She can't be all bad, right?
Hey, you with the pretty face, welcome to the human race
A celebration
Mr. Blue Sky's up there waiting
And today is the day we've waited for
Noa Gitelman is the sister Colette wishes she had. Someone her age, someone with similar interests and outlooks. But Noa is more of a cipher to Colette than even Hana. Their relationship is further complicated by the power dynamic of their work roles in Wolfhound, and Colette's relationship with Hana. It's been challenging for Colette to express herself openly around Noa, even if she feels a familial connection with her, especially through their shared friendship with Adel.
No one understands Colette's relationship with John Logan, least of all Colette. By all rights he's the kind of person she should be hunting down to dump in a prison for somewhere between a decade and eternity. But for whatever inscrutable reasons, Colette has only ever come out of interactions with Logan for the better. She somehow trusts him and sees his (not)relationship with Hana as a healthy and admirable step. Colette is always finding ways to get the two together, and make Logan something like an unspoken uncle much to Nicole's eternal chagrin.
Wolfhound is a second family, blood by a different means. In Hana's organization, Colette found an outlet for the rage she'd been accumulating her entire life. Rage at biological parents that catastrophically failed her, rage at a system that abandoned her, rage at a world that hated everything she was. The outlet, the knife-point for that, came in her training with Hana Gitelman and the development of Strike-Team Wendigo. In the Hounds, Colette finds both camaraderie and a second life lived apart from the one she shares with Tamara and Tasha.
Conrad is able through will and instinctive control to manipulate existing sound as well as create new sound from silence. He is able to dampen sounds in volume by degrees down to silence, which allows him to create a 'bubble' of silence in which and from which no sound travels. The opposite can also be accomplished to the degree that sounds can be amplified and modulated by effort of will. This enables Con to imitate sounds he can conceive of perfectly, provided he's heard them before and has a mental basis to emit them from. Such sound can be used to shatter brittle objects, cause concussive blasts of air, or project sounds much farther than they normally would be able to travel. This power applies to soundwaves in mediums of gas, liquid, or solid, and indeed being in a material environment is needed simply for sound to travel and exist.
Conrad essentially has superhearing. This is not a feature of his physical ears, because the mechanisms of his ears are completely normal and there is nothing supernatural about them. In actual fact, Conrad is physiologically deaf because of repeated exposure to his own sounds and the damage it has caused to his ears. He actually hears by virtue of his power, and the hearing granted by his audiokinesis can be adjusted as he wishes. He can 'focus' his hearing to normal human range or expand it to encompass pretty much any perceptible vibrational frequency. Examples of Conrad's audial sensitivity are that he can overhear any conversation if he has a good spatial awareness of where it is in relation to him, he can listen to the operations of parts moving within a mechanism, and he can hear frequencies imperceptible to normal people.
Manhattan Skyline Right forearm A single line silhouette of the Manhattan skyline as it was prior to the civil war. Below the skyline is a line of text that reads, "103008 whatever happens is from now on." The date represents the official date she was adopted by her father Judah and the phrase represents that she feels her life truly began on that day.
A black stag skull with full antlers. Colette got this tattoo when she was granted leadership of Wolfhound's Strike Team Wendigo.
Roselyn Darrow was a computer programmer who died in the 2006 Midtown nuclear explosion, but her past…
Scott Harkness will always and forever call Colette kid, and she'll never catch up to the old goat in age. Scott was one of the first Ferrymen Colette ever met in her time with them, and she views Scott with the same deferential respect now that she did then, even if he's only a manager of Wolfhound's physical assets rather than a soldier.
Tasha Renard-Lazzaro is a former Ferrywoman who has come to the Safe Zone to open a small law firm and help with the Safe Zone Cooperative.
In December 2011 Pollepel Island fell to the US military, and with it the dreams of the Ferrymen were crushed under the boot of a violent authoritatian regieme. Colette was moved with the remainder of the Ferrymen survivors to Canada, and over the weeks that followed was forced to watch in horror as the early tragedies of the Second American Civil War began to play out. All around her, though, the Ferrymen were buzzing like bees whose hive had been struck. Some wanted revenge, others were unable to let go and resettle. She knew something was coming.
The severe injuries Tasha sustained in the escape from Pollepel left Colette with few options. She'd promised to stay by her partner's side through thick and thin, and when the first wave of Ferrymen went off to join the fight back in the US, she stayed to care for one of the most important people in her life. For a time, it was just her, Tamara, Tasha, and Nicole in an unconventional family unit. During this time, Nicole has her child and Colette - for a while - seems like she might be able to settle in and live a normal life at great distance from the conflict beyond.
Warren Ray is one of the CEOs of Raytech Industries. He is the head of their R&D division and does a lot of mad projects. In another lifetime, he was the spree killer known as Mortimer Alex Jack, before his brain was severely reconfigured by Rene, like twice. A lot of the work done by Rene and later Kaylee was undone by a catastrophic overlay with many other versions of himself during the Looking Glass incident on Christmas of 2018, but he still remains a fundamentally different person from who he used to be, trying to be better even if still insanely eccentric. He truly takes after his father in many ways, but that also means he deeply cares for his family. Who knows what he'll become in the aftermath of everything he's experienced, all he knows is that he wants to repair the world and put all the cogs into their rightful place in the machine.
Yi-Min Yeh is a brilliant scientist, and the head of Odessa's department at Raytech. So far, she's put up with Ourania's enthusiasm and encouraged her projects. Odessa has a great deal of respect for her, especially given her background and the fact that she seems to have found her way since her time with the Vanguard. Something Odessa can't exactly say for herself. She hopes to eventually become friends with Yi-Min. She has no idea how much danger she would be in if she ever uncovered the secret of who Ourania really is, however.
Tasha took Spanish in high school for four years. She can read, write and understand it better than she can speak it, but she can convey basic needs if she needs to - with a New York accent, however. No one will ever confuse her for a native speaker.
Zachery Miller was once an asset of the Institute, like herself. Similarly, he also served his time for that offense and has found himself at Raytech in Biotechnological Research. He's an irritable sort, but he's got a lot going on, and it does nothing to dull his intellect. Odessa can respect that. When Kaylee slipped up and nearly called her by her real name, she saw a reaction in Dr. Miller that leads her to believe he should never find out who she really is.