Description
Synapse
âCling to your pain; it means youâre still alive. â
September Cecelia Sylvan
âAgeâ17
âAppearanceâItâs the eyes you notice first. She has the eyes of an old man in a little girlâs color. Big, bright, tiffany blue, and truth be told, theyâre probably the most beautiful eyes youâve ever seen, even if you wonât admit it. September certainly wonât. They are a riot of color, but steady with some weight that you do not, cannot, understand. Itâs only natural, and she wonât blame you for that much. They gleam with no light of innocence, no casual warmth or mirth and mischief- for her soul is burdened, and it shines right out her oculars. A world-weariness dulls them into a tone of resignation, and what could be is spoiled. She looks so very sad, even when her face betrays nothing, and perhaps she is.
Her body is spindly, frail; she has not a trace of the feminine curvature she should have developed by now, and indeed she looks much like a boy. Itâs hard to tell what she is- for though her features have the delicacy of blown glass, they do not quite belong to a girl. They are certainly not a womanâs, and it cannot be said that they are boyish, either. They simply⊠are, in the way that the features of paintings or sculptures are. They donât look quite human, as though she were so wispy that a gust might carry her away in pieces, fragments of herself.
Her paper-thin androgynies are compounded by the meager height at which she greets the world- the porcelain doll of a person cannot be more than five and two, and seems to always be looking up through shaggy-cropped blue-black hair at everything and everyone else around her. She takes up little space, with a frame devoid of any but the leanest muscles and not a hint of baby-fat remaining. She doesnât exist to you, as an ant doesnât exist, but sheâs used to it. She accepts it. It simply is, much like everything else about her. Sheâs is nobodyâs darling, nobodyâs child, and her sad-eyed woe is so perfectly-wrought you might actually think it artificial.
As if to spite it all, her usual expression is hard, brittle, defiant. Sheâs more likely to scowl than to smile, if she even remembers how. Sheâs a little ice shard, fragile and cold, breakable, so breakable, and she knows it like she knows everything else. She wears the clothing of an ordinary teenaged boy; shirts with logos, jeans with chains, shoes with laces. And a newsboy hat, always atop her mop of hair. On someone who actually looked the part, it might be cute, or even a little bit pretty. On September, it just
is.
Personality
âLikesâ
Seclusion
Classical music
Spicy foods, especially Chinese and Thai
Technology and Hacking
Old martial arts movies
Cooking and the Cooking Channel
âDislikesâ
Criminals
Heroes
People generally
Her condition
Her powers
Herself
Dogs
Being touched
âPersonalityâ
You know all those things that people are supposed to care about? Love, family, money, power, themselves, what have you?
September doesnât care about any of them. She canât bring herself to. Her life is dictated upon the principles of logic and probability exclusively. Numbers and reason have never betrayed her, and she does not intend to betray them by allowing her heart to win the day. She does not attempt to form connections with people, nor even to speak with them. This is not to say she is shy. Far from it. She is simply a misanthropist and would sooner see most people dead. Because people are illogical. People are disgusting. People hurt you.
She lives every day in constant physical agony because of Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, a disease that robs a personâs muscles of their normal function. In advanced stages, it can cause seizures and other neurological symptoms, and always leads to death, usually at or before the age of twenty. Her powers have allowed her to overcome this part of it, at least as far as she is aware, but sheâs still in continuous pain, and most of the time confines herself to a wheelchair. She can get out of it, but to do so causes even more pain, and itâs possible that sheâll lose consciousness if she exerts herself too much.
The girl is, certifiably and without a doubt, smarter than you are. Not in the social sense of being able to understand people or empathize with them, but in the sense of having managed to test at the highest IQ in recorded history- at the age of twelve. Her capacity for learning and memorization is extraordinary, but it hasnât done her much good, if sheâs being honest, and she always is. September doesnât like lying, and she doesnât do it if she can avoid it. She is easily the least sensual person sheâs ever known; she canât stand touching or being touched, and the very idea of intimacy scares her on a level she doesnât really like to think about. This is in some ways connected to the pain in her frail body, but is not explained by it alone.
September is riddled with complexes. In addition to having serious abandonment issues that send her in melancholic (and occasionally manic-depressive) fits, she had acquired something of a God-complex due to her superior logic and reasoning capabilities, to say nothing of her enormous intellect. She believes others who allow their petty feelings and little self-centered problems to control them are little better than marionettes on strings, and this is one of the reasons she refuses to classify herself as either hero or villain- she will not be controlled by those who are not themselves as free as she is. It seems, however, that the internal rationale for this is often shattered and replaced with a rather contrary worldview in which September recasts her qualities as failures to grasp that which is truly most important in life, and during these times, she feels as small and weak as she is.
On an average day, she strives to project an air of apathy and detached objectivity, but her temper has been known to get the better of her now and then, especially when she is pushed to discuss matters she would rather leave alone. The nature of her abilities means her retribution is swift and unrelenting; sheâs killed several people this way, all accidentally and all before she had full grasp of her powers.
She's sworn never to kill another person, but fears an accident more than anything else.
âRelationshipsâ
Aside from her obvious phobia of touching, there are multiple very good reasons why September would prefer to stay away from any kind of meaningful contact with people. Sheâd be happy to list them for you, but you might not be so enthused when sheâs done. Despite this attitude, she is not impossible to get along with, and has something of an odd quasi-friendship with a fellow patient whose appointment times overlap with her own, known to her only as Conduit. She finds Virgil's presence soothing after a fashion, and has made it a personal goal of hers to repay him for his assistance. Though neither knows the other's name, she tends to run into Kat semi-frequently as well.
Equipment
âPowerâ
Septemberâs powers spawn solely from the extraordinary mass of cognitive functions that is her brain. Her mental capacity is, quite literally, greater than that of any being, human or otherwise, in existence. In terms of superpowers, this allows her to process information at an astounding rate. Sense-data, logistics, probabilities; all of it is available in less than the blink of an eye. She is capable of learning something by seeing it done only once, or hearing it, as the case may be. She can reproduce it unerringly, and without hesitation.
On the more conventional hero/villain side of the application, she thinks much faster than anyone can move, and as such, she can analyze movement and trajectory to determine where someone is most likely going to strike, and take psychic control of her own body to move out of the way. She would be incapable of this physically because of the MD, but she can force mind to work over matter. Telekinesis is also possible, though not with anything heavier a large person, as is weak telepathy, which she uses as an assist in any sort of combat situation.
It all sounds very useful but the drawbacks are many and agonizing. While her mind can fortify her body for short periods of time, she cannot keep up such an exertion indefinitely, and is likely to seize or fall unconscious if she exercises more than one of her capabilities (telekinesis, telepathy, manipulating her own body) at a time for more than a few minutes, maximum. When this happens, she becomes completely helpless for extended periods of time, and may actually need medical treatment and be at risk of death.
Because of the sheer amount of brain activity happening in her head at any one time, Synapse needs much more of both sleep and food than the average person, which prevents her from holding an ordinary job and also makes her vulnerable to a decrease in her powers if she does not get these things with regularity. If she does not sleep for at least a third of the day, she will start having vivid hallucinations, and sheâd probably starve to death in less than five days, rather than the two weeks it might take the average healthy adult. Unfortunately, she's also an insomniac.
She packs a hell of a punch, but at a hell of a price.
âEquipmentâ
September carries a heavily-modified Smartphone that she built herself, as well as a small pistol. Most of the time, sheâs also in a manual wheelchair, sometimes with a violin case slung across the back.
âStrengthsâ
Her greatest strength is her mind, at least on a good day. Sheâs a good shot with her gun as well, for those times when she canât rely on herself without fear of backlash.
âWeaknessesâ
Her mind on bad days. September has more than one major mental issue, and often hallucinates. Itâs hard for her to determine whatâs real and what isnât, sometimes. Her bodyâs never done her any favors either, what with the unpredictable seizures and the ever-present pain. Sheâs also just terrible with people; she has no close friends to speak of, but then not really any enemies either.
History
âHomeâ
A small, handicap-accessible apartment in a city slum. The screams and gunshots she hears out her window at night are as familiar as breathing.
âHistoryâ
Her parents named her September Cecelia. What a ridiculous name. Who names their child after a month that isnât April, May, or June? Maybe August if you have a boy, but September? Itâs like they were asking for her to be strange.
Which is ironic, because they were anything but. Thomas and Elaine Sylvan were an upper-middle-class, pretty-as-you-please sort of couple. They held barbeques with the neighbors and attended church every Sunday. Wholesome, pristine; the stuff of white picket fences and happily-ever-afters. Their first two daughters were the same- lovely, demure things with beautiful faces and beautiful dresses and beautiful personalities.
None of them had MD. None of them saw things that werenât there. Worst of all, none of them ever disagreed with her and turned out to be correct. September was supposed to be a boy; it was funny, how sheâd already failed them once before she was even cognizant of anything at all. It wasnât so funny that she continued to fail them. She was a strange flower, an iris among roses, perhaps. Irises arenât particularly pretty; they arenât anyoneâs favorite flower, and they donât grow well with too much sunlight. An iris needs something different, more gentle rain and cloudy skies. Only then does it bloom. It's too bad her family knew not the virtues of these things, of gentle patience and understanding.
She remembers clearly the cassock of the priest, and how the hem was dusty. It was all she saw when the members of the church prayed over her, begging God to save her from the demons inside her. September hadnât thought there were any demons, but what else could they be? She saw things that other people did not see. Her body was broken and useless before it had ever had the chance to be healthy, she knew things that children shouldnât, spoke like a college-educated adult by the age of nine. She was a mess of problems, and the devout Sylvans wanted her fixed. They wanted her better.
Oh, how hard she tried. She wanted to be better, she really did. After seeing a violinist in concert, she asked her father and mother for lessons, and she had her very first childâs violin the next day. She pretended not to see the bad things anymore. She pretended that it didnât hurt too badly most days. She tried so very hard to be everything she was not. She wore dresses like her sistersâ even when she felt silly in them and she was always polite to her parents, even when she knew that they were wrong.
But her grasp of music theory came too quickly. She couldnât help but sometimes look out the corners of her eyes at the unreal conjurations of her psyche. They were real enough to her. So was the pain, and she couldnât stop the seizures and spasms no matter how she tried.
She still looked like a boy in a dress.
Synapse really isnât sure, even today, which one of these things drove her father into his work and her mother into the bottom of a bottle. She no longer cares. All she knew was that one night, she overheard her mother telling her oldest sister that the family would be better off if September was dead. Dead, and gone forever from their lives. They could all go back to their happy ending. No more expensive medicines for the hurt, no more failed exorcisms, no more any of it.
Her father entered her room with a gun the same night. The funny thing was, September had kind of been expecting it, logically, and couldnât summon a single speck of fear. What she did feel was anger. What had she ever done to them? Was her mere presence really such an affliction that she deserved to die for daring to exist? How could they do this to her? She was angry, so very angry, and for the first time in her life, she allowed the rage to consume her.
When she woke next, it was on the floor of her living room. Sheâd had a massive seizure and fallen unconscious, but it seemed that even without a doctor, she had not died. The house was eerily quiet, and she realized that sheâd somehow gotten out of her wheelchair. Pulling herself back into the thing, she wheeled into the kitchen, and that was where she discovered the first of the bodies. Her mother lay strewn out on the ground, several bones cracked and broken, a carving knife lodged squarely in her chest. The other three were much the same, all dead, all brutally murdered.
It wasnât until she was away, long gone and set up in a new city, that the full memory of the event would come back to her.
To this day, she tries to repent by doing right by the innocent, whatever side of the law that puts her on. Most of the time, she succeeds. Sometimes, she ends up close enough. Other times⊠she wonders if sheâll ever get it right.
