Identity Code:
M-07-2002-DE: 4061
Alias: Aldrich
Age: 21
Gender: Male
Role: Strategist/analyst/interrogator
Face Claim: Izayoi
Negative Traits:
Snide- Aldrich has a tendency to mock or make malicious remarks towards others, especially if he knows they have high self esteem. It humors him to see others stumble and fall on a mental level. Unless you in particular did something to tick him off, he'll often leave it at minor stuff, but if anyone presents him with ammo for a remark he'd better damn well be aware that it's going to be used.
Pessimism- The glass is always half empty. What could go wrong? More than they'd ever realize. Aldrich likes to think about things from the negative side, often a side-effect of being rational about a situation, because it's fairly easy to find how things can go(and have gone) wrong when you think a lot. Of course it has a small benefit of creating less of a disappointment when things really go wrong. In the end a small glimmer of light shines the brightest in absolute darkness.
Distrustful- Whether he likes it or not Aldrich has seen and knows more of the human mind than most others. Deceit, greed, hatred, envy, malice, he has seen it all, he has felt it all. How could you not feel distrustful when you've seen those demons that hide within the deepest darkest parts of our minds time and time again. Most disturbing those thoughts formed with a twisted and dark sense of innocence.
Lazy- Unless it's something that he considers 'interesting' it's really hard to get him into motion. If something seems like a hassle, boring or involves helping someone without some incentive you might as well be dragging a sack of bricks along with you. If it weren't for the fact that he'd bore his brain out of his skull if he lay in bed all day he'd simply do that.
Black humour- He is aware that it's not exactly appropriate and has at the very least made an effort to avoid joking with black humour. However his first reaction when someone slams head first into an solid object would likely be one of hilarity instead of worrying about that persons health. He is especially keen on self inflicted injuries, as for whatever reason they appear as the most funny things in the world.
Positive Traits:
Dedicated- It's usually quite strange of a sight to see him suddenly work hard and diligently. He really is hard to get into motion, but if you put something in front of him that sparks his interests(at which point it stops being work and becomes fun for him) he won't stop until it's done, finished, over and overdone.
Thinker- Aldrich likes to let his mind run wild, strategizing, theorizing, rationalizing, philosophizing, calculating, etc. He'll run the numbers, chances, theories through his head time and time again until it's all just a grey soup of words numbers and thoughts, trying to find something that has been missed, overlooked, underestimated, overestimated or otherwise unaccounted for. Other times he might just be pondering what mixture and ratio of ingredients would give the best taste.
Wise- A side effect of his ability. Through the large amounts of memories, knowledge and experiences he has gained so much life wisdom it's almost uncanny for it to come from such a young looking person. However he remains well aware that no matter how much you know there'll still be more that you don't know.
Indomitable will- Stand between him and his goal and know he will walk right through you, without hesitation. He'll never doubt what his own senses and mind are telling him, nor will he let silver tongues or coffers of gold sway his judgement.
Understanding- The culmination of a good sense of empathy, psychology and experienced a lot of things from a lot of viewpoints. Despite what one might think without getting closer to him he is actually a good listener and willing to listen to anyone with a problem, whether it's a cry for help and advise or simply to vent emotions those who have gotten close to him know that he'll always be right there and ready for them.
Likes:
-Cooking "Organic chemistry at it's finest, not to mention the food actually tastes good."
-Nice food
-(video)games
-Reading
-Rain and gloomy weather "A windless day when rain silently taps on the window, truly a great day."
-Sweets
-Enigma's
-Learning/teaching
Dislikes:
-MRE's and similar "Says beef on the package, tastes like it has been eaten by a to be piece of beef."
-Manual labor
-Exercise
-Sunny weather "Great weather? I believe it's spelled s-k-i-n-c-a-n-c-e-r."
-Idiots
-loudmouths
-Television "so many channels and the only thing that's on is ads."
-Boredom
Fears:
Torture- Most people fear being tortured, after all the act of using pain and suffering to bend you to others will is truly something frightening. However only having experienced it truly drives home the terrifying nature of it, and Aldrich has had some second hand experience with this. It's horrible enough when it's just a memory read from someone else, but that doesn't even come remotely close to when it's actually your own flesh and blood.
Physical pain- Similarly he has experienced enough pain for a couple hundred of people. The idea of being shot or stabbed frightens him, exactly because he knows to the detail how that pain feels from the experiences read from others minds. As such he has a lot harder of a time keeping calm in any sort of fight involving guns, sharp objects and the like.
Losing his own self- Deep down he always had his doubts and worries, about whether he was still himself, which parts of his thoughts, his words and his actions, are still him and not someone elses. Worries of when and if he'll stop being himself at some point and boiling down to the amalgamation of all the memories and experiences stored inside him.
Strengths:
Knowledgeable- He may not be a walking Encyclopedia Britannica. But if you need someone to double check whether your rocket will actually behave as expected/desired, need someone to find out someones insecurities from just a glance or just need someone to tell you why your damn soup is lacking taste, he's your guy.
Gun-savvy- Aldrich has had many minds put under his nose with proficiency in a wide selection of fire-arms, not to mention the rigorous fire arms handling training he had to compensate for his lacking physique(and the fact that he managed to weasel his way out of hand-to-hand combat training by suggesting he'd compensate for it by doubling his fire arms handling exercises). No matter what kind of fire-arms is put in front of him chances are he can use it with a decent proficiency.
Psychological heavyweight- Aldrich is quite adept at psychological warfare. Whether it's inciting paranoia in a lone person or causing large scale panic. He knows how to play the puppet-master, how to make someone jump at the sight of their own shadow, how to make them feel paranoid to the point they might suffer a heart-attack. "Terror is coming home and noticing every loose object has been moved exactly one centimeter. It's the feeling of malicious eyes on your back, only to find an empty room when you turn around." It also allows him to quickly get someone to think of something he can use to get to the information he wants.
Weakness:
Out of shape- He has done the bare minimum physical training he was required to do, and even then he tried to slack off whenever he had the chance. For your average man in his twenties he's probably on par, but against trained combatants he's almost certainly at a loss.
Trust issues- Don't ever think that the words "just trust me" will have any effect in the positive sense, if anything it's a sure fire way to gain his doubt and mistrust.
Incoherent- Due to how much is in and on his mind his thought patterns can become rather incomprehensible, confusing and extremely hard to keep up with. This often can result in his explanations being rather confusing or nonsensical if he let's him mind run wild at full power.(which he has a tendency to do)
Eye Color: purple(contacts, naturally light blue)
Tattoos/Markings: The mandatory dragonfly tatoo.
Weight: "Wait, kilograms or newton... Never mind." 68kg or 150lbs
Height: 1.74 meter or 5'8
Hobbies:
-Cooking
-Gaming
-Teaching/learning
-Thinking
Biographic History: Aldrich was born to an average household in western Germany. Within months he had become known as gifted within the family due to how quickly he learned to talk and walk. Not to mention that he was quite quick in catching on how those child gates could be opened(and the cookie jar, and the fridge), how to use light switches(reaching them was a bit harder, usually using nearby chairs), neither were TV remotes safe from him, he basically seemed to grasp the world around him much like an adult, but without being fully aware of what he was doing. In the grocery stores nearby he become known as the gifted baby, which was when Project Dragonfly caught wind and made him vanish.(something he still holds against the organization and those who were involved)
Though they knew Aldrich wasn't normal, and that the gift was one of the mental kind they had a damn hard time figuring out what exactly was up. No test they came up revealed anything conclusive, often tests would even yield conflicting results, it was only when Aldrich only a few years of age dropped the bomb on them. As he grabbed the hand one of the scientists who was frustrated at the so manyth failure to find out the nature of the gift, Aldrich read that thought and said: "You mean you can't read minds when we hold hands?" It certainly was something that could explain a lot of the results, however it didn't explain how he learned to walk and talk that quickly, it at least gave them something solid to work with.
From the onset his training was had a heavier focus on his power rather than the typical field agent training, and even the limited physical training that came Aldrich's way he tried to weasel his way out of. As he gained more control over his powers he was introduced to some of the brightest minds within the organisation so he could absorb their knowledge. He often excelled at the technical parts of training, knowing combat moves like he had been practicing them for years, handling a gun like an expert despite picking it up for the first time. However when it came to actual sparring his laziness and the shifted focus of his training showed.
Even among others who were not normal Aldrich was often avoided, after all nobody likes having their mind read. Even various superiors were quite apparent in their dislike or rather fear for his powers, though they were easily outmatched by those who were enthralled with his learning capabilities, how his power could turn arduous information gathering and interrogating into a breeze.
In the end he got his tattoo and joined the boys over at the intelligence department. There was a large vocal outcry against this decision, mostly from the interrogators who feared their job was soon to be gone. Of course the 'reassurance' from one of the higher ups didn't exactly improve the situation, who basically stated that they had nothing to fear for as Aldrich would be too busy with tasks far more important than interrogating. It took a fair while for the sour relations between the interrogators and basically everyone else to lighten up.
Power Weaknesses: Like mentioned physical contact is required, flesh to flesh, the closer to the central nervous system the better. Time is another important factor, a high five might be enough contact time to find a single thought close to the surface, but the more information needs to be transferred and the deeper it hides the longer it takes. The depth of the information is the final important factor, think of it like finding a specific file on a computer you don't know and may be trying to move the file so you won't reach it, making people think about the desired information helps as it gives a line to the desired information, but can still require some digging.
Though he may be able to copy all muscle memory for a certain skill of someone else to his own neural network, he won't instantly be as capable as the other user, simply because while his mind has taken in the information his body still needs to get used to the skills(as such mental and theoretical skill are much easier to gain full proficiency with). Frequent and prolonged usage of his powers wears him out and can cause major headaches, not to mention the psychological impact of some shreds of knowledge might have(the feeling of being shot or tortured for example). Finally there is one tiny detail, his power requires a responsive neural network(the subject needs to be alive).
-Good understanding in various fields of science.
-Accurate memory
-Adept Interrogator
-Fluent in English, German and French