1816 - Villa Diodati, Switzerland
The weather was uncooperative. It was the Year without a Summer. Even near the hearth in the Drawing Room, the cold could be felt. Mary sat next to Percy and shivered slightly at the cold, barely held back by the flames.
“Our trip is turning out to be somewhat of a letdown, Lord Byron,” Percy said, humor circling his tone. “Not your fault, of course, that the weather will not cooperate.”
Lord Byron smiled at Percy’s jest as did the other guests. “It is true. I expected us to have more to do during this visit, but alas, the storm doesn’t appear to be letting up. Still, let us make the most of the situation. Let us all adjourn to our rooms, come up with a story and tell it to the rest of us. We can make it a little competition to see who can come up with the best idea.”
“A brilliant idea!” Dr. Polidori exclaimed.
“It should have a theme,” Claire, Mary’s stepsister said. “Not just random stories - but within the same genre.”
The group agreed. “Since the weather keeps us indoors, let us use that as inspiration. The perfect weather for a gloomy tale. Let us all write stories to chill the bone! Does everyone find ghost stories to be an acceptable theme for our competition?”
The group agreed and Mary headed to her room, closing the door lightly behind her. Thankfully, it was warmer in the smaller space, still she added some wood to her fire. She was quite taken by the chill. Mary went to her desk and pulled out a few sheets of paper, a pen, and a bottle of ink.
Hours passed and her page remained blank. She stood and went to the table. A bottle of wine sat on it and she poured a cup, determined to sit by the fire and think. She stared at the flames as she sipped. A ghost story. Why was she having so much trouble writing a ghost story?
Then the flames began to move unnaturally. Mary felt as if she was being pulled into them. Before her eyes, she began to see images. A man stood above a body and he was sewing pieces to it. She then realized the entire body had been put together this way. The vision shifted and the body on the table was sitting up. It shifted again. The man and creature were talking. The creature spoke, she didn’t hear the words but knew what it had said. “I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel…” She saw the life of this creature. A desire to do good corrupted by mankind. An unholy abomination through no fault of its own - but the fault of his creator.
Mary was pulled out of the vision by a knock on the door. “Mary, are you alright - I heard a crash.” Percy said from the other side.
Mary looked around and saw that her wineglass had slipped from her fingers and shattered on the floor. “I’m okay, Percy. My glass just slipped from my fingers. I’ll have it cleaned up momentarily.”
Mary dismissed Percy and began to clean up. She had her ghost story now. More importantly she had a warning to issue. Her visions had been too real to just have been her imagination. Something was going to happen. Deep down she knew someone was going to create that poor creature, and if they didn’t know how to respond, people were going to die. Maybe her warning would stop the poor soul from being built, but if it didn’t, they needed to be ready.
“‘Man’, I cried, ‘how ignorant art thou in thy pride of wisdom!’”
-Mary Shelly, Frankenstein
Adam Forrer wasn’t an ordinary child. He grew up in Freienbach, Switzerland as the adoptive child of Victor and Elizabeth Forrer. His adoptive parents were never physical with him, but they remained emotionally distant, although Elizabeth was less distant. Adam knew nothing of his own parentage. He also was unaware that he had a twin sister. Through genetic manipulation, Adam was engineered to have an extreme resistance to pain. His sibling was the opposite, she would be extremely sensitive to pain and emotions.
As he grew up, Adam wouldn’t notice pain. Even as an infant, he didn’t cry as he got vaccines or fell. At school he broke his arm in a fall and didn’t notice until a teacher mentioned it. Adam learned to cope, but he knew he was different. Asking his parents got no response, only that he “was the way he was” and to be careful.
Victor, a scientist, knew of his adoptive son’s condition. It had been manufactured on purpose. A purpose that fit his experiments. Victor was a member of a secret organization called the Di Inferi, and wanted to combine man and machine. He wanted to make cybernetics to create more powerful people. Beyond that - to create immortality. His adoptive son was a guinea pig - as one who couldn’t feel pain, he would be a perfect test subject.
When Elizabeth found out, she confronted her husband. She died the next day of an apparent suicide. Adam took over as a single parent, again remaining emotionally distant from his son.
When Adam became of age, he signed up with the CCD military. It was a way out of his house. Victor didn’t stop this, even though he wasn’t sure he approved. In the military, Adam joined the infantry and was quite adept as a soldier.
As Adam trained, Victor went to Moscow. There he met with Ephraim Haart of Paragon where he proposed a project. He didn’t share his true purpose, he instead went with another reason. With channelers now a thing, he had an idea to counter them - Cybernetic implants to counter channeling. He even had in mind a perfect subject and was certain he could get the subject to agree. Agreeing with this, Project Ghost was born.
Victor then went to Adam and spoke with him about the project. Once again, he lied about the true nature of the project. To his son, they were testing the ability to use cybernetics to help disabled veterans regain their mobility. Adam agreed and signed the paperwork.
Adam still had time on his tour of duty, so it would be some time before he could, but as soon as he mustered out, he’d head to Moscow to begin. The plans changed when he was involved in a training accident. A body was never found and Adam was presumed dead and labeled as such.
But Adam had not died. The accident had been orchestrated by Victor and through some bribes was able to recover Adam’s body. With the exception of an arm that had been severely damaged, Adam came out mostly unscathed. With that, Ghost was born.
Victor took him to Moscow and began to work. Ghost received his first implant - his damaged arm was replaced by a cybernetic one. It was a simple test to see if the implant would take. It required immunosuppressors at first. His body attempted to reject the arm, but adjusted with time.
Victor continued his work, adding more implants to Ghost’s body. The newly acquired research from Cyberpoint sped up his experimentation. To Ghost, he was an experiment to make lives better for his fellow soldiers wounded in war. To Ephraim, he was a cybernetic soldier designed to counter channelers, but to Victor, he was a path to immortality.
*Note: Project Ghost is a confidential project of Paragon. Ghost and all of Victor’s research is owned by Paragon.
Current Cybernetic Implants:
Optical implants/Retinal HUD: Eyes are non-oranic and features a retinal heads up display similar to military lens warriors. The HUD syncs with his smart gun through an implant on his cyberarm that can display ammunition count as well advanced targeting. Through a blue tooth chip, his wallet is also synced. He can read and compose text messages from his eyes. Night and thermal vision options also exist.
Auditory Implant: Increases hearing ability to supernatural levels, but makes him sensitive to loud noises. Can be utilized to make calls though blue tooth chip.
Blue tooth Chip: Allows his wallet to be connected to his visual and auditory implants.
Cyberarm: A fully functioning arm and hand,, but stronger than organic variants. It has a sensor that connects to the grip of his smart pistol. Not only does it keep Ghost appraised of the condition of his firearm and the amount of ammo in it, it allows only him to use the firearm (Paragon/Victor can override this feature).
Neural Motor Interface: Links to powered exoskeleton joints for augmented strength and precision.
Muscle fiber grafts: Provide increased strength and speed and resistance to blunt trauma.
Biofuel Cell: Converts glucose to power implants directly. Also requires Ghost to consume and immense amount of sugar.
Nanomedical Repair: Uses nanobots to repair injury and fight infection.
Kill Switch: Unknown to Ghost is an implant that will shut down his implants (besides the life providing ones) to effectively blind, deafen, and immobilize him. (Victor/Paragon have access to this).
Real Name: Adam Forrer (Officially deceased)
Age: 23 (24 on January 1, 2047)
Characters Origin: Freienbach, Switzerland; Moscow
Occupation: Soldier/Experiment
Psychological Description: A generally quiet man, Adam seems more introspective than anything. He’s very insecure, especially about his looks since the multiple invasive operations done to his body.
Physical Description: He has a soldier’s build. Before his surgeries, he was an attractive man, but now a good majority of his body is covered in scar tissue. His eyes, although not organic, look real and are hazel in color. His hair is dark and shaggy.
Reborn Gods: Adam, Talos (Currently: "Frankenstein's" Monster)
Supernatural Powers: Learner, but the operations have damaged that and without repair he will be unable to learn.
Intelligence is knowing Frankenstein wasn’t the monster; Wisdom is knowing Frankenstein was the monster.