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It was all routine by this point. Even though Taylor had only been out of the academy for three weeks he'd already done a hundred traffic stops, at least. They were, after all, the bread and butter of a patrol officer's day. One never knew what they would find whenever contacting civilians on the street. Accepting the offered credentials, Taylor's eyes shifted to the driver and his heart instantly skipped a beat. She was the last person he expected to see and this was decidedly not the right situation to see her.
"Uh." He paused and cleared his throat, eyes flicking toward the FTO standing across the car from Taylor. "Do you know why I pulled you over?" Taylor asked, his unmistakable Irish accent coming through clearly as he attempted, probably in vain, to maintain his command of the situation. Perhaps if he acted like nothing was wrong this could all pass without getting weird.
Yeah. Right.
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Jan 20, 2018 14:00:25 GMT
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What the fuck am I doing?
These words, commonly thought to himself with a certain incredulous vehemence, were a staple of Taylor McCarthy's life. Most often they were uttered during brief moments of clarity buried within the impulse (and often alcohol) fueled, reckless abandon that had come to define the young man. By now he was used to such instances as looking out over a backyard swimming pool from his vantage point on the roof of the adjacent house and those words floating across his mind. Hell, he'd even thought that very same sentence as a child sitting in a police cruiser, much like he was now as an adult. Of course, the first time it happened he was sitting in the back of the car, not behind the wheel.
Taylor cast a short glance across the center console filled with various switches, buttons, his mounted computer and locked shotgun toward his field training officer. He was a gruff, veteran patrol officer recently moved over from the K9 unit to help with teaching the young, incoming officers the ropes. He'd been assigned to Taylor when the young Irishman had started just three weeks prior. So far Taylor was progressing well, making all the usual mistakes rookies tend to but every day was a learning experience even when you were a decades long veteran.
To Taylor it was all so surreal. He'd moved back to the United States through a work program that would send him through police academy and lock in a position with the Stagfort PD. In a year, if he was still employed, he'd have the opportunity to try out for that 'Task Force Champion' thing he was told was a big deal. Even though academy had been nearly half a year long and he'd been a patrol officer for nearly a month none of it seemed real. Here he was, Taylor Fucking McCarthy, wearing a goddamn badge. It had to be a sign of the coming apocalypse. It just had to.
"This car here." The FTO said, pointing to a sedan that pulled out in front of the cruiser. "Didn't signal and..." He drew out the last word before nodding curtly and snapping his fingers for emphasis. "Brake light out."
With an already practiced flick of the wrist Taylor activated the flashing blue and red lights atop his car, causing the driver in front of them to carefully pull to the side of the road. Taylor followed suit, checking his mirror to make sure he was clear of oncoming traffic before climbing out of the cruiser and into the light but cold rain. He moved along the vehicle, approaching the open driver's side window. "License and registration." He said in a flat, even tone that skirted the line between polite and demanding. |
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Taylor Monroe McCarthy
FACE CLAIM: Josh Bowman♦ THE BASICS ♦
AGE: 26
GENDER: Male
ORIENTATION: Heterosexual
POSITION: SPD Patrol Officer
♦ THE ABILITY ♦
POWER: Super Agility and Enhanced Reaction Time
Taylor is, to put it simply, capable of athletic feats centering around quickness, agility, and precision beyond that of a normal human. He is an adept track athlete and possesses superhuman levels of acrobatic skill including climbing, tumbling and leaping. His foot speed is superb, though falls only barely above the human norm as does his physical stamina and strength. He is built mainly for agility and precision, not power.
Furthermore, Taylor's hand-eye coordination enables him to perform tasks of manual dexterity with remarkable efficiency. He's shown to be adept at sewing (a hobby he picked up when he was 16), and is an avid card player well versed in tricks utilizing sleight of hand and subterfuge.
The second part of Taylor's mutation is an enhanced reaction time. Taylor's mind is able to analyze and process information much faster than a normal human. This allows him to remain calm and stoic even under extreme duress. He's rarely, if ever, caught off guard and always seems to be one step ahead of everyone else, especially when this power is coupled with his physical traits. With his body and mind able to move so quickly, Taylor is adept at avoiding danger so long as he can see it coming.
LIMITATIONS:
- The enhanced athleticism only extends so far into the realm of pure strength and endurance. While he's in stellar physical condition, he's not exceptionally powerful or tough. He's just as susceptible to fatigue and injury (like from falling) as the next guy.
- Although it may seem as though he is reacting before something actually happens, Taylor doesn't posses a 'danger sense' or anything similar. He's incapable of sensing anything through anything other than normal, natural means. For example: If an object is thrown at him and he's not able to see it he can't react to it.
- The height of his power so far as been the capacity to dodge an arrow shot from a bow at a moderate distance. He's nowhere near capable of dodging bullets and he doesn't wish to test this theory.
SIDE-EFFECTS:
- Because of the way Taylor's mind processes stimuli and information, he's prone to growing bored and restless. He can typically keep this at bay while at on the job, but it's not uncommon to catch his mind wandering, daydreaming, or otherwise not paying attention to his surroundings. This condition manifests physically through severe insomnia. Even now Taylor has trouble sleeping without making use of medication.
- With enhanced physical traits comes the need for enhanced nutrition. Aside from eating notably more than the usual Irish rabble rouser, Taylor supplements his diet with a steady stream of protein shakes and nutrition bars. He doesn't have to constantly eat, but going more than a few hours without some sort of viable sustenance can cause headaches, dizziness, weakness and nausea.
- Much like a high performance super car just seems to crave being opened up and driven fast, so, too, does Taylor's body desire to be pushed to its limits. Taylor is a gym rat simply because his enhanced body all but demands the attention. If he goes more than a few days without at least a deep stretching session he's prone to joint and muscles stiffness, aches, and cramps. Failing to stick to his strict physical training regimen also makes his body much more susceptible to injuries such as strains, sprains, and muscle tears.
♦ THE FREEFORM ♦
* Recorded excerpt from initial entry behavioral assessment *
Subject: Taylor Brennan, age 15
"Mister Brennan has shown a remarkable aptitude for maintaining his calm under pressure, even at such a young age. He's scored high marks in both practical applications of quick thinking, as well as timed testing. Public speaking and social situations come naturally as indicated by high academic marks in projects centered around oral presentations or debates. Furthermore, Mister Brennan's penchant for volunteering in on and off campus events displays an openness for new experiences.
However, this may be countered by constant feelings of restlessness and growing bored easily. Mister Brennan requires a constant challenge in order to remain engaged in a given activity. His academic record is clean, though, and he maintains an excellent habit of attendance and has yet to have been subjected to any formal disciplinary actions. Interviews with his teachers and other staff indicate he's adjusted to Academy life well and since arriving two years ago as been a model student."
* In this clip from a school project focused upon students' perception of life philosophies, a well-built young man with dark hair and eyes who looks to be in his late teens sits in front of a camera. He regards the audience with a calm, yet somewhat mischievous smirk before speaking *
"Sometimes I feel like the least high strung guy at the school. That's not to say I don't care about anything, I do. I care about a number of things but you'll just kill yourself if you let yourself get upset. As I'm fond of saying, don't sweat the small stuff. And everything is small stuff.
Take me, for example, I was part of a junior track team when I was a kid. It was fun, a lot of fun. I liked the coach, the other kids, I'd always loved competing, but everything changed when I, a scrawny thirteen year old, ended up running the hundred meters in ten seconds flat. That's hardly an Olympic record, but it's the kind of thing that stops a track meet so the officials can check to see if the clock malfunctioned. At first it was cool, finding out I could do things most people couldn't, but it turned sour quickly when the recruiter came knocking three weeks later. I know I'm not the only one who didn't want to leave their family, and I'm thankful my powers didn't come out in a violent or painful way like so many others, but it was still hard. Right then I decided I was going to accept life as it came and look at everything that happened as an experience and not allow myself to dwell on the negatives.
Really, though, it's not just about letting things get to you. It goes beyond that. I guess it comes down to understanding that you can dictate more of your life than most seem to realize. I like to look at life as a series of experiences. I'll do anything once, just so say I did it, and why not? Having a closed mind destroys who we are by by inhibiting our actions, by inhibiting our decisions out of fear of some intangible societal expectations. My advice to anyone is to take life as it comes. To learn through trial and error what gives you satisfaction regardless of what you're told it should be. To find something, or someone, you can connect with, even for a moment. Because that's really all that life is. It's a series of moments. You have to seize yours."
* There's a bit of laughter from off camera. Taylor merely grins and throws his hands up in a resigned shrug *
"Yeah, I got it from a movie. But it doesn't make it any less true."
"It's been six goddamn years." The exclamation was spoken in a hushed tone in spite of dripping with emotion. Taylor hadn't thought much about it in the nine months since he'd returned home to Dublin leaving behind a tentative, shaky life behind in the United States but with a great deal of alcohol swimming about his brain it helped loosen his lips.
"Six goddamn years and my brother, Jack, is still bitching about me leaving when he was a kid. If he was smart he'd have done the same thing and got out of that house." Taylor's head shook as he brought a hand up to idly scratch at the scruff that he'd recently let grow on his face. "It wasn't easy growing up there and when I got taken into St. Bethany's I did everything I could to distance myself from all of it but Jack... I don't think Jack ever had the will to push away."
The words hung in the air for a long moment, leaving behind an awkward silence that quickly filled up the dark room where Taylor sat. His booze soaked thoughts raced, throwing jumbled images and memories into the walls of his skull in rapid succession. "I guess the whole reason I went to the States in the first place was to try and reconnect with my little brother. I don't think it worked though. All we did was fight when I was there and then he stopped talking to me when I told him I had to come back here to Ireland."
Again Taylor paused in order to gather his thoughts. Alcohol and his mutant power didn't mix well. His mind leapt into overdrive, flooding his consciousness with every random memory, thought or feeling it could find. It came to him in a blur. The image of his father. A shot of his younger brother. The uncertainty that had come with moving to the United States and the strange feeling of loss that he felt when he left. He was struck by flashes of olive skin, brunette hair and striking, auburn eyes before he had to shake his head clear.
The haze falling over Taylor's vision was a telling sign that he should stop talking and go to bed. He glanced over to the woman beside him but she'd long fallen asleep. His eyes narrowed as he briefly tried to remember her name through the muddled, jumbled mess that his mind had become before giving up and leaning to the nightstand beside his bed. He dug around in the small drawer and finally produced a pen. A single, glaring thought had stuck in his mind and he didn't want to lose it while he slept. He let out a grunt of frustration at finding nothing within arm's reach to write on. Left with no other options he scrawled the simple note onto the palm of his hand before rolling over and laying down. The note served as a reminder of the jarring revelation he'd drunkenly stumbled upon.
"GO HOME"
♦ THE PLAYER ♦
USERNAME: Pup
AGE GROUP: Late Teens. Reaaaaalllllllly late teens.
EXPERIENCE: Just a rookie.
WHERE DID YOU FIND US? Immaculate reception.
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