Knocker King/Knockerlockup
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
Guard Containment records for Subject #95481: Jastronome Gerrard
Classification: Savant-Level threat (unconfirmed)
Type: Suspected Magical corruption
Threat level: Level 5 confirmed by aftermath cleanup.
Gerrard has been our guest in the "Questionmark" wing of the Zig for a month now. It's the wing we keep all the super-types that were confirmed to be a super level threat and have somehow self-destructed and nullified themselves. It's a stupidly easy wing to keep control of. Works like a normal prison in a concrete bunker. Every single prisoner here somehow, for one reason or another, canceled them self out. Maybe they forgot what word turned their powers on. Maybe they fried the implant that let them levitate buildings or literally lobotomized themselves and can't USE those implants anymore.
They're the idiot-savants of the super-villain world. They had power in their hands and then it just shut off.
It's why we keep them in a bunker. If they ever switched back into "Go Time" mode, we'd have a problem if we were just keeping them in a regular prison since they're not on inhibitor drugs or nullifier restraints beyond basic things like straps and steel doors.
Examples include
A druid who stopped mid-rampage in the middle of Paragon and put down roots. Right in the middle of fight. Feet went into the pavement, cracked it, hit soil...and she just stopped moving. We've got her in a pot in a cell with a sun-bulb light and some hydroponics. We think she's happy there. The branches that used to be her fingers sometimes rustle, even though there's no wind down here.
A Freakshow tank who's implants control HIM now. The wetware connection backfired. And since his implants only have repair procedure programming, he's literally a head in a steel suit that doens't move anymore. He's gone catatonic.
Some are just accidents in the making. We have a Rune-covered cell in the center of this place that keeps a lady inside from being surrounded by vengeful spirits. It's not that SHE does anything....it's that she's a psychic anchor for every pissed off poltergeist in the western hemisphere, and if we don't keep her locked down, they start raising the dead and detonating gas-mains.
There's a million sob stories like this. Most of the 'villains' we have down here are just...people. Some don't even know what's happening with them or why they're down here. Some don't know why they wigged out and started setting people on fire.
Some just don't know HOW.
And that's why we keep them contained. Some of these people are people. Some are missing the basic moral restraints that MAKE them human.
Gerrard isn't one of those people. At least, we don't think he is. The "harmless" savants get basic talky privileges. Since they cant' do anything, they're essentially normal prisoners. Some have weird hair-colours. Some have serpent pupils or wings on their feet. A lot of them show the taint of the power they USED to have, and lost.
Gerrard for instance has red hair. Not copper. Red, like colour wheel red. Also has tattoos all over his body that he has no idea how he got. Spirals, curling. Ears out to his shoulders almost as well. He just doesn't LOOK right anymore.
He says he doens't remember how he got them.
MAGI says he had them while he was leveling the third story of a building with some sort of Clockwork army.
Gerrard's odd. He'll talk with other prisoners. Home. Iowa. Hobbies: Flying, computers, books. Almost a geek....
But whenever the conversation turns to the things he's done he gets quiet. Like his brain is trying to grab something that's gone missing. Whatever he or MAGI did, it's like they wiped a part of his personality and life out.
Kind of sad really.
He watches some of the prisoners as well. There's two or three in particular that he watches like he's trying to remember something about them. You can tell because his face squinches up, just on the edge of irritation, then settles back down into apathy and resignation. Like the Blue guy with Troll tats and horns three cells down and across from him who's in for an assault charge against a building. Or the damn pretty lady who GIFT pegged as a empath mutant that was controlling an entire nightclub as her little drones. She just stares at the wall now. Doesn't have enough brain power to do anything other than breath and sleep now, much less call shots.
There's also a guy in the cell next to Gerrard with, get this, cat ears on his head. The two talk. And it's kind of unsettling to hear them talk. They'll be going on about books they've read, places they want to see if they ever get out, and then the conversation will quite literally acquire a second personality. They'll gibber back and forth about places that don't exist, castles in America, mines filled with Goblins....and then stop and look at each other like they both realize they're talking crazy and can't figure out why.
Mostly Gerrard looks like a broken guy after one of those episodes. I think it's because it highlights the fact that he's not in control of his own mind anymore. But how many crazy people do you know that realize they're crazy? It's unnerving.
Gerrards the only one who LOOKS like that out of the group though. The lady, the Troll, the cat-guy. None of them are phased by being in the lock-up. If they don't go catatonic like so many of the people in this wing do, they might even get released if we can confirm whatever it is that made them dangerous can be controlled. The troll wants to be a lawyer when he gets out. Studies books all day. The cat-guy talks about accounting like it was Jesus his lord and savior. Maybe it is. Those two seem to want to be normal.
The lady doesn't say much...but I think she's going downhill fast anyway.
You know...I just noticed something. Gerrard, the guy in the cell next to him, the blue guy. The lady who loves the wall.
They're all wearing the same shackles and getting the same daily anti-psychotic meds.
I should ask Magi about that cell-block.
I'll finish this report up after I check the readouts on the containment for the block....some thing's knocking on the walls and I'm not getting a reading on what.
Maybe those poltergeist are back.
