Ironsides
Truman Fabbri aka. Ironsides[edit]
PROLOUGE
This is the story about Truman Fabbri. Truman was the only son of Giussepe and Agostina Fabbri. Giussepe and his wife immigrated to America six months after getting married. The Fabbri family owned an extensive steel mill and fabrication business in Italy and Giuseppe headed the first American extension to be built in Freedom City. During the crisis involving the super villains the Fabbri industries managed to acquire many contracts to rebuild government buildings and bridges. The business skyrocketed and outstripped all its competitors. In return they turned around and donated millions of dollars into helping restore other sections of the city that couldn't afford to rebuild themselves. Over the next few decades the Fabbri Empire continued to expand, and eventually started setting up other plants around the country.
During this time, Truman was growing up and learning everything he could. He was into chemistry, science, biology, physics, and anything else he could wrap his mind around. His parents encouraged this and had the best tutors brought in so that he could learn at his pace and in his style. His pace turned out to be incredibly fast. By the time he was 16; he was studying college level classes and showing no signs of stopping.
Truman went into college at the age of 17 and got a double major on Biology and Chemistry. From there he got a job at a major think-tank out west. He managed to get the funding to attempt the project that was the focus of his graduating thesis. Biological redundancy engineering. He reasoned that it should be possible to stimulate the human bodies capable to recover from neurological damage by tricking it into think that the cognitive and motor control centers were damaged beyond use. In theory, this would cause the brain to compensate by stimulating its redundant functions, thereby resulting in enhanced brain function. He worked on the theory for almost five years; checking the chemical and hormone changes in people who were suffering brain and severe nerve damage. Finally, he felt that he had a working formula that would allow a human volunteer to affect some level of recovery. Unfortunately for Truman, the powers that be pulled the plug on his project, on the grounds that he had gone too long with no hard evidence of the chance of success, and that the using of humans for initial testing was unethical. Truman was furious and devastated. He quit the think tank that day, after taking all of his research and samples with him. He moved back home with his parents and continued his research on his own. After three more months he was ready. Lacking an available subject he finally decided on himself. Truman was confident enough of success that he attempted the experiment with no medical supervision. Almost five hours later his parents came home to see Arthur comatose on the couch, in front of a notebook with all his observations on his progress. He was immediately rushed to the hospital and put under observation. Without knowing exactly what he put in himself there was little the doctors could do to counteract the serum. Truman's condition stabilized on its own and he hovered in a coma for almost four years. The only reason that his parents didn't consider pulling the plug was that while Truman was comatose, his brain waves showed considerable higher functions. It just seemed that he was not able to come conscious.
Three years after taking the serum, unbeknown to Truman, his parents died suddenly in a violent car accident with a armored van stolen by bank robbers. Considering Truman's state, his uncle was named caretaker of the estate with the condition that Truman was never to be unplugged, and that when he was capable, he would inherit the entirety of the Fabbri Empire.
Deep in Truman's brain during this time, neurons were learning of each others existence, and new pathways were opening up. In essence, his brain was operating like a group of computer hooked up in parallel. The power of them together was far greater than the sum of its parts. The trouble with this was that for the serum to work, the brain had to be convinced that certain areas were nonfunctional. This meant that those areas were isolated and their input was ignored. It took years for the new areas to join together again. Unfortunately the serum was not totally effective. The long coma combined an imperfect serum combined to wreak his physical body. Truman was an emaciated almost skeletal paraplegic. His body never recovered, and Truman was consigned to a wheelchair for the rest of his life.
Shame prevented Truman from announcing his colossal failure. He kept his recovery from the come hidden, and ordered parts and tech to be brought to him. In secret he constructed a new body for himself. This one would be stronger than ever. It would have none of his weaknesses. With a complex virtual reality setup he could control the robot completely from the safety of his own home. Originally, the body was intended to serve only as a proxy for him, but when he realized that he didn't have to limit the robot to human level abilities, he got creative. Thus was born IRONSIDES!! The new hero of the people! Long gone were the days of the super heroes. He would be better. Even heroes could be killed, but with this body even if it was destroyed, he could just build another.
This could be fun…
Begin Chapter one
