Henry Blueriver

Character Sheet

Character Info

• Name: Henry Blueriver
• Concept: Techno Superhero
• Catalyst: Klagen
• Foundation: Navigator
• Aesthetic: Cyber Dragon
• Virtue: Hope
• Vice: Wrath

Mental

• Intelligence: 3
• Wits: 4
• Resolve: 2

Physical

• Strength: 2
• Dexterity: 3
• Stamina: 1

Social

• Presence: 2
• Manipulation: 3
• Composure: 2

Skills

• Computer: 3 (A.I.)
• Crafts: 3 (Weapon Smithing)
• Medicine: 3
• Science: 2
• Firearms: 3
• Larceny: 1
• Weaponry: 3 (Swords)
• Animal Ken: 1
• Expression: 3

Stats

• Inspiration: 2
• Mania: 12
• Health: 6
• Willpower: 4
• Size: 5
• Defense: 3
• Initiative: 5
• Speed: 10
• Obligation: 7

Merits

• Encyclopedic Knowledge
• Resources 3 (funds appropriated from Lars Bennett)

Axioms

• Automata 1
• Exelixi
• Katastrofi 2

Appearance

Brown hair, blue eyes, glasses. White T-shirt, black pants, blue longcoat with lots of pockets down the front.

Background

There was a manic smile on his face as he walked down the sidewalk, a heavy backpack slung over one shoulder. You could practically see the electricity in his eyes. Those who took notice tended to give him a wide berth.

It didn't matter to him. None of it. Here was a man on a mission.

Once upon a time, Henry Blueriver was a man without a purpose. He made a living through odd jobs, paid his bills, saved up towards some nebulous future dream. He didn't expect his life would be changed forever through a simple act of chivalry.

"Excuse me, I think you dropped this..."

The girl was brown-haired and green-eyed, wearing a peach-colored sleeveless top and jean shorts. Normally Henry wouldn't have given the encounter a second thought; his thoughts never strayed into the romantic. But their eyes met, and Henry found himself enraptured by something he couldn't describe.

"Ah...thanks."

The girl took the proffered can and returned to checking out. Henry had still more things he needed to pick up, so he didn't follow her in line. He imagined it would be the first and last time he'd ever see her.

He was wrong.

It was a bookstore the next time: Henry was surprised to find the girl looking for the same book he was. Then there was the electronics store: he went there to look for a new game release and found her browsing the titles. Their encounters grew more and more frequent, though never more than a casual acknowledgment. Still, there was a feeling there that Henry couldn't shake.

One day he spotted her not far from his apartment building, a bag of groceries in hand. Curiosity overtook his common sense, and he followed her. She saw him just as she reached the door to her house; he made to run, but her smile caught him off-guard. "Hi there," she said. "I'd been wondering when you'd come."

The girl invited Henry inside. Against his better judgment, he accepted. The house was well-kept, if somewhat spartan: the furniture, upon closer inspection, was covered in a thin layer of dust.

The girl led Henry towards a room in the back. "I'd like you to meet my father."

Henry was surprised to see the old man seated in his wheelchair; he could easily have passed for the girl's great-grandfather. The room itself was strange and antiquarian: shelves lined the walls, filled with old photos and strange trinkets, some of them elaborate gadgets that seemed to glow with a strange light.

"Welcome," the old man said. "My name is Gerald Waterford, although back in the day I believe they used to call me 'Dr. Cogwheel'." He smiled at Henry, as if expecting some sign of recognition. All he got back was a blank stare. He resumed speaking. "Cherie you know already," he said, gesturing at the girl. "She speaks highly of you."

Henry wasn't sure how to respond. The old man seemed to expect something of him, and the gadgets on the shelves were making him uncomfortable.

"Listen, er...I barely even know her, so I'm not sure what exactly you think is going on between us," Henry said, trying to diplomatically defuse what he saw as a potential powderkeg. "I mean, I like her, she's cute and smart, we have a lot of the same interests..." He paused, realizing he had probably said exactly the wrong things.

"...Just what is this all about?"

The old man's smile grew wider. "Cherie," he said, "show him."

"Show me what?"

Cherie broke out into a grin. "This," she said.

She reached up, grabbed her head in both hands, and lifted. There was a click, like a catch unfastening, and Henry saw.

"That...that's not..."

"Possible?" Cherie said, still grinning. Her head had come off, and she was playfully tossing it from one hand to another. "Everything's possible. It just takes the right mindset."

Henry looked at Gerald. "What the hell is going on here? What is she?"

"She," the old man said, "is a Wonder of Automata. My pride and joy. And I...am a Genius."

Henry continued to stare, as if he was certain the old man had gone insane.

"It's not a boast," the old man said, his expression stern. "For many years, I have been something...not quite human. I have been a vessel for Inspiration, its tool, its guide, its master, its servant...I have done things both incredible and monstrous...seen the world in all its glory and horror...I have wielded Mania and been consumed by it...and here, today, I live surrounded by my work."

A strange smile crossed his face. "The things you see around you aren't what most people would think of as 'real'. They don't work like clocks or flashlights or radios or laptop computers. They work simply because they are meant to. They behave by principles that make sense only in a world of my own devising. Even Cherie, my beloved daughter, is but a trick, a product of my own very special kind of madness."

Henry stepped back, as if the old man's smile was physically pushing him away. His grasp of reality felt like it was crumbling in his fingers. He instinctively clutched at his head, frightened by how much sense everything was making. Everything is possible with the right mindset...he had said the same thing once or twice before, but he had never meant it like this. You couldn't make a robot that looked and behaved identically to a human; the technology simply didn't exist. But what if you could force it to exist?...

"Are you all right?"

Henry turned. Cherie was holding her still-disembodied head right in his face.

"It's all right," she said, her concerned expression turning into a smile. "You're just taking your first step into a bigger world."

"I can't," Henry choked. "I have a life...I have things I want to do...I can't be this. I'm sorry..."

He ran. He ran out the door, down the street, all the way back to his apartment. He locked and bolted the door behind him, and slumped against it. He had glimpsed Inspiration, all its wonder and terror, and his instinct was to flee.

It would come looking for him soon enough.

Weeks passed uneventfully. Cherie had vanished from Henry's life, and he felt the worse for it. He had given up something strange, terrible and yet full of promise. But then he would think back to that day, back to that room, and shut his mind.

Sometimes he wondered if the old man had seen the signs. He had always been good at putting things together. If you gave him the right instructions, he could make just about anything. And that was what unsettled him about the things he had seen on the shelves. He had seen that same glow in his own work: it was like comparing a lit match to the sun, but it was unmistakably there. He had paid it little heed before, but now it had taken on a terrible new significance. Had Cherie been watching? Had she been reporting to her father that she had found a Genius in the making? Was their strange connection just the product of Mania and machinations?

If Cherie was a lie, then everything had been a lie. And that was not a possibility he would ever accept.

If Henry hadn't been expecting a package that day, the message might never have been received. He thought nothing of the cardboard box as he brought it into his apartment, carefully cut open the tape, and looked inside...

"Hello again."

Henry sank to his knees. "Oh God."

"Is that any way to greet an old girlfriend?" Cherie's head chirped in her bed of styrofoam peanuts. "I would've thought you missed me."

"I do, but..." Henry stopped himself midsentence. "I'm not going to be involved with all this Genius nonsense, you hear me?" He began looking around for the duct tape. "I'm mailing you back, and you're gonna tell your dad to leave me the hell alone!"

"He's dying."

"Excuse me?"

"I said he's dying and he wants to see you."

Henry lifted Cherie's head out of the box. "What, you couldn't have sent me a letter?"

"He wanted to," Cherie said, "but I thought this would get your attention better."

"Attention gotten," Henry said. His mind was racing. "But why me? Isn't there some other Genius he'd rather talk to?"

Cherie glanced sideways. "It's...complicated," she said.

"I can handle complicated."

"My father can explain it better," Cherie said. "You have to talk to him as soon as possible."

"And if I don't?"

"Then...I'll probably die."

Henry's response was a confused expression.

"Or worse."

Cherie's usually buoyant expression had turned serious; even slightly pleading. Any impression that she was lying was swept away.

"Fine, then," Henry said. "I'll see what your father has to say."

And so, carrying Cherie's head in its box, Henry Blueriver made the short trip to Gerald Waterford's house. Cherie's body answered the door; a disconcerting sight, but one Henry had a feeling he was going to get used to.

Gerald had been moved to another room. Lying in bed, he looked even more pale and skeletal than the last time Henry saw him.

"I'm here," he said.

"Good, good," Gerald replied. He hadn't opened his eyes. "Cherie...is she with you?"

"I'm here, father," Cherie said, her head back on her shoulders.

A pause followed. "I am Gerald Waterford, once known by the name of 'Dr. Cogwheel'. In my youth, I was a toymaker; I crafted intricate little clockwork contrivances meant to delight and amuse children. I had a wife and a young daughter, named Cherie..."

Cherie's eyes went wide. This was apparently a story she had never heard before.

"This life was taken from me, my work and my family consumed in fire. And in my despair at the world, I catalyzed as a Klagen - a Genius born of sorrow."

Henry felt the weight of ages settling on him as Gerald continued. "My breakthrough was...liberating. It was as if all the rules I had believed were ironclad were nothing more than mere suggestions. Gerald Waterford died in that fire, and Dr. Cogwheel, a being free from the chains of human society, emerged in his place."

Gerald coughed. "I was blind back then. So blind. I lashed out at the world, a toddler handed a loaded revolver. Dr. Cogwheel, for all his posturing was...a cartoon villain. He made himself a monster, thinking he had made some great discovery about the world, and in the end...in the end the Peerage smashed his clockwork men, destroyed his secret lab, and chased him into the darkness. A page in the history books? He would be lucky to earn a footnote."

He chuckled to himself. "In that darkness, Dr. Cogwheel was forced to confront what he had become. The experience almost destroyed him. But in the end, he truly saw for the first time, recognized his own folly, and turned his Inspiration towards making things of beauty, as he had done before. Dr. Cogwheel perished with his lab, and Gerald Waterford finally rose from the ashes of his old shop."

"And then you made me," Cherie said. "Do I...do I look like her? Am I like...the real Cherie?"

"It's as if the fire never happened," Gerald said, his voice trailing off. "And my wife is here, and we are all happy and prosperous, and we live in a world where things like Inspiration and Mania don't change men into monsters..."

"Father!"

"I don't understand," Henry said. "What am I supposed to do? What did you bring me here for?"

The old man's lips moved. Henry had to lean in close to hear his last words.

"Take...care...of...my...legacy..."

And with that, the life of Gerald Waterford ended.

A year and a half passed. The old man had left everything to Cherie, including the house; pure pragmatism made Henry accept her offer of moving in. Gerald had taught his daughter much of what he knew of mad science; not being Inspired herself, she was unable to use this information, but she tried whenever possible to pass it on to Henry. He began to understand the theory, though his resistance to his breakthrough continued: sometimes the Inspiration would try to force its way in while his mind was unguarded, but he had convinced himself that becoming a Genius was not for him. The precious trickle of Mania these lessons produced sustained Gerald's wonders, though: she had been careful not to tell Henry about the dangers of wonders starved of Mania, and actively feared the transformation being an Orphan might bring if she wasn't careful - feared what she might have done to Henry in such a state. Feared what Henry might have done if he knew the risks. It was selfish, but she carried on the deception.

Henry gradually began to find life in the old Waterford house pleasant. On occasion he'd try to convince himself that he'd imagined the more bizarre aspects of his experiences with Cherie, but then Cherie would do something like leave her head in an odd place for him to find. It was a strange and almost magical time: they would talk, they would laugh, they would watch movies and read books and never a hint would show that they hadn't known each other all their lives.

And then the magic ended as abruptly as it started.

There was a knock on the door. Cherie looked through the peephole; the faces on the other side weren't familiar.

"Hello?" she called through the door. "Who is it?"

"Lord Grindgears, Sir Pendulum and the Earl of Mainspring," the reply came. "We're here to see the Doctor."

"Who's at the door?" Henry said, passing by.

"I don't know, but it sounds like they knew my father."

A moment passed. Something told the two of them that this could only mean trouble.

"Be right back," Cherie said.

The two huddled. "Those are Geniuses out front," Cherie whispered. "They all gave funny names and dress like something out of a Dickens novel."

"Do all Geniuses do that?"

"Not all," Cherie said defensively.

Another knock, harder this time. "We know you're in there," Lord Grindgears said. "We can hear your voices. Tell the Doctor we've come to collect on his debt."

"Debt?" Henry whispered. "Did your father tell you anything about owing a debt to somebody?"

"No..."

"Open up in five, or we're opening it for you! Five!"

"They're coming in," Henry said. "Did Gerald keep any weapons around? Did he have any enemies?"

"Four!"

"My father wouldn't hurt a fly," Cherie said. "I mean...after he got better, I guess. And you know as much as I do about who he used to be..."

"Three!"

"We have to run, then," Henry said. "To the back door! Hurry!"

"Two!"

"Right!"

"One!"

The front door exploded in a burst of concussive force; even as they ran, Henry and Cherie were caught by the shockwave and knocked off their feet. Lord Grindgears stepped through the door, an improbable clockwork cannon in his hands; he was a tall, gaunt man in a black top hat and suit straight out of Victorian London. Sir Pendulum was a mustachioed man in yellow with a bowler hat, holding an ornate cane with a vicious bladed edge, and the Earl of Mainspring was a short, fat man in gray carrying a hammer made out of gears.

"My apologies," Lord Grindgears crooned. "I always had a terrible sense of timing."

"Where's the Doctor?" the Earl grunted. "I got things I wanna do to him."

"Not yet," Sir Pendulum said, swinging his cane idly. "We need to find out what he did with the Larva."

"Who the hell are you three?" Henry said, standing up and brushing himself off. "And what do you want with Gerald Waterford?"

The Earl burst out laughing. "I'd watch my tongue if I were you," Lord Grindgears said. "We of the Peerage have no use for...common names. The man we're looking for is Dr. Cogwheel, and we have spent a lot of time and effort attempting to find him. We know he still lives here; the question is, are you two willing to risk your lives to protect him?"

"He's dead," Cherie said, picking herself up off the floor. "My father died over a year ago."

Sir Pendulum and the Earl began mumbling incomprehensibly to each other. Lord Grindgears' face froze in a rictus. "You're lying," he said, his voice wavering. "You have to be."

"Here, now," the Earl said. "She says she's his daughter. Maybe the girlie knows."