The Origin of Villainy

Some time ago, a friend asked me if I had any ideas on an interesting villain. One thing led to another, and I ended up writing a whole story about him. What follows is a story about how a man in a chaotic world lost and gained so much, and how he set the stage for rising heroes.

---

The Origins of Villainy

Frank Nakata was, quite simply, a brilliant fellow. Renowned for his work in genetics, specially modification and treatments for rare genetic illnesses, he had a way with words and an unmistakable presence. After graduating from Harvard with high honors and working in the corporate field for several years, his altruistic nature led him to lend his services to Greenpeace, eventually ending up in the Congo. Initial training took the form of emergency medical care, moving into battlefield medicine and small arms as the region plunged into unexpected chaos. When he watched the madness around him, he decided to put aside the stance of a disinterested outsider and plunged fully into the movement.

Taking a firm stance at the forefront of the fight for civil rights, he spent the next ten years learning how to organize rebellions, lead people, engage in guerrilla tactics, and handle complicated political machinations. During this time he accumulated the respect of the locals on his side, as well as many contacts both official and… not so official.

When the dust finally cleared he helped write and sign a new bill of rights, retreating to a home in the country he had grown so fond of. Especially after asking his love Thanda to marry him, whom he had met during the fighting, it seemed to be the best of times. However, absence makes the heart grow fond, and he eventually wished to see his old homeland once more. Returning to the western world with Thanda everything seemed so loud, so bright, so mundane. The scientific community was shocked and pleased to learn he had survived, having thought that with him died one of the great minds of the century. As he was just getting used to first world life again, the unexpected passing of his father saddled him with the responsibility of the family biotech company NakataTech. However, it also granted him open access to the family fortune, which allowed him to support causes and continue his beloved research unabated.

Despite enjoying his renewed passion, there was always some part of him that missed the jungle he had spent so many years in. So, when he was given the chance to join a dig deep in the South African jungle, he jumped at the chance. To his surprise however, they discovered a bizarre artifact, and evidence of an alien race. He was able to conceal this from his colleagues, and brought the item secretly back to his lab for further study to ensure its authenticity. Here he realized that the extraterrestrials… had been studying and experimenting on us.

With this realization came the devastating revelation that they might come back.

During this time he had also been working on a difficult project, identifying a strange, latent gene he had noticed while conducting other research. He wasn't sure what made him put the two together, but he began to wonder if aliens had been tampering with our genetic code, like we do to laboratory mice.

Putting everything together, he came to the conclusion that they might return once the ‘incubation period’ of whatever experiment this was ended - and humans would almost certainly be treated no better than the laboratory mice. There was no way to ascertain when that might be without a deeper understanding of the genes, and no one would believe his seemingly crackpot theory. For that matter, it was hard for him to believe it sometimes himself. So he kept it a secret, researching and learning more about it endlessly for months.

———————————————————————--

The Flare came six months later, and the world went dark. 

Not literally of course, the sun still shined and the grass still grew. Power, radio, and general communications were lost patchily for days or even weeks over the world, especially in some northern latitudes. To say it was shocking to a comfortable modern populace would be an understatement. In the aftermath, people began to realize new powers were awakening within them. Not everyone, and not all at once, but here and there someone would wake up one day and accidentally break down their front door with enhanced strength, or unintentionally start an earthquake when they got angry in traffic.

Where was Frank during all of this?

Enjoying a rare vacation with his wife and daughter, Frank was staying in one of their houses near NYC at the time. He had just gone outside to run an errand for his wife, when there was a huge sparking and explosion from the house behind him, and he blacked out. When he came to, a hurried investigation revealed abundant radiation levels in far greater than lethal amounts. Venturing back into the building in a protective suit he kept among his quick kit, he discovered his wife dying from a lethal overdose. She wasn’t able to speak much, and despite his best efforts died within two days.

The culprit was his daughter Hayma - as he later came to realize, she had an awoken power as well. Except… in her, something was wrong. Over a period of a few hours, no more than a day, she would unwillingly gather energy from her surroundings and then shoot out a magnified blast of solar radiation. While she seemed not affected by the radiation itself, the constant process of gather and release took a visible toll on her body, and she lived in great pain. It seemed to slow while she was asleep, so the horrible decision had to be made - Frank was forced to put his beloved daughter into an induced coma.

Luckily, once she was deep into her coma, the mini flares seemed to slow. She still emitted light amounts of radiation, but it was manageable when shielded. Frank built her a protected bunker in one of their safe houses further upstate, shielded both inside and out. He made it as comfortable as possible given the conditions, playing her favorite music and the sounds of the forest and jungle in her room intermittently. And he began to research in earnest.

It turned out that the latent gene he had been studying somehow held the key to these mysterious powers. The default was ‘off’, but the Flare seemed to activate some of them to ‘on’. In most people that manifested as normal, but in a very rare number - a percentile of a percentile - it caused terrible debilitations ranging from various traumatic side effects to even death as their body ‘rejected’ the gene.

Also at the time, one of his closest confidants, a brilliant archeologist (and member of the very select few he had confided in), was attempting to study the artifact. Powers awoke within her, the ability to easily understand any written language or mode of communication. When she touched the artifact after coming into these abilities, it seemed to activate in some way, and a message scrolled over the surface. A hurried phone conversation later, and Frank knew the truth. The aliens had indeed been using us as guinea pigs. And they were coming back. When precisely, he didn’t know, but his small team agreed that it wouldn’t be too long. Perhaps within two years.

With that blinking light on the artifact, the time limit for humanity’s freedom began to count down. As scientists, they knew that when the aliens returned, it would not be as friends, teachers, proud parents. It would be as cold, analytical examiners.

And so, over those next few months in the desperate attempt to ensure humanity’s survival, Project Meta was born. The objective: nurture and grow a large group of humans with the activated Meta gene, with the goal to end up with a team of avenger-like superhumans capable of standing against their alien overseers.

Sacrifices would have to be made, so many terrible sacrifices. But they agreed it was worth it to protect humanity - and the people they loved.

———————————————————————--

Frank the scientist disappeared off the map - his spot at the company remained his, but in all other respects he had ceased to exist. In the public eye, it was as if he had once again disappeared into the Congo jungle. Instead, to all outside eyes he put forward a carefully crafted image of Jase Myers, diabolical evil villain extraordinaire. Taking the fall for the good of humanity, he started to cause different problems and atrocities to occur that needed someone to solve it - a superhero to come to the rescue.

After all, to have great heroes first you need a great villain...