The Think Tank is a small splinter branch of the Knight’s Forge whose primary goal is advanced research and design. The trio are also known to assist other “hero” groups on occasion when their expertise is needed.
CLEA DATA FILE
Identity:
- Brainbox – Wyatt Gauthier (centre)
- Chromium – Yuriko Hayashi (left)
- Codex – Selena Palmer (Right)
CLEA Classification:
- Tech Enhance Humans
Special Skills and/or Abilities:
- Tech Enhancement – Brainbox’s “helmet” allows him to interface with multiple data feeds. It also increases his IQ to 500+. His mind coupled with a CPU allows him to not only understand complex data but rearrange it and extrapolate possible outcomes that a super computer would take months to accomplish.
- Tech Enhancement – Brainbox can also link his “artificial” mind to another human brain and read it via him touching another person and transferring electrical impulses along the human nervous system.
- Tech Enhancement – Chromium’s armour skin can not only protect her from small arms fire but increase her strength as well as boosting her sensory range. She can also emit electrical energy from its surface as defence measure.
- Tech Enhancement – Codex’s interface allows her to process data faster (albeit far below that of Brainbox). She can also hack into computer systems and translate any language, spoken or written down simply by studying patterns. Codex can also channel electrical energy and emit an EM blast from her hands.
- Tech Enhancement – Both Brainbox and Codex can more information between their interfaces either directly or remotely via uplinking to satellite feeds and piggybacking data.
Limitation(s)/Weakness(s):
- The entire team is vulnerable to attack via EM based weapons and sources
Rap Sheet/Criminal Traits:
- N/A
Notes/History
At one time Wyatt Gauthier was one of the world’s most promising scientists. In the field of engineering there were few people that could beat him. His particular speciality was his ability to reverse engineer technology and for that his services were in big demand, usually by various military establishments.
Gary Wynter as one of the partners who set up the Knight’s Forge figured such expertise would be valuable for the group. Gauthier though was not interested but Wynter had already figured a direct approach would not work. As an inventor and engineer himself Wynter had come face to face with Gauthier at an expo and knew the man was not only arrogant but had a huge ego. If fact at that same expo, Gauthier had called Wynter an “amateur” in regards to engineering expertise.
Using a bit of reverse psychology, Wynter accepted Gauthier turning down a position at the Forge and the slipped in a line suggesting that the work at the Forge was probably too advanced anyway. The attack on Gauthier’s ego was enough to make him reconsider and within a month the Canadian scientist was heading up one of the Forge’s satellite secret facilities in his native country. Though he was the head of the facility few of the other engineers would work with him since they could not cope with his arrogance so much of the time Wyatt worked alone which suited him.
Two years later tragedy stuck. Unlike the main Knight’s Forge facility which was extremely secure and its location classified to all but a few people, the secondary facilities such as that run by Gauthier were hidden in plain sight. From the outside they appeared to be small business enterprises and money and accounts was run through shell companies. This allowed them to be located close to or even in towns and cities. Wynter and McCabe had thought the smaller facilities were hidden enough from the enemies of the Forge, namely the criminals that they stole the tech from, but they were wrong. Black Shadow had lost a number of valuable tech items in raids conducted by the Forge and in retaliation they managed to uncover the location of Gauthier’s facility. Using one of their operatives they smuggled a bomb into the facility which totally obliterated the research unit.
Many people died in the attack and to avoid a police investigation revealing what had been taking place at the “Heater Fabrication Plant” the Knight’s Forge used its links to CLEA to cover up the true cause of the explosion. Using the unoriginal ruse of a gas leak however meant that nobody could ever be charged with the attack since it was now an accident.
Though the press reported everyone had died two people though did survive, Gauthier and security guard Yuriko Hayashi. Gauthier had been in a shielded part of the building which was better protected but his head received massive trauma resulting in brain damage meaning he lost much of his motor control and had problems with short term memory. Yuriko received massive burns which seared off much of her skin but somehow she managed to hand on to life.
Determined to help the pair, Wynter had the pair taken to the Forge’s primary sight where the top science team tried to help them as much as possible to lead a normal life.
In Yuriko’s case the team proposed building her a suit that would replace her skin and thus prevent her body getting an infection. Unlike the armour the Forge normally created for heroes this was not clothing but had to be bonded to her body. Though she would never be “normal” and what the team were doing was both ground breaking and experimental, she consented.
The end result of their work was an armoured skin suit which provided sensory input by feedback devices on the outer layer of the “outfit”. She would thus be able to “feel” like an ordinary person albeit by artificial means. An added bonus of the armour was that her apparent strength increased. The team had proposed she return to work as a security agent, escort people to and from the primary Forge site where her new “body” would be a great asset. She accepted the offer but her “career” would ultimately take a different path.
Whilst working on “fixing” Yuriko other member of the team were busy trying to find a solution to Gauthier’s brain damage. Some pioneers in the field has used electronic implants but everything had been very experimental and with limited success. However it being the Forge the scientists had access to tech from criminal sources and that included Raiders and other Cyborgs.
Pooling resources and calling in favours the team came up with a design that would bypass the damage and restore motor functions to Gauthier and at the same time fix his short term memory. The actual process involved attaching implants into his brain which would act as an interface which would then connect to a cap like device with a built in CPU.
Though not relishing the idea of being turned into a science experiment himself, Gauthier was frustrated that he knew he had been a genius but with the damage to his brain that person was gone. He therefore allowed the team to try their potentially dangerous plan, figuring he had nothing to lose.
The experiment was a resounding success. In fact it worked a little better than intended. Not only did Gauthier get his mobility and memories back but the cap and CPU improved his brain functions even more boosting his IQ massively. Within days he’d already redesigned his helmet unit to be more efficient and increase his intelligence further. This allowed him to expand beyond his expertise in engineering and into other fields. The addition of a memory slot and networking socket allowed him to “download” information into his artificial mind.
Though many were fascinated by Gauthier’s ability to correlate and extrapolate masses of date and create new theories and advances, the increase in his intelligence also made him even more arrogant that before. In three weeks he managed to insult everyone at the primary facility more than once and he started to become something of a distraction.
Since he also became irritated whenever anyone interrupted his work it was decided for everyone’s sanity that he should perhaps leave. However since the attack on the Canadian facility, as a security measure the Forge’s secondary facilities had been closed down. That meant Gauthier had nowhere to go. Though he was intelligent and thought he would be okay he would not entertain the idea that he could be vulnerable. He figured that as long as he kept moving and sent in his latest theories no harm would come to him.
Wynter however was not convinced, since Gauthier did stand out in the crowd due to his mannerisms that resulted in an ability to cause a public spectacle due to his inflammatory remarks. He suggested that Gauthier have at least some security back up because sooner or later the enemies of the Knight’s Forge would find him. However the problem for Wynter was that nobody wanted to be near the annoying scientist.
Upon hearing about the predicament Yuriko offered her services and offered to serve as his body guard. Since she had worked with him before she was already aware of his annoying habits and put downs so said that she knew how to handle him. Begrudgingly Gauthier accepted her assistance and with that in place the pair left the primary facility.
Keeping ahead of the Forge’s enemies meant Gauthier, now codenamed “Brainbox” and Yuriko (codenamed Chromium) had to rent space for short periods of time before moving on. Sometimes they used a mobile lab supplied by the Forge but Gauthier found it limiting for his work.
During the course of their travels the pair came across Selena Palmer, who had been regarded highly as a research scientist but had been injured in an automobile accident. Though Gauthier rarely had time for other people when he learned that Palmer had received similar injuries to his own, namely a loss of motor function but retaining her memory he felt obliged to help. He figured that a simpler variant of the implant in his brain would restore her ability to walk again.
Coming out of hiding though was not without risk for it would expose him to his enemies. Yuriko warned him about this but his mind was made up. The Forge’s resources provided him with false credentials that got past medical security at the hospital she was staying. Meeting with her, he pretended to be a scientist from a medical firm interested in her case. He wore a hat to hide his cap and for one of the rare moments in his life managed to avoid upsetting Palmer and the hospital staff. Gauthier explained he was performing pioneering research into repairing nerve systems in paraplegics and that she would be an ideal candidate for a trial.
After several meeting Palmer’s gave her consent and she was transported to another medical facility which was in fact a fake set up, created by the Forge to fool both doctors, surgeons and everyone else associated with Palmer and her operation. The amount of resources needed meant Gauthier could not have done it without Wynter’s backing and the reminder of this fact would constantly serve as an irritation for Gauthier.
Within days Palmer was on her feet and though the operation went smoothly there was one unseen side effect of her implants and that was whenever Gauthier came close they interfered with his implants and spurious data would jump between them because the electronics operated on the same frequency. At first she wondered where the “odd” thoughts were coming from and like every good research scientist she soon pieced together the evidence and linked it to Gauthier. At first she said nothing, but once she had learned enough she challenged Gauthier and revealed she knew he was working for the Knight’s Forge although she did not know what that was.
Gauthier felt he had no choice but to inform her about the secret organisation that stole tech of criminals and rebuilt it for the “good guys”. Now she was a security risk though that meant she could not return to her life. Surprisingly this did not really bother her for having heard about the work the Forge undertook, she felt that she might be able to use her skills to contribute. In her mind it was her way of paying back the organisation that had restored her mobility.
Since Selena and Gauthier had accidentally established an electronic link, Gauthier suggested that they could adapt both their interfaces to make them deliberately linked. She cold then serve as his research assistant in the field whilst he remained wherever they had set up a base of operations. This she agreed to do, since Gauthier had an aversion to field work and she liked it.
Having chosen their roles, as time passed Gauthier further improved his cap and Selena’s interfaces. Eventually they allowed her the means to hack into computer systems remotely, understand any language simply by hearing it and “seeing” patterns. He also added an extra feature that allowed her to send out an EM blast from her hands in case she needed to defend herself.
No longer needing to go out in the field Gauthier added to his cap to allow himself to process even more data. Eventually it became the size of a small football atop his head and had a built in set of goggles to feed even more data into his mind. Advances to it also allowed him to directly link into the minds of others via direct connection through touch, using the human bodies nervous system to transmit data.
He also improved Yuriko’s armour so she was able to increase her “sensor” range and its ability to survive physical damage in “battle” as well as bosting her strength even more. Gauthier also built in an additional electrical discharge that worked similar to Selena (now known as Codex) but instead of a focused beam it could be used as an area attack using her entire body.
Though the trio still work for the Knights Forge they are autonomous and have chosen to use their services to other hero groups as and when the need arises, hence they acquired their own code name of Think Tank.
