Todd O'Massey

**Maverick "Todd" O'Massey** *(RN: TO-03-2-19-8826577)*  was a former first lieutenant in the military. Todd and Sergeant Delia Bandsman were the only survivors of their platoon after a terrorist attack at their base on Harrivale. He and Delia were both dishonorably discharged after it was discovered they entered the military underage. He was listed Killed in action on March 4, 2431 and was sent to live on the planet Glory where he later became the head of an anti government group calling themselves the Glory Militia during the Omnikin Occupation. He married childhood friend Olive Ward there and began his post-army career.

Todd is the protagonist of the short story *The Whistler,* which tells his backstory through third person memories, and the secondary protagonist in the book *Inurement.*

## Biography

### Early Life (2411-2416)

Todd was the first and only son of geophysicist Dr. Maverick O'Massey and his wife Iolanthe, the eighth in a long line of Mavericks (Todd was unaware of his namesake, as he never remembered in his father). They lived in an moderate sized house in the countryside of West Elm on the planet Anchora until a planned incident at his fathers lab caused him to suffer severe mood swings and periods of complete memory loss. On November 20, 2315 Todd was stabbed during one of his fathers memory blackouts for not speaking clearly. His father later killed himself after learning of what he did, and his retirement fund went to his lab instead of his wife due to a "contract misunderstanding". Todd and his mother then moved to an apartment in Downtown where they lived until the authorities dragged his mother away for allegedly murdering his father. Todd spent three days alone in the entryway of their dark apartment until an official came to retrieve him.

### Cornovis Educational Facility for Orphaned Minors #16 (2416-2425)

On September 12, 2316 Todd was shipped to a Cornovis facility on the planet Dysnomia with 412 other orphans from all over the galaxy. He had spent the previous two weeks in a holding facility with no shower, no food, and no clothes. Upon arrival, the facilities workers injected every single child with a tracking probe and a drug for the kids who resisted being taken, including Todd. He was immediately knocked out and woke up 8 hours later.

Cornovis EFOM #16 was equipped with a highly advanced hospital on its grounds but the rest of the buildings were cheaply built and had no air conditioning or heating units. They offered little to no shelter against Dysnomia's extremely harsh winters and several kids died of hypothermia each year. Todd, along with his 7 cabin mates, huddled together on the floor of their room every night to keep warm.

Todd attempted escape over thirty times. His first attempt was his first Christmas in the facility when he managed to run to the front gate through 5 feet of snow in just his pajamas. He would've died of hypothermia if the guards hadn't found him and brought him to the hospital. All of his attempts were fails, except for the 32nd try when he and 2 friends made it to the next town over by ripping out their tracking probes and rigging experimental devices to deflect their locations using parts stolen from the camp.

After his first visit to the hospital, he was secretly selected to be a test subject for an unknown genetic modifier drug by gene therapist Dr. Waylon Barrett. The doctors snatched him away from daily activities every month and injected it into the veins in his forearms, then placed false memories into his head. Bruises and cuts appeared on his arms, never going away, and Todd became confused. He started to recall certain instances of the injections and Dr. Barrett injected him with another substance that rendered him comatose for a whole month while Barrett performed a number of mental and physical tests and alterations as part of the HyperGrow Program. Todd emerged from this ordeal with four months of his memory replaced and extensive cranial scarring.

Todd and his cabin mates created extensive stories about escaping the facility and also by being rescued by aliens as a coping mechanism. The author Octavia Thurston was one of his cabin mates.

During the summer of 2421 there was a war outside Cornovis and many of the employees left, never to come back. Todd and many other kids watched the war from the rooftops, watching as the world fell apart around them. Around this time, Todd, Delia Bandsman, and an older boy only known as 416 began stealing parts from ship wreckage that had fallen on the facility grounds. They rigged weapons from the spare parts by using old diagrams and knowledge obtained from the ships computers.

On May 14, 2424, Todd, Delia Bandsman, and boy 416 cut the tracking probes from their necks and sealed the wounds with stolen medical supplies. The slipped through a trapdoor cut in the wall of the back of their cabin and made their way to the back of the facility where they previously dug a hole under the fence. Four more groups of kids followed them until the guards caught on and turned on the frequency sirens, rendering everyone within range temporarily incapacitated. The guards tracked the kids all the way to the spots where they all left their tracking probes, but they never found them. The five groups of escaped kids later reconvened over six miles away to come up with a plan, mostly deciding to split up in search of their own freedoms. Todd and Delia stayed together but 416 said his goodbyes, going off alone. Todd and Delia walked on foot until they reached a small settlement a few days later where they changed their appearances and continued to evade the facilities eyes.

### Post-Escape (2425-2426)

Todd and Delia were spotted by a woman named Winnie, and her adopted niece, an alien named Corra. She helped them get new registration numbers and citizenship papers, and took them in as her own. She forced them to attend school after discovering their lack of a proper education, and they quickly became close to Corra. Todd experienced severe withdrawal from the drug he'd been injected with, and nearly died. Winnie was able to replicate the drug by using his altered genes and her medical expertise. She gave him all that she was able to make and what she made it with. He would die without it and would need to inject it into his forearm veins once a month for the rest of his life.

When Winnie secured her ship, *The Sovereign,* and her pilot, the hologram Scarecrow, she installed a new cloaking system that she was sure would not be detected. She sent Corra with Todd and Delia to ensure her a better future and waved goodbye as Scarecrow took them off planet. Winnie was killed three days later for harboring criminals, and they were able to obtain the specs of her ship from her head.

While headed for the planet Jericho IV, a sparsely inhabited planet, *The Sovereign* was intercepted by a military vessel and were forced to crash land on the planet Eris. Scarecrow was deactivated and the authorities took Todd, Delia, and Corra to yet another Cornovis facility.

### Cornovis Educational Facility for Orphaned Minors #41 (2426)

Cornovis EFOM #41 had much better conditions than #16, and a much more lenient staff. However, their admittance to this facility alerted the system and Dr. Barrett arrived on the planet to retrieve his test subject, but was too late. Todd and Delia used their faked Dysnomia registration numbers to enlist in the military, despite being two years away from the age cut off. Corra stayed behind, claiming she had no place in the military, but a kid from #41 joined them in the military- Olive "Ender" Ward.

### Military Years (2426-2432)

Todd enlisted with fake registration papers claiming he was 18 instead of 16. He narrowly passed the physical and was the last to be admitted in the first group shipped off to boot camp. However, he made it through with flying colors and earned his reputation of being incredibly violent.

## Physical Appearance

Todd was a near-spitting image of his mother, with light brown hair and bright green eyes, except for having his father's height and build, and also his stern demeanor. As a boy, he was described as being rail thin and unnaturally pale as a result of years of undernourishment and mistreatment. When rescued by Winnie, she mentions his hair as "so unruly it'll take months to get it right."

Todd's forearms were covered with circular scars from Dr. Barrett's routine injections and also his own after he continuously took the drug to avoid withdrawal. He had another long jagged scar on his back from trying to cross a barb wired fence, and another underneath his rib cage on his right side from the stab wound his father gave him. When pressed on info about his other scars by Olive, he replied, "They don't have nearly as interesting backstories."

Todd had crooked front teeth, a "grin that could turn even the noblest person bad", and great skin. He didn't have a growth spurt until joining the army when he was 16, jumping from 5'8" to 6"1 in a just a few months.

Planetary Collective Space
Command

United Territory Galactic
Command

United Territory Space
Command

Planetary Collective Defence Force

United Planetary Space Defense

## Trivia

* While a lifelong alcoholic, Todd never faced any health issues as a result.
* Even though he was dishonorably discharged for enlisting underage, a superior noted in his file he was through and through a perfect soldier.
* He had a fondness for lemons.
* He always had some sort of injury somewhere on his body.