User:Catuse167/Extraordinary Children/Esperanso


 * Number: 777
 * Age: 12
 * Ability: The manipulation of confidence. Engineered for psychological warfare, Esperanso can destroy or evoke faith, reducing entire crowds to near catatonia, or freeing psychiatric patients from doubt. In particular, Esperanso was designed to be able to consume all hope of an enemy army and transfer it to his troops, causing them to forget any battlefield fears. In the absence of war, the Labs believe that Esperanso could be used to spread government propaganda, though they would have to brainwash him first...

Esperanso's parents had made fortunes upon fortunes playing the stock market, and in the months before his birth made riskier and riskier investments, becoming horribly overconfident. They finally lost it all speculating on a technology corporation which turned out to be a dummy company to the Labs. They named their son Esperanso, for he was the one spot of hope in those dark days -- but this soon gave to despair, as the Labs agreed to forgive the debt if they could just have the boy.

By age seven, Esperanso was one of the most feared Experiments. The spiral began when the boy, slowly and inadvertently, drove his first carer to gloom, misery, and ultimately madness. During his carer's six-month descent, Esperanso was utterly neglected, and his powers became both far stronger and far harder to tame than the Labs had hoped. The misery that surrounded the very air he breathed ensured that the Labs' staff avoided looking after him at any and all costs.

Since then, the boy has learned self-restraint, but still resents captivity and torments his carers without fail. Because they are not physically harmed, the upper echelons of the Labs do not take the threat seriously -- they just know that, after a few months, each of Esperano's carers quits or requests to be transferred to another Experiment.

A life of solitude has left Esperano tepid and melancholy, as grey as the winter skies, for his power is ultimately false. Faith may be armor, but it could scarcely substitute for a lack of human interaction, and Esperanso lacks basic social skills, speaking bluntly and with a stutter. On the rare occasion that he can spend time with another child, he will acknowledge them by gazing at their shoes rather than his own, and by not tormenting them. If they seem unusually gloomy, he may even heal their pains.