John Ballard, the brilliant mind behind the reworking of alien technology, helped develop the Sphere and ways to make it travel back in time.
Ballard, paralyzed from the waist down, is far from helpless. He was injured at a young age when he leaped off a quarry into a pool, and sustained severe spinal injuries. He nevertheless manages to move about with ease, in a motorized wheelchair. He briefly regained the use of his legs via an alien computer chip, but when the chip took over his mind, it needed removal.
Little is known of Ballard's background, except that he was the mentor to budding genius Andrew "Hooter" Owsley. The two of them worked on advanced theories, when Owsley was in his early teens. Ballard became a good friend of several members of the Backstep team, including Olga and Parker.
Ballard is extremely attractive to most women, despite his average appearance and aura of hyper-intelligence. His assistants are usually female, young, and beautiful. Despite this, he did not marry until he accidently won a small tropical island, gambling in Vegas. He married an unspecified blond woman wearing a bathing suit, and requested a long-term leave of absence to enjoy his new status.
