Cyberbug

While at Harvard he studied pre-med, and electrical engineering; the field that Antony was most interested in, though, was cybernetics. The medical field only interested him insofar as it related to the adaptation of circuitry into the human form. He went on to study medicine and cybernetics at Oregon Health Sciences University in Portland, where his thesis was to implant the brain of a rat into a completely functional cybernetic body. That sadly is what got Antony released from the school. You see, in a burst of intelligence, the rat went "a little insane" and trashed a whole building before escaping to no one knows where.

It was at this time that Antony was approached by the CyberVision Corporation. They wanted a bright young face for their cybernetics team. Someone to bring a new perspective to their group. OK, let's face it: their research had hit a wall! They helped Antony pass his medical boards and become certified in thoracic surgery, and he started in on the team.

At CyberVision, Antony discovered many new cybernetic devices. Chief of these was an advanced brain implant that could be hooked up to the sensory area of the brain. This device, coupled with an advanced microprocessor, could be used to counter all sorts of injuries and diseases; it was and remains years ahead of anything else in its class.

But Antony's greatest triumph was Cassandra Steele. Her father, Richard Steele, was (and remains) an old family friend of company founder and President Arturo Velasquez. He came to Cybervision after her "Blowtorch Incident," and Velasquez recommended Antony to head up the team that would be responsible for helping restore Cassandra to health. Antony threw himself into the case finally, the chance to work on a real human! Antony felt sorry for what had happened to her, and decided to try his hardest to give her back her form as well as he could.

When the project was done, Ms. Steele's implants had more than returned her to her original health, they had made her a powerful paranormal. Antony had heard that such a thing was possible, given the number of active superheroes who were cyborgs (namely Cybercop of LANCERS, Cyberia of Lightstorm, Fast Forward and Hardwire of the Cyberknights, and Silverfist of the Protectors), but had never dreamt that he'd be personally responsible for one at such a young age! This being the first and only test subject Antony had access to, naturally he wanted to observe and study Cassandra. Not that he saw her as some thing to be prodded; far from it. He just wanted to see that the fruit of his life's work up to now was going to stay together in one piece. She granted his wish up until the tests became tiresome and redundant (after all, anyone's patience can only go so far). Antony reluctantly declared the operation complete and successful.

His success, however, has caught the attention of Doc Digital, the founder and leader of Cy-Force. Antony does not know this yet, though. Neither does he know that VIPER has taken an interest in his work, though that would not surprise him (much). He does know that the AMA has investigated his lab on more than one occasion.

However, on her last visit, Cassandra mentioned the idea to form the superhero team that would become known as the Justifiers. Antony went to his department manager and asked to be allowed to speak at the next board meeting. He brought plans for an armored suit/arsenal device that could be built to truly "plug in to the human brain" as no other battlesuit had a cybernetic battlesuit, if you will. The market share for battlesuits was so far dominated by DanCo (the makers of Turtle Armor), and was wide open. The company agreed and gave Antony the go-ahead to build the suit. This Antony did, bringing together parts from various companies for the actual battlesuit as well as incorporating a few designs of his own, and dubbing himself Cyberbug after the insectoid motif the suit came to resemble.

None of this seemed to bother Antony. He was too busy trying to figure out one scientific thing or another to notice much.

Antony is very sentimental and caring. Being brought up with a good value system by loving parents has grounded Antony very well as a person, and he is very secure and confident, if a tad naive.

For defense, Antony created a force field generator/projector and integrated it into the suit's circuitry. And for when discretion becomes the better part of valor, wings are encased in the back armor that, with assitance from jet-boots and a low-level anti-gravity harness, allow the wearer to fly at a pretty good clip.

A unique device that Antony has been working on is a force projector, which will be tied in to the neural link and onboard computer. This device will eventually allow all sorts of offensive and defensive capabilities, but isn't perfected at the moment. All it does now is project a "force line" of sorts at a very limited range, that will not be manipulated in any way. His current nickname for this device is a "lifeline," since it may be used to carry anyone who holds on to it (with no unusual physical exertion from the person or people being lifted); the use he intends to put it to is transporting his teammates to the scene of an emergency, at least until some better form of group transportation can be found.

There are a few drawbacks to the armor that Antony has yet to work out. The neural enhancer causes feedback that has a tendency to enhance incoming mental powers. The electronic make-up of the suits actuators are electrically based, so electrical attacks cause serious damage to the wearer of the suit. While rainfall or water-based attacks will not overload the suit's ability to repel water, submersion will drown the wearer as it seeps into the layer between the skin of the pilot and the inner layer of the suit.

When in the lab, Antony ops for the traditional lab coat over whatever he happened to wear in that day. He usually wears jeans, and a t-shirt with running shoes. He does have a rather extensive collection of sweaters for which his co-workers give him a good deal of good-natured ribbing about.

The bug armor has a sky blue body, with silver arms and legs. The wings are a rather translucent blue with dark blue circuitry veins running through them. The eyes and sensory antennae are a crimson color.

Daily Life

Antony's daily life consists mainly of one project or another at CyberVision, which is located at 9555 Beaverton-Hillsdale Highway in Beaverton (conveniently across the street from Cassandra Steele's law office). His lab work is how he makes his living, and he loves every minute of it. The equipment he uses, while state of the art, doesn't go far beyond the current "cutting edge" of technology; CyberVision has the normal array of scanners, microscopes, circuit arrays, computers, and other devices normal to this type of lab work. Of course, coming with the proverbial territory is all the things that he hates: meetings, cost analyses, administrative concerns, etc.

Antony lives in a very upscale, high-security building in downtown Portland. It's the one bone he has thrown his ego since his successes with his patents, not to mention his quite lucrative work on Cassandra Steele. (Well, he has that and the brand-new red Dodge Ram 2500 he got out of his fees for the latter work.) He hired someone to do the decorating in a modest English post-modern theme. He lives alone in the two-bedroom suite with his Rottweiler, Sheila.

Antony is impatient to test his armor in the field both for the excitement and scientific potential involved (and not necessariliy in that order).

Antony rarely works out, but does jog about a mile at lunch "to keep the handles off the gut." Though an inventor at heart, he is enough of a physician to understand that exerciseis very important for a healthy life. Now that he has started to spend some time in the cumbersome armor it has taken on a whole new meaning.

Concerned about her son's potential for "workaholism," Beverly calls Antony at work almost every day around 5 PM to ask if he is going home yet. Antony tries to get out to see them on Sunday afternoons for dinner, to his parents utter delight and Katrina's amusement.

Antony has very little social interaction other than his lab and the team of cybernetisists that work with him. He's the youngest Assistant Project Manager in CyberVision's (admittedly short) history, mostly by virtue of his inventive genius, and he tries to make thebest of it. He interacts regularly with Dan Mitchum, his Project Manager, but rarely sees "the people upstairs" unless he's unveiling something. He's too young and too new to the industry to have much in the way of professional contacts, but his reputation has only begun to spread; before long, some of the establishment in cybernetics will begin to seek him out.

Again, he looks forward to joining the Justifiers, if only to get out more often.

To call Antony's music tastes eclectic would be a serious understatement. The only thing that will not get his attention is rap (especially gangsta rap), and any station that plays nothing but top 40 over and over and over....

Antony loves food and will eat just about any kind. To him it is just an energy supply, or a resupply, although he does throw a mean barbeque together on occasion.

Antony loves to watch all the science fiction and fantasy he can get his eyes on. He routinely tapes Babylon 5, Star Trek: Voyager, and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and keeps the tapes (as opposed to re-using them). He also is an avid reader of sci-fi and fantasy novels and short stories.

Professionally he subscribes to the American Journal of Medicine (more to spite the AMA than for professional reasons), Popular Science, Electronics Today, and numerous other lesser-known trade journals. Most of these he has subscribed to online as well as through "snail mail." Antony has very little use for the regular news, though, as it is usually (in his view) just the same thing with different names every day.

One unusual construct here is the Force Beam Multipower. At first, it may seem worthless to have the Flight in a variable slot (multi), but there is a sort of sense to this: this way, Cyberbug's three options with the Multipower are (1) have the Force Wall up, (2) use all of Flight, or (3) use the Energy Blast with 4" of Flight still available. If Flight was in a fixed slot (ultra), then it would have to be shut off completely to use the Energy Blast.

All of the battlesuit's Powers feed off its END Reserve (as noted by the END Costs being placed in parenthesises), as do the first 40 points of Cyberbug's STR (the remaining 10 points is his natural STR, so this uses his own END).