Mastermind

Name: Dr. Jonathan Saul

Gender: male

Age: 45

Aliases: Mastermind (he used to be called Synapse but is now widely known as Mastermind. Older people may refer to him as Synapse, however.)

Appearance: human male with red hair and beard, streaked with grey. Uniform: Wears a white Dr.'s coat.

Powers: above genius IQ, telepathy, mind-reading, telekinesis, illusions, phasing

Skills: researcher for the Institute of Applied Evolution (a governmental subagency under the Department of Homeland Security).

Equipment: no special equipment

History: The product of a modest midwestern family in small town Indiana, Jonathan was always smart, off the charts smart. Literally. His parents first noticed his intelligence as a toddler in 1976 when he learned to speak at 6 months-old and read by 18 months. From there it was a battery of IQ tests. His first came a 2 years-old, a verbal test that failed to quantify the extent of Jonathan’s IQ. Similar results were experienced on every test that was administered. He was tested when he could write, when he began his elementary school education (at 3 years), his Junior High curriculum (6 years-old) and High School (age 8). He graduated High School at 10, received his Bachelor of Science in both Genetics, Biochemistry and Neurobiology from Dartmouth at age 13 and earned his PhD in the same 3 subjects 4 years later at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Like most mutant powers, it was during adolescence that his intelligence became truly superhuman. During the final exam period of his first year at Dartmouth, when reaching for a plate in the cafeteria, he knocked over a cart with the power of his thought. Initially his parents convinced him to to hone his abilities in secret but by his 20s he had decided to share his experiences and information with other scholars, seeking their help. He moved around to different universities attending symposiums and conferences to create a network of scientific support for his endeavor until he was recruited by the US Army at 22 years of age.

It was his decision to share his abilities within the scientific community that catalyzed garnered the interest of the military. During a symposium on the “Development of Mental Acuity”, a member of the US Army Special Forces approached Jonathan and offered him a position in an unofficial “extraordinary persons unit”. Under the Spec Forces umbrella, The Metahuman Task Force (MTF) was a Top-Secret branch of the military which operated behind the scenes to combat the superhuman threat.  Focused on the awakening, harnessing of and defense against extraordinary powers, the MTF commissioned Dr. Saul as a Lieutenant in the Army and helped him hone his psychic powers in combat across the globe. Through his leadership, the US learned much about the use of mental abilities in war and espionage. During his 20 years, he wrote the book on mental combat, both offensive and defensive, and drove the development of several devices, including headgear and force field defenses, designed to protect against mental incursion. Though he reached the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, his involvement in the military was off the record and, thus, his rank and service record are unknown except by those with the highest military clearance. He is, therefore, addressed simply as “Dr”.

His retirement from the military left him doing much the same work. Bankrolled by the same classified branch but officially within the Department of Homeland Security, he created the IAE (Institute of Applied Technology) near the MIT campus where most of his closest contacts work. Under their umbrella, he continues his work on the application and analysis of psionic abilities as the head and lead researcher for the IAE. He currently lives alone in Cambridge, MA. Where the IAE is located near the MIT campus. He is tasks by DHS is to discover the secrets of the human mind and determine if it is possible to “unlock” similar powers in others as well as to develop defenses against people with similar skills.

Now in his 40s, he can read people’s minds, speak to others via telepathy, move objects with his mind (telekinesis) and inject illusory stimuli in another’s mind which can cause them to see illusions. The latest ability he discovered, well into his adulthood, is the ability to control the space between his atoms and phase through objects.

He, of course, has been a pioneer in the study of similar phenomena using himself as a guinea pig. The only real physical abnormality they found was that the synapses between neurons contained a significantly smaller space than a normal human.  As syndrome they named unimaginatively, the Saul Synapse Syndrome (nicknamed Tri-S). The theory is that this allows for the faster transfer of thought and explains the uncharted IQ level. As a result, his scientific colleagues dubbed him “Synapse” as a clever reference (in their mind, at least) to his syndrome. The moniker stuck for years until a newswoman referred to him as “Mastermind” which soon replaced the original in popularity and has remained his nickname ever since.