Rewind, back in time, less than a year but more than a lifetime ago. For many New Yorkers, especially those outside the borough, the Sierra House was an eyesore. Gentrifiers were even known to call it a 'menace', because of the New Yorkers the house was built to help; the mentally-ill homeless. It was here that Carroll Avery had chosen to come to help his fellow man. The young man, barely out of high school, was the purest kind of bleeding heart, unable to ignore the pain and suffering of others. Lacking any kind of edge, he'd been bullied most of his life, ultimately leaving home immediately after graduating high school to escape a belligerent father. The man who, rather than asking his son why he'd never kissed a girl, berated him for a lack of manliness. Looking to supposed loved ones for help; a mother in denial, older siblings who saw no reason he shouldn't suffer as they did and extended family for whom, they decided, he'd remain a virtual stranger. Maybe he didn't really mean to leave forever but, with no one willing to look within and make changes, no one looking for him at all, he wound up on the street. It was the Sierra House that took him in.

Back on his feet, he decided to return the favor, working less than he should, earning less, so he could volunteer as many hours as he could. So it was that day when a wild man was brought in, rambling, spouting nonsense about a myriad variety of subjects, none of them related. The other volunteers found him terrifying and, maybe, rightfully so, as he stood nearly six-and-a-half-feet tall, looked like a professional wrestler and couldn't answer basic questions about himself or the world; where he'd come from, family, current events, not even his own name. Ultimately they settled on Johnny. Johnny, as in John Doe, or so the staff assumed.

Johnny had this kind of wonder that you'd usually expect in a child and, though dressed in rags, seemed to always be neatly groomed. His hair didn't even seem to grow, nor any kind of facial hair. Something was different about him, something nobody could quite place, and maybe that's why Carroll was drawn to the man. Maybe the universal rejection shown him inspired pity in the man whose own family rejected him, calling him soft before throwing him away for what seemed now to be forever.

This wasn't the first time Carroll had approached one of the unfortunates at the shelter but, for once, he felt no trepidation. The man-child, wearing the ill-fitting rags donated by some obese man, pants that would fall to the floor in an instant if not held up by a belt, was playing with his food in the cafeteria. He hummed an unfamiliar tune, either arranging his fruit cocktail like buildings or armies, it wasn't clear which.

"Hey, Johnny, right?" asked Carroll gently. No response came, so he continued. "Do you mind if I join you for lunch?"

Huge shoulders shrugged, noncommittally, as Johnny kept focusing on an apple slice. It seemed that positioning was very important to whatever game he played.

"Okay. I'll take that as an okay. How are you liking it here?"

"It's okay." His voice was funny, lilting, again, like a child with a baritone but also an odd accent. Vaguely Californian. He sounded stupid but, again, children don't often speak like intellectuals. "Willie tried to get in my bag when I was sleeping."

William was another troubled man, well into his middle years, closed off to most communication. He was a vaguely menacing, bearded hobo who always seemed able to sneak things into the shelter that he shouldn't have. "Oh yeah? Woke you up, did he? Hope he didn't get anything before you caught him."

"No. I took his thing instead." A matter-of-fact statement.

This perplexed Carroll. "Oh? What did you take exactly?"

"I took his toy and broke it. Don't worry. I wasn't just being mean; he hit me with it first."

"Uh... Okay? What toy was this?" The conversation was flowing oddly.

"A knife."

"No!" Carroll whisper-screamed, unbelieving. "Wait, he 'hit' you with it?"

"Yeah." Finally Johnny looked up from what he was doing, popping an apple slice into his mouth and talking while chewing. "He ripped my shirt. Not cool." Going back to his food, Johnny started humming that tune again.

Leaning forward, Carroll strained his eyes, seeing loose threads from what looked like a slash in the cloth. "May I?" Johnny barely shrugged as Carroll moved around the table, pulling the folds of cloth apart to reveal a two-inch-long cut in the cloth, behind which was nothing but unmarred skin. "He ripped your shirt... You broke his, wait, where's the knife? You didn't give it back, did you?"

"Just the handle. I still got the sharp part." Reaching into the left breast pocket of the voluminous plaid shirt he withdrew a broken piece of sharpened sheet metal with its point folded back on itself.

"It's ... destroyed. Johnny, you, you really shouldn't have this. I'm just gonna take it, okay?" Another shrug. "I, say, could you tell me something? What exactly is that song you're humming?" It was a shot in the dark but maybe, just maybe, it'd shed some light on who Carroll was dealing with. Nobody else in the building had any clue that Johnny was in some way altered. Looking back it seemed painfully obvious.

"Gummy Bears." Silence hung in the air for a moment before it became clear that Johnny was done.

That was certainly confusing. "Gummy Bears? Like the candy?"

"No. Well, maybe. Is that where they got the cartoon from?" Cramming the last of his food in his gullet Johnny looked up, pondering.

Utterly befuddled by this point Carroll broke a rule he'd always been studious about maintaining; he got his phone out inside the shelter and started searching. Finding a video online he lowered the volume to near zero before playing. It was the introduction to a cartoon show. The music was a perfect match. "Gummy Bears. Nineteen-eighty-five?"

"Yeah, that's it! I watch that every day after school."

"After... Johnny, how old are you?"

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His smile fading, Johnny's eyes darted in every direction, he squinted, gritted his teeth, then abruptly grabbed his cup and chugged the last of his water. "What you want again, bro'?" His voice was harder, more like a frat boy than an over-large child.

This was jarring to Carroll for whom it seemed to be a transformation. "You ... like a cartoon from over 20 years ago, right? You told me and then I asked how old you are."

"Oh! Aha, yeah, that's funny, man."

"Funny? I, there's no joke though." Carroll felt like he was being gaslit, this couldn't be real. "C'mon, I know you're a little ... different, but you look like you're my age or a little younger. So you just remember the Gummy Bears cartoon from ... reruns? What else do you remember? Like ... what's your earliest memory? Go back as far in time as you can remember. What is it?"

"Ohhh, so it's like a test. Okay. Uh, kitchen floor, under the table. Daddy's, uh, father's getting quite cross with mommy." His tone changed again, mid-sentence. "She ... doesn't want to talk about an election? Says the General ... General Scott needs to beat Pierce. Uhm, because 'that damned Democrat doesn't respect' oh, uhm, there's an N-word. I don't think I can say that. It's bad, right? Or, wait..."

Carroll's jaw dropped and he felt a tension running throughout his whole body. There was a pressure behind his eyes and struggled to parse what he'd heard. Searching 'Scott' and 'Pierce' gave him the election of Franklin Pierce as the 14th President of the United States. Certainly, chronologically, 1852 was earlier than 1985, but it seemed completely impossible, this first-hand account. Meanwhile, Johnny was still trying to put it all together himself.

"It was just the word they used back then. Uh ... abolitionists, even. Dad was ... an abolitionist ... mom was scared... But Lincoln. I knew Lincoln. But..." and, with that, Johnny seemed to shut down. Getting lost in his own thoughts seemed literal here as he entered some kind of fugue state.

"Whoa, uh, Johnny. Still with me?" He wasn't. Looking around to see who was watching, Carroll experimentally tugged on Johnny's wrist. The big man rose, eyes fluttering. "Let's, ah, let's go to the bunkhouse, okay? I think you need a nap and I need to ... do some reading." In truth he just didn't want anyone to take advantage of Johnny who, apparently, could ignore knife stabbings and grew up with Abraham Lincoln, but shut down like a sci-fi robot when hit with what turns out to be a logical paradox. It was such a basic question but it seemed to devastate the big man.

Getting him sat down on the bottom bunk of a bed, Carroll fended off a fellow volunteer who, along with others, had been changing the sheets. "Look, he's had an episode and just needs to rest for a few, okay? Uh, Willie, Willie tried to take his stuff last night." This got nothing but an eye roll and a sigh but, at least, the guy backed off. Running outside, Carroll found a secluded spot on the property where he couldn't be seen and let his hair down. Quiveringly, it fell about his shoulders.

He looked at the knife blade with the bent tip. This was why he felt a kinship with Johnny. They were both altered. Carroll's own ability, a bizarre, prehensile hairdo that he could control, feel through and who knew what else, was proving uncomfortable. When he was stressed he felt it shake and he was sure that others could see it too. Pocketing the blade again he got his phone back out, suddenly sure that he'd seen Johnny’s statuesque face before he came to Sierra House. He started searching, digging through video results. Altered man, invulnerable. Filtering out known names, he wound up with several people who made their living from videos demonstrating their invulnerability. Some weren't even altered, had no powers and the appeal was them pretending to be super-tough right up until they were hurt. Carroll shook his head at the stupidity.

Finally, he specifically started going through videos from the 1980's. There were several others; a conspiracy video claiming that Aegis, the so-called 'Shield of the Gods' was, in fact, immortal and not an altered individual first appearing in 1999. Several were early appearances of the Solar Scion; black and white footage, before he’d revealed himself. Finally, footage from a helicopter of a giant monster attack; 'Butchering the Jersey Devil'.

"Hear tell y'got somethin' o' mine there, yella-hair." Came a voice, slurred and surly. "Reckon you oughtta hand it over while y'still got two hands t'give with." Carroll turned around; it was Willie. Disheveled, discolored, dirty and gray, he cut the mold of a traditional hobo. Carroll set his jaw, his eyes narrowing as he shook his head.

"You know you can't have weapons in the shelter, Willie. It's broken anyway. Just move on and don't bring any more here, okay?"

"Oh, lissen at ya'. Thinkin' yer better than ol' Willie. Oh, Willie's such a stabby hobo, does his talkin' with his hobo knife. Ain't no class in stabbin', nosirree, when's he gonna get a gun? Well I ain't got no money for no gun, mister fancy-pants! But y'know what I do have...? Another knife!"

New steel gleamed in the sunlight as Carroll held his palms out, seeming to plead for calm. "Okay Willie, slow down. Think about what you're doing. You got three hot meals and a cot. If you keep stealing from people and stabbing them when you get caught you could lose all that."

This gave Willie pause. He cast his eyes down towards the ground, trying to hard to see through his patchy gray-brown beard. "Ain't nothin' else never worked for me, Mr. Avery. Yer askin' a bee not to sting fer chrissake."

Carroll chuckled, grasping Willie's knife by the handle and gently sliding it out. "Willie, you do know that when a bee stings, it dies." Fiddling with the handle Carroll worked on the mechanism that would let him fold the blade in.

"What!? That's terrible! Does everyone know this? We must tell the queen! OOK!" and, hey, Willie disappeared from Carroll's sight. All that remained was the knife in his open hand. Blinking twice, he looked left, then right towards the sounds of a scuffle. On the ground was Willie and a figure dressed all in mat black was flailing wildly over him. Left, right, left right, double axehandle blow slamming down as the homeless, hopeless, and mentally ill man fell still. The knife fell as Carroll's hand moved shakily to cover his mouth. The shadow was up and stomping his head! One stomp! Two! Three four five!

In a sudden terror Carroll ran at the shadowy figure, stiff-arming him and knocking him to the ground. It was like colliding with a motorcycle; he was abnormally heavy and incredibly solid. Looking up at Carroll, he looked much like an alien monster out to eat humans in a horror movie. "What the hell are you doing!? I'm responsible for this man!"

This looked brave to anyone watching (which nobody was) but Carroll was visibly shaken. Everything was tingling and he was halfway between terrified and enraged, ultimately deciding to check on the broken and bloodied hobo when the stranger didn't continue his attack. Willie had a broken nose, all sorts of soft tissue damage, was missing teeth (though it wasn't clear if he was missing more than before) and was fading in and out of consciousness. It was the mystery man who broke the silence; "What ... what is going on with your hair?"

In his stressed state Carroll hadn't been thinking, hadn't been conscious of his newly movable hair. Someone had seen it in motion, as it seemed ready to defend him against this interloper. Smoothing it down by hand he commanded it to cooperate, forcing it into a bun for the third time that day. "Get out of here! This man has nothing but his health and you just tried to take it from him!"

"I saw a citizen being threatened with a knife! I had to intervene!"

"I already got the knife you retard! I mean ... moron, not ret—get out of here!" Carroll bit his tongue; that's not a word he liked, especially since many of Sierra House's residents suffered from cognitive disabilities.

"Okay!" the newcomer finally shouted back. "I'll just have to talk to you ... when you calm down." Carroll shot him a look and the hair on his head started to pull itself free again. With that he ran like hell, doing an unnecessary dive roll over a nearby residential fence.

"God, I hope not." Said Carroll under his breath. "I have enough violent psychopaths in my life."