Engel Stanislav was born outside of Hanover, Germany sometime in the late 1800s. Childhood experiences led him to become obsessed with the ideas of mortality and the possibility of immortality. To better serve his ends, he joined the military and served through both World Wars, first as a medic, then later as a scientist in one of the Nazi party's most infamous prison camps.
After the wars, he traveled the world at length and continued to study both medicine and science. Several decades later he settled in New York and founded Prima Dynamics, a large medical research and development company. This was a cover for his true goal, which was to develop ways to prolong his life and enhance his own physical abilities, starting with a performance-enhancing drug called Ambrosia.
One of his many projects was focused on creating clones of himself with the goal of transferring his consciousness to a younger and stronger body. The first of these was named Able. Like Stanislav, his enhanced abilities were fueled by Ambrosia. Much of Able's brain was replaced with a hard drive designed to house Stanislav's persona, but the memory transfer process was only partly successful. Not successful enough for Stanislav, in any case. Able was soon placed in a medically induced coma and mothballed.
Years later, a power failure presented Able with an opportunity to escape. He fled with several pieces of specialized equipment and quickly found that a man of his skills could command a high price as a mercenary in certain countries. One of his contracts brought him to the attention of an American covert ops specialist, who recruited him as a not-so-willing member of her team. Despite the circumstances, Able quickly came to appreciate the resources and other fringe benefits of working in black ops. He also grew to appreciate his CO, who he married after a brief, intense romance. They're now divorced, but he still serves as her second in command. When he's not working with his team, he maintains a personal base of operations in New York.
Endocrine Enhancements: When Able is injured, his endocrine system goes into overdrive to speed the healing process. Minor wounds will fully heal in a day or two. Moderate damage takes several days to mend, possibly longer depending on the severity. More extreme injuries can still be healed at an increased rate, but the closer Able is to death, the more the rate of return diminishes. Times listed assumes that he or someone else is able to provide basic first aid; double them if he's healing without essentials like bandages, splints, and sutures.
Enhanced Nervous System: Able's nervous system has be rewired to magnify his speed and reaction time. Given the opportunity, he could catch a professional fastball pitch, deflect some muscle-powered projectiles, or run at sustained speeds comparable to a dirt bike.
Increased Tissue Density: Able's skeletal structure and musculature have been substantially enhanced. As a result, his bones break infrequently and are easier to set. His soft tissues are resistant to blunt trauma such as punches or collisions. He's strong enough to bend steel bars, crush cinderblocks or lift up to 1000 lbs. without difficulty. Reinforced lung tissue provides stamina comparable to that of an experienced marathon runner.
While these enhancements make him slightly harder to kill, his skin possesses no particular resistance to blades, firearms, or any other cutting/impaling weapon.
Unique Mind: In addition to organic brain matter, Able has something akin to a hard drive in his head. This combination renders him resistant (but not immune) to telepathic detection or intrusion.
Mnemonic Overlays: By the time Able was created, Dr. Stanislav was nearly 140 years old and had seen and done more than most people could ever hope to. The majority of his memories, experiences, and skills were transferred to Able when the doctor was testing a process designed to replicate a person's consciousness. This gives Able a wealth of information and memories to draw on.
Electronics: Able has a basic working knowledge of electronic devices and how they operate. He could, for example, string batteries together to provide an improvised energy source for a large piece of equipment, use the microphone and circuitry in a cell phone to build a listening device, or bypass a damaged power relay.
Cultural Familiarity: In addition to his Western background, Able is familiar with the basic ins and outs of East Asian, Central American, and South American cultures. His native language is German, but he also speaks fluent English as well as heavily accented but intelligible Japanese, Mandarin, Spanish, and Russian.
Acrobatics: Rather than traditional tumbling or gymnastics, Able is skilled at climbing, making great leaps, rolling with falls, and other practical applications.
Physician: Able possesses the medical skills of a veteran ER doctor with incredibly fast and steady hands. He's able to treat a wide array of wounds and illnesses, perform a variety of surgeries, prescribe and administer medications, and execute other similar tasks.
Mad Scientist: Able is a scientist and researcher of rare skill, though not quite enough to be considered a leading mind. His areas of focus are pharmaceuticals, cybernetics, cloning, and bioengineering.
Soldier: Able is extremely strong and he knows how to get his money's worth when he hits someone, be it with a fist, a club, or a blade. While he'll never be a world-class sniper, he's an excellent marksman who is familiar with a wide array of firearms as well as the creation and application of demolition charges and grenades. He's also an experienced squad leader who specializes in covert operations and unconventional warfare. He can generally handle a few veteran fighters or a moderately sized group of thugs without too much trouble. He gives as good as he gets when matched one-on-one with adversaries in his own weight class.
Pilot: Able is capable of handling most vehicles competently, including conventional automobiles, military vehicles, and boats. He's little more than a gifted amateur when it comes to piloting aircraft, but can at least keep himself from crashing.
Contacts: Able knows an awful lot of people. Arms dealers. Fellow private mercenaries and fixers. Fences. Disgraced police officers. Other unlicensed physicians and scientists. Many of these people owe him in some significant way, which is often useful for him.
Gear and Assets: Able has devoted considerable time and resources toward building up an array of high-powered weaponry that suits his tastes. He's also accumulated a small stockpile of explosives and area denial weaponry. He frequently wears an armored vest capable of absorbing small arms fire and shrapnel.
His prized possession is a prototype combat knife with an edge that has been honed to the width of a single molecule. Powered by his enhanced musculature, this blade is capable of penetrating most conventional armors. However, it has no particular effect on materials like vibranium, adamantium, or items of supernatural origin. He also has a scalpel set of similar construction.
His armory and other equipment are housed in a loft apartment situated over a large storage unit. He also keeps his monetary assets in a concealed floor safe on site. There's never more than $100000 and very rarely more than $50000.
Armored Car: Able has managed to get his hands on a Brinks security truck in the course of his various adventures. Though it doesn't have any armaments of its own, there's a medical suite in the cargo area, multiple hatches and firing ports for occupants, a ramming prow mounted to the front bumper, and a high-powered winch attached to the rear.
PSR Kit: The Portable Service and Recharging kit is a powerful laptop computer built into an extremely durable case. It was designed to automatically perform Able's daily maintenance operations. Its most notable feature is a VI that assists him with basic computer-related tasks and carries the mental workload of his maintenance process. It has no autonomous abilities, nor does it provide Able with any additional skills.
The Squad: Able serves as second in command and field team leader for a black ops squad that is tasked to perform particularly high risk operations. When he's on the clock, he has access to equipment and resources that most soldiers could only dream of. Additional weapons, explosives, and a well-funded laboratory are among his favorites.
Of course, these perks come with drawbacks. He takes orders, for one. Second, he's usually commanding a team of misfits, criminals, and undesirables who are often being forced to perform against their will. Sometimes he'll lead a rotating cast of unpowered mercenaries, who he refers to as 'The Redshirts.' They're generally called in when the supply of powered miscreants has started to dwindle.
Dependency: Ambrosia fuels Able's unique physiology. It can't be purchased, it must be created or stolen. This serum must be taken twice per day for him to remain in peak operating condition, though he can survive on a single dose. Extreme levels of exertion may require additional injections. Missing doses presents penalties and risks. After one day, his physical abilities will all be reduced to normal human levels. On the second day he becomes very weak and signs of accelerated aging are visible. Based on the rate of aging, it's assumed that death will occur sometime between the fourth and fifth days.
No Legal Identity: Able has no official identity. He's found ways to cope, mostly by setting up soft identities that are little more than a forged ID and a couple of credit cards. These identities won't stand up under scrutiny and a careful examination will reveal that there is no record of his existence. The frightening part about this is that he doesn't technically exist and isn't a citizen of any nation, which means he has no legal or civil rights of any kind.
Doctor Stanislav: Stanislav is a man with considerable resources and a great deal of knowledge at his disposal. On top of this, Stanislav himself is a physically formidable adversary. In the near future he plans to engineer situations to test his clone's skills and abilities before reeling him back in, reprogramming him, and readmitting him as a test subject.
Evil Twins: Stanislav has created an unknown number of clones since Able's escape, all of which have been augmented to various degrees and have varying levels of education and personality. They're also uniformly dangerous and look exactly like Able. By proxy, their enemies are his and their actions can be attributed to him.
Unshielded: Able's hard drive is vulnerable to electromagnetic pulses and will potentially shut down if he's faced with one. An automatic reboot takes approximately twenty seconds, during which time he is completely inert and vulnerable. Close-range exposure to powerful magnets can also have adverse effects that range from difficulty thinking to a complete inability to access stored data.
Reprogrammable: With the proper connections and access to his data storage unit, Able's basic programming can be modified in countless ways. Anyone with the necessary skills could attempt to control or even reprogram him, though it wouldn't be easy. The difficulty of a break-in attempt varies according to the methods used, but even a savant would find it a challenging task.
Maintenance: Unfortunately, having an artificial brain doesn't make it any easier to perform brain surgery on yourself. Able is only equipped to perform basic repairs on his own. In the case of serious damage to his hardware, he would need the services of a specialist.
Batteries Not Included: Able requires daily maintenance and recharging, a process which takes up nearly four hours of his time. He must also spend at least one hour per day plugged into a USB slot or wall outlet in order to maintain appropriate power levels. Using the PSR kit allows him to perform basic tasks like reading a book, having a conversation, or watching television while the kit does the heavy lifting.
For each day he skips it, the length of this period is doubled. At four days he will switch to a very basic and semi-catatonic survival mode that eliminates all non-essential uses of power, including speaking more than a few words at a time. If five days pass without recharging, maintenance, or both, Able will die.
Duty: As the field leader of a covert ops team, Able is on call 24/7. Not only that, whatever he's being called to do is probably going to be dangerous, illegal, or both. Still, he's never failed to report for duty. While he's not an official member of any military branch, he's loyal to his commanding officer.
Unbeknownst to him, that same commanding officer ordered that a backdoor be secretly installed in his operating system. It could be used to coerce or even force him to follow orders if his loyalty should waver.
Friends Like These: Able's team can be troublesome. Though the roster changes, he rarely works with anyone who isn't some combination of criminal, sociopath, and cold-blooded murderer. Most have been recruited unwillingly and many are kept imprisoned until their unique skills are required. As Able is their commander, killing him tends to be high on their things-to-do list. Methods of ensuring their cooperation do exist, but if these methods should fail then Able's life expectancy will be extremely short.
