Split Second

Split Second was one of the world's greatest heroes, though it is suspected that he did not originate on this world. He first appeared during the incident with TECH at Hew Horizons Industries that historians mark as the first gathering of Ground Zero (see entry on Francis Bouie). His next was the encounter with the newly re-activated Commander Nazi that marked the actual naming of the group and solidified its core membership. In many ways, Split Second was the heart and soul of Ground Zero, so it is appropriate that his appearance coincided with theirs.
    Split Second stood nearly seven feet tall, with an athlete's musculature, but no one would mark him as just a basketball player: his skin was burnished gold and his hair and eyes were silver (with gold irises). While appearing human in many respects, there was an obvious alien quality to him. When he announced that he was not entirely native to the planet, no one questioned it. (Nor did he ever fully explain his origins to the public—he gave a different story every time he was asked. The only constant was the presence of extraterrestrials.)
    He was the fastest man on the planet, capable of flight at Mach 15+ at the end of his career, and able to accelerate to light speed in space. His reflexes were heightened to levels well beyond human, and he was virtually impossible to hit, so much so that he may as well have been invulnerable. He could survive in space for short periods, and his endurance was vastly above human, with a strength approaching human maximum. He was so fast that he could make jokes of most opposition, maneuvering them to attack one another or disarming them even as they pulled the trigger, then catching the bullet in the gun's barrel as it flew. All told, Split Second was a high Gamma/low Delta level variant.
    He was also charming, empathetic and witty; it was nearly impossible not to like him. Passionate and compassionate, he was seldom roused to anger, but tenacious and determined in the face of any adversity. There are reports from criminals of extreme responses when his anger actually arose, but if this is true they were never in the public eye and are not believed today. He possessed knowledge of alien combat tactics and police procedures, garnered from none know where, and was always willing to aid the police. Like Sargent Master Stryker before him, Split Second became the definitive American hero: trusted by the government, loved by the people, respected by his adversaries. Unlike Stryker, he had a team behind him.
    Along with Ground Zero, he crusaded against gang activity and drug use, played some really fast piano and sang on their concert tour, and generally got the public to love him. Psychologists find him an enigma—it is known that the other members of Ground Zero started as youths, but Split Second's age and upbringing are indeterminate—suburban youth one minute, consummate experienced professional cop the next.
    While Split Second operated primarily out of Harborview, the more experience he received the wider his circle of activity became. To him any part of the world was moments if not seconds away. When the Plovian Invasion came he used that speed to galvanize the scattered pockets of variant resistance into a cohesive tactical web. He then led most of Ground Zero and other variants into space to fight the aliens directly while the Host battled orbiting Plovian ships. The two-pronged assault worked, with Split Second's team getting into the Plovian command ship. There, Black Flag sacrificed himself to detonate the Plovian war drives. Split Second and his team had just won the war.
    Split Second and Ground Zero were planetary heroes and national icons, and Split Second used that basis to increase the national activity of his team. Still close to the US government, he accepted their increased assistance while pushing for closer ties to UNEarth. This led to some difficulty later, when Sidari agents in the government used that as an excuse to create a funding war between Ground Zero and Majestic 12 (though the problem was sorted out).
    During this time he also became a key enemy of the Brazilian Liberation Front, tracking them down internationally. This also led to several encounters with the Host. While the Host and Ground Zero had never been friends or even nodding acquaintances, they had learned to work together during the Plovian Invasion. Split Second still obviously never cared for their methods, tactics or personnel, but he and Apollyon developed a grudging respect for one another.
    Most of Split Second's time was with Ground Zero, and those foes he encountered alone fell into Ground Zero's pantheon of opponents. Two bear mentioning. First was Death. While he was a threat to all of the heroes of Harborview, he was in particular Split Second's nemesis. The truth of Death's early activities—believed to be overly violent vigilantism, revealed to be consolidation of power—was discovered shortly after Split Second's appearance, and the two began orbiting one another, locked in a dance that ended with their deaths.
    Second were the Sidari. Again, all the heroes of Harborview held these aliens as major threats, but Split Second's temper was reserved for them and Death alone. He spent much of his time hunting down clues to their whereabouts and evidence of their schemes. The persistent frustration of being able to stop their plans but not them was one of the few things that would visibly upset him in front of the public. The fact that he has vanished while they are still at large is a tragedy.
    Split Second was the first on the lines during the Daemonwar—Ground Zero had been fighting the Coven for years, stemming a beachead in Harborview two years earlier—and again served as a rallying point for the variant forces. In the final battles of the conflict he disappeared, and was spotted on several occasions battling Death, who had apparently taken advantage of the chaos to mount an attack. The last the world saw of Split Second was the two locked in mortal combat a mile over the battlefield, electrical and eldritch energies raging around them. They plummeted to the ground, and neither has been seen since. Presumed dead along with the rest of Ground Zero, Split Second's statue stands with the others in Harborview's Heroes Square. But with no body and no eyewitnesses, many hold out hope that he will return.

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