The Whitechapel Project

A few people have asked for a postmortem of the whole Whitechapel project. Now that I’m on “vacation” and able to get some thoughts together, I’m willing to do that. However, this project has been inside my head so much that I’m not entirely sure what kinds of things you guys would find interesting. So, I’ll post my working document, and let y’all ask questions about anything that doesn’t make sense.

Powers

• VI can only power his abilities by taking from the lives of others.
• He can kill someone and take their visage, even at a distance.
• Blackouts as powers get more powerful?

VI are really his initials – Victor Isaac. The Project just mistook the “VI” for the roman numeral six, and the name stuck.

Visions (memories):

• … I can smell the faint stench of decay on her breath, taste notes of it on my lips. Her hair is plastered across her face as my fingers clench. I imagine the soft silkiness of her neck in my hands… (Finding Elizabeth dead after the attack)
• … I can hear water crashing against the rocks as I watch a white bird spiral into the sun. The water sprays against my face like arterial blood, warm and salty, but I don’t wipe it away… (VI at the English seaside while Mister Rich is helping him escape)
• … and now I’m walking on a different concrete floor. I can hear the rumble of a subway train, but there’s white smoke everywhere, and I can just barely make out a rounded wall and the vague forms of people all around me. A man is coughing, trying to yell for everyone to put their hands on the right wall and follow it to the exit. He starts to repeat the order, but his voice collapses into thick, hacking coughs… (July 7 2005 London bombings — Liverpool Street bomb on the Hammersmith and City line to Whitechapel station)

What actually happened:

• July 7, 2005, Victor (“Vic”) Isaac and his wife Elizabeth were traveling on the Hammersmith and City line of the London tube. They got off at Whitechapel station when the bomb went off. Something weird happened there (possessed by the spirit of Jack the Ripper)
• Elizabeth was killed, but as part of the possession her spirit was dragged into VI’s body.
• VI was taken to the Royal London Hospital. During that time he loses control of his power, and murders someone in the hospital.
• Liz (formerly Rachel Parks) was attacked when VI lost control of his powers, and her face severely mangled. A scrap of VI’s disguise power lodged in her, and she is able to take the form of people who are already dead. She found Elizabeth’s body, and took the form of Liz.
• Lacuna hears about the hospital incident, and Zachary McPhearson arranges extradition.
• Richard Marsh picks him up, and becomes sympathetic to VI’s situation (as his own wife was killed in a Lacuna operation, detailed in “Ghost Story”). He’s the one who gives VI the nickname of “Six.” McPhearson tells Marsh to hand custody over to him, and VI disappears from Lacuna’s records.
• McPhearson finds Dr. Tucci, a specialist in neurobiology. McPhearson creates the Whitechapel Project out of his own money to study how to weaponize VI’s abilities.
• Dr. Tucci puts VI through a series of chemical treatments to wipe his memory, and then starts to experiment with VI’s abilities. After a few years, he realizes that the results aren’t repeatable, and VI is too dangerous to live. He contacts Marsh, because he’s afraid that McPhearson will simply try again with another doctor.
• Dr. Tucci sneaks out of Whitechapel by using a computer program to change the entry/exit card swipes on his door, leaving at the same moment as another person entered VI’s cell for his vitals check (since the guards know that he’s often in his office studying the data at that point). He has previously “lost” his ID badge, so he reprograms his old one to enact the program when he leaves, leaving his new one and his clothing for when he returns after his meeting with Marsh. He drives to the park where he was to meet Marsh, but dies in the car on the way due to VI’s abilities.
• Marsh shows up at the park, and notices Dr. Tucci’s car in the wreck. Drives over to the Whitechapel Project building in order to see what’s happened, and sees VI as Dr. Tucci. He’s not sure which is which, but invites VI in to learn what’s going on.

Elizabeth can only communicate through bringing memories to the surface of VI’s mind, and by writing notes. Sometimes she can possess VI’s body and look like herself for short periods of time. All of this can only be done while he’s unconscious.

• Elizabeth checked VI out of the hospital and into the hotel, but Liz still has Elizabeth’s legal identity and received the phone call as next of kin. She tracked VI to the hotel.

Act Two
14. Confronting the boss (Atonement with the Father)

15. Dying a little inside to grow stronger (Apotheosis)

16. Unlocking the hidden (The Ultimate Book)

Act Three
17. Fighting to keep it under control (Refusal of the Return)

18. Escaping the current circumstances (The Magic Flight)

19. An unlikely rescue (Rescue from Without)

20. Returning to the roots

21. Storming the gates (The Crossing of the Return Threshold)

22. Fighting to the center

23. The final conflict (Master of Two Worlds)

24. Freedom (Freedom to Live)