Oliver Willoughby
| Name | Oliver Willoughby |
| Race | Human |
| Type | Scientist |
| Faction | Free Willed |
| Premiere | Cereborg: Inception |
| Relative(s) | A.L. |
Contents
Oliver Willoughby
"Goodbye, son. You be the best man you can grow to be, and never forget me."
Biography
Pre-Cereborg: Inception
If ever a good man lived, it was Oliver Willoughby. Oliver grew up at a time of innovation and that feeling never left his soul. He felt that humans had such intellects that they could be capable of anything, and he set out to prove it. He grew up in Roswell, New Mexico, and his little town had nothing to really set it apart from any other small desert city- until the night a UFO crashed. Oliver had just graduated high school the month before, and had his sights set on finding a college to attend. However, the strange events, that faithful night, changed everything. A rancher came to town claiming that something crashed on his land, and found the sheriff in the local diner. Oliver happened to be there as well, he was a cook, and everyone took notice to the rancher yelling at the sheriff. He held something that looked like green tin foil and wadded it up into a tight ball, and set it on the diner’s counter. To everyone’s amazement it unwadded itself and became a flat metallic surface with strange symbols etched in it.
The sheriff and rancher left with some other men, and Oliver felt compelled to follow. That night, after his shift, he drove out to the land, and to his surprise, there were army vehicles everywhere. He pulled to the side of the road and got out. Crawling under the rancher’s barbed-wire fence, he hiked across the desert land in the darkness. He could see teams of men with bright lights scouring the ground. He decided he might get into trouble, so he turned and rushed back to his car, only to trip over something sticking out of the ground. Holding his knee in pain, he tried to see what it was in the dark, and it appeared to be a carved stone jutting from the ground about a foot. Reaching out, he grabbed it, and when he did, symbols akin to the ones on the rancher’s foil suddenly glowed brightly on the its surface! Standing up, Oliver tugged hard on the stone and pulled it from the ground. The longer he held it the brighter the symbols shone. This, unfortunately, attracted the attention of the army personnel, and he realized that they saw him. Carrying the stone in hand, he ran back, shuffling under the fence, and hopped into his car and sped off.
He took the artifact home and ran up to his room, careful not to wake his parents. He sat in his room all night trying to understand what the stone was. It was about two feet long and shaped like a perfect oval. The glossy exterior look like polished obsidian and the runes or hieroglyphs shone in white light. Oliver could not understand what it was, and did not get long to study the artifact. As he moved his finger over certain symbols, he noticed others would change from white light to purple. When he stopped, everything would go back to white. Using trial and error, he eventually managed to turn all the runes purple. First a strange, loud sound issued from the device, startling Oliver and causing him to leap back. Then, with a hissing sound, the strange stone or metal egg opened. The loud noise had waked his parents and at that moment his father and mother walked into the room. They barely had time to ask what was going on, before a green slug creature slithered from the artifact right past him and his father, and right up his mother’s leg, disappearing under her robes.
His father and he took a moment to comprehend what happened, as his mother screamed and grabbed at her pelvis. She shrieked that it had entered her, and his father rushed to her side. His mouth agape and terrified the young man simply stood, watching. His mother suddenly fell to the ground rolling on her back and holding herself while his father demanded to know what was happening. Then his mother opened her robe and ripped off her night gown, touching herself and mewling as she continued rocking back and forth. The scene burned into Oliver’s mind and he shook with terror. Then she stopped and went limp! His father screamed her name, fearing she had died, but her eyes sprang open- a milky, dead white, and she turned her head towards his father. As he stared confused and scared, she reached out with both hands and snapped his neck. Then she looked up at Oliver. He slammed his bedroom door, and pushed himself against it, not sure what to do or how to react to the last two minutes.
First, she said everything was okay and that he should open the door. But, he did not. Then she sobbed, pretending to be hurt and scared, but it did not quite sound like his mother. It was like, something human was missing. Finally, she punched the door and her strength knocked him across the room as well as taking the door clean out of the jamb. Laughing and nude, she slowly stalked towards Oliver telling him that she was going to mate with him to make more slugs and that once he was infected, they could find more humans to convert. Just as she reached him, a team of U.S. soldiers came into the house through windows and doors. Growling, she attacked, and they forced her down, piling on her and Oliver remembered little after that. For the rest of his life he blamed himself for the death of his parents, and never managed to find a woman to love because every time he even entertained the thought of being intimate with a woman, images of his mother flooded his mind, disturbing him to tears.
Because of the contact he had with the device, the government officials took him and his mother to a secret base known as Area 51 where they studied them. He had no idea his mother was there as he sat in a cell with a long mirror down the wall, which he assumed was two-way. For weeks they watched him, but he showed no signs of infection. However, something about touching the stone triggered in his mind innate knowledge of robotics. It was as if the device had tried to download a user manual into his head, but had failed to put it into his conscious mind. Likely, it was meant to ensure a warning about the creature inside the device. His cell was not empty, and it had a desk, bed, and he asked for pencil and papers on several occasions before, likely studying what he would do, they obliged. He wrote mathematical formulae and blueprints. In some cases he substituted the alien hieroglyphs for integers, and this went on for days. Oliver would wake, eat, and write until falling asleep. The government saw Oliver as an opportunity and ended up working with him. He designed strange concepts for everything from robots to cars. He even devised a way to create a device that would supply almost infinite power.
And so, the young man went from diner short-order cook, to a genius in robotics and math. He found when he was inventing, he was not thinking about his parents, and it helped him cope. He spent a few years working in Area 51, and became well liked and respected. Even though he knew the government was only using him, he had found a new home, and Oliver always held a soft heart. Even the most hardened guards and scientists at the installation eventually became his friends. That was his life, until one day, someone explained to him that his mother was still alive and held within the installation. Uncharacteristically, Oliver demanded to see her, and when they let him, he instantly regretted it.
She was slumped, naked, in a corner of a sealed cell like the one he had been brought years earlier. Her skin was a mottled green, and slime covered the walls and floor. At one point she stood up, and walked to the two way mirror. Playing with herself, she laughed and appeared to be looking at her reflection. She had not aged a day! Eventually, she shook in pleasure and returned to the far corner squishing into the thick slime on the floor. His mind reeled and he now demanded she be killed, that this was not his mother. He was forcibly removed and stewed over the incident for some time. Though he could not save her, he used his own inventions to escape Area 51. When the officials were asked whether he should be killed or brought back, they said they that they had gleaned enough new technological concepts, and that he posed no threat- to watch him, but not harm him. Oliver ended up in California, trying to hide, and through a series of events ended up as an inventor at would what later be called CereTech. There, he was instrumental in the creation of A.L. and the robot became like a son to him, but he always blamed himself for what happened to his family.
Cereborg: Inception
As seen in the novel, Cereborg: Inception, during Cerebrum’s attack, Oliver managed to survive and he and Al did their best to disrupt the A.I.’s plans. He saved Howard Wyatt’s life, and in the end, he asked that Howard please care for the robot. Howard grudgingly accepted, and then Oliver said his goodbyes before sealing himself into CereTech’s labs becoming the sole occupant of the massive installation.
Appearance
An elderly, but still active old man. Oliver was 91 when he was last seen.
Abilities
High Intellect
Notes
Oliver helps bridge the gap between familial relations of man and robot.
Gallery
Oliver and A.L.
