Ford grew up in a family of accomplished eccentrics. His mother was an ambassador, his father a noted scientist. But most of what his parents did was a mystery to Ford, because it was highly classified. He and his brother and his sister attended private school with the other ambassador’s children. They grew up surrounded by international intrigue. They continent-hopped for vacations. They dined with presidents and kings. They were expected to grow up and rule the world.
And Ford did in fact exceed at everything he tried. In fact, that was kind of the problem, because nothing held his interest for very long. As soon as he mastered something he lost interest and moved on.
In school he played football, baseball, hockey, and lacrosse. He won the national championship in bocce ball and curling. By college, he had lost interest in sports, but he managed to become a star javelin thrower anyway. He only pursued the sport to kill his spare time as he completed a triple major in Neuroscience, molecular chemistry, and Theology. He finished up in three years, but hung out for the following summer to pick up doctorates in Astrophysics and Philosophy.
After college, he wandered through a series of odd jobs: Jockey, Tugboat captain, Astronaut, that sort of thing. When his parents had to go into a special form of the witness protection program, that’s when he found out that they had been spies all his life. They vanished completely, but would still get postcards from them for years. Even when he was at the south pole working as a bounty hunter, or repossessing semi-trucks in the deep south, or away fighting for the Lincoln Brigade in the Spanish Civil War. The postcards finally stopped somewhere between his stint as security chief for the pope, and when he was testing experimental, high-altitude aircraft.
He tried to find out what happened to them, but was only able to pick up a thin thread, and it led eventually to little-known-at-that-time organization known as the Psychonauts. Turns out his parents were spies AND psychics. Ford decided to give it a shot himself. He didn’t know if he was psychic or not, but he figured what the hell, he’d try anything once.
Turns out he was a psychic, and a very good one. Within two years, the Psychonauts had elected him Grand Head. In that time he had managed to discover Psitanium, the powerful, extraterrestrial, psychoreactive quartz that is so plentiful in Whispering Valley. Under his direction the Psychonauts bought land in Whispering Valley and mined the special mineral. They also set up a research facility here, and on top of it all, a training camp for young Psychonauts—Whispering Rock.
He might have lost interest in the Psychonauts at this point, only because he had risen as high as possible in their ranks. But a mysterious organization known only as the Poison Path emerged, and begain a campaign of psychic terror across the nation. Their psychic prowess was considerable. No one knew where they came from or what they wanted. There were even theories that the founders of the Poison Path were ex-Psychonauts, or had someone working on the inside, because they always seemed one step ahead of the game. Ford managed to thin their numbers through a series of manhunts and clever sting operations. But eventually it came down to a duel–Ford had to go up against the Poison Path’s enigmatic leader, Botulo Kanker.
They traded blow for blow, trying to gain control over each other’s mind, a mental armwrestling contrest. But Botulo was fighting dirty, and was more interested in just chewing up Ford’s noodle. He knew Ford was the better fighter, but he also knew he could do some damage before he went. Botulo ended up in a maximum sercurity insane asylum, his mind completely gone.
Ford seemed to come out of the battle unscathed, at first. Before long, however, the damage became apparent. Ford would completely forget who he was from moment to moment. Some sort of schism erupted in his mind, and left his identity lying in shards on the floor like a broken mirror.
The Psychonauts eased him out of the Grand Head position, allowing his Second Head, Molton Yuppa to take over. They put him in a figurehead position at Whispering Rock, the very summer camp which he had founded. They made him scoutmaster, because he was still good with kids. But they couldn’t get him to remember what his job was. Every time he reached a new place in camp, he thought he had a new job. In the kitchen he became the chef, on the docks he was the harbor master. They eventually had to fire a lot of their staff because Ford was doing everybody’s job for them. But no one complained because Ford saved them a lot of money in personnel.
So now he is the camps scout master, janitor, chef, and nurse. And anything else that comes up. Except when it’s a monstrous lungfish that’s attacking the camp and kidnapping your friends. That he can’t help you with.
