Microstory 143: Ulysses Juno

This is an experimental Bellevue Profile microstory. The introduction can be found in Microstory 101. More to follow.

For as long as he could remember, Ulysses Juno has never needed to breathe through his nose or mouth. Whenever he tried to hold his breath, he could feel fresh air filling his lungs as quickly as toxic air was disappearing. He didn’t know why he was different, but he figured that he’d take advantage of it, in as many ways as possible. He worked a number of wildly different jobs, each one designed to exploit his gift. He was a stage magician in his younger days, remaining trapped in tanks of water for far longer than any human should have, and he never even needed to drop the curtain and fake it. His assistants never understood how he did it. He worked down in mines for many years, and was able to execute tasks that were so dangerous, no one else wanted to do them. But he was always fine, and didn’t have to worry about contracting some kind of lung disease. He lived in the highest altitudes, the most polluted cities, and spent one entire year never once coming out of the deepest lake on the planet, just for fun. His body had access to another dimension, and it is through this that his air supply could be found. The air would essentially be teleported straight into his lungs, oxygen would be exchanged, and then the carbon dioxide would be released back into the other dimension. He was captured by a team of unethical scientists. When they first stole his ability and gave it to Phaedra Wirth, she began to suffer from radiation poisoning. This was when the scientists discovered that Ulysses had adapted to something referred to as plex radiation simply by having been exposed to it his entire life. This tolerance was not a part of his ability, and was thusly not transferred over to Phaedra. Fortunately, they had in their possession another anomaly; one who could withstand all forms of radiation, Molly Bloom.