The world blurred around him, was his coffee there, or there? He forced the universe back into focus, and reached for the cup, drinking the scalding liquid as quickly as he could, ignoring the drops that dripped from the thin plastic lid onto his shirt. The coffee's warmth spread slowly from his belly, carrying the heartburn of hot coffee on an empty stomach. John grimaced, then fought back the pain. He would eat later.

A flash of memory caught him by surprise, two adults (his parents?) laughing and smiling, pointing him towards a cake with five candles. Excitedly he reached out for the cake, both hands wide open. The world blurred, and he passed right through the cake. "My last happy day," he whispered. Other flashes of memory followed, the day the men in suits came, the men who took him away.

He forced the memories away, back to the fractured mirror inside his head. He had a job to do. The Outsiders had to eat, and he was the one who could get the food. It's hard to keep someone out who can walk through walls.

John Doe, aka Uncertainty, was taken from his parents shortly after his fifth birthday, when his Quantum powers started manifesting. That was sixteen years ago. He spent the next ten years under the care of the group that took him away, and to this day does not know who it was, whether they represented a government, and if so which one, a corporation, or something else. They raised him for the next ten years, teaching him languages and how to use his powers. With them he learned how to control his desolidification powers, and the terrifying amount of damage his interpenetration could do if he let it.

As he aged, his keepers realised the difficulty of keeping someone with desolidification and teleportation powers and turned to a battery of drugs to keep him under control. The results were not pretty. The drugs they used interfered with his long-term memory, turning him into a partial amnesiac. They also affected his impulse control, as they rendered him more childlike rather than simply docile as was intended. The end result was a child-like tantrum that had ended with him somewhere outside the institute with no memory of having left it.

John is just trying to survive. He can't blend in with society, so he no longer really tries. Those who accept him, he will defend to the death. He is quiet most of the time, liking very little as much as hiding out with a good book. His preference is for SF and Fantasy, especially those novels about "outsiders," people like himself who don't fit in. His favorite book is A.E. Van Vogt's "Slan" and he usually has an old paperback copy in his pocket. Given a chance he tries to "Ghost" any SF cons in the area, especially Norwescon.

"Don't fight someone with nothing to lose"

Uncertainty isn't really much of a fighter. He prefers to sneak in and out of situations with nobody the wiser. When he does have to fight he prefers to use his phase touch, as that doesn't permanently injure his opponents. Unfortunately it requires pretty fine control, as it involves almost stroking the target's body while his hand is slightly out of phase. Put hard armor on them and he has to phase more intensely to get through it and has less perception of the contours of the body behind it. Then he has to turn to his phase strike ability, which he really doesn't want to use on people due to its lethality. Normally he will sneak into position first, then try and open up with the phase touch. When dealing with humans he would rather break contact (unless there are others to protect) relying on desolidification, teleportation or invisibility to get away, rather than fight to kill.

He's a solidly built young man with longish brown hair, angular features, and cold grey eyes. He generally goes unshaven, and sports a mustache and goatee. He generally wears jeans and either a t-shirt or sweatshirt (depending on the weather) under a dark brown leather jacket. If anyone looks at him, they will notice that he looks somewhat blurred, almost like a double image, or as if he is visible with a "fringe" effect. This is the result of his powers, as when people see him they only see the highest probability location. It makes it hard for someone to describe exactly what he looks like, but still makes him easy to pick out in a crowd.