It all really started back at Washington State University. On Monday morning, Tom headed over to see his best friend George Lawton in the chemistry department. Tom met George when they were both freshmen at WSU and were assigned as dorm roommates.  Now Tom was in law school, George was a graduate student in the chemistry department, and Tom’s little sister Laurie was a junior in elementary education at WSU. Tom had just noticed last week that Laurie was quite attractive and had recently broken up with her boyfriend. They went out Saturday night, and had a great time. Tom wanted to tell George all about it (Well, maybe not all) and maybe go get a cup of coffee before classes.

    George worked for a chemistry professor who often had him sitting up all night babysitting reactions in his research. This was OK, since George was no longer taking classes, but it did mean that the only times for Tom to talk to George were early in the morning and late at night.

    When Tom got to the lab, he told George how well the date went and they decided they could go for coffee once Professor Melworth came in for the morning. George told Tom that he needed to go to the bathroom and, as always, reminded Tom not to touch anything while he was gone. As always, once George was out of the room, Tom was flicking pipettes, twiddling knobs and swirling beakers. He didn’t want to mess anything up, and he couldn’t even tell you why he did it, but he just couldn’t not fiddle with whatever was around.

    Today, there was an interesting thick green mixture sitting over a low flame on a Bunsen burner. Tom fiddled with the flame on the burner for a moment and then turned to look at the gunmetal gray liquid in a titration pipe. When the beaker of green stuff blew up behind him from the now much higher heat, the sound made Tom duck forward and break the titration pipe. Because of this, the green stuff and the gunmetal gray liquid mixed right on the back of Tom’s neck. After a moment of queasiness for Tom, George was back in the room and running cold water over the light burn on the back of Tom’s neck.

    George reassured Tom that the experimental plastics the lab was making were not poisonous, though they did have some amazing deformation properties. They then went for coffee and George continued to describe the new plastics he was working on in the lab with Professor Melworth. Tom had been told all of this before, but he had never been able to focus on it much. He began playing with the coffee mug.

    First swirling the mug, and then shaking it back and forth, it seemed that each time tried shaking the cup it was shaking faster and faster. Suddenly, it shook very fast; so fast that the mug shattered, spraying coffee all over the table.

    After a few jokes about Tom needing to stay away from hot liquids for the rest of the day George went home to bed and Tom went off to classes.

    That was four years ago, and quite a lot has happened in that time. George finished his degree and is now working as a regional sales representative for a major chemical company. He has been working on the Eastern seaboard for the last two years. When Tom finished law school he went to work as a tax attorney for Boeing. More importantly, he married Laurie two years ago and they now have a little baby boy.

    More unusual is that since that time, Tom has been displaying some odd abilities. He can vibrate himself and other things amazingly quickly. He also can absorb any attack and turn it into more energy for those vibrations. Calling himself Rebound, he spent some of his evenings and nights roaming around downtown Seattle fighting crime. Nothing much, some small time thugs, and recently some problems with the Tongs formed by the new Asian immigrants. What he prefers to roam the rooftops looking for trouble. He isn’t very good at it, and he frequently falls, but he prefers the view of the situation from above and the falls only make his powers stronger. He even likes to enter a crime scene by making a pithy comment and diving off a roof to charge up his powers. It also tends to stop the action for a bit and gives him a certain type of surprise.

    His problem is that since nothing much happens in Seattle, no one outside the American Northwest has ever heard of Rebound. Tom longs for the celebrity status of the big name heroes of the east coast. That was, until two months ago. Tom managed to get a transfer to the Washington D.C. lobbying offices of Boeing. Now Rebound has begun to prowl the streets of Washington D.C. and surrounding cities. Still no detective, Tom looks for some crime and sometimes walks right into the middle of it. He frequently gets shot or beaten up, but he almost looks forward to it since it just increases his powers. Best of all, he recently got a connection to the JLA.

    It all started at lunch. Not wanting to lose any opportunities, Tom always kept a uniform at the office. As a lobbyist’s office, the building had a number of hidden ways to enter and exit, as well as a large number of places to be where no one can see what you are doing. Looking out his window, Tom noticed that three large figures in some sort of powered armour suits had surrounded a limo and its caravan of security cars. Uniformed officers swarmed out of the cars and shot the armored figures, but it wasn’t having any effect. Tom changed quickly and arrived on the street just as another hero, Titan, was arriving.

    As Titan rushed one of the power-armoured men, he was surprised to see rocket-powered jump pods swivel out of the armor at the legs.  The armored man bounced right over Titan’s outstretched arms. Titan was looking around for things to throw at the armored men when Rebound came up to him.

    “I can knock them down, but first I need you to hit me,” Rebound said as he ran up to Titan.

    “What do you mean hit you? We’re supposed to hit them!”

    “I don’t have time to explain to you, they’re starting to rip the top off that limo. Just shut up and hit me!”

    “I can’t hit you, you can take it, I might kill you. I don’t even know who you are.”

    “Quit being such a stupid idiot. Just hit me you big ugly tin can!”

    Rebound managed to get Titan mad enough that Titan hit him right across the street and into a wall. Rebound stood up thinking, “I think I can blast these guys now, but Laurie is gonna kill me for already wrecking this uniform.”

    Rebound calmly knocked the rocket boosters off the legs of the armoured men. Without the mobility to avoid Titan, the three armoured men were quickly subdued. Afterward, Titan told Rebound to stop by JLA headquarters if he ever got to Metropolis.