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A superhero who can use his powers and mind to interact with cyberspace, a computer-generated virtually real world (i.e., "virtual reality").
Cybernaut is W.D. "Duffy" Stoner. You’d like him. Quiet. Honorable. A Kevin Costner type. Only 25, he retired from the Marines after his second tour of duty, spent in Bonn, Germany, where he met Athena Stewart and got engaged.
But Athena’s father is Adam Stewart, founder of Chiffre Technologies. Stewart is the American envoy in Germany, but has his sights set on a Cabinet position, to which end he has promised Athena to the son of a powerful union lobbyist.
So Duffy has to go.
A week after Duffy’s tour ends and he returns to his native Rhode Island, the charred and wrecked remains of Duffy’s pickup is found by the side of a county road. Mysteriously, Duffy’s remains cannot be found.
The action in this series kicks off after Dr. Joe Curwen rescues Duffy.
Proving it is a small world after all©, Curwen recently was released from his job at Chiffre’s Silicon Valley research center, where his superiors forecasted his cybernetic experiments, if successful, to be ultimately unprofitable. However, because of his employee contract, Curwen was not allowed to take any of this research with him. It all belongs to Chiffre.
But Curwen is determined to continue his research, despite the consequences. A graduate of MIT and The Johns Hopkins University, Curwen rented a farm in a secluded part of Rhode Island to be near, but not obviously close, to his old schools and their resources.
One night he heard a crash, followed the sound, and pulled Duffy out of the pickup before it burst into flames. Duffy’s injuries are fatal, however, so Curwen makes a go-for-broke decision. He quickly bathes Duffy in a mercurial solution that seeps through the dying man’s skin, in the process grafting millions of polycarbon-graphite, kevlar microfilaments Curwen calls PYGment® to Duffy’s body. The PYGments® link up to Duffy’s central nervous system, where they are regulated by his brainstem, the part of the mind that controls the body’s basic biological functions. In the process, the microfilaments repair Duffy’s injuries.
And, thus, Cybernaut is born!
Curwen tutors Duffy in the uses of PYGment® as the young man recovers. The microfilaments can instantaneously grow through Duffy’s pores and intertwine to cover sections of his body (arm, foot, thigh, finger, forehead, et. al.) or his entire person with a nigh-invincible armor skin. PYGment® cannot enhance his body’s strength or speed – at least not yet – but Duffy can manipulate this armor skin to disguise himself as other people his approximate size and weight, as well as create simple objects that he can use as tools (e.g., hammer, screwdriver, crowbar, hook).
Even cooler, Duffy can use PYGment® and his mind to interact with cyberspace, giving him access to any information in any computer or supercomputer on any network in the world, or that he can physically contact. Once he begins to interact, Duffy can work at the speed of the computer, making encryptions and codes useless, a swifter cyberspace program the only thing that can bar his access.
Duffy has been turned into a superspy, the envy of any intelligence or espionage organization on the planet. But he has no intention of becoming a spy. Because of the "accident" that almost killed him, Duffy opts to use his powers as a superhero, albeit one with a mission: Duffy has a little score to settle with Stewart.