Barney Fletcher was born in Portsmouth, England in June of 1768. the only son of Cassandra Fletcher and Captain William Ogden, the captain of a merchant ship who went to sea and never returned before Barney was born.
Cassandra loved her son, but Barney was somewhat of a burden on her, and she struggled at times to keep both of them fed and clothed. In 1773 Cassandra married James Hooper a wealthy merchant who accepted Barney as his step-son but had little time for the boy, as he was only in reality interested in Cassandra and her income from a life of prostitution.
In 1775 around the time of the outbreak of the American Revolutionary war the need for men and boys in the Royal Navy provided James Hooper with a means to an end to rid himself of his step-son and enable Cassandra to focus on other matters. Whilst Cassandra was out for the night James Hooper threw Barney out onto the street just as a press gang were in the general vicinity and thus Barney was pressed into naval service.
Barney served first aboard HMS Kingfisher and then HMS Vulture between 1775 and 1780, he managed to keep his head down and avoid the ire of the officers aboard both sloops-of-war of the Swan class.
In 1780 whilst ashore in New York Barney despite having little knowledge of how to swim dove head first into the harbour to save the life of a young girl who'd fallen in, if not for his quick actions and those of the crew of a boat in the harbour to retrieve both the girl would in all likelihood have drowned.
The girl whose life Barney saved was that of Elisabeth Harper, whose father was a powerful businessman in the Caribbean, who saw fit to sponsor Barney to rise above a mere powder monkey to become a Midshipman.
Mr Midshipman Barney Fletcher was assigned to a berth on board HMS Monarch and placed under the command of Captain Francis Reynolds-Moreton (1739-1808), where he remained earning his keep, and a reputation for being a stickler for the rules and regulations.
Between the 9th and 12th of April 1782 the Battle of the Saintes raged, Barney Fletcher was mortally wounded on the deck of HMS Monarch and 'died' before he could be seen to on the Orlop deck.
Barney Fletcher awoke uninjured and showing no signs of having been dead moments earlier, his survival was quite miraculous, but welcomed nonetheless. Barney was soon passed fit to return to service.
At the end of the American Revolutionary War Barney did not return to the United Kingdom, as he had since found out his mother had died in 1782, and his stepfather had been hanged for her murder.
In 1785 Barney met someone who was like him, Immortal and understood why he had 'survived' being shot down by a French sniper, her name Sai, she was a woman of leisure, who took him on as her protege.
Sati and Barney remained together for the next 20 years or so, Barney was already an adequate swordsman from his naval service, but Sati helped her protege hone his skills to the point where he was more than capable of in a duel disarm her.
In 1805 Sati and Barney were in Boston Massachusetts when they were confronted by another Immortal, a man known as Matthias, Sati urged Barney to flee to the safety of Holy Ground whilst she 'dealt' with Matthias. Sati lost her head that night, she was no match for Matthias but her sacrifice enabled Barney to escape.
Barney survived on his own for the next 7 years, taking his first Quickening that of another child Immortal who'd tried to trick him into lowering his guard before she could strike, but he was too quick for the unnamed Immortal.
Barney served in the US navy during the War of 1812, not as a Midshipman but as he had been before 1780, and as expected came out of the conflict uninjured (he had been on several occasions wounded but showed no signs of any injuries).
During the period between 1815 and 1858 Barney moved around the United States keeping a low profile, taking a further two Quickenings along the way, one was a black slave who'd escaped and tried to kill Barney and the other was a drunk who proved to be far too drunk to be able to kill Barney.
In 1858 Barney, now known as Ben, was adopted by Joel and Amanda Fitzmartin, who never once questioned how or why Barney (Ben) had survived what ought to have been a fatal fall from a cliff, let alone escaped the fall with no broken bones.
In 1861 Joel and Ben enlisted in the Union Army, Joel as a Corporal having served in the US Army previous and Ben as a Drummer Boy, Amanda had died the previous winter as a result of complications arising from childbirth as had the baby girl.
In 1862 during the First Battle of Kernstown both Joel and Ben were listed as KIA, how Ben came to be killed is unclear, but Joel is believed to have died on purpose as he was unable to live without either his wife or 'son'.
Sometime later in 1862, Barney was exhumed from the mass grave in which he'd been buried by a small group of African American slaves fleeing the South headed north to freedom, the group included two fledgling Immortals Josiah Jacobs and Lizzie Harper.
The group soon reached Union lines, Barney was no longer in a Union Army uniform as had he been seen in one there was a likelihood he might have been court-martialed and shot for Desertion. Fortunately none of the Union soldiers that found them recognized Barney as a former drummer boy and the group were escorted to safety and from there the three Immortals were separated.
Barney joined the Union navy as a powder monkey in 1863, he remained in the navy until the end of the war, when he was discharged, and went home with Tobias Renshaw, who adopted the orphaned youth.
In 1882 Barney now living in San Francisco California met an Immortal named Cassie, a prostitute who'd been raped and murdered by a client, Barney did the best he could to teach her the rules of the Game and so forth. However Cassie refused to listen and within days she'd been killed by an unnamed Immortal, her demise was hard on Barney as he had tried to help her to survive.
Sometime between 1882 and 1905 Barney met an Immortal named Vladimir Kosskov and together they moved from the USA to Russia, living in luxury in Saint Petersburg, Barney as a result went by the name Nikita Kosskov, Vladimir's nephew (the real Nikita Kosskov died in infancy).
Barney lived in Russia with Vladimir until 1917-18 when he fled the Bolshevik takeover of Russia and the ensuing Civil War, but not before beheading Vladimir Kosskov who was a Bolshevik sympathiser.
Between 1918 and 1945 Barney's whereabouts are unclear, he next surfaces in Berlin in 1945, as Adalbert Klien, one of the Hitler Youth defenders of Berlin, he was a skilled user of the Panzerfaust anti-tank weapon, and during the Battle of Berlin he destroyed 6 Soviet T-34 tanks, and was shot dead by snipers 3 times. On the 5th of May 1945 Barney was one of numerous former defenders of Berlin to be captured and hanged from lampposts for Desertion, the fact that he won the Iron Cross 2nd Class meant little.
In the wee small hours of the morning of the 6th of May 1945, Barney was cut down from the lamppost where he'd been hanged, by Trudl Steiner a German woman who found him struggling to free himself and together they fled Berlin reaching American lines just as Germany surrendered. Trudl never once questioned how he'd survived being hanged, she just accepted it as a miracle amidst all of the horrors of World War 2.
Barney and Trudl emigrated to America in 1948, where they lived together in various places until her death from cancer in 1980, just before Trudl succumbed to cancer Barney told her the truth about him and being Immortal.
Since Trudl died in 1980, Barney spent most of the time as a street kid, living rough, doing whatever it took to survive, in doing so he did time in juvenile detention for his crimes and endured stints in Foster Homes.
When the Superflu hit in 2002 Barney was using the name Oliver Simcox was in Arizona, where he had been living, at the time of the outbreak he was on remand at the Durango Juvenile Detention Facility for allegedly committing a series of crimes including car theft and joyriding.
Whilst everyone else guards and inmates alike died from the plague, Barney remained fit, healthy, but his sleep had been disturbed, visions of some old woman and Boulder Colorado, a place he'd never been to. The last act of a dying member of staff was to unlock all of the doors to allow Barney to flee the prison, the disease had wiped out so many, there was no likelihood his escape would be noticed.
No sooner had Barney escaped jail having changed into the clothes he was admitted wearing, he returned to his hideout where he retrieved his sword and possessions and resumed the journey towards Boulder Colorado, to find the source of his weird dreams.
