David Rice

Story 

 

Novel 

David's first jump was made escaping brutal physical assault from his abusive father. He teleported into a local library and vowed never to return to his father house. He instead decided to make his way to New York City but finds the world isn't as he had hoped. After nearly been ganged raped by truckers(where he made his second jump seconds before this happens), mugged and repeatedly failing to find a job without legal documents he decided to rob a bank of nearly a million dollars by jumping into a vault and looting it. His life changed and he beganusing his team to do leisure activities such as reading, dinning in extravagant restaurants and attending plays. On one such play he met a woman named Millie Harrison who takes liking into him. They tour New York together before she has to leave for college in Oklahoma. David then tries to reconnect with his missing mother who fled his father's tyrannical household after been beaten severely. It is revealed that she had tried to contact him over the years but all attempts where blocked by his father.  
 

 
Things took a turn of events after he tried to play hero by stopping a man from beating his wife (much like his father did to his mother). He teleported the man to a park but it is revealed that the man was a police officer. The police start an investigation and David is forced to move to Oklahoma, renting an apartment close to where Millie lived. Unfortunately while the police in New York raided his apartment Millie called (it goes to voice mail) informing him she was breaking up with him.   

 
David then finds his mother-Mary- who was on a business trip at the time. She and all the passengers on the plane died after terrorists took over the plane. Finidng out about this David vowed to use his powers to track down the man who did this. While hunting for the terrorist david and Millie reconciled. At the same time the NSA found out about him after vieiwng security footage of him in Libya (hunting down Rashid Matar the man who claimed responsibility for the plane incident) and hours later find footage of the same man in the USA. Baffled they also launch an investigation. They aprrehend him and question him but he jumped out of their office with several witnesses seeing his power.  He had told them "we come in peace" alluding he is in fact an alien but it isn't bought. During a raid of one of his apartments but he jumped just before the shot him down with tranquilizers.  A man named Brain Cox - who witnessed David powers himself in the office- lead the investigation which lead them to Millie. He kidnapped Millie and held her over David, trying to get him to work for them to jump agents to location needed around the world. He instead captured Brain, Rashid (who he found) and his father.  
 
Instead of killing his captives David let Rashid go with a warning, Forced his father to recgonize his abusive ways and got him enrolled in counseling. Brain Cox, feeling a connection in the experience decided to reform, handing over Millie and Vowed to stop hunting David down. The novel ended with David and Millie reconciled and David deciding to put himself through counselling to sort out his own internal pain and turmoil.  
 

MOVIE 

Here david had known Millie nearly all his life and his mother left him unexpectedly when he was 5. He lives in Ann Arbor Michigan and attends high school. when he is 15 decided to get Millie a snow globe from a garage sale.However a bully Mark Kobalt decided to immaturely throw it onto the frozen river bed near the school. David, despite Millie's urgent warning decided to try to go after it. He found and got the globe but the thin ice under him gave way. He found himself unable to get back to the surface and nearly drowned but in a miraculously moment he "jumped" to the local library where he often spent time escaping his life at home. He returned home to his fathers shouting and decided to march to his room. His father warned him to clean up the water (he arrived home quite wet and likely nearly suffering pneumonia) but just as his father angrily burst into his room, he jumped away to the library again. He seemingly is cured from any ill effects of  falling in icy water and instead vowed never to return to his father's house again. He jumped to Millie's house where he leaves the globe on a swing outside her bed window. She sees it but he refuses to answer her urgent cries to reveal himself thinking it would make things too complicated revealing his abilities.   
 

 
He instead moved to New York and rented a small motel room in Brooklyn using his savings. After he practiced his powers in the park he decided to the rob a bank to provide for himself. he does this by jumping into the bank vault after office hours and stealing nearly a million dollars. he used a small amount to pay for his rent the same night. 
 
The movie moved forward 8 years, he now lived in an uptown new york lazily jumping around his apartment and around the world. He had a special store in his classy penthouse which housed money from different currencies and some gold coins, all sorted in different shelfs by their likes hinting he not only has mastered his teleporting but also robbed more banks. He supposedly had coffee in paris, surfed in Maldives, took a nap on Kilimanjaro and got digits (phone number) from a woman in Brazil, before finally jumping back for the final quarter of the NBA finals and "all of that was before lunch" while describing a typical day.  On one such jumping event in London (where he teleported first on top of the big ben) he accidentally alerted the attention of another jumper, Griffin, while swooning a woman. He teleported back to his apartment after a 1 night stand and surfing in Fiji (followed by lunch on the Styx's head in Egypt) to find Roland Cox (brain cox in the novel) who threatened then severely beat him around his apartment using electrically conductive wires and batons.    
 

      
David narrowly escaped with several bags of US dollars and jumped back to his father's house. His reassured his frantic father he was not crazy while the latter tried to tell him he can come home. Meanwhile Roland in New york searched his apartment and "jump sites" and found a picture of Millie, pondering who she was. David -now with no real home- went back to his old neighborhood and tried to reconnect with Millie. After discovering her in a bar at the state University he left without saying hello. On his way out however he is confronted by his old bully Mark Kobalt who cannot believe he is alive. He tried to reassure mark he was not who he thought he was but Millie arrived and confronted him.  
 
However the reunion is cut short when a drunken Mark ass-grabs Millie which angered David to the point of punching Mark. the two engaged in a fight with mark getting the upper hand however after been shoved into a garbage collecting area out of the sight of people David jumped Mark back to the first bank vault he robbed, telling his bully he did not realize his strength. He teleported back to the back of the bar in time before Millie finds him and teold her Mark ran off and "he doesn't think he's coming back soon" much to Millie's surprise. The two walked back to the bar and discuss their life and time apart. David invited Millie to tour Rome with him (her long time dream as lamp-shaded in the beginning of the film).   

        In Rome they began a romantic relationship (apparently having sex in their uptown hotel room). Millie however began to suspect David was lying about his career (supposedly "banking" despite failing algebra) and how he managed to afford all they had. He told her he didn't want to lie to her and instead kept it inside. One day after breaking into the Coliseum to explore it -Millie's life long ambition- David encountered Griffin again though he doesn't recognize him. Griffin is revealed to have been following him since the London incident (and is even seen inside the bar in Michigan where Millie worked). He warned David not to open the door for Millie to enter the lower realms of the coliseum (David jumped to the inner realm in hope of opening a door for Millie from that side). The two encounter two Paladins and fight, Griffin showed more impressive jumping techniques (mixing normal fight moves with jumping) and teleported the two dead paladins to his lair in the Egyptian (or Arabian) desert. A tour guide spotted the fight and Griffin killing a paladin and called for the police.  
 
 
David jumped through Griffins Jump Scar to his highly equipped and well built lair but is told off, cursed at and told to rescue his "little girlfriend". remembering Millie he jumped back and tried to escape the coliseum but is told off by the tour guide who previously saw him and is arrested. he is then rescued from the police by his mother (revealed to be a paladin who fled after David displayed his first jump at 5), she told him to ditch Millie or she would die and gave him the key to his handcuffs. He teleported his interrogator to Egypt (on the Styx) and escaped the police station with his Millie (who was in the waiting room). Soon after he took her to the airport and bought tickets for her to the USA. She is thoroughly disgruntled and then demanded to know what is going on and what is in his bag which he so closely guarded. He reveals it to be filled with money in a secret pocket and though he doesn't offer her an answer but informs her he will meet her in Ann Arbor and left the airport.   
 

 
Jumping back to Griffins lair the tried to find the truth about the Paladins and the secret conspiracy. Griffin told David the Paladin had been hunting Jumpers for centuries since the Middle ages over religious reasons and the witch hunt crusade in Europe was secretly a plot to track down jumpers. He then told him that everyone he loved would be killed like most jumpers will eventually will be.  In the meanwhile Roland has tracked David's father and after asking him questions and discovered Davids mother (who is a paladin on his team) he decided to kill David's father. David soon found him and jumped him to a hospital where he is confirmed dead. He jumped back to the griffins lair where griffin revealed he had left the paladins bodies in a shark pit in the middle of the Atlantic. They agreed to team up to kill Roland while griffin steals a Mercedes and tours Tokyo. There David learned more about jumpers, that they can jump anything that moved but there is a set limit to any stationary object they tried to jump. Griffin told David of a jumper who died trying to jump a building and how his parents were killed by Roland after his first jump at 5.  
 
They teleported to Ann Arbor airport where Griffin revealed the flight landed 1 hour ago. David decided to go after Millie at her apartment while Griffin armed up at the lair where they would meet up. David met Millie in her apartment where he displays his powers to her. Just then Roland and his crew arrived and david frantically teleported Millie and himself to Griffins lair. Griffin is shocked to see Millie there and reprimanded David for brining her there. telling him the Paladins could follow him through his jump scar which takes several minutes to fully dissipate via use of a high tech machine. David teleported Millie outside the lair to the desert and he and Griffin hide inside. The Paladins arrive -lead by Roland- but David revealed his hiding spot after he saw an image of the his mom with Griffins writing over it. he was sent flying  and pinned to a wall via electrically charged wires -the same technique used in his apartment and in Rome-and is left unable to teleport due to the strong electric current moving through his brain and the fact that he is pinned to a very large stationary object (the wall and conversely Griffins lair itself).David asked Roland why he is doing this and that he isn't a bad person. Roland told him that over time all jumpers go bad. David tried to convince him he was different but Roland eerily replied that he was not.  
 

 
Before he can kill David Griffin arrives with a flame thrower and kills all the paladins in his lair apart from Roland who unnerves him  by taunting him about his dead parents. he jump punches Roland clear our of the lair to the desert and teleports a large double decker bus from London to crush Roland. Roland scrambles away and runs back to the open jump scar to Millie's apartment. Griffin chases them with the flamethrower and kills most of the paladins in Millie's apartment too. Millie in the commotion runs back to the lair and seeing David trapped, unties him with a knife. Millie then commands David to take her home but David reveals to her that he has loved her since he was 5 and if its her wish he will comply. just then Griffin arrives back in the lair with the machine from the paladins, stranding them there and removing their only way to follow jumpers through a jump scar. However Roland catches Millie with an electric rope and pulls her through the jump scar into the apartment and holds her hostage. Griffin and David are speechless... 
 
David proposed they try to go after her but Griffin assured him it is a trap. he instead revealed a bomb which he planned to teleport to the apartment to kill Roland, the surviving paladins and in essence Millie. He also revealed it was Roland who killed his parents when he was 5. David told him he could not let that happen. punched him and teleported himself and the bomb away. Griffin recovered quickly and chased David through his jump scar where he threatened David. David again tried to teleport the bomb but this time both he and Griffin try to teleport it to different places at the same time. It ends up in Egypt again and Griffin lost his patience and beats david on the top of a pyramid where the bomb was. David leaved the bomb but when Griffin isn't looking teleportd himself and the detonator away. Griffin again gave chase. this time leading to a world spanning fight and game of cat and mouse, touching New York, Dubai, Antarctica, San Fransisco amoung other location. Each followed the other through their jump scars. the fight finally ended in a full out battle field in Chechnya where David trapped Griffin by teleporting him to a collapsing power grid, temporarily immobilizing him. Griffin told David he couldn't take the Paladins without him and he wasn't a hero just "a jumper".  
 

 
 
David ignored him and jumped back to the apartment and tried to free Millie but was pinned to a wall via electric cables yet again by the paladins.  He focused, told Millie to close her eyes and jumps the apartment to the river he conducted his first jump much to all the paladins surprise. He (although it it strongly implied Millie did it) then jumped it all to the library he used to attend. David is knocked out by effort but comes around. Meanwhile Roland seemed to be the only Paladin alive and is badly injured. Roland taunted david again but David jumped him to a cave above a lake in the grand canyon. He told Roland that he told him he was different, pointed out he could have jumped him to a place full of sharks like Griffin does. He teleported away, leaving Roland there who surveyed the area with a pained look on his face. Later he is seen to have tracked his mother -who seemed to have had another daughter-and she explained that she left him so she wouldn't have to kill him.She told him she would give him a head start now (as the new head of the paladins). Outside he met up with a cold Millie who suggested she wanted to go somewhere warmer. he asked her where and she replied anywhere. the movie ended with them teleporting to an unknown location.  
 

   

Attributes and personality

David is often described as a naive, sensitive and good natured human, in the book he is said to be strikingly handsome and excellent in bed as well as having wonderful eyes. Throughout the novel and movie he faced struggles which often puts him in a situation where he had the power of ones life and death. In the novel he is portrayed as been still emotionally scarred by the abuse of his father and very lonely. In both mediums his nickname is Riceball and he has told people he is a "banker" as a job description. In the film his age of 23 is rare as most jumpers die before the age of 20 due to been constantly hunted.
  

Powers 

David and other jumpers can jump themselves and extra stationary weight (at a limit) anywhere. It has been said by the directors that he can jump between planets and anywhere in space and through time. He cannot jump if too much electric currents are travelling through his brain in the movie while in the novel his hands must be free and he must have been to a place in order to jump there. He jumps via a wormhole or fissure in the space-time continuum which he creates by the sheer force of will. After each teleportation he leaves a fissure in the fabric of space called a jump scar which other jumpers can use to follow him. Paladins can also jump through a jump scar provided it has not closed up using a special machine. Despite the fact that David cannot move stationary objects weighing more than several hundred kilograms at the end of the film he teleported an entire apartment even while an electric current was passing through his brain and he was pinned to the wall and secondly even though he was underwater (though it is strong hinted this could have been Millie). The fact he was able to do this makes him perhaps the most powerful jumper. However if the powers told by the directors are true that would mean they are other jumpers far more powerful than him...