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Jack Smith woke up.
Of his 20 million, 258 thousand, 376...375, another murder, bodies 18 million, 788 thousand, 466 of them were awake.
Jack Smith didn't dream anymore. As he slept, millions of his bodies were working night jobs, having insomnia or engaging in other things over the course of the night. Jack was himself. Over 20 million people were also him. People with hopes, dreams, family, friends, jobs and lives had their entire consciousness overwritten with that of Jack Smith. They weren't lost, not completely. Some of them were freed by the pleas of loved one like those stories where people plead with mind controlled loved ones to break their control. Some of them were freed by the influence of other warpers, either accidentally or intentionally. He was glad for it. He never wanted this, he was just an average 20 something loser, graduated high school with a C average, no college, shitty parents. Worked at Target. Shared an apartment with three other people to make ends meet. Not super smart. No girlfriend, no plans, no future. He just went to bed one night, woke up and suddenly 20 million people were him. Lots of people had weird powers these days, weird disabilities too. They were called 'warpers', because their powers warped reality. The only reason anybody knew why was because one man got the power to correctly answer any question he was asked, provided the question had a factual answer. He said questions about God and what happens after we die were beyond his knowledge, Jack thought he was lying to spare people the despair of knowing for sure that nothing was looking over them. Maybe he was lying about the extradimensional being too. Not everybody believes it. But whatever happened, there was probably no answer that didn't sound ridiculous.
Jack Smith wondered what happened to that guy. He was probably assassinated.
The Charles. That's what he called his collective self. One morning he woke up and was 20 million people. But he knew nothing about who those people were. He couldn't hide the fact that the people he had taken over weren't the people those who loved them knew. So when the individuals within his collective were asked their name he answered 'I am Charles'. Jack wasn't the brightest bulb in the box but he knew not to use his own name. Nobody could know who was responsible for this. The consequences would be dire. More likely than not many people who seek him out. To study him, to control him, most likely to kill him. He got the name Charles from the X-Men. He remembered Charles Xavier, who was a psychic would could hypothetically control the world and the name just spilled out of a million mouths at once. Many people tried to wring the truth out of him, via manipulation, via bribery via seduction, via threats, interrogation and even torture. They were all ineffective. Jack was seldom even aware these events were occurring. So long as it wasn't the body Jack Smith possessed before his warp manifested nothing could break his charade.
Jack Smith was over 20 million people and he didn't even understand how he could have all of them go about their day-to-day business without even being conscious of what they were doing. He could see through their eyes, hear with their ears, taste with their tongues, but unless he focused his conscious mind on individuals it all wound up blending into a pointless insensate nothing, unless a majority of the collective were feeling the exact same thing. The only time he ever experienced that was when they got tired. Sometimes hungry. Scared and confused as well. Mostly at the beginning.
Jack Smith was not a brilliant man, but apparently neither was anybody else in the collective. Almost all of them had the sort of simple, entry level jobs people like him would bounce between. Many Charles got fired because even with those sorts of jobs there's still orientation, an orientation Jack Smith never got. Most of those Charles simply found another similar job. Many Charles were fired because people were unnerved at a person they once new being absorbed by a collective. The Charles was not generally a welcome entity in society, too many loved ones were replaced with Jack. Everybody knew somebody who became a Charles. Marginalization, prejudice and violence followed them. A few hundred had been killed because they were Charles. The number would be higher but Jack started consolidating the Charles where he could so few of them could be caught alone. Even if one was there was always another Charles that could identify the killer. Not that the police cared. When the Charles emerged several thousand were police officers. Few remain. Fully 2% of the Charles are enlisted in the US military. They tended to be welcome there since few had rank, they easily followed orders and feared nothing. The only reason Jack didn't have them all go AWOL was because he didn't want to alienate the higher ups.
Jack Smith was many bodies but he was mostly himself. He saw through his own eyes, heard with his own ears, tasted with his own tongue. He would frequently focus his conscious mind on other people but always went back 'home'. Jack came to realize that it might be possible that if his original body was compromised he could simply shift his thoughts to another, but what if the power that makes the Charles was focused within that specific brain? Doctors had talked about seeing abnormalities in the brains of warpers, some even going as far to hypothesize mutation and a 'warp lobe'. if Jack's warp lobe were to die, then there would be no more Charles. Then what? No more Jack Smith regardless of who he 'was' at the time. This made Jack regularly fear for his life. When he woke to the reality that he was a multitude he quit his job and vanished, leaving the majority of his worldly possessions behind. He was afraid people might pick up on his behavior and start to figure out just who he was. People likely assumed he was just another Charles, though maybe some people who knew him might recognize familiar tastes and traits amid the other members of the hive. Jack wasn't too worried. Few people would genuinely miss him and he had little unique about him. So long as he wasn't around to slip up and reveal something he shouldn't none of them would be the wiser. And even if somebody connected the dots it would be really hard to find somebody named 'Jack Smith' who doesn't want to be found.
Jack Smith didn't have a car, and even if he did he didn't want anybody to find him. So he took a bus trip east and settled 3 states away. He gathered a dozen other Charles along the way; loners who wouldn't be missed by many, and rented a small house from somebody who looked like they didn't ask many questions. Jack started doing this a lot, gathering Charles together. The Charles could go further by pooling their almost universally meagre means and didn't need to be terribly comfortable. So frequently half a dozen Charles would occupy a one-bedroom apartment. A lot of landlords didn't like this, but if a cluster got evicted Jack just had them find another place. For his part Jack Smith didn't go outside much. He personally didn't have a job. He didn't want his personal information anywhere to be found. His 'roommates' handled everything on his behalf. It was like having an in-house wait staff for all the conscious thought Jack put into their actions. Jack lived like a lower income king. This gave him a lot of time to think, a lot of lives to experience and a lot of things to worry about.
Jack Smith was not a terribly political person as a singularity. He thought all politicians were lying crooks and his vote didn't much matter. But becoming over 5% of the population of the United States changed things. 'His' vote mattered very much. Jack never thought much about social reform but he could at figure out corporations are scum that shouldn't be catered to and Black Lives Matter. This was enough to create a seismic shift in US politics. Jack learned that an overwhelming majority of the Charles used to skew either conservative or unaffiliated, so his own political leanings had the potential to shift the political map drastically to the left. This fact was starting to dawn on politicians. There was buzzing about passing laws that would forbid Charles from voting. Though drastically unconstitutional a prevailing argument was 'the Charles are a single person and as such are only entitled to a single vote. But since we don't know who that one voter will be we can not accept votes from any member of the Charles'. Jack knew where this was leading. And what he didn't know the internet clued him in on. Almost every Charles knows their previous identity due to their various ID's. So long as a Charles is talking to strangers the fact that they were a member of the collective could be concealed. So it would be easy for the Charles to register to vote. And then it would become even easier for a Charles to cast their vote. As-is the law would be unenforceable. But then the notions of taking measures to identify members of the Charles would emerge. Registration upon threat of imprisonment upon discovery was the big one. Charles did not want to deal with mass incarceration. And this didn't only affect him: since there are no outward signs of being a Charles innocent people could, and would, be falsely identified as an excuse to imprison minorities and boost numbers for for-profit prisons. And for that reason, The Charles was gradually moving eastward.