January Novel Essential Information

Novel Title: Uncertain

Time Setting: 1876

Genre: Historical Fiction

Minimum Word Goal: 90,000

Timespan: March 1–31

Locations: Cimarron & Santa Fe, New Mexico Territory

Main Characters: Joseph Sheldon, Hazel Chalmers

Background Information:

Born the twelfth of fourteen children and youngest of the eight that made it to adulthood, Joseph lived a quiet and contented childhood as the son of a slave overseer and his wife in central Georgia.

His mother gave him his education, along with doting on him because he was the youngest of the family; his father taught him how to ride and train horses; and aside from them probably the most important person in his life was the Reverend Kittle's daughter Odelia.

In fact, church was a very important part of his family's life, but Joseph found it confusing. In Sunday School he was taught that all men were created in the image of God and, thus, were to be treated nicely, yet his parents — who were very devout and even gave him and his siblings further religious education at home — expressly forbid him from playing with, speaking to, and even looking at the children of the slaves his father oversaw.

To him they seemed perfectly normal children — even if their skin was practically the opposite colour of his own — and seeing as he was told in Sunday School that all men were made in the image of God, he figured that meant the slaves too. Therefore he was completely baffled as to why the slaves were different, but considering how severe his parents were in warning him not to interact with them, he didn't dare ask them what the difference was.

Seeing as he was forbidden to have them as playmates, Joseph eventually took to paying them no mind and instead focused the majority of his energies on Odelia Kittle, with whom he developed a strong relationship that led to her, when they were twelve, promising that she'd marry him as soon as they were old enough.

Before the six years could pass between twelve and eighteen, however, Georgia and several other states seceded from the United States of America and formed a nation they called the Confederate States of America; war between the two nations wasn't long in following.

Immediately Joseph's father and brothers enlisted, and it was made expressly clear to Joseph that once he reached eighteen he was to follow in their footsteps; honestly, though, Joseph didn't see why the cause was worth fighting for.

Even still, he did what was expected of him and, in 1862, enlisted in the Confederate army. Because he had exceptional skill with horses both on the ground and in the saddle he was placed into an elite cavalry unit that was otherwise comprised solely of plantation owners and their sons.

Because he was merely the son of an overseer his comrades initially weren't all that appreciative of his presence, but when he proved himself not only capable with a horse, but better than any of them were at the same, the majority changed their position, but by no means all of them.

After making it safely through the war, Joseph headed home, but only to learn that his mother had starved to death, his father and brothers had all been killed in battle, and — worst of all — Odelia had gone and married a draft-dodger, even though she'd become his fiancée just before he'd left to join his unit.

Realising there was nothing left for him in Georgia, Joseph took up the offer of an old friend to go west to Colorado and prospect for silver and gold.

In Colorado it didn't take long for him to find that panning for precious metals wasn't really his forte, however, the sheriff in town noted that he was skilled with a horse and accurate with a gun, so he offered Joseph a job as the town deputy that Joseph occupied quite happily until two years ago.

Two years ago his superior got word from New Mexico Territory that an old friend of his who'd been in law enforcement down there had been killed and the town he'd presided over was seeking a replacement. His superior wrote up a glowing letter of recommendation and sent Joseph to apply for the job.

Due to the glow of the recommendations given by his superior, Joseph was given the job, but he was given it on his qualifications alone. The town was chock-full of staunch Union supporters and veterans who still harboured resentment toward the South for the war; because Joseph couldn't hide his accent they knew he was from the South, and thus regarded him rather warily.

Even still, he has proved himself worthy of the accolades he came with and has done a good job upholding the law in the town with the help of only a Setter that he named Deputy.

In the two years he's been in New Mexico Territory he's also caught the eye of a young woman in town who's father is a prominent sheep rancher . . . and a former Union Lieutenant. It's taken pretty much the entire time he's been sheriff in town for the two of them to convince her father that he'd make a good husband for her in spite of where he came from, but finally her father has agreed to let them be married and plans are in the works for an autumn wedding.

Born the sixth of ten children in Kingston-upon-Hull, England, Hazel's paternal family operated a large merchant business that her father was a part of. Because the business was a profitable one Hazel and her siblings lived a prestigious childhood that included being sent to elite boarding schools at their grandfather's expense.

When she was twelve it was decided that, for the growth of the business, her father would move to the United States with his family — save the three oldest children, who were all married and starting families of their own — and they settled in New Jersey.

The prestigious education continued and Hazel considered possibly going to college to get a degree of some sort, but she put those ideas aside for the handsome young man who lived next door.

His family was from England, just like her own, and the two families had bonded, so the two saw a lot of each other and it didn't take too long for her to view him as fetchingly handsome, while he viewed her as ravishingly beautiful.

The same year she graduated from school he graduated from medical school, and shortly thereafter the two were married. In similarly swift fashion he took a job as a mortician for the city police of Elizabeth, where they settled.

Immediately they sought to have children, but their efforts proved to be futile in nature to start with, causing her husband to comb through all the medical resources he could find to see if he could possibly diagnose what the problem was.

Finally they were successful in conceiving a child — even though they hadn't figured out why it'd taken so long — and looked forward to the child's birth eagerly. Unfortunately, just a few months before the baby was expected to arrive, Hazel's husband was murdered while working late at the morgue. This news shocked and devastated Hazel into a premature labour and the baby, a girl, arrived stillborn.

Hazel had father and daughter buried together and then shared her home with one of her younger brothers who was attending college in Elizabeth; once his education was complete she moved back into her parents home, where she has since remained.

She is at a loss as to what to do now, as her life had seemed so assured until her husband's demise, so her mother encourages her to visit her widowed older sister — the sister who was her closest childhood companion — living out in New Mexico Territory.

Shortly after the suggestion is made, however, Hazel learns that her sister died of tuberculosis, leaving her two young children orphaned. It is determined that the children should be brought to New Jersey to be cared for by their grandparents and Hazel is sent to fetch them, seeing as she was meaning to head out their way anyways.

Novel Begins: January 1

Year End Summary

Word Total: 900,139

Increase Over Year Prior: -89,976

Novel Total: 9

Increase Over Year Prior: 0

Longest Novel: Trigger, 120,063 words, 212 pages
Shortest Novel: One Small Wish, 90,001 words, 163 pages; Unforeseen Events, 90,001 words, 164 pages
Summary of the Year:
In some ways, this has seemed a very long year, and in other ways, very short. The prolonged break in the middle of the summer probably has something to do with that on both ends of the spectrum.
There were a couple of surprises this year on the writing front; the first surprise was that I only wrote three 120,000-word novels, and the second was that I had my first-ever tie for a novel length of significance, as I actually had two novels tied for shortest in word count, even if One Small Wish takes the cake if one goes by page count.
I wrote a lot of fairly good stories this year, whether they were rewrites of old projects — such as Disconcerting, which was a reboot of the first-ever book I wrote, and Frigid Revenge — or new projects — all of which I really quite enjoyed in their own way — and really do feel like my writing abilities are improving with each passing novel.
Looking to next year, I'm excited for a few changes: the first is that I'll be going back to writing one novel a month from January–November and the second is that I intend to introduce some standardised symbols for my pronunciation guides, mostly because I feel the way that I presently write up my pronunciation guides isn't conveying things as accurately as I'd like it to.
Next year will also mark a little bit of a significant event in my writing career as I will be beginning my year with a novel of the historical genre for the first time; in fact, I'll be writing more than a few novels next year that have strong historical connections, which will be lots of fun.
Until next year, have a very Merry Christmas.

R.A. Millet

Next Post: December 31

Trigger: Day 20

Word Count: 120,030

Year to Date: 900,099

Summary of Events:

When the Billionaire Queen arrived home Spencer demanded she take the money to the police station and confess what she'd done. She refused to do so; as a result, he took the money and left to take the evidence he'd compiled against her to the police, even though he was weary from having not slept in over twenty hours . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

City Hall’s clock chiming that it was nine startled him. He figured he’d probably dozed off for a few minutes, but now it was time to move.

He got to his feet somewhat wearily — and he didn’t think fighting with Rylie had helped his fatigue either — and grabbed the handles of his cape. He hopped off the edge of the building and carefully glided to the ground, actually succeeding in landing right in front of the station doors even though he hadn’t actually been trying to do so.

Pushing open the door, he strode briskly up to the receptionist’s desk. She looked up as if surprised someone would be coming in so early, then startled at the sight of him and screamed before scrambling out of her seat and against the back wall of her office area as if she believed he’d charge through the glass barrier between them and attack her.

An officer, gun drawn, soon appeared from the hallway beside the office area and also startled.

“What do you want?” the officer asked as if he weren’t the one holding the gun.

He removed the USB drive from his pouch and held it out. “I wanted to give this to you.”

The officer looked at it warily.

“It’s just a USB drive,” he said. “It has all the evidence I’ve collected on the Billionaire Queen.”

Reticently the officer reached out and took it, warily looking between it and him for several moments before finally finding his tongue: “Who are you?”

“I am NightOwl,” he replied.

“You, you mean to help us?” the officer asked.

“I do,” he replied.

“So all we have to do is arrest her?” the officer asked.

“Well, at present she’s two states away,” he replied. “It’s my guess she’s making for the West Coast, so you may have to let authorities out there detain her, but all you need to give them for evidence why she should be detained is on that USB drive.”

“Does she have the money?” the officer asked.

“No,” he replied. “I relieved her of that, its location is identified in the contents of the drive.”

The officer nodded. “So you’re trying to help stop crime?”

“Yes,” he replied. “It needs to be stopped before it takes control of this city and all descends into chaos and anarchy.”

Turning around, he walked outside, across the street, and around the side of the building on which he’d been perched before. Using his grappling hook gun, he hauled himself up to the roof and from there glided off for home, where a well-deserved rest after twenty one hours without sleep awaited him at last.

Trigger: Day 19

Word Count: 114,021

Summary of Events:

Thanks to James having taken a photo of Brody's contact information for Rylie, Spencer was able to find her surname through the phone book; he then hacked the postal system database to learn her address. Seeing as he'd encountered media on the north side the night before, Spencer was very cautious in making his way back there again to Rylie's house where he was able to get in and disarm her security system without incident before discovering that she'd split up her $1 billion and hidden it all over the house; he thoroughly searched the house several times to find it all . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

Finally he went to the master bedroom where he found $1 million in the dresser and $5 million under the bed — which brought him up to $12.5 million. $1 million in each side of the walk-in closet and $500,000 in the ensuite vanity brought the total up to $15 million.

In other words, he was 1.5% of the way to $1 billion.

Meticulously he went through everywhere he’d already been and ended up finding another $10 million hidden in bookshelves, decorative plants, under appliances, even more in the freezer, and even attached to fan blades and other light fixtures, which brought him up to $25 million.

Lastly he headed downstairs and found money in $500,000 groups almost everywhere he looked until finally he added it all up and found that he had $990 million on the table.

He scoured desperately for the last $10 million, but in the end, having scoured as thoroughly as he could possibly have scoured, he only ended up finding $9,900,000. He was missing $100,000.

Still, $999.9 million was way more money than a person could fit in the average drawstring backpack. Even the average wheelbarrow wasn’t necessarily big enough to fit that kind of money.

Were thousand-dollar bills a thing?

But then how could a bill with all the same digits in its serial number save one have turned up on the West Coast?

Too, if it had all been in thousand-dollar bills, that would be one million bills, and even one million bills was a little hard for him to visualise fitting into a drawstring backpack.

He even found it hard to believe that the bank had even had this much money in their vault, but they must’ve, somehow.

Surveying the table laden with money, he surmised that the final $100,000 was with Rylie, being exchanged for bills that — like these ones — didn’t have the serial numbers Second National Bank had published as being bills that’d been given to her.

Now, it appeared, he had to wait for Rylie to get back with that last hundred grand so that he could inform her that he’d found her, and that he was going to make her pay for what she’d done.

He looked over at the clock on her stove. It told him the time was currently 10:24 at night. Last time he’d tracked her on the bus she’d come back to the north side at midnight.

In other words, he had the better part of an hour and a half to kill.

Scanning what he could see of the house — which was a fair bit, seeing as it was one of those modern open-concept types — he wondered what he should do.

Should he maybe see what he could do to find a complete set of fingerprints on various items in the house? That would be challenging. It might take him an hour and a half to do.

Trigger: Day 18

Word Count: 108,001

Summary of Events:

Armed with the possible addresses that could be the Billionaire Queen's house, Spencer went to the north side to see if he could find her house. Unfortunately, most of the houses appeared to have families or couples, and there were multiple empty houses, reminding him that it was vacation season, thus his idea of determining the empty house to be hers wouldn't work. He then headed downtown to the casino her boyfriend — whose name he learned was Brody — worked at and managed to discreetly take him aside for interrogation that dragged out far longer than Spencer had expected . . . 

Excerpt of the Day:

Both of them jumped at a loud sound. Brody quickly pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. It was ringing. He snatched it from Brody before it could be returned to the pocket and turned it to look at him.

On the screen was the smiling face of the Billionaire Queen. In narrow, sans-serif white text across her forehead was half the information he was looking for: Rylie.

“How fortuitous of her,” he smiled. “What’s the last name?”

“I don’t know,” Brody replied, shaking his head and looking pretty honest — not to mention James didn’t say anything suggested he was lying.

He glanced down at the cell phone as the ringing stopped and the call was sent to voicemail. After a few moments the screen went dark. He carefully turned it on and then manipulated Brody’s forefinger to unlock the phone and take him to the contacts.

As Brody had said, Rylie was only in there by her first name, and no indication was given there or in the steamy texts they’d exchanged as to what her surname was, or might be.

Shutting off the phone, he shoved it into Brody’s pocket.

“You have your life, your job, and the honour of having not given away your girlfriend’s name,” he said. “You should be thankful your girlfriend just shot herself in the foot with that call.”

He released Brody, who sagged against the wall wearily.

“I respect you,” he said to Brody, who startled and looked at him with surprise.

“You what?” Brody asked.

“I respect you for not only holding out, especially as long as you did, but not giving in, even if it was thanks to your girlfriend shooting herself in the foot,” he replied. “I got top marks in the interrogation unit by miles. If they wouldn’t have known better everyone at school would’ve believed my dad was a cop. One of my professors even asked me if I wanted to be recommended to the Federal Agency’s Interrogation unit.”

Brody stared at him with incredulity, but said nothing. He turned and headed off down the alley, leaping onto a nearby roof from another friendly dumpster and heading off for home. He had a first name and — hopefully — a cell phone number. 

Hopefully a search of the phone book would yield her surname. If not, there was always the fact that her name was usually spelled Riley, thus the fact that she had it spelled Rylie would narrow down the search significantly, wherever it was he happened to choose to search for such details tomorrow afternoon.

Trigger: Day 17

Word Count: 102,043

Summary of Events:

Spencer thankfully didn't have any more media encounters — although they were still out looking for him — nor did he find the Billionaire Queen, but he did find a man he'd seen with her and tailed him, which led him to information that confirmed his suspicion: the Billionaire Queen lived on the north side of Kynaston. Armed with that information, he did some research on his computer at home the following afternoon to see about trying to figure out where she lived, beginning with seeking out a map that showed all the bus stops in Kynaston . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

When he found a map he zoomed in on the north side, printed the map off, and grabbed a compass from his desk.

Stabbing the pointy end into the centre of one of the bus stop dots, he made light circles until he’d figured out which of the nearby stops was the closest, and then drew a circle he could see clearly.

He repeated the process with all the other bus stops on the north side, which gave him a lot of overlapping rings.

Using the scale from the bottom of the map he calculated the radii of the circles he’d made in their real distances if he were to actually walk around the north side in person, and determined that Kynaston didn’t place their bus stops any closer than three quarters of a mile apart.

Finally, he took a knife and carefully cut around the circle he’d drawn around the bus stop at which the Billionaire Queen had disembarked when he’d tracked her. He then went to a different website and searched Kynaston, zoomed in on the north side until he was over the bus stop at the scale matching the map he’d printed off and then carefully centred the map over his screen.

Holding it there by hand proved to be tricky, so he lightly taped the map to his screen, which gave him a free hand to move his cursor.

He right clicked on each house he could pick out, which gave him two options: directions to the point, or information as to what was there. He chose the latter and wrote down the address of each house in the area. He could start by checking there.

Gently he removed the map and was pleased that the tape came off nicely so that he wouldn’t have to pick at and possibly scratch up his computer screen.

Discarding the map, he then fetched his helmet and had James scan in all the addresses so that they could go scope them out and see if he could determine which one was the home of the Billionaire Queen.

Before he removed his helmet, however, he was struck by a thought: not every bus stopped at every stop. Which busses headed downtown from the north side and how close together were they?

His helmet still on, he searched for the information and added some more addresses to the list that a person might possibly walk from to the bus stop at which the Billionaire Queen had gotten off at.

But there was also that issue of her having been picked up by someone in a car and taken south that night. Who was that? Why had they taken her? He gathered his lips, maybe he wasn’t as close to finding her as he’d hoped with that information.

Trigger: Day 16

Word Count: 96,017

Summary of Events:

Intent on getting more sightings of the owl-man, news media set up stakeouts downtown; because of these Spencer is unable to find any sign of the Billionaire Queen. Gangsters were also displeased at the media presence, but the media remain undeterred — especially seeing as Spencer ended up helping one of the media escape some gangsters — and stake out again the next night; as a result, while tracking down the Billionaire Queen Spencer is forced to hide in the trunk of a taxi to get around a large concentration of media . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

When the car stopped and the trunk popped open he launched himself from the trunk with not only the propulsion of his boots, but the added propulsion of the car’s shocks, onto the roof of the Cave Club.

He laid down low and watched as the driver went around to the trunk. He looked upset at first, but then he discovered the pile of money, collected it, closed the trunk, and went into the car. He waited until he could tell the driver had determined the amount of money that’d been left to be the double fare he’d been promised and driven away before he got to his feet and started scanning through the roof of the Cave Club.

“Billionaire Queen detected,” James said.

Intently and eagerly he watched the highlighted female figure. She appeared to be in an animated conversation.

“Is there any way you can hear what they’re saying James?” he asked.

“No,” James replied. “The music is too loud.”

He nodded, he could feel the throbbing beat through the roof of the place.

“Drone detected,” James said.

“Drone?” he asked.

“Follow the arrow,” James replied.

He turned and was alarmed to see a drone shape heading toward him. Immediately he seized it. It fought to get out of his grip.

“James, is there a camera on this thing?” he hissed.

“Yes,” James replied. “It is indicated in red.”

He seized his hand over the camera lens and managed to pry the cell phone out of the drone, which pulled away.

Turning the cell phone around, he saw that it appeared to be videoing, and transmitting the video to another cell phone. He tried to break off the connection, but the drone swooped down at him and he had to fight it off, which was surprisingly hard, seeing as he didn’t want it to shred his outfit.

With the drone on the retreat again, he took the cell phone and put its microphone end to his mouth.

“Respect my privacy and maybe I’ll give you what you want,” he said into the microphone. “For now, you’ve just wasted a couple hundred bucks.”

Throwing the phone down to the roof, he stomped on it repeatedly before throwing it at the drone that was coming back at him again. He managed to break one of the propellers on the drone, which sent it off its course and caused it to crash into the roof of the club repeatedly until it was too damaged to move.

“Alright, Billionaire Queen,” he said, turning to where she’d been.

“The Billionaire Queen is no longer here,” James replied.

He swore and slowly scanned the area, but not even looks up and down the street yielded an identification of her.

Swearing again, he took off toward the next speakeasy. He could only hope that she would be there and that he would encounter no reporters — nor their cameras — on his way there.

When he wanted to reveal himself, he would, but for now they needed to go find something else to do with their lives than interfere with his.

Trigger: Day 15

Word Count: 90,023

Summary of Events:

Spencer wasn't able to find or keep an eye on the Billionaire Queen all that successfully until she got into a bus bound for the north side of Kynaston — which was the part of Kynaston with the lowest amount of crime. Unfortunately she got off of the bus in a residential area and the sloping house roofs weren't conducive to his being able to take off in a glide after her when she got into a car, thus he quickly lost track of her, so he found a flat-roofed commercial building to take off from and glided for the downtown . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

What he wanted to know was what business the Billionaire Queen had on the north side of Kynaston. Downtown he knew she was swapping hundreds with all manner of gangsters, but what would she be doing on the north side?

Was it possible that she lived on the north side? He didn’t think so. She’d seemed far too confident downtown for that to be possible.

He stopped on the roof of the Kitten Club and sat down. Was it really all that inconceivable?

If she was a citizen-gone-rogue — as information from London, as well as others encountered around downtown seemed to suggest — it was his belief that the crime-cancer Kynaston had was terminal.

When something went terminal it didn’t necessarily spread, but yet there was the possibility that it could as it gradually worked to shut the body down and kill it. Seeing as this wasn’t so much a personal disease as a communal disease, surely it had fingers in the north side, and even fingers such as the Billionaire Queen.

Still, it seemed unbelievable that a criminal so brazen and confident as the Billionaire Queen would actually live on the north side of Kynaston. He couldn’t believe the idea.

Her appearance — both the workout fashion and the beachwear fashion — were totally fitting of the types of people who lived in northern Kynaston, that upper middle-class group.

In fact, upper middle-class wasn’t a group that really existed in the downtown, in the gang-riddled areas. In those areas it was the gang bosses — who were in high-class like the Macek family — then the guys the boss trusted, who were in a little more of a true middle-class state, and then there was the low-class people like London who worked menial jobs for menial pay — whether for the gang or not — and often lived in fear or awe of the gangsters, finally there were the people who lived on the streets, who were somewhat like mercenaries: doing whatever got them the most money or the most safety for the longest time, and weren’t really to be trusted by anyone with anything secret because, if offered the right price, they would more than willingly tell anyone.

That really suggested that the Billionaire Queen actually lived on the north side of Kynaston.

But, yet, on the other hand, she was so confident downtown. It didn’t make any sense to him. How could a suburbanite be so calm and comfortable downtown? He’d seen all kinds of suburbanites from the north side downtown before and none of them ever looked that comfortable.

Trigger: Day 14

Word Count: 84,075

Summary of Events:

Spencer didn't have any luck finding the Billionaire Queen, in spite of picking up exactly where he'd left off the night before, but he still saw some action, as a group of five drunk men crashed into a store, robbed it, and then stole a vehicle. He pursued them and was able to apprehend four of them at the next stop before having to chase the fifth out of the downtown and all the way to what was seen as a more respectable part of Kynaston before he was able to successfully apprehend and sedate the man . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

He heard people coming and quickly sprang away, using a dumpster as a step up onto a nearby roof, from whence he watched as a trio of police officers hurried out the back of the building.

Their flashlights landed on the man and they stopped.

“Dead?” a young-sounding officer asked.

One of the officers knelt down beside the body.

“No, alive,” the kneeling officer replied. “Look, a mark, I think he was sedated.”

They rolled the unconscious man over.

“Good grief!” the third officer who’d come out of the building exclaimed. “He looks like he got into a fight with a cat!”

“Yeah, a cat with paws the size of a lion’s,” the kneeling officer said dryly.

The kneeling officer radioed for an ambulance to tend to the suspect and the third officer, who looked rather heavyset, stepped off to the side to light up a cigarette. He could tell by the glow that the officer was facing his way.

“Hey guys,” the officer whispered — words he wouldn’t have heard without the enhanced audio receiver in his one horn — “I think I see him.”

“See who?” the young-sounding officer asked, not whispering.

“Shh!” the smoking officer hissed. “The owl-man, I see him. He’s watching us.”

When he could tell the smoking officer was looking away from him he quickly leapt across the alley to the side of the street the clothing shop he’d chased the man through was on and crept closer to where the men were as James informed him of an approaching ambulance.

“Where’d he go?” he heard the smoking officer ask. “He was just over there.”

“Obviously you were imagining things,” the officer still kneeling at the unconscious man’s side said dryly.

“What, you don’t want a superhero to help you do your job?” the smoking officer asked.

“It’s one additional man, over all the police we already have,” the kneeling officer replied. “What is one more man going to really do help? I’m more looking forward to the arrival of the Federal Agents because there’s more than one of them. One measly superhero isn’t going to be able to do what a squad of Federal Agents can do. Besides, superheroes only exist in the comic books.”

The ambulance pulled up and the paramedics hurried over.

“He seems alright,” the kneeling officer told them. “It looks like he was sedated with something, and he’s kind of scratched up, but I figured you guys should look him over just to be sure things are on the up and up, and hopefully we can get him locked up before he wakes up.”

Stealthily he crept toward the front of the building, where the sobbing woman was being consoled by a police officer while the SUV driver was using the hood of his vehicle as a table on which to fill out his statement form for another officer. Blue and red lights flickered from the cars and illuminated the scene.

He carefully hopped from one roof to the next down the street to get out of sight before grabbing the handles of his cape and running across a roof, leaping off to glide low as far as he could toward the downtown.

Trigger: Day 13

Word Count: 78,015

Summary of Events:

Spencer ended up thwarting three crooks who'd been trying to break into a car to steal the laptop the car's owner had left in plain sight while heading downtown for another night of seeking the Billionaire Queen. Despite getting close to her twice, he failed to get close enough to her to confront at all as he pursued her from nightclub to nightclub. The following afternoon he decided to check out the online edition of Kynaston's main daily paper, the Kynaston Times-Tribune, to see what'd made news lately . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

The top headline made his eyes go wide: CROOK CONFESSES EVERYTHING TO ESCAPE OWL-MAN. Immediately he clicked on the link to read what the article had to say.

Shortly after 6:30pm police report that a frantic man entered their downtown headquarters and confessed to a laundry list of crimes including petty theft, assault — aggravated and with a weapon — drug possession, illegal weapons possession, and other charges.

Astonished and sceptical, police had no intentions of taking the man into custody until they could verify his confession, but he begged them to lock him up so that he didn’t have to see the terrifying owl-man again.

“He described a man, over six feet tall, with a strong and athletic build, in a dark-coloured suit with tall boots, long gloves, and a cape that can change between stiff like a kite and soft like capes usually hang,” Inspector Rice told media in a press conference late last night. “The man’s face was covered by a horned helmet with big, round, yellow owl-eyes and a beak over the nose. All that could be seen of the man was his lower cheeks, lips, and jaw, which he described as caucasian.”

The man informed police his two friends who’d been with him robbing a car had heard a strange sound before they’d spied the man gliding with his stiffened cape. He landed on the car hood, knocked the man’s two friends unconscious, and then proceeded to chase the man down with alarming speed and tell him to leave and to never be caught doing anything illegal ever again or the owl-man threatened to personally put him in jail and throw away they key.

Officers, based on the man’s reports, found his two friends in one of the downtown parkades, bound together at the wrists, as well as bound at the ankles, with a coat hanger and gloves among other evidences suggesting they’d been out to steal from a parked car.

The man’s friends corroborated his report to the best they could remember and were arrested for attempted break and enter of a vehicle. Police also collected the shoe prints of the owl-man from the hood of the car the three men — now all in police custody — had been intent to rob.

Police have declined to say if there’s anything unique about the boot prints they discovered at this time, but they are intrigued by this strange report and would like to know more about this strange owl-man if there is more to be had.

Prompted by the article, he went and checked his boot treads. To him they certainly seemed to be generally nondescript, like most shoe treads, but he was sure the fact that they were a little on the stickier side compared to most boot treads and that they wouldn’t likely match any other boot tread the police could find for sale in all of Kynaston would leave them wondering.

Trigger: Day 12

Word Count: 72,006

Summary of Events:

Thanks to the clue given to him by the would've-been robber, Spencer started searching the local nightclubs, which was, naturally, best done at night. Thanks to a tip from some people smoking outside one of the clubs he actually succeeded in getting to the same club the Billionaire Queen happened to be at . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

Finding a door on which was an engraved plastic plate that said Manager, and behind which James told him was two people, one of whom shape suggested was female, with a body type consistent with the Billionaire Queen’s, he took hold of the doorknob.

Slowly he turned the knob, adrenaline rushing through his body. He had her.

“Behind you,” James said.

Before he could whip around a hand clamped over his mouth and the other tore his hand off the knob.

Immediately he started scratching with his razor-sharp claws, but the man who was holding him didn’t hardly seem to notice, and even if he did, it was evident that he didn’t care.

He struggled to pry and throw the man off of him, either that, or find a way to get into the room and apprehend the Billionaire Queen even with this man on his back.

Before too long a man emerged from the office and got involved, making it a two-on-one struggle and, considering he had the one man on his back, he was at a sore disadvantage.

In fact, after the second man — presumably the manager — appeared, it wasn’t long before more men appeared and it was pointless for him to resist as they manhandled him out the back door of the building.

He was shoved to the ground and a heel was jammed between his shoulder blades.

“Now you guys are renting suits from the Halloween stores to try and get at us?” a man asked. They’d obviously mistaken him for someone else.

A foot struck his jaw hard. 

“The trick’s on you,” another man said. “You’re not getting any treats.”

He could taste blood in his mouth and rage surged within him.

Before anyone could even think of saying anything more he’d brought out the knife from his right gauntlet and driven it into the foot that’d kicked him. He then threw the man whose foot was between his shoulders off of his back, put away the knife, and used just his claws, fists, and feet to attack everyone who’d gathered around him to punish him until he was able to slip back inside.

Returning to the manager’s office, however, he found only the manager, the man he’d clawed, and wads of hundred-dollar bills.

“I thought we’d gotten rid of you!” the manager exclaimed.

He ducked out of the office and got back to the public area of the club and back out the front door. The street was empty, not even the smokers were still leaning against the building.

Swearing to himself, he quickly hopped up onto a nearby roof, as he was sure the staff of the Lost Penguin were looking for him. He’d been so close to her and he’d missed her. How could he have let himself be so careless and lose her?

Trigger: Day 11

Word Count: 66,027

Summary of Events:

After sunset Spencer headed out in his suit to see what he could learn about the Billionaire Queen, and to try out the hang-glide feature on his cape. While gliding over an upper middle-class neighbourhood James detected armed men . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

He landed on a nearby roof lightly. “What are they carrying James?”

“Crowbars, hammers, and knives,” James replied. “They also have gloves and bags, suggesting they may be intent to rob the place.”

“James, I had that figured out from the moment you said crowbars,” he said.

“Oh,” James said.

He jumped lightly to the next roof. “James, where are they attempting to get into the house?”

“The living room window,” James replied.

“Which one?” he asked. “Living rooms have more than one window.”

“The one facing the road,” James replied.

“Right,” he said. “What house am I standing on?”

“One fourteen Glen Vale Crescent,” James replied.

He jumped across the space between the houses again and carefully crept around the place, looking. The low light was hampering his depth perception, but thankfully his eyepieces warned him that a portion of roof he espied was eight feet lower than that which he was standing on, thus he jumped lightly onto it instead of stepping onto it.

Creeping around on the lower portion of the roof, which mostly covered the garage, he spied the men, his eyepieces clarifying where they were located and defining how many of them there were.

As quietly as he could — and he didn’t feel like he was being very quiet at all seeing as these were asphalt shingles — he crouched, watching as they grabbed their crowbars and settled them into place to pry at the window.

Power surged through his muscles, pushing him off the roof and down to the front sidewalk. He was certain it was the rush of his cape trailing after him that got the attention of everyone.

Immediately all of the men turned and looked at him. He could tell from their body positions that they were startled and alarmed. In an instant they were all tripping over each other to get to their vehicles.

He seized one of them by the arm and dug his claw-tipped fingers into the man’s arm, eliciting a yelp. He threw the man down to the grass and placed his hand over the man’s throat as the man’s friends clambered into their cars and tore off.

“Don’t kill me, please,” the man begged, sounding on the verge of tears. “It wasn’t my idea.”

“Then don’t go along with it,” he whispered. “I catch you at this again and you’re behind bars.”

“I won’t, I swear!” the man pleaded. “Now let me go please!”

“One question,” he said, bringing his face closer to the man’s, causing the man to cower significantly. “As a robber, do you know anything of the Billionaire Queen?”

“I don’t know who she is,” the man replied. “But, but she, I saw her.”

“Where?” he asked, leaning in closer.

“At the clubs,” he replied. “You pick a club she’s been there except the Irish clubs.”

“Don’t forget what’ll happen if I catch you again,” he warned, releasing the man.

Immediately the man scrambled to his feet and raced off down the street on foot.

Trigger: Day 10

Word Count: 60,043

Summary of Events:

After two weeks of waiting Spencer got his suit to try on, as well as an incredible list of features that he couldn't wait to try out, thus he proceeded to put the suit on as soon as he got home . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

Following the instructions, he activated the FormFit, which snugged the suit up to his body comfortably. He followed the instructions to inform FormFit that its present setting was his preference so that it would automatically tighten to that setting whenever he put it on in the future.

He then put on his boots and did a standing jump onto his chair that startled him with its energy. He jumped back down to the floor and then standing-jumped onto his desk with similar ease. Before he got too crazy with the jumping around he put the gloves on and tested the feel of the claws against his face. They were pretty sharp. He scratched himself with one and winced. He wondered if he was now bleeding as a result.

Next he placed the helmet on his head. It fit comfortably and, as soon as he closed the eyepieces into place the eyepieces lit up blue on the edges and a voice-recording prompted him: “Welcome. By putting on this helmet you have activated the digital features, to begin, please say your name.”

He was at a loss. Should he call himself Spencer? Sweeney? Dean? Something else altogether?

“Please say your name,” the audio prompt repeated.

“London,” he said.

“Welcome London,” the audio said. “What would you like for security features? Audio recognition or retinal recognition?”

“Retinal,” he replied.

“Please hold your eyes open,” the audio said.

He stared hard at the logo on the bottom of his computer screen for a long time.

“Thank you,” the audio said. “Upon all further activations a retinal scan will determine the wearer’s identity. Should anyone put on this helmet who does not bear your retinas they will not be able to access the digital features and if deemed dangerous will be temporarily blinded.”

That sounded impressive. This was an advanced helmet.

“Now comes personalisation,” the audio said. “First: which colour would you like all text and lines to appear in?”

It stated the name of each colour as the lights on the edge of his eyepieces changed.

“Green,” he selected once they’d all gone through.

“Second: what font would you like to use?” the audio said.

He selected an easy-to-read font at a moderate size, and he was even free to choose the voice that spoke to him and he elected to change it from its present business professional-sounding female voice to a masculine voice that was named James.

James led him on through the rest of the setting up process before informing him that if he had need of anything he merely needed to prefix his request by James’ name and the request would be carried out.