Novel Title: Trigger
Time Setting: 2018*
Genre: Fantasy-Thriller
Minimum Word Goal: 120,000
Timespan: June–October
Location: Kynaston, Pennsylvania†
Main Characters: Spencer Macek
Background Information:
Born the only son of his parents due to birthing difficulties damaging his mother's reproductive organs so badly she couldn't conceive again, Spencer was born into money on both sides of the family. His father is part of the powerful Macek family that runs a food processing empire in Kynaston, and his mother is the daughter of one of the state's most renowned prosecution lawyers.
His life was idyllic and carefree until the age of five, when he was kidnapped and his nanny murdered without a ransom note left behind or anything to suggest where or why he'd been taken. Ten years passed without his parents having any clue where he was and having lost all hope of finding him alive when his paternal aunt and uncle found him wandering a beach in Southern California.
As soon as possible his parents flew to California where a DNA test confirmed the unbelievable truth: Spencer Macek had been found.
By this time his father had inherited Macek Culinary Holdings Inc. from his father — who'd inherited it after his brother and three nephews were all killed in a tragic series of events — leaving Spencer as heir to a food processing fortune.
As is only natural, his parents wanted to know what had happened to him in the ten years he was gone, but he has no conscious memory of that time, thus his parents have sent him to the foremost psychologists in the world in an effort to unlock the subconscious memories to find out, but even though it's getting close to ten years he's been back with them they still have not gotten anywhere.
To be in the clear, the Army and Federal Espionage Agency have given evidence to the family that they did not kidnap Spencer for any secret testing, and even many business rivals of MCH and people who dislike the Macek family have either volunteered proof that they didn't take Spencer or been investigated and found innocent.
His parents noticed differences about Spencer as soon as he came home, and it wasn't just the fact that he was fifteen as opposed to five. What is still the most noticeable — and feared — difference is his temper as the formerly easygoing child now has a volatile temper and the ability to go from calm to raging at the drop of a hat, and at times without any sort of reason.
Unable to predict what will set him off, and hard-pressed to calm him down once he gets going, his parents have suffered the loss of some expensive things to his rages, along with having to pay money to others — notably the elite boarding school they sent him to for his final years of high school — to repair damages caused by his rages.
Much to his parents' relief they have found a man who seems capable of keeping Spencer calm even when he wants to lose his temper and being able to calm him down when he does end up losing it, and this man is now in their employ to keep Spencer as calm as possible.
A somewhat more private difference his parents have noticed about him is his tendency to isolate himself, and to do so for incredibly long times, but they are certain that his introversion, his repressed memories, and his rages are by-products of the suffering he endured during the ten years they were apart.
When he graduated he was expected to go to university for business degrees and such that would help him when it came time for him to succeed his father as President and CEO of MCH. They were shocked when he instead took a triple-major in Law, Forensics, and Criminal Psychology with a minor in Forensic Medicine.
Even his parents were shocked at the choices — much less the course load — and asked him about it, to which he replied that he hoped he might be able to use his education in his chosen fields to unlock those memories that the psychologists were failing to unlock.
Since his graduation, however, he's yet to make any more headway than the psychologists he's been sent to and has somewhat settled into the role of the rich, eligible playboy whom girls across the globe wish they could marry.
Settled in 1795, Kynaston was originally slated to be a utopia for the rich and elite, which it succeeded in being, somewhat, until 1842, when the founding Mayor of Kynaston — the man for whom the town was named — died of old age.
His son inherited the position of Mayor and implemented some more brutal policies that drew the ire of a recent arrival to the flourishing town who incited the poorer people of Kynaston who were effectively employed as slaves into rebelling against the new mayor.
As a result of it all the second mayor of Kynaston was murdered and the recent arrival named his successor — a position he held until dying of old age in 1889. Since his death mayoral elections have been held and crime has been one of the foremost issues in Kynaston.
In fact, Aside from Mayor Reed Newton — whose tenure lasted from 1945–1964 before he pursued State and Federal politics and died of old age in 1996 — his successor Martin Page — voted out in 1986 and still alive and well in Kynaston — and present Mayor Vance Hull — who's held the post for five years — every single mayor of Kynaston has died in office.
Mayors Cedric Kynaston Sr. and Lazarus Ledford — the first and third mayors — died of old age; Mayor Flannery Hambeldon died in an outbreak of sickness in 1918 — the year Kynaston became a city; Mayor Sparrow Courtenay was killed in a shootout with police after escaping from prison, where he was being held for failing to adhere to state liquor laws in 1934; and all the others have been murdered by criminal gangs angry with their goals for reducing crime or their shows of support for rival gangs, although every mayor since Martin Page's successor Carmine Nardovino has been found dead for no discernible reason with no one taking the blame, leaving all of their cases cold, including the shocking assassination of Mayor Deanna Godfrey — Kynaston's only female mayor to this point — ten years ago.
To say that crime proliferates in Kynaston is an understatement of the highest degree; Federal statistics estimate that some 90 robberies happen in Kynaston on a daily basis, and its overall violent crime rate is twice that of the next city on the list.
Police Chief G. Patrick Abbey has all he can do to keep the citizens of Kynaston alive and unmolested, all the while struggling to cope with the disappearance of his only daughter, Poppy, without a trace nearly a decade ago.
All of this is not succeeding in making Kynaston look like the sort of place anyone would want to visit, which is troubling Mayor Hull, as he wants to see out-of-towners come to Kynaston for its celebration of 100 years as a city — festivities that are set to begin once school is out in June.
Pronunciations:
Kynaston: kihnahstun
Macek: maysehk
*consistent with real-world years except in politics, architecture, furniture, and automotive appearances.
†not an actual place.
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