Trigger: Day 8

Word Count: 48,018

Summary of Events:

Spencer's mother was getting things ready for an exceedingly extravagant party on the weekend in celebration of the nation's upcoming birthday; he considered the extravagance unnecessary. He got London to pick an abandoned house for him and send him the address to use on his letter. Mildly bored, he went to look up what the latest developments in the Billionaire Queen case were . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

The top story on the page was less than an hour old, and the headline proclaimed that State and Federal investigators were going to be getting involved in the case and coming to Kynaston to see it — and as many other cold cases as they could possibly help with — solved in an effort to reduce crime in Kynaston.

Thinking about what London had told him about the Billionaire Queen likely being a citizen-gone-rogue, he couldn’t help but feel like the State and Federal efforts were in vain.

He was sure that the State and Federal investigators — not necessarily even the police of Kynaston themselves, including those on the gang dole — had any clue just how bad crime in Kynaston was.

Although he — thanks in measure to London — had a better idea of how bad it was, he wasn’t even altogether sure he had any clue how bad crime was in Kynaston.

Looking over at the letter, he shifted his jaw. Now that it had a return address that wouldn’t connect it to him he probably ought to get that into the postal system as fast as possible.

He closed the browser without even looking at the article and took up the letter, his wallet, cell phone, and keys and headed out to the garage. Getting into his car, he drove across town — making sure to go around the downtown even though it was longer — until he reached the west side.

Finding a mail-receiving box along a residential street, he pulled alongside it, put his car in park, slid over and rolled down the passenger window, deposited the letter into the slot, returned to the driver’s seat, and continued down the street to the next intersection before working his way homeward. Seeing as he didn’t want the letter to have any connection to him he figured depositing it in a mailbox on the opposite side of town to where he was from would help keep people from making the connection, after all, he wanted this owl-inspired crimefighting persona to be something of a secret identity.

To the public he would be either Spencer Macek or . . . he wasn’t really sure what he was going to call his persona. He didn’t really want it to be a -man one, those were cliché in his mind — besides, he was pretty sure he’d heard of an Owl-man before anyways.

Name aside, he didn’t want to be known as Spencer Macek and or Spencer Macek, aka, it was Spencer Macek or. They knew him as one or the other, maybe even as both, but without knowing they knew him as both.

His identity as Spencer Macek was to be completely separate from his identity with the suit on. As far as everyone was concerned they were two different people.

Trigger: Day 7

Word Count: 42,013

Summary of Events:

On his foray downtown Spencer had ended up meeting a girl named London he was sure he could not only trust, but get valued information on what was going on downtown from; they arranged a secret meeting and he got some good information from her, including that the Billionaire Queen seemed to be a citizen gone rogue. Following the meeting he received a call from the company he'd contacted about possibly helping make the outfit he'd designed . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

Quickly he took up the receiver and put it to his ear. “Hello, Dean Thomas speaking.”

“Hello Mr. Thomas,” a man’s voice replied. “This is Willis Fletcher, Vice President of CrimeWatch Law Enforcement Supplies. I understand that you are looking for a custom crime fighting suit.”

“Yes I am,” he replied.

“Well, Mr. Thomas,” Mr. Fletcher said. “We’ve never undertaken such a project before.”

“I’m not surprised, I doubt there’s a lot of people looking into this sort of thing,” he replied.

“Not really, no,” Mr. Fletcher agreed. “But we are willing to work with you on this outfit, as we believe that this is just the sort of thing that will help advance our merchandise so as to better serve all of our clients better, even if we don’t end up making more of these sorts of outfits for other people.”

“I’m very pleased to hear that,” he said.

“Now, do you have any sort of design concepts?” Mr. Fletcher asked.

“Indeed I do,” he replied. “I drew up some concepts the other day. Where do you want me to send them?”

Mr. Fletcher gave him the mailing address and he scribbled it down on the back of one of his calling cards.

“We look forward to doing business with you Mr. Thomas,” Mr. Fletcher said.

“I look forward to doing business with you too,” he replied.

They exchanged farewells and he hung up the phone before heading off to the parkade, where he got into his car and took up the envelope with the designs in it, as well as a letter explaining how strict he was on them and how willing he was to work with them even over the distance between their locations.

He wrote the address centre front on the envelope. He then stared at the envelope for a long moment. It had a stamp on the right hand corner, and the delivery address in the middle, but no return address in the left hand corner.

If he wanted to work with them over long distance it might be helpful for him to include a return address so that they wouldn’t necessarily have to call to find out what his address was.

He didn’t want packages to be sent to Anastasia House though. Evangeline would wonder what they were — especially being as they’d probably have the return address of CrimeWatch — and she wouldn’t let him alone about them; she probably wouldn’t even let him open them alone.

Sending them to the factory wouldn’t be a good idea either. What he’d need to do would be to have the packages sent to an altogether different place, preferably a different place that no one else was receiving mail at.

There were a fair amount of abandoned houses on the fringes of the southwest, most abandoned because residents got scared off by gang activity, murdered by gang activity, or the houses were in such disrepair because their residents had been so careless that when their residents moved out no one wanted to buy them.

Trigger: Day 6

Word Count: 36,013

Summary of Events:

Spencer came to the conclusion that he needed a disguise of some sort in order to be able to wander around downtown Kynaston and see about combating crime. Further thought about the topic led him to believe that a superhero-style costume would be the best because it would cause his crimefighting identity to be unconnected to his real-world identity. After finding a company that he was certainly hopeful would be able to help him create such an outfit he set about planning what he would want it to look like, drawing his inspiration from the Great Horned Owl he'd seen the other night . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

Ideas in mind, he set about drawing tall, strong boots with protective, but lightweight metal plating down the shins to keep his legs from being broken and enhanced foot cushioning just in case he had to jump from higher-than-normal places, or maybe even to help him push off with good momentum if he wanted to glide, and steel toes so that he could kick hard and cause pain.

He made sure to include tough kneepads just in case the situation necessitated him getting onto his knees for some reason or another, and he put the gun’s hiding place on the side of his thigh.

To make things balanced he decided maybe he could put a gun-shaped grappling-hook launcher on the other leg that featured one of those collapsible grappling hooks, that would help him get up to high places he wasn’t willing to just use his hands and feet for.

He drew up the belt with solid compartments, sort of like hard-shelled travel luggage, except on a significantly smaller scale.

Remembering knives, he went back down to the boots and added places for as many as five knives per boot — not that he was altogether sure he needed that many — and one more by each gun.

The chest part he did pretty much just all bulletproofing; on the upper arms it was the same, but the forearms he covered with thick, metal-reinforced gauntlets — like the boot shafts — with room for a couple knives each, and he made sure that the gauntlets were attached to the gloves, with permanent hooked claws on the fingertips.

An idea jolted him: what if he had at least a claw or two have a small quantity of sedative in it and a changeable short hypodermic needle to inject the sedative? There would only be enough in the claw for one dose and then he’d have to change the needle and refill the compartment later.

If there was the technology for it maybe he could even have a claw that could inject a microscopic tracking device under the skin of someone he wanted to keep tabs on. That would be fun too.

He’d probably want some way to activate and deactivate the injectors, though, because what if he wanted to just grab someone’s shoulder and not hit them with a tracking device and a dose of sedative?

Maybe he could have it that it depended on whether his fingers were close together or far apart, or maybe the switch could be on the outside of his forefinger where only the thumb could hit it — and not accidentally either — with notice of its activation sent to the translucent screens that were the giant circular eyepieces.

Thinking of his helmet again, what if one of his horns was a transmitter and the other was a receiver? Or one was a microphone that could pick up sounds and the other was a sensor that could pick up telecommunication signals?

The possibilities were almost endless.

Trigger: Day 5

Word Count: 30,004

Summary of Events:

Unfortunately, a tabloid news photographer had happened to be downtown at the same time Spencer had been and got pictures of him that were plastered all over the news and prompted his parents to be quite upset and try to get him to promise not to endanger himself. He told them to stop trying to control him and then didn't end up seeing either one of them for several hours even though he didn't leave the house for all that long . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

A knock sounded on the door. He turned and waited as the door opened, admitting Garland into the room.

It was somewhat surprising to him to see how weary Garland looked. If it weren’t for the fact that he didn’t have any grey hair he would’ve looked old too.

“You surprise me sometimes Spencer,” Garland said at last. “Just, some of the incredibly wise things that come out of your mouth. Most of the time it doesn’t seem like you care, about us or anything, but then you do something like this morning and . . . you just blow me out of the water.”

He nodded, not really sure how to respond.

“I, I kind of wish I could argue with you,” Garland said. “But you used some really good logic that I can’t really contend against. You made good points that I can’t really deny.”

Garland sighed and looked at him. He returned the gaze with a touch of wariness, not really all that sure what else Garland meant to say or if Garland was expecting him to respond or what.

“I’m sorry for trying to make you promise something you don’t need to,” Garland said. “You are an adult, and, try as we might, Evangeline and I can’t keep you from dying no matter how much we might want to. We couldn’t the first time either. We can only be grateful that you haven’t died yet.”

He nodded.

“But, even still, as your parents, we would ask that you not try and give us any grey hairs,” Garland said. “Please don’t go putting yourself in situations that are inherently dangerous, or, if you do, don’t tell us about them. We would like you to stay around as long as possible, even if we can’t control how long that is as much as we might wish we could.”
Again he nodded. He hoped the media wouldn’t go publishing his daredevil driving manoeuvres from this afternoon trying to get away from them.

“It was really touching,” Garland said. “That you would care about us like you certainly at least suggested this morning. Please, can you show that you care as much as you said you do by your arguments and concerns for us this morning?”

“Yes,” he replied.

“Come here,” Garland said.

Although he didn’t really want to, he got to his feet and stepped toward Garland. He fought against the urge to immediately squirm out of the embrace Garland wrapped him into. He wasn’t much for embraces, but he wasn’t going to go and turn the cold shoulder to Garland after all that.

“It’s at times like this that I know you’re my son,” Garland said quietly before releasing the embrace.

He nodded, not letting himself entertain the doubts he had about that being fact to focus on Garland.

“I really appreciate your concern for us,” Garland said, settling his hands on his shoulders. “It’s really nice, really relieving, even, to know that the concern is mutual between us. Are you going to come down to supper?”

“I guess so,” he replied.

Trigger: Day 4

Word Count: 24,022

Summary of Events:

Spencer was invited to hang out by a friend and rather promptly set out to that friend's home, only to be distracted by thoughts of southern downtown Kynaston, one of the most gang-controlled areas of the city . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

  All this thought about the southern downtown made him wonder. What had changed there? What was the state of crime?

Most crimes committed on that side of the downtown weren’t well-documented, instead, the victims of the crimes just enacted vigilante justice and got revenge on the people who’d wronged them themselves. In fact, most of the crimes that occurred in Kynaston — particularly in southern downtown and the Southwest — were done out of revenge, a never-ending vicious cycle of getting back at each other.

Finding a parkade, he paid and drove his car inside until he found one of the darkest spots and parked his car in it. He then took the stairs up to ground level and stepped out into the partly cloudy afternoon. As he strode toward south downtown he wondered where he should see about checking out first.

For all the crime that happened in Kynaston — and especially in south downtown — it couldn’t deter people from walking the streets of Kynaston. 

That wasn’t to say that the sidewalks were bustling with people, but there was enough people to make the area look alive and not all that dangerous, even if the maintenance wasn’t always the greatest.

He walked along the sidewalks confidently, and a fair amount of people didn’t hardly give him a second glance, but many of them outright stopped and stared at him, completely agog.

The attention was unappreciated, and, honestly he didn’t understand it. He’d come to south downtown before, and not just all those years ago either, but as recently as two weeks ago he’d come downtown to one of the speakeasies with a handful of friends.

Sure, this was the middle of a weekday afternoon, but even still, why should people be stopping and staring at him? Wasn’t he free to walk wherever he wanted with impunity?

He knew where he was going and he knew how to stay alive. He knew this area well, even if he wasn’t going to confess that to anyone, and he would be fine; in fact, he would feel a lot better if people would just leave him alone.

Trigger: Day 3

Word Count: 18,040

Summary of Events:

The State and Federal Statistics bureaus publicised information they had on just how bad Kynaston was, including that it had a murder rate twice as high as that of the second-ranked city. Spencer, although unsurprised by the statistics for the most part, was prompted to ponder the state of crime in Kynaston, and whether or not the media-named Billionaire Queen was part of a gang . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

Her appearance said no; even her sensual dancing counted against her being an actual gang member, but yet her remorseless handling of the weapon, her lack of hesitancy with the brochure — much less her near-effortless success in splitting it — and her chillingly heartless threats suggested she was.

Could a citizen really go that rogue?

This was Kynaston.

He looked at the moon, now clear of the trees by some distance. His clock chimed the last quarter hour of the day.

Turning away from the window, he headed out of his study, silently down the hall, and through the house to the back kitchen door, where he pressed in the security code to disarm the system before stepping outside into the clear, refreshingly cool early summer night.

Above him the sky was resplendent with stars like fine glitter scattered across the dome. It was like a snow globe that was frozen, in a way.

The moon, approaching its orbital zenith for the night, hung bright and shining, illuminating the landscape with pale light that didn’t really show anything’s colour, but instead made it all a white-blue colour.

Inhaling the cooler air, he felt already like his mind was clearer by being in the outdoors.

He wandered toward the white wicker two-person swing that hung from the thick, straight-out branch of the bigger of the yard’s two oaks; the swing, being white, looked almost as if it were glowing in the moonlight.

If the Billionaire Queen were merely a female gangster she was just proof that Kynaston had an out-of-control problem.

However, if she were a citizen gone rogue there were more and graver implications.

If the citizens of Kynaston were deciding that crime paid more than honest work it showed there to be a fundamentally deeper-rooted problem in Kynaston than met the eye, namely that the whole city was corrupt and deserved to be dissolved like that neighbouring state newspaper had suggested.

As a citizen gone rogue she proved that crime in Kynaston was not just out-of-control, but that it had advanced beyond the point of no return, that law and order had hopelessly lost the war in Kynaston and things were descending, really, into some sort of anarchic state.

If she were a gangster there was still hope that Kynaston could address their crime problem and even get it under control. If she were a citizen gone rogue then the cancer of crime that was crippling Kynaston had become terminal.

Crime was as evil as cancer, as deadly as cancer even, and every city had it, but many had it under control and it didn’t bother them. Kynaston’s was an aggressive cancer that wasn’t responding well to the treatment, if not — were the Billionaire Queen a citizen gone rogue — terminal.

As a gangster, the Billionaire Queen showed that there was still hope for Kynaston, but it was a frightfully slim hope. As a civilian, she showed that Kynaston was beyond hope and it was only a matter of time before death occurred.

Trigger: Day 2

Word Count: 12,012

Summary of Events:

Mayor Hull held a press conference in which he read his official statement before fielding a barrage of questions from a large crowd of local, state, national, and international reporters. Later on in the day Police Chief Abbey gave twenty five media people ten minutes of his time and opened with a statement that had left even much of Kynaston shocked, except Spencer, who thought about the whole PR shambles the situation had devolved into later on . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

As it had turned out, his guess had been more right that he could’ve expected. Chief Abbey had made himself available to the media at noon and he’d been much more tight about things. Only the first twenty five media who showed up were allowed to question him, and they had only ten minutes in which to do it.

He was sure that, in Mayor Hull’s mind, those ten minutes were going to go down in infamy.

Well, actually, it wasn’t even the whole ten minutes, but one quote by Chief Abbey that he’d already seen probably two or three dozen times on Social Media.

Chief Abbey had been asked about what the police were doing to catch the robber — who was now almost universally addressed as the Billionaire Queen — to which he had replied first with a scoff, a sure sign that Mayor Hull was not going to like the response:

“Why should I care about some random punk kid robbing a bank when I’ve got tens of thousands of crooks, hoodlums, and gangsters running around this city killing each other like it’s going out of style?”

It’d been his opening response in the ten-minute segment, and it’d left the media in shock for all of ten seconds — an eternity in the media world to be sure — and their ensuing questions departed entirely from the scandalous robbery to the state of law and order in Kynaston, with the conclusion being reached that neither law nor order existed in any measurable quantity within the city.

In other words, the robbery was an everyday sort of insignificant occurrence in Kynaston. Murder, even, wasn’t shocking in Kynaston. It was rampant.

Of course, he’d known that; he was probably one of few people in the whole city — and the only one who didn’t live downtown or on the southwest side, which were the areas that were mostly populated by gangsters and poor people who might not be gangsters, but regarded the gangsters as the real rulers of Kynaston — who hadn’t been surprised by those conclusions.

Even Garland had been shocked to hear those statements from Chief Abbey, and a handful of media had rushed to Mayor Hull after they’d visited Chief Abbey and played him the interview before getting his reactionary comments, which had been shocked stammers of horror and disbelief before he’d finally told the media to leave him alone.

Shortly afterwards an emergency council meeting had been called that involved Chief Abbey and — according to the latest on Social Media — it was pushing four hours.

Based on that he was pretty sure that Mayor Hull was either upset at Chief Abbey for his comments or trying to figure out how bad things really were in Kynaston and whether it was safe to have the centenary celebrations or not — much less why he hadn’t known it was that bad until now.