"Before Nightfall: the Beginning of the Ebon Phoenix, Part I"
Note: This is a work of fiction. You may notice a familiar feel to this as another story, and I respect Bill Kane and the rest of the authors who have invented the Batman universe. However, this is my own spin on things, and while I have used the names of actual people in my life, it is still fiction. These are events that might, in some other universe, play out, but most of the events depicted herein are complete fantasy, with the exception of the true events that have already occurred, which I have woven in for plot purposes. If you don't like your role, or you don't like the story, don't read it, and don't gripe at me. Constructive criticisms, suggestions, and praise are all quite welcome, however.
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I remember a time before it all began ... when times were happier, friends were closer, family meant a little more to me, and life was better. Of course, back then I couldn't spend throw around C-notes in a night on the town, getting myself completely plastered and trying to forget it all. Back then, all I had was a dream.
I had been inventing and testing games: card games, then board games, and even role-playing games. With help from a wonderful woman, Mary Van Tyne, and my friend, Dan Bledsaw, I was able to actually print, publish, and market my first game. Of course, I didn't have the kind of capital to sustain such an enterprise at first. That was when my family started dying.
Now, my mother's mother had died some time before this, and my dad's oldest sister and father passed within a very short time frame of one another, but then others of that generation in my family started dropping like flies. When my parents died in the “accident” at their brand-new house, I began to get suspicious. I was even more suspicious when I returned for their funerals and found my whole hometown had gone up in fire and smoke. This would have been ten years ago.
After that, family members I didn't even remember I had started shuffling off the mortal coil, and I slowly became the last of either side of my family remaining. So many died that I began to fear for my own life, even become a bit paranoid and reclusive, but I also became the sole inheritor of a massive fortune. It was almost as though someone or something were using my family tree as a checklist, and I was the one being kept alive, for some reason.
Once I had the money to do so, I began to fund my own projects (and purchase heavy round-the-clock security). I began calling in favors from some old friends, and some of them began to move from all corners of the United States to Charleston. By that time, Charleston had taken on a life of its own, growing to metropolis proportions, what with the number of jobs I now had in producing a vast array of entertainment devices, not restricted to games alone. We developed dolls, mechanical and electrical devices, and even virtual reality computer games. My business did so much work in the technological field that I thought it only appropriate to call in Dan's best friend, CJ, to head up the department. It had been hard to locate him, as he had left his old job at the computer repair store and his parents had passed on, but I trusted no other person to develop such projects than him.
In fact, most of my friends from my younger days had gotten lost in the whirlwind and flurry of activity that had become my life. I was now making deals with foreign manufacturers, being invited to civic luncheons, and even meeting with military leaders over more “practical” applications of the devices the “boys in the lab” were devising. It's not that I'd made new friends to replace them, it's just that I continued to fear that anyone near me would be cursed to a dismal death like the rest of my family. I never even married, had kids, or did any of the wonderful things life is supposed to bestow upon the lucky ones. However, I tried to make certain positions within the ranks of my companies available to the people I had held most dear before I'd finished school to my satisfaction.
Pretty soon, FordTech Enterprises was ready to unveil a new product, but at the ceremony for it, my lead developer, CJ Coffman, had disappeared. While he wasn't necessary for the revelation, I supposed, I had still wanted him there. I had always felt a special bond with CJ, and his absence left a sinking feeling in my heart.
Still, the show must go on in all cases, and the Ebbing Feedback device was no exception. The device was designed to be an add-on to future versions of our virtual reality games. Say you wanted a particular smell to stand out over the rest of the environment and to make it stronger the closer a player got, or have an image so bright the user had to close her eyes, or perhaps simulate the sensations of intense radiation burns or the compression and coldness of deep space, without ever actually harming the person inside the suit. With this device, neural stimulations and signals could be suppressed or boosted in such a way that more intensity could be given to all the new games that would be released around Christmas-time. Needless to say, crowd response was dramatic, and stock prices in FordTech soared.
However, it was a very hollow victory. CJ, despite his years of intensive research and labor, had not been there to see it, and I began to get very concerned - someone might have gotten to him, too, and the world may never have known. Still, I tried to keep spirits up and hope alive by making public appearances and putting my skills as an actor to good use.
It wasn't long before the military began approaching me about strategic uses for the Ebbing Feedback device. At first, I was loathe to acquiesce to their repeated requests, but as I became a little more curious, I conscripted my employees to try and develop alternative uses for the device, which could fall under military purposes. Apparently, CJ found out about this, and suddenly reappeared, curious and demanding to head up the project. I had no quarrel with the idea and agreed.
Shortly after this agreement, I noticed that Dan Bledsaw had come back to Charleston, and CJ had put in requests to have him join the Ebbing Feedback Suit project. I couldn't give CJ a firm answer “yea” or “nay.” I'd had quite the falling out with Dan a long time before my entire family had died, and old wounds are often the toughest to heal. Still, I had wanted to have CJ by my side through all of this, and the only way he seemed interested in continuing the efforts was if I dangled the carrot of his life-long best friend in front of him. It was manipulative and shifty, but no one ever got anywhere in business by being openly and naively honest.
I guess that's why I'm drinking tonight. I miss my family, I yearn for the life I might have led, and I don't know what to do now that I have to deal with ghosts from my past. And, with the Ebbing Feedback Suit nearing its completion, I also have a sneaking suspicion that something heinous is about to happen, and that I have to be ready to pick up the pieces alone when it does.
Trust no one.