The Studfindr Job: Outline

This was the original outline for the first chapter of Spiral Architect. I might reuse it for something else.

• introducing Morgan Cooper; a day in the life
  • he’s in a good mood, strutting down 5th Avenue in NYC like he owns the whole damn city
  • people see him coming in his Adversary’s gear and they get the hell out of his way
  • he’s been sent on a “routine” job before he goes on tour with Crowley’s Thoth.
  • the target is a startup founder: Chad Pembroke
    • the startup is a dating app called Studfindr; it caters to people who want a big, hard dick (we don’t necessarily need the reader to know this)
    • one of the startup’s engineers dropped dead of a heart attack after months of 100 hour weeks
    • standard work-week is 15 hours total
      • this number comes from John Maynard Keynes’ essay, Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren
      • all hours after the 15th in a given week are to be paid at time-and-a-half
      • everybody is eligible for overtime pay
      • a work week can be 3 5-hour shifts or 5 3-hour shifts depending on negotiations
    • other staff are also working a shitload of unpaid overtime
    • instead of paying for overtime, the founder has pocketed most of the profit and has hired muscle to insulate him from angry workers, journalists, and the last Adversary sent to collect him
  • the charges are tyranny, wage theft, worker exploitation, and negligent homicide
  • Morgan has the authority to go after this guy because the Phoenix Society is a non-government organization authorized by the United Nations to scrutinize governments, corporations, and churches and root out corruption and abuses of power.
  • technically the Phoenix Society is part of the UN, but there is an ethical firewall between the Phoenix Society and the rest of the UN so that the former can also scrutinize the latter when necessary
  • the main reason Morgan is involved is that another Adversary already took a bullet in the shoulder trying to execute the warrant against Pembroke
  • Pembroke still has armed muscle
  • Morgan meets the muscle in the lobby
  • One of them pulls a sword, thinking that like the last Adversary Morgan will be intimidated
  • Morgan laughs at him and suggests that he and his buddies aren’t getting paid nearly enough to die in a swordfight
  • the swordsman shrugs and says that he doesn’t think Morgan’s any better than the last Adversary he cut up
    • while Morgan could just shoot the guy, there are lots of civilians around and a missed shot could ricochet and hurt an innocent bystander
    • the lobby’s a relatively tight space and the other guy is swinging a katana
    • while Morgan has a sword, a dagger, a couple of knives, and a knuckle duster to go with his pistol and rifle, he does have standing orders to use minimum force and avoid fatalities
      • the need to avoid fatalities is of particular importance since the Revised Universal Declaration of Human Rights bans capital punishment
    • being einherjar, Morgan has certain preternatural abilities
    • one of these abilities is a full-body shield
    • another is the ability to project an energy blade (similar to a lightsaber, but only 30cm long) from his fingertips
    • the third is the ability to hold his place in time and compress several seconds of subjective time into less than a second of real time (demon speeding)
    • Morgan can use his shield to catch the other guy’s blade as his swings his katana down; he could also use his energy blade to cut through the sword and leave him with nothing but the hilt. Or, with demon speeding he could dance around the guy.
    • he knows it’s a dumb move, the sort of shit people see in bad action movies, but he figures that if he does stuff like this and intimidates people, he can reduce his death toll
    • then again, he doesn’t want to use his einherjar abilities in public unless he can avoid it
    • if people think he’s superhuman they might go to greater extremes when resisting him
      • instead of one schmuck with a katana, he might find himself facing down half a dozen guys with AKs on full auto
      • instead of finding a suspect waiting for Morgan with a gun, the suspect might resort to explosives
  • Morgan notices that the guy with the katana doesn’t know what the fuck he’s doing; his stance is wrong and he’s got a white-knuckle grip on the hilt like he’s swinging a baseball bat or a length of lead pipe.
  • rather than draw a weapon or use his superpowers, Morgan keeps his cool as the other guy rushes him
    • Morgan sidesteps the blow
    • the other guy is off-balance because he put too much power into his attack
    • the sword strikes the concrete floor and shatters
    • Morgan sends him sprawling with a boot in the ass and binds his hands behind his back with strip-cuffs.
  • Morgan faces the tough guy’s companions and repeats his earlier remark that these people aren’t getting paid enough to fuck with him, and that the next person to draw a sword is going to die on it
  • the rest of the hired muscle fucks off, taking their friend with them, leaving a clear path for Morgan to get to their boss
  • the Studfindr office is cold and dark
    • the workers are absolutely miserable, but too demoralized to protest their conditions
    • there’s a infrasonic sound in the background that Morgan finds familiar, an atonal and arrhythmic song that grates on the nerves
    • Chad Pembroke is waiting for Morgan with a pistol
      • he’s determined to die rather than stand trial
      • he knows that if he’s tried and convicted, he’ll be exiled to Uranus for twenty years, stripped of his wealth, and made an unperson
      • those who survive their twenty year exile are allowed to come back with a new identity, but hardly anybody survives that long
      • the Society doesn’t bother sending an Adversary in the first place unless they have an ironclad case
      • the Society usually doesn’t send Morgan unless an Adversary has been killed or there’s evidence of theurgy or thaumaturgy
    • in addition to the gun, Pembroke has an angel with him
      • Morgan isn’t convinced these things are actually angels
      • they’re identified as such because the first sightings resembled entities described in the Old Testament Book of Ezekiel
      • angels seem to crave human suffering
        • there’s no evidence that they feed on human misery, unlike (for example) Outside Powers in the Acts of Caine
        • angels instead take immense pleasure in witnessing human misery, in particular physical pain
        • miserable working conditions and overwork such as those suffered by Studfindr employees are likewise pleasing to angels
    • Pembroke commands the angel to attack Morgan
    • the angel refuses to attack
      • Morgan recognizes this angel; he’s seen this one before at other scenes like this one because the situation with scumbags like Pembroke keep recurring and Morgan keeps having to deal with them like some kind of shit detail
      • Morgan addresses the angel: “Hello, Clarence[^movie-twofer]. Think you might get your wings this time[^shit-detail]?”
      • Clarence could attack, but chooses not to because it knows that einherjar can kill angels
      • it occurs to Morgan that he might be able to persuade the angel to get Pembroke to surrender by suggesting that Pembroke will suffer beautifully for it in exile
      • he rejects the notion in self-disgust
      • whatever these things are, angel or demon, Morgan is not in the business of catering to their sadism
      • Morgan attempts to persuade Pembroke to lay down the pistol and surrender
    • he is sure that Pembroke will insist on a fight
    • he wants Pembroke to fight, and provide an excuse to kill him
    • nevertheless, he feels an obligation to at least comply with the letter of the law if not the spirit; he is unwilling to strike first
      • the angel appears to be nudging the situation toward violence
      • its song has changed
    • Morgan can feel irrational hostility willing within him
    • Pembroke appears to be suffering similar effects
      • he expresses a sudden paranoid conviction that Morgan will go after his family as well
      • he is not reassured by Morgan’s insistence that he and the Phoenix Society only have a beef with him
  • Pembroke puts the gun to his own head, threatening suicide if Morgan approaches
    • Morgan tells Pembroke that it’s his funeral, and he can die if he wants to
    • in fact, if Pembroke doesn’t kill himself, Morgan will drag him in
    • Clarence thanks Morgan and suggests that they will meet again in the near future, since Morgan spreads pain and misery wherever he goes
    • when Morgan demands a true name, the angel claims to be “an angel of Mastema” and says that Clarence will do