For the Uniform

by Eric Isaacson

Will Reed snapped the strap into place and tugged on the tunic. He felt odd, and maybe a little stupid.

“I must be nuts,” he said, voice trailing as he heard himself again through the microphone in the helmet. He didn’t sound like himself. His voice was lower, quieter, as if he was hiding something. Of course, he was. The microphone was designed to filter his voice to make identification nearly impossible, as well as make him sound more . . . what, he wasn’t sure. Maybe more menacing? But Alan had said it was for the best. Will thought Alan was overly paranoid, if that was possible.

Will stood back, looking at himself in the full-length mirror. His friends must think that he had developed a serious image complex or merely vainglorious when he put the mirror on his bedroom door (not that he saw his friends much anymore). But it was expediency that made him do it. He had to make sure he looked all right before heading out. It wouldn’t do for the successor to the Blackwing legacy to look bad in public, not that it really mattered. Actually, it was Will’s way of psyching himself up for what he was going to do. After all, it wasn’t everyone who put on a Uniform, he heard Alan say in his head. It’s not a costume. You’re not going to some masked ball. If you’re going to do this, then you must think of this uniform as something worthy of putting on. You have big shoes to fill, and if you don’t treat this seriously, then you’re not only dishonoring the previous possessor of the mantle, but you’re gonna end up dead. That was Alan for you, always looking at the bright side of things. But what did you expect from someone with such brooding eyes?

Will sighed. He looked ready. Not that he felt ready, but then he never did. Of course, he’d only been doing this for a little over a month. And that was after six months of preparation with Alan the rigorous physical training (more than he ever went through preparing for any karate tournaments), learning the weaponry (where Alan got those devices he didn’t know, and when Will asked, Alan cryptically replied, “Storage.”), and especially the psychological pounding he took from Alan; it was almost enough to make him give up on this foolishness. He still had doubts about his ability to do this (“You can’t have doubts out in the field! If you have doubts, you’re dead!”), and despite the fact they subsided as the night passed, they came back just as strong the next night, and the next, as if recharged and determined to drag him under.

He then went to his bed and picked up the belt and attached it around his waist. He had already inspected the contents (grappler gun, smoke pellets, radio, flashlight, plastic cuffs, lock picking kit, and throwing darts), another ritual Alan and experience had beat into him three nights ago he had forgot to replenish his supply of smoke pellets and that nearly got him caught by a cop investigating a disturbance call. Finally, he grabbed the collapsible staff and holstered it on his right leg. He was ready.

Then the lights went out. Instinctively, Will whirled around, the staff already in his hand and the button pushed; the two ends slid out until the staff reached its five-foot span. The helmet adjusted to the new light in less time it took to point one end of the staff at Alan’s throat. Then he knew what had just happened was another test. Alan smiled. “Very good, Willy-boy. Very good, indeed. You just might make it.”

Will touched the switch with two quick movements and it collapsed to its original length. He holstered it again. Alan turned the light back on.

“I thought you said the ear mikes would pick up a snake slithering across the floor,” Will said. “I didn’t hear you coming with the door open . . .”

“Nor did you see me in that mirror of yours,” Alan said, sitting on the bed. “The headphones won’t do you any good if your mind isn’t on the job. Distraction will get you killed.”

“You’re so positive, Alan. And repetitive.”

Alan shrugged. “We do what we can.” He laid back, arms behind his head. “You ready for patrol?”

Will nodded curtly.

“You know, you don’t have to do this. Just say so and you’re out of it.”

“You say that every night.”

“Just want to give you every opportunity.” He sat up. “I mean no disrespect, Will, but you don’t owe your father anything.”

Will considered that for a moment. The same thought had continually ran through his mind over the last few months. He looked at Alan. “That’s not why I’m doing this.”

Alan nodded, understanding.

Will went to the sliding glass door. “Same patrol pattern?”

“Mm-hmm. We’ll expand another two blocks tonight. That is, if you’re ready and able to get through the campus quicker this time.”

“Provided there aren’t any disturbances.” With one exception (a drunken brawl that he didn’t even have to interfere in), there hadn’t been. The campus was pretty quiet during the summer break. Only the die-hard students and the ones who didn’t want to lose their lease for the next year stayed through the summer. All in all, USC was a pretty peaceful campus.

Will nodded to Alan, who shut off the light again, while he opened the Venetian blinds and then the glass door. He looked around, the visor to the helmet allowing him to see almost as if it were day outside. Then he stepped into the night.

***

He was atop the Student Union Building when he heard the now familiar buzz in his right ear. Alan was nearby in the car wanting to speak to him on the radio. Will reached behind the helmet with his left hand and opened the small panel. He pressed the button to the radio.

“Here.”

“You on the SUB?” came Alan’s voice in his ears. The helmet was an amazing piece of technical wizardry and was Alan’s pride and joy, for he had designed and built it. For the original Blackwing, of course. Will couldn’t help but tag that line onto everything he was doing, or using, now. The shadow of his predecessor was a deep and strong one.

“Yes. Just getting ready to check out the arboretum.”

“All right. I’m going to head off campus. I’ll check in with you in about ten minutes.”

“Check.” Will turned off the radio. He stood, pulling the grappler gun from its holster. He looked over the building line in front of him. The university classroom center was off to his right the opposite way he wanted to go, but it was the tallest building in sight, and he had learned a few nights ago to always try to swing to a taller building than the one he was swinging from; he had very nearly scraped his butt off on the street below when he tried to swing to the married student housing complex. He aimed the grappler and touched the launch button. The towline expelled, jerking his arm. He watched it flying up and over to the classroom center. The line then fell down onto the roof and, with a tug to make sure it had caught where he wanted it to, Will wrapped his free hand around the grappler. He took a deep breath and stepped off the roof. He had to remember to take a breath as he flew through the air. His thumb touched the retract switch and he was slowly being pulled up as he continued to move toward the classroom center’s roof. He brought up his legs in preparation for contact with the building. Will hated the way it jarred his legs when he basically fell onto the side of a building. His legs were bruised for weeks when he first started this kind of travel.

Contact. He bounced off the brick wall and came back more gently this time to the building. The retractor continued its slow pull upwards. Will touched the switch again and began moving up at twice the previous speed. When he finally stood on the roof, he pulled the metal grappler away from the gun, collapsed the tongs, and then allowed the line into the casing. He holstered the gun.

Will walked to the other end of the building, resting one leg on the roof ledge. It was a good thing he wasn’t afraid of heights, or none of this would have been possible (though his life might have been a little less complicated). But his father died helping the original Blackwing protect the peace and Will would do what he could to honor his father’s and the original Blackwing’s actions.

“This is no game,” Alan had told him those months ago. “If you’re serious, I mean really serious, then I might help you. We’ll see how earnest you are after the training I put you through.” Will had thought then that he’d seen a glint of sadism in Alan’s dark eyes. But he had been sincere in his desire, though he still didn’t fully understand the force that drove him to this course of action.

“Keep focused,” he told himself. Alan would be chastising him right now if he knew. Will reached behind the helmet again, this time using the magnifying feature to check the arboretum a few hundred yards away. From here he had a clear view of the forested area. Usually it was quiet, with an occasional party going on or a couple wanting some privacy and the night air, but he felt he should check it out just in case. After a few minutes of scanning and finding nothing, Will turned off the magnifier and the small digital window winked out.

“Boring,” he said. He couldn’t believe that he was actually wanting something to happen. But if nothing ever happened, what was he doing out here dressed in Kevlar, Nomex, and leather? He’d been asking this question a lot in the last few days. During his training he was preoccupied with one thought: becoming the new Blackwing, carrying on the work his father started with the man who originally occupied the suit. He tried not to think of what had happened to him. But what happened to his father he knew all too well: murdered by Blackwing’s father in an effort to demoralize Blackwing before killing him. All Will’s father ever wanted was to help people, first through his research, then joining the quasi-governmental Secret Intelligence Service, and finally by mentoring the world’s first modern costumed hero.

“Why are you still on top of the classroom center?” Alan said.

Oops. “Uh, thought I saw something in the trees,” he lied.

“Uh-huh.” Silence for a moment, then, “Howzabout some action?”

Will’s eyes widened behind the plexiglas visor. “Really?”

“Yes. Got a disturbance call over the 911 tap tune in.”

Will reached behind his helmet again and opened the police band frequency.

“. . . caller identifies a man in a chicken suit assaulting another person at the Gresham and 10th street intersection.”

“Could be the real thing. Sounds like fun, huh?” Alan said.

Will wondered if the sudden rush of adrenaline and the excitement was normal.

***

Will watched the commotion from above. Three squad cars blocked a portion of the intersection. One officer was handling traffic, the other three had a man dressed in a chicken suit (he reminded Will of a buff Foghorn Leghorn) surrounded, guns drawn. He held what looked like a young corporate type in a headlock.

Alan had parked a few blocks away and watched from the corner furthest from the commotion. He pulled out his palm-sized radio.

“What’s the plan, man?” He looked up to the building across from him, just making out Will’s head. Then he saw Will’s hand go for the radio button. I need to redesign that feature, he thought.

“Just watching and waiting.”

Alan nodded. Maybe Will did have the smarts along with the courage.

“Bwawk! Officers, I demand you let me turn this litterer in! And please don’t crowd Chickenman.”

“I just tossed a cigarette out the window” the suit said. He gagged when Chickenman squeezed. This Chickenman knew his stuff: the aikido hold he was using allowed for very little movement, at least, not without some pain involved. Will knew this from recent experience.

“Officers, you heard his confession. He littered and must be punished!”

“Just let him go,” an officer said.

“It’s a lousy fine!” the suit yelled.

Chickenman shook his head. “You broke the law, sir, and I shall see you pay for it, as you should. However, not only is he a litterer, but he assaulted me”

“After you -- augh!” The suit pressed on, his tone more gentle now. “After you scratched my car.”

Chickenman continued as if the suit had not spoken. “Which is why I had to subdue this man.”

“Come up with three options for action, if it comes to it,” Alan told Will.

Shit. I knew it. Will’s mind raced. He could swoop down and try to knock Chickenman away from his captive . . . and hopefully not break the man’s neck in the process. Good thinking, Will. Use the smoke grenades and incapacitate Chickenman . . . and hope the cops don’t shoot us thinking it’s a trick on this Chickenman’s part. Chickenman. What kind of person dresses up in feathers and puts his head in between an open bill (though it did look sharp enough to do some damage) and goes out in public like that?

“Will?”

“Watch and wait is still the best option for now. If things escalate, I’ll try to distract him.”

“And the third?”

Will smiled behind the visor. “Improvise,” he said, echoing Alan’s mantra of the last six months.

Yep, the kid just might make it, Alan thought. “You ready to engage the cops then?”

Will knew what that meant. The prevailing attitude in San Diego, mostly propagated by the police, was that costumed vigilantes were not welcome, nor tolerated. There were exceptions, of course. Ikon was always welcome to help out, and the Crusaders, too, when they were still around. It also meant that if the police tried to arrest him, which they surely would, then he might have to fight his way to escape. And hitting police officers, the legal implications aside, was not something he desired. How did his predecessor ever develop such a rapport with the police fifteen years ago? There were things about this job that really bugged Will.

“He broke his neck!”

The suit in Chickenman’s arms did look like he was either dead or passed out.

“No, I didn’t,” said Chickenman. “I used a sleeper hold on him. He would not cooperate and surrender to my citizen’s arrest peacefully. You can take him now.” And then Chickenman let the guy drop to the street. The police rushed in, one grabbing Chickenman from behind.

“Bwawk!” Chickenman twirled, knocking the policeman into a squad car a few feet away. Then the gunfire erupted.

Will jerked up. “What do I do?” he whispered, hoping Alan hadn’t heard him.

“Bwawk!” Chickenman flew past, nearly knocking Will down. He landed a few feet away. His head turned, catching Will’s gaze. Then he jumped fifteen or twenty feet into the air, wings flapping.

“There’s another one!”

“Will, get out of there,” Alan warned.

Will instinctively ducked as a bullet hit the masonry beside him.

“Shit!”

“Move!”

With one hand, Will threw down a smoke capsule to aid in his escape, and with the other pulled out his staff. Then he ran. The thing about roof hopping, Will had discovered, is that it allowed for speedy get-aways. Not that he anticipated always needing to escape he had made one contact in the police force recently. But Alan felt, and Will agreed, that a low profile kept you from getting into trouble (or, in Alan’s words, kept you from dying). Will aimed his staff and then vaulted through the air. He landed wrong, though, feeling a pang in his ankle. But he continued, rooftop after rooftop, gaining distance between him and the police officers he knew were trying to find him and that feathered clown.

“Will! Where are you?”

“About three blocks from where I was, heading northeast.”

“Stay put. I’ve got a fix on you and I’m bringing the car. Be there in a minute.”

“Roger.”

“No. Chickenman.”

Will twirled, the pang exploding into full-blown pain. Standing in front of him was the feathered vigilante. Smiling.

“Chickenman?”

He nodded then held out his hand. “And you are?”

Instinctively, Will started to accept the greeting until he thought better of it. He dropped his hand to his side, ready to grab his Taser, if needed.

“Uh, Blackwing,” he replied.

Chickenman folded his arms, his wings pointing outward. “Well, uh, Blackwing. Pleased to meet you.” He cocked his head. “I thought you were dead.”

“I, uh, I’m not.”

“Huh. Well, it’s good to know we’re on the same side, my friend.” Chickenman leaned in. “There are so many injustices in the world, isn’t there? Take for example that man back there. Others may think me crazy for performing a citizen’s arrest on a mere litterer, however,” and he held up a finger, emphasizing his point, “all it takes is one small crime to escalate, eventually mind you, to something more vile. We all must be vigilant.” Chickenman leaned in even closer, his pale blue eyes staring. “All of us. Well, be seeing you.” He turned and jumped off the roof.

Will hobbled to the ledge and watched as Chickenman flapped his wings, the action somehow slowing his three-floor descent. Then Alan’s Camaro screeched to a halt below. He opened the door and motioned Will down. After he rappelled down the building, Will limped to the other side of the car.

“What the hell happened to you?” Alan asked and then drove off.

***

Alan took Will to his place, checked out his ankle (“Just a sprain”), and went to get an ice pack. Will sat with his right leg elevated on a footstool and a pillow. He laid his head back and sighed, trying those healing meditations Alan taught him, but all he could think of was his ankle. What if this Chickenman wanted more than a howdy-do? What if it hadn’t been Chickenman? What if it had been one of the (known) bad guys, like the Musketeer or Harlot? And he sprained his ankle while making a simple jump! Really stupid.

“. . . don’t care! He’s only . . . for God’s sake!”

“Keep your voice down,” Will heard Alan say. “Besides, I seem to recall. . . .”

Who was in there with him? He hadn’t heard anybody come in. And the voice sounded vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t place it. Will stood up and hopped on his good foot to the doorway, ignoring the stabbing sensations in his ankle each time he landed.

Alan stood by the refrigerator, holding the ice pack. He faced a tall, dark haired man whose arms were crossed and who wore a scowl that seemed a natural part of his face.

“. . . beside the point, Alan. You know that.”

“How did you find out about this anyway?”

“Bluejay emailed me last week. Said he heard about another Blackwing patrolling the rooftops of San Diego and hitting the petty stuff.”

“Look, the kid is determined, just like you were.”

“He’s also standing over there listening to us.”

At which point both Alan and his companion turned and stared at Will for a few moments.

“Will, you should be sitting. I’ll bring the ice pack to you in a sec.”

“Alan, what’s going on?”

Alan smiled his don’t-worry-everything-is-fine smile. “Just an old friend who decided to stop by.”

This friend turned and faced Will, eyes narrowed, as if in challenge.

“You could’ve gotten yourself killed out there tonight. Is that what you want? To be dead?”

The way this guy stood, the commanding way he spoke. It was all very familiar.

“Of course not,” Will replied.

“That’s what’s going to happen if you keep making stupid mistakes like you did tonight.”

“Hey,” Alan said. Will could tell he was starting to get upset he had heard that tone enough times during training. “I don’t think you need to speak to him like that, Rick. And it’s not as if he hasn’t been trained.”

Rick? He had a sudden flash of memory, something his father had said to him once about a Rick something-or-another. Being proud of him.

“No offense, Alan, but you’re not him.”

Alan slapped the ice pack down on the counter. “No, no I’m not him, damn it. But I helped train you, didn’t I? I didn’t want to do it, but Eric insisted. And look at you. You turned out okay.”

“Eric?” Will mumbled. “Blackwing.” His mind raced. Of course! That’s why this Rick seemed so familiar. “You. You’re Warhawk.” He had seen this man’s face many times on television during the Krolan invasion. Not to mention he was the original Blackwing’s protégé. Maybe that’s why he was here then. To claim the mantle of Blackwing for his own. But that didn’t seem likely. Will recalled that most of the Crusaders retired after the invasion was over and rebuilding had begun, Warhawk included.

Rick glared at Alan, who smiled again, shrugging his shoulders.

“Don’t look at me, Rick. I hadn’t told him. He can be pretty smart, you know. Smarter even than Eric when he was that age. He thinks about what he’s going to do rather than just jumping into it. Like you used to.”

Rick opened his mouth as if to go into another tirade, but he stood there, silent for a moment. Then his face seemed to relax. Anger was replaced by resignation. He faced Will, and then held out his hand.

“Rick Spensor.” Spensor! That was it.

Will took the offered hand. “Will Reed. I remember my father telling me he was proud of you a long time ago, though I don’t recall now for what.”

“Leaving,” Alan chided.

Rick paid no attention and pocketed his hands. “Your father was a great man. I admired him very much.”

“As do I. He’s part of the reason I’m doing this.”

“What are the other reasons?”

“To honor . . . to honor Eric. And to do some good.”

Rick smiled at Alan. “I seem to recall saying something to that extent. Once upon a time.” Alan simply nodded. Rick looked at Will again. “I’ve been watching you all night, Will. Alan’s right. You do think. That’s a start. Part of me hopes that you’ll really think about what you’re doing and do what I’ve done. What Eric did.”

“And what’s that?”

“Get out. Get away from this lifestyle. From that uniform. There’s too much to risk.”

“I’d say that about not putting on the uniform.”

Their eyes locked. Finally, Rick seemed to have found what he was looking for and nodded.

“Okay then. At least you’re going out with better equipment.” He indicated the Blackwing helmet a few feet away on the counter.

“It’s my best work yet!” Alan chimed. “Night vision, infrared, built-in binoculars, digital displays, the whole works!”

“Tinkerer,” Rick said.

“Let me show you what else I’ve got cooking downstairs. Here, kid, get off that ankle and put this on it.” Alan tossed Will the ice pack. Then Alan put his arm around Rick’s shoulders and led him toward the basement door. “Sorry I couldn't make the wedding, Rick, I was busy training him. You got pictures of the missus?” And they were going down the stairs, Alan erupting in laughter, and Will could hear Rick chuckling along with him.

Will hopped around, intending on going back into the living room with the ice pack, but he stopped and stared at the helmet. He could see himself reflected in the visor most notably the golden polygon on his chest. Maybe Rick was right. Maybe choosing this was a mistake, but he could be doing worse: nothing. Nothing wasn’t what Alan had chosen, nor Rick, nor the original Blackwing. And certainly not his father. Will wasn’t about to be the first to let the uniform and what it represented down.

As he settled into the easy chair and propped up his leg again, Will became conscious of the suit he wore and felt for the first time that he wasn’t in someone else’s skin.