2103:09:08:20:18:40

  I flew back home to change into my new outfit. Mom was still out so I could’ve gone in through the front door without issue, but I decided to test whether my cat form would be able to get in through my window. So, I landed in the backyard and after looking around to see if someone was watching – much easier done as a crow than my normal self – transformed back into my regular self, then immediately into cat-self.

  My vision bloomed like someone turned on the sun, the whole world awash for a second in blinding light. I reflexively closed my eyes, and that was when smells I’d never noticed before hit. To my surprise, it wasn’t even that it was disgusting, but the scents I experienced were so different and varied from how I regularly smelled them that it was hard to process.

  I decided to lie down on the lawn to wait it out. Though not as disorienting as turning into a crow for the first time had been, it still took me a moment to process. Thankfully, the sense of touch, balance, and hearing and the like were not so unusual as to be debilitating, although they too needed some getting used to.

  Once my sense input was properly aligned, I stood up and walked over to the high wooden fence separating our garden from that of our neighbor. With a quick and easy jump, I managed to get atop of its thin edge and walked over to the brick walls of my home.

  The next part was tricky. Although my window was facing the backyard, it was still a good leap away from the fence. I didn’t doubt that a regular cat could make it, but while I had their instinct, I lacked the experience. I wouldn’t know whether I had under- or overshot it until after I’d taken the leap.

  After a last check to see if no one was watching, I positioned myself to the cracked-open window and got ready. I crouched down and tensed my muscles, putting in what I figured to be the right amount of force, and leapt from the fence toward the house.

  Immediately, I found I’d undershot it by a good distance, and began to panic. My feet hit the brick wall with a soft thud, and I instinctively went to hug the wall, trying to stop my fall and hopefully turn my crashlanding into a slow slide down to the ground.

  Yet instead of falling, I found myself hanging in place. The bricks were either porous enough to pierce, or rough enough for my claws to get a good grip on them, and while I could slowly start to feel the strain as I hung from my literal fingernails, it wasn’t so much that it hurt. I could hang here for minutes and still be fine.

  In hindsight, maybe just climbing the wall should’ve been the first thing I tried.

  With shaky paw I released one front paw from the brick and took a tentative forward and up the wall. I smacked it down, then jerked it a bit and found that, like before, my claw stuck there well enough to support my weight. A bit more confident now, I repeated the process and so, step by step, I began to slowly climb up to the windowsill, going faster the more used to it I got.

  Though not as fun as flying, I found climbing had its own charm. They were kind of opposites in a way, with the former being more of a mental effort while the latter was a much more physically demanding skill. And although it was probably less useful than flying, climbing was still a nice option to have, especially when you combined it with a cat’s reflexes and agility. My cat form would likely be a faster, more versatile way to navigate short distances than my crow form was.

  A thing to test out when I had the time, maybe.

  It didn’t take me long to reach my destination. I reached up and stretched my cat body to get to the top of my vertically-opening window before squeezing myself through it. As I forced myself through the narrow opening, it was almost as if my body adapted to the pressure, packing itself in and stretching itself out the more I pushed myself through the gap. In the end, it proved to be nothing too difficult and I stepped into my room without issue, feeling more than a bit proud of myself.

  I transformed back into my normal shape and began changing outfits. My usual jacket was abandoned – it wasn’t that cold outside, and so far neither heat nor cold had bothered me much anyway – and I changed my jeans and t-shirt for the puffy, paired articles of clothing of my jester’s outfit. I put on my gloves and star-shaped collar. The only thing I didn’t change were my shoes, despite my outfit coming with a pair. They seemed flimsy at best, so I chose to stick with my thicker boots rather than the curly-tipped, fabric-like boots of my costume.

  Finally, I put on the mask, using the accompanying straps stretching to the back of my head to hold it in place. The eyeholes were wide enough to allow me a full field of vision and, after putting on the cloth-tipped hooded crown attached to the star-collar, the mask was held in place with enough force to not shift even when I shook my head.

  It wasn’t the most comfortable outfit in the world, but that might be just because I wasn’t used to wearing it yet. Regardless, it was loose enough to allow for ease of movement and obscured every part of my body.

  Besides the obfuscation, my outfit didn’t have much in the way of utility or function. It had only two loose pockets that weren’t particularly deep; no pouches or holster and did not even come with a belt I could stuff a baton, knife or even a stick or pipe in. Not that I had any of those – although I suppose I could find a nice stick lying around somewhere – but it would’ve been nice to have. As for defense, it certainly had nothing besides thin cloth that could dampen a punch, let alone stop a bullet, the stab of a knife, or some masked’s caster power.

  But all that could come later. For now, this was all I needed.

  I changed back into a cat and squeezed my way out of the house through the window rather than the door – just for the sake of practice, promise – and landed back in the yard. I then transformed back into myself, then into a crow before finally flying off, going north.

  If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  X

  I sat on the edge of a roof of an apartment building – in human form this time – and looked at my phone.

  CrimeWatch and MaskedWatch were useful tools to guide me, but they were not enough on their own. Alerts only came after a crime had been committed or a masked had been seen, but they were far from real-time. By the time I got there, the perpetrators would’ve undoubtedly fled already.

  Still, both had a hotspot feature on which parts of the city had the most alerts, so it did help me decide on which area to linger at for the night. The more useful data, like how many, on which dates, which days and at which times these incidents took place were locked behind a monthly premium – at least, that was what it advertised – but even if I wanted to pay for it, I doubted I could without alerting my mom I was up to something.

  The nearest hotspot to my home was in the poorer side of Northside, further north from where I lived and went to school. It was far away from the business, financial and commercial centers in Bayside and Aberdeen, which made it a less desirable part of the city to live in. In turn, this made living there cheaper, which meant that it was inhabited by the people that had less money and thus also had less amenities, which again made it a less desirable and cheaper place to live. It was a downward spiral that had proven difficult – or, according to some, undesirable – for the government to solve.

  Sometimes at school, on the streets or online, I heard people say things about the people coming from there. Call them names, made comments about their background, or said something along the lines of ‘at least I’m not from the northern north’. When confronted with it they argued it was all just a joke, but the laughs I’d heard of the people saying them hadn’t sounded anything like Millie’s or Mom’s. They sounded malicious.

  But even if those in northernmost Northside were less well off, wherever there were people, there was money to be made, and thus there were still many businesses ready to provide their goods and services – albeit of the cheaper kind. Supermarkets and grocery stores, hair and beauty salons, electronics and hardware stores; there were plenty of things people needed and thus plenty of places for people to make their living – and their profit – from those living here.

  Research – by which I meant me looking things up online – led me to believe this combination of people lacking money while others had it in excess – no matter how marginal this excess was – led to a relatively higher crime rate in an area. In turn, this led to a need to cater to criminal-specific demands, which were often criminal in nature themselves. Repeat this cycle over and over again and you get crime both organized and unorganized, mundane and masked.

  It was a cycle that needed to be broken by something, someone outside of it.

  Which was something I could and would provide.

  But while my determination was running high, my luck certainly was not. I’d been here for hours by this point, done sweeps above as a crow and walked through the darkest alleys I could find as a cat. I’d been everywhere the app had marked as a hotspot, and still, I had yet to find a single crime being committed, let alone one I was in a position to stop.

  For all that I’d considered where to go and why, I hadn’t really looked into the logistics. Open and obvious crimes, like muggings, break-ins or robbery, weren’t exactly common or daily occurrences, not even in the poorer parts of Charm. Meanwhile, the less obvious type of crimes like money laundering, racketeering, smuggling or dealing drugs required an approach and set of skills I didn’t possess.

  The only thing I could think of was wandering the city and try to overhear conversation about more subtle crimes, but that would take a long time for likely dubious intel.

  Still, left with little choice, I prepared to transf-

  “What are you doing?” A rough-sounding voice suddenly said from behind.

  I startled and lost my balance, tipping forwards and almost falling off the ledge of the building only for the mystery person to grab me by the shoulders and yank me backwards instead. I landed roughly on my back, barely stopping my head from bouncing off the stone roof.

  It did allow me to look at the person who’d snuck up behind me. She – if the voice was any indication, they were a woman or girl – was dressed in a very crow-like fashion. Her mask was that of a short black beak, her cloak was made of black feathers and split in two, draping down her back and covering her sides like two large wings. The rest of her outfit, though mostly hidden by her wings, was a form-fitting one with enough belts, pockets and pouches to carry whatever a crime-fighting masked would need. Which in this case seemed to be knives, knives and more knives.

  The masked tilted her head to the side – a very crow-like gesture. “You alright?”

  I spun my feet around and used the twist to rise up from the ground in one single, smooth motion – something I’d practiced after seeing a video of it online. “I’m fine, thank you,” I said. “Um, who are-”

  “Pap pap,” she said to interrupt me, pressing a finger to the mouth of my mask. “Me first. What are you doing here?”

  “Oh,” I replied, conceding the point. “I was looking for crimes. To stop, I mean, not that I’ve had much luck...”

  “You’re a hero then?” She asked.

  I shrugged, feeling somewhat self-conscious in front of the clearly more experienced masked. “Trying to be,” I murmured.

  She inspected me for a moment longer. “Hmm. Good answer,” she said. “I’m Crowsong. Always good to meet a fellow hero. Though I suppose I’m technically a vigilante.” Even though they were hidden by her mask, I could practically feel her eyes narrow as her voice grew even rougher and sharper. “That’s not going to be a problem, right?”

  I rapidly shook my head. “No, no, definitely not. I mean, technically I guess I’m a vigilante myself?” I questioned.

  Crowsong nodded at that and relaxed. “First night out, then?” She asked.

  I blinked in surprise. “Yes. How did you know?”

  “Lucky guess,” she said sarcastically. Was it that obvious? “Though you said you hadn’t?”

  “What?” I said, tilting my head at her train of thought.

  “Luck. You said you hadn’t had any luck tonight.”

  Oh. Right. I shrugged sheepishly. “I flew around for a while and searched all the alleys around here, but no, I haven’t found anything so far.”

  “Flew?” Crowsong asked.

  I demonstrated by turning into a crow and back again.

  “You’re some kind of shapeshifter then?” she asked, this time sounding much more interested.

  Feeling self-conscious again, I went to fidget with my hair, only to end up grabbing one of my crown’s floppy bits. “Just a mimic. And even then I don’t have anything useful besides my crow and cat forms.”

  “Don’t worry about that; everyone starts a beginner. And mimicry is a very versatile power, even if it doesn’t seem so right away. Like all powers, it just needs time, effort and training for it to reach the heights some other masked get for free. But by putting in the effort, you’ll be a much better hero than those that get there by doing nothing,” she said with clear conviction. Despite her rough voice, the words sounded like music to my ears. As expected of a (probably) veteran hero. “Say, you want to get some experience? I’ve got intel on a drug lab out west that needs to be shut down. You in?”

  Do I? I rapidly nodded my head, causing my crown to flap about.

  She snorted again, which was great. That meant we were building something like ‘rapport’, if I remembered that article correctly. It further proved that the costume the old man had picked out for me was perfect.

  “You got a name at least?” Crowsong asked.

  Only then did I realize I hadn’t introduced myself. Thankfully, I’d come prepared. Over the past month, I’d workshopped the perfect name for my masked persona. One that alluded to both my power as one used for remaining unseen, as well as my efforts to hide my true nature as an android. It even had the word cog in it.

  I placed my fists on my hips and stuck out my chest, striking the classic hero’s – or angry mom’s – pose and declared my hero name to the world for the very first time.

  “Incognito.”

  For a second, it felt like all was silent in awe at the proclamation, with the sound of blowing wind the only proof the world was still turning. I imagined if I’d had a cape, it would subtly, but heroically, flutter in the wind. Even Crowsong remained silent, as awed by my name as nature itself was.

  “Already taken,” Crowsong deadpanned.

  I twitched. “What?”

  “Already taken,” she reiterated. “Some guy down in Greenside already has it – a maker rogue specializing in hacking and digital anti-surveillance tech, among other things.”

  I deflated and hunched over, my arms drooping down to my legs. I wished I could turn into a ball and roll myself down a hill to get lost somewhere, but alas, I’d yet to find a ball to mimic.

  Crowsong snorted. “I’ll just call you Jester for now,” she said. “Let me know when you find something else.”

  I nodded and rose back up.

  “So. Ready to go, Jester?”

  I turned into a crow and squawked once in affirmation.