CHAPTER ONE.AMBUSH The incandescent amber glow of streetlights shone upon the asphalt, granting grotesque shadows to anything caught in their rays. Groups of people moved slowly, leisurely, as the night wore on. Laughter could be heard among those walking on the dark sidewalks, and loud music seeped from the doorways of bars and nightclubs. Lives existed as usual. But none of this was of any concern to the solitary figure standing on the wall. He simply crouched there, his hands at his sides, his feet resting on the bricks as naturally as they would have on the ground. He was practically invisible among the shadows in the alleyway. A ghost, a spectral being. An outsider, disconnected from the normality surrounding him. James Mortimer leapt from the wall. With considerable effort, his feet connected with the wall opposite him and held fast. Crouching, moving softly but quickly, he made his way to the corner of the building. He stopped for a short time and held his breath. His face tightened as he gingerly rounded the corner, his feet having now found a new ground. He could now see his target, or rather the location housing it: a glass-fronted, single-story shop with modernistic posters depicting lavish diamonds covering large portions of the windows. James crept closer, surveying the plaza in front of the store. It was a simple space, an asphalt square with patches of grass and trees laid throughout it in geometrical patterns as if to force the wild imperfections of nature into a setting of urban conformity and rigidity. Staring at the building, he mentally rehearsed his plan of action. Jump onto roof. Cut hole in skylight. Enter building. Cut display case; take diamond worth two thousand dollars (second to most valuable). Escape through skylight and replace glass. Leave. James leapt to the rooftop of the building, a jump easily measuring at least thirty horizontal feet. He extracted from the pocket of his navy blue coat a pocketknife with a five-inch blade as well as an ordinary-looking lighter. He touched the lighter to the knife’s blade and clicked it. No flame appeared. Instead, the steel blade suddenly glowed red-hot. James moved the lighter up and down the blade before inserting it into the thick glass of the skylight. He made sure to cut diagonally, so as to be able to replace the glass when the job had been completed. He slid his slender body through the hole and dropped silently onto the tile floor. He breathed a sigh of relief as no alarm sounded. Quickly locating the correct display case, James took a small metal mechanism from another pocket of his coat and gently touched it to the display case. He then reheated his knife and cut smoothly through the glass case before gingerly picking up the precious ring and slipping it into a small felt bag which he slipped into an inside pocket of his coat. He replaced the glass, welded it shut with the lighter, and jumped roughly fifteen feet back up through the opening in the skylight. He set the glass in its space and welded it as he had done with the diamond display case. He smiled to himself – another job completed. It was at that point that James Mortimer knew something was wrong. He heard a voice shout something, and before he could react he was suddenly surrounded by armored soldiers on all sides. Each carried an assault rifle. Each pointed one at James. “Stand down,” said one. James did nothing. “We will not hesitate to shoot.” Desperately, lacking any semblance of a backup plan, James held his hand out. One of the men flew off his feet and in front of James before any of his companions could react. He kicked wildly but continued to fly toward James until James grabbed him around the waist and began running. Bullets whizzed past him as he sprinted with his prisoner in tow, spread across his back in defiance of the very laws of physics. The shooting stopped before long, due mainly to the issue of this new hostage. James stopped about a half-hour later, breathing hard. He now stood in front of a simple door, one that led into the hall of a perfectly average apartment complex. Rather than open the door, however, he leapt high into the air and slipped into a window. It took slightly longer to pull his newly taken hostage in after him, but before long he was home.

INTRODUCTION. GRAV was always intended to be, and with luck will someday be, a graphic novel. The tale of James Mortimer has always seemed to me as though it would work best with the added visual element, particularly considering its goal to thoroughly deconstruct the superhero genre. Furthermore, it's friggin' hard to write effective action sequences using nothing but words, at least for me. I decided, however, that I wanted the story to be told, and so I decided to release it in a manner which can be accomplished without the massive amounts of work and assistance necessary to write an entire graphic novel. So as you read the story, keep in mind that this is technically not the final draft. Some plot elements, characters, and structural details such as order of events may very well be changed over time. If I do in fact change the actual text as I retcon events, I will make sure to identify such changes so as to give you all a feel for the dynamic nature of the story at this early point in its creation. I greatly appreciate any feedback due to the dynamic nature of the story at this point in time, so feel free to make suggestions about the writing or plot. And so I present to you GRAV.