Editing SLACKJAW (section)

==Past==
* '''History''': 
Franklin Pierce was just a another dock-worker until the Needle Disaster plunged Seattle into a deep recession. (The same recession that still stifles the city.)

With the port all but silent, he grew more and more desperate to feed and take care of his family. People were leaving Seattle in droves and the help wanted ads shrank as the classifieds bulged. He gave up on the docks and did some odd jobs with moving companies, but that work eventually petered out, too. The unemployment rate kept creeping higher and higher, and Franklin wasn't qualified for the jobs that were around. 

His only relief was his rope hobby. The older dock workers and sailors used to show Franklin how to tie the old-fashioned knots... a dying art in the era of containerized cargo. Somehow tying and untying the complicated patterns helped him cope with his problems. But he could find no real relief from the forces that were closing in on him. 

His wife abandoned him and his fourteen year old son. For awhile Franklin considered taking to the streets. Even though he was heading toward middle-age he was still wiry and tough--he could be an enforcer for the growing mobocracy in and around Rust City... for that matter he could get a gun and just take what he wanted. He even bought a gun once, but his son found him cleaning it. That night Franklin took the gun to the harbor and threw it in. 

In a misguided attempt to save his family, Franklin's son, LaDanian, joined one of the dozen or so gangs that peddled designer drugs from the illicit labs buried deep in the bowels of Rust City. Franklin hated it, but with eviction hanging over their heads, he took the money without asking questions.

At last Franklin was offered legitimate work with an older friend of his that ran a business renting and selling mannequins. They weren't the union wages Franklin was used to, but it was something. He asked LaDanian to quit his dealing, and he agreed. He'd had enough of Rust City. 

Unfortunately, LaDanian's gang had been taken over recently by a mysterious figure (rumored to be a meta-human) who called himself Killjoy. When LaDanian told Killjoy he was leaving, Killjoy agreed, with a smile on his face, and wished him luck walking the straight and narrow. 

LaDanian was never seen again. Franklin later worked out that LaDanian left Killjoy's "offices," but never made it out of Rust City. 

For a time grief left Franklin a zombie. He'd go to work, eat, come home, and tie knots for hours. He'd only stop to pick splinters of heavy twine out of his flesh or when his hands were so slick with blood that he couldn't get any purchase on the coarse material. HIs boss Hugo noticed the heavy bandages on Franklin's hands, but never said a word.

Slowly he came back to life, but his anger burned. Sometimes, when Hugo wasn't around, he'd lash out at the mannequins. It meant more work for him to repair the armature of the figures, to bond and repaint them, but causing a little mayhem just felt right. He never found out whether or not Hugo knew about this vice of his; he died in his sleep one night and left Franklin the business. 

For the first time in a long time, Franklin had options. He could sell the business and move to Tacoma (the beneficiary of Seattle's bust), or... 

Or, maybe it was payback time. 

He could save a lot of money on warehousing cost if he moved his business into the outer ring of the RC. (The outer edges of Rust City were generally considered safer and more stable than the inside.) And, he could start finding out what really happened to LaDanian. 

* '''Origin''': 
His first act as a vigilante was almost inadvertent. For security he'd set up a variety of rope traps around the warehouse and the loft he'd cut out of it as a living space. One night he came in to find a teenage junkie passed out and tangled in one of them. Several vials of greyish powder were scattered around his feet. He considered roughing the kid up and letting him go, but it occurred to him that this might be just the break he'd been looking for. 

Returning from a shopping trip he set up what he was going to need--baby formula and bottled water. He gave the kid the old rise and shine with the dregs from the mop bucket. 

The kid could only focus on trying to get to the vials of junk that had fallen out of his jacket. Franklin tells the kid he'll let him get high when he finds out what he wants to know. Within all of ten minutes Franklin has a good working knowledge of one of the RC's mid-level drug gangs. And the kid learns that Franklin is a convincing liar--he holds up each vial, crushes it in front of the kid's face, and mops up the residue. 

For days he feeds the kid and keeps him hydrated. Rust City's thick walls and bulkheads make sure that his screaming pleas can't be heard... 

Not much later thugs start showing up on the doorstep of the small satellite police station on the edge of Rust City hogtied in elaborate knots that invariably leave a dislocated finger, arm, or shoulder. When the gang's barely breathing leader shows up three days later, he's gagged as well as tied and has a badly dislocated jaw. In fact the man's mouth still doesn't close all the way. 

Picking up on the unusual injury, a local reporter quips that the success of this new vigilante was leaving Rust City's criminal element slack-jawed. The sobriquet sticks, and Franklin's alter-ego has a name: Slackjaw.