Who Is Michael Cooke? – Jump

The next stage in the Snowflake process (that I used, you can pick and choose. It’s not prescriptive!) Was to start creating my characters.

I decided to start with the main protagonist, Michael Cooke. I don’t recall where his name came from, possibly a slight reference to my Dad, Mike. But as I recall the name just jumped into my head one day and seemed to fit.

Planning the characters allows you to sign them physical features, but also let’s you plan out their role in the story. It let me get to know the people I was going to write about and also helped me start putting the meat on the story.

Before I did this I didn’t really know how the plot was going to proceed, but once done I felt like the story might actually work.

I’ve removed the last line in case you ever get to read it so it’s not completely spoiled!

Please excuse any spelling, grammar or nonsense as the whole thing was a bit of a stream of consciousness/brain dump/note to self. If you can make sense of it then you’ve obviously been following my ‘blog too closely, for which I thank you.

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Michael Cooke
Appearance – 5’11, attractive, athletic (obvious six pack), very short hair colour indistinct, blue eyes, tattoo across his left shoulder blade which is the equation which allows the matter transporter to function, wears short sleeved shirts and jeans. Only uses surnames!
Doctor of Physics, Thoughtful and intelligent with an ability to think outside the box. Spent ten years working alone on the idea for teleportation before perfecting the technology, then due to an accident (involving a freshly brewed really hot cup of tea???) he found that objects could be transported through time as well as space.
He was contacted by military intelligence not long afterwards and offered resources to complete his research and development but only asked for a small grant and the chance to hire an assistant, he found Celia Jones.
It took him three months to find Celia while carrying on his work and a further six months to turn the accidental discovery in to a theory followed by a practical working prototype. This was then developed with the military (commanded by Robert Masterson) in to a version which could transport larger objects such as trucks or…weapons.
BSc from Exeter University, PhD from Cambridge in the Quantum Matter team at Cavendish Laboratory getting a job at a small company funded by an unnamed benefactor which allowed him to spend the time he needed developing the technology.
His main driver for the idea was to be able to transport items around the planet without the usual environmental and monetary costs of shipping and handling and therefore allow third world and developing nations the same access to technology and human resources (engineers, doctors, etc.) as first world countries.
As the Jumps proceed Michael becomes worried that the issues which are becoming apparent are man-made rather than caused by some issue with the machine and on his persuasion the team make the Jumps back to investigate.
When an offender with an ulterior motive is surmised Michael takes it upon himself to investigate further and identify the perpetrator. He finds out that David Moulder is part of an underground eco-terrorism group who believe that all problems with modern day environmental issues are purely caused by humans and have come to the decision that if the human race could be extinguished that all other animals and plants would be safe.
He reports this to Robert who gets Ian to infiltrate the group (six months previously!?) and find out everything he can about them and their plans to destroy humanity.
Meanwhile Michael and the team (including David so as not to arouse suspicion) head back to fix the problems, two Jumps are made without incident but by the third Jump Robert has decided it is time for David to be dismissed, so accompanies the team and ‘disposes of him’.

 

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