It's funny the way things turn out, sometimes. Not at all how you would expect. My life, for example. It started out simple enough, perhaps even on the boring, mundane side. Father was a lawyer. Not a bad one, not the best, but he made good enough money to keep us comfortable. Mother, she was the really successful one; interior designer for the abominably wealthy. This, of course, resulted in us having a not-insubstantial amount of income. So my younger sister and I were raised in a very wealthy, and somewhat well-to-do household in upstate New York. Our parents raised me to be a proper gentlemen, and I like to think that I've done well to meet their expectations in that respect.
All through my childhood, my parents always provided anything I wanted. I had the very best of clothes, the newest in commercial gadgetry and electronics, martial arts lessons, you name it. Some would call me spoiled, I'm sure, but I prefer the term 'cosmopolitan'. I never knew any other way, having always attended private schools full of similarly priveleged children, where there were no 'class boundaries' or issues of rank, only the rich and the very rich. Looking back, now, I can only shake my head and laugh at the perfect little picture I had painted of the world outside, never knowing what it was really like. Not once did it occur to me that there were people in my very own beloved New York that were starving because they simply couldn't buy food. It seemed absurd.
All through High School, I was both an academic and an athlete, with Honor Roll grades and medals in soccer and wrestling. I was on the chess team and the math team, and even made captain of the school's wrestling team in my senior year. I loved it, loved the acclaim and prestige it afforded me among my peers, and my parents were so very proud of their little wunderkind. Even more proud were they when I was accepted to Cornell University. Mother cried when I showed her the letter, and Father nearly did, which would have been a first, as far as I was aware.
The University was my first step towards opening my eyes to the world around me. It was the first time I had really spent any time among people who weren't rich, who didn't have the same background and upbringing I did, who weren't as priveleged. And a lot of them, not nearly so well-mannered, either. Some of the very good friends I made during my time there had come from impoverished families, and were only able to be there through the use of financial aid and scholarships. There were times when I almost felt guilty for simply coming from a wealthy family.
It was after this, however, that things really began to change. My sister, Vanessa, who had spent her childhood in my shadow, surpassed me in our parents' eyes after college. She graduated from Yale with honors, and went on to be lawyer like our father, perhaps one even better than he. On the other hand, I earned twinned Masters degrees in Linguistics and Anthropology, with no clear career choice in mind. After graduation, I moved to New York City to live on my own, to "find myself", and worked for two years with an esteemed broker of rare and antique books. It was during this time that I finally saw the world around me with any true clarity, and realised what a miserable place it can be.
My parents were shocked, perhaps even apalled, when I told them of the career I had chosen. Their prodigy of a son, with degrees from one of the finest universities in the world, was going to be a Police Officer. Already was, in fact. I waited until the exams were cleared and I was invited onto the force before telling them, because I knew how they would react, and I didn't want them trying to interfere. This was what I had to do.
And it was in the Force that I met Miranda Evans, a Forensic Psychiatrist for the NYPD. We worked together on a handful of cases, and I was utterly smitten with her from day one. Apparently, she didn't entirely dislike me, either, because it wasn't long before our relationship went beyond the professional. We dated for eighteen months before deciding to marry. A rush decision, perhaps, but we were madly in love. Our marriage was strong and healthy for many years.
After four years of fine service as an officer of the law, I was promoted to Detective, where I continued to excell, and my parents had almost forgiven me for breaking their hearts and their hopes for my prestigious future. What they thought no longer mattered to me, though. No, sir. I was making the world a better, cleaner, more civilized place, even if I had to do it one person at a time. Between work and Miranda, for all of the stress and misery that comes with being a cop, I was happier than any other time in my life. I didn't think things could get any better.
I was proven wrong two years later when I received a letter from the Federal Bureau of Investigation stating a desire to recruit me into their ranks. This was a truly momentous occasion, the high point of a life filled with achievements. The possibility that things might take a turn for the worse never occured to me, my life was good.
For nearly three years I served in cities all over the country, relocated by the Bureau as neccesary for my expertise in homicide and organized crime, helping to bring down syndicates and serial killers in places such as Chicago, Houston, and Washington D.C., with regular visits home to my wife. My dear Miranda stayed home in New York to continue her work with the force, and it was she who finally called me home on a much more long-term basis.
Seemed the stress of her job was finally starting to get to her in a bad way, and she'd been having breakdowns and panic attacks. So, in a bizarre twist of events, the psychiatrist needed a psychiatrist. But the Force's therapist could find nothing wrong with her, as the episodes continued to grow more dire, overflowing into her personal life. I thought perhaps that I could get more out of her than the doctors, as close as we were, and I desperately wanted to help.
Finally, after months, she divested her problems to me, the cause of her emotional anguish. She told me that she had begun to hear people's thoughts, to be able to read their minds. I couldn't believe it at first, my Miranda, a telepath. It was like something out of a science fiction movie. The main issue, she told me, was that she didn't know how to turn it off, and the thoughts of the deranged criminals she worked so closely with had been pouring into her head, becoming like her own. For months this had been happening, slowly wearing on her sanity.
Four days later, she put a bullet in her head with my sidearm.
The Bureau politely insisted that I take a leave of absence to recover from the grief of losing my beloved wife, and pending an investigation into her death, since it was my gun that did the deed.
The pain of loss was dreadful, the most horrible feeling I've ever known. The grief, the depression, the guilt… it all weighed on my shoulders like a mountain. My nights were sleepless, my days were restless, and I felt that I could die of heartbreak at any moment. And in the middle of it, during the worst time of my life, that a man approached me with an offer I had not forseen.
This man told me of an organization known simply as the Company, whose goal it was to seek out individuals with special gifts, like Miranda's, and help them to understand and control their unique talents, as well as keep them safe from themselves and protect society from the dangers that they might pose. It took some time for me to think it over, but I finally agreed to his offer. I did not want anyone else to experience what I had when the spark of my wife's life was extenguished. No one should have to suffer only because they are different from those around them.
And so I joined the Company, trained in their special facilities, and was eventually paired with an 'Evolved', as they call them. That was five years ago. Since then, I have been an Agent in what is referred to as the "bag and tag" squad. Two years ago came the so-called Bomb, when an Evolved lost control of his powers and destroyed a significant portion of New York City. Exactly the sort of thing we exist to prevent. Then followed the revelation to the public that the Evolved walk among them, and the signing of the Linderman Act. This has made my job easier, in some ways, and far more difficult in others.
The Company, with their new affiliation with the government, is granted a great deal more liberty and privelage in pursuing their goals, more access to official resources. But the Evolved are taking greater liberties as well, now that there is not such a dire need for them to stay hidden, making them more difficult to pursue and capture. But the good work must be done, for the good of all, and so I continue to Protect and Serve the people.
