leescarecrow

The birthday associated with this account is Bruce B's birthday, not me-the-player's.

If anyone is wondering, mine is 4/13.

I admit I nearly kissed the ground when I arrived in D.C., I was so happy to be home.

After debriefing, I called Alan to let him and his family know I was in the country and was off duty for the next couple of weeks. I expected for Alan, Lora, and I to organize a trip to Flynn's Arcade to try and find out what happened to Kevin. I had never thought I'd be helping Lora move.

I like my sister-in-law. Dr. Lora Baines-Bradley is brilliant, funny, and unwilling to take any guff from anyone.

I just don't like hauling moving boxes, especially when the person moving is the one other member of my family in the area.

Her reasons were completely understandable. With Kevin gone, Lora wanted to be close enough to spend time with her boys. Alan certainly needed the backup when dealing with Sam and Jet and all the trouble a pair of rowdy nine years olds can get into.

I still don't like carrying moving boxes.

The trip across country took roughly two weeks in the rented moving van, with Lora's car taking point. The three of us spent the trip talking and laughing during each person's shift in the van's cabin or during various pit stops. Driving from Washington DC to Washington the state wasn't fun, but traveling like that was almost... restful.

Unfortunately, my time off ended shortly after we get Lora moved into her new apartment. I reluctantly leave Alan and Lora's company and fly back to D.C. for my next assignment.

Billy sent me back to Europe. The rise of the various nationalistic movements in the non-Russian parts of Soviet Union provided an excellent opportunity to find out the truth behind the Soviet propaganda and if the various new or re-emerging countries would be friendly to the US.

It was a productive couple of months, if very nerve-wracking during the attempted coup and protests on August 19-22.

Billy ordered me home for debriefing around the end of November, just in time for Thanksgiving.

My boss, Billy, decided that since Flynn was capable of keeping up with me, the Agency should hire Kevin and assign him to be my partner.

It sounds like the start of a joke. A computer programmer turned CEO and a spy walk into a bar...

Surprisingly, it worked. Together we handled everything from gunrunners to Hungarian defectors, from snipers to KGB agents, to American Agents turned traitor. We were a great team.

And... we were friends.

It doesn't sound like much, but being an agent is a life full of secrets and betrayal. You can't tell anyone outside of the... community anything that you know or do. Not your parents, your kids, your best friend, the person you're dating, your dog-walker, or your mail carrier. It's a lonely life.

The isolation's why Billy wanted me to have a partner in the first place, after... Well, suffice it to say that I didn't want anyone else dying for me.

Kevin... He managed to get past all the walls I'd built around my... my heart, for lack of a better term. He got me to relax and laugh again. Flynn even managed to help Alan and I to reconcile, which I'd thought was impossible.

Things were going well.
And then the Berlin Wall fell.

To be fair, we suspected the Wall would collapse at some point, but no one knew when.

Anyway, I was sent on an emergency multi-part mission to both Germany in early November of '89, shortly after the Wall fell.

About a month later, I get a call from Alan. "Flynn's missing." I can't leave the assignment. I can't get home. And I can't help Alan deal with the press, Sam, Encom, or the investigation.

It's the closest I've ever come to resigning.

I'm stuck in Europe for the next year and a half, making contacts and passing information about the Soviet Union to Billy. It's important work, but I can't feel any pride in it. My brother could use help dealing with everything The Encom Board is too ready to bury Kevin Flynn and his ideas. The investigation into Flynn's disappearance is stalled. And I know I could help if I were over there.

Finally, Billy brings me home.

Not much changed after that happened, honestly, other than IA getting off of my back about my face being everywhere. Alan didn't know I knew where he was hiding, and I was content to go about my life.

And then I met Kevin Flynn.

I was... trying to deliver a valuable package containing clues about how the KGB were locating and killing our agents to its recipient before a pair of goons could get their hands on it. Unfortunately, I'd never be able to get it to the other agent without us both being seen by the goons, and they'd killed the agent who gave it to me. I wanted us both to survive this mission, so I did something desperate.

I gave the box to a random man on the train platform, with instructions on how to identify the agent on the train. "Give this to the man in the red hat."

I really should've specified that he'd be wearing a red baseball cap.

Anyway, the guy failed to deliver the package, the agent on the train turned up dead, and Internal Affairs was breathing down my neck. I had to find the man I'd given the box to and quickly, before anyone else died.

A little research, a little legwork, and a lot of luck IDed the civilian as Kevin Flynn and three possible locations for him.

Despite looking like their COO, sneaking into Encom was out of the question at the moment. I really didn't want to run into Alan just yet. He... He ran as far as he could to get away from intelligence work, and I wasn't about to bring him back into it.

I started at Flynn's Arcade for the simple reason it was the closest to the Agency. We talked for a little bit, he checked my ID, and retrieved the box from where ever he hid it.

After we plugged the leak that was getting out agents killed, my boss, Billy, debriefed Flynn on his participation in the whole shebang.

I thought that would be the end of it.

I was wrong.

You want to hear my story? You mind if I stick to just the unclassified parts?

My name is Lee Stetson. I'm an Agent with the US government.

Is that enough? No? *sighs* Ok, ok.

My family's been a part of the intelligence community for years. Both of my parents were in it, my uncle's in it, my Stetson grandparents were in it, I'm in it, and... my brother was supposed to be in it.

Yeah. My twin brother, Alan. He's... god, it's complicated.

Short version? My brother had a falling out with our Uncle and guardian during the spring before we graduated from high school. Alan didn't want to go into the intelligence business and Uncle was pushing us into it. So, Alan takes his share of our inheritance from our parents and re-invents himself as "Alan Bradley, Cal Tech student."

It works so well that I don't see or hear from my twin again for... over a decade. And, well, seeing your face plastered all over toys, sheets, and movie posters isn't exactly how most people find out that their brother is the COO of a major technology firm.