Prologue
Washington. Unknown location. Date and time undefined.
"Which is the new mission?" asked Jason Phillips, looking at his partner with curiosity. If Sean Jackson was taking so much care with a mission, it has to be something really important.
"Is about a weird case, a really weird case" started Sean Jackson, leaving a pile of folders in the table. "It's a gang of individuals… that may not be what they seem."
"It's like that how always starts" Phillips shrugged. "What do we have this time? Smuggling drugs, gold, diamonds? Organizes crime? Car theft? Tax evasion? Environmental pollution…?"
"No, nothing of all that" Jackson interrupted, taking seat while looking at the case files with attention. "In fact, there's no crime so far."
"But it's gonna be?" Asked Phillips, taking a seat as well.
"I will say it wouldn't. Really this-" Jackson pointed with a head movement the case files in front of him "are the most clean that I ever seen in my life, and is that what sounds really suspicious."
"So, the suspects are the excessive clean case files? I don't know if you knew, but there's people who really make an effort of no make any crime" Phillips joked.
"Of what kind of organization is about?"
"It's a family. A couple of thirties and they're five foster kids, teenagers" Jackson explained, taking the first file and glancing it. "Three boys and two girls. Everything seems in order. Pay their taxes, not even a traffic ticket, not a single complain from the neighbors for loud noises, or school warnings for the kids. Nothing."
"Maybe simply they're just a family from a TV. commercial" Phillips shrugged. "Is that so impeccable that is weird?"
"No, is not that. Is… that I impulse the investigation and for a good reason" Jackson started. "I think that… do I ever spoke to you about Eve, right?"
"Your daughter?" asked Phillips carefully, knowing that the subject was delicate.
"Yes" Jackson answered. "When my wife was about to give birth, the delivery complicated. To make matters worse the obstetrician who had to attend her, had an accident before reaching the hospital and was admitted to the hospital as a patient. Then a young doctor, surgeon, offered to take care of the c-section. It was Christmas Eve and they had a few personnel at the hospital, in fact, was so much luck that him was there. Thanks to his intervention, my wife and daughter made it. That doctor was named Carlisle Cullen."
"What a strange name."
"Yeah. Was a young man who has moved a couple of year go to Rochester, with his wife and five teenage kids. Twenty year later, Eve, my daughter suffer an accident in a ski resort in Alaska where she was having vacations with a group of friends. She was given a very strong head injury, and formed a clot within the brain. The doctors were afraid to operate, because they knew the chances that se would survive were just a few, and they didn't wanted to get involved in her death, fearing that they would be accused of Mala Praxis" Jackson gritted his fists at remind to the doctors, and his brow furrowed. "But there was one who did take the risk, and toke the fourteen hour surgery alone, almost without help, more than the instrumentalist and a couple of nurses. Eve made it and got a full recovery, even she lost her memory. But she's alive, and fine, and without any kind of aftermath, thanks to that medic. Guess what? Was Carlisle Cullen again."
"I don't really get why do you wanna investigate him" admitted Phillips, confused. "I think that proves that he's a good doctor, who doesn't falsified his title or something like that. What is suspicious in what you told me?"
"I don't reach that part yet" Jackson interrupted. "When I saw him the second time, in the Alaska Hospital, I though that he was his son. Carlisle Cullen haven't got any day older in the twenty years that I haven't see him. Really!" insisted to the skeptical look of Phillips. "He was identical, and I tell you, absolutely identical. I asked the nurses, like who doesn't matter, about the doctor who attended my daughter. They answered that he had thirty years old, that has moved from Chicago five years ago within his wife and their five foster kids, some teenagers, and even though he wasn't to munch old she had 'and experience like if he had a century practicing'".
"Eh, what is this, the X Files?" Phillips asked, unable to avoid slipping some sarcasm in his voice. "Now are ya gonna tell me that doctor was from mars?"
"I'm not saying anything like that" Jackson warned. "It's just that one person who doesn't give any sing of getting any older in twenty years is something strange. I started to investigated him from a prudent distance and trying to not blow suspects, but before I'll get to nothing, all the family moved, supposedly to San Francisco, but instead, Carlisle Cullen appeared of part of the Hospital of Forks, an small town lost in the rain of the west coast. Why would they lie? Is suspicious. Also… there was something on him... in his look, his eyes… but well, take a look for your self. There's pictures" he added, getting the second of the case files of the pile and handing it to his partner.
Phillips toke it and suited with attention. Reed the first page quickly an raise the sight, confused.
"See it? Carlisle Cullen first appearance is in the records at the beginning of 1900, and change regularly his location, every eight or ten years. In 1918 appears whit his 'cousin', you'll find him lower in the pile. His name is Edward Cullen." Jackson pointed, reaching him the file matching. "A couple of years letter, this doctor marries with Esme Platt" giving him the file of the named, "with which the 'cousin', Edward, suddenly pass to be his brother-in-law, the younger brother of his wife. Some years latter, joins a 'cousin' of the doctor Cullen, Rosalie Hale. An is here where the paranormal game starts."
Jackson skimmed the 'Hale, Rosalie' file, until he reaches a sheet that have printed the photocopy of part of a strange newspaper microfilmed dated of 1933, then he handed the file to his colleague, who read the article whit a frown. The new talked about the strange disappearance of the young Rosalie Lilian Hale, of eighteen years old, barely a week before her wedding with the young Royce King II. The body wasn't found, but does she's torn clothes, a hat and a considerable amount of blood, which made the fear a 'sad outcome' for the search of the girl.
"The name, last name and age of the recently acquired cousin and the missing girl's fit, besides the dates" Jackson nodded to the unspoken question of Phillips.
"Two years later, joins another man, who Rosalie Hale marries a year later: Emmet Cullen, this is his file" completed, reaching another file to Phillips. "More or less a decade later the family got two new adds. Suddenly Rosalie Hale got a twin, Jasper Hale, and they both became in Esme's Cullen nephews. Also joins a girl, named Alice Cullen, married to Jasper Hale." Jackson added handing to his colleague the last two files. "Suddenly, Alice, Edward and Emmet are the foster kids of the marriage of Esme and Carlisle Cullen, who had at their care Esme's nephews, Rosalie and Jasper Hale."
"Ok, I see what you meant by saying that it was rare" admitted Phillips, skimming some files with a somewhat dazed expression. "They… always have the same appearance."
"Since 1950 to today, the 'family' moves regularly. After every movement, they got the age counter back. Always starting about fifteen from the younger and twenty-eight for the couple of parents. The youngest always got excellent grades in school, but never being the best" Jackson listed shadowy. "Everyone got college titles, although the youngest go to high school over and over, and only, eventually, got a fully college career. The head of the family is introduced as a surgeon doctor, even if he had more postgraduate titles and specializations in his field that anyone that I know. The mother is an architect and a interior designer, who took many restoration works. The couple of Rosalie Hale and Emmet Cullen have married half dozen times, as far as I know."
"How are they in money? Could them be involved in something shady?"
"They have bank accounts around the world, and look like if they have a sixth sense for buying and selling actions: they never loose money, always getting richer. In the accounts that they had in their names, and the ones which figured over assumed names, but is proved that belongs to them, have enough money like for buying half of the country. They're filthy rich, even if almost nobody knows. After that, it's obvious that they try to keep a low profile, and they're not ostentatious of their wealth. About a how they got so richer, there's no way to find anything illegal in their business, unless that an almost over the top good smell for good investment: buy cheap and sell expensive, over and over, without failing or get any mistake at the time for sell or buy. They got to earn twenty millions buying thons of coffee by the morning and selling it at the night, when the price was over the sky. Everything is legal and provable."
"Hhmmm… this could sound ridiculous, but–" Phillips doubt for a moment before formulate the question "they… Exist? Someone saw them? Spoke to cover of them? They could be the cover of… Something… I don't know, it's so rare. I mean, they could be fake identities, the supposed owners of the money, character, I mean! That everything is a big fraud, that they're really names in a paper…"
"A fraud for a century?" hissed Jackson. "Really, if that were the case, who is behind this would have the care of making them look older, and kill them when they got to old. I don't think that anyone could be so messy of keeping a character with twenty years for eight decades. Besides, you forget a detail: I saw Doctor Cullen, and twice, without a change in twenty years. All this record confirmed what called my attention."
"Those Cullen's, and the Hale's… they really exist, and they don't get older" Phillips understood, with his eyes like dishes.
"Exactly" nodded Jackson, with a fierce look in his face. "I've track each of them as far as possible, to the vary tip of the needle. Some didn't yield any results. Carlisle Cullen doesn't gave any conclusive result, the oldest registers are not always digitalized, and if is anything before 1900, we still don't find it. Of Emmet Cullen we didn't found anything. Jasper Hale doesn't exist in any place until he materialized with the Cullen's, it's like if he came out of no were. But…" Jackson's expression shows a wildly smile.
"But…?"
"Suddenly, a lucky hit for us, the Memorial Hospital in Chicago did an exposure of equipment and old files as part of the activities for the celebration of a new anniversary of the hospital. We found, along with a blur picture, death certificates signed from Carlisle Cullen, dated of 1918, in the time of the Spanish Flue epidemic. Better yet: the last certificated that the doctor Carlisle Cullen signed before quitting his job at the hospital, was of a young man of seventeen years old, Edward Masen."
"Coincidence or…?"
"Could be, of course" admitted, Jackson, reluctantly. It was clear that he doesn't consider it as pure coincidence. "The certificate does not include a picture of the deceased, but put us under the track that we had to look for individuals with a last name different from Cullen. That complicated exponentially the work, of course, but unless we knew that only could use the first name. Finally, after a few months work, appeared Mary Alice Brandon, on an index admission of a neuropsychiatric that does included a picture, an matched with Alice Cullen. Later appeared the digitalized version, as part of the file of an hospital, the death certificated of Esme Platt, also signed by Carlisle Cullen."
"This that ya say got something dark…" Phillips shaken. "Sound like if everyone of them have faked their own deaths… but why?"
"There is!" Jackson with a cheering expression, punched in the table. "They doesn't get older, faked (in some cases that we could check) their deaths, are disgustingly rich, and try to go unnoticed on any cost… but why?"
"Well, maybe is come kind of, genetic mutation, I don't know… which doesn't leave them to get any older… that they're grouped for that of 'union makes strength', to protect better each other, to get unnoticed" Phillips suggested.
"Sound like a science fiction movie" Jackson said frowning. "Besides, is the matter of the money. That infallible ability… they could be only some genius to predict patterns in the stock market, but I suspect that there's more than that, Any way, is a weirdo case. Still if it's a genetic mutation, it wouldn't hut to know."
"This investigation have already began" Phillips sooner understood. "All this files… who is your informant?"
"I've got a team working on the case" Jackson admitted, getting the files in order again. "Since there's no evidence of illegality, I didn't get the ones that I wanted in first place, but I've got a couple of noobs that are working better that what I expected. Got Stradivarius infiltrating in the system of computer, and Samstag on the phone hearings. Cotton is on charge of gather, classify and filtrate information."
"Stradivarius wasn't the hacker who sabotaged that enterprise a few months ago?" Phillips questioned surprised. "Him and a bunch of other people, were fired when the enterprise was declared broke, so they didn't get indemnified…"
"There was no way to prove it, and Stradivarius swear that he didn't do it" Jackson grimaced. "He's the only one who had the means, knowledge and the motivation necessary. I'm sure that he sabotaged the bank accounts of the owner of the company to transfer the money to the accounts of the employees, but there's no proves. The operation was so perfect, that you would imagine that the owner did his own will, except for the detail that he didn't and complain that was stolen. But there's no way to establish that Stradivarius is guilty, except for the fact that he's the one on charge of the security of the informatics network of the company, has a nerdy face and get hurt to be fired… but was smart enough for transfer the money equivalent to the compensation to all the bank accounts of every employee, so that in fact could have been any of them."
"Aha, and like there's no way to put him in jail, instead they preferred to hire him, eh?" Phillips crooked smile.
"Better as a subordinate, that an enemy" Jackson shrugged. "He located the entry from the neuropsychiatric of Alice Cullen, Mary Alice Brandon if you prefer, so that's even if he was who made the scam, by the time Stradivarius is proving to be no useless."
"And the other two? Cotton and… who was the other?"
"Samstag. A insanely crazy guy, but the best in spying. Is in charge of the phone calls and text messages. I've got the Cullen-Hale's watched thanks largely to him, even if Stradivarius was the one who developed the program to decrypt the passwords to access to emails… but well, nothing like teamwork and Cotton makes them to get along."
"Anyone named Cotton sound to me."
"Another recent acquisition. It was a fortunate discovery, actually" acknowledged Jackson appreciative. "She is, for practical purposes, the wife of Stradivarius. Worked in a small newspaper, summarizing police reports and transforming them into news. When I was looking for Stradivarius, bumped into her. Has a speed almost superhuman to read an it's very good at retaining information and summarize. In compensation, she's unable to multiply any number largest than three without pencil and paper, which tells me that she's human after all. Now, she's on charge of transcribe Samstag's phone hearings, and classify and summarize all the information that Stradivarius get. She was the one who made the files."
"There's something that you're not telling me" Phillips said softly squinting to see the other. "If you already get the investigation going, why do you bother of asking me? Never was ya style to ask for seconds opinions."
"Really, I was expecting to get your help" Jackson admitted. "All this is good, but still something abstract. I need something more concrete, more first-hand, I need a spy, but I'm not satisfied with either, I want the best."
"I'm not following" admitted Phillips, lost.
"I need you to help me convince Swan to join us in the investigation, and go as a spy to mix with the Hale's and Cullen's" said Jackson slow and clearly, leaning on the table.
"I'm not promising anything" Phillips warned. "Swan is retired, and made it clear he wasn't interested to return to field work."
Jackson smile was cunning when he responded:
"Charlie Swan isn't in who I was thinking."
A/N: Hello everybody! What do you think of the beginning of this new story? In the next chapter we're gonna see Edward and Bella in a talk more enlightening than this.
The story is canon until the return to Forks after the time race in Volterra; to place the talk of our players in Bella's room, the thing get out of hand… but that is the first chapter.
Comments, opinions, question, constructive criticism, all is welcome. Thanks for reading!
translator's note: the history doesn't belong to me, neither the characters i only take te original idea of CruzdelSur and translate it, if you found any misspellings just let me know and i'll fix it as soon as Fanfiction let me, hope you enjoy it and Reviews are more than welcome, Love Kira
