𝗺𝘆 𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘁𝗹𝗲 𝗹𝗼𝘃𝗲, 𝗶 𝘀𝗲𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗲𝘆𝗲𝘀 𝘄𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗻 𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲 𝗮𝗻 𝗼𝗰𝗲𝗮𝗻
... [ LOADING : FILE NAME ] > edward ‘ward’ james madden
... [ LOADING : ALIAS ] > agent herring
... [ LOADING : AGE ] > forty-one
... [ LOADING : GENDER ] > cis man
... [ LOADING : CATEGORY ] > three
... [ LOADING : CIVILIAN OCCUPATION ] > pulp mystery author
... [ LOADING : SPECIALIZATION ] > hand-to-hand combat, assassination, fatherhood
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Ward’s upbringing is as unremarkable as it is quick in this field. He was a boy, who had a family, he played sports and he went to school and he had friends. Ward went to college, Ward did track and he was believed to be one of the most nimble athletes in college. His parents came to his games and he had a loving girlfriend. Ward lived a normal life. Until he didn’t.
Sure he knew his father worked at the Pentagon, but no one ever talked about work at home. They laughed and they played Monopoly and went to church like everyone else. Ward never really understood that his father did a lot of shady things that upset people.
People that, in the end, made sure his mother and father did not come to a single one of his games again.
For many years, Ward drifted, he graduated, stopped competing, got a desk job doing something useless and pointless. He was going to just mull about. It was only when he was twenty-five, picked up a slip of paper from the sidewalk with a strange symbol on it, that his life changed.
He knew of military training, training for Numbers didn’t seem much different than what his father would share. They once told Ward they liked that he was good at keeping his mouth shut, and that his entire family was dead or not around. They were blunt. He didn’t have much room to argue, considering the rest of his life was aimless.
He spent a decade doing their bottom-level work. He kept his head down, performed well. He took everything they fed to him, because he listened to his father, why wouldn’t he listen to these people? They told him he wasn’t just serving the country, but the world, and that sounded like a damn good way to keep his family legacy alive. And gosh darn it, he didn’t even ask to avenge the death of his parents. He knew the agency liked that.
It all changed when he was raised to a 3, a giving his own independent mission.
There had been a circle of people within London, all part of the elite, that were no good. A laundry list of crimes against humanity. It was Ward’s job to take them out, without disrupting the every-day community they entrenched themselves in. How was he to do that?
Jay Wardson is a best-selling pulp mystery author. You’ve probably seen his paper back books at the grocery store, or the airport. The kind of author that apparently sells really well, but you’ve never met a person whose actually read one of his books.
Jay Wardson lives in London with his son, Jacob, who is a great talent at football, and singing.
Jay Wardson and Ward Madden are the same man.
For six years, Ward Madden has been threading the needle of fake father of the year, and assassin extraordinaire. He’s never written a word a goddamn day in his life, the Agency pays some ghostwriter to do it. But he’ll be damned if he’s going to miss his son’s concert recital. Or… fake son that is.
See, six years ago, Numbers handed Ward keys to a massive flat, a two year old boy, and a stack of files, and told him he had to keep killing those monsters on the PTA to make the world a better place. And he has. He really thinks he has. But he knows that when the files stop showing up, Jay Wardson is going to disappear. So will Jacob Wardson. And that thought terrifies him. As much as he knows his purpose, he’s starting to think being a father is his purpose, too.
