KISS: HISTORY OF THE SIREN

[inventings]

All I ever wanted to be was a princess

Born on September 4, 1984 in a small hospital in Brooklyn, New York, Adalinda Calista Brown was born to a happy family. Her parents were Richards Mark Brown and Jennifer Rachel Brown who were, perhaps, a bit too old to have a second child in their age -- with Richards being in his late forties and Jennifer in her mid forties -- but were loving and kind people all the same. She was their second child with their first one, a son named Matthew Perry Brown, quickly becoming her protector and big brother mentor the day she came into their lives. After all he did pester them to have a little sibling for company. Growing up, Adalinda had an okay childhood. She didn't have a lot of friends since they lived in a neighborhood that was populated mostly with adults and her parents were only children whose own parents passed away long ago so no cousins to pester or relatives to visit. She also was homeschooled by her parents and got hand-me-downs and didn't have a lot of luxuries because they didn't have the money to splurge. Her parents always seem to be swamped in bills no matter how hard they worked. But life was generous to her in different aspects. She had a doting brother who was always trying to spoil her by giving her treats or buying her one of the things she wanted with his saved up allowance. She had loving parents who did want the best for her, working hard to ensure they left something behind and made sure she knew that they loved her very much with words of encouragement and signs of affection. She was happy and had the usual dreams a girl would have at her age: Be a singer or model. Find her prince who will ensure her happily ever after. It was an almost-normal, happy life for a young girl. But Richards and Jennifer died on Adalinda's thirteenth birthday, having gone out to buy some ingredients to make a homemade cake when she begged for one instead of getting the usual one from a bakery. They were involved in a minor car accident on their way home that became a major one thanks to a reckless driver who didn't notice the mess up ahead. It resulted in a pileup and the death of Richards, Jennifer and five other victims. She learned the news from Matthew when he entered her bedroom, minutes after he learned of it himself thanks to a news broadcast about the accident, and he hugged her tight as he could while forced himself to explain why Momsy and Pops won't come home anymore. Scared and terrified over the loss of them, Adalinda told herself that as long as she and her big brother stayed together then Matthew and her could overcome this tragedy and continue one with their lives. After all it was what Matthew told her the following days after their parents' death, swearing that he'll look after her now that they were alone in the world. Not the adults would have it. Matthew had only turned eighteen that year, a month ago to be exact, and homeschooled himself, needing to focus on things like his own education and not the custody of the minor. Despite his claims that he could take care of himself and his sister and his attempts to prove it, from trying to get a job that allowed him to still be able to provide for Adalinda and have enough time to look for her to drawing up plans with neighbors on who could watch her if he couldn’t, the social services planned to take her away and put her into foster care after thinking over the decision. Matthew refused to allow that to happen and committed a bold move that would start a set of motions to come. One night, Adalinda found herself being shaken awake by her brother, seeing him carrying some bags and putting her travel suitcase by her bed. He told her to get dressed and eat the meal he set out on the table and to be quick about it too. They were leaving. The two of them stole away into the dead of the night to get away from the authorities and also from the watchful eyes of the neighbors who would have no doubt reported Matthew’s actions. The siblings went to a bad part of New York and found a place to live: An apartment complex that had a landlord willing to look the other way of the two young ones. Long as Matthew kept paying a few more dollars than rent needed. There were issues with living there of course besides it being in a seedy area, Adalinda will admit should anyone find out about her past. Like how they had to use candles as light from time to time to conserve energy and save money. How the sink didn't work so they had to use the bathtub to wash their dishes. How the door didn't close all the way so Adalinda had to be taught how put a chair against it in a certain way when Matthew left for work. But it was better than being separated from each other and it was getting better, Adalinda told herself though she missed whatever little luxuries she had when her parents were still alive. The hard part was over and all they had to do now was to wait for the police to leave them alone so they could resume their lives. Or so she thought. Matthew worried constantly about their source of income as he looked after her. They couldn't float on the money Matthew had saved up and Jennifer’s jewelry that he sold away could only fetch a so-and-so price. With the police on their tail for the time and Matthew looking just a tad too young to pass for other jobs, he had to look into other alternatives for providing food on the table. He didn't want to get into too much trouble; he was wading deep enough in it at the time already thanks, so he decided pickpocketing it had to be. He would do this for the next three years, never telling his sister what he did and how he got the money to pay the bills, buy the books for her to study with and give her a nice gift now and then. All that mattered to her was that they were together and were living almost comfortably. In 2000 the cops finally stopped putting in so much effort into looking for them, thinking they were either dead or out of the city and somewhere out of their jurisdiction. It was the month before her birthday when this happened and she considered it an early present with how Matthew could now make an honest living by working as a store clerk near the building they lived in. He was more relaxed now, the weights off his shoulders, and he smiled more often. Things were finally looking up for the siblings. They no longer had to duck their heads when they walked outside or wait for nighttime. If Matthew still had the impulse to pickpocket a person now and then for the hell of it, she didn’t have to know and she didn’t know; ignorant of the fact where he got the money, Adalinda continued to get nice presents and things from her brother more often. Matthew’s impulses once again proved to have an effect on them. One night, a few weeks before December, Matthew rushed back to the apartment, flushed with excitement and with a fearful grin stretching across his face. He told Adalinda to pack her things for tomorrow evening because they were leaving. When she asked here, Matthew just said that it’ll be, ‘somewhere better.’ The following night, Matthew took Adalinda deeper into a city, stopping at an intersection of a sidewalk and waited. It didn’t take long for the person they were waiting for to come. He was a sharp-dressed man with the coldest blue eyes Adalinda had ever seen. He introduced himself as John Doe and told her that her brother had been able to impress him. Just enough to make him take them ‘somewhere better’ now compared to how they were living. Though wary of his appearance and liking how their lives were with or without some things, she followed Matthew’s instruction and got into the car that was waiting. This was how they entered a chapter of their new lives: The Doe gang.

So I was crowned with thorns and roses

In the Doe gang, Adalinda was to take up the alias ‘Jill Doe’ on her eighteenth birthday after Matthew and John talked about it. Mathew himself was now ‘Jack Doe’ and was given the role of a Honey Trap, working with Jasmine and Jacques Doe. There were now fifteen members after they joined in, John Doe as the leader and a woman named Alice Doe his second-in-command and lover. Everyone followed their words, Life with the Doe gang was a difficult and stressful transition for her. From just her and Matthew in a small apartment, she found herself living in a large building that contained thirteen other people with all of them being older than her by a handful of years, at best. Privacy and the concept of being along was now an option, not a right, in the building. She had a strict schedule to follow, lessons in the morning with Andrew Doe, a dour yet fair Forger, and a quick break in the afternoon before being forced back into books or studies with Abigail Doe, a sweet-tempered Point Person who had a specialty when it came to chemicals, before being shuffled off to bed in a room set up for her. Matthew had his own rooms now since he actively worked for John Doe, the same man who was forming a father-son bond with the redhead as he desperately needed someone to pass on the group too if anything happened to him and he saw all this potential in him. He couldn’t care less for her but she was here, meaning she was well-fed, well-clothed and had a nice allowance every week to use as she wished like the other members. The reaction to their presence in the group varied too. Some took a shining to the two new kids, primarily the Muscles (James and Josephine Doe) and the other Point Person (Albert Doe), or new people to talk to at least. While others saw them as more mouths to feed or potential threats to the group’s dynamic with their entry. Matthew worked hard to prove the doubters and butted heads with them, harder than usual if it somehow concerned her wellbeing, making enemies with Alice Doe, the then Second-in-Command, and Alex Doe, one of the Relations, in the process. Alice hated how there was one person in the group who had to do nothing and would get the benefits and felt threatened by Matthew’s closeness with John Doe, always jealous of the thought that there was someone else having influence on him besides her. While Alex always was a bit of a sleaze and lurked around the minor if she was by herself, making her ensure that was never the case and hung around people or kept out of sight. For her part, Adalinda stayed out of the group’s politics and her brother’s hair as he had a lot going on then. She made friends with a Forger by the name of Anna and became the closest thing one could call a confidant to Abigail. She took up swimming and tennis to get out of the building and enjoy the sun again when not studying herself into exhaustion with Andrew or Abigail. The uneasy peace she found there lasted for two years while Matthew earned his spot and prestige with the others and when she was eighteen, she officially became part of the gang and John Doe assigned her as another Honey Trap after noticing her good looks and her eagerness to be part of the glamour and the fun of what her brother, Jade and Jacques did. She was a bit awkward at first, having only lost her virginity in a drunken encounter with a guy last year, but Jacques and Jade were kind to her and Matthew supported her all the way. Fretting a little bit for her safety but Adalinda took to the job like a fish to water. A little too well for his tastes but she was happy to feel useful for once, contributing to everyone somehow. If it meant having to possibly sleep with people and listen to boring conversations? She can live with that. Not that it was all roses and sunflowers at the time. She noticed the tension Alice and Matthew had now thanks to his relationship with John Doe or how possessive the aforementioned man was over him, keeping track of his whereabouts in the city or demand to have more detail from Matthew in all the jobs he was part of. When she asked him about this, he brushed it off and said he could live with it, pointing out to her that the favoritism their leader showed for him was how he had a bigger cut from the job’s pays than what would have been expected or how he got more intelligence or information at hand if he just asked the man. It had its upsides.The downsides would show soon. Matthew got an assignment Houston, Texas the same year she became a Honey Trap. It was for a routine job: Charm a woman and in the span of a few weeks try to get certain codes from her. It was for a bigger job they had at the time so he had to focus primarily on that with John Doe going far as having a place for them to stay there until the mission was completed. It was to last for a few weeks and supposed to be a simple thing, the mission starting on April 13 and to end around May. Nothing too special by the looks of it, he told her in a letter he secretly sent to her so John Doe didn’t get his hands on it and read it first. He promised he’ll alert her if anything interesting happened. A few days of his departure, after the night he should have met his target in a ball party, he sent a letter. He gushed about another woman with the brightest black eyes he’s ever seen and how clever, sharp and tart she was. This sudden infatuation worried her and for good reason. Over the course of the job, reports were being sent back and they noted how ‘distracted’ Matthew seemed to be. John Doe learned of it and upped the surveillance on his ‘son’, displeased at the idea he wasn’t focusing on the task he had given to him. Matthew would come back after being gone for a few weeks, the task done with the information at hand, and all the while having a bigger plan in mind than what he was part of at the time. Upon his return, he made a beeline for John Doe’s offices without checking up on Adalinda and held a discussion with the man that lasted for hours. He didn’t tell her what it was after coming out of the office, red in the face from exhaustion, fear and exhilaration. All that he told her was that if this was pulled off successfully, they would go down in history for what they would uncover. Matthew was back on the road the next week, going somewhere. He was going somewhere far away so it could be he location for his very own base of operations and to keep up the cover he had told his new, current target when he bumped into her in the ball. Yes, it was the very same woman that he admitted to liking to Adalinda in an earlier later. Whoever, whatever, she was – She must have something interesting about herself to have Matthew get John Doe agreeing with this plan of his. He was to do this work alone with occasional help from Anna if he needed credentials now and then and would travel back to New York periodically to give progress reports personally to the leader. It would take more than a few weeks to complete this Out of New York, and perhaps America, more often, Matthew saw very little of his sister and vice versa for her for the rest of 2002 and 2003, focusing so much time and effort on this mystery woman and whatever this job is. When he came back to the group, it was to give the current details of his task and evidence. No one but John Doe, Alice Doe and Matthew were in the room at the time. There wasn’t much word about what exactly her brother was doing. Whatever this new job of his was, it consumed a lot of his time and the siblings rarely saw each other. Any attempts of her asking him what this was all about was met with being shot down or having the subject abruptly change. It hurt to know that he couldn’t pay anymore attention to her and was bewildering, wondering why this was so damn important he couldn’t stay longer than an hour after his meeting with their leader and spend some time with her. She tried to put on a brave face, doing her own tasks and assignments when given to her. Hang out with friends in the gang or the people she met when not in work, having a life outside of the criminal side after all. It didn’t make the heartache of not seeing her brother as often any less smaller. He noticed what he was doing to her, of course. He tried to make the growing distance they had between each other thanks to their work and own lives easier for her by presenting her trinkets and items when he returned to the building and had the time to see her. Things he bought when he was gone. Books and clothes and jewelry and makeup items he knew she had her eye on. Make up for the loss of him with the gain of materials. He even presented her a gift on her birthday, happening. It was an attempt to cheer her up and apologize for being so distant. The gift was a necklace of their mother’s, the last of her little collection and something he had refused to sell in the dire times they faced when years ago. Giving it to her, he promised her that that month would be when he would finish with his mission and they could spend more time together. He left once again, swearing to her before he departed that it was the last trip. He returned the next day, requesting John Doe for an extension on the job ‘to be sure of things’ as he put it. Not only that, but he became nastier to her after that trip. Looking for every chance to belittle or mock her for whatever mistakes of flaws she did whenever they met each other and trashtalked her around the other members, in front of her face. He sometimes went as far to say that he shouldn’t have let her come with him. Let her be ignorant of what he did so he didn’t have such a ‘burden’ to worry about anymore. It went on for months, going into the early months of 2004 and without any signs of him letting up soon. She began to dread seeing him. Then started to resent him for being so cold and callous and it caused them to fight with each other. The screaming matches quickly became physical when she became so furious. The sudden sibling rivalry between them exploded with her screaming at him one day that she hoped that she will never see him again, furious and wondering why this was happening in the first place. In the back of her head, she blamed Her. The Woman who was taking her only family member away from her and it wasn’t like she was the only one who thought this way. John Doe, edgy and wanting results of Matthew’s work and for his favorite member to stop focusing so intently on someone that wasn’t him, began applying pressure for him to wrap things up so they can sell the information they have to the highest bidder. Matthew kept stalling for whatever reasons he had, assuring him and the members that there will be results soon. Then one muggy morning of March she woke up in her bed to hear the sounds of chaos and John screaming at everyone outside. Her brother had left a note in his immaculately made room, saying goodbye to everyone and telling them to not bothering waiting up. Oh, he took a few things with him too. Hoped they didn’t mind that. He left the group. He chose the woman, The Bitch as John now furiously dubbed her in his ravings that day, over them. Over her. He disappeared to parts unknown and would keep it that way long as he could. He probably changed his and the Bitch’s identities at that point when they all realized his backstabbing. He had left her behind. Emotionally devastated by her brother’s abandonment combined with, Adalinda threw herself into work and fun. She ‘practiced’ with Jade and Jacques to improve her bedskills and made herself learn four different languages to be more attractive to others. To be worthy of them because she was worthy, she told herself as she took up lessons of etiquette and manners and trained with James in self-defense and how to use a gun. She clubbed regularly and slept with strangers if she felt like it, doing anything to keep her mind off the fact that the person who brought her into the group left her there after saying she didn’t deserve to be. She shopped and got herself nice things, buying what she wanted and when she wanted it. Eventually the pain wore off by the time 2005 rolled around. Not a lot. But it was enough that she can focus more on her indignation and anger at him for doing that to her and not the sense of sorrow and lose. The negative emotions against him spurned her on, making her continue on with her quest continue to be considered worthy. The next five years has Adalinda strive to prove herself to the group at the same time show she would not just bend down to John Doe’s whims and wishes. She would do it in her own style, toeing the rules and lines a bit, to make it plain she was a watered down version of her brother. She was a sultry femme fatale when at work, earning the nickname ‘European Siren’ thanks to her talented acting being able to fool anyone of her origins of being a prestigious Russian woman or an up and coming Danish model or anything she put her mind into it. The rumbling and gossiping stopped or was out of earshot now. Either was okay for her and she survived the fallout that was Matthew’s flouncing from them and her. The Doe gang changed its ranks and specialties over time too, people leaving or passing away from old age or illness. Jacques Doe, her friend and fellow Honey Trap, was one the former and Andrew and Abigail were the latter. (So people think when it comes to Andrew and Abigail’s deaths. There are times she and her friends, Anna in particular, discuss the possibility of the two being poisoned seeing how both fell ill around the same time and Abigail more or less took care of her health due to her age. It was no secret that Alice knew chemicals just as well as Abigail did.) Three new people had to be found, as John Doe raised Jacob from Medic to Point Person in the wake of Abigail’s death and now that position was open. Francis, a friend of Jacques and fellow countryman, was given his friend’s job after being recommended by them before the former Doe member left for parts unknown. With that issue settled, John then brought in a man named Louis to be a Forger and an older man with a sketchy past who called himself ‘Abed’ to be the new Medic. Louis and Francis quickly became friends with Adalinda while Abed was someone she kept a wary eye on. More so when he made an alliance himself with Alice shortly after he came into the group. The constant changes brought in a lot of tension between them all too. Having become thoroughly frustrated and angry with Alice, with it reaching its peak and the last straw that was his patience in the wake of her dare question his choice of a job one day in the year 2008, John had her demoted to Point Person and raised his longest standing member and a close companion of his, reliable and steady Albert, into her position. He gave a furious Alice Albert’s old position and a new reason to hate Albert. Things eventually settled and work continued on like usual. They continued on stealing from the rich or the poor, whatever brought them work and money and fame with their fellow bad guys. With her place secure at long last, Adalinda relaxed and went with the flow of things and kept up at it when it came to the politics and maneuvers of the group: Staying out of it, focusing on her own health and her close friends. Of course it can’t last forever. Something had to give and did it give way in the next year.

But I refused it and tried to make my own

In 2010, around early February, it was during a would be heist in the famous Casino de Monte Carlo, in the country of Monaco, that things took a turn for the dramatic, something worthy for television screen. Someone knew of their plans and had tipped security that was now looking for their current aliases that they were using for the heist. John Doe aborted the mission when he learned of it and told everyone that was there (that consisted of Josephine, Adalinda, Louis and Jasmine) to get out of there or be left in the hands of the authorities without any help from him. When grabbing some of her essentials in her hotel room, Adalinda a note on the dresser and it was addressed to her. The note actually said, ‘To Adalinda Calista Brown’ on the front. Going to Jasmine a panic and going to the room she was in, she quickly saw the note in her trembling hand. This one was addressed to all of them. The note to the group had some disturbing content in it. Just nine words and a symbol but it struck lighting through the two women when they read it. ‘Be ready when I come knocking on your door. ♠9’ Not being an idiot, she encouraged Jasmine showed the cryptic and threatening note that was addressed to them all to everyone in a meeting that John had set up. It was arranged mostly so he could scream at them for the barely averted disaster. Everyone had nothing with them but some of their equipment, the rest left behind but at least not with anything that could be traced back to them, and their freedom. Also, their wounded pride with how close they were to being captured. The look on John’s face was priceless when he read it: Shock at being threatened, anger at the knowledge that it was someone else’s doing that his plans for the casino failed and realization of whom it was. He announced to the group, interestingly, to Adalinda’s surprise, to Albert’s shock and anger when she took a quick look at the Second-in-Command, there and then that it was the Bitch, the Woman of Matthew’s behind this. It was the only way she knew about them and how she could get so close to them. She was going to try and tear them down. Probably on the orders of Matthew himself. It seemed far fetched to her but John was the boss and one couldn’t challenge him directly. Look what happened to Alice. (In reality, Matthew is long dead. In 2006, the obsessive and furious John was finally able to track down Matthew and his whereabouts. The wayward criminal and the Woman, whose name was Zhaojun, were living in Italy under new identities. Trying to live in peace as Zhaojun had just given birth back in October. A vengeful John went after the couple in December, planning to show no mercy and he carried that out and Albert, who was following him in worry of why the man just departed the country like that, was unable to stop it in time. The ‘Wells’ were attacked by John on morning of the 25th. In the process, Matthew was gruesomely killed by him when trying to protect his wife and daughter. Right before the eyes of a horrified Zhaojun, his neck was cut open and was all but decapitated by the enraged and slightly deranged man. John proceeded to attack Zhaojun afterwards. The assault was so fierce that she slipped into a coma during the struggle. It took Albert’s sudden arrival and begging to spare the life of her and the baby girl when John was about to deliver the finishing blow. He relented, on the condition that Albert would be the one to kill the baby in some twisted way to make him prove his loyalty. Albert faked the death the baby in front of John Doe, pretending to break the baby’s neck and later on pulled strings to have the child sent to the U.S so he could raise the child on the side and without John’s knowledge. As atonement for not being able to save Matthew or his wife. Zhaojun woke up from her coma months later and learned of her husband’s death and her child’s supposed death too. Grieving and angry, the former Nine of Spades vowed to take revenge and planned her assault on the Doe gang for years. She’s doing it all by her own, having abandoned ties with the Deck when choosing ‘James Well’, Matthew’s identity that he was under when meeting her the first time in Houston, Texas, over them. She knew of his true identity and was waiting for him to admit the truth, not caring of his past and wanting to make a future together. With that seemingly gone thanks to the John’s actions, she now seeks revenge instead by trying to bring the gang to downfall and ruin.) Adalinda kept her note a secret after that, not wanting people to think she was involved with the Woman somehow and didn’t tell anyone about it. John then announced to Jasmine and Alex that they’ll need to pack this and that while telling Albert to arrange to have this or that done because they couldn’t have this danger out in the open. They had to get rid of her and soon and he looked gleeful, it was possible for the stoic man, at the thought of killing the person who dare take away his ‘son’ from him. Everyone was going to be involved in this, one way or another. They had to take her down and if it meant traveling, looking for any hints or clues to it – It will be done. During the preparations to leave and begin their tracking of the Woman, Adalinda finally managed to have privacy and read her note. The personal note was disappointingly sparse. Simply saying, ‘We need to talk soon. I’ll find a way.’ As if to make up for the dull note to her, the Woman keeps Adalinda and the gang busy for weeks. The others and she play a game of cat-and-mouse, with the unknown always out of the reach of them no matter how close they got. They traveled country to country, from Japan to Egypt, going after whatever trace they could pick up from her. All the while they were taunted, notes and letters left behind for them. Threatening to expose everything about them to the authorities around the world if they didn’t catch her soon as part of her revenge against the gang by making them sweat and worry over this very real sword hanging over their heads. John became increasingly frustrated and erratic, something that scared the members and Adalinda especially as they were so used to seeing him composed and cool. Their chase after the Woman finally leads them to Germany in the month of August thanks to a reliable source of Alice revealing a description of someone matching her description being there. Sighted somewhere in Berlin and off they went. It is here that things happen. Adalinda, Louis and James were following up on a tip when they come across the Woman herself in the city. The Woman revealed herself, calling out to Louis by his real name to his horror. They all gave chase, cornering her in an alleyway. Surprisingly the woman knew how to fight, able to knock out Louis and injure James enough that she could get away. Adalinda just stepped aside when she was getting out of the alley, knowing better than to take her on after seeing how she could perform. Even if she was badly hurt herself due to fighting against two people, she was a force to be reckoned with. The night, after getting screamed at by John for letting the Woman get away and for not trying to fight, she got a text from Louis as she settled into her room in their current base. Only it wasn’t from him, really. During the altercation with James and Louis, the Woman somehow was able to steal his phone and then found Adalinda in his contacts. The text begged her to meet her at Brandenburg Gate at midnight. So the two of them could discuss the things she wanted to talk about as she mentioned in the note. Like what really happened to Matthew and to explain the sad fate of her niece. The mystery woman revealing the latter information was a shock. She was an aunt? Really? Is she telling the truth or trying to lure her into some sort of demise? At first she wanted to tell John but backed out of it, unable to find a way to paint herself innocent since she withheld information from him for months. She thought of just leaving the Woman high and dry, not bothering to go to the meeting at all and continue this endless chase. But curiosity finally got the best of her when midnight was fast approaching. The morbid need to know what happened to her brother despite it all and the fate of a child that could be her own relative. She decide to go. Foolishly, she informed her friend Jacob of what she was going to do as she was about to go. He naturally tried to stop her, fearing for her wellbeing if John found out about this. She ran for it when he made it clear he would go as far to knock her out to prevent her in going to Brandenburg Gate, needing to know what the hell is going on somehow. It was when she was trying to get into the car that Jacob was finally able to catch up with her. He grabbed her arm as she got into the driver’s seat and tugged hard as he could, begging her to reconsider this as it was the tantamount to suicide. Adalinda is able to shake him off and slam the door shut before driving off to learn more from the Woman. More stuff happens but this will actually surpass Matthew's +8,500 history and no not all of that in one day.