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I think that last one was longer than a page, but I'm just gonna pretend it wasn't. :) :)
Several minutes passed in mutual congratulations. After all these years of investigation, they finally had learned the name of the Mastermind. It had taken a long time to conclude that this might be important, might be useful information, but no amount of searching had uncovered the name before. That was why it had been deemed worth the risk - they didn't know if Mastermind had protection from Riddles power, they couldn't protect her while she exposed her mind completely to the world, and they hadn't been certain that she would have the range to reach his homebase. Of course, the team knew where the Mastermind's base was, which helped, but it had always proved unassailable, and there was the chance that Mastermind himself or the island as a whole had protections against mindreading. He was supposed to be a genius, after all, and Riddle, Strong and Willow had been in pursuit of him long enough that most certainly knew what powers they had at this point. Still, mind manipulation was difficult to protect against, especially from such a great distance. Psionics were still poorly understood, and Riddle was one of the most versatile and powerful psionics in the world. It's entirely that there were protections on the island, but they simple didn't function properly.
"So now what?" asked Strong once they had all finished being proud of themselves.
Willow sat down at a computer and did a quick search. "Let's see...in the United Kingdom there are 58 men named Alexander Reynolds. In the United States, there are, well, at least a few thousand. Does this help us?"
"Silly!" Riddle giggled. "Don't be ridiculous. He's not currently a record of the UK or the US. Think about it, we know that he's been on the isle of his for at least 20 years, which means that he hasn't been listed in any phone book sinc then. We also know that he commited his first heist in England, as Mastermind, in 1975, and even then no evidence of his real name could be found. So we need to look in old, old records, maybe school records, in England, in the 1960's. That'll probably narrow our search."
"He's about 50, right?" commented Willow.
"Yeah, we think so," replied Riddle.
"So remind me, we had two plans once we got his name: first, try to figure out his early child hood, and two, see if we can provoke him by knowledge of his name, right?" Strong ticked the two points off on his fingers.
They had all agreed that if years of research could not uncover his name, there must be a reason for it. Mastermind must, they concluded, have a strange attitude towards names, an obsession of some kind, perhaps. He certainly seemed spared no effort in eliminating any records that might suggest who he really was. There were no slip-ups that they had bee able to find, not a single record existed that would link Mastermind to a real name. It took them several years to trace him back to where he had gone to college, but by the time they had found evidence of Mastermind at Oxford, all the records had been destroyed and most of the people who had known him had apparently been murdered. Apparently, no one had pieced together the connection between all the deceased until they did, and it was far too late then. Before that there was no evidence of Mastermind. So presumably, he had lived as Alexander Reynolds until he left for college, and then he had made the switch, and then done whatever he had to in order to conceal the transistion.
"Yeah, that was the reasoning. So, which do we pursue first?" asked Riddle.
They all thought about it for a moment, then Willow said, "we should start the research."
"And while we research," said Strong grimly, "we should wait. If he makes a move, we have ammunition."
Several minutes passed in mutual congratulations. After all these years of investigation, they finally had learned the name of the Mastermind. It had taken a long time to conclude that this might be important, might be useful information, but no amount of searching had uncovered the name before. That was why it had been deemed worth the risk - they didn't know if Mastermind had protection from Riddles power, they couldn't protect her while she exposed her mind completely to the world, and they hadn't been certain that she would have the range to reach his homebase. Of course, the team knew where the Mastermind's base was, which helped, but it had always proved unassailable, and there was the chance that Mastermind himself or the island as a whole had protections against mindreading. He was supposed to be a genius, after all, and Riddle, Strong and Willow had been in pursuit of him long enough that most certainly knew what powers they had at this point. Still, mind manipulation was difficult to protect against, especially from such a great distance. Psionics were still poorly understood, and Riddle was one of the most versatile and powerful psionics in the world. It's entirely that there were protections on the island, but they simple didn't function properly.
"So now what?" asked Strong once they had all finished being proud of themselves.
Willow sat down at a computer and did a quick search. "Let's see...in the United Kingdom there are 58 men named Alexander Reynolds. In the United States, there are, well, at least a few thousand. Does this help us?"
"Silly!" Riddle giggled. "Don't be ridiculous. He's not currently a record of the UK or the US. Think about it, we know that he's been on the isle of his for at least 20 years, which means that he hasn't been listed in any phone book sinc then. We also know that he commited his first heist in England, as Mastermind, in 1975, and even then no evidence of his real name could be found. So we need to look in old, old records, maybe school records, in England, in the 1960's. That'll probably narrow our search."
"He's about 50, right?" commented Willow.
"Yeah, we think so," replied Riddle.
"So remind me, we had two plans once we got his name: first, try to figure out his early child hood, and two, see if we can provoke him by knowledge of his name, right?" Strong ticked the two points off on his fingers.
They had all agreed that if years of research could not uncover his name, there must be a reason for it. Mastermind must, they concluded, have a strange attitude towards names, an obsession of some kind, perhaps. He certainly seemed spared no effort in eliminating any records that might suggest who he really was. There were no slip-ups that they had bee able to find, not a single record existed that would link Mastermind to a real name. It took them several years to trace him back to where he had gone to college, but by the time they had found evidence of Mastermind at Oxford, all the records had been destroyed and most of the people who had known him had apparently been murdered. Apparently, no one had pieced together the connection between all the deceased until they did, and it was far too late then. Before that there was no evidence of Mastermind. So presumably, he had lived as Alexander Reynolds until he left for college, and then he had made the switch, and then done whatever he had to in order to conceal the transistion.
"Yeah, that was the reasoning. So, which do we pursue first?" asked Riddle.
They all thought about it for a moment, then Willow said, "we should start the research."
"And while we research," said Strong grimly, "we should wait. If he makes a move, we have ammunition."
