"Come with us."
A simple set of three words had never carried more weight or more uncertainty before in his life but Harold Maxwell knew better than questioning them or the person who spoke them. Life, for him anyway, had taken a dramatic turn when his wife and daughter came home from a shopping trip trembling, shaking, and spouting near gibberish for hours on end. Nothing made sense, everything seemed nonsensical, and the more he tried to calm them down and have them explain it to him, the more it seemed like a bad nightmare, a terrible dream, and one that he so hoped someone would wake him from.
Hell, right now he would've preferred someone whacking him with a 2x4, just to make some sense of the way his world was spinning.
The trial had been long, had been grueling, and had taken a toll out of everyone in the family. Sandra, his wife, had testified alongside his daughter, Hannah, and endured hours of grueling testimony and cross-examination. All the meanwhile, he had sat in the front to try and show his support. His sons, David and Marshall, had attempted to provide the familial support that they could but with both of them in college, they could only make phone calls, facetime and skype when possible. Three long months passed since the start of the trial and with the convictions...well, they thought it was all over.
Naively, he thought internally, until the first bodies started showing up.
The van-ride had been in silence, windows darkened to less than street-legal allowances (couldn't take the transportation administrator out of him, he mused with a sad chuckle to a zippered-shut daughter). There was a knock, three agents, and they were suddenly wisked out of their home without anything other than the clothes on their backs. No cellphones, no wallets or purses, everything was left right where they had set it down earlier in the evening. Harold knew they weren't coming back for them, simple as that.
By the time they arrived, hours at passed, and the dark night sky was calm, eerily so. Harold looked over at Sandra and Hannah as the two climbed down from the van and followed him into the building, lead by the lead FBI agent who merely looked at them with a look of sympathetic pity but had not said anything more than the terse "follow me". A few doors, a few hallways, then into a holding room before they finally saw a few chairs. "Have a seat."
Harold looked on as the door to the room opened and two familiar faces appeared: Yvonne Lee, the chief deputy US Attorney who had prosecuted the case and the FBI assigned to handling their case, Special Agent Tassert. Both women looked tired, exhausted, but somehow pleasantly happy to see them in their state. "We'll make this quick. You three will need to disappear."
Sandra cradled her daughter's head next to her chest. "What do you mean?"
"Five witnesses, all dead. We found Mr. Yorkshire...or what's left of him...about an hour ago. You two make the last of the unprotected witnesses. That, obviously, must be changed." Tassert took out a dossier folder and handed one to each of them. "We don't have much time to explain now though I promise you, once the procedure is all over, we will have time to explain everything to you. Take a moment, look at them, and then we'll be back in."
With a few moments, Harold looked at the folder in his hands and then looked at Sandra and Hannah, each of them with an uncertain look on their faces but with a simple nod, they looked in. For a moment. Then another. Silence fell over the three as each read the dossier inside and what information about what the FBI was intending to do with them.
"This...this is..." Sandra placed her file onto the table and Harold peered at it. "Is this for real?"
"Yes, Mrs. Maxwell," came the response as Agent Tassert returned. "There's no way that we can be sure that we got everyone connected to the guys you helped put away. A simple name change won't do, that's how they killed three of the others. It's hard but the moment you got into the van, our team started the erasure process. In effect, the Maxwell family died tonight. You have no lives to return to." Sandra raised a shaking hand to cover her mouth and Harold put a reassuring hand on her shoulder and another on Hannah's. "It will seem hard...but I assure you, this is the only way to guarantee your safety and security."
Lee nodded. "The US Attorney's office has worked out new identities and covers for your new lives and we will work with the FBI to make sure things go as smoothly as possible." She looked at the three with sympathetic eyes. "All new identities, new home, new job, new community...everything will be a fresh start for your family."
Harold took a moment and looked at them. "What about our sons?" A brief moment of panic crossed Sandra's face as she realized, until that point, the conversation had only mentioned the three of them presently in the room. While away at college, the two boys doted on their younger sister and Hannah often could be found lounging or hanging around one of them during the breaks. To say the three were close would be an understatement. To say they would be devastated if something happened to them would be an even greater one.
"Both of them are fine, Mr. Maxwell. That's all I can say about it for now. They are also taken into our protection and you will find out about them in due course." A few moments of relaxed breathing and a reassuring hug to both Sandra and Hannah later, he looked back at the folder in front of him.
"I-Is this going to happen?"
Tassert nodded. "The process is simple: Each of you will be taken into the facility, stripped down, and put under. Once the process is complete, you should awake in a few hours and you will then be reunited. I can't go into the details yet on what the process is but we have perfected it so there should be no complications or problems." She looked at them for a moment.
Choice 1: They remain a family but switched (Sandra goes first)
Choice 2: All three are sisters (Harold goes first)
Choice 3: All three are good friends (Hannah goes first)
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