Okay, this part gets confusing and please ask if there are any questions. I got this out a little sooner than I thought because I have two finals this week and formal and parties this weekend. I'm packed full right now studying. I think I'll just keep posting chapters since I wrote up to chapter 10. But no promises. We'll see haha. Please enjoy. Vote and comment!!

I went about my regular nighttime routine. Finish work around six. On the way home, pickup some food. Bring the food home and eat it, alone, in my apartment. Watch the news or TV until I shower and get to bed.

I didn't have that many friends anymore. My only really good friend in elementary and middle school was Mike. At spy school, I had quite a few friends, but we're not really allowed to talk to them too much and cannot even utter a word about spy school so I have nothing in common with them. All of my coworkers are either huge know-it-all jerks or ultra-nerdy so it's hard to get to be friends with them. I'm in my 20's so I should be partying, going to the clubs and such but those aren't my scene at all. I'm really socially awkward so that's always a big turnoff for girls. Therefore, I'm alone. Always.

I got my microwavable ramen out of the microwave and sat down to eat it in front of the TV. I flipped it on and settled for watching the news. A great way to brighten your day. Crime rates up 11%, fires in northern California, a new corporate scandal, car accident leaving two dead... all just wonderful stuff. Then the politics segment comes up. Oh yay, another round of unhappy news.

But this time, it wasn't about some campaign fraud or abuse of power or a sexual misconduct accusation. It was a result of an unexpected election. I've heard about this campaign very briefly. This man who was on the House of Representatives for a tiny part of Nebraska (population two thousand) suddenly died about two weeks ago. Since this part of Nebraska was so small, there were only a few people qualified and eligible to take his place from that district. The election was quick and hasty. Some guy from that town who just moved there a year or two prior is taking his place. I never caught his name though. I didn't care enough about the election because he was from Nebraska but they were talking about it on the news so I stuck by and watched.

"In more recent news, from Boulder, Nebraska, the election results for the position of the House of Representatives are in. After Mark Dazy passed away two weeks ago, this tiny district was in need of a replacement. There were only two eligible candidates with the right credentials from Boulder: Susan Mackie and Joshua Duncan. And after a quick and easy campaign, the winner is... Joshua Duncan!" The newscaster said, grinning. They flashed Joshua's picture on the screen.

It can't be! I dropped my chopsticks in a haste. There, on the television screen in front of me, was none other than a picture Joshua Hallal himself, in all of his handsome glory.

"You know, the folks of Boulder are lucky, don't you think Carol?" The other newscaster said to her.

"They sure are, Trent! Mr. Duncan only moved to Boulder about a year ago and is studying to be a lawyer and politician. It just so happens that Mark Dazy died and they were looking for a replacement. At only 28 years old, one of the youngest house members, Duncan was trying to find a cheaper place to live after some financial debt and stumbled upon Boulder. He was qualified to run in this current election and Boulder needed someone. It was a miracle!"

I barely heard them in my shock. Miracle, I think not. Sounds like something Joshua set up. That maybe SPYDER set up. There is no way it was a coincidence. Joshua Hallal. I haven't seen or heard about that name in a long time. Ever since I left spy school, I didn't have the clearance level to know about Joshua or SPYDER's whereabouts. After I left the CIA, SPYDER didn't contact me either. I guess I was forgotten. But there is no way that Joshua happened to turn his life around after years of being evil and happened to become a House of Representatives member. No way. There is something brewing beneath the surface of this whole mess and he was in the middle of it. And I was determined to find out what it was.

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That night, I didn't follow my regular routine. First thing I did was researched everything there was to know about this 'Joshua Duncan' and his campaign. I had to figure this out. It was my duty! I used to be a spy after all and defeating Joshua Hallal and SPYDER was what I was known for! And maybe if I do solve this case and there is something malicious going on, the CIA would recognize me again and they'd ask me to join them again. They'd say "We needed you Ben! We've missed you!" and let me back in. I could get back to what I love to do and not some crappy accounting job. I could get back to getting recognized and honored.

I ran a Google search on Joshua Duncan. Apparently, he grew up in the Washington DC area with a mom and dad. He went through elementary, middle and high school homeschooled as his parent traveled all around the world on business trips. He got his education on the go and on his travels. But during his first year at Brown, his parents passed away in some tragic sailboat incident. He put himself through the rest of his college education and because he was in so much student debt and financial loss, he settled in Boulder. He tried to continued his education online but when Mark Dazy died, he focused all of his energy on the election and won.

I don't believe most of this information. Joshua, yes grew up in the DC area, but went to Spy School and then dropped out of school to join SPYDER. I don't know anything about his real parents but I doubt they're dead. And he most definitely didn't go to Brown. It is an awfully big coincidence Joshua moved there a mere year before they were looking for a new house position. This was probably all a setup by SPYDER or whoever Joshua is working for now.

Then I ran a search on Mark Dazy because he 'suddenly' passed away. He was an older man in his 70's with a loving family. He lived in Boulder most of his life, except when he left home to study at UCLA college. He served in the House of Representatives for thirty years before his passing. He died in his bed one night from an apparent heart failure. Heart disease was uncommon in his family but it has happened occasionally. We don't know the official cause. Mark was a family man with five children and seven grandchildren. They were a very close-knit family and the death was a shock and devastation for all of them and all of Boulder. He was known to be very kind to everyone. The family decided against an autopsy for his body, seeing that he was already dead and they couldn't handle more grief. It sounded a bit suspicious, however.

Through more and more research, a few things didn't add up. Politicians are under so much scrutiny these days, so why didn't these red flags I was finding online every surface? I found no actual pictures of Joshua at Brown. Only his name on multiple websites, club lists, class rosters and such. But absolutely no pictures. The reason I seemed to find out why no one dove deep into his past was because of the small town he ran in. Normally, when scandalous things come out about a candidate, the other candidate found them or people in that town found them. Everyone in Boulder was so happy to have found an elidable, handsome person to take Mark's place on such short notice. They didn't care about his past and didn't even look into it. And since it was such a small town, the rest of the country didn't care to investigate him. Joshua basically got this position scott-free.

It was almost midnight and I had to work the next day. Just one more article I told myself. In this one, it was about Mark Dazy's last moments on Earth. The night before his death, he had a huge dinner. All of his children, grandchildren, sisters and brothers and wife was there. But it so happened that Joshua was there too. Apparently, Joshua was Mark's apprentice, trying to learn all he could about politics. According to Mark's daughter, who was at the dinner, Mark thought of Joshua as his sixth son. Joshua didn't have parents, so Mark thought of himself as his parent and mentor. Joshua was present at Mark's last dinner. Something was going on.

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After a restless night of sleep, I finally woke up. It was 6 AM and I had an hour before I had to get ready for work. I grabbed my phone off my nightstand and did a quick search of Joshua Duncan's parents. I found the article. It was from eight years ago. A sailboat in the Mediterranean Sea was sightseeing some wildlife when a huge windstorm came. The wind was so strong, the crew didn't have the time to lower the sails (as they were in close haul) and the wind caught the sails and capsized. There were no survivors.

It seemed like a legitimate article from a reliable news article site. I've read multiple articles on this site. SPYDER, or whoever Joshua was working for couldn't have planned this far in advance. Eight years? That's crazy. And despite how much power anyone has, they couldn't have changed the winds so that it would hit that boat. So, what was I missing here?

I decided to look into the parents of Joshua Duncan instead of him. I found a very old Facebook account from before they died. It had many pictures on it. I clicked one the first one, captioned "Joshua's first Cruise!" and a picture of an eight-year-old boy. That boy smiling back at me wasn't Joshua Hallal at all.

I could see how someone might be mistaken. This boy had the same sandy blonde hair and smirk smile. They both had the same tan skin tone. But that's where the similarities ended. Joshua Duncan was pretty tall and skinny while Joshua Hallal had a bigger, stronger build and normal height. Plus, Joshua Duncan had a bunch of freckles while Joshua Hallal had none. As I zoomed in closer, I noticed that Joshua Duncan had a small, red birthmark at the base of his neck, on the right side. Joshua Hallal didn't.

I kept scrolling through the pictures. Joshua Duncan at 8-14 years old. But by the time Joshua Duncan got older and older, pictures became less frequent. If there were any, they were super blurry and you could barely make anything out. The latest post was only two months before the parents' death. It was captioned "Joshua Duncan's first day of Brown! We are both so proud of our little boy!" But there was no picture. There was an error message that said "Unable to Display". But none of the other pictures were 'Unable to Display'. There were no recent pictures of Joshua Duncan online, probably because he was getting farther and farther away from looking like Joshua Hallal. It was evident that Joshua Hallal stole the identity of this guy, Joshua Duncan. And the real question was: where is the real Joshua Duncan and what did Joshua Hallal do to him?

It seemed stupid that Joshua Hallal would try to steal Joshua Duncan's identity. After all, Duncan doesn't have three fake limbs like Joshua Hallal. But in all of Hallal's campaign pictures, he is wearing pants so you can't see his prosthetic legs. And because of recent technological advances, you can't tell he has fake legs at all. In the case of his arm, he has a fancy robot arm (without guns or rockets like he used to I presume) and claims a lion bit it off during an African excursion. Since his parents aren't alive to tell the tail, Joshua Hallal could say whatever he wanted about his stolen identity, Joshua Duncan.

I didn't know what Joshua Hallal planned to do with his fake identity or why he wanted to be in the House of Representatives. But whatever the reason, it couldn't be good. I was in over my head. So reluctantly, I went to my side table drawer and pulled out a sticky note with ten numbers. And I dialed the number.