It occurred to him early on it had been a setup, just not early enough to avoid being caught.

"Thanks Bill," said a man dressed in a suits that looked like it cost more than the detective made in a year.  The detective, who the kid had known as Jenkins, left without a word, closing the door to the interrogation room door with a solid click, the light on the surveillance camera turning off with a quieter one.  He took a few steps toward the other side of the table, his cane, which the kid had first thought an affectation, turning out to be needed, a pronounced limp in the man's stride.

"Sealed juvenile record, clean jacket, barely a digital footprint," the lawyer began, carefully sitting down and patting the case file which was notably thin.  That had been the first clue the detective was in on it too, leaving the file there along with a thing that looked an old brass baby's rattle that priests used to splash holy water on people in church.  The kid hadn't been to church in ages but remembered seeing them use it when he had, walking up and down the pews and sprinkling people with it.

"Shouldn't be a problem making this go away, but you'll never work in this town again," the lawyer warned, which got a defiant eye roll from the kid.

"Oh, you didn't know?  This is Cardinal Dupont's," he explained, holding up the little relic and giving it a playful shake.  The kid knew what a cardinal was but didn't know who Dupont was or why he was supposed to be impressed so he just shrugged.  The lawyer shrugged too, like it didn't really matter if the kid believed him or not.

"It belonged to the Bishop of Mynyw though and doesn't belong in this country, so," the lawyer shrugged again, not finishing his words and just pocketing the sprinkler as though that was enough of an explanation.

"When you're ready, give us a call," the man said, slipping the kid a card that had a name (Dylan Alywen, Esq.)  and a funny number that the kid would later learn was in the U.K.

~O~

It took him a week to call but it had been one hell of a week.  To say things had gone south fast were an understatement.  Anyone who used to talk to him suddenly stopped, anyone he wouldn't want to talk to suddenly wanted him to 'stop on by', and then there were those two guys waiting outside his apartment.  He'd barely gotten away from them and still had a few marks around his wrists from where they'd tied his hands.

~O~

He'd never been on a plane before.  Not that he hadn't traveled, just mostly up and down the coast but still, he'd never been on a plane and never left the country, unless you counted short hops into Mexico, which he didn't.

He'd had however played with cards, he was quite good at cards in fact, he just hadn't played with this kind before.

The first card he'd drawn was the Three of Wands, Reversed.  The second was Strength, the third The Tower.  He didn't know what they meant yet, he hadn't been able to find a book about them in the airport book store and the pack hadn't come with instructions, it had just been in the envelop with the passport, plane ticket, an address in London and a stack of old fifty pound notes with some guy named Christopher Wren on the back of them.  He'd mostly been shuffling them, doing card tricks and such to pass the time.  He'd laid the three out on a whim and immediately felt it was a bad idea.  He returned them to the deck and the pocket of his jacket.  He didn't have any bags.

~O~

It was a very long flight.

"Brandon Fisher?" the customs agent said.

"Yep, that's me," Fisher said with a broad smile.

"Fisher to my friends," he added.  Not that the agent cared, but the kid had known a Brandon back home, hadn't really like the guy and didn't really like the name.  If he'd gotten to pick his own name he'd have done something that was trying to sound cool, like Dante or Drake or maybe something simple and utterly forgettable, like Joe, anything but Brandon, still, one did not look a gift passport in the mouth.

"Is your visit for business or pleasure?" he was asked.

"Pleasure," he replied, adding, "I've always wanted to come here."

Both statements were a lie.

"Well, enjoy your stay Mister Fisher," the agent said, handing back his passport and sending him on his way.

"Just Fisher," he said mostly to himself as he made his way outside.

---

Fisher is an avid student of things, people, places, processes.  He's a bit of a Luddite in the sense that he doesn't use a lot of technology and has virtually zero digital footprint.  He has a phone but it's a burner, a watch but it's analog and an email address, but no computer of his own and he hasn't checked it in months.  He still reads the newspaper and goes to the library or bookstores when he wants to learn about something, that or he finds someone that knows all about it and peppers them with questions until he gets what he wants.  He's persistent that way, and quite possibly annoying.

That's not to say he doesn't like technology, and knows a lot about it, he just doesn't actually use it himself.

He's definitely a people person and though he doesn't have any close friends (or any at all in London), he doesn't like to be alone.  He'll usually be found in any moderately crowded cafe, park, store, if only to be near people (and always on the look out for someone paying more attention to their phone than their wallet in their pocket).

Growing up on glitzy Hollywood crime dramas, he's got a romanticized notion of the business, which is why he wasn't that resistant to being setup and pushed toward London.  Sure, he could have gone somewhere else in the US, somewhere else in the world but he was intrigued, curious and looking forward to seeing where this all would go.

And he hasn't a clue what he's gotten himself into.

~O~

At just over six feet and just under 170 pounds, Fisher is tall and lithe in both appearance and motion.  He moves like a dancer, or maybe a cat.  He likes clothes and manages to look stylish even in a plain t-shirt and jeans.  He's got a decidedly California tan, an unremarkable American accent and a remarkable brashness that comes along with it.

He's got a certain curiosity that shows in his hazel eyes.  They tend to sparkle a bit when something catches his attention and linger, sometimes a little too long.  He has an easy smile, as though he's got utter confidence that things are going to work out in his favor and so far, they usually do.