Time: 1500. Location: South America, somewhere along the Amazon River.
"He's stabilized. The damn bullet grazed him."
"Damn it! I shot him."
"Zip it, Fintak. It's better he's alive. Make sure he's secure and get me as soon as he comes to Lee."
"Yes, sir."
"Fintak, come with me you have some explaining to do."
It has been only hours since the men of Vipers Nest reemerged into a world thrown into chaos. Upon leaving their secured bunker, one of their ranks gets captured. Before the men can even get into position, Fintak, a Tele-Viper, takes the enemy out. Now they have a suspected Joe, unconscious, in the infirmary.
"What the hell happened out there?"
"Well, Sir. After we got the Series 2, we went into full lockdown. Followed procedures to the letter. Then it hit me. The BAT was seeing him, but we couldn't get the signal in the Nest. I didn't want to run the risk of alerting the intruder, so I decided to go out. Kosa agreed with me. I gave him command of the Nest. I went out with a handheld BAT interface. As soon as I was outside, I received the triangulated location of the enemy. I still didn't want to alert him, so I went to take him out. I saw him, saw he was holding something, and made the decision. I crept up behind him, got within a yard of him. I don't know, I guess I stepped on something cause he turned around. I fired. Point blank in the head. He went limp, fell back onto the ground. That's when you found me."
"You realize what you saw in his hands was a damn line to a frag grenade at Akin's back? Had he pulled, you would have been scrapping all of us off the trees."
"I didn't."
"I'm not done. You set yourself up to be shot by friendlies, man. We had no idea you were out there. You also left your post. You broke lockdown. We didn't know how many were out there. You put the whole Nest at risk. You have broken damn near every regulation we have. You should be up on Dereliction of Duty charges. Damn it, you could have gotten all of us killed.
That said, you did manage to subdue the threat. We now have a prisoner who may be able to tell us what the hell is going on. Akin is no worse for wear. All in all. As big a cluster fuck as that situation could have been, it ended well. My record will reflect that you went out of the Nest on prior orders following pre-established procedures and are responsible for the capture of a suspected Joe team member. Good job, Fintak."
"Thank you, Sir."
"Next time, keep us all in the fuckin' loop. Now let's go see what we can learn from this guy."
"Yes, Sir."
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Time: 1630. Location: South America, somewhere along the Amazon River.
"What do we have here, Kosa?"
"It's some high-tech gear, Sir. I've only read about this stuff. Seeing it… Well, it's amazing! He has high-powered micro-scramblers, long-range image intensification. Sound amplification gear that I've never even seen. I've cracked his files. This guy has been watching us for months. He has basic schematics of the Nest. Records of troop movements, supply runs. Hell, this guy even has our call signs and personalities profiled.
As far as identification goes, no tags, no patches. There was nothing on his hard drive to id him."
"So we don't know who he is?"
"I didn't say that. Fintak and I were able to get into some files he had erased. We got a name. Owen King. A.K.A. Sneak Peek. Fintak was able to dig up some info, and this guy is Army Ranger. Deep recon. Been with the Joe team for a decade. He went off the grid a year before this all started. We assume he was tracking us down somehow. How he survived out there, we can't imagine."
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