Transmission: sleeper agents of SHD, please activate immediately, imminent threat incoming.

...activation of Squadron Omega in progress...sending signal...done

Sending rendezvous location...done

Locating agents...done/ State: New York/ City: Manhattan

The beginning of winter. The first snow fall that we all could remember from our childhood was beautiful. The runny noses, the cold fingers, and wet boots with snow up to our ankles. As children you never really could see winter as a bad thing. Except for when you first got the flu. Coughing, sneezing, even throwing up if it got too serious. However, you never could have imagined getting so sick, being in so much pain just before christmas, that you would actually die. Blood vessels popping, vomit covering your own clothes, blood filling your lungs as you drown and gasp for air.

That's what christmas for us was like, death, destruction, and confusion as the dollar flu swept over new york, a disease so advanced, that it would mutate before your immune system or any anti-bacterial medicine could catch up to it. Leaving you to suffer as you take in your last painful breaths before you leave this world.

Hell on Earth, I always pictured it differently, I never could have imagined that it would end up like this. Burning cars, screaming women and children, it was horrible, I didn't want to be activated, I wanted to help my mother out of the city, out of the state, to somewhere safe, but there was nothing I could do, except regroup with my old team that I had briefly met during our introduction and coronation into the Shade Agent Program. Grabbing My ACR assault rifle from my closet I popped a thirty round magazine into it then threw the rest of my ammo into my Backpack.

On my shoulder attached to a sling, hung my trusty 870 Express twelve gauge shotgun. And already in it's holster sat a 1911 racked and ready for use. I kept extra water bottles and some snacks in my pack as well. It was still cold out, so i grabbed my heavy black jacket that covered my gray hoodie over a T-Shirt that I would constantly wear. My denim Jeans were enough to keep my legs warm. I threw a scarf on as well, just to be sure incase it got colder out, or we would be out there around night time. Finally I put some black combat gloves on that had an extra layer of wool in them to keep my fingers warm, and a pair of black hiking boots to top everything off. Opening my front door, I grabbed my Russian hunter's hat on my way out. The rabbit fur on the inside, would keep my ears and cheeks warm if needed, but I kept the flaps connected to the top of my head for now.

As I took a few steps out of my house, I exhaled while I took around my small town that had been destroyed due to the chaos. My breath wisped around in the freezing air, like a spirit making it's way to the heavens. "Fuck..." I mumbled to myself before continuing on my way to the rendezvous point. Bishop's church to be exact, our combat medic. Go figure, right? Like playing the cleric in a good ol' game of Dungeons and Dragons. I figured I was burning daylight if I kept standing there admiring mother nature's' wrath on humanity. So I picked up my sorry feet, and began jogging to the church. Hopefully God had an answer to all this.

It didn't take me too long to arrive at my destination. A good fifteen minute jog to the church wasn't too bad, but I was getting out of breath. Man, I'm out of shape. Lucky for me, no Rioters, Rikers, or looters made themselves present as I made my trip to the church. When I opened the front two doors, I calmly made my way inside. The church was pretty nice and still had a heating system that worked, and could be used for our hideout.

"Hey hey! Welcome. you must be Tyler," A young man exclaimed as he walked up to me. He seemed to be in his low twenties just like me. Bishop was his callsign if I remembered correctly, but his actual name was Brayden. "Welcome to Christ's Word Center, I'm currently waiting for everyone else to show up at the moment, but uh, go ahead and make yourself comfortable, there's plenty of chairs...or ya know, the floor if you prefer that."

Brayden had been wearing a pretty thick trench coat, which seemed to be made out of wool. He looked nerdy, but at least he was smart. The rest of his attire consisted of black jeans, and a dark pair of combat boots, followed with a nice white shirt and vest underneath his coat, and a flat cap to top it all off.

"Jesus, you look like someone cosplaying as a random civi in the U.K." I replied with a chuckle. Seems he was used to jokes as well, since he chuckled with me.

"Well I just happen to enjoy and admire this particular type of clothing" he replied back with a smile on his face. His thick glasses added onto even more of his nerdiness, it was almost too much to bear, but I could put up with it. I guess it wasn't TOO bad. (so much salt…)

Tyler sat down on one of the many benches that surrounded the entire inside of the church. It wasn't anything fancy. Just your typical Catholic church you'd see in the suburbs. Nice paint colors, decent sized chandeliers that hung from the ceilings, and the occasional stained glass windows with pictures of Jesus or the apostles.

"So who else are we waiting for?" I decided to ask.

"You're here, I'm here. That's it so far. I heard that our teammates, Thresher and Rupture, are on their way" Bishop turned his head and looked at the altar for a second, "wanna help me get some gear out?"

"Sure, I've got nothing better to do" so I stood up and set down my backpack and my big guns, keeping my handgun fastened to my hip just in case. As we made our way towards the altar, Bishop moved a small cabinet out of the way, leading into a small corridor with an old wooden door at the end. "Whoa, is this where you ta-"

"DON'T, don't you dare pull a catholic priest joke or i swear on my great grandmother's grave, YOU'LL be the first to get doused in holy water" I couldn't help but giggle as he knew exactly where I was going with my statement.

The corridor was fairly short, and the door was kinda small, meant for hidden places. Bishop swiftly unlocked the old door with some keys he had attached to his belt, before pushing the door open and revealing the inside. Apparently, Mr. Brayden here had a mini fallout shelter in his own church. The place was filled with space heaters, canned food, hundreds of packages of water, and some MRE's. However, next to the front door were two very large duffle bags that seemed too filled to actually be zipped shut.

"Here, I'll grab one, you grab the other." We both leaned down and grabbed a duffle bag by the shoulder straps, hoisting it up and dragging them out of the room and onto a large table near the alter. The bags were ridiculously heavy, I unzipped the one I grabbed and took a look inside. "Holy shit..."

"Grab whatever you think you need" he said and started to unzip his duffle bag, grabbing some interesting looking gadgets, and laying them out nicely on the table. The first few things i grabbed however, was a grenade launcher with some green tubes that were labeled with some sort of healing instructions.

"What are these?" I asked curiously

"Oh those? They're healing fields, you shoot them next to teammates or close to yourself and the gas applies a numbing agent to pain, it's not enough to knock out muscle movement or completely get rid of the pain, but it's pretty helpful in dire situations, or if you get hit in combat. If I were you, I'd grab the defib set, it shocks you for a moment to keep your adrenaline going, so you don't go unconscious...or ya know, die." That got me thinking, they would be pretty useful. Bishop was our main combat medic, but it wouldn't hurt to have two people using some medic gear. Next to the defib gas tubes, I found some standard grenades for the launcher. They'd be useful for eliminating clumps of enemies or light armor, so I grabbed five of each.

Almost instantly afterwards, the two of us heard a knock on the door. Another member it seemed, or probably someone just looking for shelter as they saw the lights on inside.

"I got it" I said in a more of a monotone, before making my way to the large double doors that served as an entrance to the church. As I opened up one of the two doors, on the other side was an unfamiliar face that greeted me, however, this particular young man had a bagel in his hand with cream cheese filling smushed in between. He seemed to be chewing, what I could only assume was a piece of his breakfast.

The stranger smiled at me and waved his hand somewhat in a quick motion, on the shoulder of his backpack the orange glowing ring showed, meaning that he was a Division Agent like me and Brayden. "Sup" was all he could muster with his mouth full.

"Uh, hey?"

"Yeah, so could you let us in? It's cold as fuck out here," said another voice behind the first stranger. Another man showed himself through the door. I remembered him. His name was Ben, but everyone called him Rupture. He was a bit taller than bagel man, but he wasn't as lanky as him, having a bit more muscle mass to his build.

"Yeah, my bad" I said stepping aside, "Bishop, we've got some visitors"

"Hm?" the priest asked before looking up and seeing the other two teammates. "Ah! Chris! Ben! You guys made it here ok! Any word from Pat or Bame?"

"No not yet" Chris said still chewing on his toasted bagel "Last I heard from them, they said they were picking up Michael downtown, and to meet us here"

"That's a pretty bad part of this neighborhood, don't you think they'll run into trouble?" Ben was right, even though it was still morning the most trouble we could get into would be a few looters or a pack of rioters, but nothing too serious. The part of town those three were in,was much worse. Rikers patrolled areas over there, and there have been sightings of Cleaners in that general direction as well. It wasn't the ideal place to be after nightfall. "Then again, this whole city isn't too well-off at the moment."

"Should we go down there and make sure they'll get here ok?" I finally decided to ask.

"No, our orders are to stay here and regroup, besides, we would have gotten a distress call if there was an issue they couldn't handle alone" Bishop explained before grabbing an extendable riot shield, and attaching it to his left arm, testing it out a few times to make sure everything worked properly.

Chris then reached into the bag and pulled out two ice picks with clips on the bottom of the handles, before attaching them to his belt, and letting them swing around. Rupture followed suit, and pulled out what looked like a deployable cover unit, and one of the seeking mines they taught us about in briefing. Chris on the other hand, grabbed what looked like one of those portable electronic turrets, and a small recon drone.

Suddenly Bishop's wrist watch started collecting static with a voice in the background, it sounded a lot like our division leader.

"Bi..op, rend...ouz on our po...ion" It was hard to understand his voice, but the intent seemed clear, Brayden quickly adjusted the tuning on his watch, we were all listening now. "We're pinned down near the mall, we've got Riker's and Cleaners on us right now, and we are outnumbered, how fast can you get here!?"

Brayden pressed the button on his watch, activating it's microphone ability before speaking into it. "Send us your coordinates, I've got Elite, Rupture and Thresher here with me, we'll be there in no time!"

Bishop grabbed his guns that were left in one of the duffle bags, a Kriss Vector with a holographic site and a foregrip, along with a SRS bullpup sniper he had stashed in there. His side arm was already attached to him, which happened to be a Sig Sauer 320, though it looked a bit smaller, it must have been the compact or the carry version.

Thresher however had a different set-up. He carried an RFB DMR that seemed to have some sort of thermal scope on it, followed with an angled grip and a suppressor. His secondary was an MP7 with a red dot with an extended magazine. It appeared Chris was ready for battle too. His clothes consisted of a dark grey hoodie with black overalls that went underneath it, his black coat kept him warm, along with his dark grey combat gloves, and black combat boots.

Rupture on the other hand was just wearing a sweater, some khaki pants, a pair of sneakers, and light tactical gloves.

"You're kidding, right?" I asked.

Rupture stopped, then locked gazes with me.

"What? I didn't have a chance to change." a smirk crept across his face, "You want me to change right now? Is that something you'd like?"

"Um, no." I replied.

Rupture didn't look dangerous, but his gear told everyone other wise, his vest had several intimidating looking sniper rounds sticking out of them, and the Dragunov that slung around his back must have been the rifle that fired them. He too carried an SMG of sorts: a small Beretta 93R with a suppressor on it.

Bishop looked up at the team and nodded his head, "everyone ready?" he asked politely waiting for a response from everyone. Rupture nodded his head silently.

Thresher smiled and gave a thumbs up "Let's go get 'em."

Then there was me, I thought about it for a moment before opening my mouth. "I'm ready."

Brayden seemed pleased with the answer before racking the slide on his SMG "Ok, time to kill some criminals"