Tucker was...more than a little confused. He briefly glanced around the room and realized two things one there was an assortment of people in different colored armor and two he had no idea where he was. Oh and the two people who could probably tell him had no idea who he was.

"How does he know the rookies name?" The voice came from his left from a soldier in yellow colored armor.

"Yeah how do you know his name?" Caroline's familiar voice asked but it was cold, well colder then it usually was and without the mild exasperation in it that she always seemed to have when talking to the Reds and Blues.

"Carolina you and Wash seriously don't remember me?" The minute the words were out of his mouth, he knew it was the wrong thing to say.

"How do you know my name?" There was malice in her voice and Tucker remembers why he never gets on Carolinas bad side.

"Uh" Tucker tried to quickly think of a good excuse before he very literally gets the living daylights beaten out of him.

"Cut him some slack C, he looks as confused as we are" the guy in purple armor moved closer resting a hand on her shoulder. Carolina shrugged it off. Tucker really wanted some answers, not only was he exhausted but nothing was adding up. The others as stared at him for a moment making Tucker feel really uncomfortable until the purple one finally spoke up.

"What's your name kid?"
"What's your name?" Tucker countered he seriously didn't want to say anything without knowing what was going on. Carolina moved towards him in a threatening manner and Tucker took a hesitant step back. The purple guy stepped forward hand out stretched and if Tucker didn't know any better a hint of amusement in his voice
"Agent North Dakota".

Tucker froze for a minute remembering one of the nights he couldn't fall asleep and Wash had a particularly bad nightmare. He had those a lot but for once he told Tucker what it was about.
" he was one of my closest friends, North I mean and when The Meta killed him well I wasn't that stable to begin with Tucker" he had been silent not sure what to say he only had Cabooses accidental attempts at killing them to go off of.
" and the worst part is I don't even know if it was the meta, I... I think it might have been South his sister"

Tucker quickly outstretched his hand and shook the man's hand realizing he needed to make this look as normal as possible and briefly looked around the room. There was another one in purple arms crossed looking as standoffish as Carolina. Tucker made the assumption that, that was south.

"Lavernius Tucker but most people just call me Tucker" the guy let out a small laugh.
"Most people call me North" Tucker held his tongue almost saying that he knew.

"No offense or anything but what the hell is going on" as Tucker asked this he fiddled with his helmet. He really wanted to put it back on, he felt exposed without it. North glanced behind him and Tucker followed his gaze to see Wyoming standing there. Tucker didn't think he reacted. Faster than even he realized he could do it he grabbed his sword and activated it, immediately the whole room had their guns pointed at him. North raised one of his hands in a pacifying manner.

"You're going to need to put that down okay" North said, just as Wash spoke in a voice of awe and surprise
"How the fuck does he have an alien sword!" The others shot him a glare.
"Hell no not if he's here" Tucker tilted his head in Wyoming's direction and a thought crossed his mind making him grip his sword tighter
" and if the Meta's here I'm definitely not putting this thing away"
"Okay, well Wyoming over there is going to get out of this room and I have no idea who else your talking about so he can't be here so just lower the sword" hesitantly Tucker deactivated the sword and placed it back on his armor piece. He watched as Wyoming left the room not taking his eyes off him once. He let out a audible sigh of relief. North ignoring this started explaining the situation to him.
"well you see Wyoming was messing around with his armor enhancement and gamma his a.i was helping him out you following me?" Tucker nodded he had a bad feeling about this.
"Well as he was experimenting with it Gamma seemed to put a bit too much power into it and we'll you kind of just appeared" Tucker looked at him skeptically for a moment but it wasn't one of the weirdest things to happen.
"Can you uh send me back to where I was then?" North put his hand threw his hair ruffling it and looked a bit awkward.

"See the thing is we don't even know where you came from and after what just happened I'm pretty sure the armor enhancement is going to need some repairs so it seems your stuck here"
" where exactly is here?" This was honestly the worst. He didn't know if any of the Reds or Caboose made it out let alone weather they had beaten Hargrove.
"The mother of invention somewhere in the universe"
"and we're a part of "
"Don't tell him!"
"Project freelancer" Tucker's simple statement left them in stunned silence which Tucker guessed meant he was right. Which also meant he had gone back in time? This was getting weirder by the second and honestly giving him a headache.

"How do you know that" a female voice asked. Tucker knew he needed to make up a reasonable excuse without giving too much away.
"Just rumors I heard from one of my buddies stationed somewhere"

"not possible no ordinarily soldier knows about it "the one in brown responded.
"Well it's not like you guys are subtle on your missions you know"
"How much do you know?" Carolina asked. He was going to respond but was cut off by Wash.
"The directors coming!" Before Tucker could even begin to process what was happening he was pushed under one of the many computer desks. Then almost all of them stood in front of him covering his view with their legs. He gave a faint sign of protest which was quickly stopped by a quick kick to his shins.

"Would somebody like to tell me what is going on here" nobody spoke. But Tucker could feel the tension in the air.

"Just going over strategy sir" Tucker thought he recognized the man's voice it sounded familiar but he couldn't place it. The man paced from one edge of the room to the other.
"I hope for your sake you aren't lying, as you were...strategizing the ship detected an extra life form on board, Wash I hope you didn't pick up another stray cat from your last mission" Tucker almost laughed at this statement. Wash do something against protocol, two minutes ago Tucker would have called bullshit but now he wasn't so sure.

"That was one time!" Tucker saw Carolinas weight shift slightly and heard a quiet complaint from whom he assumed was Wash. Carolina must have elbowed him. Tucker then zoned out from the conversation that was taking place and very, very quietly put his helmet back on. It was rather difficult as there wasn't a whole lot of room. With his helmet finally back on he felt a bit safer but wished he was in his old armor rather than the new one. Luckily for him he had had enough time to transfer the video files from his old suit to this one. He hadn't yet figured out how to use the video in this new suit either. It wasn't exactly important though. Footsteps close by brought the situation he was in back to his attention though.

"If any of you see any one suspicious or out of the ordinary report it immediately understood?"

"Yes sir" came from everyone as far as Tucker could tell. He heard a door open and everyone seemed to drop there strict posture. He was then being pulled out from under the computer.
"C.T can you hack into the main frame and add this guy to the data base? Put him under agent Alaska or something and low on the leader boards so it's not as noticeable" North said to the one in the brown armor. The person nodded and left the room.

"So what the hell was that all about? Who's this director guy? And no offense or anything but I don't think hiding me as an agent is going to hide me very well and why are you all staring at me like that"

"It's the helmet man it looks like Maine's" Wash told him, Tucker rolled his eyes, but realized with the helmet on that wasn't very effective.

"Am I going to get any answer or should I just figure thing out for myself" Tucker asked in an annoyed voice.

"One we don't have to tell you anything, and two don't try finding things out for yourself I have a feeling you'll just get yourself into trouble" Carolina replied. North was about to reply but Wash beat him to it.

"the director doesn't really like anything unexpected and if he found out we were messing around with the armor enhancements well we'll be running a circuit for like a week and trust me when I say you don't want to be doing that it's killer, LITERALLY l think it killed Idaho and Oklahoma and" he was stopped as The yellow one put a hand over where his mouth would be. Tucker didn't know how it worked as they were in helmets.

"directors head of project freelancer and rookie you talk too much" the yellow one said while giving a pointed look at Wash.

"For now hiding you in the systems the best thing we can do, since Wash is the newest one of us and doesn't have a roommate yet you can crash in his room" North said.

"That's not going to work" Tucker had shared rooms with Wash in his time and the reality that he was gone was starting to kick in leaving him feeling hollow and empty. He figured sharing it with younger Wash, happier Wash wouldn't help him.

"Why not?" A disapproving voice from North and a spluttering whine from Wash and Tucker knew this would be an argument.

"Listen it's nothing personal but I just ..."
"You'll stay in Wash's room end of discussion Newbie" Carolina told him leaving no room for argument. He sighed and looked down he knew better then to argue with Carolina.
"Now that that's settled in going to actually go practice" with that Carolina walked off.

"Well uh I guess we should introduce you to everyone" North said awkwardly. Tucker gave a nod.

"In the purple is my sister South, yellow is York, Connecticut or C.T for short is the one in the brown armor who left earlier, Florida's the one in the blue and Maine's the one with white armor similar to yours but neither of them are here, and I guess you already know Wash and Carolina" as each name was listed off a hand was brought forward to in greeting a firm hand shake from South, a lazy almost tired one from York and an over excited one from Wash.

"No offense or anything but would you mind taking off your helmet we don't really know who you are, we'll take ours off to if it makes you more comfortable" Tucker reached for his helmet he didn't want to take it off after just putting it back on but he didn't feel like arguing about it. He pulled it off then motioned for the others to do so as well.

York was the first one to take his off all though Tucker could tell he was hesitant about it. He had chocolate colored eyes and light skins and brown hair that spiked up. Tucker had to admit he was pretty good looking. With York's lead North and South both took off there's as well. Both had blond hair but South's went up to her chin and had very light purple highlights at the end. Along with this they both had pale blue eyes. Tucker wasn't surprised they were siblings after all. Wash was the last to pull his off. Tucker knew what he looked like or thought he did. His sandy Blonde hair usually so neat and short, was long and fluffed out in some places. His eyes usually so empty were filled with life. Most noticeably though was the fact that there was no bags under his eyes from sleepless nights and the small scars that were on his face weren't there. His freckles were also more prominent. Tucker took a sharp intake of breath. He wasn't used to it and Tucker at that moment realized just how much Wash must have gone through to be the broken person that he was. After a moment of staring. York coughed drawing his attention away from Wash.

"We know the rookies good looking but please if you're going to stare just take a picture it'll last longer" Tucker smirked at York's statement.

"Why you jealous, don't worry there's enough of me for everyone Bow Chika Bow Wow". The room was quiet for a moment than everyone excluding Tucker burst out laughing.

"Damn it's going to be an interesting few weeks with you here" York said once he stopped laughing. Tucker smiled and laughed at that. He swiped some his hair back into place as it had been swept to the front as he had taken of his helmet.

"So you were saying something about a room? I'm kinda tired, long day mind showing we were it is? Tucker asked to no one in particular.

"I'll do it it's my room anyways and I can show you around as we go, as long as the director isn't there anyways I don't know how far C.T's gotten in adding you in the database and -mhmf" York's hand was once again put over Wash's mouth a glare coming from Wash this time.
"Just take him to the room Wash, the guy looks like he'll pass out any second" Wash nodded. He headed over to the door and motioned for Tucker to follow him. Wash went to put an arm around him but Tucker flinched it off before he really got to. Tucker hadn't meant for it to happen and immediately felt bad about it as Wash gave him a rather sad look which he tried and failed to hide. Tucker just wasn't ready for it not after what happened to his Wash. He heard whispers behind him as they left but as the door shut they were silenced.

Back in the room the three freelancers began to talk.
"Is sending the rookie to go with him the best idea York? It seems to me he knows more than he's letting on" North said concern and worry in his voice.
"No actually I don't but it's Wash's room and I could feel the excited energy practically radiating off the kid"
"We should keep an eye on him, especially around Wash" South chimed in.
"I second that but we have to do it in a way Wash won't realize, Rookie I'll probably be rather upset if he thinks we don't think he can manage on his own" York stated. A nods came from both siblings.
"That bit he was spouting about hearing about us from a friend? C.T's right even if they did somehow see us on a mission no ordinary soldier would recognize us or know our project name besides the Director and the counselor would cover it up as us being elite soldier or Spartans or some bullshit wouldn't they? He's story isn't adding up" South stated angrily she clenched her hands into fists almost like she wanted to punch something.
"Unless" north stated. Both South and York looked at him curiously.
"Unless?"
"Unless he somehow came in contact with one of the sim troopers it's highly unlikely but it's a possibility they would be the only ones who would have ever heard of us or seen us for that matter" South crossed her arms over her chest.
"Either way I don't trust the guy not yet anyways, where did he say he was from again? "Silence meet South's question for a second to long. North looked at York then to South before answering.
"He didn't"

Tucker didn't know Wash could talk this much, in fact he didn't know he could even talk this fast. Tucker zoned out on more than one occasion and Trying to follow which hall lead where was just exhausting Tucker figured once he got to the room he'd crash and figure everything out after words and have a quick talk with Epsilon.
"An on the left is the mess hall if you take one turn to the left and two to the right it will get you to the change rooms and then to the training rooms" Wash kept going and Tucker at least tried to pretend to pay attention. Finally after taking a ridicules amount of turns they seemed to reach the living quarters.
"Across from us is North and York and down the hall on the left is Florida and Wyoming's
I don't actually know who Maine's roommate is and the girls are in another corridor". Wash swiped what looked like a pass card and let them in. He started to show Tucker where everything.
"Okay so bedrooms are on the left bathroom is on the right and"
"Hey Wash mind if I have this place to myself for a bit". Wash frowned but Tucker kept talking trying not to pay attention.
"I just I need some alone time. Understand?" Wash's face turned a deep crimson and Realization dawned on Tucker of how Wash was interpreting that.
"Uh yeah totally I'll just uh yeah" wash stumbled over his words barely forming a coherent sentence.
"Dude chill, I'm not going to jerk off, it's just been a long day". If anything thing this seemed to make Wash blush an even deeper shade of red. Ignoring this Tucker began to gently lead Wash towards the door.
"Okay cool thanks for showing me around and what not, I'll see you in a few hours okay" he pushed Wash through the door, Tucker saw a confused look on Wash's face before he closed the door on him. He leaned his back on it and then slowly slid down the floor. He ran a hand across his face. Finally alone the events that had taken place caught up with Tucker. He let out a sob quiet at first but then soul wrenchingly loud. He cried in frustration for not knowing the outcome on chorus, for his shitty luck at being pulled back in time but mostly in sorrow for losing Wash. After what felt too long to Tucker he pulled himself together. If Wash had taught him anything it was to keep moving forward and be prepared for everything. First things first gather information.
"Church I need you to tell me about the project come on man I know your there". Tucker was met with silence. He gave out a frustrated sigh.
"You know you don't always have to be an asshole right I mean like- Holy shit" a green hologram appeared in front of Tucker's face catching him off guard.
"Hello there Tucker, epsilon knew a lot about you, I am Delta and you must be rather confused"
"No shit I'm confused I'm in the past, where the hell is church I need to talk to him and how the hell did you get here"
" talking to epsilon is not possible as he is no longer here" Tucker paused for a minute not comprehending his statement.
"What do you mean he's no longer here I know he is stop fucking with me"
"Tucker I can understand your confusion, but Epsilon really is not here, in order for you to be able to full use the suits armor enhancements, A.I unit Epsilon had to fragment" Tucker sucked in a breath of air.
"W-what"
"No why, why would he do that?"
"Although epsilon never clearly showed it he cared for all of you especially agent Carolina"
"Well you said he fragmented I'm assuming that there's more of you right? Do you have any of epsilons memories of project freelancer?"
"Yes along with me is Theta, Omega, Sigma, Iota, Eta and Gamma and to my knowledge there is no memory in us at all, but I could be wrong"
"So I'm on my own in this"
"Affirmative"