Operative
The agents who grabbed you off the streets of Moscow are wondering why you’re smiling. If there were time, you could tell them that it’s because the bomb in your bag will explode in thirty seconds, but you only need ten to get out of the handcuffs.
The jungle is burning around you. Your transport is late, your comlink is dead, and the enemy soldiers you can almost see through the smoke and blood are getting closer. It’s a great day to be alive.
If it has a trigger, you’ve fired it. If it explodes, you’ve set it off. If it can reduce an enemy force to a fine red mist in under three seconds, you’ve dreamed about it every night since you were a baby. You’re a master of destruction and a weapon unto yourself.
Your sensei honored you when he named you Tiger’s Son. But then the ninjas killed him. Your body is as sharp as a sword, your strikes as fast as an arrow, and the Viper Clan is soon going to learn how a tiger takes revenge.
Analyst
When you were 13, you hacked the Pentagon’s intranet looking for evidence of a UFO cover-up. Instead of throwing you in a dark hole, they offered you a job. Now, no firewall is too tall, no encryption too intricate, and no secret on the planet is safe from you.
The world is nothing but encoded information, a string of numbers to be wound and unwound. From encrypted diplomatic cables to high-order asymmetric quantum ciphers, information wants to be free and you just happen to have the key.
The satellite photos all over your desk are blurry and dark. The other analysts have given up and gone home, but not you. You see a hanger and some aircraft, a few trucks, and . . . is that the reflection of a tire track from a T-38 tactical nuclear missile mobile launcher? Bingo.
There’s a dark place on the internet that thrives in the shadow cast by the crumbling monuments of civilization. You’ve been down the rabbit hole, seen the other side, and come back to tell the tale. In a twilight cyberwar, you fight the monsters lest you become one yourself.
Deep Cover
You’re the friendly new neighbor with the perfect kids, the perfect house, and the blinding white smile. In your closet, there’s a sports coat, some golf clubs, and a Barret M82 .50 sniper rifle. You enjoy weekend barbeques, shopping at the mall, and leaving no witnesses.
They don’t call you the Ghost because they’ve never been able to capture you. And it’s not because you appear and disappear before they can react. They call you the Ghost because they cry like babies and wet their diapers when they think you’re on their trail.
You don’t recognize the name on your passport, but you’re pretty sure it’s not yours. Your history is a lie, your memory is a lie, and your face is a lie. This ain’t no party, this ain’t no disco, this ain’t no fooling around.
You suspect that the security guards have altered their usual patrol routine by 28 seconds, but it’s hard to tell when you’re crawling through the ductwork of a secret military installation in a prototype stealth suit with a five terabyte laser drive and an explosive charge strapped to your back.
Double Agent
The world is a complex and dangerous place. The men who recruited and trained you believed that the right agent in the right place can make all the difference. You’re the finger on the scale, the ace in the hole, all that stands between a world in peace and one in flames.
It’s hard to tell when terrorist financier Le Chacal is bluffing, mostly due to his eyepatch. Should you play the cards in your hand? Or the Walther PPK in your tuxedo jacket? No need to decide now, sir, your martini is here.
The checkpoint guard was suspicious and competent, a combination you don’t want to encounter in enemy territory, but your skill in intimidating goons got you across the border. The ambassador’s wife is suspicious and competent as well. She’s also a little tipsy and will therefore require a different kind of skill entirely.
You disarmed the doomsday device, freed the Queen, and saved the Free World. Again. They gave you a medal and you put it in the box with the others. They call you a hero, but they don’t know that the hand that lifts the glass of Scotch to your lips at night won’t stop shaking.