Members

Alice and I left our room just in time to see a couple walking down the hall to the briefing room that we had been in just a half an hour ago. We followed them and entered the room behind them. The other four kids were already seated. The usual two guards stood behind the round table that the other kids were at, and the old guy was still leaning up against the wall next to the television. Alice and I sat down next to each other, filling in the last two seats, and the old guy began to speak.

"Call me Uncle. I'm American. I spent my formative years cutting my teeth in Vietnam. I am also the mastermind and leader of this operation. The reason that all of you are here, if you will. I am now going to go around and tell everyone who you are. Trust me- I know you better than you do. We'll start with you, John."

I looked up.

"John is also American. He is our military arms and history expert. Give him a gun made from 1918 to the present, he can name it. No military background in his family. Small town. Onto Alice- prodigy chemist. Parents lived in Brazil for a while, Alice was born in the US. Her family runs one of the most successful, small scale drug-making operations in the country."

Alice was maintaining eye contact with the table in front of her. I wondered if the FBI or ATF or somebody had raided her family's house yet. Uncle was moving on.

"George. From the UK, technological mastermind. Won nearly every robotics competition in the country since 2016. Parents are also engineers."

Uncle moved on to the girl sitting next to George. Blonde girl.

"Elizabeth. Computer genius. Hails from Scotland, traditional-she might argue backwards- family. Attempted to breach MI5 in..." He thought for a moment. "2018." He finished his statement with a wry smile. Elizabeth granted him a chuckle.

"Moving right along... Will. Canadian. Avid outdoorsman. Capable tracker, hunter. Lived off of the land his whole life. Next- Willow. Australian. Vehicle expert. Helped fix up automobiles in her family's shop since she was 6. Will had a good few freckles on his face. Brown hair. Willow had black hair. Pale skin.

"Last duo- Hannah and Yasahiro. Hannah is German. Engineer parents- math whiz. Yasahiro is our people expert. He knows when to lie, how to do it, how people move, how people act. He knows what will draw their attention and what people will walk right past. No known family- grew up on the streets of Tokyo. That is everyone." He clapped his hands together. "Oh- and obviously you all are very intelligent and physically strong."

Yasahiro had bangs that just obscured his eyes. Hannah had hair of a similar style, just a little bit shorter. Hers was blonde instead of black.

Oh boy. What a lively bunch. I couldn't wait till our ragtag group was all over headlines all around the world. This was going to be very interesting.

"We have our first operation in 8 days. That gives us a week to get ready. Don't worry- we'll start off easy. All of you will also learn from each other and understand each other. We will also do some simple weapons, equipment, and surveillance training. I recommend you guys sleep in the Big Room instead of your respective rooms for now. It will help you guys get to know each other better. John will start us off."

He promptly left the room and we followed. We walked down the hall, past our rooms, and out into a massive outdoor range. The targets on the range went as far as the eye could see, with a large hill in the distance to practice shots with elevation changes. There were eight shooting stations set up, each with a table full of ammunition, various magazines, and optics. A series of open gun lockers lined the back wall of the range, each full of weapons- some rifles, some pistols, some shotguns. Uncle pulled a G36C from a rack and tossed it to me. "Alright Mr. Blackthorne... show us what you know." I smiled, teeth and all.