For the last few weeks, Price started to mention more often that they probably need to recruit a new people for their team. New soldiers, new skills, new experiences to share. Like yeah, Task Force often cooperated with other units, but this was not the same as adding someone to the team for a long period of time, which also made Price thinking about it more seriously.

Ghost and Gaz were skeptical about this from the start. Their team was quite tight knotted, after all, including someone entirely new here is like add the Joker to the deck. While Soap was more enthusiastic one among them.

In the end, Price and Laswell found a suitable candidate. Simon had never seen the man with his own two eyes, but had a opportunity to run his eyes over the file. Looks like a real professional. Not bad. Price convinced everyone that this soldier was a good match for them. Simon decided to give that newbie a chance – he trusted Price enough to respect his judgment.

Simon happened to be the one who was sent to meet him. Captain Price and Gaz were on the mission, and Soap was a rank lower than him, so he had to do it, despite all his grumbling.

So at dawn Simon stood by the base gate, waiting for the car to arrive. His hands were tucked in the jacket pockets and his mind was wandering. Simon couldn't help but overthink everything again and again, trying to find some right words or figuring out how to look more or less neutral. And then the car appeared around the corner of the road, quickly approaching the gates.