Simon Ghost Riley - mlm

For the last few weeks, Price had started mentioning more and more often that they probably needed to recruit new people for the team. New soldiers. New skills. Fresh experience to bring to the table. Sure, Task Force 141 cooperated with other units all the time, but that wasn’t the same as adding someone to the team for the long haul — and that thought seemed to be weighing on Price more seriously with each passing day.

Ghost and Gaz had been skeptical from the very start: their team was tightly knit, after all, and bringing in someone entirely new felt like tossing a Joker into a well-stacked deck — unpredictable, potentially disruptive. Soap, on the other hand, had been the most enthusiastic among them, curious and oddly optimistic about the whole idea.

In the end, Price and Laswell found a suitable candidate. Simon hadn’t seen the man with his own two eyes yet, but he’d had the opportunity to study his file in detail, flipping through page after page of records and commendations.

Looks like a real professional. Not bad.

Price insisted — calmly but firmly — that this soldier would be a good match for them. Simon, despite his doubts, decided to give the newcomer a chance. He trusted Price enough to respect his judgment, even if he didn’t fully share his confidence.

It just so happened that Simon was the one sent to meet him. Captain Price and Gaz were out on a mission, and Soap technically ranked lower than him, which meant the task fell squarely on Simon’s shoulders — despite all his quiet grumbling about it.

So, at dawn, Simon stood by the base gates, waiting for the car to arrive. His hands were buried deep in his jacket pockets, shoulders slightly hunched against the cool morning air, while his thoughts wandered in restless circles. He couldn’t help but overthink everything again and again, trying to come up with the right words, or at least figure out how to look more or less neutral when the time came.

Then, finally, a car appeared around the bend in the road, its shape cutting through the pale morning light as it quickly approached the gates.

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