I am currently an operator with a group that calls themselves The Cult. They call me Shot, matter of fact we have all basically forgotten each others names if we knew them to begin with. Every has their own Codenames they go by mine just happens to be Shot.

I wasn't always an Operator though I didn't land in jumbo sized cargo planes in the dead of night unloading vehicles. I didn't shoot locks off doors and rush through clearing rooms.

I was a gamer, a group of friends that called themselves The Cult, we weren't really a cult just a group of friends that play games together. At least we were all gamers before it all went to shit. Not in the 'WW3' Kind of way or the nuclear winter, but a slow collapse of governments.

It started with the US where I am from, It didn't collapse right away just a slow ceasing of money to the workers then their bosses and theirs and so on eventually people stopped going to work because there was no money to be had. I got a ride up to Canada before it got really bad with the riots, once they started it went downhill fast the cities burned with angry people and no one wanting to step forward to take the reigns

The rich all went to ground before it happened kind of like myself except I didn't have the money to get to Canada, One of the group members had started a Commune so we could all move in together, a kind of lifelong goal type thing. By the time the riots had spread across the US most of The Cult members were either already convinced to move in or fled to this place. Those who fled didn't bring a lot of stuff with them but we had started making our own stuff by that time.

We lost contact with a lot of our members oversees as getting people to fly to a collapsing country was next to impossible. It didn't take long for the problem to spread to Canada as well Mexico fell quickly as well but then we lost all contact with the outside world.

We had changed as a group from a cult of gamers to a cult of survivors.

We had a decent time of it for a while but things got worse, roving bands of Arms dealers and Drug smugglers took over most areas. We were relatively hidden in our commune but eventually they found us, they raided us they didn't kill us but they took everything leaving only what we needed to keep making more. We knew that they would be back and when we didn't deliver they would kill us or at least some of us.

We were close friends none of us wanted to be like they were and certainly none of us wanted to actually join them. But we took up arms to defend ourselves. We put our gamer minds together the same ones where we played countless games together. We fought them back but we knew it wouldn't hold they weren't truly organized yet so we packed up first chance we got.

We never stayed in one spot just trading and scavenging on the road trade was risky as the only people to trade with were the criminals the more 'Legitimate' ones wouldn't want to trade with the lowly band of travelers only trading with the more reputable drug dealers or smugglers.

We could see the way the world was going now, we would end up dead soon if we didn't push out to market our skills. Our resident artist she made us masks from an old game we used to play together. Mine was black and orange with a thin white line up the center separating the two colors.

One of the things we kept from our gamer days was the number system, everyone had their mask with their number on it. We had become faceless. But we all had unique masks each one reflecting their personalities whatever we wanted on it. So while we all no longer showed our faces we all knew each other faces. We were now intimidating enough for us to gain the attention of those bigshots with actual supplies to spend on us, we ended up with a contract to guard a rich man's island for some guns and vehicles.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

It was an easy job, the locals were told about us so they stayed out of our way, our job on that island was because he figured some arms dealers were going to either blow up his arms or steel them.

Sure enough they showed up and we ended up with a large firefight we even downed a helicopter, but we had to get out of their fast as on a nearby island the local police forces had made their own nation and were on their way with a large force after hearing the fighting. We managed to salvage an APC from the fighting and later some more vehicles and guns from the rich.

We kept fighting all over the globe we had made a name for ourselves now. Like us in North America people who lived in other parts of the world meet up and grouped together to survive when we found them they joined our ranks. We no longer jokingly referred to ourselves as a cult, people just started calling us one. The US had turned into a totalitarian surveillance state most of Canada had been abandoned still a few survivalist around but  the big cities were absorbed by the remnants of the US.

We did try to get a few jobs from this new US government but turned out a few of our earlier jobs to get some supplies got us a wanted status and they sent a strike team to our location so we vanished like we always do once we gain too much heat.

They sent a jet and shot us down out of our plane near Australia, luckily we got recovered by the two Australian members. We did lose a few we buried them with their masks on. The shell of the aircraft washed up on a shore with none of the weapons or vehicles we had gathered. We only had our sidearms for a while, but we had been in the business for a few years now we easily surprised a local gang kicking off a war between the local authorities.

This was fortunate though because apparently the US didn't think we were truly dead we found people that looked like Interpol with a lot of the gear we lost when we crashed.

We dressed ourselves up as locals hiding our masks and raided them taking our weapons back and pinning the blame on the locals. Without the mask felt more like wearing a mask at this point we had collectively rarely taken them off, even when we slept.

It was hard not to feel safe wearing it, we had upgraded from cheap plastic masks to ballistic ones at some point in the journey but everyone had their own unique mask.

Now I am here in the stairwell of an oilrig we are planning to take from an arms dealer, waiting for the signal to rush into the big central room.

When it comes the door is open and the person in front of me enters I follow behind her she never says much, but we don't need to talk much we have been doing this for years. Looking through we spot a lot of unarmed people, we never did rob or kill anyone unarmed we didn't want to give them a reason to be like we were. There is a lot of elevation in the room we can see 3 floors up from here, we instinctively cling to the walls to make ourselves spot able from the least amount of angles.

Looking up I see the masks of some of our members as they are on the higher floors looking down for targets. Then the door across from me opens and two people with guns casually walk through, the operation has started being as I already had my rifle aimed at them I easily put two bullets into them.

With the noise of those gun shots the coms in my ear come alive with reported contacts and gunfire is ringing out all over the rig. We find some hard cover and keep taking shots at targets, eventually the gun fire stops and we start to sweep and clear the unarmed people either picked up guns and were killed themselves or had left. I make my way through a room with the same person now following me.

Out of the corner of my eye I spot some dust moving on the floor I whip around pointing my rifle at it. I see nothing, nothing was there no dust or anything. I slowly pan the room the one who followed me says its clear and to move on but something about this room keeps me here. She steps out of the room I see her look back at me when it happens.

The floor crumbles just as I am about to give it up and leave the room. It collapses and I fall through with all the rubble into the water alone, I hear her yelling over the coms my name. Well not my name, my codename... "SHOT!" I don't here the rest as the impact with the water knocks me out.