¹   LAST NAME,   RILEY.
     first name,   SIMON.
     RADIO CALLSIGN,   GHOST.
²   SERVICE NUMBER,   8594-6506.
³   RANK,   LIEUTENANT.
   *   paygrade OF–1,   including UKSF retention pay.
⁴   AGE,   38.
    *   dob 09.06.   /   JUNE 9th.
⁵   PLACE OF BIRTH,   salford,   manchester.
⁶   RACE,   white.
      *   english national.
⁷   LANGUAGES,   english   (NATIVE.),   russian   (CONVERSATIONAL.),   spanish   (BASIC.),   arabic (basic.)
    *   ranked in order of comfort and rapid absorption.   st petersburg-accented russian.   coherent.   passed local language qualification certificates.
⁸   SEX,   amab.
      *   cisgender.   he,   him.
⁹   ORIENTATION,   unlabeled.
      * noted preference for male company.
¹⁰   occupation,   BUTCHER   (previous.)     40TH ROYAL MARINE COMMANDO   (previous.)     22nd special air service regiment operator   (current.)
¹¹   affiliations,   task force 141.

¹²   BUILD,   broad.   bulky.
¹³   HEIGHT,   6'1.   (186cm.)
¹⁴   HAIR,   brunet,   near charcoal.   buzzed short.
¹⁵   EYES,   sectoral heterochromia:   both eyes hued brown,   right's outer-facing half an ashen,   steely blue.
¹⁶   SCARS,   cigarette burn marks litter body,   most prominently featured on right temple,   under jaw,   visible on both arms (biceps, forearms),   including both backhands.   tension and puncture scarring visible through left side of rib-cage:   meat-hook puncture.   jagged valley across right palm.
¹⁷   MARKINGS,   near-blue, bruise-adjacent birthmark behind left ear.   trait shared through patrilineal line,   amongst every riley,   generations back.
¹⁸   TATTOOS,   smattered under rib-scarring,   what might have once been a date inked in black.   blown out now,   near illegible.   part of another life,   acquired by a different man.

¹⁹   MORAL ALIGNMENT,   TRUE NEUTRAL.
      *   the dead don't live for anything.   they'll kill for all of it.   once he might have called himself a good man.   once that might even have been true.   orders are orders,   lawful or not,   and all a spectre can ask for is to be pointed towards his next haunting.   all he knows how to do anymore is take his pleasure in another man's vendetta.
²⁰   MBTI,   isfp.   introverted. sensing. feeling. perceiving.
      *   emotionally reclusive,   impulsive,   self-indulgent.   neurotic,   domineering.   everything is filtered through an internal,   personal value filter:   what these values are may change day-to-day,   op-to-op.   broad picture,   big thinking.   the details can be filled in..   during the after-action reports.

[     FILE EXPUNGED.     ]       drastic personality alteration following nine-month ROBAS CARTEL capture,   and subsequent death of next of kin.   self-reported suicidal-homicidal ideation and near-debilitating intrusive thought patterns.   client discusses legal identity through a lens of emotional dissociation ("my friend, simon,.."):   when pressed,   combative and hostile.   highly resistant to treatment and displays distrust of the psychiatric field and its practioners.   additional pathology indicates an UNSPECIFIED PERSONALITY DISORDER and COMPLEX-POST TRAUMATIC STRESS.   client is advised to seek ACUTE IN-PATIENT CARE and is NOT FIT FOR DUTY.

physical fitness within operational parameters.   superficial lung scarring non-indicative of respiratory system damage.   no further comments.   FIT FOR DUTY.

PMC SKÖLL —   formally known as SKÖLL SECURITY —   is a private military company     (PMC)     established november 23rd,   2003,   and overseen by former GROM operative marek sadowski.   though no accusations have yet been proven,   evidence suggests that SKÖLL has been involved in numerous terror–fueling operations across various territories,   including:   WAR CRIMES,   MASS EXTRAJUDICIAL KILLINGS,   TARGETED EXECUTIONS,   ARMS TRAFFICKING,   and RACKETEERING.as a public–facing PMC entity,   SKÖLL provides high–risk asset protection,   armed security,   and tactical combat support.   SKÖLL is known to have operated in at least 12 countries spanning 4 continents,   with other unconfirmed reports submitted   *GLOBALLY.SKÖLL is likewise suspected of fueling international conflict via cross–border distribution of armaments.   MOST NOTABLY:   surface–to–air missiles   ("SAMs"),   rocket–propelled grenades ("RPGs"),   mortar launchers,   fully automatic AK–47 and AK–74 assault rifles,   and other,   unspecified weapons of biochemical origin.

FUGITIVE WANTED FOR PERSECUTION!   illegal import,   export,   and transfer of weapons,   ammunition,   explosives across international borders.SANTA CRUZ DE LA SIERRA.   (last confirmed sighting.)   > 21:08,   APRIL 19th.N.   MYKHAYLOV is a listed suspect in 5 transnational organized crimes:
> CABO SAN LUCAS BOMBING.
> LIMA EXECUTIVE ASSASSINATION.
> MILAN HOSTAGE ACQUISITION.
> NOVOSIBIRSK BIOCHEMICAL ATTACK.
> MOSCOW POLITICAL KIDNAPPING.N.   MYKHAYLOV is noted to have a greenlight placed upon him throughout multiple criminal networks for events that transpired in bolivia,   as well as a high–profile BOUNTY.   it is pivotal that global forces acquire N.   MYKHAYLOV as an informant before open season takes place.   suspect will be tried and sentenced as seen fit.

PLEASE SKIP IF YOU ARE SENSITIVE TO RAPE OR SEXUAL VIOLENCE.   THIS IS THE CANONICAL BACKSTORY PROVIDED IN THE MODERN WARFARE 2 COMPANION COMICS SERIES,   SUMMARIZED AND RE-ARRANGED WITH THE PSYCHOLOGICAL ARCHITECTURE OF THIS PORTRAYAL IN MIND.   USE THE ARROWS ABOVE TO SKIP FORWARD.

simon riley comes into this world screaming,   followed two years later,   by a brother,   thomas.   both of them are dealt the short end of the stick,   with a father too fond of a needle,   and a mother best described as a bystander.   simon is a sensitive boy,   quiet and prone to hiding in his her skirts.   nothing at all like tommy,   nothing at all like his father,   old man bones.   too girlish.   too pansy.   that simply does not do.it doesn't start small:   live spiders,   bats,   worms,   snakes,   each he's made to handle through bare touch.   and when that doesn't make him man enough,   bones takes him out onto the town.   it's a chilly september evening that concert night,   simon remembers because the denim he'd been wearing had already thinned,   frayed at its edges.   it's loud and heavy,   the band on stage making noise in place of the kind of music he'd learned to sing in school.   "this is real music,"   bones had said.   the air smelled of beer,   of stale sweat,   vomit.   at half-past something morning-side into their outing,   bones drags his eldest to the venue bathrooms.   and he remembers,   the sight of her, needle in arm,   slumped far into the stall.   dead with a smile on her face.   he even remembers the punchline:   his father wouldn't let him leave,   go home,   sleep,   until simon stood there,   and laughed at her with him.funny thing,   masks   /   how he remembers faces.   he's sure his father hadn't really looked so grotesque.   maybe sometimes people are just as rotten outside as they are inside.the years pass in a blur.   suddenly he's fourteen and meaner, and gets his first taste of medicine.   the good stuff,   as it were,   dad says.   it's vile, and poison,   it clings sticky in his veins,   and it's the best damn thing simon has ever lived.   he'll spend the rest of his life chasing that again:   and he learns a new word.   bliss.   it scares him,   and he never takes to it again.   he thinks of her again,   smile on her face.he thinks he remembers other things.   something under his bed,   or a grip on his ankle deep in the night.   skeletal chimes in his dreams.   hands and hands and hands and hands,   all over him.eighteen:   life is quiet.   work is good.   he knows better now.   it's the same routine,   day in and day out.   wake up,   butchery,   home.   some nights he braves the pub,   and a pretty girl takes him home.   then:   terror on the telly.   women wailing,   children orphaned.   there is no shortage of volunteers when simon fills out the forms.enlistenment is rough,   but he's man enough,   simon can tough it out.   this is what he wanted.   what he needed to do.his father isn't in their life anymore.   mum's still married to him,   but even she moves on.   a fourth of simon's paychecks go to her,   it's all he can spare.   she doesn't work,   so he does.   it's not until she tells him:   come home,   that he does.tommy's all bent out.   simon dodged the needle.   his brother's got more blown out veins than cobain.   caretaker's leave,   and nearly a year spent getting tommy back on his feet.   it's all worth it.   he's his brother.   somewhere between then and mexico and SAS selection,   he thinks tommy got married--     no.   he knows.   when was his nephew born?   does he remember that?   god,   his sister-in-law,   what was her name?   she was an angel.the americans have been hunting roba for months.   every mission has turned up nothing,   and vernon's superiors are getting antsy.   the SAS loans him out,   special relations. a few days before a day of the dead celebration,   the team drops into mexico.   someone's line is cut,   and splat he goes.   it all reeks sabotage.  like mole.NINE MONTHS.   NINE MONTHS.   NINE MONTHSNINEMONTHSNINEMONTHS simon spends underground.   beaten,   raped,   beaten again. rinse and repeat.   break the spirit.   break the man.   mold a weapon,   something sleek and manufactured.   there'd been a mole, and it'd been vernon.   nine months simon and the team are tortured,   conditioned,   programmed to obey,   to love,   to need the man who had done all of this to them.   simon doesn't break.   he thinks...  he thinks he doesn't.     hung off a meat-hook,   like the animal carcasses he once processed as a butcher.   beaten.   raped.   finally:   buried alive,   in the same coffin as vernon's bloated,   rotting body.   simon crawls out,   and drags himself,   only half-alive,   across the US-mexican border.home in england,   he barely feels like the same man.   his mother tells him he needs to sleep,   eat more.   tommy tells him that whatever happened,   he'll always be himself.   tough,   unbreakable.   simon has dreams.   he'd rather never sleep again,   the way they play out,   the way he likes these dreams.   he's scaring himself.   all it takes is nine months to dig up a lifetime of memory.his psychiatrist is a piece of work.   but she listens,   and tells him that if he keeps up his treatment,   he might soon be cleared for duty.it's near christmas when he meets washington and sparks in a pub.   he hasn't seen them since..   mexico.   the night takes a strange turn in the pair's hotel room,   and then he hears it:   RULES ARE JUST BARS A MAN MAKES TO KEEP HIMSELF IN A CAGE.   sparks' mouth,   roba's words.   compromised.   broken.simon ran instead of dying in mexico,   so they kill his family.   simon wasn't man enough to lie down and die,   so his family goes in his place.   his mother.   tommy.   his sister-in-law.   joseph.   there's so much red.   he dies that night,   with them.   simon riley leaves the world with nothing so much as a whimper.in his place,   ghost seeks his retribution.   he's always been here.washington,   sparks,   they're only the first to go.   simon's father pitches in.   he croaks,   too.   it nearly takes him eighteen months,   but his vendetta takes him all the way back to the facility,   to mexico,   to the the man he knows sent those two broken men to snuff out simon's family.ghost returns the favor.   he's a one man army,   every squeeze of the trigger guided by something bigger than himself.   if only to finally put simon to rest.   and when he finally gets roba between his sights,   it's over.   and ghost feels...   nothing.   aimless.he'd turn his pistol on himself,   if not for..   a shepherd to give him purpose again.   there's a scent in the wind,   and blood enough to go around.   a task force is shuffled together,   and ghost's name is on the shortlist.