Jack Forrest

Jack Forrest, callsign "Shepherd", is a Second Wave Strategic Homeland Division Agent based in Manhattan, New York City. He was activated after the First Wave went radio silent following the Joint Task Force's decision to pull out of the Dark Zone. While his initial goal was to secure Manhattan and return it to JTF control, it quickly became to hunt and neutralize Rogue Agent Aaron Keener once it became clear what exactly was happening and who was controlling most of the city.

Following the demise of Keener, his new goal became hunting down Rogue Agent Faye Lau.

About Jack Forrest
Jack was born in Syracuse, New York, as the older brother. For the first six years of his life he was the only child, and what a fantastic six years that was. When his sister came along however, she became the center of attention and Jack was pushed into the shadows. As a result, Jack became socially reclused and internalised his emotions, doing nothing to fight back and regain the attention of his parents. He let his sister get the attention she wanted, while he began to live alone even while with his family.

He lived a very normal life up until his early adulthood, though while he was in school he had little in the way of friends. He passed his classes and graduated high school, and decided to drop further education. As he grew up, violence was one of the few outlets for his internalised anger and sadness, and he took up mixed martial arts and shooting as his outlet and way of expressing anything negative. He became good at these, and took on an apprenticeship under a mercenary when he was 20. He worked as an admin assistant initially, but slowly worked his way up until he was working the field himself.

When he was 26, he caught the eye of the Strategic Homeland Division for his work as a mercenary and disappeared for several months to train as a Division Agent, before returning to his usual work. Three years later however, he sustained three gunshot wounds to his upper body and one to his torso when a target had access to firearms and opened fire on him. This put him in the hospital for three weeks, and temporarily out of commission from his work as a mercenary. Frustrated and not wanting to do nothing until he was back to peak condition, he worked at his father's car repair shop. This was intended to be a temporary job until he was able to return to mercenary work, but his father passed away suddenly and Jack decided to continue working at the shop to keep his father's livelihood going.

Jack was activated as part of the second wave of Division Agents to get New York City under control after the First Wave Agents went silent following Aaron Keener going rogue and slaughtering other agents. He never liked Keener, as Keener was one of the more vocal ones who questioned Jack's suitability as an agent. They always clashed heads, so Jack's more than happy to hunt Keener down and put a bullet through his skull.

Jack is currently stationed in Manhattan, and went after Aaron Keener, alongside DC-based Agent Zodiac Remah and Agent Kelso. He is currently tracking Rogue Agent Faye Lau.

He almost lost his life to a Hunter, but recovered from his injuries with the help of Zodiac before killing the same Hunter a month later. He currently wields the Hunter's axe as a trophy of his kill, and returned all the watches from the Hunter's bag to the Division to help them identify the dead agents. He is one of the few agents who own a Hunter's axe from killing one, but he is the only one in Manhattan who actually uses the axe in combat.

Jack is also in contact with Elizabeth Hirsch after he found her searching for food in an apartment while he was out retrieving drone cameras. While he did not intend to allow Elizabeth to follow him, she opted to anyway and he has plans to train her.

Jack's Son
Jack has only had one lover in life - a woman by the name Cecilia. They were unmarried when they had a son called Tyler, and remained as such. When Tyler was six, Jack found out that Cecilia was cheating on him, and following his confrontation Cecilia took Tyler and left Syracuse. Because Cecilia and Jack were never married, Jack was never listed as the father of Tyler.

Three years after Cecilia left Jack, she passed away in a car crash. She had been heading to a club, thankfully without Tyler, on a wintery night when her car skidded on ice and crashed into a construction site. While she was alive on impact, the following explosion killed her. Jack was only made aware of this when word reached him from his sister Sierra. He doesn't know where Tyler is, or who is taking care of him, but with Jack busy securing New York City, maybe it's better if he doesn't go looking for his son.

Personality
The most noticeable thing about Jack's personality is just how asocial, arguably even anti-social, he is. It's almost as if Jack grew up completely alone and never interacted with another human until well into his adult years. When he speaks to someone else - a rare occasion, as it is, one can hear that he does nothing to soften words or make small talk. He lays bad news on the way people would lay maple syrup on a stack of pancakes; it just never stops. He's brutally honest and even harsh, living only in truth and reality even if it hurts, and doesn't see why anyone else should live any differently.

His lack of empathy and harsh nature makes him an excellent Division Agent as he can withstand seeing chaos and watching friends and family die without breaking, but his nature has been cause for concern by other Agents and personnel with the Division. His suitability as an Agent has been questioned before by other Agents, but his efficiency keeps him around.

From his childhood, Jack's been internalising all his emotions unlike his sister, who let the whole world and its mother know how she felt about anything. Jack, finding that highly annoying, internalised everything instead, from his happiness, to his anger and frustration, to his grief and sorrow. The only emotion he didn't internalise was curiousity, since he liked to know everything and never liked to leave anything to chance. As a result, the few times he talked as a child was to ask questions about what things were, why they were that way, how to do things. It's theorized by S.H.D. professionals and extensive testing that this internalising of emotions throughout life is one of the reason for his asocial behaviour now. Without expressing much as a child, people had no experiences to share with him, hence leaving him alone. Through that, he would have learned how to live life alone and didn't form the social experiences others had.

One comment that comes from Agents who have worked with Jack before is that it's easy to trust him because he has no hidden agendas, but he himself is hard to trust others, denying help even if he needs it.