Cole "Echo" Varnes's Questionnaire

1. What town or city do you live in? Why do you live there instead of anywhere else? Describe your home.

Link Answered before Cole "Echo" Varnes's first Contract.

I live deep in the forests outside Berlin, New Hampshire. Not the city—far from it. I picked this place because it’s quiet. No prying eyes, no unwanted questions. The trees here don’t judge you, and the snow muffles the past just enough that I can breathe. It's cold, but honest. And if you know how to listen, the woods will speak back.

My cabin’s small. Hand-built. Wood-stove in the corner, gear in the back, and maps scattered across the table like prayers waiting to be answered. A wall of photos and red string, but not like in the movies—just enough to remind me that Graveyard’s still out there. I don’t need neighbors. I need answers. And up here, I can hear myself think.

2. How do you get your money right now? What do you spend it on?

Link Answered before Cole "Echo" Varnes's first Contract.

I get by doing what I know—odd security work, freelance tracking, private protection gigs when someone’s desperate enough to come this far looking. Folks out here might not recognize the face, but they can read the stance. They know I’ve seen real fire. That earns just enough trust to keep food on the table and fuel in the generator.

Most of the money goes into keeping the cabin running—repairs, heat, essentials. The rest? I use it to dig. I pay informants, buy access to old military databases, bribe gatekeepers for scraps of declassified reports. Graveyard didn’t vanish into thin air. Someone knows something. I just have to find them.

3. Describe your Ambition. What are you striving for? How far would you go to achieve this? Would you kill for it? How close to death would you come for it?

Link Answered before Cole "Echo" Varnes's first Contract.

My ambition is simple: bring Graveyard back. I don’t care if it’s through truth, tech, or something no one understands yet. He was more than a brother-in-arms—he was the anchor that kept me grounded, and when we lost him, the world shifted. No body, no answers… just silence. That kind of hole doesn’t heal. It consumes.

I’d go to the edge for this. Already have. Crossed lines I swore I never would. If it meant one chance to see him again—alive or dead—I’d walk through fire, bleed out in the dirt, or put a hole in whoever stood in my way. I’m not after justice. Not revenge. I want him back. And if death’s the toll, I’ll pay it without blinking.

4. What was the most defining event of your life (before signing The Contract), and how did it change you?

Link Answered before Cole "Echo" Varnes's first Contract.

The ambush. That was the moment everything just.. crumbled. We were deep in hostile territory—routine recon, supposed to be low-risk. But they were waiting. Coordinated, surgical. Like someone fed them our route. We fought hard, but it was chaos. I remember smoke, screaming through comms, and then silence. And Graveyard... he went back in to cover our retreat. Last I saw was his silhouette through the fire.

No body. No trace. Just… gone.

That broke something in me. Shattered any faith I had in the chain of command, in the system we bled for. After that, I stopped taking orders and started asking questions. I didn’t want medals. I wanted answers. Still do.

5. Name and briefly describe three people in your life. One must be the person you are closest to.

Link Answered before Cole "Echo" Varnes's first Contract.

1. Graveyard (Closest):
Graveyard wasn’t just my closest friend—he was the soul of our unit. Tactical, loyal, and sharp as hell. He had this way of reading a situation three steps ahead, like he’d already lived it. He was the reason I kept fighting when everything else burned. When he stayed behind during the ambush, I thought he was buying us time. Now I think he was left behind on purpose. And I intend to fix that.

2. Olivia Varnes (Sister):
Olivia’s the only blood I have left. She’s a nurse in Vermont, strong-hearted, always believed in the good in people—even me. She knows I’m chasing ghosts, but she doesn’t press. She just leaves a box at the ranger station once a month with supplies, books, coffee. The kind of small things that remind me I’m still human.

3. Soren Pike (Enemy):
Former intelligence liaison. He was the one feeding us mission data on the ground. Clean, precise, trusted. Except he sold our route. Leaked it to the enemy, got Graveyard killed—or worse. I only pieced it together after months of digging. And now he knows I know. I’ve had close calls—drones in the woods, comms interference, quiet attempts to erase me. Pike doesn’t just want me gone—he needs me gone. I’m the last thread leading back to what he did. But I’ve survived worse. And he has no idea how far I’ll go to burn his world down.