Jack Stone is an agent with NASRU.
That acronym stands for the North American Security Response Unit. The organization is run by General Armstrong Miller. NASRU is an agency "so covert even the President didn't know we existed. We had the best operatives in the country. We had the best technology in the world. We were above the law. We saved the lives of thousands of citizens on a daily basis without them ever knowing. We were the super-spies of the 21st Century."
The actions of Stone working for the NASRU take place three decades in the future. Stone explains that he is a lieutenant in NASRU, "technically desk-bound but often hands-on with assignments". He has several field agents working for him, chief being named Hera because "like all field agents, she had been assigned a codename from Greek mythology".
NASRU agents, especially Stone and his group, go after the very nastiest of trouble, ones that see the deaths of tens or hundreds of people, sometimes even more. They do so with incredibly authority and power but never with any acknowledgement of who they actually are. "Other Government Agency" is the most they will reveal and usually those being evaded catch on that further inquiries are useless. For all the unwritten power that the NASRU has, though, their headquarters are as anonymous as they are - a "simple unassuming office block" with "no signage announcing who the occupants may be". "The offices just looked plain and dull - an insurance company maybe. And in a sense, we did offer a kind of insurance to the public".
Stone is in his early 30's and as we first meet him, he has just been promoted from Assistant Regional Manager to Deputy Regional Manager. He takes the bump with hardly any response because he knows that in addition to there being no pay raise with it, his duties have already been for some time what they now were officially being made. "I had prevented madmen from nuking cities. I had engaged in black ops in foreign warzones. I had taken out some of the most hardened mercenaries on the planet", he explains. Because he is always on the go and constantly putting his life on the line, it is not surprising that Stone does not have any family; no one to go home to.
Working with Stone is the agent codenamed Hera of whom we learn that "at 24, she was beautiful, strong and intelligent, but still very much a rookie. ...A NASRU intelligence enhancement experiment five years ago had accidentally wiped her memories. She had to rebuild her personality from scratch. She could still be naïve and socially inept at times. Her bravery, skill and intelligence were unbounded. There was no doubting her ability to perform the job. But I tried to keep her in the background for initial greetings as she often veered between excitable and blunt."
Good Line:
- "The NSA is full of the people we reject."