Washington

Freelancer Washington, also known as Recovery One, David and Prisoner 619-B, is the main protagonist in his eponymous mini-series and a main character in the Recollections saga. Washington is a Freelancer assigned to the Special Operations Recovery Unit, charged with recovering the artificial constructs of dying freelancers. Washington's character has changed drastically throughout the series. Starting off as the main protagonist in Reconstruction, he has become a major antagonist alongside The Meta in Revelation.

Recovery One
In his first appearance, he is charged to recover the Delta AI, after Freelancer York is KIA. While recovering Delta, Washington is attacked by Wyoming. Washington plants an explosive on York's armor and takes Delta, escaping alive from the unknown soldier. He is then contacted by Recovery Command and is sent to answer a Priority One Distress Call.

Wash responds, and finds two Freelancer twins, North and South. North is KIA, but South was left alive, upon questioning South, Wash discovers that North still had his artificial construct, the Theta AI. Wash is then contacted by Command, and he is ordered to kill South.

Wash only pretends to kill her, later saying that he needs her help. He orders Delta to lie about South's death. Wash and South go to a city, where Wash explains the situation to South, that something is hunting the freelancers. He describes the hunter's reason for hunting freelancers is to steal their armor enhancements and AIs. Wash plans to implant Delta into South for safe keeping. South protests, saying that she isn't rated for Implantation, but has to go through with it, as Wash will not allow Delta in his head after what happened to Wash's own AI Epsilon, which went insane and terminated itself inside Wash's head.

Wash and South are attacked by the Meta that is hunting the freelancers. In an effort to protect Delta, the AI is quickly implanted into South. This turns out to be a huge mistake, because shortly after South acquires Delta, she betrays Wash and shoots him in the back. South then confronts the Meta and tricks him into stealing Wash's armor enhancement while she makes her escape with Delta, leaving Wash to die. Washington is last seen lying on the ground motionless with the Meta looming over him.

Reconstruction
Washington makes his re-appearance in the very first episode of Reconstruction, having escaped the Meta from his last encounter simply by playing dead. Washington also reveals that he was able to survive South's betrayal because he had taken York's Healing Unit. Upon offering counsel to Recovery Command on the incident at Outpost 17-B: Valhalla, Washington is ordered to investigate the last known location of the Omega AI: Blood Gulch.

When he arrives, he learns that all of the soldiers, with the exception of Sister, have been transferred, as their bases were rendered "obsolete", although Sarge is also present, having disobeyed his reassignment orders. After a fruitless attempt at interrogating Sister, Washington questions Sarge, who shows him Caboose's reassignment orders as recorded by Lopez. When he arrives at Caboose's new base at Outpost 28-A: Rat's Nest, he learns about Caboose's incredible stupidity the hard way. When he leaves, he narrowly misses the Meta, who was assuming the appearance of a Blue soldier for reasons unknown. Soon afterward, he manages to find Church and persuades him to join him in hunting the Meta.

After finding and reactivating Sheila, Washington's suspicions about the Meta are confirmed, but he is interrupted by a distress call from Delta, implying that South is under attack by the Meta. After a series of events leading up to South's death, Wash manages to track the Meta back to Last Resort, only to have Sarge and the newly reformed Red Team show up and ruin their hopes of killing the Meta right then. After the Meta returns and attacks the Reds, Wash manages to convince the Reds to work with him to stop the Meta.

After some non-stop arguing between Red and Blue teams, Wash, annoyed, takes charge of both teams. After he assigns the reds to check on the jeep, Church gives him a message that he received from Delta: "Memory is the key." Wash reveals that the message meant that the Alpha AI is the only thing that can stop the Meta, and that there is only one place where they can find it: Command.

After commandeering some vehicles, Wash, the Blues, and the Reds finally manage to sneak into Freelancer Command's main installation. Wash takes Church with him down into the AI storage level where he begins his search for the Alpha. During his search, several stored AIs communicate with Wash and try to convince him to take them with him. After a little searching, Washington finally comes across the panel he was looking for, but instead of extracting the Alpha AI from it, he extracts Epsilon.

Church is furious that Wash lied to him, but Washington explains everything. He explains that all the other AIs were never copied from the Alpha, but they were instead fragments of it that were harvested for use. He then goes on to explain what parts of Alpha all the known AIs of the series represented. Finally, Washington reveals something shocking to Church. He explains why Church always agreed with everything Delta said, why he was sent to Blood Gulch (a place no one ever goes), why he can seemingly live without a body, and why he was unaffected when the Omega AI jumped into his systems at the conclusion of the Blood Gulch Chronicles: Church himself is the Alpha AI.

In disbelief, Church refuses to accept Washington's explanation, and insists on leaving Freelancer Command with the rest of the Blood Gulch crew despite Washington's appeal for help. Alone, Washington makes his way back down to a computer terminal in order to trigger Command's EMP, luring the Meta in behind him. The Counseller and the Director of Project Freelancer each plead with Washington not to go through with his plan, and when Washington refuses, they betray him, disengaging failsafes holding the Meta back. Washington is shot once by the Meta, but Alpha Church reappears and stalls the Meta long enough for Washington to activate the EMP.

Imprisonment
Reasons for imprisonment: Washington's fate was left unknown until Chapter 4 of Recreation, Catching Up, when it is revealed that he survived the gunshot wound, but had been stripped of his Agent status and imprisoned in a UNSC Maximum Security Detention Facility for unknown reasons. Caboose contacted him, requesting help for himself and Donut, which Wash stated would be unlikely, but when approached by the Prison Guard, he claimed that he needed to see "the Commander," stating ambiguously that he had found "the missing piece to his puzzle." The commander is revealed to be the Chairman in Recreation Chapter 9, and in Chapter 13 Washington met with the Chairman to make a deal: As the Reds deleted the Blues from the Freelancer database, Caboose was able to escape with the Epsilon unit without being interrogated or tracked down. Because he knew where Caboose was located (Valhalla), Washington promised, "I give you that missing module, you get me out of here, I get a clean slate, and we forget we ever knew each other," to which the Chairman agreed.
 * 3 counts of dereliction of duty
 * 8 counts of conspiracy to commit treason
 * 7 counts of destruction of protected classified military property

Pursuit of Epsilon
Chairman: Now Agent Washington I just have one more question....Agent Washington....Agent Washington are you listening?

''Wash: Hmmm....Oh yes. I'm listening.''

Chairman: Agent Washington, when you find these blue soldiers that you're talking about, what makes you think that they will just give you the Epsilon unit when you ask them for it?

''Wash: (laughs) For as long as I remember I've been lied to, taken advantage of, shot in the back, and left for dead. And now I have a way out of all this. What in the hell makes you think I am gonna ask for it?''

-- Final conversation between Agent Washington and the Chairman in Recreation.

In Chapter 19 of Recreation, the Chairman agreed to let former-agent Washington pursue the Epsilon module in exchange for his freedom. Along with the Meta, Washington arrived at Valhalla to find Epsilon while Donut, Lopez, and Simmons were trying to escape in the Meta's warthog. Washington appears and orders the Meta to stand down before demanding the Epsilon unit from the terrified Reds. Deeming Lopez and Donut to be useless to him, Washington shoots them both and brings the horrified Simmons back to Blue Base, holding him prisoner at gunpoint. Washington forces Simmons to make a call for a medic, supposedly to check on Donut. Doc responds to the call as he is the closest medic to Valhalla, and is quickly subdued and held prisoner alongside Simmons. In Chapter 2 of Revelation he explains that he needs Doc to examine the Meta.

After receiving a check-in call from Sarge, Washington forces Simmons to reply with an all-clear message, hoping to lure the rest of the Blood Gulch squad back into the gorge with Epsilon in tow. Sarge and Grif return, overtaking Washington with an unexpected clever plan by Sarge and in the process, incapacitating him. After rescuing Simmons (The Reds were unable, and probably uninterested in rescuing Doc, who was rendered immobile after a blow from the Meta stuck him in a wall.) and reuniting with Epsilon-Church, who followed the reds back to Valhalla, Washington reappears alongside the Meta in pursuit of the reds, but is forced to detour when Epsilon-Church blocks his progress by causing a wall to collapse.

Forced to abandon his pursuit, Washington returns to Blue Base and attempts to free Doc from the wall. After a few attempts, Wash and the Meta succeed only in tearing away Doc's wall fragment (later on, Wash and the Meta free Doc with explosives). Wash questions Doc, who can only reply that Simmons "mentioned something about sand." They then tracked down a Recovery Beacon to the dig-site, where Washington forced the Meta to dig until he found the source of the beacon. Eventualy, the Meta extracted C.T.'s helmet, and Wash remarked surprisingly that; "'She shouldn't be out here, but it doesn't matter, because 'she' never got an A.I. anyway." Washington encountered the Aliens in the desert and got them to draw a map to Epsilon for him. Humorously, the map turned out to be an insult to humans (saying 'Shisnos suck') which led The Meta and Wash to begin opening fire on the Aliens.

Even though Doc, who was now freed from the wall, told them not to because it was "bad karma," Wash and The Meta killed all of the Aliens instead of leaving one behind to interrogate. He tried to get Doc to check if one of the Aliens had survived the attack and ordered The Meta to find something they could use to help track Epsilon. The Meta tosses out the empty storage unit that Epsilon used to be housed in, and Washington orders the Meta to modify it, revealing that storage units can be modified to function as "capture units." While the Meta is working on the storage unit, Doc asks Wash if they have any way to track the reds, such as following their footprints, or looking for broken treebranches. Wash informs Doc that they are in the desert, and calls him an idiot. Doc walks away, and when he is out of earshot, Wash asks the Meta if they can track the reds, with the Meta teeling Wash they are in the desert.

The Meta manages to find a faint trail, and the three prepare to move out. Before leaving, Wash and Doc talk about the Meta's armor abilities, with Doc stating that he needs an A.I. to run his equipment efficiently. Wash also hints that the Meta might be cannibalistic. Later, when Tex shoots Epsilon-Church at the snowing base, Epsilon is put into recovery mode. Wash gets the beacon, and Wash, the Meta, and Doc leave for Epsilon. Upon arrival, they find the body of Epsilon-Church lying in the snow, but Washington is reluctant to approach, due to his speculations of a hidden sniper in the walls surrounding them. Doc suggests that they would possibly be expected to remain in position by their would-be assailant, to which Washington scoffs at, but is quickly proven true when a ring of mines is activated around them, detonating when the Meta jumps off the jeep.

Bleeding and in shock, Washingon survives the explosion and sees his attacker: Tex. Rushing to a nearby assult rifle, Tex stops Wash first and demands the Director's location. Shocked that Tex is alive, Wash expresses confusion at her question. In response, Tex tries to kill him, only for the Meta to interfere. As the Meta and Tex face off, Wash regains his weapon. After the fight, and a close rescue by both the Red and Blue teams, Wash finds Tex trapped in the memory unit, which the Meta was using to make his cloaking device function properly. Here, Wash begins a short conversation with Epsilon over Tex's past (which he probably remembers from Epsilon's memories) until the Meta returns for a fight.

Kills

 * South Dakota
 * Various miscellaneous Freelancer agents
 * a copy of Lopez, Lopez stated that he backed himself up before he was destroyed.
 * Various Aliens

Relationships
Washington seems to dislike or disrespect almost every character he meets. If there is a possiblity of Washington liking someone, then it would be Church.

Skill
Despite lacking the advantage of an AI, Agent Washington demonstrates formidable combat ability in Recovery One, Reconstruction and Revelation. He held his own, at least for a short time, against Agent Wyoming and the Meta, and managed to take down a Hornet single-handedly. Washington seems to have an incredible level of skill with firearms, being able to fire his Battle Rifle accurately in one hand while being run over by the Warthog, and cock Sarge's shotgun one-handed in midair. When the sitiuation calls for it, Washington is also quite skilled at inflitration tactics. Washington seems to be adept at hand to hand combat, as was seen in his fight against Agent Texas in Revelation.

Washington has an almost extraordinary ability to survive fatal situations and displays an indomitable will to achieve whatever he wants, whether it be revenge or freedom. He also has shown great patience, having haboured rebellious thoughts against Project Freelancer and the Director for many years before turning on them and is never shown to be frustrated during his hunt for Epsilon, despite the many set backs.

Survival
A trademark of Washington is to survive events that would, at the least, leave others mentally and/or physically destroyed. His amazing record of survival is impressive, including :


 * Surviving the self-destruction of his implanted Epsilon unit.
 * Escaped from a gunfight with Wyoming mere seconds before a nearby bomb exploded.
 * Recovering from a gun-shot wound in the back, inflicted by Agent South (survived due to possessing Agent York's healing unit. It is unknown if he sitll possessed it from Reconstruction onwards)
 * Was saved from being executed by the Meta while in a frozen state due to the Meta's equipment falling.
 * Swiftly recovered after the Meta struck him twice with the blade of his Brute Shot.
 * Defeated a Hornet single-handedly.
 * Survived a gun-shot wound to the chest, inflicted by the Meta
 * Survived being in middle of a powerful explosion, detonated by Sarge.
 * Managed to escape from a collapsing glacier due of the assistance of Doc.


 * Was injured by the Meta, but was saved from the final blow due to the intervention of the Reds and Blues.

Trivia

 * Washington was the first major Red vs. Blue character to appear in Reconstruction and the Halo 3 engine.
 * It is possible that Washington has acquired South's Domed Energy Shield, as it is the mandate of the Recovery program to gather both the A.I. and armor enhancements of the Freelancers.
 * Washington still has the healing unit, which is represented by a Regenerator in Chapter 11 when he uses it to stabilize Caboose. (No proof of this yet, as Wash said he was using 'a healing unit', it may be a piece of standard medical field gear.) This could also be the reason for his remarkable survival skills, as all of his miraculous survivals occurred after finding York's dead body.
 * Washington seems to be very begrudging, especially when it comes to Agent South after her betrayal, evidenced by, comically, the lengths he goes to when disposing of her corpse. In order, he utilizes; a burst of the Battle Rifle (presumably in the head), a plasma grenade, a sustained burst from a flamethrower, and at least a dozen fusion coils and propane tanks. Amusingly, Washington makes several attempts to add the final core to the stack, pushing it back onto the pile when it keeps rolling off.
 * Washington seems to be on friendly terms with the woman who gives orders from Command. This is shown in the way that the two talk to one another. Although in Recovery One the two speak rather coldly to one another, when Reconstruction starts they speak much nicer to one another. How this occurred is at the time is unknown. Also, the woman from Command occasionally calls Washington by his nickname Wash.
 * There are a number of things that suggest Washington has a history with agent Maine, even though Maine is now known as the Meta, the first is the fact that he reacted very loudly and shocked to find out the Meta was Agent Maine (it could be due to the fact Maine may of been believed dead, or maybe he couldn't believe that it was Maine that had betrayed the Freelancers, or, like Church, he was shocked at the Meta turning out to be a Freelancer) the second is that the Meta has spared Wash's life several times, first at the end of Recovery One, and later during the fight in O'Malley's old fortress, although currently this is only speculation.
 * Wash's armor enhancement appears to be a 'BioComm', it allows him to check on his teammate's Vital signs during battle, as he used it in Chapter 10 (Although, it's possible this is just standard issue to all commanding officers or Recovery Agents, or even perhaps it is on all armors, and much like the megaphone/speech amplification, it is just not known by the Blood Gulch "soldiers").
 * It is also possible that his armor enhancement is the voice modulator that the Meta has at the end of Chapter 4. It has the symbol for Epsilon it the corner of it, which was Wash's AI. It is possible that the Meta took this enhancement at the end of Recovery One.
 * When Wash pulls up the Biocom in Chapter 10 of Reconstruction you can see a part of it that says "Replay Last Film!".
 * Washington's prisoner number (619-B) is a reference to the address of Rooster Teeth's office building which is 619 B Congress Ave, Austin, TX 78701.
 * According to Washington's psych file, he went through a phase of bed wetting when he was younger.
 * It is unknown if Washington will appear in Season 9.
 * Washington also has amazing memory, perhaps as a byproduct of Epsilon's breakdown, as he was able to remember all of the things that happened to Alpha after all the years, and also keeps a record of the worst actions he has ever witnessed with that memory, as he comments on both Caboose and Doc's throws as being the Worst and second worst throws ever. Of all time. Respectively.