"Auld Lang Syne"

Doug "Matrix" Danko and Aaron "Valder" Fieldman park the blue 1994 Chevrolet S-10 pickup in the alleyway, three houses down from the safehouse. Behind them, Stacy "Immortal" Anrak and Ryan "Vyper" Wakefield pull the white 2002 Ford Focus they’ve rented from the same place to a stop just behind the S-10.

Sneaking up the path, the four Special Operations warriors cringe each time they slip on the icy alleyway or crunch into the frozen snow surrounding it, certain that the people gathered in the safehouse will hear their approach.

Dressed in all light gray attire consisting of cargo pants, gloves, sweatshirts, boot covers, and ski masks, the three men and one woman flit through the alley like wraiths.

"You realize, of course, that if this works, they’re going to want to kill us." Doug mutters into the microphone under his ski mask.

Aaron can see his breath mist out as he speaks, but the two men are speaking so quietly that, even across the ten-foot alleyway, they wouldn’t be able to hear one another without their two-way radios.

"Yeah, but the looks on their faces are going to be priceless!" Ryan replies, the smile evident in his voice.

Flipping out his cell phone, Fieldman dials the number of their "inside man" on the job, and tells him to unlock the safe house’s side door, unobtrusively, of course, so that the inhabitants won’t hear the operatives trying to pick the lock.

Inside the safehouse, a varitable conference of Eagles and their splinter teams, the Raptors and Cavalry, is taking place. That is, if conferences involve copious amounts of alcohol, music, movies, and assorted deliverable foods. Scattered throughout the house, but mainly concentrated in the main living room, Matt "ElTitoBendito" Bendix, Suzanne "Daphne" Wagner, Mitch "Maverick" Vannell, Patrick "Dono" O’Donnell, RaeAnn "Sis" Harris, Marie "Cleopatra" Cordova, Robbie "DoughBoy" Sandler, and Adam "Mayhem" Mason are hanging out with counterparts of theirs, Michaela "Ember" Davis, Janine "Jayhawk" Vivin, Michonne "Bronco" Koning, Anastacia "Snow" Velchenko, and Tatyana "Flame" Fyoderenkov for the Cavalry, while Bryon "Lee" Shue, Charlie "Phoenix" Clark, and Ann "Ice" Horn represent the Raptors. Though, of course, all members of all three teams would love to be here for this BlackOps tradition, many are on assignments across the globe, besides which, the safehouse if basically full to capacity as it is.

The members of the three teams had all met down in Omaha’s Old Market district at around seven p.m., and the part has continued ever since, all across Omaha, gaining momentum until finally ending up here at the safehouse.

By this time, many of the Black Operatives in the building are feeling nothing, as few of them have any missions slated for the next five days, a tradition the ETF tries to uphold around major holidays, so the warriors in the house are free to imbibe.

Though the four Eagles had originally been unavailable to come to this yearly gathering, which the ETF have been doing, in one form or another, since 1984, they had wrapped up their operation in Cuba early and managed to "borrow" a Lear jet, which they had flown to Gorilla Mountain to drop off their mission gear, pick up a few things, then flew it out to Epply, and there rented a pair of cars. Now they are all set to crash the New Year’s bash.

Sneaking past ElTito’s Xterra and the Terror Twins’ Suburban in the short rear driveway, Doug, Aaron, Ryan, and Stacy spread out to cover the yard as they creep up to the house, then around the side to the kitchen door.

They can already hear the sounds of Motley Crue’s "Dr. Feelgood" pouring out from inside the house.

Valder tests the door handle, grins at Vyper, who is nearest, as he twists it slowly to the left. With his free hand, he gives a thumb’s up to Matrix and Immortal, who are near the hedges surrounding the yard. The door is unlocked.

The four Eagles slip inside the house, Danko motioning to Anrak to follow him up the stairs as Wakefield and Fieldman continue on the main floor. The small squad grin at each other as they exchange hand signals, then unsling their unloaded Hekler and Koch HKMP5 submachine guns from their back holsters.

The team splits after they sneak through the kitchen, Stacy and Doug taking the sharp left and creeping up the steep stairs to the second floor, while Aaron and Ryan continue through the dining room into the main living room, Ryan keeping an eye to his right towards the two rooms and bathroom he knows are there.

Covered by the music reverberating throughout the room from the stereo system set up on top of the thirty-six inch rear projection television, which is showing a DVD of "Top Gun". The music changes from Crue to Bon Jovi’s "Hook Me Up" off the Bounce album as the cd changer, set on shuffle, changes discs around. Obviously, by the music and movie, Bendix is in control of the entertainment at the moment.

At roughly the same moment, the two gray clad men burst into the living room, while Immortal and Matrix spring over the low wall separating the stairs from the large area upstairs, all four with submachine guns at the ready, yelling at the op of their lungs to hit the floor.

Downstairs, Mayhem, who never really likes to be told what to do, taps DoughBoy on the shoulder and the two men rush Vyper and Valder.

Upstairs, ElTito, who has been entertaining Bronco, Snow, Jayhawk, Flame, Ember, Ice, Cleo, and Daphne, or, basically, all the women at the party except Sis, who is downstairs, turns in annoyance as the two forms vault the low wall. As the women behind him hit the floor, Matt chucks the large book he has been using as a prop at Matrix, while diving directly at Stacy.

Aaron and Ryan sidestep the rushing Terror Twins, and spin them to the floor in a pair of synchronized, fluid movements, being sure not to insure either of the men, et also ensuring they hit the floor hard enough to stun them into momentary inaction. Ryan spins to cover the fallen Intel agents with his HKMP5, while Aaron holds the rest of the room at bay, engaged in a staring contest with the four troops as his partner keeps the Terror Twins occupied. Shue and Vannell look for a moment like they might try a mad dash, as well, but RaeAnn soon talks them out of it, as she has an idea who the two men are.

Doug swats at the 530-page paperback as it soars towards him, bouncing it off the far wall before it falls to the floor. Stacy, meanwhile, literally has her hands full as Bendix plows into her, tackling her onto the floor before sweeping out a foot to try and take Matrix down, as well. He needn’t have worried. The eight women all rush Danko at once, looking like they are intent on putting him down for good. Reaching up with his left hand, Doug rips off his ski mask, laughing as the women half-stop, then full tackle the head of the Cavalry. At near the same time, Matt manages to pin Stacy and take off her ski mask, as well, revealing the ETF commander beneath. Grinning through his goatee at the green-eyed blonde beneath him, ElTito winks and comments,

"Shall I wiggle?"

As he is swarmed over by the women, Matrix sees the paperback out of the corner of his eye before he is dogpiled by his friends. It has the picture of an aircraft taking off against a stormy backdrop, and is titled "Metamorphosis". Doug grins as he falls into the embrace of his female comrades.

Downstairs, Valder and Vyper hold the six commandos in the living room at bay for almost a minute before they lose the battle with their amusement, and start laughing at the others in the room. Reaching up at the same times, Ryan and Aaron pull off their ski masks, and are startled by the room’s reaction. They had expected their friends to laugh at the joke with them. Instead, Mitch and Patrick grab a six-pack of beer out of the cooler to the left of the couch and toss them to everyone in the room, who promptly shake the beverages and douse Wakefield and Fieldman in the amber liquid. Shrugging, both men open their mouths to try and catch as much as they can.

From this point, the party really begins to get out of control, as Aaron and Stacy go back to the rental vehicles , pulling them around to the front of the house and unloading Aaron’s bass guitar and amplifiers, as well as the team’s spare drum kit.

Mitch and Matt set up their amps and six-string in a small cleared area in the backyard, and Snow grabs a pair of microphone stands and mics, and an impromptu jam session begins as the more musically inclined members of the ETF kick into a repertoire of their favorite songs, which Vannell starts off by hitting the first few chords of Metallica’s remake of "Turn the Page." Luckily, no one in the neighborhood is a music critic, and the cops only drove past once, as the party and music continued on into the night.