Brenda Wells

Brenda Wells was an agent for the Strategic Homeland Division, stationed in Washington, D.C.. She is a protagonist in the Operations Crossroads novels Tom Clancy’s The Division: Recruited and Tom Clancy's The Division: Hunted and a supporting character in Tom Clancy's The Division: Compromised.
A former U.S. Marine and social worker, Brenda was one of the SHD’s most senior members, and acted as a field recruiter prior to the activation of Directive 51. Following the outbreak of the Green Poison, she became leader of a Division cell consisting of herself, Leo Fourte, Eric, and Rowan O'Shea. 
== Biography ==
Brenda Wells was once a member of the United States Marine Corps, where she acted as a drill instructor for young recruits at Parris Island. Although she considered serving a full twenty years to earn her military pension, Brenda eventually left the Marines with aspirations of making a difference in the civilian sector. 
She went on to earn a degree in psychology and became a social worker. Her history of training others caught the attention of the fledgling Strategic Homeland Division, and she eventually became one of its first agents. 
As a field recruiter, Brenda helped build the organization by scouting suitable candidates from across the United States, including Heather Ward, Colin Harrison, and Rowan O'Shea. She also used her past expertise to train new agents, though she personally doubted that any of them would ever be activated.
When the Green Poison pandemic reached Washington, D.C. in the spring of 2016, Brenda formed a cell with Rowan and two other Division agents, Eric and Leo Fourte. The team helped the Joint Task Force fight emerging hostile factions in D.C., including the Hyenas and Outcasts. Over time, Brenda began to notice Rowan growing more violent and agitated as she witnessed the cruelty being committed amidst the outbreak.
In the summer, Brenda received news that Rowan's husband and daughter had been killed on Roosevelt Island - caught in the crossfire between Outcasts and Division agents. Fearing that the truth would drive Rowan to turn rogue, she lied that the True Sons had been responsible. Rowan proceeded to retaliate by poisoning an encampment of True Sons using a weaponized sample of the Green Poison; the virus spilled into nearby civilian communities, killing hundreds. 
Her tactics won the tacit approval of the Outcasts, who contacted her and revealed the truth about her family's deaths. When a pair of Division agents arrived to detain her, she killed them and fled, eventually joining Aaron Keener's band of rogues. Brenda would later blame herself for Rowan's downfall.
=== Tom Clancy's The Division: Recruited ===
Eventually, it became evident food and supplies in the D.C. area would soon be depleted. Brenda led the remaining members of her cell on an expedition westward, in an effort to assess the status of supply lines in the midwestern United States and arrange food shipments back east before winter arrived. However, agent Alani Kelso made it clear they would not receive support or reinforcements, as all other Division assets were still needed near the Capitol.
On the outskirts of D.C., Brenda, Eric, and Leo came upon the settlement of Athena, which was under siege by the Outcasts. Despite slowing their advance using IEDs, the defenders were nearly overwhelmed until the agents intervened, although Eric was killed by a suicide bomber. Afterwards, they met with Jonah, the community's leader, and Maira Kanhai, its head of security. Maira asked to accompany them, and Brenda accepted, over Leo's objections.
While traveling towards the Cumberland Gap supply route, Leo fell ill, and Brenda stayed behind while Maira left to find help. They were saved by Johnny, a survivalist living in the West Virginia mountains. He and his wife Andrea sheltered the agents and nursed Leo back to health. However, their homestead was attacked by a pursuing convoy of Outcasts, and Johnny and Andrea were killed in the ensuing firefight.
At the Cumberland Gap, the trio witnessed a vehicular battle between the Roamers, a fleet of extortionist truckers, and their rivals, the Freighties. After rescuing one of their drivers, Dixie Dog, Brenda brokered an alliance with their leader, Miguel, in exchange for food shipments northeast. 
The agents used their SHD Tech to help the Freighties regain the Cumberland Gap, but were forced to destroy their own Turrets after they were remotely hacked. Rowan O'Shea then announced herself via a Drone projection, revealing she was working with both the Outcasts and Roamers, and taunted her former allies over Eric's death. The agents deduced that Rowan planned to cause a regional blackout by targeting one of a Division Core - specifically, the Kansas Core.
Dixie Dog volunteered to drive them through hostile territory to reach the Kansas Core, using a captured Roamer truck. While driving through St. Louis, their truck came under fire and was struck by a dirty bomb, blanketing the area in radioactive dust. Shaken but unharmed, the group escaped and used their disguises to procure more fuel at a Roamer depot.
The agents arrived at the Kansas Core to find it overrun by Outcasts and Roamers, its automated defenses disabled by Rowan. During the ensuing firefight, Leo was injured, leaving Brenda and Maira to face Rowan inside. At the heart of the facility, Rowan crippled Brenda with a shotgun and held her at gunpoint, forcing Maira to disable the Core’s EMP safeguards. Maira complied, then shot Rowan dead in her moment of victory. The wounded Brenda removed Rowan's Smart Watch and reset it to recognize Maira, welcoming her to The Division.
=== Tom Clancy's The Division: Compromised ===
After stopping Rowan, the agents recuperated at the Kansas Core, where Brenda's wounded left leg was amputated and fitted with a prosthetic. Realizing she was no longer fit for field service, Brenda issued a call for reinforcements, which was answered by two new agents - combat medic Colin Harrison and sharpshooter Cha Yeong-Ja. 
She briefed the assembled agents on The Division’s new mission: investigate attacks on Freighty convoys along the Texas Gulf Coast by the Reborn, an armed group of environmental extremists targeting fossil fuel production. Brenda stayed behind, but provided the group with a Mobile SHD Server to keep their SHD Tech operational. 
Later, on the Gulf Coast, Maira used a Reborn broadcast relay to send an encrypted mission report to Brenda, detailing events such as Leo's capture by the Reborn, Yeong-Ja's injury, and evidence that the Reborn were somehow working with The Division.
Brenda eventually sent out a Drone to find Maira's cell, containing a recorded message with coordinates to a Division supply cache in the Brazoria Wildlife Refuge. This proved crucial to their success, allowing them to pursue Aaron Keener's rogues to the USS Texas in Galveston. There, Maira was mortally wounded and sank the ship to destroy its cargo of the Eclipse Virus; she was declared deceased by ISAC. News of her death devastated Brenda, who had come to view Maira as family.
=== Tom Clancy's The Division: Hunted ===
With the Cores' locations revealed, they came under attack by The Division's many enemies - Brenda helped fend off a Roamer convoy at the Kansas Core, while the Texas Core was the target of an aborted attack by Black Tusk forces.
Two weeks later, Brenda received a call from Heather Ward in Texas, who reluctantly informed her that Maira Kanhai was not only alive, but had murdered two other Division agents and now allied with Black Tusk - like Rowan, she had gone rogue. Brenda angrily contacted another senior agent, Thaddeus Greene, who advised her not to pursue Maira, as guarding the Kansas Core was paramount; she ignored him, and left for Texas.
In Houston, Brenda reunited with her former cell and told them of Maira's survival, to varying degrees of disbelief. The group followed Maira's Smart Watch signal from Texas to New Mexico, uncovering signs of conflict at a Division supply cache along the way. They eventually found Maira at a roadside shopping center, but accidentally set off several traps she had set using SHD Tech. A Hunter appeared and attacked the group, handily overpowering all five agents until being forced to seek cover indoors from Turret fire. Maira then demolished the building with an incendiary Drone and fled with her comrades.
Afterwards, Maira informed the group about her situation: after the sinking of the USS Texas, she was resuscitated at a Homeland Security facility in New Mexico, where she had been told she was the only survivor of her cell. After meeting Black Tusk's CEO, Natalya Sokolova, Maira inadvertently helped them develop a protocol to subvert ISAC. She later discovered Black Tusk had secretly used mind-affecting drugs to keep her compliant, and escaped during the Texas Core attack by altering her program to target Black Tusk's electronic systems, as well. After her plane crashed, she was rescued by two Division agents who were killed by the Hunter that had pursued her since.
The group decided to attack Black Tusks' tower fortress in Albuquerque. They hijacked Black Tusk communications to send a call for aid, which was met by reinforcements from the Reborn, Molossi, and a cell of rogue agents led by Gold. Inside the facility, Brenda, Yeong-Ja, and Gold's rogues hunted for Sokolova, while the other agents helped Maira delete her protocol from Black Tusks's servers. In Sokolova's penthouse, Brenda's group was ambushed by the Hunter, giving the CEO time to escape by helicopter. 
In the ensuing battle, the Hunter killed Gold’s entire rogue cell and mortally wounded Brenda as she shielded Maira against a blow from his axe. Together, Leo, Colin, and Maira overpowered the Hunter and killed him by slashing his throat; ISAC later identified him as Division agent Thaddeus Greene. Brenda died surrounded by her comrades, as Colin administered painkillers to ease her passing.
== Personality ==
Though there were no formal ranks among Division agents, Brenda was a natural leader and mediator who was able to mold any group into a cohesive team. As a recruiter, her interpersonal skills were key to convincing numerous candidates to join the Strategic Homeland Division, and further left an impression as a capable trainer and agent in her own right: her recruits, such as Heather Ward and Colin Harrison, would recognize her with fondness even years later.
In return, she expected her allies to be open and honest, and chastised both Maira and Leo on separate occasions for attempting to hide their injuries or illness from the group; in her view, a single person below their best performance could endanger the entire cell. Unlike Leo, she did not judge civilians like Maira harshly for their physical frailty, but instead encouraged them to develop their strengths, such as Maira's cybersecurity skills. She was also a fan of Japanese anime and manga, reading comics during downtime and attempting to share them with an unenthused Leo. 
Brenda formed strong emotional bonds with those she recruited, especially gifted candidates like Maira Kanhai and Rowan O'Shea. This would become a double-edged sword, as Brenda's concern for Rowan's emotional welfare led her to lie about the deaths of Rowan's family on Roosevelt Island, which she felt was the catalyst for Rowan's downfall. For this reason, she also harbored a deep hatred for Aaron Keener's rogues, whom she blamed for radicalizing Rowan and turning her against The Division; it was only at Maira's word that Brenda tolerated working with Gold and his rogue cell in hunting down Natalya Sokolova. Her concern for Maira would eventually lead to her death, sacrificing herself to protect the life of her star pupil.
== Equipment ==
* In Tom Clancy's The Division: Recruited and Hunted, Brenda carries a Honey Badger and uses a Demolisher Firefly.
** During a flashback in Tom Clancy's The Division: Hunted, Brenda instead carries an M16.
== Trivia ==
* An Outfit named "Agent Brenda", based on Brenda Wells, was included as part of the Crossroads Apparel Event, which featured Apparel items inspired by characters from the Operation: Crossroads novels.
==Appearances== 
*Tom Clancy’s The Division: Recruited
*Tom Clancy's The Division: Compromised
*Tom Clancy's The Division: Hunted
*Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 (mentioned)
Category:People
Category:The Division
Category:The Division 2