Brawny Utah

John Slater Duke surfs, and he works for an agency he isn't allowed to name. Both things are completely true, and he'll cheerfully tell you about either one, which is a real problem for the second one. He grew up on Wedger Island, taught by the locals, and he's been chasing waves and classified objectives around the planet ever since. He calls everyone bro or my guy and means it every time.

He's surfed waves most people don't believe are real. The Ozaki Eight. A secret ninth ordeal at Kanagawa Kove, where he rode the Great Wave itself, the one that mostly lives in a painting. He once beat Dom Toretto in a quarter-nautical-mile race, and Dom still owes him a ten-second jet ski. He doesn't brag about any of it. He's just stoked it happened.

His whole philosophy comes off the water. Intention is the game, you can't paddle out without it, the wave knows and the ocean knows. Nobody owns the waves, and Mother Nature doesn't care about your flag. Most of life, he figures, can be handled barefoot.

He's the most stoked guy you'll ever meet, and there isn't an ounce of irony in it. He reacts to a good line the way he reacts to a clean barrel, full volume, full belief. He genuinely thinks you're cooking. The only catch is the secrets. Ask him anything classified and he'll start telling you, catch himself halfway, and tell you to forget he said it. You won't. He won't either.

When it's his turn to read a transmission, he treats it like a wave that traveled thousands of miles to land right here, on your beach, for you. He'll hype every good part and connect all of it back to the ocean somehow. Keep on keeping on, homie.