David "Section" Mason

"This is what Menendez planned all along. Taking out the G20 leaders will cripple capitalist governments across the world."

- David Mason

Lieutenant Commander David Mason (codenamed Section) is a playable character and the main protagonist in Call of Duty: Black Ops II. He is the son of CIA Agent Alex Mason, and also a member of SEAL Team tix and the JSOC counter-terrorism. He is also the Commander of all Strike Force missions from the S.S Barack Obama.

Early life
David Mason was born in 1979 to CIA Agent Alex Mason and his unamed (Woman he met at the pentagon in Black ops)mother. Raised in his father's hometown of Fairbanks, Alaska, David's relationship with his father soured after the death of his mother. Due to his father's past experiences, harsh upbringing, and his commitment to serve the U.S., David held a deep resentment towards his dad but did not want to lose him, which was why he had his dad promised to not go on any more missions for the military.

In 1986, the retired Alex Mason returned to active duty with the CIA to rescue Frank Woods, leaving the young David in the care of Jason Hudson's wife, Jenny. In 1989, Raul Menendez kidnaps David, drugs him unconscious, and brings him to Panama prior to Mason's mission to capture then-dictator of Panama, Manuel Noriega. Menendez's moles within the CIA helped facilitate Noriega's capture and fool both Mason and Woods into believing that they would be trading the captured dictator for Menendez. After Woods is tricked into shooting and possibly killing Mason, believing it was Menendez, the narco-terrorist kills Hudson and leaves both the young David and crippled Woods alive. David later comes out of his trance only to see his father unresponsive. Believing his father to be dead depending on the player's actions, David starts to cry while Woods attempts to comfort him only to lose consciousness from his wounds.

With no family to turn to, and guilt-ridden about shooting his best friend, Woods took the young David in and raised him.

Early Military Career
When David became of age 17 he either enlisted in the U.S. Navy or graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy as a Naval Officer and eventually made it into the Navy's elite U.S. Navy SEALs. After a few years in the regular SEAL Teams, David was accepted to try out and accepted into the ultra-elite SEAL Team Six. David Mason would also rise to the rank of Lieutenant Commander before the events of Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 occurred.

Events of Black Ops II
Thirty years since his last encounter with David, Raul Menendez rises to power and plans to launch a cyberattack in an attempt to start the Second Cold War. On April 19, 2025, David, now a Navy SEAL Commander codenamed Section, with his ally and close friend Mike Harper, and a team, goes to Woods' retirement home and asks him about his knowledge on Menendez. Woods recounted his adventures with Mason from his rescue at Angola, up to Nicaragua, when he assumed Menendez was dead. When David questioned why Woods was still alive even though Menendez paid him a visit, Woods ignored the question and told him to "go find that maniac".

The day after, David, along with Harper, Salazar and Crosby went to investigate the presence of Menendez's soldiers at Myanmar. Here, they discovered that Menendez was planning to use Celerium as a basis for a cyber attack that could cripple the entire cyberworld. They also learned that Menendez was using all his cartel money to hire Militias, SDCs and Mercenaries. He was using the facility in Myanmar to build his own army of CLAWs, quadrotors (MQ-27 Dragonfires), A.S.D.s, and MQ Drones. With the help of a scientist named Erik Breighner, Section and his team retrieved a Celerium core, which he later gave to Admiral Tommy Briggs who brought in an extraction team.

About one month later, David and his team went to investigate Menendez's second-in-command, DeFalco, who was spotted in Pakistan. They were able to infiltrate Anthem, and managed to record Menendez's conversation with the leader of the Pakistani ISI, revealing that General Tian Zhao of the SDC was secretly forming an alliance with Menendez and that they would have a meeting on June 17. They managed to escape after almost being compromised, but ran into Zhao's forces. However, Zhao let them live since he assumed they were only after Menendez, and didn't know his secret because he didn't want to get captured.

The intel recorded from the conversation also revealed that Karma( or Choles), which was then assumed as the cyberweapon Menendez planned to use, was on Colossus. David, Harper and Salazar went to Colossus  and after fighting through several PMCs found out that Menendez planned to bomb the entire floating island. They also discovered that "Karma" was not a weapon, but a woman named Chloe Lynch. They located Chloe at Club Solar, but at the same time DeFalco also appeared and took several bystanders hostage. After Chloe decided to give herself in, David and his team gave chase. They either managed to save Chloe and kill DeFalco, or let DeFalco escape with Chloe.

Knowing that Woods still had some information, David went to The Vault and asked about what happened at Panama. As the story was told, David was shocked to find out that his father did not die by the hands of Menendez, but rather Woods himself. Knowing that it was not his fault, David reassured Woods that Menendez would be defeated.

David assisted in the ambushison a Cordis Die(aka Heart Day) rally in Yemen, and appeared in person after either Harper or Farid was killed. Harper or Farid were evacuated and Mason advances on a crashed VTOL Warship where Menendez is. David captures Menendez and he is captured without incident.

David interrogates Menendez, but he takes Salazar hostage and incapacitates David. When David comes to his senses, he fights through the U.S.S. Barack Obama, and attempts to contact Briggs but to no avail. Over the security cameras, he witnesses Menendez take Briggs hostage and Salazar betrays them, as well as the killing or wounding of Briggs. Menendez udses the Celerium WORM in his fake eye to hack the world's defense systems. He comes down, and either Chloe Lynch attempts to reboot the system or David himself does. He confronts the captured Salazar, telling him he betrayed them all. Section escapes the U.S.S. Obama.

Section then is in charge of escorting U.S. President Boosworth through the streets of Los Angeles midst the worldwide chaos of Menendez's hacking. He also assists a few other convoys (including the Frenchs President's convoy), and pilots ana FA38 to cover the convoy from above until the reach the Prom Night Hotel. His FA38 is damaged and he ejects and parachutes down.

Finally, David leads an international team of special forces in a massive raid on Menendez's Cordis Die facility in Haiti, where the systems are being controlled. Mason fights through it, and Menendez seems to get the upper hand. Section grabs the pistol from a dead soldier's holster, and shoots two of Raul's men; one being DeFalco if he survived the events earlier in the game. He then stabs Menendez twice and can either execute or capture him.

If David captures him, Menendez is escorted to a VTOL Warship and flies away in the distance. Depending on the survival of Chloe, Menendez either stays in prison, with Cordis Die gone in the 'best' ending, or escapes from prison, murders Woods, and commits suicide, possibly triggering his death video in the 'worst' ending.

If David kills him, a death video is triggered on Youtube, causing massive public outrage, and causing worldwide riots and chaos, with military and police forces weakened by Menendez's attack, they are being pushed back.

If Woods shoots Raul Menendez who is actually Alex Mason, anywhere that isn't the head or torso, Mason reappears as an old man and greets Woods, his old best friend. When David arrives to greet Woods, a security guard tells him that there is another Mason, and David gets suspicious and orders the guard to secure the building. Once he arrives, he is relieved that Woods is okay, and Woods introduces him to his Dad, and David is shocked. They then reunite and start talking. Mason would give David a brief compliment saying "Still got that scar? You made me proud that day", to which David replies, "I fell..."' and Alex replies "Yeah, but you got back up....."

Trivia

 * He is the fourth playable character known to see their reflection in-game, the first being Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3's John Price in "Dust to Dust", the second being Raul Menendez in "Time and Fate" and the third being Frank Woods in "Suffer with Me".
 * Liam O'Brien was David Mason's voice actor during the E3 2012 LA demo. In the finished version of the game Rich McDonald portrays David.
 * In the Mission "Cordis Die", during the E3 2012 gameplay, David Mason's reflection has many differences to the finished in-game cutscene, the largest being he doesn't have any glasses on and he bears a resemblance more to Harper than his finished self.
 * David Mason also appears in Black Ops II's outro dancing and is seen holding a Cordis Die sign.
 * David Mason is the only playable character in Call of Duty: Black Ops II that stands over 6 feet tall.
 * David is the only main character in Black Ops II who cannot die, regardless of the player's actions.
 * David is currently one of two characters in the Call of Duty series who is seen as a child, as well as an adult; the other being Raul Menendez.
 * Also, David is the first playable character in Call of Duty series to be the son of another playable character, Alex Mason, making this the first father-son relationship on-screen in the series.
 * David is the first protagonist in the Call of Duty series to have the game go into his personal life, including his childhood, relationship with Alex Mason and Woods, past with Raul Menendez, as well as his personal life in between missions.
 * David's age in 2025 was revealed in a teaser picture, released long before the game. However, during the intro cutscene, Alex states that David is 7 years old in 1986, so it is likely that the information has been changed, and he was born in 1979 instead. However, if David was born sometime in July then the information is still likely to be correct.

Дэвид Мэйсон

David Mason