1945: USSR, Crimean Oblast, Sevastopol

I was no longer an official OSS agent.

They reported me KIA during world war two and then reassigned me as a black operative for their special operative unit, HIVE CORPS. I was off the grid now, a ghost, just like him now. Or so I thought.

My official codename was Checkmate, because I specialised in tracking my enemy's movements. I didn’t understand this at first. Codenames were often thought of as arbitrary things, plucked out of one’s imagination to quickly fulfil a purpose. If you were dumb enough to really believe that.

Someone in the intelligence department probably read my report on how my unit in Normandy tracked down the last remaining Germans across the country.

We had to chase them, targeting every facility they moved on to each time we captured one. Like how the winning opponent of a chess game insures that the enemy king remains in their sight when the stakes get high. Then it's all constant Checkmates from there.

Thinking back, I could never forget what Sigma said to me on that day we met in Normandy. 'A soldier follows the mission, but you follow your instincts’ it came to mind as I stared at the sky on a chilly morning in post war Sevastopol.

The Soviet Union and the United States were superpower countries now, once friends but now divided. Communism was becoming a threat now that the Nazis were gone, and new ideologies on how governments should run their countries were brought into the spot light.

I was on an Intel mission, that was a fancy term for scouting. It required me to travel across the USSR to report back to home sweet home on anything I found out about the Russians and there plans for their union after the war. Hence why I was in Crimea when I found out about what happened in Hiroshima.

The nuclear bomb that fell forced the world to fall still. Nuclear war was a real thing now, not just a concept, and all we could do as people was watch in awe and horror at what had happened in Japan.

The Manhattan Project, that was what America called the operation I considered to be the birth to America’s nuclear power, and the grave to the thousands of Japanese citizens.

I never thought that my simple task in the Shinkolobwe Mines in 1943 could contribute to a genocide like this. The uranium deposits being mined back then all were the key ingredient to the creation of the nuclear war head used in Hiroshima.

When I realised that, something inside me crippled. I felt … responsible.

I’ve killed before, I could barely keep count of how many have died by my hands … but this was insane. It was like I had killed innocent civilians, mothers, fathers and children who knew nothing of warfare, just the effects of it.

I was sitting on a bench in the middle of a street, with the news paper that gave me the news on Hiroshima on my lap. It was 7AM in the morning, not many had gotten the news yet. The overseer of my missions, Major Donn, hadn’t even called in to tell me about it either.

HIVE left me to find out the same way everyone else was going to. Almost like they didn’t have the nerve to tell me the truth.

I let the newspaper slip onto the floor as I stood up from the bench. Then wrapped my grey trench coat closer to myself and walked on wards, somewhere far, somewhere where I could just ... forget? No, that was silly. I could never forget.

A part of me considered my intel mission complete, mostly because I felt like I shouldn't be here in the Soviet Union. But I also didn’t want to go back home, back to America. I had nothing to do there, no home, no family … I supposed I could check up on the old crew, the unit I formed in Normandy.

It’s been months since I last saw them, but what would they think of me? If they knew their leader was part of Hiroshima's destruction. They were all honourable soldiers, trained and climbing up the ranks. Absolutely dedicated to their countries.

My path however was not quite the same ... not as honourable as theirs you see.

Even though I knew all that, it still didn’t feel right.

What happened in Hiroshima wasn't the same as seeing the blood stained on my hands after using a knife on a live body. Or having the blood from my target spray on me after shooting them if I was standing too close.

Hiroshima left no marks on my skin. I even checked, my hands were clean.

I stopped in front of a nondescript building, staring at it, my eyes glazed over. I didn’t know where I was, I was just in some city, in some time, waiting for my next mission.

Is that what it meant to be a soldier?

“Мисс, ты в порядке??” A hand gripped my shoulder, I turned in surprised at the stranger. He was an elderly man, with a full white beard and kind blue eyes. He was holding an umbrella, and that’s when I noticed it was raining.

I jumped back, afraid of the stranger’s touch. He had no idea he was speaking to a trained killer. The street was empty, everyone had fled to escape the rain. I must have looked strange staring vacantly in the middle of a street like this.

“я в порядке спасибо на английском,” I said quickly, telling him that I’m fine. I rushed out of there to avoid any small talk, I didn’t need anyone’s pity. I needed … I needed to see him.

Did Sigma have any idea that what we were doing in Congo back in 1943 was part of the nuclear attack? A part of me thought so, and another part wished it wasn’t so.

I was staying in a hotel not far from the ocean, Sevastopol was still recovering from a siege they had in 1942, it had been all naval business since the city was built by the black sea.

I had been in this city for almost a month now and not caught onto anything worthwhile. But something told me now that Hiroshima had happened … well, the Soviet Union would be making plans. I wouldn’t be surprised if they had their own nuclear weapon in the works, because that’s how the world worked.

If a country became powerful, another one had to become more powerful, at all costs. That was an easy way to describe Darwinism, survival of the fitness and all that.

.

.

Russian Translation:

Мисс, ты в порядке?: Miss, are you okay?

Я в порядке, спасибо: I’m fine, thank you