1946 June: USA, Washington, OSS HQ

A lot changed in a year.

Especially Sigma.

He defected from the US.

Sigma was no longer the revered legend we knew him as, but a branded traitor to America. They all slandered his name, 'all' being those who were once his brothers in arms ... who now slammed their fists down on tables as they spoke about his betrayal. Even the OSS cadets that once idolised him dismissed Sigma's accomplishments.

That's how I knew this wasn't fake news.

The Chinese whispers were over, everyone knew that what Sigma had done was a fact and not another myth.

Upon returning home to the OSS headquarters in Washington, I felt as American as apple pie being around my native guys and gals. It was good to touch home soil, I felt like I didn’t have to look over my shoulder as I walked down a street, and boy I can tell you that is a feeling worth living for.

But that was all taken away the moment I stepped foot in OSS territory. It wasn't like coming home exactly, to the bed I thought I left behind. There was something missing when I came back to the barracks, it was like … like I didn’t belong there anymore.

No one recognised me, nor did they question my presence when I handed over my ID card for a quick scan. This was what happened when you got promoted to HIVE, you resembled a ghost to some and a stranger to those below the ranks. Even if we were all part of the same family tree.

Nonetheless I pushed on, I was visiting HQ for a reason after all. Besides for the usual performative check-ups the OSS usually issued on returning from overseas personnel. These consisted of a series of tests on my physic next to what they called a little psychoanalysis on your state of mind. In other worse, a check up on your behavioural training. Standard stuff to make sure the OSS could still trust their soldiers.

But besides all that, what I really came to HQ for was to pay a visit to the almighty Black Kraken’s office. It was uncharacteristic of me to intrude on him like this, most of our conversations in the past year happened over a frequency line, but I needed to learn everything I could about what happened to Sigma in the past year or so. And you know what they say, it was harder to lie to a person’s face.

Kraken had a special connection to the legend; one he did not disclose but hinted too when he did speak of Sigma here and there in fragments. Anyone with a careful ear would realise that much, I certainly did during my time as a cadet.

And if anyone would know what happened to Sigma, Kraken would, being a commander and all, he had access to some of the top files in the OSS.

Though, it had certainly been some time since I last walked down these greyish halls … the OSS seemed like a gloomy place, it’s HQ more aligned to a training facility for cadets to treat as a home. I remembered by time here like it was yesterday. I would wear my ironed-out green uniform daily, with my hair tied back into a neat low pony tail like the good girl I was.

I’d even shine my boots too, that’s how much of a preppy prat I was. Some of the other cadets would point out how up Kraken’s ass I was, doing everything our commander told us to do and more. Which I might add is what we were trained to do, following orders was our bread and butter.

But all that was old news now, nothing but juvenile playground tag and play.

I do at times wonder where my fellow classmates ended up, I rarely got on with them, but an update was always welcomed. Some of them could’ve been dead for all I knew and I wouldn’t even have known. Guess that didn't matter now, people die all that time. And the OSS didn’t want their soldier’s morale to be affected whilst on a mission, so why bother thinking about others you never cared for in the first place.

Two cadets passed by me in the corridor I was making my way down, whispering quietly. I’d never seen them before, to be honest, I wasn’t familiar with any of the new faces at HQ. But they were young and fit, probably new blood for the militia.

The kids couldn’t have known who I was either, since I was technically no longer OSS, but cadets had their ways of gathering intel, I would know. It was all bedtime stories really, the old soldiers passing information to the young ones. Humans were humans after all, not all secrets could be guarded.

I heard the kids laugh as they passed me, I wonder what the rumours about me were like. Maybe I would ask Kraken.

Kraken’s office was but a meter away from me now. I knocked my knuckles on the wooden door and waited for the usual shuffle of someone standing up from a desk on the other side, along with a loud invitation.

“Come in!”

Kraken was stood there on the other side of the door I opened; his arms stretched downwards so his palms were lent against his desk. I squinted through the dark room to really take in his form, it had been a whole year since I last saw him, with my change over from the OSS to the HIVE it’s been hard to see Kraken in person these days.

I let my hand fall from the door when I stepped in, and just glared for a moment. “You look, different,” I said.

Kraken was shaking his head before I finished my sentence.

“I see you still haven’t got much of a vocabulary on you, even with all the travelling you’ve done around the world. Is that really all you got to say to an old man like me? Damn Lenore, you wound me,” he crackled on, feigning his hurt feelings.

Kraken wore an eye patch now, a fucking eye patch. String me up and call me a dummy but I next expected him to walk around his desk with a wooden peg for a leg. He looked like a goddamn pirate!

“I haven’t travelled the seven seas … if that’s what you’re wondering,” Kraken slapped his desk and barked in laughter. I smiled hard; it was good to see the bastard again.

He shuffled his way around his desk, with two legs intact, not peg leg in sight thank goodness. He reached for his tactically positioned drinks cabinet and pulled out a non-standard issue beverage along with two tumblers, placing them on his desk.

A classic scene for an ageing man.

“I was saving this cognac for a special moment, but it doesn’t get any more special than this in this line of work eh,”

I humoured Kraken, dropping myself into the creaky chair opposite his desk, leaning forwards with my hands on my knees. His office was big, yet poor with lighting. I didn’t question it, some people gathered odd habits in this line of work.

“What do mean by that?” I asked, watching Kraken pour us two fingers each of that nasty brown stuff, but I would drink it down for him. Kraken loved cognac, a French spirit I believe.

I once heard Abel, my old sniper back in Normandy, talking about the stuff once. He said he could always do with a short of it to put him to sleep, since that's what he did in France, his home.

Kraken started speaking once he capped the bottle, “when a soldier comes back home in one piece. There’s nothing more satisfying than that for me these days,”

In other words, people have been dying. Kraken just didn’t want to say it, I knew him, he was a man that liked to conceal misfortunes.

I didn’t question him further on it, instead I took the glass he offered me and smiled up at him keenly.

“Cheers!” We said together, toasting our glasses and I gulped the whole drink down in one go.

“So, what brings you here unannounced …” Kraken started, he knew I wasn’t one to just waltz myself into somebody’s privet space without asking them a few questions. And I had to say, it was nice to be able to do that without pulling someone into a choke hold with a gun to their face if they didn’t feel like playing along.

It was nice to just relax sometimes, you know. This is what off duty hours were for.

So, I asked him, I asked Kraken about Sigma and why he defected.

And then Kraken told me that I failed my training check-up. Turning in his creaky old chair and stroking his bread like a disapproving father.

“You didn’t pass Lenore, you’ve literally screwed up every question on the test, except for the loyalty section and the one psychoanalysing you said that you looked troubled,” he rumbled on.

Oh God. The test he was talking about consisted of a face to face conversation with a behaviour specialist, who would glare at you whilst you tried to answer their strange questions about your loyalty to the stars and stripes, and how I would behave in certain scenarios they described.

Kraken held his glass in his hand, swirling the cognac around nonchalantly. I had nothing to say to him, nothing at all. I wasn't known for failure, nor did I prepare myself for it.

“I’ll deal with your test, just don’t let it happen again, the OSS takes these things seriously, you know this, I heard that you were a little shaken up about the news on Hiroshima … maybe they’d let this slide because of that …” that was code talk for: Kraken would force the people in charge of these behaviour test things to let it slide.

“But remember kid, a malfunctioning soldier, is an unreliable soldier,”

He said it like it was a fact.

I was silent for a while after that, nursing my drink as Kraken droned on about what was in the OSS’s interests these days.

I noticed that Kraken didn’t want to answer my question on Sigma straight away, him and I both knew my interest on Sigma probably in some way led to my failure on that test. I couldn’t blame Kraken, I was supposed to be his best student, and I didn’t want to let him down.

But Kraken was a kind man, and didn’t let me leave empty handed.

Let’s just say that the Cognac reached about halfway down the bottle by the time Kraken started being straight with why Sigma defected. It took a little alcohol to get someone to spill the news on classified information, you see. I guess Kraken just didn’t want to do it willingly.