A Profession of Lies

    Being a spy is a profession of lying. You’re a weaponized actor. You lie about everything, even to your family: your name, your background, and, yes, especially your intentions. It’s all for a purpose, however, whether it be “national security” or the protection of economic interests. It does get to you sometimes, though. You begin to wonder whether you, yourself, are nothing but a lie, a series of false contrivances. There is no one to help you answer this question. With some professions, one must simply accept it for what it is—if you’re a lawyer, you might be a manipulator; if you’re a banker, you’re a thief; and if you’re a politician, welcome to the liar club once again. 

     When I was younger, these things didn’t keep me up as much. Again, there were justifications for everything we “Agents of the State,” as they called us, did. Plus, we always had friends around, colleagues, who would assure us that what we were doing was the right thing, be it fighting the commies or usurping dictators. The responsibility was distributed. With age comes isolation, and with isolation, sole responsibility. When one is away from his peers, the weight of what you have done in life has no other place to go but your mind. 

     Bed-ridden inside my cold, stuffy room of the Hope and Stay nursing home, one that smells of over-sanitation and diapers, I have only the TV, sitting squarely on a mobile tray, to focus, and from this, but one channel—The World Today. The channel reports on various happenings around the world, from genocides to terrorist attacks, and nearly every instance I can link myself to in some way. That genocide in China? Political instability, fostered by my department supporting nationalist paramilitary forces in the late-70s. Economic woes across South America? Direct result of the suggestion of my department to sanction socialist governments, and embargo several others, while instigating civil wars, coups, and defending the interests of multinational corporations throughout the 1980s. Hell, my department alone is the reason for almost every source of instability across the globe. Whatever you’ve read about in history books, we did—all of it rests on my shoulders, and the shoulders of a dozen dead guys. It’s the butterfly effect in real-time: all that lying, stealing, and manipulation, even down to the most minute detail, has influenced nearly every major event for the past 40 years. After all this time, it’s hard to believe that what we did were “good things,” whatever that even means.

    My door flung open and in walked my caretaker, Ann. She was young, early-20s, with rustic, brunette hair and large, brown eyes. I was startled but, given the excruciating pain of even a single jolt, settled quietly back into my bed. 

    “How are we doing Mr. Smith?” She put her hand on my shoulder. It was ice-like. Her smile was hidden by a surgical mask, but the idea of one was implied by her tone. She lowered her head to be level with mine. 

     “Hurting. Lots of pain. Can you hand me my pills?” 

    “Sorry to hear that.” Her eyes lowered with a watery gaze, and her hand crept over to the pill bottle and came back in a swift motion. The water was room-temperature, and the pills cold. They entered my throat with a dry friction. 

     “You wanna tell me another one of those stories? The spy ones?” 

     It wasn’t like she actually cared; it was mostly for me. Just like my former profession, sympathy, in most ways, is a vocation of lies. In all fairness, so were most of my stories. If I was to give her the full picture of what I did, she would either fall asleep faster than a sloth or never look at me the same again, depending on her level of perception. What I told her were watered-down truths: James Bond-esque tales, with much less womanizing and much more paperwork.

     “Sure. Where was I last time?”

She glanced at me for a second then back down at the series of tubes she was untangling and messing with. 

     “Russia…I think? Something about communists. Mr. Smith, you know I’m bad with geography,” her tone depreciated in confidence at every word.

     “No worries, I remember. It was Moscow, 1986. Crazy times,” I paused for a moment to recollect. My memory is hazier than it used to be.      

     “We had just got off the subway, my team and I. We headed down the main street towards an important civic building, a government office of some kind. Can’t quite recall what it was named. It was all Russian. We had traditional civic uniforms, the usual for Soviet gray-suited bureaucrats. That was the scene. Imagine just snow, monarchical buildings, and all the Russian stereotypes. That was Moscow.”

     “Anyway, we had to tread carefully down the street. The KGB ran amuck across the city, and we didn’t know if any single civilian was a KGB agent or not. So, as you can imagine, we were quite paranoid.” 

    Ann stared at me with those dull nurse eyes, where you can tell they're just listening to you because they know you won’t be here much longer. Once again, sympathy. Her fingers coiled around the iron guard of my bed. 

     “So,” she said, “are you actually allowed to say these things? I thought spy business was top secret.” 

     “Well, I’ve been retired so long it doesn’t really matter anymore.” The actual answer was that the stories were 50/50 on the delicate balance between truth and lies, and that the really important details were left out that would make all this “top secret.” 

     “Maybe you can finish the story next time, Mr. Smith. I have other patients, as you know.”

     With a little nod, me to her, Ann left the room just as she had entered it. Soon, dusk fell on the place and light faded, second-by-second, from the room. The sun cascaded the horizon with blends of red, yellow, and orange, ultimately forming a shade of rose red. Then this left, leaving only darkness. 

     As the Hope and Stay fell into a serene quiet, I opened my nightstand drawer. Over the years, it had become piled with odds and ends and various trinkets, but even in my old age, I have never forgotten the first rule of spycraft: never do anything without a purpose. Underneath all this junk lay one of the most classified and important documents of the latter-half of the 20th century, kept under better security than the gold of Fort Knox. 

     As I mentioned, I usually left out the most important details in my stories. This was one of them. 

     At the behest of NATO, a small laboratory was built in Siberia, unbeknownst to the Soviet Union, by covert operatives working as Soviet officials. All the workers were commissioned from Gulag Camps and paid with U.S. dollars, promised a future in the United States. That future never came—it’s hard to pursue the American Dream when you’ve been infected with a strain of rabies on steroids. The virus was initially produced for, as you could’ve guessed, military applications, to be used in bombs and the like, but something happened on August the 8th, 1986. 

     The best interference we could come up with was that the scientists, in the frigid temperatures, had clumsily released the virus by accident, contaminating the whole facility. The infected acted like crazed cannibals, consuming each other and themselves. All of their abilities had been heightened as well, including strength and speed. Three days later, the military came in and wiped the facility off the map, metaphorically speaking; the infected were quite literally dealt with, but the location itself was virtually erased from memory, except for this document I hold in my hands now. This details everything, from operating procedures to laboratory safety guidelines.

     As with the fate of the virus, I don’t know. Some say it was frozen and placed inside an ice cap to be contained for millennia. Others say it was shot into outer space. No one knows for certain. All I know is that my department was tasked with the aftermath: we covered up all information regarding the facility, and tracked down anyone with knowledge and disposed of them. We even lied to the victims' families and told them it was a construction accident that took their lives. Long story short, no one knows about the incident, not even the Russians themselves.

     It has become a nightly routine for me to glance at this document, flip through the pages, and put it back in its place. It keeps me connected to those times, when I felt like I had a stake in the world, no matter how menacing that stake might’ve been. 

     I slid the document back under the pencils and spare chapsticks till it was secure.

knock

The door rang with a thud, louder than usual. There was more force—it wasn’t a knock, it was a punch. 

KNOCK

It cracked. A small fracture lined the bottom half, traced vertically up the middle. 

K N O C K

Another, more forceful punch partially removed the door from its hinges. 

My face became hotter and sweat boiled from my pores. It felt like someone had placed a hot iron on the top of my head. 

“Live from The World Today: Reports of “rampant cannibalization” sweep all major nations, including China, India, and the United States, as incidents rise globally. The CDC and WHO recommend the following measures: stay indoors, and find a secure space; shut off all lights and sounds, and remain as silent as possible; if you are able, find the nearest blunt, sharp, or ranged weapon; and dispose of any loose food items, especially meat…” 

A slow regurgitation came from behind the door. It was gravely and coarse, as if the throat was lined with gasoline and sandpaper. The sound moved in a disgusting fashion to a low, voluminous scream. A silent scream.

My arms wouldn’t rise. My legs were stuck in position. Pain and fear pinned me down in an uncompromising union. 

“Damnit.”