C
If I were to give any advice to aspiring agents it would be the following: stop. However, I would continue: if you do pursue this painful, terrible, heart wrenching, pointless, melancholy, dangerous endeavour- be sure to maintain a contact in the postal service. These unsung heroes are the keepers of many secrets.
My contact there has given me invaluable assistance. She informed me that the stepping stools had been shipped almost seventeen years ago, yet had been received in early August of last year, approximately a month before Q's death. This cannot be a coincidence.
The stools, their message, Q's death, the Secret - it's all connected.
Q was killed because she learned that the Agency and the Organization... Because she learned the secret. It was her uncle, O, who informed her of the secret, but I can find neither hide nor hair of him. There is only one other person who I know (and whom I am able to contact) that is aware of the secret - C.
C is our leader, never seen, but supposedly always watching. I sent him a missive asking for information and he responded shortly:
"Saturday, midnight, her grave."
So I waited and I went.
But not before being almost killed on my journey there. As I exited the alleyway where I had been hiding, a body flew at me and enveloped me in something that was a cross between a bear hug and a stranglehold. It was W.
She told me that she was glad to see me and then smacked me upside the head.
I told her that I had missed her too.
"But what are you doing here? Were you not out on a job?" I asked.
"You don't know?" she asked.
"Know what?" I asked.
"The Organisation has fallen into chaos, haven't you heard?" She asked.
She then smacked me upside the head again.
It was my fault, as she explained, but she was not mad. She smacked me again.
"Ow," I declared.
She informed me that though the Organisation was on a hiatus of indeterminate length, her own militia had heard of no activity from the Agency yet.
"It's wack," she declared, "You'd think that they'd jump on the chance to spread their evil as soon as we were out of the way,"
I kept silent. We talked for a while, but as midnight stealthily approached, I bid her farewell and made haste to the graveyard.
C was waiting on a bench, a small, brown dog by his side, snoring soundly. He wore a pair of enormous sunglasses, even though the dark was already doing its duty in disguising his face. His hair was grey and his hands were folded in his lap. A profound air of sadness radiated from him.
He looked up as I approached, my boots crunching in the light snow. I sat next to him and gazed up at the moon. It was a calm night, and I felt a profound sense of weariness. I was not ready to know. But I was ready to be done with this trying task.
"This is the way the world ends," he quoted, "not with a bang but with a whimper,"
There were no meteors falling from the heavens, nor zombies staggering out of the graves in front of us. But there were quarreling agents and deadly secrets falling into the wrong hands.
"I assume you speak of the Organization?" I inquired.
He waved a hand as if to dismiss the question, "The Organization, the Agency. I am sure that you know by now that there is no difference one to the other."
I did not look away from the moon. Cold, clear, gentle. But so, so distant.
"And for this I must thank you. You are the one who tore us apart with your suspicions and your accusations. But it was time to do so. Q told me as much, but I never believed her. Not until..."
He waved a hand again, out to the grave marking Q's burial place. A bouquet of yellow tulips wilted there - lightly dusted with snow.
"Why?" I suddenly interrupted.
"Why did I not believe her?"
"Why did she die?"
"She knew of the secret. It forced her to pursue a dangerous path - attempting to expose it and still preserve what little good we were doing between the lies and betrayal,"
"You haven't answered the question, C,"
"It is not mine to answer. The secret to Q's death lies buried with her,"
With that, he nudged the little dog and it raised its head blearily. He got up and let it begin to lead him away.
I wanted to stop him, call him back, force him to give me the answers.
I did not.
He turned back briefly nonetheless, "If it brings you any solace - this is what she wanted. An end to the secrets and the discord. You accomplished what she could not. I'm sure she is grateful,"
He left, and I looked back up at the smiling face of the moon.
It was then that I realized what I had missed this entire time - the most obvious and vital of the secrets that plagued me.
I did not want answers. I have never wanted answers.
All I wanted was Q.
- A.M. Ham
