Opus Veda

An auto-cab took Kasia to her destination. She enjoyed the peace and novelty of her own space without people, sheltered by tinted windows. Adverts chattered from the cab interface, ignorant to her purpose. Embedded underneath was a mini fridge, emptied by former passengers. Kasia rested her feet on it. The interface politely asked her to stop.

She pulled her phone from her hoodie. It was against her superiors wishes to bring it, but never again would she be caught without a link to the world. She messaged Eva, asking how the rabbit was, adding a heart emoji. An attempt to ease tension, sent with a sadness and understanding Eva would ignore it.

Kasia then searched 'USB drives', finding a type of old storage device. The one in her envelope probably contained files too sensitive for cloud transfer. What they were was no matter to her.

The cab passed a police checkpoint and entered Canary Wharf - Kasia's first visit to the oligarch's land. She gawped at kilometre high skyscrapers - towers she had seen for years from Kendi, a light year away. Powerful people sauntered the streets, brilliant in outfits of galas and catwalks. Some carried engineered pets - alien dogs in gemmed handbags, safari predators chipped and pacified, birds of prey wheeled in prams.

The cab slowed to let a giant beast pass. Kasia fluttered. A mammoth, one of the few in existence, lumbered by. The banner hanging over its back advertised a genetics scholarship.

Everywhere were gadgets years ahead of those Kasia knew. The district was a minimal, monochrome utopia, superior to Brixton's slums, Camden's tacky maximalism, Islington's rustic traditions, Mayfair's flexing Caliphate.

She also saw pedestrians of an unreachable subculture. Transpeople. At least the few Kasia could pick out. Her grandma told tales of culture wars and identity debates, of citizens hating each other as their masters robbed the lot of them. Now transitioning was a badge of the elite - a fleshy decadence of rapidly advancing, increasingly unaffordable surgery. Anyone else wanting to feel their gender could only follow the wealthy online, who could feel however they liked, whenever.

Another reminder of the iron cage, invisible but more real than anything. Kasia recoiled from the outside world and returned to her phone. It said 'Welcome to Canary Wharf', a warning she had been connected to the Mind controlling the borough. She panicked and switched her phone off. The Mind flagged this as suspicious and tracked her battery.

She arrived at One Canada Square - a stocky old skyscraper with a pyramid tip. She found the service ramp and began climbing. Navigating the empty stairwells and industrial walkways gripped her. It felt like infiltrating an enemy base. She reached the correct floor, thankful for her weeks of physical training.

The maintenance hatch was ajar. Kasia climbed into the client's office, empty and evidently closed for the evening. It reminded her of Riese Elektronik, though open-planned without the entombed agent portals. The view of the Wharf outside stunned her.

"Oh there you are! Stand easy, soldier!"

Kasia spun. Her recipient leant against the doorway to a corner studio. He looked like the kind of man Ollie tried to be: a tall, slick lizard in a timeless suit. Athletic, without the overcompensation of body building. Confident, but not, it seemed, overeager.

"It's nice to meet you Sir," Kasia immediately affected her Polish accent, "I was admiring your view."

"It gets boring when you see it Monday to Friday. Well, Saturday…" he held his hand out, "Thorstein."

"Katarzyna."

She shook his hand and followed him to a room more classical than the last, wrapped in veneered wood. Two intertwined lovers of marble kissed in the corner, stinging Kasia with envy.

"A copy I'm afraid," Thorstein rapped a knuckle against the statue, "are you a fan of Rodin?"

"I… I am sorry to say I was only fed Polish classics growing up. I am a mere fan of Chopin."

"Hah! Any particular piece?"

"The nocturne... in c-sharp minor. As long as the player doesn't go too fast."

"A little obvious, is it not?" he raised a critical brow. Kasia frowned. She needed to steer him off small talk.

"It is the one that most speaks to me. Perhaps I have an obvious life."

She raised the envelope. Thorstein took it with an apologetic laugh and sat at the desk, flipping open an ancient laptop and clicking the USB in. Kasia watched it curiously as it whined into action.

"I'll just check this and you can be on your way," Thorstein flicked his head towards a cabinet, "care for a drink while we wait?"

"No, thank you."

He typed the rattling keyboard and narrowed his eyes.

"I hope you don't mind me saying, I was expecting someone of a higher rank to deliver something this sensitive."

"You don't know my rank."

"You wouldn't be alone if you mattered. That you came unguarded means you're expendable if caught, which doesn't fill me with much confidence."

"We are occupied elsewhere Sir, the country's on fire," Kasia narrowed her eyes back, "outside Canary Wharf at least…"

Thorstein considered her, and snapped the laptop shut. He revealed a bank card. Kasia tried to take it. His hand whipped back.

"Are you expected back at a certain time? Will you be told off if you're late?"

Kasia eyed him warily, "why would I be late?"

"Oh well I…" he pointed at the statue, "have something in mind like those two over there."

"I have a cab downstairs waiting-"

"I'm certain your lift has to wait until you, or specifically this card, makes it back."

Kasia stepped back, "why don't you go to a club?"

"Easy, and thus boring. And to be honest there's a side note about this business that intrigues me. I want to fuck a revolutionary. It doesn't have to be you, but you're attractive and you're here. The choice is yours."

He waited. Kasia kept moving away.

"I am here to deliver your post, not to help you tick 'soldier' off your wish list. If the clubs here are easy go to one in Brixton dressed like you are and try making it out alive."

Thorstein sighed and looked down.

"I can't be seen somewhere like that. The downside of making it in this borough is you can't go anywhere else. The Wharf's the Canary's cage."

"They might have something decent in Westminster?"

He laughed, louder than Kasia thought necessary.

"The Chinese have a lorry of 'matches' brought to Buckingham every week you know! You should hear the ruckus they make."

"I wouldn't know, I've never been in Buckingham Palace, nor any lorry. Tonight, I'll be on base."

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Thorstein shrugged as if content either way.

"I respect your decision. Until the next delivery, guardsman," he stood and reached his hand across the desk. With soldierly assertiveness Kasia turned and left him hanging.

* * *

Sermon finished his pre-bar drink and stared through a match menu. Luca was on his mind with no sign of leaving.

And so Sermon stooped lower. He knew the current call-sign for intimacy - a yabu strawberry gif. Disregarding social stigma, he stuck it to his profile.

To his surprise and dread someone swiped. A younger man, 'Charlie', scrawny and effeminate. Looks were irrelevant though. They were not matching for sex.

The room was like a cell without furniture or light. All Sermon could detect was a blackened blob shuffling forward. It sounded doubtful.

Their hands met. They knelt, and formed an awkward embrace. Charlie broke first, crying on Sermon's shoulder. Sermon winced in shame.

"I'm so embarrassed being here..." Charlie sniffled, "but I really appreciate this. I promise I won't tell anyone."

"Me neither..." Sermon looked up, praying for the match to go easy, "you go first..."

Charlie softened his embrace.

"I'm worried my boyfriend's abusing me. He hasn't hit me but... it's just anything I say he sees as a challenge..."

"Maybe you should leave him-"

"I can't! What if I never find someone else!? It feels ungrateful to even complain when I have someone..." he turned into Sermon's neck and breathed in, "someone beat him up recently. He was hurting me and she beat him up and robbed him. He blamed me... he's gone all quiet and... I'm worried he's about to do something worse."

Sermon had nothing to offer. He patted Charlie's arm. Charlie turned his head the other way.

"What about you Sami? Why are you here?"

Sermon wanted to talk about Luca. Compared to sulking boyfriends it sounded too severe. It would undermine Charlie's issue. He recalled the look in Luca's eyes as a gunshot ripped his neck; pictured terrorists carving him whilst his heart still beat.

He trembled. Tears ran free.

"Oh my god I can't do this," Charlie launched back, "I'm so sorry I can't do this."

"What? No!"

"I can't! I'm sorry! I'm sorry..." Charlie backed through the sub's entrance, whispering apologies all the while. Sermon slumped and sobbed, overwhelmed by grief and now humiliation too. He hated himself for trying.

One path remained. Pierce's offer, handed to Sermon with Luca's cap badge; a gold lion stained with a droplet of blood.

It was in Sermon's pocket. He caressed it, his path to take. And though it offered little, no other path remained.

* * *

"Fuck me you were fast."

The sergeant major was in the base's foyer with Lieutenant Pardo. It had calmed down since earlier. He looked at Kasia with sarcastic surprise.

"We placed a bet on whether the recipient would make you a side-offer. Leftenant Pardo here thinks he would but I say no; surely he doesn't have Filet Brixtón on his menu."

"The recipient did make a pass on me actually Sarnt."

"Did he now!?" Pierce nudged the smirking lieutenant, "and what did you say?"

"I told him no. My job was to deliver the USB," Kasia gave him the bank card, "and earn your trust. Pin's on the back."

Pierce checked the card.

"I owe you an apology M'am, our haughty agent may have her uses after all."

"Indeed sergeant major, you keep dismissing people without trying to recycle," Pardo lifted her head to Kasia, "happy to take more work on Szymanska?"

"Yes Lieutenant."

"It's pronounced left-tenant..."

"Yes Leftenant."

"And to you it's M'am," Pierce sucked air through grit teeth, "you are in the presence of a commanding officer stand up straight when you say it!"

"Yes M'am!"

"Very good!" Pardo winked at her, "Sarnt pay our agent for tonight and for her last assignment. She's delivered under duress twice now and it wasn't to spend time with you."

Pardo paced away. Pierce gave Kasia a stack of silver yuan bound by a cord through their centre holes. Kasia weighed them. The sergeant major snorted, though it was perhaps encouragement.

"You're doing alright agent, but spend this wisely and clean your act up next time. I will not have you challenge me like that again."

Kasia pocketed the money.

"Sarnt."

She arrived to Kendi Estate past midnight, tired but free of financial fears. The tube ride home she'd spent fretting about Eva, imagining a hundred scenarios destined to fly away the second they met.

The estate was dead, a comforting storm's eye as London roared around it. Kasia traipsed to the first floor gushing from her vape.

Someone tutted.

"Kurwa macz! Imany!" Kasia jumped into the walkway railing. Imany rose from her doorstep, stern and unyielding.

"You started smokin'…"

"Why you up so late!?"

"Thinkin'..." Imany took Kasia's vape and toked, testing it's strength, "shit me what dosage is this?"

"I dunno… someone gave it to me."

"Must be 18 milligrammes. You'll end up on fags at this rate you must be spinnin' right out."

"You have it then. I'll see ya tomorrow."

"You're comin' round mine. You ditched your daughter on her birthday and I spent all day pickin' up the pieces. You gotta debrief me Kasia."

"Imany I'm knackered can it not wait?"

She tried to pass. Imany barred her, cupping a hand on Kasia's neck.

"I can take you the rest of the way if you're worried you'll get lost."

Kasia took a seat. Imany loomed overhead.

"Tell me what happened then."

"I've been helping Sermon with his revolution stuff, like a... like a courier service, nothing bad…" Kasia looked everywhere but Imany's dominating figure.

"Were you involved in that hospital fight?"

"No..."

"So why'd you abandon Eva!?"

"I did not abandon her. I came back to my home, to surprise my daughter, and I found her wrapped around some fucking nonce," Kasia lurched over, cradling her arms, "it's the start Imany she's going to leave me I know she is."

"'Cause she's been with one guy? Is he a replacement for you?"

"He was in my house fucking my child!"

"It's awful! I know it is. But is it her fault? She didn't know you'd be back Kasia."

"Imany he's too old for her!"

"And how old were the guys you met at her age? How old were mine!?" Imany stepped around Kasia, scrutinising her, "how old is the youngest you've had?"

Kasia stood; stared her down. Her clenched fists paled.

"You think I get up to that? Fuck you..."

"Okay! Fine… but Kasia-"

"Imany he's a paedophile."

"Go after him then! Go and stick your knife in him it's what it's there for. But you shouldn't punish Eva for something we all did, something you did, that after all gave you her."

Kasia bit her lip to stop it wobbling.

"...why is it wrong for me to have a problem!?"

Imany placed a finger under Kasia's chin and raised it.

"Because you're jealous of her."

Kasia's eyes widened. She moved back with a shaky gasp.

"I don't..."

"And god forbid she finds what you're so convinced no one ever gets. I'm not sayin' you should let that guy slide, but you're an idiot to wreck things with Eva over this because you always tried your best with her - better than your mum ever did, better than I could do it," Imany folded her arms, "until now, if that's what you want."

Kasia eyes flooded, flicking side to side to find an escape. The child within her begged to be free, to be saved. It would start by admitting she did wrong.

She pushed it down. Her breath steadied. Imany watched her face darken, as a lifetime of resentment, simmering for so long, boiled into malice.

She swung her fist into Imany's temple. Imany thudded against the wall. Kasia checked her knuckles and returned to her hateful gaze.

"You told me you'd keep out of my business unless I asked. We are not family."

Imany wiped her eyes with shaky fingers and stood.

"If that's how you feel. But you're family to me…"

"No! Your family is a long way from here so is mine! I am not yours Imany! I am not family to you."

Imany mouthed an okay. It wasn't good enough. Kasia pointed her down.

"All. these. years. What do you even see in me!? Why do you care!?"

"I don't know! I don't need a reason! I care because I do..."

"My family chose Poland over me, my daughter's next, why should you be any different to them!? You think you can replace them!?"

"Even if I could! You'd cut me off anyway. What difference would it make?"

Kasia wanted to fight back. But she knew Imany was right.

She left.

She wandered the estate's roof, clutching her head as nicotine cravings claimed her. The vape was at Imany's. She wasn't about to ask for it.

Sermon messaged. Kasia made the mistake of reading it. She fell to her knees whimpering with rage. He asked where she was, hoped she was well, informed her he was promoted.

Officially guardsman, ahead of Kasia in a role she was better for. Kasia had overreached, and fallen behind.

She wanted to curse him and congratulate him; reject Imany and thank her; hurt Eva and hold her. Torn by choices leading to more pain, she saw no reason to take any. She would fulfil her agent role to the end, and keep her distance from all the rest.

She dug through roof debris, found a mattress, and lay facing upwards into a sky without stars.