The reason why.
Why am I so dour? Why am I so daring? Why am I so quiet? And why do I never really get the girl??
It's the way I am. When I was young, quite young, back in the Ukraine, I was not so dour and not so quiet. Some even called me a "fun guy." I had a decent life, a good education. I was in a position of some importance – how do you say it, a big fish in a little pond? I was a gymnastics coach with the U.S.S.R. National Team. I had been a decent gymnast myself for a few years – an expert on the rings – but was never quite good enough. It was my skills as a teacher – "people skills" (ha!), that kept me involved in gymnastics. Which is where I met Ekaterina. Kat. My Kat.
She had tremendous talent, even as a young girl. When I met her, at age 16 – I was just 20 myself -- she was not a girl, she was…a fine beauty. A woman of class. Fun and crazy in a good way, with a great sense of humor. And she loved me, just the way I was. Just the way I was. Acceptance. Hard to find anywhere, very hard in Soviet Union.
We had plans. We didn't know where we were going, but we were going. As soon as she satisfied Those in Charge of gymnastics, we were getting married. Going ….somewhere. Together.
But. By 17, her body was changing, despite the hormone injections that she was forced to endure. Coaches don't like to see big hips on the balance beam. There was a new drug – they wanted her to try it. She wanted to try it. I was very, very against it. It was the only argument that we had ever had. And the last time we spoke.
It was thought that she had died from the new drug, but it was discovered later that she had been poisoned. As a decoy, along with some other athletes. It took a long time, but it was found that the people behind it were something called THRUSH (in English), a new international terrorist group of some sort. And they had been sloppy this time, in their infancy, or their involvement in this horror would never have been uncovered.
It took a year for me to find UNCLE, another new group that was formed to fight this THRUSH. And the time it took me to get over losing my Kat – I never have.
My two goals in life are now straightforward – fight THRUSH. And meet my Kat again. If and when THRUSH gets me, I'll have reached that second goal.
It's the reason why.