WSB Academy, Location Classified, 1978
Anna paced the hallway back and forth as if she was determined to wear a hole in the drab linoleum. Anna folded her arms and rubbed her upper arms to ward off the chill in the arid corridor. She winced when her hands made contact with the bruises that marked the skin of her arms like a kaleidoscope of color. Her wounds, fortunately, had been superficial. She had almost forgotten they were still there. They were souvenirs of her experience. Her evaluators had been determined to break her, but she had won.
"Devane! What in heaven's name are you doing pacing outside my office? You are making me nervous just watching you from the door window. Now, can I help you?" Agent Brighton O'Reilly startled her out of her thoughts.
"Oh! I'm sorry. I'm just waiting for my Arcana results…."
"You are about two hours early for that." O'Reilly pointed to the clock on the opposite wall.
"I know. I just wanted to be the first here."
O'Reilly looked up and down the empty hallway. "Well, it looks like a tumbleweed is more likely to pass by than a rush of candidates. But I admire your eagerness, so as long as you don't tell anyone, I'll give you yours now. They are all sitting on my desk."
"Oh yes! Please!" Anna resisted the urge to jump up and down in her excitement.
"Here you go."
Anna's hands shook as she opened the envelope that would determine her fate. She frowned in confusion. At the top of her results was a word she had never seen or heard before: Perspicacious. Nothing else was written either above or below it for an explanation. A handwritten note in the same envelope read, See me immediately- S. Donely.
Anna's heart sank. This was it. Her career was over before it even started. What would she do? Where would she go? Her mind raced as she hurried through the corridors to the Director's office as quickly as her feet would carry her. She came to a dead stop in front of his office. Nervously Anna placed her hand on the knob, looking into the sliver of window embedded into the heavy door. Her eyes scanned the placard on the wall: Director Sean Donely. She closed her eyes and inhaled and exhaled slowly to center herself, then rapped on the cold metal. Director Donely opened the door. She was relieved when he shook her hand warmly. He ushered her in and invited her to sit down.
"Come in. Thank you for coming to see me so soon. As a WSB candidate, you have shown great promise through your creative intelligence and your sense of survival. Your curiosity and a high tolerance for risk have all come to the fore during the Arcana. You've seen your results, I assume?" He asked
"Yes, but I'll be honest, sir, I don't know what it means."
"It's your Virtue, Anna. The dictionary definition of perspicacious is to be of acute mental vision or discernment. You find its meaning in the root of the word which I'm sure you know - the Latin word perspicere, meaning "to look through" or "to see clearly." Director Donely looked at her closely, "But here in the WSB, it means something more than that. In all my time here, I know of only one other agent who has received this result. To say it is rare is an understatement."
"What does it mean to the WSB?"
"Well, Devane, here in the WSB, we are always fighting for good, trying to stamp out evil. However, in order to fight evil, you have to understand it. That is what the Arcana revealed. You do. You may not like the sound of this, but you have a unique ability. You can put yourself in a villain's shoes and understand him, his reasoning, his motivation, and even what his next move might be. Now, this is a powerful tool for our organization, making you a valuable asset. Still, it is something you need to be aware of inside yourself because it can be your greatest strength, and it can leave you vulnerable. Understanding the enemy can easily lead to sympathizing with the enemy, which can even lead to cooperating with the enemy. You will have to take care that you can develop your gift and control it."
Anna smiled and nodded. She made motions to get up, but Director Donely raised his hand to stay her retreat.
"You had a close call in the vestibule, but you should just chalk it up to the first of many close calls you will experience in your career. A miss is as good as a mile, so the saying goes. But Anna, we also can't ignore your other result. The Arcana is meant to reveal your greatest strength as well as your greatest weakness. Your Hubris, what is it?"
She looked down at the paper in her hand. She hadn't even bothered to read it because she had been so preoccupied with her Virtue.
"Reckless."
He looked at her pointedly, and she felt her cheeks flame under his stern gaze.
"Experience teaches sense, Anna. You can't learn it in a classroom. You will begin a new training regimen effective at 1600 hours. Be ready. You are dismissed." Sean turned his attention back to the stack of files on his desk.
Her mind was racing. Her time had come; her dreams were within her grasp. Ivan! She needed to tell Ivan right away. She knew he would be proud of her. Anna stood to leave but turned back, her hand resting on the door handle.
"Sir?" she said.
"Call me Sean," he replied.
"Sean?" His given name felt strange on her tongue.
"Yes?" he didn't bother to raise his eyes from the folder he had taken to leafing through.
"You said that only one other person received this result. May I ask who?"
Director Donely looked up at her and then grinned widely.
"Me." He said.
Ivan sat in the common room and stared at the paper in his hand, and contemplated the words that were printed there.
Virtue: Astute
Hubris: Pride
He smiled a half-smile to himself. His Arcana results had come with an offer from Agent O'Reilly to join the WSB as a Logistics Officer formally. Under normal circumstances, an offer like this would be reserved until his academy training had come to a close, but his scores allowed him to skip the line. He would provide logistical support and manage the overall logistic processes to bolster field officers' mission objectives, leverage existing intelligence networks and expand others, anticipate mission needs and operational requirements, and offer alternatives and advice. It's what he had worked so hard for. The best part was that he had his choice of locations so he could work from the Academy field office while Anna completed her time there. It was as perfect as if he had planned it himself. They could continue on as they were. He imagined Anna's smile at hearing his news, and the ghost of their mingled laughter echoed in his mind as he thought of more days spent in her presence. He couldn't wait to tell her.
As if by magic, she was there in front of him. She was dressed in dark clothes, and a rucksack hefted onto her shoulder. Her dark hair was pulled up into a simple chignon, and something in her demeanor felt far off and out of reach.
"I'm leaving. I don't know when I'll be back, and I wanted to say goodbye."
"Goodbye? How long will you be gone?"
"Oh, I don't know. Forever perhaps. Because of my results, I'm being fast-tracked into fieldwork. There is no need for me to be here or come back here to the Academy."
"Where are you going?
"It's classified. I probably shouldn't even be saying goodbye to you, but I couldn't bear the thought of going without saying thank you." She couldn't seem to look him in the eye; her eyes roved everywhere else. But even without her gaze, he couldn't think clearly. He was still dumbstruck by the news of her unexpected departure.
"Thank you? For what?"
"For all your help. I couldn't have gotten to where I am without your help and tutoring. You are the reason I'm leaving." She smiled
He tried to ignore that feeling he got from that smile. He was a logistics expert, and somehow this scenario has not occurred to him all those nights that she had sat in his room drinking tea and translating, that helping her stay in the Academy would be the very means by which she would leave it and him. But she had never been here for him; he understood that now. He was just a rung on her ladder, something to step upon on her way to the top. His emotions dropped into a dark place. His conscience tried to convince himself that there was no bigger reason for her quitting his life. But the darker whispers prevailed; his heart wasn't strong enough. She was leaving because of her ambition, the self-serving nuisance she could be. That was the problem. He hadn't been able to think clearly for months now because she had slowly invaded his mind.
"I'm the reason. I see how it is," he couldn't keep the sarcasm from his voice. He tried to look at her, but he couldn't—her gaze immediately slipped to a different direction when he tried as if their eyes were opposing magnets, so he turned his back to her.
"What do you mean?" she asked.
He wheeled about and captured her gaze in his. A sneer was on his lips.
"So our friendship was engineered, by you, to your own advantage." The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them. He knew they were wrong and wanted to take them back, but he was in for a penny he might as be in for the whole damned pound. Her eyes snapped to his. He hadn't seen that look on her face often, genuine confusion. She honestly didn't see this coming.
Anna's eyes widened, and she felt like she had been struck. She was not sure which stunned and incensed her more: his words or the unashamed candor with which he voiced them. Her eyes grew wide at his assumption. Did he truly believe her capable of such malice? She didn't even know how to respond to the accusation that he flung at her. Her hesitation was apparently enough of an answer for him, however.
He let out a short bark of bitter laughter. "Ah, I thought as much," he said. "You can only play at friendship for so long." He rounded on her again, his anger simmering beneath the surface now. "I have come to expect this sort of vindictiveness from the rest of humanity, Anna, but not from you." Here he jabbed an index finger in her direction. "N-never from you."
Her eyes began to water out of both hurt and frustration. How many of her actions did he suspect of carrying malicious intent over the past year? She so badly needed him to know that this was not the case, but she had no voice with which to protest. Even if she had, could she have found the words? She was utterly stunned by his fury. And then, like vegitation taking root, her own temper rose to the fore and quickly took over.
"How dare you." Her whole being seethed with anger and humiliation at his insinuations. "I am who I am, Ivan. I have given blood, sweat, and tears to be an agent. I won't ever give that up. Not for ANYONE, do you understand me? " Her voice was strong and steady now. "I offered you friendship which I thought you were offering back to me. I signed up for that. What I didn't sign up for was to teach you to be a compassionate person. That's not my job! You don't get to blame me for your shortcomings as a human! Jealousy looks terrible on you. "
She went rigid with burgeoning anger, her face hot with what felt like a betrayal. Did he not realize how ridiculous he sounded? After everything that they had been through? Angry tears stung her eyes. In a fit of indignation entirely unlike her, she reached down to snatch one of the books from a nearby reading table and hurled it at him. It bounced harmlessly off of his leg, but still, he winced. Up until that moment, Anna had not realized that it was possible to both care about and despise someone so intensely at the same time.
"This is who I am, Ivan. This is who I have always been. My dream is coming true, and you do not get to steal my joy just because you have to settle for a desk job. Do you hear me! I'm not wasting this chance for anything or anyone. And you know what? I hope I never see you again. Do you hear me?" Her mind had twisted into a confusing maelstrom of emotions that unseated her and left her unable to formulate a more articulate response.
"You w-won't get any argument f-from me!" he bellowed back. His stammer returned in force as his anger rose.
"Fine." she countered
"Ff-fine!" he taunted back.
"FINE!" she screamed. With that parting shot, she grabbed her things and barreled down the hallway and was gone.
Ivan Theodore was in the grip of the most intense and overwhelming emotion he had ever experienced. Up and down, to and fro, he paced, with set lips and clenched he was worn out he flung himself on a chair by the window and wrestled with the flood of feelings. His reaction to her leaving was swift and painful, and in that moment, he was little more than the frightened child-version of himself who wanted so badly for somebody just to choose to be with him. He was working himself up into a fury again—the untamed fury of a person thwarted in his heart's desire. It overrode all the restraint of his training and environment. He took a few deep breaths, and the anger began to dissipate and dissolve into sadness.
I'm leaving. Her words had torn away the delusive veil with which he had bound his eyes. He was face to face with the fact that he loved Anna Devane. He wondered how he could have been so long blind to it. He knew that he must have loved her ever since their first meeting when she crawled into his window and took over his life. What he clearly didn't factor in was the hole that she would leave in his life if she were gone.
He still held a piece of paper now crumpled in his hand. He unfolded in, attempting to smooth the creases from it. He could only see one word, Pride. He never liked accepting help from others, not that many people in his childhood offered any. If a gift or an offer of aid smacked of charity or pity, even the slightest bit, it was his nature to grow indignant and refuse it. He cordially detested pity or false sympathy in all its manifestations and had always done since he grew old and wary enough to detect it in the people around him. But Anna never offered him anything other than her friendship, and he never detected anything but sincerity in her smiles. Shame filled him to the very brim of his heart. He accused her of false friendship, and it was wrong of him to do that. What an absolute cretin he was.
She's leaving, you fool, he chided himself. She was his only friend. And he was letting his wounded pride drive a wedge between them.
Ivan stood up and looked into the mirror on the wall with a pale, haggard face. He had never thought a man could suffer as he was suffering. What was he to do? It seemed impossible to go on—there was NO life apart from Anna and her friendship. Anguish wrung his soul until his strength went from him, and everything turned to gall and bitterness in his heart. He should be happy that her dreams were coming true, and perhaps he was, but the overriding emotions driving him were sorrow and loss.
But thankfulness was mixed in with the gall as well. Despite her choice of career, which emphasized feigning friendships rather than building them, she had cultivated this relationship with him, had slowly and carefully been the one to draw him out, let him know, in a myriad of ways, that she cared about him; and he had thought that maybe, just maybe, in time, they could be together again. If she would even speak to him again...
He quitted the room quickly, pushing his body as hard as he could to get out of the building. It could be too late, but he had to try and reach her before she left.
An evening of gray fog had crept in and swathed the ground, swallowed the gardens and glens, and clung heavily to long avenues. He could see the edges of her as she began to disappear into the evening mist. She looked ghostly in the gray veil. He was losing her, and he couldn't bear it.
"Anna!" he called out, hoping she could hear him. "Wait! I was wrong! Don't leave like this!"
She turned back. She looked at him with a tear-stained face. A wind was rising and making a , wild, rushing sound. It tore at the pins in her hair setting it free. He held his breath, looking at her and her at him as time stood still. Then she dropped her rucksack and was at him at a full run and right into his arms. He caught her and let out an oomph as she squeezed him tight.
"I'm sorry!" they said in unison. Something seemed to pass between them: an unspoken truce, perhaps.
"I was unfair. Your dreams are coming true. This is the culmination of all of your hard work. It was selfish of me to want you to stay. I've been a b-bad friend. Fff-forgive me."
"Forgive you? I need you in my life, you idiot. Do you understand me?" She clung to him and then smacked him hard on the arm only to catch hold of him again. He winced and then chuckled, allowing himself to rest his chin on the crown of her head. He held her as tightly as he could with both his strong and weak arms.
"We both were in a temper. You want to make decisions for me when it suits you. Sometimes you are abrasive and obstinate, and I"—she choked on a sob, and her bottom lip trembled—"yes, I forgive you."
As she clung to him with her face pressed against his shoulder, he knew that it had to be. He accepted the fact then and there. She must go—his beautiful Anna with her beautiful soul, ambitions, and ideals. And he had known all along that it would come sooner or later. He had seen it coming towards them—coming closer—like seeing the shadow of a cloud drawing near over a sunny day, swiftly and inescapably. Amid all his pain, he was conscious of an odd feeling of relief in some unknown part of his spirit, where a little dull, unacknowledged ache had been lurking all year. He had always thought it inevitable that one day she would simply disappear from his life as quickly as she had appeared, and when that happened, he would be crushed by her absence, but he would have to figure out how to move on with his life. He couldn't say exactly how long he had loved her, but he knew that he did, with a desperate passion. Of course, he hadn't been completely oblivious to his feelings before, but he had always thought that there was a way back from them.
"On that horrible night when I learned that you were hurt," Ivan went on, "I kept thinking that perhaps we'd have no more talks or walks or work together. And I realized just what your friendship had come to mean to me. And how much I don't deserve it. I didn't care. And I'm not like you, Anna. Apparently, you were born knowing how to live. And I don't know anything about it. I've been on my own for so long I didn't know that I could be anything else. And it seems to me, too, that I've always been afraid when I was in the company of other people . . . afraid of saying the wrong thing . . . afraid of being laughed at."
"Don't, Ivan," implored Anna, " I understand—don't talk of it anymore. You are going to be fine. And I'm going to be fine. You don't need to worry."
"I must—I need to. I can't go on accepting your friendship without telling you how unworthy I was of it. And I've been so afraid that eventually, you would become wise to who I truly am, which would turn you against me."
"Friendship doesn't care about worthiness; it just grows in any soil it can take root in. You don't need to fear it, Ivan." she lifted one of his cool hands to sandwich it between hers.
"It's very strange—friendship, for someone like me. Terrifying might be a better word. It's like opening the door of a dark room to see some hideous creature you've believed to be there—and when the light streams in, your monster turns out to have been just a shadow, vanishing when the light comes. It will never anything come between us."
"I'm glad. I don't have many friends, and I'm not likely to be in a position to make them anytime soon."
"Listen, Anna," he grew earnest, "I'm going to request to be put on your intelligence detail. If you are out there risking life and limb, at least you can rest at night knowing that someone who cares about you is in your corner. An agent is only as good as their support system."
"You'll be my guardian angel out in the field?" she smiled
"Just as you have been mine here at the Academy. Just think of me when you are sad or happy or lonely or discouraged," he said gravely. "Know that you have someone pulling for you, no matter where you are in the world."
"You can bet on it," said Anna, with a strange catch in her voice. "And if- no, when- I get back, we will celebrate, yeah?"
"I hope nothing happens to you," he said dolefully.
"If things never happened, life would be pretty dull," said Anna briskly, pulling back and wiping tears from her eyes. "Oh, don't look so dismal, please!" she pleaded.
"It's hard to be cheerful when you're going away," sighed Ivan.
"Well, let's pretend to be, anyway," insisted Anna. "Don't let's think parting. Let's think instead of how much we've laughed this last year or so. I'm sure I shall never forget this old place. We've had so many good times here." Her voice and expression were light again, and she wiped the last of her tears away and smiled.
"And some bad times, too," reminded Ivan.
"Let's agree to focus only on the good." She gave him one last hug. "I have to go now. I can't be late."
"I know. Goodbye."
"Goodbye." She stepped back and retreated but not before throwing him a wink.
He watched until she was no longer visible in the English fog. Ivan went slowly and silently back to the great house. Anna was gone. She was gone, and Ivan wondered if she had even existed at all. Maybe she was a figure of his imagination. He shook those thoughts from his mind and resolved that he would be there to welcome her when she returned.
However long it would take. Anna Devane would always be worth waiting for.
