A note on this one, there's a "backstory" character here based on a real Cold War historical figure. The name is similar to one from the series, just because I picked one to sound German and didn't change it when I noticed the coincidence. Also, I follow a Youtuber called Techmoan. Everything about tech here is based on his stuff.

When the day was done, Fiona Frost and Steven Stahl went to his house together. "I talked to Chloe," he said as they pulled into the driveway. "She said you had an argument. She told me that she will ask for a new assignment."

"I'm sorry," Fiona said. "I know you liked her."

"It is all right," Steven said. "If you are moving in, the administration may decide I no longer require the same services. She is nice. For a spy." Fiona flushed at that.

Again, she carried him through the door. She put him in a second chair kept on hand and wheeled him through. They considered the room Chloe would have slept in, but Fiona wordlessly voted for his own room. It proved to be a spacious room, lined with all manner of trophies. She was surprised to find not a bed, but what amounted to a convertible chair, just large enough for two. She watched, vaguely impressed, as he climbed into it all on his own. While he lowered it into a horizontal configuration, she paused to examine a large blade on the wall directly above. It was the size of a machete, with a forward-swept edge.

"That's the knife they gave me for the flight," Steven said. "I figured out it's from the far east. We just called it a chopper."

She sat down and took his hand. He had a tape player by the bed, made by a Frigian manufacturer that was the leading supplier in Westalis. Its included album was titled Greatest Music of Bestalis. She considered the cartridge itself, twice the size of the ones she had. "Huh," she said. "A friend of Loid's says somebody in the Westalis government took a bribe to keep their tapes incompatible with Ostania's."

Steven shook his head, but smiled. "It could have happened, but only after they already bought a quarter million of the old units," he said. "The same tapes we use are being sold on the private market in Westalis. Chloe says the company with the patent probably gave a kickback to our Education department to accept them."

Of course, the tape started with "Pity of God". As they kissed, Steven slowly and steadily reached for the top button of her blouse. "You can go to the other room if you like," he said. They kissed again.

"Well," she said. "It never hurts to try something new."

Her clothes went onto the floor, until she was down to a singularly unrevealing pantygirdle. Steven had removed only his shirt. "I've gotten ahead of you," he said. "Maybe I should just open up…"

"No, don't worry, I'll do it," Fiona said hurriedly. She paused after removing his pants. The stumps of his legs were wrapped in compression bandages. "Should I take these off?" she asked.

"Go ahead, I replace them every morning anyway," he said. She unwound the bandages, releasing a distinct odor like agar. A moment's examination confirmed that what remained of his right leg was longer than the left. Both stumps swelled visibly with the removal of the bandages. Seeing her concern, Steven said, "That comes and goes. It gets better if I do this." He raised the bed to a steep angle. "You don't mind, do you?"

"No," Fiona said. "I can work with this." She found that it was indeed good to try something new.

As the night went on, Fiona nestled against Steven, her legs curled up to adjust for the angled bed. He turned on a TV across the room. Another of his movies was on. "It is one of the private stations," Steven said. "Several of the people who run it help out at the administration. They play old films so the actors get a steady income from royalties. I'm not the only one who was in the war."

The movie was a science fiction film. Steven was a virtuous astronaut for a future worldwide union, who was strongly implied to be sharing the bed of a beautiful leading lady. He was falsely blamed for the destruction of a ship full of colonists, in fact sabotaged by a treasonous and lecherous official. Their battle ended with the dastardly villain pinned beneath a leaking tank of rocket fuel that made cloth and flesh burst into flame on contact. He pleaded for the hero to shoot him with a dropped revolver that had only one round remaining. The noble pilot tossed the weapon just within the villain's reach, after spinning the cylinder.

"I know," Steven said. "Brandt was never really a secret. He had been losing status after the Nationalist coalition rejected the Brandt plan. The press were already connecting him with Melinda back then, so they really talked when she started going out with me. That probably made him angrier. After I ran him off in Shellbury, he went straight to an Air Corps testing facility for what he announced as a surprise inspection. It held an experimental rocket plane I was going to fly the next day. It mixed two chemicals for thrust, both nasty. One of them could dissolve organic matter. I followed him." He looked at her. "You really want to know more?"

"No," she said. She was silent for a time.

"I have a confession to make," Steven said. "When I was at your apartment, I took a couple things with me when I left. Just to be sure you wouldn't have trouble if Chloe talked her people into looking around."

"It's all right," she said.

"I have one of those things in the nightstand," he said. "You can have it back, it you want."

Fiona dismounted. Usually, she would have covered herself rather than move about casually in front of a lover, but she found her self-consciousness had vanished after seeing Steven fully uncovered. The nightstand was really a cabinet. She looked inside, then looked up at Steven. Inside, amongst an assortment of video and audio cartridges, was a battered shoebox. A photo protruded from inside. It was a picture of Loid Forger.

And at Fiona's apartment, Chloe and Kase stood before the opened sliding door on the right side of Fiona Frost's closet. The woman stared at the completely blank and unobstructed wall. "Something was here," she said. She pointed a flashlight, modified with baffles for a tighter beam, at the wall and the floor. "Look. There's a pin on the floor. You can see holes in the plaster. Wait… Is that tape?" She turned to Kase. "This was something big. Very big."

"It is still not conclusive," the captain said. "Remember the man in Shellbury?"

"He didn't hide the pictures of his mistresses from us," Chloe said. Abruptly, she pointed the light to the left. Among a clutter of shoes and shopping bags and cartons was the perfect outline of a shoebox.

Chloe screamed in rage.