The Retirement Home

It was a horrible, decrepit, bleak house. It had to be; it was where they stashed the old spies, the one who had worked in the unsanctioned ops of agencies identified by gestures instead of acronyms. The men, women, and things who knew too much to be left outside, but also too much to be killed, in the outside chance that their knowledge could become useful some day.

And the day had come. I needed their knowledge. One man's, in particular.

The problem was that I worked for the Opposition. It wasn't as if I could just knock at the door and invite him to grab a coffee. Not that they'd let him out anyway. The street panic that would ensue would call too much attention upon the zone.

I knocked at the door and opened it, crossing the threshold into the cold dark. A gun cocked against my head.

"Hello," I began to say. The gun fired before I finished the word, killing me instantly.

"Hello," said the man. "Welcome to the House of Ghosts. I'll get you to your room."

I nodded, stepping over my cooling body. The infiltration part of my plan was finished.

Now I just had to acquire and exfiltrate.

.finis.