–General, Agent 0811 is gone!

General Beauchamp looked up from his desk, ready to rip the head off his secretary for storming his office without as much as knocking, when the meaning of the words struck him like lightning.

-What do you mean… gone?

-We got a note from him via securе comms, sir.

-What did it say?

-It said “A0811 out”, sir.

The General swivelled around in his chair and stared out the window. The Pentagon parking lot below was buzzing as usual. Cars pulling in and out, parking spots vacatеd and filled right away with precision, personnel coming to and from through the security gates, all in one harmonious, fluid, non-stop motion of a well-oiled machine. Everything planned and accounted for. Every cog in the system playing its role, every mission accomplished.

The General pictured himself pulling out of his personal parking spot at the front of the lot for the last time after getting fired. I wonder who they will give it to, he thought. Anyone but that prick Morelli. It’s enough he keeps walking away with half the pot every poker Friday.

-Get the whole team here, now!

-They are all outside, sir.

As the staff started shuffling into his office, Beauchamp studied their faces. Most managed to keep their feelings controlled. Lieutenant Linda Pulasky, A0811’s post-conversion handler, looked particularly stone-faced. She must be dying on the inside, Beauchamp thought to himself. What a bright mind and a stellar career in military intelligence. Until now. Decades of research, one-of-a-kind technology, first-ever human trial – all down the drain. And the Agency secrets out there and out of control, hijacked by a rogue agent. He liked Linda, but this was a teachable moment like none other. Beauchamp locked eyes with Linda and gave her an almost imperceptible nod. Buckle up, Lieutenant, this ride is about to get rough.

The General stood up at his desk and gave the room one long piercing look.

-How. The. Fuck. Do. You. Lose. A. Cat!!!!

***

A0811 sat on the roof of the Union Station and watched the buses below. Greyhound to New York, switch there to a train to JFK and try to sneak in the pressurized cargo compartment of a flight out of the country. He pulled up a map of JFK service entrances in his mind. Easy enough.

A0811 imagined all his favorite places from before the conversion. Iceland would be nice. Stay with Captain Elvar in Sauðanes, go cod fishing on his boat out there at the edge of the map. A0811 remembered that time Captain Elvar made his crew do some team building, bobbing for apples in tubs of ice water, hands tied behind back, except the apples were giant cod eyes, freshly carved out of daily catch, slimy optical nerve still dangling off them. That was a good day.

Or maybe return to San Telmo. Not that he could tango anymore in this feline form, but what’s a better place to wait it out than a smoked-out milonga salon, humans intertwined like weeping willows, moving through time and space, deep in the trance of ‘duende’.

A0811 thought about how much he used to love his craft. What a thrill it was in the beginning. Seeing the world, wearing new skins on every mission, blending in with the locals, thwarting the evil from upheaving the world. But it took a turn somewhere.

Dirty money, dirty governments, dirty missions.

Double-crossing, friendly fire, no one to trust.

The scars that never heal.

When O. got killed back in Eastern Europe in obscure circumstances several month after he left to prepare their escape together, he instantly knew they eliminated her so that he would remain their lethal tool with no weak spots. He had to shove his feelings deep inside and wait two decades for a chance at payback, until they came to him with the top secret feline conversion project. He volunteered on the spot. The kevlar skin, the instant regeneration systems for any damage to the internal organs, the laser-sharp night vision was all nice and dandy, but his favorite was the user-controlled option to switch off the geo-location and fly completely under the radar of any tracking system known to man.

He would take his freedom now, and never ever have to do another job for anyone ever again.

***

Linda was sitting on her balcony high above the city, the apartment behind her a dark cave of silence. The only light came from the cigarette in her hand. She sat staring into the night until the cigarette smoldered all the way down to her fingers, the burn snapping her out of it.

Linda came back inside and opened the fridge. She stared at the bottle of ketchup, the mustard, the 3 eggs remaining in the carton and the half-empty bottle of orange juice. That didn’t help any. Linda looked at the tiny cactus on the kitchen counter, her one attempt at domesticating the space. The cactus was starting to sprout a microscopic yellow flower. Not a good idea, buddy, Linda said wryly out loud.

The morning news finally started to settle inside her brain. Her whole life. Her whole life had led to this moment, and he disappears before she could tell him.

Tell him that O. had given birth in the Carpathian hideout that winter and barely managed to pass the baby to the ally Polish agent couple right before getting captured. And that the Poles’ next assignment was a diplomatic mission in the US where they settled down and raised her as Linda Pulasky, a brilliant overachiever in the military intelligence field, who thought she was hiding just one secret her whole life: that something always felt off inside her, but she could never figure out why.

Until last week when the couple she thought were her parents gave her a thumb drive with an encrypted message, only readable once before a complete wipeout.

She was born to a woman intelligence officer on the opposite side of the Iron Curtain, who did what she could to make sure her baby survived.

And that legendary A0811 was her father. The father who is now a cat on the run.

Linda yanked the cactus out of its pot, pushed it inside the kitchen disposal and flipped on the switch.

***

General Beauchamp was deep in thought over the department’s toothless plan for recovering A0811. The cat body was designed to be untraceable so until A0811 made contact with somebody inside the Agency, he held all the cards. General turned his chair around and stared at the parking lot. When he had to make the decision about O. back then, he made sure it wasn’t traceable to him or the Agency. A top secret deal had to be made on the highest level of the two opposite governments, because neither could afford to lose their top spy to domestic bliss. If A0811 knew, the bastard never let it show.

The phone buzzed.

-What?

-Lieutenant Pulasky, General. She says it’s urgent.

Linda walked into his office and stared at the General with the expression he didn’t know how to read.

-I think I can get him to talk.