Of The Muse In You: Code Name Uhuru

Welcome to the story which I will write with your help. This project is a simple speculative fiction communally inspired but in the course of its creation I have found other people’s very real stories being told within the lines of my words……
How it works: I tell part of the story and you can be a part of this journey by using the poll at the bottom and or in the comments to let me know how you feel the story should proceed

Its been… a year since the last episode and you can catch up on The Muse In You: Not Yet Uhuru here

The story so far:

An email from a scammer led me to join a group of liberators who worked behind the scenes to rescue victims of oppression. They achieved their aims through clandestine operations and my lost choice had been on what we should do next.

And the results: Central Bank Heist (and y’all weird!!)

**Voicemail beep**

“You might have been wondering where I have been for the past year. See, I died had a beautiful funeral. I watched friends and family say some kind words over an oak casket. There was no body viewing since I had met my demise in a freak inferno that left nothing but ash. Do you believe in ghosts? I didn’t until I became one.

The thing with ghosts, sometimes they have heartbeats and they walk around living and breathing just like everyone else. You talk to them, they send you good morning messages, ask if you have eaten, know every little about your life and the only thing you know about them is what they choose to reveal –They are never who you think them to be, livers of multiple lives – and I was one.

There is no easy way to explain what we did… besides if I told anyone that would put them at risk of an untimely extraction – makes it sound like having a troublesome tooth removed. Anyway, Mishie I have to go away, and I just wanted you to know that I__
I___
I______”

“Hello?” A voice answered on the other end.

I disconnected the line… I hadn’t expected the call to be answered. I had hoped to leave a voice message and be gone by the time it was received. This was the hardest part about being a ghost – The Ghosting – When you shed off a chapter and disappeared into the mist as if you never existed. No one outside of The Organisation knew how much impact we made on the world.

I caught my reflection in the shop window, I looked unremarkable, you have no idea how hard I practiced to achieve a nondescript appearance, easy to forget. I remember McG drilling me during training – Rule Number 1 Never Stand OUT, that will get you noticed, and that always gets you killed.

Beyond my reflection in the shop window was a display full of TVs for sale. All the TVs were showing the same breaking news “City Wide Manhunt For Armed Robbers” I had to chuckle, while everyone was pre-occupied with the case of the cash-in transit robbery, nobody would be interesting in an unremarkable person such as myself and most importantly no one would know what we had really done except corrupt government officials who would wake up tomorrow to the news headlines congratulating them on their generous donations to the Health and Education Budgets. Free health care and free education was really not that hard to achieve.

The end of a mission was always bitter sweet, on one hand the euphoria of achieving objectives would make one feel buoyant, on the other hand it meant leaving everything behind. And always came memories of the one assignment which still haunted me – the one girl we still hadn’t saved – 4 years in captivity that would make her 19 now and if the reports we intercepted were correct she was now a mother of 2… At least she was still alive right? I tried not think about what kind of life___

*BEEP*

My ringing phone broke me out of the trance. No number showed on the screen just the incoming call notification..

“Uhuru” I answered with my code name.

A synthesized voice notified me that my assignment had been complete and Operation Eschaton was now in play. This was the code for our doomsday exit protocol which meant would have to get rid of anything associated with my current identity and travel to a safe house where would wait till my new identity and next assignment would be issued.

I had done this countless times it was like changing your winter wardrobe for summer. First step: format the phone and then destroy the phone and sim card…. It was a burner number after all.

As I was about to press the power button to confirm the factory reset and delete everything a message came through from Mishie…  Dammit, I shouldn’t have sent her that voicemail… I stared at the phone and its four word message:

Can I Skype you?

What would you have me do:

1. Ignore the message
2. Text and ghost
3. Set Up Skype
4. Check for a tail
5. Trace the message

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Story influenced by BlogBattle Theme Eschaton and Bhala Writers Prompt about an undercover agent.