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I released all four MAVs. The micro air vehicles swarmed aloft. Each no longer than my middle finger. I raised mine just to check and, since I had it deployed, aimed it west especially for Chas. How the hell had he talked me into this? I quit two years ago. Retired. Out. Gone. This girl was a dream that once was. And I wasn’t dreaming of Rome. I also wasn’t dreaming of Pakistan—but here I was again anyway.
I also wasn’t a gladiator; I was, had been a well-paid spy. Not that the US military paid its spies exorbitant amounts, but being at the very top of the Department of Defense intelligence gathering pyramid didn’t make the pay paltry either. Spy? We didn’t call ourselves that, duh! We were SIGINT and HUMINT specialists; signals and human intelligence gathering was our craft. A lot of our dance was done online, but sometimes nothing beat putting our feet on the ground in some hellhole like this one.
At the moment, I actually was a much more highly paid consultant. Oh, I didn’t need the cash, but that didn’t mean I was letting Chas off the hook scot-free either. If he was making me do this, it was gonna cost him. Rather than flying the friendly skies, Supergirl—my converted DC-3 flying home—sat unwilling at Fort Bragg. I’d take North Carolina’s vinegar-based BBQ over the South’s mustard-based any day, but not enough to ever return to Bragg on purpose.
Though my girl was there, my ass wasn’t at Bragg. It was planted in Southwest Asia—again. A land I’d never wanted to set foot on to begin with, even though I spoke a spread of the local languages and had the ear to shift the accents as needed. That I’d spent most of my final fifteen years of service in the Afghanistan and environs debacle was beside the point. I certainly would never come to this part of the world on purpose.
Planting my fine ass back in Pakistan? Nihen! Naa! Nahīṁ!—and a big fat No! in every regional language and dialect. I have had enough men mention that particular feature to believe that it’s among my finer ones—though often that’s all they get to see as I walked away after dropping their asses to the floor when they try to pat mine. Our Spec Ops trainers are the very best in the business, which always surprises the big guys with the wandering hands.
Not that anyone here could admire the finer aspects of my figure beneath the hijab and abaya—the head scarf and the voluminous cloak. All the world could see at the moment was my half-Bermudan face (easily misidentified for a weird mix-of-local most anywhere in Southwest Asia), my hands, and the tips of my shoes. Sandals are counted as indecent here, which was just as well. My toenails matched Supergirl’s blue and that would attract the wrong kind of attention, like the kind to make the air overladen with lead in neat little bullet shapes.

Initial Publication: Thrill Ride Magazine, "Spies"
Re-release: 1 June 2026
Print pages: 60