If there is one thing you know about London buses on a Saturday morning, it's that they're completely insufferable. Kris knows that, I know he bloody does. He's another man who was born and raised in England. And he also knows how I am with enclosed spaces, especially after I came back from the last case. I had claustrophobia before, but they made it all worse once they figured out who I was. They kept me in the dark so long I forgot what light even looked like.

We've been cut a bit of slack since COVID. I stopped even going into MI6 HQ, and never went back. Unprofessional, I know, but nobody else takes it seriously anymore either.

So it's been practically six years, and I get called into to actually come in because Kris desperately has to talk to me in person. I shove my case file - which is now annoyingly 200+ pages long - into a Sainsbury's bag and leave ASAP.

Why today? What could possibly be so wrong? Now I'm on the bus, there's a woman practically on top of me as she clings to the rails, and I'm praying for my journey to be over soon as the bus rolls sluggishly down the potholed road.

My arrival at the office is almost a full hour later than anticipated, largely due to a crash on a busy junction right in front of my bus. Because for some reason it look a grand total of almost a full hour to take the next closest route.
Eventually though, I scanned my badge and entered the building that looked so unsuspecting on the busy London streets. Kris had better make my time worth it, otherwise I'm saying every embarassing thing he's every done in the speech I will inevitably give at his wedding.

"Whatever you need Kris, could you not have put it in an ema-"

I round the corner to see Kris's empty desk and groan. Of course he isn't even here. Why would he be here after calling me into the office? Because that just makes everything too easy. The next twenty minutes are spent lugging around a bright orange carrier bag full of case files while trying to locate my boss. In vain, obviously.

Making my way back to his desk, I set a timer for fourty minutes and vow that if Kris hasn't appeared by then, then I'm going home. The timer ticks down as I sit there, tapping my leg on the floor and letting my eyes wander on the bland decorationless desk belonging to my friend. Not even a plant, everything boring and neatly arranged.

My eyes drift to a post-it note stuck to the desk, bright yellow and crooked. The handwriting on it is messy, almost uninteligable, but absolutely Kris's.

'Something is wrong with the case. Someone is watching me. I think we have a rat in the organisation.'

I school my features into pretending like I didn't just read what the post-it was so obviously just telling me. A rat.
In hindsite it makes so much sense, evidence always slightly wrong, pointing to people not even involved in the investigation. Details that didn't add up. Things we all chalked up to coincidences.

I dialed Kris's number, once, twice, a third time. No responce, disconnected entirely by the third call.

This wasn't good. This wasn't good at all. And I couldn't trust anyone to help me.