In just one more week, the Rory’s Story Cube Challenge will be three months old. Time flies when you’re having fun.

In a past story, I delved into how Alexei Bukharin came to The Directorate (“Desert Nights and Weeping Flowers“), so I thought it was time to get a glimpse into why Mai Fisher chose her life’s work. This story also gave me an opportunity to explain why espionage intrigues me–the casting aside of morals and norms to assure a country’s integrity may seem a contradiction in terms, but it’s beyond interesting to learn whether a newly minted spy can handle these “shades of gray.”

So, initially, I was going to name the story “Shades of Gray,” for reasons that are obvious when you read it, but I don’t want to imply any connection with a current “book” that’s all the rage for some reason I don’t quite grasp, Fifty Shades of Gray. The story does end up being the longest (at about 4,300 words) of all the offerings in “Spy Flash” and probably doesn’t count as flash fiction at all. Oh well.

Here’s the Week 11 roll of the cubes:

And here’s what I saw: (l. to r.) building/hotel; reading; footprint; credit card; die/roll of the die; fork in the road/at a crossroads; reaching/out of reach; moon; and house.

Here’s the link to “Family Matters.” If you don’t see the link, then hover your cursor over the “Spy Flash” tab above and select the story from the drop-down list.

Why don’t you give the story cubes challenge a try? Take a look at the picture above, write a story of any length, then post a link to it on Jennie Coughlin’s blog.