Spies

"Juniper" was waiting for her contact "Max" to show up. He was running about 15 minutes late, which was worrying. And it gave Juniper too much time to think. Think about her mission, think about her life, think about food (she hadn't eaten breakfast yet). Where the hell was Max? Like her, most of her fellow agents were incredibly prompt. Max was supposed to be in place 22 minutes after sunrise. Maybe something happened. Maybe the authorities got him.

Finally, Max showed. She knew it was him because of his orange hair which was pretty disheveled. Max let out a huge yawn.

"Seriously, he just woke up?" thought Juniper as she started to collect herself.

For this contact, the protocol would be the following sequence: Max would stand in the window and shake his head twice. Across the street, Juniper would be sitting in her window and would raise her hand, like she was reaching for something. Max would acknowledge by sitting in his window. Then they would begin the upload.

Max technically checked all of the boxes for the protocol today, although Juniper thought that his side was sloppy. Hopefully, the agency would trade Max out for a new agent soon.

Juniper started the upload. It was everything that she had learned over the last 72 hours. It was mostly stolen research on new fracking techniques, as well as some insider information on a new pre-market plastic formulation. When you're trying to build a new society, economic espionage was the quickest way to success.

The upload was taking some time today. The fracking intel was full of quite-large data sets. Juniper slowly rocked herself in the window, waiting for the all-clear. This was taking so long. She couldn't stop thinking about breakfast.

Max finally gave the all-clear. She responded by standing up and having a big yawn and stretching. "Where do they even come up with these signals?" she muttered. The authorities would be out soon and she needed to blend back in. As she turned away from the window, she saw Michelle drinking coffee and staring at her. Michelle was an enemy agent that Juniper had befriended. More than that, Michelle and her husband were actually Juniper's roommates. That's how Juniper always got the good intel. That's how she was going to climb the ranks.

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Michelle looked at Juniper in the window. What in the world was she doing?

"Toby, Juniper is doing that thing again where she sits in the window and sways. Will you get her some breakfast?"

Toby walked into the kitchen in his boxer briefs, opened a can of salmon with gravy, and put it on a plate on the floor. Juniper brushed his leg and gave him a whack with her tail before lapping up the cat food.

"Michelle, this cat is a spy from the moon. I just know it."