Agent X

Bees and coffee shops

The room was dimly lit, the far wall covered in high-resolution monitors, all blinking with lines of green and yellow code. In the midst sat a figure, haloed by the light and typing away on a keyboard.

X cleared his throat to announce his presence and the typing stopped. Hacker's chair turned around and ... no wait, Hacker was she?

Hacker tilted her head questioningly and frowned for a moment before her forehead cleared. 'You must be Agent X,' she said by way of greeting. She leaned back in her chair and smirked 'The one I've heard so much about. Pleased to meet you. I'm Hacker.'

X strode forward and shook her outstretched hand firmly. Seeing his slightly raised eyebrows and contemplating eyes, Hacker correctly guessed what was on his mind 'You were expecting to see a guy, weren't you?'

She's perceptive, X thought. Or maybe she's just used to this process. However, he wanted to see how she would react and replied with a smirk of his own 'Yeah. I did.'

Hacker groaned and threw her head back 'Of course you did. Why would you expect to see a girl? All of you are alike. Those stupid movies just show genius guys typing away behind a screen and by default, everyone thinks hackers are usually guys. Typical!'

X raised his hands in surrender against her outburst. 'Okay. I see it now. Of course hackers can be girls as well. Now shall we move on? We have a mission to accomplish.'

Hacker huffed but conceded. She picked up a file from the table and waved it around while saying 'I've received the file this morning. I had just finished going through it and was starting to make plans when you showed up.'

Then, noticing that he was still standing, she waved her hand distractedly at a chair placed next to her. 'Sit down. We have long days ahead of us.'

X thanked her and took a seat. Hacker frowned at his peculiar way of sitting and commented in an amused tone, 'Why are you so nervous? I don't bite, you know.'

X glanced at her in irritation and she backed off with her arms raised, just as he'd done.'So, you said you had started making plans. Anything solid as of now?'

'Nope. When you came in I was trying to contact our asset to see if he could somehow pass on the location of ACE.' Hacker explained.

'But I thought that information was already in the brief,' X replied with a frown.

'Yeah, I thought so too. But apparently, this information was too sensitive to pass around. So he left me an encrypted code asking me to contact him secretly for it, in case we decided to continue our mission. So I did. Do you have any ideas on our mission?'

'Why, yes actually. Let me show you something.'

X stuffed his hand into his jacket pocket and pulled out something with a fisted hand. When he opened his hand, on his outstretched palm, lay a bee.