He looked over the information in the folder one last time. This wasn’t the first time that he’d had to meet an informant in public but it never felt like it got any easier. He personally thought it was a senseless risk most of the time, but he wasn’t high enough up in the chain of command to really do anything about it.

“Black polo and glasses, black polo and glasses,” he repeated over to himself.

He wasn’t going to be that agent who walks up to the wrong person confusing them for the informant because he didn’t read the information correctly. The last time that happened to someone at the agency was years ago and they still ragged on the guy for it. He wasn’t going to be next.

He leafed through the folder to find the “opening script,” basically what he had to say to this person to confirm their identity as the informant. It was supposed to be telling but not something that would draw attention from any nearby eavesdroppers. This time around they plagiarized a bit of the script from “Lord of the Rings,” which seemed like a safe enough bet since it was still popular but not as popular as it had been.

The agency’s driver dropped him off at the end of the block from the coffee shop so it would attract less attention. He stepped out onto the sidewalk, took a deep breath, and headed down the street. He rehearsed his line as he walked down the street, adjusting his jacket with the hand that wasn’t holding his briefcase with a vice-grip. It was one of the places where they frequently met up with their informants, and he always wondered if that was a smart move or not.

He strode through the front door, pausing for a moment to look around the cafe. He glanced down at his watch--he was seven minutes early but he figured that with these kinds of things everyone was always early. He took another, slower, look around the place and found someone who matched the description that he had been given.

There was the sound of his chair sliding across the floor as he sat down in the table next to hers, sitting on the opposite side so he could get a better look at her. Half of her face was hidden by her laptop screen, but she definitely matched the description. She was wearing a black polo t-shirt and a pair of rectangular glasses. She didn’t look up at him as he sat down, though.

He cleared his throat, “It’s dangerous business, going out your door.”

That got her to look up. She looked around quickly, checking to make sure he was talking to her. She smiled, “You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.”

He breathed a sigh of relief and moved over to her table so he was sitting directly across from her. She raised her eyebrows slightly, but didn’t say anything more as she went back to typing away on her laptop. He reached into his briefcase and pulled out a folder.

“Can’t believe everything that’s been happening lately,” he said as he set his folder on the surface of the table.

She took a sip of her coffee before responding with a nod, “World’s gone mad, hasn’t it?”

He laughed, “It certainly has. Luckily there’s always something to be done about most of it,” he opened the folder.

“Nice to see that not everyone has lost faith in humanity.”

“Don’t have much of a choice, do we? Without humanity we’d be out of business.”

“That’s true, we wouldn’t be much without it,” she extended her hand, “Maxine.”

“Maxwell.”

“Hah, what’re the chances?” there was a grin on her face, “Well then, Maxwell, what do you plan to do about saving what’s left of humanity?”

“I’m glad you asked,” he lifted the folder up slightly, “I’ve got a twelve-step plan.”

She tilted her head slightly as a smile crept across her face, “All written down in black-and white, yea? A man with a plan, I like it.”

The sound of surprise in her voice caused him pause for a moment, wondering why she thought anything else besides a plan was going to come out of this. But it wasn’t the time to start overthinking. There was a lot that had to be done if they were going to try and maintain country-wide security without alerting the public to the issues going on.

“This needs to be dealt with quickly, though, if we don’t want the whole damn country to implode.”

She rolled her eyes, “Can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard that. Wouldn’t it be nice if the world could hold itself together for just a week or two? Is that too much to ask?”

He chuckled, “If only. Until then, though…” he slid the folder over to her, “Thank you for your time.”

Her brows furrowed as she placed her hand on top of the folder, “I...umm…”

“It’s all outlined. My boss was very clear about that,” he stood up, buttoning his jacket, “Take care, Maxine.”

Before she could say anything more to him, he turned on his heel and exited the cafe with hardly a trace behind him. She leaned back in her chair, looking back and forth between the folder and the door, as though she wa waiting for him to walk back in. After it was clear he wasn’t coming back, she shrugged to herself--stranger things had happened.

He dialed a number on his phone as he walked down the street, “Handoff is complete.”

“Excellent,” there was a clear sound of relief in his boss’s voice, “Well done. Come on back while we wait for them to get the rest of this going.”

“Will do.”

He looked down as he hung up and tucked his phone away into the pocket of his slacks when he knocked into someone walking in the other direction. He looked up, immediately apologizing, “I’m so sor--” he paused, smiling a bit, “Glenn? What’re the chances?”

There was confusion all over the man’s face, “Umm..the chances are pretty high since I’m on my way to meet with you.”

“What? No, no you must be meeting with someone else.”

“You have the outline for the security breach and threat remedy, right?”

All of the color drained from his face, “Yes, but, but I just met with,” he looked back over his shoulder at the coffee shop, “No I just met up with one of the women that works with you.” The blank look on the man’s face forced him to elaborate, “Maxine?”

He took a deep breath, “I can personally guarantee you there isn’t a single Maxine that works with me. In the whole damn agency.”

“Shit. Then that means--”

“You just passed off top secret information to the wrong person.”

There was a moment when everything hung in suspense. They had to go back and get the folder, obviously. But how were they supposed to explain anything that had happened? It wasn’t like, aside from the black polo and glasses, Maxine and Glenn looked anything alike. They couldn’t chalk it up to an identity mistake, even though that’s technically what it was. They also couldn’t go into detail about why they needed the folder back, even though if she’d already looked through it there wasn’t much she didn’t know.

“Well,” Glenn pinched the bridge of his nose, “let’s go take care of this then.”

As the two of them walked the short distance to the cafe, Maxwell chanced breaking the thick silence between the two of them, “The glasses do suit you, though. You don’t normally wear them, do you?”

“That was supposed to be the point.”

They strode through the door, looking around to find the girl that Maxwell had been talking to. He spotted the table she had been sitting at, and all of her belongings were there but she wasn’t sitting there anymore. The folder wasn’t anywhere to be seen either, and he could feel his heartbeat speeding up even more.

He pointed the table out to Glenn and they both walked over, trying not to look like they were planning on stealing something. Glenn stood watch while Maxwell checked underneath the girl’s laptop and tried to stealthily snoop through the bag that was sitting on the seat of the chair. There were a few different books in her bag, novels and notebooks. Luckily, though, behind all of those there was the manilla folder that he had given her. He ripped it out of the bag and opened it, relieved to see that it seemed like nothing had been taken out of it.

“Got it,” he let out a deep breath.

“Alright, now let’s get out of here before your friend comes back.”

As he was closing up the woman’s bag, he caught a glance at her laptop screen. He slapped Glenn on the arm, “Crazy, right?”

He turned around and looked at the woman’s laptop screen. Her background was one of the most famous excerpts from the “Lord of the Rings”. His eyes quickly scanned the lines of All The Glitters, and he paused for a moment like he was deep in thought before turning back to Maxwell, “Anyone who is our age grew up in the original peak of the ‘Lord of the Rings’ franchise,” he ushered him towards the door, “Next time if you really want to use lines from a film, pick some obscure indie film or something, alright?”

He let out a huff as they walked quickly towards the door, “You can blame the opener all you want but you guys also chose the most generic outfit possible.”

“Want me to show up in a chicken costume next time?”

“Honestly? It’d be appreciated.”

They walked down the sidewalk quickly enough to put distance between themselves and the cafe, but not so quickly as to draw attention. Maxwell hailed down his cab and all but shoved Glenn inside of it first. The two of them got situated in the back seat and finally, with a heavy sigh, Maxwell turned to his colleague.

“Glenn, I have some extremely sensitive security information for you.”

“Are you going to brief me or is Maxine?”

He pressed his lips together and sighed. Some days there was just no winning. “I can go back and get her, if you’d like?”

He laughed, shaking his head, “I don’t think that will be necessary,” he reached over and swiped the folder from Maxwell’s hands, “The only reason I’m not going to tell anyone about your mistake is because I can’t believe you got through an entire conversation with her without either of you realizing what was going on.”

“I don’t think I could have that happen to me again even if I tried.”

“Sounds like a challenge.”

“No, it sounds like the start of a very cheesy storybook.”

Glenn shrugged nonchalantly, “Same thing.”