(Only writing any more words for free in roleplay because I like pie is new owner, and I like I like pie, and, I guess, I like pie like I like pie likes pie).

I was operating on planet 8 of system 23,8, a simple planetary infrastructure mission.  Had been there a year and a half, living out of an apartment near the planet's portal.  It was a bustling metropolis - the capital city of a pop planet of 6 trillion wardancers. 

For the last year and a half, I had been playing the role of an unemployed citizen, living on savings, hoping to find work to keep my home.  I'd do the occasional gardening and handyman jobs I could pick-up for people in the neighborhood, and do some renovations on my apartment to up its sale value in preparation to sell it - the usual sort of thing an unemployed wardancer would tend to do.  I'd do the same sort of bickering and complaining other single, unemployed angry wardancer men would do, talk the same sort of talk.

Of course, however, I was a partaxian agent from a distant empire, doing my duty in my spare time, of which I had a lot.

I'd bicycle around the town in my free time - best reconnaissance is done by bicycle.  Wardancer bicycles were pretty basic - pedals, a few gears - the usual, used mostly for recreation by wardancers, or by those who couldn't afford cars.  The cover story was perfect, therefore: unemployed, doing odd jobs, lots of time to do all the reconnaissance I needed to do.

One day, though, something went awry - got made, I did, or, maybe I made someone else.  Or both.  How I'm still alive to tell the story I am not quite sure...so, what the @#$% happened?  This is the best I can do to summarize it:

The planet wasn't only being infiltrated by our side, some other empire had agents in play too.  And we sorta made each other at the same time.  In short, we 'bumped'.  And, of course, since no agent is sent in alone (every agent's got more than a few friendly shadows), it just became an instant cluster @#%@ - totally confusing to everyone involved because neither side was the defending empire's counter intelligence services.  And how was either side's agents supposed to know that?  It was just a mess - it almost wrecked the ops for both empires.

Anyway, the bump happened at the grocery store.  I'd usually bicycle down to the grocery store every other day - there wasn't much those wardancer bikes could carry anyway.  Besides, it was a hot climate - food always seemed to go bad quickly anyway and so buying fresh food meant buying little but often.  I suppose the other empire's agent did the same and that's why the chances of the bump happening at a grocery store were so high.

I noticed him in the frozen food section - saw it right away.  He couldn't hide it.  Being in the business, an agent can spot another agent - that's why when we're sent in, the shadows (all the friendly agents sent in with us) always have the tougher job.  They've got to watch the primary (in this case me) and yet do so without my noticing them - very tough.  Don't know how they do it.  Hope to become a shadow one day. 

Anyway, the other empire's agent, because he was an agent, also instantly noticed me.  I, too, couldn't hide it.  It's just the way it is. 

So there we were in the frozen food section both pretending we hadn't made each other getting the same brand of frozen pizza at the same time for @#%'s sake!  And both of us knowing the other was an agent. 

Well, after that initial shock, and then sheepish awkwardness, the gravity of the situation started to sink in.  Both of us were on an enemy planet.  Both of us had shadows who we both knew were at this very moment probably going ape @#%$ crazy, nobody wanting anybody to get caught but everybody making everyone.  I mean WTF!@??

Sigh.

It must have been such a gong-show for the shadows.  Of course, I can only imagine.  Whatever happened between the shadows is beyond my clearance level and probably always will be, and so I'll never know for sure how they handled it.

Anyway, after the bump, the other agent and I finished doing our respective grocery shopping - I got some lettuce and some other snacks, some milk and a box of cereal and the other agent (never could figure out what race he was let alone which empire he was from by the way) - he got some chips and cans of soda, from what I recall, and, of course, the same brand of $#%ing frozen pizza!

Instinctively, we tailed each other through the grocery store, of course, all the way up to the check-out.  He chose check-out 4 and I check-out 5 (at least we were respecting each other enough by that point not to end up one behind the other in the same $#%ing check-out aisle.

But as nice as we were trying to be to each other by this point, both of us were in survival mode: since we both figured out neither of us were the empire's counter intelligence, we both knew whether or not one of us or the other or both of us getting out of the store alive was all in the air at this point.  If any of our respective shadows had been made by the empire's counter intelligence services, well, we were both done-for, and there was no way either of us could know what the @#% was happening with the shadows now.

So, as the grocery items were checked-through, bleep, bleep, bleep, bleep, it was turning into a race for both of us to be the first to get the @#% out alive.

We both bagged our groceries at about the same time (for some reason it's very rare you come across a grocery store in a wardancer society where they've got people to bag your groceries for you).

We both started heading 'out', essentially at the same time, except I decided to take the north exist while he decided to take the east exit. 

I don't know why I decided to do that.  Instinct, maybe.  Anyway, in doing so, I had to cross his path, and slow him down a bit.  Moreover, because I had clearly decided to take the east entrance, it would have been suicide for him to follow me out, and so he had to continue taking the east exist. 

It was the right choice.  By the time I'd get to the north exist and walk north along the outside of the building he'd just be coming out the north exist.  If my shadows were still in play, that would be the spot for any 'special orchestrations of happenstance' to occur.

For now, when crossing his path after going through the checkout, the look on his face was one of pure dread: he knew he'd #$^$-d himself; he knew at that moment he'd been beat.

By going out the east exist, I'd be coming out of the building first and my shadow agents who knew who I was would get the upper hand over the other agent's shadow agents who by this point still wouldn't know who I was.  This would give my shadow agents time to set-up whatever 'special orchestrations' it was my shadow agents might have to do to solve this @#%-d-up situation.

Anyway, so out along the side of the building I walked with my groceries in hand - everything seeming normal.  All I was to anyone around (including the other agent's shadows) was just another wardancer walking with some groceries.  All I would have to do was keep walking east to where I'd left my bicycle.  And as I'd reach the east entrance / exit, well, of course that's where the other agent would come out and any @#% that might get tossed to hit the fan would happen. 

When he did come out the north entrance, he looked utterly panicked.  You could just tell it from his face: 'This @#%  is NOT for me. $@%@!' - it was written all over his face.

I watched him as he was only a couple meters ahead of me now.  He didn't dare look at me, the poor guy.  As he was just about to step into the crosswalk to walk across towards the parking lot area, suddenly one car zoomed up from the south, screeching to a halt, while a moment later another car zoomed even faster up from the north screeching to a halt.

Face-off.

I had the sense that 'my guys' were the ones in the car that had come up from behind me from the south.  But, really, neither of us had any idea whose shadow agents were in which of the cars - that's just how it is.

So, the poor guy walked sheepishly across the crosswalk between the two cars of shadow agents in face-off-mode, his grocery bags in-hand, and a look of pure dread on his face telling all.

For me, I just kept walking north up to my bicycle, tossed the bags into the basket, and went-off home to my apartment.  Whatever was going on behind me was not my problem.

I finished my assigned portion of the infra op within a few months after that, and, presumably, so did the other guy's team.  I never heard otherwise.  I sold the apartment in the spring, and then recalled to main fleet.

Only thing that still bothers me about the bump was that I was never able to tell what race the other agent was or what empire he was from.  Judging from the potato chips and soda pop he bought that day, I bet he was Quantam.