Shorts

The Tip-off

     "Maybe if you looked outside of the window, you would understand."

     I sighed in defeat, crumpling the piece of paper with the words. This wasn't going to work. I was now sure of it. I had already tried looking outside every window that i could find, but no avail. And this was already the third time looking out every window. What could've the anonymous sender possibly have meant when they told me to look out of 'the window?'

     I heard some footsteps behind me, and jumped.

     "Oh sorry to scare you," Came a voice. "I was wondering if you needed any assistance. After all, this is an art museum." I turned around and sheepishly smiled at an unfamiliar person, who seemed to be part of the staff at the museum that I was currently visiting.

     "It's nothing, really," I said, my voice cracking a bit as i spoke. The staff raised an eyebrow, but motioned for me to continue. "Well you see, i've been looking for an certain art piece and a little bird told me that i would find it near a window. I was expecting it to be much easier to find though." I lied, smoothly. I couldn't let this staff member know that I actually had a hidden agenda.

     The staff member seemed to take my word for it, and nodded. "Well they might have meant a certain painting that was painted to look like a window. In fact, we happen to be on the same floor as it. Would you like to see that?" I nodded hesitantly. My wireless earpiece was stuck in one of my ears, and I pretended as though I was tucking a strand of my hair behind my ear as I adjusted it.

     The staff led me to a long hallway filled with paintings, and I couldn't help but gasp. The paintings were all windows. Could this have been what the anonymous sender had meant? The message had been scanned by the postal service before being sent to me, so they might've had to warp what they meant to be safe.

     Now that I came to think of it, how come was this staff member the only person to walk up to me and ask if i needed any assistance-

     "This is a particularly popular painting nowadays," The staff member said, and I shook my head slightly to clear the thoughts. I peered closely at the painting. But then nonchalantly took some steps back as I now realized that even if i found anything in the painting, I couldn't do anything until this staff's line of sight was far, far way from here.

     "Thank you so much for your help!" I said innocently. The staff smiled. I paled a little as I took out a throwing knife from out of my pocket. I better not have been wrong about this staff member being a enemy agent.

     "You're welcome! I must go now." I took one last look at the staff, and stifled a gasp. This wasn't one of the museum's staff members. I really was right after all. In fact, this wa-

     A sudden sound behind me stopped my train of thoughts. No time to think about who that really was. I needed to get out of here. I whipped around just in time to see a WI agent advancing on me. I scoped my surroundings swiftly, then pretended to trip, and waited for the enemy to come closer. Throwing knife still in my hand, I lowered my body until it brushed the floor.

       While looking around, I had seen that an another agent had started to quietly advance on me after I had turned around, so i decided to try out a useful method of scattering enemy agents. When I could see the whites of the enemy's eyes, I slid across, narrowly missing a wall, and started running for my life. The enemy agents were trained well though, and narrowly missed each other. This was going to be a long fight.

     I couldn't bring myself to take anything else to defend myself, in fear of accidentally puncturing one of the nearby paintings, but I halfheartedly took out some more throwing knifes as a precaution. I made sure that nobody was preparing to waylay me, then I started to formulated a plan to capture the WI agents.

     As I looked at my surroundings for a way out, I realized something. We had a mole and they had been the ones to tip the WI off.

     I tapped on my earpiece and was just about to contact Agent FE about the situation when I suddenly heard something through the earpiece.

     "Why are ther-" I heard through my earpiece, but then there was only static. Probably because of the enemy agents. Everything had been going terribly wrong today. I needed to find out what that painting-or the other window paintings-held, and I couldn't do that while capturing the WI agents on my own. And now I had no way to communicate with my agency.

     But I did still have an option. A dire one though.