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indiscriminately swooping the light<br />
across the backyard. I waited with sick<br />
fascination for the beam to fall across<br />
one of the dogs.<br />
It was then that I learned, by<br />
gaslight, and in the middle of the<br />
night, Great Danes made out of ceramic<br />
and placed at the bottom of your castle<br />
ramparts look almost exactly the same as<br />
real Great Danes placed at the bottom of<br />
your castle ramparts. And, as a second<br />
point of interest; life-sized suits of<br />
full plate mail can easily be mistaken<br />
for enemy Agents. I could start to see<br />
why FLMINGO snapped.<br />
I approached KLJ 873, still alert and<br />
ready for a double-cross, but he merely<br />
handed me two more flamingos. He gave me a<br />
hand-signal which said, “Wow – those dogs<br />
scared me for a second.”<br />
“Oh, did you think they were real<br />
or something?” I signed back before<br />
injecting the final two flamingos into<br />
the grass right in front of the Ceramic<br />
Danes.<br />
We reconnected with FLMINGO in the<br />
front yard. She had us lug the now empty<br />
box to the SUV while she checked on our<br />
handiwork. “I moved some of the side-yard<br />
lips. Since we only had a half-flock of<br />
those, you want to spread them out more<br />
than you normally would. The back looked<br />
nice.”<br />
In the Agent business, nice means<br />
pleasing.<br />
Blue Sky Smiling at Me<br />
by Maritza Velasquez<br />
Inkjet Print<br />
3rd Place<br />
We made it back to home-base, where<br />
FLMINGO informed us of some of the normal<br />
obstacles one might encounter on missions.<br />
On how best to interact with customers if<br />
you are compromised (Standard Protocol is<br />
to use the ‘Shhh! It’s a Surprise. Go back<br />
to Sleep!’ Propaganda). That Mother’s and<br />
Valentine’s Day were hot zones. That as a<br />
cover we ran an orphanage, finding wayward<br />
flamingos nice, American families to live<br />
with. Obviously, the flawmingos’ true roles<br />
are classified.<br />
FLMINGO stated that she considered us<br />
both Agent material, and was willing to<br />
give us our License to Flock right then and<br />
there. My assignment: Scottsdale and North<br />
Valley missions. The East Valley would be<br />
KLJ 87’s zone of demarcation.<br />
As we returned to our vehicles, KLJ<br />
873 and I looked at each other. We both<br />
knew that sometime, somewhere, the two<br />
of us would cross paths again. Maricopa<br />
County wasn’t big enough for the both of<br />
us. It wasn’t about the money now, but the<br />
principle. There just comes a point when the<br />
job isn’t enough; when two patriotic men<br />
must struggle to see who will become the<br />
greatest Agent Phoenix has ever known. We do<br />
it for ourselves, yes, but we do it for our<br />
Country.<br />
I only hope the dogs don’t get one of us<br />
first.
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