That woman standing in front of you in the queue at Costa? She could be a spy.
The fella scrolling on his phone as he waits at the tram stop? He might have spent his day eavesdropping on a terrorist network.
Since late 2019 Manchester city centre has been home to signals intelligence agency GCHQ. Inside Heron House, opposite the town hall, hundreds of spooks work round the clock on missions such as defending the UK against potential cyber-attacks from China and Russia and the digital surveillance of terrorists and organised crime.
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But what's it like to actually work there? The Manchester Evening News was among the first media to be granted access to the top secret building and to get an insight into life as a spy.
In order to be considered for the job, you need to possess qualities such as honesty and integrity, be interested in other cultures, and have sound judgement. Languages, data analysis and software skills are particularly prized at GCHQ.
Not only that, the intelligence sciences rarely accept candidates with less than a 2:1 university degree.
All potential staff go through a vigorous vetting process and are subjected to the highest level of clearance checks. Background and financial checks are carried out and close family members are also interviewed. In some cases the whole process can take up to a year.
After each stage of the process a candidate's suitability is assessed before going to the next step. The process involves completing a short application, completing an online test, filling out another application form including a competency based question, completing an online analysis exercise, attending a virtual interview, completing a written exercise, attending a one day assessment centre, and then attending a final selection interview.
If all that goes OK, then you're in. Once inside Heron House, no mobile phones or any other electronic devices are allowed on the two floors classified 'top secret'. Instead they're stowed in a locker for the duration of the shift.
No paperwork, or any other potentially sensitive material, is allowed outside the classified areas. Outside work, staff are obviously not permitted to discuss the details of their job. Many prefer not to have any kind of social media presence.
Those who do use social media are often anonymous, and are very careful not to like or follow any accounts with links to the intelligence community.
"There's quite a stringent vetting procedure you have to go through, so you don't join up for something like this without really wanting to," said Liz, GCHQ's deputy director for Manchester, who declines to give her surname for security reasons.
"But I have teenagers and it's fun to say 'Mum's a spy'. It is exciting, I have to say."
Asked how the reality compares to the murky image of spying portrayed in film and TV, Liz joked 'we don't go round following people in the city centre or anything like that'. But she did highlight recent Channel 4 drama The Undeclared War, starring Simon Pegg, as a 'fairly accurate portrayal' of the spy world.
"People internally didn't like it, because they said 'They haven't got the [computer] screens right' or 'They haven't got the colour of the lanyards right'. But it was put together working with our teams in Cheltenham, and it was actually a fairly accurate portrayal.
"Sometimes when you watch things like that you think 'Yeah, actually we are doing that kind of work'. But some of the stuff you might watch like (BBC espionage thriller) The Capture is fantasyland. But sometimes it's better to let people guess, because that's the best way to keep a secret."
But how you do get a job at GCHQ? Potential staff are still approached by recruiters who see in them the qualities GCHQ is looking for, but nowadays you can also apply online, pretty much like any other industry.
A large part of the reason the agency has moved to Manchester is to attract more people from outside traditional white, male, upper and middle-class demographic. Lots of Cheltenham-based staff initially made the move to Manchester, but they're being steadily joined by new starters from across the north.
And they can come from any walk of life. There's several ex-teachers currently employed at Heron House.
"There's a bit of mystique around what we do, but this gives us a chance to demystify some of it," said Liz. "We can't really expect people to trust us and want to come and work here unless we give them a bit more.
"People want to work in Manchester, including me. It's an exciting place to be. The reason we're here in this big city is we can just reach far more people, who might want to come and work here and have the right kind of skills."
So what jobs are on offer at the moment? In Manchester the agency is currently recruiting for applied behavioural and social scientists, with a salary ranging from £37,000 to £55,000, and software solutions architects, who can earn up to almost £70,000.
There's also a Manchester-based student bursary scheme which aims to prepare graduates for a career in cyber security.
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