Jack tossed a peanut to the squirrel nearby. It seemed Central Park had become his preferred spot for clandestine meetings. How many of the joggers and strollers were really there for other reasons?

The yellow hat he wore seemed more like a bullseye, but his contact had been adamant. Conduit wouldn't show himself until he had a chance to take a good look at Jack. If the roles were reversed, Jack would have done much the same.

It still made him feel conspicuous. All he needed now was for Shinobi to wander by.

Conduit had been watching this section of park since the evening before. As the time for the meeting approached, he put on his own yellow hat and pushed over the cart he had borrowed the evening before. He lifted the covers on the wagon and called out, "Hey, mistah! You want sumpin' ta' eat?"

Jack turned to see a fat man standing next to a hotdog cart. The guy had a huge belly, a bristling mustache, and a yellow hat. Jack walked over to the wagon.

Up close, it was pretty obvious that the 'hotdog man' was wearing a fake mustache and wig, but it disguised him well enough to hide his identity. And from even ten feet away it was convincing. As Jack came up the man spoke again.

"So, mistah, what can I do for ya'? After all, us independent guys gotta' eat."

Jack paused, the ghost of a smile on his lips, before replying in a Polish accent. He didn't still have the language implanted, but he still remembered enough from a mission into medieval Poland to fake an accent.

"I looking for a polish sausage. But it's gotta be fresh."

Jack casually handed the hotdog man an evenlope containing the ten grand up front fee for this meeting, and received a hotdog in return. Jack figured he'd either made contact, or just purchased the most expensive hotdog in history.

"Let's cut the crap." Jack bit into his hotdog and grimaced. "You do infiltration, I need some help. High danger, high pay, and we share the risks." Jack forced down another bite of hotdog, hoping he wouldn't have to get another one.

The accent vanished, "I'm not usually approached for just infiltration. Is this sabotage, espionage, or both? I will warn you first, though, that I don't kill for money."

"Sabotage, mostly," Jack said. He took a smaller bite of the hotdog, trying to make it last. "You insert into a heavily guarded research facility. I've arranged for a diversion. Your job once you're in is to see that the main computer systems are destroyed, along with any backups they have on site. I'll be seeing to the destruction of any prototypes they have at the facility."

"Once we're both done, we get the hell out."

Conduit smiled under the fake mustache, "I'll need explosives, maps... the usual. And I need enough advance warning on where and when so that I can come up with my own alternate escape plans. Nothing personal, but if you plan goes to Hell, I want my own alternative."

"Fine by me." Jack tossed the rest of the hotdog in a trash can. He didn't think it would be kind to give it to the squirrels. "The place is a research facility in Elbag, Poland. We'll hit it as soon as possible...I have a team of mercenaries waiting to provide the diversion, and they're getting antsy."

Conduit loved Europe. Classy, quiet, old, and the food was good. Best of all, the security generally sucked. Oh, not government or military facilities necessarily, but many private labs and such were "mentored" by the government with no possible competition, so their security wasn't as paranoid as the U.S. or Japan.

This place, though, was good. He was glad he had the maps his employer had provided; he just wanted to know where they came from. Architectural drawings, maintenance blueprints, security set-up, the works. And it had still taken him two days to come up with a solid insertion/extraction plan.

Entry to Poland had been relatively simple. His contact Tu had been able to get him a good passport and visa, and it had been cheaper than he had expected. Best yet, his Swiss francs went pretty far. Since he used no real weapons, his own gear had been shipped in quickly and the explosives had been supplied as promised.

The facility was fairly isolated with plenty of cover before the fence. It was deceiving, though. He spent the afternoon piercing the motion sensors and plates in the trees and took advantage of the twilight -- when it was too dark for eyes and too light for enhancements -- to bypass a section of fence.

Getting to the building had been tough. Limited cover, sporadic foot patrols, and camera sweeps had slowed him to a snail's pace as he crawled his way up. He had almost been compromised twice, but he made it. About three minutes later the exterior lights had come on, effectively pinning him there until he either got in or dawn came.

He spent a minute placing a small explosive charge on a section of wall over a power junction. The shaped charge would sever the power for the pressure alarms for at least twelve seconds. He then gingerly placed a gel line in a small circle against the wall and crawled ten feet away to wait for the diversion.

The mercs opened up right on time. In between the explosions and gunfire, the shaped charge was just a  pop! and the sizzle of the gel cord burning though the wall was completely covered. Conduit rolled through the hole, feeling the searing heat of the wall's edges as a pleasant warmth, his powers protected him.

Inside, he stood amidst the faint light of the main phone closet. He ripped out the main junction to prevent any automated remote backups, then popped the latch on the door. As power re-routed, the lights flickered back on and he peeped through the cracked door.

The room beyond was pure chaos. Three men and a woman dressed in lab coats were on the floor, crawling for the door. He could hear booted feet running in the hallway. Perfect. Opening the door a bit more, he could see the door leading to the computer labs.

The far door to the hall opened and a man in an odd uniform began yelling in what sounded like Polish to the crawling researchers. The scientists stood and ran out of the room, ushered by the man in uniform. Conduit noticed that the man he assumed was a guard had steam rising from his hands. The guy damn near screamed "paranormal" from across the room. As the scientists left, the guard shut the door.

In a flash Conduit was out of the closet and at the door to the computer lab. He slapped a lockbreaker charge on the latch and stepped aside as it blew, snapping the bolt and causing the door to swing out on its hinges.

Inside were twelve Intel servers and two ALPHA boxes running mainfram systems. Conduit quickly placed small thermite charges on each computer, then moved into the separate storage room. Inside was a huge tape silo with a robotic storage arm; the fireproof room held multiple copies of everything in the other room from prior months. He placed another dozen small thermite charges around the silo and two larger shaped charges to blow the silo in two, scattering the tapes over the floor.

He then took off his nearly-empty backpack and placed it on the floor, then activated the last device inside. When its timer activated, it would begin spraying a fine flammable mist into the air. The shaped carges, inside the silo, wouldn't set it off but the thermites ignite it, filling the room with a 2,000 degree flame for a tenth of a second, which would render the tapes unreadable. The thermites would then burn their way two to three feet into the concrete foundation as they burned hot as a star. The servers and tapes had no chance.

Conduit took out the master timer and pressed the arm stud, setting the timer at two minutes, ten seconds. It kept it in his off hand and keyed the beeper, sending a 1/10th of a second radio burst to his employer to let him know he was on his way out.

At the door he pulled a metal bar from one of the pockets on his vest. He peeled off the backing on one side and placed it, carefully, high on the door and protruding on the frame side. Two seconds after he closed it the epoxy would cure, sealing the door tight. He closed it behind him and slapped another gluelock on the outside and low; only a bull could tear it open now.

He crossed the lab to the phone closet and slipped in. He put a flash-bang grenade on the door set to go off if when it was opened. Checking his watch, he had about fifty seconds left. He waited, listening to sporadic gunfire from outside. His earpiece beeped once, letting him know his employer was also leaving. When only twenty remained he rolled through the hole in the wall and sprinted for the fence. About halfway he heard shouts from behind him. He ignored them, stretching for the trees. Just as the gunfire behind him began, he heard the dull whump! of the fuel-air going off, followed by a tearing sound as the wall ripped open. He had closed his eyes as the explosion began and could still see, but he knew those behind him we blind for a few moments. By the time they recovered, he would be gone.

Jack watched Conduit enter the grounds and waited a few minutes before signalling the mercenaries to open up.  The whump! of mortar rounds was punctuated by the rapid stacatto of machine gun fire.  Jack moved through the gap Conduit had made in the fence, followed his route to the building, and slipped through the hole he'd made in the wall.  Jack would have to remember Conduit for jobs like this; the guy was good.

Once inside the building, Jack moved away from the main computer rooms.  During his stint as one of the facility's security guards, he'd learned his way around pretty well.  He was betting that during an attack, Schreck would be with the prototype.   The last time he'd seen the room, it had two guards stationed outside of it, but they were gone.  Responding to the attack, no doubt.  Jack burst through the door into the lab itself, in no mood for subtlety.

The prototype caught his attention first.  It looked like a huge gyroscope gone ultra-high tech.  Control panels that would look more at home at NASA lined one wall of the room.  Technicians were moving out of the room, apparently evacuating.   Not so for Schreck, though.  He stood in front of the prototype, gazing at it.

Abruptly Schreck turned to face Jack.

"Ah, the talented Mr. Morgan," he said with a smile. Not the sort of smile that made Jack feel good, but the sort that told him he'd just been measured for a coffin.   "You're back, just in time to appreciate my experiment."

Right on cue, a mean-looking man entered the lab, bulging muscles visible beneath his bodysuit.

"Allow me to introduce you to Fist," Shreck said.  "He's here to entertain you while I put this grand device to a... field test."

Fist moved close to Jack, clearly intending to entertain himself by pounding on Jack.   Jack drew his plasma pistol, intending to kill Fist, then Schreck, then destroy the prototype.  Unfortunately, Fist was quicker with his feet than Jack was with his pistol.  Fist's right foot lashed out and sent the pistol flying against the wall.   He followed up with a series of punches that kept Jack retreating.

Damn!  Jack caught sight of Schreck practically cackling with glee as he worked one of the control consoles.  He needed to finish Fist quickly.  Jack wasn't sure what Schreck thought he could do with the machine, but if it was a time machine Jack didn't want to find out.

Fist snapped out with a foot again, this time connecting with Jack's shoulder.   Jack rolled with the blow to put enough distance between them so he could regain his feet.  That left Fist between Jack and the pistol.

The gyroscope device started spinning in response to some action of Schreck's.  It started slowly enough, but continued accelerating until it become a blur and a roar of sound.

As Fist moved in for another blow, Jack whipped his hand around in a move that would be invented in another fifty years or so, catching Fist on the temple.  The big man staggered, leaving himself open to a foot sweep that sent him crashing to the ground.   Surprise would only work once, though.

Jack dove over Fist before the other man could regain his senses, and grabbed the pistol as he landed.  He pulled the pistol into line to find Fist charging him.   A press on the firing stud and a beam of superheated plasma took Fist in the chest.   The big man's body fell beside Jack.

The visual outlines of the gyroscope blurred and stretched.  Jack watched as a circular outline of blackness and utter silence replaced the gyroscope.  A controlled gravity well, a mini-black hole.  Jack shook his head as he got to his feet.   The technology could solve the energy problem for the human race once and for all.   It could also lead to the development of time travel, unleashing greater horrors on the human race than a lack of energy.

"I've done it!"  Schreck shouted.  "I succeeded where everyone else failed, I took their miserable little theories and made them reality!"   Jack walked to within a few yard of Schreck and stopped.

"Congratulations."  Jack raised his pistol and shot Schreck between the eyes.

As Schreck's body fell to the floor, Jack gazed at the gravity well with something akin to longing.  Then, with a barely audible sigh, he turned the beam of his pistol on the control panels.  As they sputtered and sparked, the gravity well withered and faded, leaving a slowing gyroscope in its place.  Jack turned the pistol on the gyroscope, slagging it.

After making sure there wasn't anything left in the lab to analyze, Jack left the room.

The beer was warm, but good. The remainder of Conduit's fee had been deposited overnight and he was feeling pretty good about life. He would be going to the Ukraine in three days, where he'd switch identities to Australian, then "finish" a courier job home on his own name.

He'd have to find a way to talk to this employer again -- he liked the work.

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