Chapter 1

Jet found himself wedged between the dusty mansion wall and a gray, marble statue that had unfortunately lost possession of its arms. Clutching the package, he spoke into his earpiece.

“Gadget!” Jet whispered urgently, listening to the ever growing sound of footsteps.

“Yeah?” Gadget’s concerned voice crackled, a little too loudly, into Jet’s left ear.

“I need you to put Map on the line.”

To Jet’s relief, the pair of guards walked past the cramped hallway in which he was now standing. He very much wanted to avoid a confrontation. A long three seconds-the time it took for Gadget to give Map the headset- past, and Jet quickly explained his situation.

The plan had been to sneak in through the garden, when the guards were changing shifts, and pass through the dark hallways to the office in 1 minute exactly. Gadget would have already hacked into the cameras, allowing Jet to walk freely instead of inside the blind spots. In the next 10 seconds, Jet would place the safecracking device behind the large painting of The Judge, a nefarious mob-boss, where the package was hidden. Once the device had opened the door (in exactly 5 seconds), he would snatch it and escape through an old garbage chute that Map had found in the layout of the old mansion, taking 15 seconds. Simple… in theory.

However, the chute was not where it was supposed to be, forcing Jet to take refuge behind the poor armless statue.

“Okay,” said Map, pulling up a blueprint of the house. “Where are you now?”

Jet glanced around and whispered, “I’m down the hall from the office, first right, about 5 feet in.”

Jet could hear the rapid tapping of hands on a keyboard as Map calculated the fasted route.

“Continue down the hall, but stop before you reach the end.”

Jet ran soundlessly to the end, leaning up against the wall for cover. It was minimal cover, but cover nonetheless.

“Jet?”

“Yeah, I’m there.”

“You’re not gonna like this.” Map had stopped typing.

“What?” Asked Jet, even though he had a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach that had already sensed what was wrong. He peeked around the corner of the wall and saw a lone guard playing with an expensive gold watch. Jet let out a string of silent curses, he wanted this to be an in and out snag mission- no contact with the enemy.

“There’s only one guard, you can take him out and stuff him in a closet about 4 feet away from where you are now.” Map said helpfully. “The exit is just down that hall to the left.”

Jet was already moving. He pulled up his scarf to mask the lower half of his face and adjusted the multi-purpose goggles that obscured his eyes. In a blink, Jet had turned to the lowest “stun” setting on his glove and was inches away from the oblivious guard.

The guard never knew what hit him. Three hours later he would wake up in the closet completely baffled as to what happened and where his watch had gone.

Long before then, Jet slipped into the night, away from the sleepy mansion to the Base with the package and a brand new gold watch.

Next Chapter: Jaelyn 1