Agent X

Agent X watched from the corner of the room, behind the boxes, as the two guards chatted and cursed. He'd wasted eight minutes hoping that they would move. They could at least turn their backs towards his side, so he could sneak past them.

But they remained standing where they were and he was out of time.

He pulled out his display device and opened the facility map.

There were 14 rooms in total and 10 of them were already cleared, but the last four were proving to be tricky.

He'd entered the room and was almost immediately spotted by the two guards who happened to stroll in at the exact same time. He averted disaster by diving quickly, but silently into the space behind the boxes.

Then he decided to wait for the guards to move on or split up, so he could deal with them individually.

That wasn't happening. Idiots seemed happy to remain where they were.

He glanced at his watch. Time was running out. The Overseer was not going to be happy. If the guards didn't move their hinds soon, he would have to use the invisibility field to continue undetected. The Overseer would definitely NOT like that either. Move, you morons.

And then, as if answering his silent pleas, the two guards turned around and walked towards the window.

That was all he needed.

He'd wasted enough time. He dealt with the two guards and the items that they were meant to be carrying, undetected of course.

He entered the next room, the password to the door found on the guards. (Both of them, just in case)
was the operations center. He activated the schematics once more in his display device. There was only one guy in the centre to deal with.
The next two rooms were easy. One was a long corridor leading to the operations centre, the final room, while the other was a storage closet. Nothing in the corridor, but some medical kits and ammunition were supposed to be in the closet. That would suffice.

All that was left was the operations center. He activated the schematics once more in his display device. There was only one guy in the center to deal with.

However, he was the commander, armed and in a mech suit. And he was facing the entrance. That meant a direct entry was risky, even for the best heroes.

Something on the wall on the right side of the corridor caught his eye. He moved closer. It was a duct. He attempted to open it only to find it bolted.

Not a problem. He'd come prepared. Pulling out his multi-tool, he quickly removed the bolts on the bottom, loosened the ones on the top. Now the duct would open and close like a big flap. Convenient.

He crawled into it, pleased to find it was large enough and leading straight into the other end of the operations centre, away from the commander. He crawled to the other end to find another bolted duct. Bolted from the outside. He'd have to cut it open without drawing the commander's attention.

He was about the activate his multi-tool when a loud screeching sound began to blast from all directions.

The alarm! Then that means......the idiot's not using stealth! He was coming in guns blazing!

And that meant he had about a couple of minutes left to the complete his mission. Heroes these days had no sense of subtlety, preferring to blast their way in most of the time.

Cursing for the third time during the mission, he gave a powerful kick on the duct, bursting it open and allowing it to fall. It landed with the loud clank, unheard in the backdrop of the base alarms.

Luckily, the commander's attention was still on the door. Good. The main computer console was to the right where he landed.

He approached the console and activated his multi-tool, plugging it in. He began to lower the system security for the hero to hack into it.

It reached 60% when gunfire erupted behind him.

Crap! He's already here.

The defenses gave way just when the doors opened. For a moment the commander and the hero stood staring at each other.

An epic gunfire commenced.

Hoping that he was still unnoticed, he quickly climbed back into the duct, not bothering to close it. Looking back he saw the commander collapse onto the floor dead. Triumph in his victory over the level's boss, the hero walked upto the console. Then he hacked into its security and downloaded secret plans, the mission's goal.

Smiling, he activated his communication link. "Base, this is Wolf."

"Wolf, report."

"Mission accomplished. The base is down and plans are safe with me.

" Well done, Wolf. Come back to base."

As the hero walked back the way he came, Agent X breathed a sigh of relief. That was too close. Smiling, he activated his com,. " Overseer, this is Agent X. Mission successful. The hero infiltrated the base and secured the objectives. "

"Good. Did anybody see you?" Standard response.

" Negative."

"Good. We can't let the poor heroes know that we're making their missions easier now, can we? Report back to base. I've got another mission for you to assist on. This one's a dungeon on a fantasy world. The hero's a warrior who needs to defeat an ancient zombie king. You'll need to place health potions, gold and some legendary equipment in the dungeon before he comes."

Agent X grinned. He loved fantasy missions.