The Black Dragon had been kind enough to supply Ben with the crappiest hotel to sleep in for the night. He ended up in a mopey-looking motel, outside of the city, that he reached by taxi.

     "Home, sweet home," Ben sighed, tossing his gear onto the bedspread and beginning to undress.

     The motel felt damp, and as Ben brushed his teeth for the night he felt disgusting. A shower didn't seem to help, nor did a new set of clothes. He felt like he had a wretched grime all over him, inhibiting him from feeling clean.

     While Ben lay in bed, trying to doze off to sleep, he thought about Mr. Chase and the mission at hand. Something about it didn't seem right at all, and Ben had the overwhelming feeling that he was being played. He didn't trust the Black Dragon with an ounce of his being; all they were to him were a bunch of liars.

     But he was just going to have to do it. Ben was going to put all other thoughts out of his head and just do the mission. After it was done, when he was hopefully reunited with his family, only then could he think about justice. The thought of being with his wife and daughter again blinded Ben like a bright light. Nothing else mattered, and some part of him actually believed that it could be possible. As Ben drifted into the blissful realm of sleep, he thought of his wife. It would be the most extraordinary feeling in the world if he could just hold her in his arms again. The feeling would be like an old wound finally healing, and he could once again experience the sensation of peace that he'd continuously longed for since her disappearance.

     He would be with her again.

**

     Starlight Laboratories was a sprawling mass of complexes, enforced with the highest security possible, located at the heart of San Diego. Using his identification card that was supplied to him by the Black Dragon, Ben was able to easily bypass the security measures and enter the interior complex at precisely seven o'clock in the evening.

     "Have a good evening, Dr. Johnson," the security guard nodded to Ben as he entered the facility and was handed back the fake identity card.

     The complex appeared to be several geometric cubes stacked on top of each other like blocks. There were groves of trees, but very little windows allowing views of the outside world. It somewhat reminded Ben of a top-secret military base, which it essentially was. Automatic sliding doors opened up to him as he cleared the security checkpoint. Inside, there was a sprawling lobby with dozens of scientists and people bustling around inside.

     "Whoa," Ben whispered, amazed, while he looked up at a giant, turning metal globe of the Earth that was somehow suspended in mid-air.

     He remembered the layout and where he was supposed to go. Ben was to meet up with the man on the inside, whom the packet of instructions simply referred to as "Agent 72".

     He walked past scientists, dressed in white lab coats, eagerly discussing their latest discoveries. That morning, Ben had been delivered a pack of clothes with various pockets on the inside to hold the weapons he was assigned. It had arrived on his motel doorstep, with a note explaining that it was to be his disguise. There was a lab coat, along with a suit and bow-tie that he was supposed to wear (Which was a little awkward because Ben didn't find bow-ties particularly fashionable). Other than that, the other gear did its part and didn't pick up on any metal detectors or x-rays that Ben passed through.

     He made his way to the interior of the complex, passing security checkpoints with ease. No alarms were set off, nobody questioned his suit-case as it was put through x-rays, and nobody found the guns expertly padded inside of the lab coat.

     "Have a good evening, Dr. Johnson," every security guard stated when Ben passed through.

     Eventually, he began to make it closer to the interior of the complex. When Ben arrived at his final check-point, he came to a peculiar-looking security guard. He didn't seem as welcoming, and he wore a red identification badge.

     "Sir," Ben subtly said, nodding to the guard.

     "Mr. Johnson," the security guard responded, leading Ben through the gate.

     Ben was let through, but some routine x-rays were done just to make things look legitimate. When Ben left, he saw the security guard go into an office-room filled with computers.

         "You will have two-minutes and thirty seconds after you meet, before the security guard dismantles the security protocol," the packet had said.

     Ben continued inward, and down a hallway, to a set of doors. On either side there stood an emotionless security guard with a blank stare in their eyes. In the corner there was a camera with a blinking light, and Ben's heart accelerated because he knew the security might only be seconds away from turning off.

     "Show us your identification," one of the men demanded.

     Ben kept walking, hoping for the beeping light to turn off. Sweat pooled on his forehead.

     "Hey!" the other cut in, motioning for his gun.

     "Come on..." Ben muttered under his breath as he kept walking.

     Agonizing seconds passed, and the security guards reached for their belts.

     Then, the blinking light on the camera turned off, and the system went dead.

     Ben put his hand in his pocket to make it seem like he was pulling out a card. However, what he pulled out was only in his hands for seconds before being placed back in his pocket. Both men crumpled to the ground with bullet-wounds to the head as Ben placed the weapon back in his coat pocket. He tugged out his security badge and scanned the card-scanner next to the door.

     "All too easy," he whispered to himself, the door sliding open.

     However, inside, there were more security guards. Behind them there was a long hallway of vaults stretching inward. Once the guards on the inside saw the crumpled men, Ben immediately had to sprint into action.

     He used the suitcase and bashed the head of one in. Then, he turned around and fired two shots at another man. A third pulled out a gun, but he dropped the weapon as one of Ben's shots went to his hand and another to his head. A fourth seemed to begin to radio in backup, but he was on the ground from a roundhouse kick in seconds. Then, the place was empty.

     Ben reached into one of his innermost pockets and pulled out the peculiar goggles. They looked, and felt like, simple sports goggles. But when he put them on the entire world seemed to change. It was as if he could see through the eighteen-inch thick walls like they were nothing.

     "Hell yeah," Ben muttered to himself while he walked down the hallway.

     He went from door to door, looking at each one for the Stone of Ascension. Towards the end of the hallway, Ben's goggles picked up a peculiar glow coming from the other side. It was too fuzzy to make out details, but none of the other vaults had the same luminous glow. The seconds ticked by while Ben gingerly took out the laser-pen and started to cut into the door.

     He clicked the top of the pen, but instead of the ballpoint end a red beam shot out. It was thin, almost barely visible, but the metal began to shimmer and smoke as Ben moved the device in a circular-shape. The hole-cutting took roughly a minute; valuable time.

     The hole fell inward and Ben crawled inside. There were no alarms, and nothing on the security monitors caught him while he snaked his way into the vault. He wasn't sure what he was going to see, all he had to go off of were fuzzy pictures in his packet. But Ben stood for a moment in awe at the artifact that had been discovered by archaeologists just mere months before.

     It was divine.

     It was only the size of an apple, or maybe a little bigger than a baseball. The exterior looked transparent, like it was made of glass. Inside, a flurry of colors mixed and cascaded against each other in an everlasting dance. It sent a network of shadows that twisted and writhed like snakes. Ben crept closer to it, wondering how such a thing could even exist. Its beauty was perfect...almost alien.

     He blinked a couple of times, pulling himself back to reality. Ben set his suitcase on the ground and opened it. From inside, he withdrew the special gloves and slipped them over his bare hands. There was a thin, square metal casing surrounding the object with a door. Ben simply cut a small hole in the corner, careful not to damage the stone, and caught the dismantled piece from falling to the floor. It left him a hole into the glass cube that was protecting the stone.

     Cautiously, he reached out towards the ancient artifact and touched it. Even though he was wearing gloves, Ben could feel the power and energy zap through him like a thunderbolt. He cupped it in both hands and lifted it from the pedestal it was mounted on. It vibrated in his palms as he transported it to the suitcase he was supposed to take it out in. It sat inside, the color and energy writhing inside it like a storm. When Ben closed the case and clipped it shut, all of the light almost seemed to go out of the room.

     Ben breathed a sigh of relief for a moment; he had done it. With the suitcase in hand, he exited the vault and made his way out of the chamber. He assumed that possibly three minutes had passed since the security had been cut off. Ben went through the security check, but the Black Dragon operative who had been there before was gone. He went through the checkpoint and out of the interior. Sweat beaded on his head as he tried to calmly walk out of the facility. Ben knew that the moment the security cameras went back on, there would be a mad scramble for the Stone of Ascension.

     Minutes seemed like hours, but on the fifth minute he was exiting the compound. He heard the security alarms go off inside, but Ben's walk had already turned into a sprint. Away from Starlight Laboratories he sprinted, as fast as he possibly could. The wind tore at his body as he ran into the evening dusk, and out along the street. Through the city of San Diego he dashed, block after block, away from the sprawling scientific complex.

     It felt like he had run forever, but when Ben seemed a good ways away from the lab he stopped for a break. Sweat dripped down his face from the physical exertion of running. He had no idea how far he ran, but it must've been at least a few blocks. Ben slumped to the ground, wiping his face with his hand. The buildings towered around him menacingly, but the cool air helped him catch his breath quickly. He looked around, seeing that he was just in front of an alleyway which looked good for a moment's rest.

     Ben crawled in and leaned himself up against the building. His heart began to stop beating as frantically, but Ben still clung the suitcase to his chest for dear life. Whatever he'd found within the lab was more valuable than any gem in the world to him. Ben closed his eyes for a moment, letting the sounds of the city sink in.

     But then he heard the breathing.