Jerome slipped out the door, into the dark alley. The rain was loud enough to cover his footsteps, she wouldn’t hear a thing. She seemed nervous — as well she should, he thought — as she hurried out toward the bright lights of Gibraltar Avenue.

He wondered where she expected to go. Their cameras — well, his cameras — were on all of the major streets of the city, and most of the minor ones. Even if he lost her on the busy thoroughfare, the cameras wouldn’t. Jerome silently thanked God for technology as he reached the intersection with the street.

Sure enough, she was out of sight. Jerome smiled to himself as he reached into his pocket for his cell phone … the camera operators would tell him all he needed to know. Just as he pressed the ‘7’, however, he heard a voice behind him … “I’m better at this than you seem to think I am.”

He started to turn around, but before he made it everything went black.