Delton Manly affixed another telescopic enhancement device. He was up to seven, more than anyone had ever tried. It was hot in the chamber and sweat was running down his forehead, over his protective goggles. He tried to wipe it off with his muscular arm.

It was nearly 6:00 AM. Time was running out. It would be dawn soon and the pharmaceutical giant would awaken with the bustle of arriving workers; associates, they were called. Delton had noticed this when he read the bulletin boards on his way to the bathroom.

Delton had excellent vision, better than most everyone he knew, so he could see the path to the target in the darkness of the really hot enclosure even without his T14 illuminator that he kept on his equipment belt.

The dispersal pattern was all too familiar to him. This wouldn't be easy. There were streaks along the metal interior of the chamber, tracer lines. They always led to the source. And he had to get to the source, or all of this would be for nothing.

Placing earplugs in his ears, he followed the tracer lines to ground zero. He had found the target. He knelt, took some deep breaths, extended his left arm, which held the telescopic mechanism, and approached the cone shaped debris. Using his right hand, he felt around in the gloom of the very hot enclosure for the ignition-sequencing switch. He braced himself. This was going to be loud.

He hit the switch and the chamber filled with a roar like a jet engine, nearly knocking Delton to his knees, but Delton was strong and muscular, and had maintained his chiseled frame long after high school, back when he used to excel in too many things to name here and never started fights but finished all of them.

He reached for the target, but came up short. He reached again, straining his muscular frame, breathing properly, the way he had learned his first day of weight training, shortly after his circumcision healed. But it was still out of reach. He glanced down at his watch. It was 6:30 AM.

With panic beginning to settle in, he looked around the chamber for something to hold, so he could extend his muscular arm farther. He toyed with the idea of putting on an eighth telescopic attachment, but knew that would be too unstable. He couldn't risk that now. In minutes, innocent civilians would be entering the building.

Two years ago he might have taken that risk, but after the Johnson & Johnson incident, he no longer had the stomach

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