Over the hedge, just beneath the garden's fence to the right of Star-field mansion. Well that's what the note indicated, and lo and behold, the hole that i had to somehow climb over gaped right beneath the hedge. Not the most dignified entrance for an experienced journalist such as myself. But hey, a story is a story.

"GOVERNMENT FUNDED CORPORATION, STAR-FIELD INC REPORTEDLY HARBORING POWERED HUMANS IN ITS FAMOUS MANSION"

I could almost see the headline right in front of me.

Any-who, I pressed on. The note talked about cameras near the shed, by the balcony, and some carefully placed inside some shrubs in the garden. The note outlined the direction in which these cameras pointed, as well as the scope of their vision. This would allow me to slip through the garden and into the house unnoticed as long as I stayed out of the camera's sight. I crawled surreptitiously through the garden like a salamander trying to avoid the snakes that slithered around the grassy terrain.

Would you believe me if I told you this was the easy part? The garden. There were no guards, no feral dogs to bite my ass off and no high tech security cameras. Only plain old CCTV cameras scattered randomly around the estate. The thing was, the people in this mansion didn't need protection from robbers. No, the robbers would be the ones that needed protection from the people in this mansion. And yet here I was, breaking into this deathtrap.

The sliding window of the kitchen was semi-open. With a little squeeze I was able to make my way in and quietly slide the window shut. The note told me the interior was sound proof, thus this was my chance to finally call Reginald.

"You made it in?" he asked, a bit too nonchalantly might I say.

"Yeah. I'm in the kitchen right now."

"Holy crap, Johnny!" I heard the chair drop in the background as Reginald shouted. "You son of a bitch, i didn't think you'd pull it off!"

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"Yeah," I sighed. "Guess I might as well add Professional Home invader to my CV."

Reginald could sense how dry my tone was and took his cue to clear his throat and brief me in on the plan one more time.

"Okay, so lets get this over with. it's as the note says. Each room has a label. 1 to 11 on the ground floor. 12 to 29 on the first floor. 30 to 39 on the second, and 40-49 on the third. Rooms 1, 5, 7, 21, 33, 34, 35, and onwards to 44 are vacant. Use those rooms to hide if someone comes out. Room 49 is the master's bedroom. The unlabelled room next to that is our target. Play the cassettes and take pictures. And please put everything back into place once you're done."

"Got it." I confirmed, rolling my eyes over the unnecessarily long briefing. I already had all the information on my note anyway. Though I did have one query:

"Hey, Regi. If I were to run across someone in this mission, how fucked am I?"

Reginald hummed. Even over the phone I could tell he was stroking his chin.

"The mole didn't give me that much information," he started, "But if i had to give you an answer, I'd say royally fucked."

A wry smile crept over my face.

"Good to know." I responded as I cut the call.

Okay, so just sneak to the third floor. That was the plan. Everyone was asleep so that didn't seem hard. I braced myself and headed for the kitchen door. It was do or die, and though I was definitely unprepared to die, I hadn't come this far for nothing.

I stealthily opened the door and crept out to the hallway. I turned around and slowly closed it, praying to the heavens that it wouldn't creek loudly. It quietly closed shut.

Hell yeah!

I spun around and saw a body standing right behind me

Fuck!

I almost jumped back until I got a good look at what crept behind me.

It was small in stature. Its beady eyes didn't even make an effort to look up at me. Its brown hair was almost as messy as the collar of its pajamas.

A child?

The kid scratched his eyes as he sleepily tried to find the right words to say.

"Master. I want a gwass of milk." he said.

I looked left and right until I noticed he was talking directly to me.

"Milk?" I sheepishly repeated.

"Yeah. I can't fall back asweep."

"O-okay..."

I nervously opened the kitchen door and the kid followed me in. Not even a few seconds into my plan and I had already ran into someone. This wasn't good. The panic was slowly trickling in, and my night was only just beginning.