The location was an office building on private property within a walled lot, towards the edge of the city. It was quiet, out of the way and in a commercial district with dour disinterested neighbouring businesses. There was very little traffic, pedestrian or vehicle, and no distractions nor interruptions.

It was exactly how they preferred it

All the same, he still used street parking, and just like the instructions suggested, he went directly to the ancillary entrance, designated for the service staff. The uniform was in place, the look was styled just so, the knowledge and attitude required incumbent in mind.

He was ready.

This sequence of actions would presage what was to come, and it was a glory to shoulder the great esteem his part bore.

It was truly honourable.

"Who're you?" The duty guard was balding, heavy-set and slightly overweight, though an equal part muscle to fat. Sitting at a little security desk behind double glass doors, he was frowning, an explanation expected. "Ain't nobody on the schedule for tonight."

"Fresh blood." He smiled, and it was strained expression, though he forced it to be as genuine as he could manage; a difficulty given who these people were. "They assigned me here today. Can't have sent the paperwork through yet."

"Really?" The guard was a skeptic, and he rubbed his jowls, squinting in a combination of suspicion and uncertainty. "You tryin' ta tell me that Jody and Mr Quilten on the desk have screwed up the admin roster again this month? Because that's damn unlikely."

"Hey, it happens." His imitation was flawless, the intonation just right, the emotion pitch-perfect and layered in such a way that it was impossible to know how fake it was. "Only here to earn a buck and some pair of glasses screws it up and makes life tricky, am I right?" The superficiality of his charm was added leverage, and he saw the guard's will waver then cave.

The man chuckled. "Ain't that the truth. Well, I'll buzz ya in," he hit the release while they were talking, the door clicking as it unlocked, "but you gotta wait here 'til the upstairs gives the okay, alright?"

"Sure," Nero lied, entering the service lobby and rounding the security desk to greet the guard. "If we're going to work together, I should introduce myself. My name is ... John. John Smith."

"Vincent Romano, but you can call me Vinny. No mafia jokes, heard 'em all a hundred times." The man offered his hand.

Nero shook. "There will be none, I swear. Though, I have one last thing to say, Mr Romano."

"What's that?"

"Sleep."

There was a second of powerful confusion, followed by a momentary internal struggle, then Vinny's eyes rolled back, closing, and he slumped into his chair. It was so very easy and they were so malleable; what a small weak thing the human mind was. Nero unclipped the guard's security chain, with all the attached trinkets, to add it to his own belt. Briskly, he strode off along the corridor.

Weak as they were, he would not have long before there was an alarm sounded, an alert given.

Haste was important.

He only passed one other employee reaching the second floor room his instructions had described, and that employee dutifully ignored him, too engaged in business of their own. The door came open with only a swipe of Vinny's access card, and Nero stepped in. It was an archival storage office or something similar. Three filing cabinets lined the wall, along with an enormous metal safe and shelving packed with journals, folders and books, and a cataloguing desktop computer with an optical scanner.

This was the room, the location intended.

But ... where was it?

The safe was the obvious place, but Nero's instructions had not mentioned it, nor given a combination. There was no expectation he break into it. He sat at the desk, looking at the shelf with some curiosity. It was implied that his target would be easily accessible once this room was located.

Still, nothing yet.

A bump of the mouse caused the computer to stop idling and come out of hibernation. It activated, the screen growing brighter with the contrast adjusting to a regular level, and visible were a number of expanded digital images. To the untrained eye, they were a chain of hieroglyphs from some long dead language or culture. Nero, however, knew what he was seeing instantly. It was the liturgical tongue of his enemy; rare to see written at all, but even rarer carved in such a manner. The images contained a number of lines of runes rendered onto the flat surface of a stone tablet. Though he could not read the language so easily, he recognised the rudiments of it, the lines in a series of phrases that, in totality, formed the incantation.

The entire thing, left here by their benefactor, ready to take.

Steal it. Copy it. That was what he was told. It was clear the physical version was impossible to acquire, the tablet itself likely locked in the safe, but this? These images? They were a gift, and definitely ripe for copying. Whipping out a cellphone, he took duplicate photographs of each part of the tablet carvings, making sure to get the runic phrasing in full detail, until he had the whole thing.

Start to finish, just as required.

Nero was not a fan of modern technology, but admittedly, cellphones were rather useful.

He closed the images to see if there was anything else to bother with on this machine, before he left. The desktop was sparse, and there was a terminal usage log and system permissions chart open. It seemed there would be no random lucky extras today, and Nero was about to leave, but at last second, someone in the list of names caught his eye.

A name that seemed familiar.

Was one of them actually working here?

He had no chance to think further, the door opening behind him, privacy gone. A young woman in a business pantsuit with clipboard in hand stepped in, and she started in surprise, not expecting the room to be occupied.

"Oh, sorry, I didn't know you were ... " she petered out, her face shifting from surprise, to acceptance, then rapidly to suspicion, fear, and finally, recognition. She blanched, something within telling her exactly who he was, and in the same second he knew his cover was gone.

"I, uh, I'll, um, be going." Pretense vanished and she was fleeing; hurriedly the door handle was yanked, and she gave only a furtive glance back, but he stood in that same moment, lightning quick, and dived for her.

He managed to grab her wrist, and she gave a yelp of surprise, his strength hauling her back into the room with ease. "Stop! Please! I don't have anything for y- ... mmpph mmphmm. Mmmphrrmmm!"

"Don't worry," Nero whispered, hand clapped over her mouth, "I won't kill you. Not today. I have the incantation, and you are the witness. So, you will speak of this to your masters. Tell them to be afraid, for now there is only the last piece of the Fear separating them from total defeat."

"Mmph! MMPHH!"

"But for now, I must leave, and you," he finished, "must sleep."