Accelerated by Vaughn Heppner

Koreans, the modern ninjas with night-vision goggles and futuristic devices. Ninety-eight percent of their thefts happened the old-fashioned way, through bribery and spies in the targeted organization. In the last few years, however, the game had gotten more brazen.
    Lamplight Investigations was a reputable company most of the time. Their one quirk was that they paid me out of the firm’s secret fund, never requiring paperwork from or concerning me. The fees were relatively small, which was fine. I didn’t make my living from them. Instead, I used the information I gleaned for Lamplight in order to take what I needed from the bad guys.
    Because of my exposure in Geneva, I had some interesting abilities. I’d decided early on to leave regular people alone, including normal businesses. I never took from them, although it would have been easy to do. Instead, I liberated monies from the sharks of the world. Moreover, I didn’t go after the small, inoffensive sharks. I liberated the funds I needed from the hammerheads and the great whites.
    I turned into a dark alley, the best the city could offer. There were winos standing around an old rusted barrel, with a good blaze going, enough so I could spy the tall flicker of flame. Old boxes, wooden slates and newspapers littered the urine-smelling urban canyon. The winos noticed me. One bent down and picked up cardboard from a torn box, adding the pieces to the fire.
    I knew it was a signal to someone hidden. I saw perfectly in the murk, and noticed that the winos watched me too closely. Pretending to ignore them, I kept walking, moving deeper into the alley.
    I heard the whisper of fabric as a man appeared suddenly like a new tax. He stepped out of a nook in the nearest building.
    “Do not move,” a small man said with a Chinese accent. He wore a headset and aimed a gun at my midsection. Likely, he was with Chinese Intelligence, one of the biggest sharks around the Bay Area. Motioning with the gun, he said, “Hands in the air.”
    While raising my hands, I glanced behind. A newspaper sheet skittered across dirty pavement. Beyond it, the fire still burned in the rusted barrel, but the winos had left.
    I’d known this particular Chinese operation used one of the buildings here as a storehouse.
    “Higher, raise your hands higher,” the small man said, as he continued to motion with his gun. That was a mistake. He should have kept the gun steady and aimed at me.
    With my hands in the air, I stared at him. His headset was pressed against his lank hair, and the tip of his microphone had worn foam that needed replacing. I stared, but I didn’t really look at him. Instead, I concentrated, using one of my abilities to reach out to the fire in the rusted barrel.
    The exposure in the particle accelerator had done something to me. For one thing, I was dense and therefore stronger after a fashion. For another, I could see better in the dark and I could manipulate light and shadows if I concentrated hard enough. Reaching out with the ability, I sucked the light emanating from the flames in the barrel and I shaded the feeble streetlight filtering into the alley. In simple terms, I made it dark.
    I was ready for the phenomenon. As darkness settled, I twisted aside. He muttered in Cantonese as he squinted, looking around, and he finally stopped motioning with this gun. While lunging at him, my shoe scuffled against a glass shard, making noise. He aimed at the sound. I jerked my foot away as he fired. A spark appeared as the bullet spanged off the cement.
    That was his last chance.
    He brought the gun up, shouting excitedly. I swung, and my hand connected with his. The gun went flying, hit the wall, and I hit him in the face. He crumpled, mumbled something and tried to rise. He still wore the headset, and I didn’t know whether it was on or not. Part of me wanted to kick him in the face and finish it, killing him. Instead, I squatted, ripped off the headset and grabbed him by the hair. He