Author's Note: I skipped over the actual election process and a few other things. I hope you all don't mind! This is my sorry attempt to make some exciting action stuff.

Chapter 28 DUNCE Caps

"The pig has been fed," Tulip told Tam and Sean over the radio, indicating that he had hacked into the mansion's security systems and neutralized them.

Tam and Sean crouched outside the mansion of the Mayor of Domino City. They had assigned their other team members to different mayoral mansions around the territory of Japan, depending on their skill levels. Domino City, being a relatively wealthy place, had one of the toughest security systems to break. Even after Tulip deactivated the alarms and looped the feeds on the security cameras, there were still several obstacles to overcome.

Sean looked through the sights of a sniper tranquilizer dart gun that Jamie had put together. His target was a pit bull pacing the front lawn. "Damn! This POS is falling apart. Where did the parts for this come from, Schroeder Corporation?" He wiggled a loose plastic part on the device.

"Can I help you hold it together?" Tam asked.

"If it was a real firearm I would say no, but since it is spring-loaded, it will probably be fine. Grip the barrel here while I press this and… yeah, like that."

With four hands on the device, they carefully took aim at the dog. It discharged with a click, and sent the dart spiraling forward. However, it landed about a meter short of their target. The spring inside the gun also popped loose.

Tam and Sean barely had time to exchange glances before the dog came charging at them. They separated, running in opposite directions. The beast chose to follow Sean. Realizing this, Tam sprinted across the grass and grabbed the tranquilizer dart that they had discharged. She then dashed after the barking dog. With Sean running in a zig-zag pattern that was obvious to her but not the dog, it didn't take long to catch up. Tam lunged and tackled the pit bull. It yelped as she jabbed the tranquilizer dart into it, but then fell limp.

Sean breathed a sigh of relief and wiped the sweat from his brow when he realized that his girlfriend had successfully subdued his adversary. They then tensed themselves for the possibility that a man in pajamas might come running out of the mansion waving a shotgun. When none appeared, Sean touched his radio and asked, "Tulip, is the pig still in the blanket?"

There was a short pause. "Yes. He looks so cute, too, It's almost a shame we have to-"

"-Tulip!"

"Right. Proceed."

Sean and Tam approached the mansion. Sean latched onto the brick wall with his bare hands and scaled it like Spiderman. When he reached a balcony on the third floor, he tossed a rope down to Tam.

After joining him on the balcony, she whispered, "I still don't get how you do that."

"If I ever figure out how I do it, I'll teach you," he responded.

Gently, Sean unloaded a glass cutter from the backpack he wore and secured it to the bulletproof sliding glass door that protected the bedroom from the elements and intruders. Unlike the dart gun that Jamie's team had contributed, the electric glass cutter had been more carefully engineered and tested. Noise cancelling technology surrounded the powerful motor, silencing the high-pitched whine that it would otherwise produce. The Noelites could have gotten a motor that was designed not to produce any noise in the first place, but such motors were ten times as expensive and the technology team wanted to fool around with sound waves. Thankfully, their efforts were successful.

Sean cut a hole large enough for him and Tam to step through. He removed the pane of glass with care and set it aside.

While Sean was cutting the glass, Tam had prepared her own equipment. She now held a syringe filled with a tranquilizer similar to the one she had given the dog, but of a purer grade for humans. A tiny LED mounted on the barrel of the syringe would give her enough light to find the mayor's vein without revealing her identity to him. She wished she also had a memory erasing device in case something went wrong, but this operation had to be flawless.

In a single graceful leap, Tam straddled the body on the bed within the room. Her muscular legs pinned it in place while it tried to shift under the sudden weight. The mayor groaned and complained as the needle penetrated his neck, but whether he consciously recognized that two strangers were in his room before the chemical forced him into a deeper sleep remained a mystery.

After the mayor went limp, Sean and Tam worked quickly to assemble a conical hat from the loose pieces of steel in their backpacks. The parts snapped together easily, but once the whole thing was assembled, there was no easy way to take it apart. A collar around the mayor's neck ensured that the metal contraption would stay in place. They worked primarily by touch with the light of a single LED just in case they dropped something.

When the pig was fully harnessed, they made him as comfortable as they could and left the way they came. Tulip, Adam, Clarissa, and the other members of the information team continued to monitor the security cameras long after the action team left, taking shifts late into the night to capture the exact moment when the mayor woke.