Finally, a short reprieve from the oppressing heat that plagues this part of Germany these days. Writing was almost impossible, I could barely think straight.

Unfortunately, the heat will come back next week -.-

Still, enjoy :)

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters that appeared in the show.


"How do you feel?" Leonard asked, handing her an ice pack and a bottle of water.

"Like shit." she replied, holding the pack against her temple, where a paint ball had hit her. "This is impossible!"

"No, just difficult." Leonard chuckled. "Like the first one, only a lot more difficult."

"But how is this supposed to be done?" she wondered. "The camera angles have few blind spots, the sensors on those rails acting as guards' eyes and ears check pretty much every possible hiding place and there's no windows to climb through that aren't connected to alarms."

"There's more ways to enter a building than windows and doors." Leonard chuckled. "A few weeks ago, I killed a gang leader and unintentionally kicked off something really big by climbing in through the roof."

"Well, this course doesn't have a roof hatch." she huffed.

"Ouch, that looks painful." a third voice surprised them.

"President Siebert." Leonard nodded to his boss.

"Hey Jeremy." Penny waved.

"Leonard, we're in private, you can call me Jeremy too." Jeremy chuckled.

"Still weird." Leonard shrugged.

"So, you've been at it for two weeks now, shouldn't you be done by now?" Jeremy asked.

"I took longer for the first course but this one impossible." she complained.

"Huh, it's actually pretty easy." Jeremy said after looking at the plans for a minute. "I mean, the getting in and out part. And if you're quiet, no guard sensor will notice."

"Leonard, give me something hard." she ordered, looking around for anything to grab.

"Why?" Leonard wondered.

"I want to throw something heavy at him." she grumbled.

"You should listen to the people who came before you." Leonard laughed and gently squeezed her shoulder. "Their wisdom helps."

"You make me sound like some ancient guy who should have a long, messianic beard." Jeremy scoffed.

"I couldn't imagine you with a beard at all, much less a long one." Penny grinned.

"Can I go in to see?" Jeremy asked.

"Go ahead, it's off." Leonard nodded.

Penny watched Jeremy walk into the course, wondering what he was going to do in there. It took a few minutes before he came back, nodding to himself. He spent another two minutes walking around the outside of the course and once he was done, he rejoined them, a smile on his face.

"Who built this?" he asked.

"Sheldon and Howard designed it, Howard, Raj and me built it." Leonard told him.

"It's very good work." Jeremy nodded. "I especially like the sensors on the rails to mimic guard movements. I assume they're also activated when they see something that shouldn't be there?"

"Painfully aware of that." Penny winced, having been hit with several paint balls after one such incident.

"But I hope you are aware, Leonard, that her way of unnoticed ingress is present in few buildings these days." Jeremy said to him.

"I'm aware. The other two courses already covered the regular ways so Sheldon thought that she should learn to think outside the box." Leonard explained. "She's not old enough to really have experienced this particular way, so it would force her to adapt."

"Interesting." Jeremy nodded. "It might help her in jobs she might take in less developed countries."

"True." he agreed. "It helped me once."

"What did you do?" Penny asked.

"I'll tell you about that job after you finish the course." he winked.

"Pff, traitor." she huffed.

"Leonard, I had an unexpected visitor yesterday." Jeremy said.

"Yes?" Leonard wondered what it had to do with him.

"Yorinobu Sakurai." Jeremy told him.

"Kenta came to you?" Leonard was surprised. "I met him the other day in the hotel bar."

"He seems to be looking for certain members of our organization." Jeremy said. "Very interested in three in particular."

"What did you tell him?"

"The truth." Jeremy shrugged. "That I'm retired, work a civilian job and that I don't keep tabs on other assassins in town. I referred him to Lillian."

"He went to her." Leonard said. "I was visiting her when he came by. Had to hide."

"Why would you hide?" Jeremy wondered. "And why would he ask around about other assassins?"

"I.. uh, did a job a few weeks ago." Leonard sighed. "On its face, a simple hit on the leader of a drug gang. However, after learning more about the gang, the entire thing never sat well with me."

"You walked away from a job?" Jeremy looked surprised.

"Of course not." Leonard shook his head. "But I refused the payment and told the client to forget we met."

"And now we have a long-lost member of our organization coming back asking around about you." Jeremy nodded. "You think he's working for whoever else belongs to the gang?"

"I think the gang was just part of a larger syndicate, a branch of it, if you will." Leonard mused. "And now that they're gone, someone is investigating."

"Kenta is a phenomenal assassin, but he never struck me as an investigator." Jeremy said.

"Kenta told me that he's on guard duty for someone, I get the feeling that it's that person who does the investigating, but only Kenta could go into organization assets and ask around for involvement from one of us." Leonard explained.

"I heard through the grapevine that Robert McNamara is after you for killing his brother, is that true?" Jeremy asked.

"Yes, apparently so." Leonard sighed. "He has two more working with him on this."

"Imbecile!" Jeremy spat, surprising Penny. "Caspar should have never become an assassin and if Robert is carved from the same block, he shouldn't have as well."

"Why?" Penny wondered.

"Young lady, do you know how Leonard does most of his jobs?" Jeremy looked at her. "The way he chooses to take out his targets?"

"Yes, he said he makes it look like a natural death or accident as much as he can." Penny nodded. "To avoid suspicion or to make it easier for the families to deal with the loss."

"Caspar was the opposite." Jeremy said. "If he could, Caspar always chose the way with the most collateral damage."

"How do you know?" Leonard wondered. "You retired before Caspar became an assassin."

"I like to keep abreast of things." Jeremy shrugged. "Six years ago, right after Caspar started, there was a mass shooting on a busy street in Denver."

"I heard about that." Penny interjected. "Some guy killed nine people with a sniper rifle."

"A few days before that, some rich CEO posted a contract to have a simple electrician killed, because apparently, the CEO's wife had an affair with that electrician." Jeremy recounted.

"How do you know that?" Leonard asked.

"I took a deep dive into the matter." Jeremy shrugged again. "Anyway, Caspar chose a perch, then shot the electrician when he was having lunch in the middle of a crowded open air food court and to cover up that crime, he shot another eight people."

"That's horrible!" Penny gasped.

"They didn't catch him?" Leonard wanted to know.

"No, he was using a floor under construction in a high-rise that was run by the company of the CEO that ordered the hit." Jeremy shook his head. "He didn't even bring the rifle himself."

"How do you know that?" Leonard repeated.

"Because they caught the CEO who ordered the hit." Jeremy chuckled. "He used his golf bag to smuggle the rifle in parts through security."

"That's actually pretty clever, who would check the golf bag of their boss." Leonard had to admit. "Especially if the boss is known to bring his golf bag to work."

"How did he get the rifle out of the building?" Penny asked.

"He didn't, he left it there." Jeremy told her.

"Somehow I feel better now for killing Caspar." Leonard sighed.

"By the way, one of the two people who work with Robert... Aaron, was it?" Penny looked at Leonard, who nodded. "is trying to hack through the firewall to find out Leonard's real name."

"I doubt he's a better hacker than Howard and he didn't get through my firewall yet." Jeremy chuckled. "Why doesn't he just look at your mailboxes?"

"Because the door Sheldon has put into the apartment block is even harder to get through." Leonard laughed.

"What if they steal the key from the mailman?"

"We don't get our mail delivered to our building, we have a community mailbox at the post office. One of us picks up the mail on the way home every other day, usually Howard and Raj." Leonard told him. "And the mail boxes in the building don't have names anyway, only numbers."

"Always wondered why I never heard or saw a mailman coming by or why I never saw mail or menus in the boxes." Penny said.

"I still wonder about Kenta though." Jeremy brought the topic back to his original reason for the visit. "Kenta was always about honor, so why would he work for a criminal organization?"

"Maybe he feels that he owes the head of it?" Leonard suggested. "Otherwise, I don't know. Maybe the death of his sister changed him too much."

"Yua is dead?" Jeremy was shocked. "I never knew. When did she die?"

"Years ago." Leonard told him. "I don't know the cause of death though, only that she passed and Kenta was very distraught about it."

"So much that he stopped being an assassin and becoming a mere hitman?" Jeremy wondered.

"I don't know." Leonard shrugged.

"President Siebert." an appearing Howard interrupted them. "What are you doing here?"

"I run this university, I have leave to go anywhere in it I want." Jeremy chuckled. "I wanted to see how Mister Hofstadter's protege was doing."

"Not well." Penny huffed and pressed the towel-wrapped ice pack against her temple again.

"How far did you make it before...?"

"Not far." Penny gave him a look that would have killed him on the spot if looks could do that.

"Ah well, you'll find out how to get in and out unnoticed at some point." Howard shrugged.

"Howard, do you know you have a skilled competitor now in hacking the university firewall?" Leonard asked with a smile.

"Who?"

"Aaron Gaspard is trying to get in to find out my identity." Leonard told him.

"Aaron Gaspard?" Howard scoffed. "Please, compared to me, he's like a monkey using a typewriter."

"You're pretty sure of yourself." Penny remarked.

"It's a matter of reality." Howard shrugged. "Gaspard is a good hacker but I'm worlds better."

"But unlike you, he can use a gun." Leonard winked.

"I can use a gun too." Howard argued.

"Except you can't hit the side of a barn." Leonard laughed. "Not to mention you keep screaming every time you pull the trigger and you always flinch backwards from the recoil."

"Because it's so loud!" Howard huffed.

"I don't get it, don't you build guns for Leonard?" Penny asked. "Don't you test them?"

"Of course, but I always wear noise-canceling headphones for that."

"Well, I have to get back to the office, I just wanted to let you know about Kenta." Jeremy said and left the hall.

"Do you want to give it another go?" Leonard asked her.

"No, I think I'll continue tomorrow." Penny sighed, putting the ice pack away.

"Howard, you learned Japanese when you tried to seduce that exchange student a few years ago, right?" Leonard asked his friend.

"Tashika ni, watashi wa shimashita." Howard nodded. "But it's nowhere near perfect, why?"

"Can you try to get your hands on the autopsy report of Kenta's sister?" Leonard asked. "Her name is Yua, y-u-a, Sakurai."

"I can try. But why? What are you looking for?" Howard wanted to know.

"I want to know how she died." Leonard replied. "I want to know what happened to make Kenta join a criminal organization. Did he seek them out for some reason? Or did they approach him with an offer?"

"That wouldn't be in the autopsy report." Howard remarked.

"I know, but it may shed some light on his reasoning." Leonard shrugged. "It's a long shot and with any luck, I don't ever have to use the information, if there's even something there."

"Very well, I'll get to it after dinner." Howard nodded.

"You want to hit the gym before going home?" Leonard asked her.

"Only for some cardio, I'm a bit beat up." she sighed and stood up.

While Leonard did his sets on the various pieces of equipment, Penny went onto the stairmaster, put her earbuds in to listen to music and simply walked up stairs until Leonard got her attention to show that he was done. A few minutes later, freshly showered, they left the campus, Leonard driving them home and picking up their dinner on the way, Penny carrying two of the four bags up the stairs and into Sheldon's apartment after getting their dogs.

While they ate in easy conversation, Howard only halfheartedly eating, his attention fixed on his laptop as he worked to hack the site where he hoped to find the autopsy report Leonard was looking for.


"Shit." Leonard commented upon watching the news.

"It seems to have begun." Sheldon agreed. "An unfortunate event."

"One that you caused." Penny turned to their lanky friend.

"Excuse me?" Sheldon gaped at her.

"You took the contract for him." she pointed out.

"Penny, you're a bit unfair to him." Leonard said. "If I hadn't taken the contract, someone else might have."

"I'm sorry Sheldon." Penny sighed, accepting Leonard's reasoning. "It's just hard seeing it, you know."

"I understand." Sheldon nodded. "Apology accepted. But we need to head to work."

Leonard turned off the TV where the breaking news had come on just minutes ago about a gang shootout that had happened the previous night. Twelve people had been killed, most of them gang members except for a family of four whose car had gotten caught in the crossfire. Police attributed the shooting to territorial disputes but only their small group knew the real reason for why these gangs suddenly started to fight over territory.

"Try to put this away." Leonard counseled during the drive. "If you think too much about it, you won't be able to successfully do the course, not to mention that it would make you go crazy after a while."

"I know, but still." she said, feeling bad for the family.

"Also, this is one of the great examples that meticulous planning is key but not even then you can account for every possibility." Leonard explained.

"That I agree with." she nodded.

She took his advice and tried to push the thoughts of what had happened to the back of her head to concentrate on the upcoming attempt for the course. The previous night, she studied the plans again, after remembering Jeremy's comment about how the mode of unnoticed entry wouldn't be widely available in modern buildings, so she had looked for unconventional ways to enter the buildings.

And she thought she had found one. She took the plan and modified her way to enter, combining that with the timings of the guard sensors movements along the rails. She would still have to be extremely cautious when moving around since the guard stand-ins had sensitive audio sensors but she was sure that her route would take her past the cameras.

Leonard parked the car and walked her to the hall where the course was. As usual, she found the entire group minus Bernadette there, since they always watched her first few attempts before they had to leave to do their own work, except Leonard, who usually stayed, with Howard, Raj and Sheldon popping in occasionally.

"Ready, Penny?" Amy asked.

"As ready as I can be." Penny nodded.

"Then go ahead." Sheldon said and waved his left arm in invitation for her to move as he sat down at the control table. "Remember, kill the target and come back out with the item."

Penny nodded again, this time to herself and started walking while Sheldon set the imaginary time of the day to midnight. Instead of using any of the entrances or windows, which she had already tried and failed at, and also ignoring the air vent cover she had also used but failed at since crawling through an air duct caused more noise than any movie or TV shows suggested, she walked around the building replica and moved further back into the dark end of the hall.

The glasses helped with the light, turning what little remaining light was left from the inside of the building facsimile and the ones above the guys' workstation into a colorless daylight. Almost a hundred feet away from the course, a hatch was set into the floor. According to the plans, it led into an old tunnel which exited from a manhole inside the course, and since she didn't think that the guys had dug and walled a tunnel under the hall, it probably was a leftover part of an old existing system.

When she opened the hatch, she almost fainted from the stench emanating from the hole. Waiting for a minute for the smell to spread out, she suppressed her gag reflex and climbed through the hatch, using her flashlight to illuminate the tunnel. It was clean, except for the walls being somewhat moist and she wondered if she would find some animal carcasses down here, given the intense smell that assaulted her olfactory sense.

She crawled on her hands and knees through the tunnel, every foot of it smelling worse than the previous one until she reached the last ten feet, where the intensity of the smell almost abruptly dropped away until it was barely noticeable when she reached the manhole inside the course. She sat down and waited, listening for the tap-tap-tap from the rail sensors that imitated someone walking.

After several minutes, the speakers in the room above her released a bang from a door opening and closing, followed by the expected taps and another bang of the imaginary guard leaving through the second door. Having studied the guards' schedule, she knew that she'd have two hours to do what needed to be done and return to this room before another guard rounds was going to happen.

She hoped that Sheldon actually had planned for this particular entrance because if the manhole cover was sealed, she would look pretty stupid. She gently gently pushed and to her relief, felt it give, so she lifted the lid just high enough so she could push it sideways without it banging against the floor. After climbing out, she put the lid back into place and walked the same direction as the imaginary guard had, knowing that her route wasn't covered by cameras for a few feet and also had several blind spots in the places where cameras were situated.

She moved slowly and deliberately, going by memory of the camera movements. The fake guards should stay in the guard room, not doing another round for another two hours but she still kept on guard, listening to the telltale tapping sounds that would indicate someone walking. Her caution was rewarded when she heard it, an unscheduled round of a guard and she quickly hid behind one of the office tables, releasing the breath she didn't know she had been holding when the sounds receded into the distance.

Her next stop was a small side room, where she found the junction box for the office space. She opened it and placed a certain piece of tech inside that she got from the stash of stuff Sheldon approved for the third test. She gingerly connected the cables and closed the box, then returned back to the main room where she again waited for a noise in case her modification had been heard but hearing nothing, she continued on.

For the next twenty minutes, she slowly inched through the office, mindful of the cameras and avoiding them until she had reached the final corridor. She knew from the plans that there was a camera above the door that lead to her target, but unlike the others, this one never turned, only filmed straight ahead, seeing everything that moved within the corridor until about two feet away from the door.

She took a small remote control from her pocket and pressed the button, which made Howard's gizmo turn off all the lights in the main room and corridor. In the four seconds that the place was dark, she dashed forward, counting her steps and stopping exactly in front of the door, right beneath the camera, just as the power came back. She knew that if this was real, someone would be checking if something was wrong but she didn't hear any tapping indicating movement so she continued with her plan, slowly turning the door knob until the door popped open.

She opened it slowly, waiting for any alarm from the inside, since she knew that the dummy that represented her target had cameras for eyes and audio sensor for ears. When no sound came, she stepped into the room, staying on her toes for maximum quietness and she found the dummy in the chair, its head down and to the side, the camera lights off which indicated that her target was asleep.

She tiptoed around the desk and stood behind the dummy, immensely proud of herself that she made it this far. She saw the price she was to take back, a Spock doll in its original packaging and as she shook her head and fought down a noisy chuckle, she realized that she had absolutely no idea how to take out her target.

Because of the noise, she hadn't bothered to bring a gun but other than that, the guys hadn't given her any lead on how to take it out, so she began weighing her options. Choking would most likely cause a real target to start kicking and flailing, which of course would cause a lot of noise. Cutting the dummy's throat would be very messy and she would certainly get blood on her outfit, which would then cause her to leave prints everywhere when trying to get back.

For a moment, she toyed with using the letter opener on the desk to ram it into the dummy's ear but she wasn't sure if that would be enough to kill someone outright or just deafen them. Then she noticed how the dummy's head was situated so, being out of ideas, she gingerly put her arms in position before lifting the dummy's head, grabbing the chin and yanking it a hundred and eighty degrees into the other direction, the audible crack of a broken dummy neck echoing through the room.

She put the dummy head back down, then took the doll box and turned off the light before opening the door, stepping back out into the corridor and standing underneath the camera again. Another press of her remote control turned the light off once more, this time everywhere and she dashed into the other direction, but unlike before, the light didn't come back on, the device having fried the circuits this time.

Since the lights were off, she moved quickly but stayed behind desks as much as possible. The tapping sound of several fake guards came from several speakers, showing guards on the move and she hurried back to where she would get back into the fake sewer. She didn't bother to retrieve the tech module, the fact that in a real case, the target's neck being broken would be enough for the guards to know that someone had infiltrated the building.

Her way back to the manhole cover was easier than before, the darkness allowing her to simply walk through the corridors without the cameras seeing her, at least that's what she thought given that no paint balls were hitting her body. Once in the room, she lifted the manhole cover, hearing the multitude of tapping sounds which seemed to be Sheldon simulating that guards were running around trying to find out what was going on.

She dropped into the pipe and pulled the lid back into place before crawling back, the gut wrenching stench beginning again ten feet into it. Once again she had to fight hard to suppress the gag reflex and wondered what caused this intense smell, since there was nothing in the pipe with her. A few minutes of crawling later, she climbed back out of the hatch, closed it and simply collapsed onto her back, drawing a few clean breaths without the feeling of having to hurl.

Once that was done, she walked back around the course and as soon as she saw the guys, she was greeted by applause, everyone applauding, except for Sheldon who just nodded at her. She threw the box with the Spock doll at him and he screamed, scrambling from his chair to catch it before it could hit the table.

"Never throw these things!" Sheldon gasped, holding it tight in his arms like it was a puppy.

"Sorry?" Penny was confused. "It's just a doll."

"It's not a doll, it's an action figure." Sheldon corrected. "Mint condition in its original packaging."

"Ignore him." Leonard said as he came forward, smiling widely. "Congratulations!"

"You did great!" Amy gushed.

"Though the choice of how you killed the target was a bit... overt." Raj chuckled.

"What else could I have done?" Penny asked. "Shooting was out of the question because of the noise, using the letter opener too messy and choking would cause a real target to flail his arms and legs."

"You could have taken a poison with you." Leonard shrugged. "Since the target was sleeping, a simple injection of a fast-working poison would have worked but we didn't tell you how to kill the target, so the mission was a success."

"So, I'm an assassin now?" Penny asked, excitedly.

"Don't be silly, of course not." Sheldon gave what she thought was a chuckle. "You just completed the training, you still have to pass the final exam."

"Which is?" she was worried, given how hard the courses were but instead of answering, Leonard took out his phone and pressed a speed dial button.

"Hey dad... I'm great... glad to hear it. Listen, Penny just finished her final training course and she's ready for the final exam... will do dad, as soon as I'm home from work, thanks." he made the call and hung up.

"How is Albert?" she asked.

"He's good."

"So, what was that call about?" she wanted to know.

"My dad is going to make the final exam, I just have to send him some information first."

"So, my exam will be in Vermont?"

"No, no, it's here, the information is about the local criminal scene." he told her. "And don't try, I don't know what it'll be."

"Great." she chuckled. "So, what do I do until then?"

"Whatever you want but we have to get to work." Sheldon stated. "Tomorrow morning, we'll start to tear down the course."

"Alright." Raj nodded and left, Howard right behind him.

"So, that means you will leave soon, right?" Amy asked.

"Pretty much." Leonard nodded. "I'll be back though."

"You better." Sheldon moped a bit and walked out with Amy.

"So, how are you feeling?" Leonard turned towards her.

"Elated." she giggled. "By the way, what was that smell down there?"

"Artificial skunk smell mixed with some hydrogen sulfide." Leonard laughed. "Took some from the biology department to simulate how a sewer would smell."

"Jesus, that was bad, I almost had to hurl." she shuddered at the memory.

"So, for me it's back to work, you wanna come with? Sweep my lab?" Leonard smiled.

"Lunch will be in two hours, right?"

"More or less." he nodded. "Why?"

"Lets go to your lab." she grabbed his hand and pulled him with her. "We'll lock the door and I'm sure we can find a few surfaces to have celebratory sex on."


dun dun duuuun. What will the final exam be? ^^

Review please :)