Ha, Parker thought as she lowered herself down with a cable, this was so easy!
Parker (one of the world's most renown thieves) had broken into the United States Patent Office with one thing on her mind.
She reached the floor and detached the black rope, surveying her surroundings. She'd forgotten just how big the room was, seemingly endless shelves that reached the ceiling were stuffed full of prototypes. Ridiculous, half-baked, and defective inventions of every shape and size sat, collecting dust. The specific object she was looking for could be anywhere, not to mention she only had a vague description from Eliot to help her find it.
This might be a little harder than I thought.
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"Yo, Sophie?" Hardison asked, looking at his phone.
"What is it, Hardison?" Sophie replied.
"Have you heard from Parker, 'cause she's not answering her phone."
"No, no, I can't say I have. She might be with Nate and Eliot."
"Huh, maybe."
Hardison went back to frowning at his text history between him and Parker.
"We got the beer," Eliot grinned as he walked into the back room of Hardison's restaurant. "Where's Parker?" he asked after he'd looked around, "she's the one that loves movie night."
"I thought she was with you getting chocolate or something," Hardison responded.
"She might be out getting last minute presents," Nate offered.
The team was in Portland, Oregon and Nate and Sophie were there for their annual, weekly Christmas visit.
"Then why wouldn't she be answering my texts?" Hardison demanded.
Eliot moaned, "Are you saying we got to go look for Parker now? Maybe her phone died."
The hitter took a seat and opened a beer.
"She left here an hour or so ago and I'm tellin' you, she was up to something," Hardison said.
"Do one of your fancy GPS-tracking things and figure out where she is."
The hacker sighed, "You will never understand what I do."
He left the room, mumbling to himself about hard work and disappearing thieves. The man went into his bedroom and seated himself at his wooden desk. Hardison opened his laptop, hooked up his phone, and attempted to get a location on his girlfriend.
"Her phone must be off," he mumbled to himself when nothing turned up. Or her phone died, like Eliot said, he thought but something in his gut told him his first theory was right.
On his hunch, he got up and walked over to Parker's bedroom. The hacker seated himself at her neat, prim desk and opened her laptop. He set up a firewall and emergency memory shredders for her in case someone tried to hack into it but he could easily bypass his own software. The first thing he did once he was in was take a look at her browser history. Interestingly enough, he found her days activity wiped clean.
"People never learn; this trick never works. Now, what were you up to big mama?"
After a few minutes, he found that she'd looked up directions to…wait, this didn't make any sense. The hacker got up and re-entered the main room where the team held briefings.
"Uh, guys, I think Parker's pulling a heist or something," the words slipped out of his mouth before he realized how ridiculous it sounded.
"What? Parker wouldn't do that," Sophie said, puzzled.
"What'd you mean, a heist?" demanded Eliot.
"Well-er, see she turned her phone off-"
"I'm telling you, her phone just died."
"She deleted her browser history."
"What are you doing on her computer in the first place?"
"And she printed directions to-"
"Hey, uh, Hardison," interrupted Nate, "don't you think you're being a little paranoid? I mean, we all care about Parker but you're being a ah-"
"Fine, I get it," Hardison left the room in a huff.
Eliot rolled his eyes. In a few minutes, the hacker came back with his car keys and jacket.
"Hardison, where are you going?" Sophie asked gently.
"To the U.S Patent Office," he replied.
She looked bewildered, "Why on Earth are you going there?"
"That's where Parker's at."
Eliot almost choked on his beer, "What? How do you know?"
Hardison didn't even look at him when he answered, "That's the directions she looked up before she deleted her web history."
"Dammit, Hardison, why didn't you say so?"
"Since when did you care?"
The hitter got out of his chair and walked to the thief's bedroom.
"She keeps her stuff in her closet, right?"
"Yeah, but you shouldn't-"
Too late, Eliot was already reaching for the closet door. It swung open to reveal some sweaters hanging up and a few pair of shoes lined on the wood floor. To anyone else, it would seem as if nothing was missing but the hitter knew better. If nothing was missing from this girl's closet then she'd have climbing gear, lockpicks, a black hairnet, etc., neatly arranged to be grabbed in a moment's notice.
"Dammit, Parker," groaned Eliot.
"What is it?" Sophie asked, standing with the other two men in the doorway.
"I know what she's doing, and we gotta stop her before she gets herself killed."
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Ohh, a locked door, this looks promising, Parker approached a heavy steel door that looked more like a vault entrance.
She stroked the metallic entrance, admiring its advanced security. The thief quietly made note of the nine-digit keypad, thumbprint scanner, and heavy spokes she'd have to get past. Then, she set to work. Her hands snaked into her backpack, snatching a white cloth and a small container of black powder. She skillfully rubbed the powder over the fingerprint scanner, waited, then pressed down with the white cloth. The screen glowed green and Parker turned her attention to the keypad. She took her time, first applying one of her own concoctions to the buttons, shining an ultra-violet light over it, and scribbling the numbers that glowed on a small pad of paper. The thief assessed the options, debated what would trigger the alarm, pondered the password possibilities, and racked her brain to remember what she'd found in the building blueprints and diagrams of the security layout from their last job here. All she could recall was that this part of the building was supposed to be mostly empty. Someone wanted to keep whatever was behind this door a secret. Excited, Parker began figuring the possibilities for the password.
Let's see, four digit password and one repeat, should be easy enough.
On her first try, however, she got an angry beep and the screen directly above the keypad began counting down from two minutes.
Now things are exciting, Parker thought happily.
Her fingers flew from button to button.
One minute and thirty seconds, need to pick up the pace.
She flipped the page on her notepad and again set to her work feverishly.
A minute ten, jeez, I hope I'm not losing my touch.
Parker completed a little less than a third of her written possibilities.
Fifty seconds, FASTER, PARKER! FASTER! You're gonna get caught and arrested then Nate's gonna have to get you out of jail and you'll be in so much trouble!
The thief almost completed half of her written passcodes but she'd found her rhythm.
Almost! Almost! Almost!
Suddenly, the screen flashed green and the giant spokes began to turn automatically. Parker did an excited dance. The door swung open to reveal a few more floor-to-ceiling shelves with mysterious (and deadly) looking prototypes.
"Silver, black buttons, looks like R2-D2," she mumbled the vague description under her breath as she started down the aisle.
Parker scoured the shelves for the exact invention she was looking for. In a few minutes she found it. Just like Eliot had said, it did have a resemblance to the Star Wars robot except the colors were different and it didn't have any wheels. Unable to resist, Parker began to fiddle with the pitch-black dials and buttons. Then the blue screen surrounded by the keypad she was prodding began to glow. Light shot out of it like lasers and started -was it-scanning her body?
"This is so cool!" squealed the theif. "Eliot! Come-"
She stopped herself, Eliot wasn't here, nor was Hardison, or Sophie, or Nate. She was alone.
Transporting to previously used destination. Year 2517 A.D.
"Wait! No!" Parker started but it was too late.
Three seconds later tendrils of smoke curled around the spot where the thief stood but there was no sign of her. The giant door slammed shut and the room was as still as if no one had entered it in years.
