The Dance
Nobody quite knew what had happened. There were stories of an attack from above, others of attacks from below. There was even one person who told of a rising fog that had enveloped the cafeteria and overcome everyone there.
The only certainty in the entire case was that when the police arrived, eight students writhed on the floor with a quarter of a buck in their cracks.
"How can this keep happening?" the Dean screeched above the sound of moaning students.
"Because you hamstrung our investigation the last time." Annie walked through the doors of the cafeteria.
"No, we caught him. It was Star Burns. He admitted it." The Dean wiped a tear from his Lady Gaga makeup.
"I think you mean," Jeff said, "you convinced him to take the rap for it."
"How did you know that? I mean, what makes you think that, Jeffrey?" Jeff's stare burned a hole through the Dean, and the Dean finally had to turn away. But he reached a hand out blindly and placed it on Jeff's chest. "I admit no such thing. What are you going to do about this?" The Dean was addressing Annie now.
She knelt down over one of the victims and stroked his hair to comfort him. Hanging above her was a banner that read: Welcome to Student President Election Week.
The Ass Crack Bandit, who had been in hiding for a couple of years had come out en force at the dance that kicked off the elections. "The question is: what are YOU going to do about it? Are you going to give us the resources we need to solve the case or are you going to continue to stand in the way of our investigation?"
The Dean was silent.
"Then should we go to the Greendale Mirror and expose the way you conspired with Star Burns to fool the public just to sweep this under the rug?"
"No, please. I'll give you what you need. Just keep this out of the news."
Annie motioned to the police, "Alright, let's lock this place down. No, one gets in or out."
"What are you talking about?" Officer Cackowski said. He was bagging a quarter with tweezers. "You're just a student, and this is hardly even a real crime scene."
The Changulations
The walls of the study room were covered with news clippings, maps and photographs. Jeff could recognize Troy's outline by the fact that the Dean had drawn a football next to it. Duncan's outline was accompanied by tea and crumpets.
Four people stood in the room. The Dean, Annie, Jeff and Chang. The door was locked with a silk scarf from the Dean's private collection. Jeff pointed at Chang and asked, "What the hell is he doing in here?"
"Manners, Jeffrey. Manners. Since Chang did such a great job of helping the last time, I asked him to join us again." The Dean motioned to the laptop Chang sat behind. "Chang has graciously volunteered to create a simulation of the crimes on this computer. Go ahead Chang. Show them."
"Thank you, Dean. I think you are going to really like this Changulation of the crackings. Let me start with the most recent cracking." Chang slowly turned the computer around to reveal that he had set up eight Lego Ninjago pieces on the keyboard. "These are the victims in the cafeteria just before the attack. Nobody suspects anything. They are just hanging out and having some chicken fingers." Chang then reached into his pocket, pulled out a handful of something and started to pelt the Lego figures with what Jeff soon realized were quarters. "Die, little Greendale students. Die!"
The Dean reached out a hand. "That'll be enough, Chang."
"Well let me set up the other Changulations. It'll be just a minute."
"That's all right," Jeff said. "I think we can imagine it."
"You guys never let me be a part of the little capers. It's like I'm your new Pierce Hawthorn," Chang said, picked up his computer and huffed toward the door.
"And remember this is top secret. You signed an agreement not to reveal anything you've seen or heard in this room," the Dean shouted back over his shoulder at Chang.
"No, I didn't." Chang fought with the scarf on the door.
"Well, then remind me to draw one up."
Chang finally managed to get the scarf off the handles, opened the door and slammed it behind him.
The Debate
"Leonard, what is your plan for maintaining Greendale's lively atmosphere if you are elected president?"
The debate was being held in the school's main auditorium, but most of the students had elected to watch it on the school's television station after the most recent cracking. The Dean was dressed as a cross between Megyn Kelley and Anderson Cooper—gray short hair on one side of his head and a tightly cut blonde pixy on the other.
"Screw the lively atmosphere," Leonard said. "We have to protect ourselves. City College has already fallen into chaos with Italian Ices taking over several departments and Rushing Community College conducting paintball raids against the opposition to keep City College's Dean Spreck in power."
Garret raised a hand, "I have something to say."
"Shut up, Garret! No one wants to hear from a screeching nincompoop like you!" Leonard said. "We've already got City College transfers coming over to Greendale. We don't know how many of those are part of Italian Ices. As a matter of fact they could be sitting in this room with paintball guns in their hands right now."
The Dean looked around. The only people in the room besides him were Abed, Jeffrey, Annie, Britta, Shirley and Hickey.
"I haven't had my time." Garret said. "He mentioned me."
The Dean gave in. "Okay, Garret. You have thirty seconds."
"Leonard is rude. He threw food at me in class the other day."
"Thank you, Garret." The Dean said. "Mike?"
Mike stood between Garret and Leonard in his gray sweats and weightlifting gloves. He snarled and punched the palm of his hands. "When City College student transfers are going to start pouring into this school, we don't know if they're Italian Ices; we don't know if it's a Trojan horse. And I definitely want a database and other checks and balances. We have no idea who's transferring here…It could be the greatest Trojan horse of all time. In fact, I heard one of them was actually the Ass Crack Bandit."
The Dean gasped.
Leonard added. "Keep new transfers out! Even if ten percent of them is an Ass Crack Bandit, that's too many! We need to build a wall."
Jeff said under his breath. "Yeah, there's no way this will end up a problem."
The Soda Party
The next afternoon when Jeff rolled into his office for his 4:00 contract law course, he saw signs up everywhere.
"Greendale for Human Beings"
"C-i-t-y C-o-l-l-e-g-e spells Ass Crack Bandit"
"I am the 90%!"
Jeff wasn't certain he understood the last one, but he couldn't imagine it was a positive sign. Hickey was in the office when Jeff arrived, singing a song under his breath. Jeff could only make out a couple of words: "Big house," "river" and "shiver."
"Annie was looking for you." Hickey said. "Something about the ACB investigation. If you ask me, there is too much fuss about this whole thing. I mean it's a guy who uses people's cracks as a juke box. At least afterward they are 25 cents richer."
Annie waited in Jeff's classroom when he arrived. The class still hadn't arrived. It was only 5 minutes after 4.
"I've been going over the testimony from the people at the dance, and it seems like the crackings couldn't have been committed by one person. Look, I've made this diagram." She pulled out a piece of blue construction paper. Women were marked with pink and men with black. "From what I can see the crackings happened in these three corners of the room right at the two minute mark of Adele's 'Hello'. The attack appears to be perfectly coordinated."
One of Jeff's students entered the room, And Annie pulled the construction paper out of sight.
She whispered into Jeff's ear, "Maybe it was a group from City College. I mean, they did infiltrate the school during the end-of-year paintball game. Maybe this was some sort of attack on the school."
"Pop, Pop." Magnitude walked through the door of the room. "Hey, why don't you two get a room already."
Jeff threw him a glance, and Magnitude took his seat.
"More than likely," Jeff said. "It's the same idiot as last time. He's just got some of his buddies to help out. What needs to happen is…."
Jeff's sentence was interrupted by the sound of the Dean on the intercom system. "As a precautionary measure against the…umm…person imitating the ACB, we are hereby banning all coins from the school. Chang will be putting together a police force to man metal detectors at every entrance, and all people will have to keep a video camera in their…uh…upper gluteal fold until the perpetrator of the copycat…I repeat, copycat…crimes is brought to justice."
"Unbelievable," Annie said.
Jeff tried to resume his sentence, but was cut off again by shouting in the corridor.
They ran in the direction it came from. A student with a City College shirt was being followed by a mob. Shouts came from inside the mob.
"Hey, Hey, Ho, Ho. Transfers have got to go."
Jeff grabbed the transfer student and stepped in front of him. "You have to let this go. City College transfers aren't the reason Greendale is a horrible school. We all do that ourselves."
The mob took a step forward. "Hand him over, Winger." Jeff heard from among the crowd. The voice sounded somewhat familiar.
"Yeah," said another. The mob surged again. And then suddenly it stopped and one by one, members of the crowd fell onto the floor moaning. Those students who remained standing, suddenly turned and ran away.
"I don't get it. What happened?" Annie leaned over one of the students who was writhing on the floor.
He whispered in her ear, "I've been cracked." The he reached up and handed her something.
"A quarter?"
A Crack in the Case
"Dean, I don't have any more time for Changulations." Jeff stood in the open doorway of the Dean's office.
Chang and the Dean leaned over Chang's laptop squinting.
"You know," the Dean said. "Maybe it wasn't the best idea to stick these things in people's behinds. Did you know that watching the footage on these things, I've realized that we serve beans entirely too much in our cafeteria? And the image isn't that good anyway. We are always looking up, and the lights in the hallways blur the image of anybody who comes into view."
"Seriously, Winger, don't get your panties in a bunch." Chang turned the computer around. "These 'devices of authoritarian overreach' as you've called them may just have found our criminal."
"How did you know I said that? I only mentioned it to Hickey."
The image on the screen was a blurred picture of Jeff in his office. Jeff realized that from below his forehead looked even larger. "I can't believe the Dean would go along with Chang and his devices of authoritarian overreach in order to catch a guy who puts a quarter down your butt."
"Well, it's worked you snobbish over-dressed…" Chang's words trailed off.
The Dean continued, "We think we have our man, or men."
Chang queued up a video of what looked like medieval monks wandering around the gym. Each was in a robe and cowl, and they were chanting something Jeff couldn't quite understand.
"Wait a second. Jeff said. How did you get the cameras in there?
The Dean put a hand on Jeff's shoulder. "Jeffrey, I told them about our problem and asked them to shorten their robes to be more like, well, halter tops. They actually looked quite stylish."
Jeff grimaced. One of the figures on the video raised a woman in white over his head. Her body was unmoving. And then placed her down on what Jeff could only imagine was a sacrificial table.
"What in the heck is this?" Annie had come in the door and was standing behind Jeff with her mouth agape.
"You know how I rent out the school on the weekends and late at night." The Dean replied. "Mostly for raves or for churches. This group wanted to rent some room for their services. Now, looking at the video I probably should have done a little more research before letting a group called The Order of the Red Death use our space. But don't worry. The woman is OK."
"OK?" Jeff pulled Annie into the room and closed the door behind her.
Chang called out, "Quiet. The good part is coming up."
The four saw one of the hooded men raise a knife above his head. The camera view changed to the man who had raised the knife.
"I did a little editing for effect," Chang said.
And before the knife plunged down, there was a scream. And then another. And another. Until we saw a hooded figure approach the man with the knife and insert a small, flat, round object.
Chang froze the picture. "That's him." He smiled up at Jeff. "Now what do you think of the device of authoritarian overreach?"
Jeff squinted at the picture. "The same as I always have. They are useless except as an invasion of our privacy."
"Oh, Jeffrey."
"I can't make out who this is."
Chang flipped to the other cameras, and none of the images was clear enough to tell who the people were. But Jeff did have one answer.
"We now know there are three different people doing the crackings."
"Did I do good, Jeffrey?" The Dean asked.
Jeff said nothing.
It's A Trap
After the meeting, the Dean had announced a carnival for the next day. He had said it was in honor of the upcoming elections. He had named it Halter tops and Low Rise pants, explaining that this had been the traditional attire at the Constitutional Convention.
"It's the den of the Devil," Shirley said, waving an arm at the scantily clad attendees.
Hickey shrugged.
Annie and Jeff were not at the carnival but were hovering high above it in a balloon with spotting scopes and a walkie-talkie.
"Do you think this will work?" Annie looked up from her spotting scope and noticed Jeff's six-pack. The two were dressed in the halter tops in low rise pants despite not being at the carnival.
"I certainly hope so. I'm sick and tired of hunting this bandit every single year." Jeff saw an attractive moving toward the snack table. A hunched figure approached her from behind quickly. "There he is!" Jeff picked up a megaphone from the floor of the balloon basket. "Women with the red plaid shirt, jean shorts and great sticks. The Ass Crack Bandit is behind you."
The crowd erupted in a scream. People scattered. Security guards dived onto the man, slamming him into the ground. Jeff quickly lowered the balloon, which landed a few feet from the man on the ground.
"Did he have a quarter?" Annie asked.
"No, just these." The guard showed Annie a set of keys.
"I was just giving them back to her. She had dropped them out of her back pocket." The man's voice was muffled, since his face was pressed into the ground.
"Dammit." Jeff said. We may have now scared him off.
Then a shout came from the crowd. "I've been cracked!"
Then another.
"He's over there." Annie yelled. "Get him!"
Jeff and Annie darted toward the crowd. Two figures in mid-rift shirts with hoods and low rise shorts turned and ran. Annie and Jeff followed them across the campus and through North Cafeteria.
"It's a dead end down here." Annie shouted at Jeff. "We've got them."
When they entered the English Memorial Spanish Center, they saw nothing but an empty room.
"Where'd they go?"
Jeff shrugged. Then he saw that the ventilation shaft open slightly. "There." He opened the grates and ducked into it. Annie followed.
"Look," Annie said.
"What is it? Do you see them?"
"No, but I've found my pens! How did they get in here?"
Jeff pulled her away from the pens. "Come on. We're right behind them."
They took a number of lefts and rights, and even had to climb up once. That's when they came upon it. A room hidden deeply in the bowels of the school. The floor was covered in quarters.
The two hooded figures were in the middle of the room. And in a darkened corner-which Jeff thought was a little over-wrought as a plot device—sat another man.
"Winger."
Jeff and Annie stopped.
"So you've found me."
Jeff squinted. "Pierce?"
"Yes."
Annie stepped forward. "But you were dead."
"Ha! That's what I wanted you to think. Since nobody came to visit me after I graduated, I started planning my revenge. That's when I brought back the Ass Crack Bandit."
"You were the Ass Crack Bandit?" Annie shrieked.
"You bet your bottom, honey." Pierce laughed.
"But who is this?" Jeff stepped toward the hooded figures. He pulled the hood off one. "Abed?" The other figure took off his hood. "Troy?"
Annie slapped Troy. "We thought you were travelling the world with Lavar Burton."
"I was, but when we were off the coast of Honolulu, Pierce showed up. That's when he told me about the great history of the Ass Crack Bandits. They had been like Robin Hoods throughout the centuries."
"And he told me about it a few weeks ago." Abed said. "I figured: if it was good enough for Troy, it was good enough for me."
"Now who's the king of the study group, Jeff? You should have come to visit me once in a while," Pierce said.
This was when the security guards appeared in the ventilation shaft.. They shot tear gas and flash bombs into the room. With almost no place for air to escape, the room filled with smoke. Everything became pandemonium, and Jeff can see nothing. When they are finally pulled out, Jeff saw Troy, Abed and Pierce in handcuffs.
"Wait!" Jeff said. "This is crazy. All they did was stick some quarters in people's butts. You've got to let them go. We can't have all of this anger and hatred, and we need to let the City College transfers live in peace—especially since none of this was their fault."
Troy and Abed
Troy and Abed in Jail together," the two friends intoned.
Troy hung onto a bar with one hand and held a metal cup in his other. Abed reclined on the top bunk, rolling what looked like a cigarette. Something fell onto his orange jumpsuit. He wiped it off and returned to his rolling.
Troy tapped his cup on the bar. Tap. Tap-tap. Tap. Tap-tap.
Abed joined in with the sound of a beat box.
Jail." Troy said. "Big house."
Abed follows, "Sent up the river."
"We're shaking. We're crying."
"We're scared, so we shiver."
They hear the sound of a door outside their cell. And footsteps approach.
"I told you guys to knock it off," the voice growled. "And who told you that you could bring this stuff into the study room?" Jeff grabbed the bar out of Troy's hand and threw it onto the floor. "We need to use this space in a couple of hours for a meeting. Get t cleaned up before the Dean gets in here."
"Troy and Abed on work detail."
"Shut up." Jeff shouted.