Nick felt bad making the team work overtime, but he really didn't have much of a choice. If he let the ZPD rest between hits, then they would be more well rested and prepared for the next time that he needed to attack. He had gotten the call from Judy saying that she wasn't going to be able to make it home tonight and he'd heard the sadness in her voice. Walking towards the headquarters of Santiago's real estate firm he mused quietly to himself, his shadow dramatically stretching towards the skyscraper under the streetlights.
"Don't worry Judy. This will all be over soon."
He walked to the building dressed as a janitor for the night shift, a fake keycard in paw that Mabel had specially prepared for this evening. She was once again back home making sure his kits were asleep while sitting at the dining room table with her laptop. His baseball cap obscured his face well enough, but he couldn't help but feel more than a little exposed. This entire operation had to be the riskiest thing that he had ever done in his whole life. Walking towards the front desk he tipped his hat and headed for the turnstiles. Swiping the suspiciously blank card he waited one breathless moment for the turnstile to unlock and for him to be let in. The light turned green and he walked through, pretty as could be.
Getting in the elevator he quickly checked for camera's before opening his backpack and letting Finnick out, who was also wearing a janitor's outfit. They exited onto one of the floors that Nick knew was used by Santiago's legal staff, the words 'Legal Department' giving him confidence that he was indeed in the right place.
Stepping out of the elevator he went straight to the janitor's closet that was at one end of the hall and once again swiped the keycard. Mabel had told him that it was in fact a universal keycard, something which in theory could open any door in the building that was locked with a card reader. He had decided to limit its use for the time being though, figuring that it would be more than a little suspicious if a janitor were to just randomly walk into boss's office to do some impromptu cleaning. Taking out a mop and spray bottle from the closest Nick started to go from desk to desk as Finnick now did the same, looking for any computer that was still on.
It didn't take too long for him to find one at the end of a row of cubicles. He looked to one side of the little office and saw that they had a Gazelle calendar with the night's date circled. Apparently, they had been in a rather large hurry to get to a concert. Nick now took out the phone and plugged it into the computer that was still logged on. Within seconds he could hear Mabel's slightly impatient voice on the other end.
"Took you long enough."
"Thanks, but a Janitor running over to the nearest computer doesn't exactly look normal now does it."
"Fair enough. Alright, I'm breaking into their files. Just give me a few minutes while I look to see if I can find anything good."
"Great." Nick paused as he seemed to remember something important. "Whiz, don't delete all the security footage when we're done. Leave the camera's to Santiago's office alone."
"Uh… Sure… Why?"
"It's a surprise!"
"Whatever."
Nick went back to cleaning, trying his best to look natural as Mabel busted through various walls of digital security like the virtual juggernaut that she was. He couldn't shake the feeling though that something felt off, that he was being watched. Meanwhile, in the security control room near the base of the building a kangaroo stood near the back watching all of the monitors, his thick Australian accent cutting through the silence.
"Odd. Hey mates, do we have any foxes on the night shift cleaning crew?" One of the security guards looked up at him blurry eyed.
"Let me check," the guard pulled up the roster of the night's cleaning crew and then flipped through the camera's checking each of them. Pausing when he got to the two foxes who cleaning in the legal department. "Huh, yeah I don't know who those two are."
"Well then, it seems that we have some uninvited guests. Call the coppers, I'm going to give them a warm welcome." The kangaroo adjusted his hat sharply and headed for the elevators.
Nick heard Mabel's voice call to him from his phone.
"Rogue, we've got a problem. It seems that somebody has called the cops." Nick threw his paws up.
"Great! I was hoping that it would take them, you know, a bit longer to figure this out but I guess that's not happening. Bandit, take off the janitor's uniform, change of plans." Finnick took off the janitor's clothes revealing the black robes underneath and began to put on his mask.
"Does anything ever go according to plan for us?" The doors to the elevator swung open and the kangaroo came bounding towards him.
"Apparently not. Duck!"
Crowley leaped over them before coming to a skidding stop and turning around. Nick had forgotten just how big kangaroos were, and thus hunkered down slightly panicked. Finnick came towards the kangaroo with a chair over his head ready to swing at the big guy. The kangaroo simply turned around and kicked the chair out of his hands and to the other side of the room before putting up his paws in a boxing stance.
"G'day mates! Been looking to pick a fight with you for over a week now!" Nick called out loud enough for Mabel to hear.
"You got what you need?"
"Yup."
"Great!" Turning towards the kangaroo as he grabbed the phone, "nice meeting you too!"
So nick and Finnick are on opposite sides of Crowley. Either nick/finnick ducks Crowley or Finnick runs around Crowley in order for the next part to occur
Nick picked up Finnick and started sprinting away from the Kangaroo and towards the other end of the law office, knocking over filing cabinets and chairs as he pushed towards the stairs. Finnick, who was being held under Nick's arm reached into a bag and pulled out a what appeared to be a stick of dynamite and lit the fuse. The kangaroo bounded up the hall behind them and jumped over them again, blocking their path to the stairway. Finnick brandished the stick of dynamite in the air as Nick came to a stop.
"Ha! You're going to blow yourself up instead of being captured? I like your style mate!" Finnick gave a small laugh.
"No man, but you might want to cover your ears."
Finnick threw the enormous firecracker towards the kangaroo, where it detonated just in front of him causing an ear shattering bang. Nick and Finnick had both folded back and covered their ears though, leaving them feeling less disoriented than Crowley. Nick headed towards the stairs, sliding under Crowley and smashed the door handle to start heading up the stairs, jamming the door by sticking a chair between the door and the stairwells railing as he closed it. Nick now started to run up the stairs as fast as he could. Cops entering the stairwell from below could be heard shouting to each other as he continued up.
Nick passed the phone to Finnick, motioning for him try and organize something with Mabel.
"Whiz, we're heading towards the roof as planned. Any chance that we can lock the door behind us when we get up there?"
"Done and done. Anything else?"
"Yeah. How exactly are we getting off the roof? No one has told me anything about that."
"Oh well you see that's because Nick told me that you're afraid of heights and"
The roof door access was in sight, but Nick suddenly stopped and looked at the door next to him on the floor just below. Setting Finnick down he lined up a kick and smashed into the door, knocking it open. Finnick was more than a bit annoyed at yet another change in plans.
"Rogue! What are you doing? The roof is that way!"
"Just stay there, I need to grab something. Well, assuming that it's here anyway."
Nick ignored Finnick's protests as he moved into the empty office. It was exactly as he had expected it to be. Expensive, tasteful, but exuding that sense of power and grace he had come to expect from Santiago. Getting over to the large wooden and glass desk he looked around for any sign of the item that he was looking for. Not seeing it on the desk he tried to open one of its drawers, only to find that they were locked.
"I really don't have time for this."
Nick took out the last stick of dynamite that he had from the demolition site and tapped it to the bottom inside of the desk where Santiago's legs would normally be. Stepping back behind a corner he detonated the stick and then rushed in to inspect in the wreckage of the desk. Off to one side of the room, one of the drawers had been shot out and was now laying on its side with most of the contents still inside. He casually glanced through the contents and found what he was looking for beneath the random files and expensive looking pens. Taking the black leather book he took out a plastic bag and stuffed it inside. Finnick was now more than a little irate at the situation.
"Rogue!"
"I'm coming! Let's go!" Mabel's voice cut in between their shouts.
"Rogue what are you doing? The police are only five floors below you!"
She was cutoff as Nick got to the roof access door and took out his keycard to unlock it. He was sweating and was out of breath as he swiped the car and heard the door unlock. Getting out through the door he slammed it shut behind him and walked out towards the edge of the roof. Looking down he could see the cop cars surrounding the building. Not wasting any time, he set Finnick down and reached into the bag to grab two things, a front facing baby carrier and a parachute.
"Bandit, help me with this will you?"
"Oh no! We're not jumping off this building!"
"We don't really have a choice right now. Now stop arguing and help me with these straps."
Finnick stopped complaining and helped Nick get into the straps before Nick grabbed him and secured him in the baby harness. Finnick took one look over the side of the building before moving to cover his eyes with his large ears.
"Hey Rogue, I decided that I would rather take my chances with the cops okay?"
"And risk you telling Judy everything? Not likely."
The cops had apparently reached the door to the roof that they had just came through as he heard the sound of the larger cops smashing into it. Illuminating him from above Nick shielded his eyes as a bright searchlight from a helicopter shown down on him. Running towards the edge of the roof he leapt off into the night, waiting a few seconds before he pulled the chute. The light from the helicopters were still on him though as he began his graceful decent away from the office building. He turned around to get one last look at his latest target.
"Ha! Check that out Bandit!" On the side of the building the symbol of the tragic pack had been mapped out in all of its low resolution glory. "Looks like the whiz had a bit of spare time on her hooves."
Finnick was too busy covering his eyes to notice anything that was going on around them. He did however have some rather sage words regarding their current situation.
"Nick I can hear helicopters and I know that they can see us. So. How are we going to get back to the warehouse without being followed this time?"
"Don't worry, Boris has a surprise waiting for us in the river."
"The river? Aw man. I hate water."
They drifted down towards the river where Nick had remembered that Boris said he would be waiting. Sitting next to a pleasure boat pier, a large black motor boat came out towards the middle of the river, matching their speed and direction. Nick aimed carefully with the parachute for the boat landing in a manner that was almost graceful, though would be accurately described as crashing with style. Boris punched the power as Nick landed and Finnick freed himself from the constraints of the baby carrier before taking stock of the situation.
"Great! We're on a boat, in a river with two helicopters following us! How is this supposed to help us get away again!?" Boris spoke without turning around, picking up a SCUBA respirator and handing two to Nick.
"Is not boat. Is submarine." Boris clamped down on his respirator and Nick did the same before pushing the third into Finnick's mouth.
As they approached a bridge the water level in the boat began to rise and a hiss could be heard from a series of darkly painted SCUBA tanks that were arranged along the side of the boat. Once under the bridge and out of the choppers spotlights, Boris pulled a different lever and the boat slid under the water completely. Nick looked up from under the water at the searchlights above, amused as they moved back and forth trying to find the suddenly missing boat. Under the water the boat couldn't move nearly as fast, but it wasn't more than a half hour before they arrived back at the warehouse. The boat pulled up under the part of the warehouse that extended over the water and into the bay. Boris adjusted the buoyancy of the submarine and brought it back to the surface before attaching some cables to it and signaling to Ming to bring it up into the warehouse on a modified shop crane.
Finnick stepped out of the boat looking more than a little frazzled and looked at Nick with daggers in his eyes.
"When were you planning on telling me that not only were we going to be jumping off of a building tonight, but also throw ourselves into a river?" Nick took off his mask and shook off some of the water.
"To be honest? Exactly when I did. Figured that you wouldn't exactly be thrilled." Finnick began to stalk away angrily.
"Yeah well you know what? You pull something like that again and I'm through!"
"Hopefully, we won't have to. I'm hoping that we collected enough information here to make the whole city stop for a day. With a little luck, in the thousands of emails that we just stole, there will be one that holds undeniable proof that our Santiago, aka, Julio is directly involved in corruption."
"Good! I was getting tired these late nights anyway." Nick held the mask in his hands as he examined it.
"Yeah. You and me both buddy," Nick looked at his phone and noticed the time, "nuts. I got to get back home and start making breakfast. The girls have their big recital today. But first, is anyone going to drink that pot of coffee?"
Nick didn't wait for an answer as he went over to the coffee pot and proceeded to drink it one go. With that boost, he was now ready to start yet another day without adequate sleep.
