Chapter 27: Oakmont's Twelve, Part 1
The noises from Clarice's door made their way quickly down the corridor, past the closet door, and through Melissa's ears right into her subconsciousness. Her eyes sprung open, and her mind took less than a second to switch from asleep to fully awake. 'Lookie who's leaving the nest,' she thought as she watched Clarice, Todd, and the Rescue Rangers leave the luxurious apartment. They all were dressed casually except for Dale who still wore his white tuxedo and Foxglove who didn't wear anything. Todd was taking his PDA with him, and the whole group carried an assortment of bags of different sizes. 'What's going on here?' Melissa wondered. 'And where are they heading with all these bags, let alone Todd's PDA?' She was quite certain that Clarice hadn't thrown an after-show party, at least not without inviting her or any other members of the orchestra. Or at least Armando. She took her violin case and followed the group, making sure they wouldn't see or hear her.
She tried hard to convince herself that there was a perfectly normal explanation for why Todd and the Rangers had spent so much time at Clarice's place. How much time it was she didn't know, nor why Dale was the last to be dressed up while everyone else was wearing their usual clothes, if any. But her optimism vanished more and more when she realized that they were not on any way out of the building, especially not the one leading to the main entrance. Instead, it seemed as if they were on their way down to the basement. With the safe distance between her and the Rangers and the rumbling of the wheels on Todd's PDA stand echoing through the hollows, she was unable to understand what they were talking about, and they weren't talking so much anyway.
The group had walked through many hallways and descended an impressive number of stairs which the Rangers wished they wouldn't have to climb up again with the diamonds when the path seemed to end in front of them where a metal wall blocked their way. Clarice announced, "Here is where we'll enter the air duct. I'll just remove this panel here, and we can proceed. I recommend someone to help Todd with his computer, for I suspect the humans might be able to hear it roll on the steel floor."
She was about to grab two small handles attached to the panel when someone far behind her shouted, "Okay, whatever you're doing here, you owe me an explanation now."
The whole team of eleven turned around and saw Melissa slowly approach them. "I might not know the maze of tunnels and air ducts in this building by heart like you do, Clarice," she said, "but I do know this is one of the waste air ducts for the basement, because we're below ground level now. Todd, what have you been fooled into?"
"I haven't been fooled into anything, Melissa," Todd began to explain, "I offered the Rescue Rangers to help them on this mission. And it was me, too, who requested help from..." He motioned into Clarice's direction with his head.
"Mission?! What are you guys heading for? Supply rooms? Staff rooms? Or what do they call that large chamber behind the steel door?"
Chip took over here. "I see we can't hide it from you anymore. Melissa, we, the Rescue Rangers, your friend Todd, and your boss Clarice, we're indeed on our way into the vault to retrieve fourteen gemstones which have been stolen two days ago, and which are now in the hands of a mad and dangerous scientist. This may sound unbelievable, but if we told you what sorts of cases we've gone through in the past almost nineteen years, I'm sure you wouldn't believe half of them, and not all, but many of them involved this crazy scientist who seemed to be commuting between lab, prison, and lunatics asylum."
"Is that true, Todd?"
"Every single word," Todd approved to her. "If you can't trust the Rescue Rangers, whom can you trust then?"
"And what are you doing here then? Half a year ago, you ran away from Clarice, and now you can't spend enough time at her side?"
This was something Clarice didn't expect. "Wait, what?"
Melissa stepped right up to the singer. "You don't know why he left? Hey, even I noticed."
Todd stood next to his PDA and stared at the mouse and the chipmunk. His heart was racing, and the fur on his hands was being soaked with the moisture that was escaping from his mouth. He didn't feel well at all, he even doubted he would be able to continue on the case. His best-hidden secret was about to be revealed to her whom it concerned the most. Clarice's calling him was the final proof. "Todd, can I talk with you in private?"
"Uh... mh..." He didn't say yes, but he didn't say no either. He didn't say anything really, but he knew there was nothing to say, and there was only one way to go, namely with Clarice. He had always wished a bit of privacy with her. He had always wanted to tell her how he felt. And now he was forced to tell her. Maybe it was the only way for him to quit waiting for the right moment and the right amount of courage, but a part of him preferred to tell her deliberately.
They walked back on their path until Melissa's and the Rangers' talking had faded away and they were safely out of earshot.
"Todd," Clarice finally asked with a calm voice, "what was it that made you leave the orchestra last year?"
"I... I couldn't stand it... any longer," Todd stammered.
"You couldn't stand what any longer?"
"Melissa pretty much already said it, I guess."
"But I want to hear it from you. Why did you leave?"
"I..."
"You? You what?" Clarice inquired, still calmly.
"I couldn't stand being around you much longer," he said quietly. Then it burst out of him. "At the rehearsals several hours every day, at the shows on weekends and special occasions, at planning meetings, you were always there. I always wanted to be near you, to see you, to hear your voice, I used to be happy when you were around, but it had gotten too much, it had become an overkill, it wasn't healthy at all anymore! I wanted to tell you, but I didn't know how, I didn't know when, and yes, I was afraid to tell you, I was afraid of how you'd react!"
"What did you want to tell me, Todd?"
"I... I... adore you. I'm crazy for you, I'm absolutely obsessed with you, I lo-"
Clarice interrupted him by placing a finger upon his mouth. "No, you don't."
Todd didn't say a word, not only because of Clarice's finger.
"I know what you want to say, Todd. You don't. Believe me."
Todd still didn't say a word. He felt like the way Clarice looked at him enabled her to see the contents of both his heart and his brains. What did she mean?
"Todd, I know the difference between obsession and love. Yes, I must admit, I learned it only yesterday, but I know it." She carefully took his hands. "And I hope you'll feel a lot better when you know that you do not love me. I'm not saying this because I'm the star of my own show, and you're just a musician in my orchestra. I'm not saying it either because I'm more than fifteen years older than you, or because we're two different species. I'm saying this because I want to help you sort out and quit mistaking your feelings."
"I don't... love... I've never been... all the time...?"
"There's much more to love than what you've been feeling. And trust me, the day will come when you'll experience real love, and when this love will be returned to you."
Todd stared at her again until she gave him a caring hug, a bit like a mother would hug her adult son, and as if to say, 'If you feel like thanking me now, you're welcome.' The way he hugged her back told her she wasn't too wrong.
Minutes passed before Clarice and Todd came back. Melissa who had been staring into their direction all the time asked, "Have you sorted things out?"
"Oh yes, we have," Clarice answered. Unseen by Todd, she gave Melissa a wink as she passed by.
In order to direct everyone's minds away from this incident, Todd immediately took up the casework again. He took a quick glance at his still running computer and read the time. "3:50 AM. There's just little time left to set up the video operation. Let's head on and get it done. Can someone please open the gate so that we don't lose more time?"
"Fer sure," Monty said. "Gimme a second." He grasped the handles on the panel firmly. As it refused to move backwards, he pulled it upwards instead. This did work, and so he quickly removed it from the secret entrance into the air duct. After all the others had passed through the hole, Clarice put the panel back into place by inserting it with the handles turned towards the air duct.
Carrying Todd's handheld device on both ends, the team of now twelve headed on to the air vent for the room in which the DVD recorders were mounted. In the other direction, light fell in from one air vent, and a radio was playing. "The guards are spending their time and watching the monitors in the room over there," Clarice explained.
Todd quickly pushed the grille open. It landed upon one of the 19" racks immediately below it. "The air grilles here are held in place by clips on the top side and hinges on the bottom side. Easy to open, easy to close, and you don't need any tools. The rack in question is the second-last one to the left, right opposite the door. The racks are closed all around, but you can enter them through the cable holes, and there's always a device mounted somewhere up high so you don't have to slide down the cables. The four recorders are labeled. I recommend climbing down the mounting rails on both sides of the rack, they've got hole patterns. Good luck."
Gadget and LaWahini exchanged glances as if to say, 'What was this now?' and entered the room. They ran and jumped from rack to rack until they reached the one opposite the door. The video racks were easily recognizable, they protruded ten inches to the front to create additional space for the cartridge turning machinery which, as they found out after they had entered the rack, consisted of a sled with a rotating cartridge holder, four vertical rails it ran on, and horizontal rails which allowed to move the sled and the vertical rails from the drives on the left to those on the right. The sled was parked at the bottom.
"See, LaWahini?" Gadget said. "All the drives on the right are currently recording, so the ones we're looking for are on the left."
"Alright, I'm gonna climb down first. I hope Todd was right, and the four recorders are mounted in a group."
"Remember that we need to turn the cartridges around first," Gadget reminded her, "otherwise we'd broadcast the program from 8 PM. We'd better hurry."
The two mice climbed down the rack rail, only being able to see thanks to the control LEDs and the light shining in through the glass pane in the door as the ceiling lights were not on. Halfway between ground and ceiling, LaWahini stopped. "Here they are. This one's the first."
"Good, then let's turn the cartridges around."
To Gadget's relief, the drives were mounted with a space between them to allow the air to circulate between the machines. She slipped into the gap between the recorder LaWahini had found and crept to the other side of the drive, near the middle of the device. "Attention, sister," she announced, "I'm opening the drive now."
She leaned over and pushed the eject button. With the whir of an electric motor, the drawer with the cartridge came out. It was close enough for LaWahini to get a hold on the cartridge with one hand.
"Okay, hold it up," Gadget ordered. LaWahini pushed the cartridge upward with one hand.
"And what now?" she asked.
"Toss it into my direction. I'll throw it upward, and so we'll flip it around."
"You're sure it'll work?"
"We'll see."
And indeed, it did work. Both mice worked together perfectly, cast the double-sided DVD-RAM cartridge into the air, and caught it safely before they laid it back onto the drawer and Gadget closed the drive again. "Come," she said, "we've got three more disks to turn."
The rest of the team stood up in the air duct, unaware of the twin sisters going ahead with the precision of a clockwork because they couldn't see them. Most of them only had eyes for the clock on Todd's PDA anyway which showed how the time was rapidly ticking away. Only Foxglove was listening to what was going on in the security staff room.
Meanwhile, Gadget and LaWahini were lying between two recorders each with all buttons within reach. All drives in the rack that were not recording suddenly switched to record and pause, controlled by a timer. "Press stop, LaWahini!" Gadget said. "And then get yourself ready, we'll soon have to start the playback."
"Roger Wilbury," LaWahini quoted her own sister. They both deactivated the record mode on all four drives.
"Alright, everyone," Foxglove alerted the others, "I can hear them leaving."
"Perfectly in time," Todd said. "In fact, even half a minute behind the schedule. Just to be sure, where are they going, Foxglove?"
The bat took off and flew to the illuminated air vent. "Away from us," she answered as she saw the two guards walk out into the hallway.
The Hackwrench sisters knew that it was 4 AM sharp when the drives farther above and below them started recording and those next to them stopped. "Now!" Gadget shouted. In sync and within only a few seconds, both mice bowed upward, started the drives above them, then turned around and did the same with those they were lying on.
"And now let's get lost before the guards arrive," LaWahini recommended.
"There," Foxglove shouted up in the air duct, "Gadget and LaWahini have started the playback. The monitors are back to their usual black."
"That means the cameras are safely overridden," Todd said. "Now let's hope they make it back up here in time. I'd like to have this grille back in place when the guards turn on the lights in there."
Foxglove joined the other team members in gathering at the air vent and waiting for Gadget and LaWahini to come out through the cable duct. It took them only little longer than a minute, but this time seemed like forever. Realizing how tight their time was, the twins sprinted over the other racks and leapt through the air vent into the arms of Chip and Tammy respectively who almost fell over backward.
"Quick," Todd shouted, "get away from the vent, the guards must be here any second!"
Moments after the others had removed themselves from the air vent and into less visible parts of the air duct, and Todd had shut the grille again, the lights went on. The white mouse remained standing at the very edge of the air vent and watched the two guards enter. "I hope these dimwits don't notice that four of the drives are playing back instead of recording."
