SLINGING THROUGH THE TREES
Job 7: Alarming Developments
Murray leaves through the front door of the safe-house and takes to the streets. On the roofs overhead, flying squirrels patrol in endless circles; occasionally a barn owl flutters between rooftops, or jumps from a high elevation to a lower one, or the other way around. The antelopes' hooves don't exactly clop on the muddy paths, but they make enough noise for Murray to dodge them even if they didn't have flashlights bright as the sun.
It doesn't seem to matter where or when, guards are just so bad at guarding things.
Murray reaches the waypoint at last: a spot across one street from the covered bridge, on a rooftop. Two flashlight guards patrol along the bridge itself, seen leaving either end and pausing to inspect the area before turning to walk back in; a third guard walks on the rounded roof, keeping an eye on everything.
Carmelita bounds up to the roof beside him and nods. "I'm so glad bridges are public property," Carmelita says, leaning against a chimney. "I got Sly and I an all-purpose warrant to poke our noses into things here generally, but we still can't enter private residences."
Murray pulls a candy bar out of his pocket and bites it in half. "I'm just glad you're not trying to arrest us anymore," Murray says. "It's nice having you along for help. We make an awesome team."
Carmelita grins. "We do, don't we?" she asks, pulling away from the chimney. She reaches out and gives Murray's sleeve a friendly tug. "But don't push it. I'll still throw the lot of you in jail if you go after people that aren't Interpol targets again."
They never did it often to begin with, but Murray just finishes his candy bar and nods. "Stealing's fun, but so is the wrestling circuit. And fixing cars, and loads of stuff! But I've gotta be there for Sly and Bentley, and this is pretty awesome."
Carmelita nods once and stretches. "All right. Think Bentley's ready to give us our job now?"
"He said he'd be ready as soon as he finished talking to Tennessee."
"Talking to him is its own trial," says Bentley's grumpy voice in their ears. Both of them take out their binoc-u-com's; Bentley's looking like he wished he had hair to pull out. "The two of you will be largely on your own; I'm gonna have to baby-sit him. He has no idea how to handle the modern world."
"Well, why would he?" asks Murray.
Bentley lets out a long-suffering sigh. "The bridge has five supports leading down into the water," Bentley says. "The bridge itself has hatches in the bottom of it for repairing each of them. One of them—I can't tell which from here—is secretly a transformer and providing much of this village's security."
"Bentley, I've been an Interpol officer for over ten years, but I don't have experience as an electrician," interrupts Carmelita.
Bentley removes his glasses and rubs his eyes. "You shouldn't need it. I don't know which support it is, but if you fry each of the supports with enough electricity, then it'll overload the transformer and won't destroy the bridge. Carmelita, that's you. While you're in there, you won't be able to defend yourself, and the guards are sure to come running. Murray, you need to keep them off her back."
"Sounds like a job for... The Murray."
"Frying the transformer may lead to some additional work," Bentley adds, "but we'll deal with that once we've completed stage one. Oh, for—sorry, Tennessee needs me agin."
Bentley's picture switches off, and the two of them put their binoc-u-com's away and grin at each other. "You ready for a brawl?" asks Carmelita.
"Totally!" Murray pounds one fist into the other hand. "Don't you worry about a thing."
"I'm counting on it."
With that, the two of them get to work. Murray leads the way. Now, ideally, they could slip into the covered bridge softly and not attract any attention, waiting until both guards have turned their backs to have Carmelita slip down the first trapdoor into a crawl space and start spamming her shock pistol like she's trying to wear down its battery, with Murray only doing anything if the guards get suspicious and go check.
Instead, Murray barrels in with all the subtlety of a train in Prague, punches one antelope so hard it flies into the other, and roars, "COME AND GET SOME, PUNKS!"
Carmelita snickers as Murray stomps the ground, wrenching the trapdoor off and into his hands, and throws it at the next investigator. "I have nothing to worry about," she says as she slips inside.
Indeed, she doesn't. Gameplay wise, I can't tell if this is one of those missions where everything is on a timer or a guard counter. I know in some past missions things would progress based on the number of guards you kill; however, for this one, it seems like each trapdoor takes Carmelita the same amount of time to investigate no matter how many guards Murray bullies. Perhaps if Murray hadn't gone barrelling in, they could have done it all by sneak, with more and more guards called to investigate the strange noises and look around and Murray would've had to cause distractions so they'd look away when Carmelita got in and out. But because it's Murray, there's merely a thicker crowd of guards to pummel every time Carmelita moves on.
At last, Carmelita finishes with the bridge and Murray pummels the last guard and the two flee the scene, running at full speed back to the rooftop. Carmelita's giggling when they get there, which is downright disturbing. "I feel like such a criminal," she confesses through the laughter. "Look at me, running away!"
Murray laughs. "Well, you can't exactly read them their rights when you're undercover like this," he says. "Remember?"
"Yeah, I remember." Carmelita covers her mouth with one hand, her tail whisking behind her. "Still. It's... is there supposed to be a little thrill from doing things that are, you know, wrong?"
"Only when they're the best sort of wrong!" Murray pounds one fist into the other palm.
A light cough over their maskpieces gets their attention. The two of them pull out their binoc-u-coms and find Bentley watching them, his arms crossed. "I take it the bridge was a success?"
"Completely," Carmelita says.
"It was awesome!" Murray roars.
"Swell, because you're not quite done. The transformer was powering some sort of force field; with it down, we can take down the alarms. I've marked them with waypoints for you, Carmelita."
"What do I get to do?" asks Murray.
"When Carmelita starts destroying the alarms, the guards will be on her. Unless, of course, most of them are already... occupied." Bentley's grin conveys volumes. "Feel like starting a distraction?"
"Oh yeah! I am ALL OVER that!"
"Swell, because Tennessee—" Bentley stops and sighs, running a hand down his face. "I have to go deal with him again."
They put their binoc-u-coms away. Play switches to Carmelita as Murray gives her a happy wave and takes off; Carmelita pings her waypoints.
Five alarms, scattered widely about the area. The first isn't too far from there; Carmelita makes her way towards it and shoots.
It starts blaring. And moving, up and down on the tree it's attached to. It takes three shots and some good timing (and incapacitating two guards) to take care of it. Four to go.
For a crackshot like Carmelita, this isn't very difficult. Moving around the area, finding locations to shoot from. One alarm she manages to take out without any guards even figuring out where she's shooting from, which is a plus. And they always take three shots to take out, and start moving after the first shot.
In short, it's just a regular day on patrol for Carmelita. And she treats it as such.
JOB COMPLETE
Carmelita hoists her shock pistol in the air, seeming rather disinterested, then shoves it in its holster and heads back to the safe-house.