AN ICE SURPRISE

Job 5: Old Motions

Sly stretches, hoists his cane, and heads out into the cold. He bounces off a snowman to get to a higher rooftop—he doesn't feel like tangling with one of those seals today, though he still has to dodge the snowy owls and penguins up here—and makes his way towards the unblocked drainpipe. Thaddeus meets him there, still wearing his heavy clothes. "Are you going to be able to get through there?" Sly asks.

Thaddeus raises one eyebrow. "Because of my outfit, or because I'm old?"

Sly raises a matching eyebrow. "You're ancient history," he says, "literally. But no, it's the clothes. How do you expect to sneak like that?"

"Precisely the way I sneak without that," Thaddeus says. "Well. Do I need to go over that with you? Because it seems a basic skill to me."

Sly hmphs and crawls through the drainpipe without answering. Thaddeus follows. On the other side, Sly pulls out his binoc-u-com.

"Did you just get out-sassed by an octogenarian?" Bentley asks.

"Since when do you use the word 'sassed'?" Sly snaps back.

"It seemed more fitting, with his time period," Bentley says, and Sly all but growls. Thaddeus emerges from the tunnel, brushes dust off his coat, and pulls out his own binoc-u-com. "Right. Your objective is to get into that building—"

"Morty, the robot penguin's headquarters," Thaddeus says promptly. He leans heavier on his cane.

"Yeah, about that... how do you know the penguin's name?"

"He told me," Thaddeus says. "I'm also certain he's from my time; Morty never liked me."

Sly bites back a laugh. Bentley groans and rubs his hand across his face. "I highly doubt the robots designed in this time period in order to feature cops to catch criminals have anyone from your time."

"But Morty was a cop himself," says Thaddeus.

Bentley closes his eyes and looks like he's begging for strength. "Not the point. Look, you two, we need information. Thaddeus, you need to get both of you in there. Sly'll be the thief; you're the undercover."

Bentley closes the binoc-u-com line before either Cooper can get any more sass (heh) in. Sly turns toward Thaddeus and bows. "Age before beauty," he says.

"If that's the case, I should go first and last, but I'll let it slide this time," Thaddeus says, and leads the way.

Once inside, Sly nods at Thaddeus. "I'll shadow you. Give me a signal once you're in position."

"Certainly," says Thaddeus.

Sly moves somewhere, and play returns to Thaddeus. "Okay, the first thing you need to do is get inside, uh, Morty's headquarters," Bentley says; there's a waypoint over the door. "Some of the rooms in there are particularly well guarded. I need you to convince the guards in front of them to go somewhere else, then pose as them so Sly can investigate."

"I'm sure that won't be a problem," Thaddeus says, making his way towards the building. "And if I forget the password—not that it's likely, there's only one—I can always check it by bringing up the gadget menu with the select button."

The front door to the building is unguarded. Thaddeus lets himself in, closing the door behind him. Then he turns to survey the hallway, which... hmmm.

Okay, the front door was unlocked, but there's a door midway down the hall that has a round dial lock on it. Little bit of misplaced security there, but okay. Thaddeus cracks it, moving the knob this way and that until the tumblers rumble into place, then pushes open the door.

The hallway is full of motion detectors. They move down the ceiling on conveyor belts, scanning the area, then disappear into the ceiling. A snoring guard sits by a door at the far end; a staircase is just beside him and the door, leading upwards. Thaddeus groans out loud. "Really, this does nothing but make sure I move slowly."

"Then get on with it," Bentley says in Thaddeus's ear.

Thaddeus does. Moves forward, then waits for the glowing section of motion detector to pass overhead. Moves forward, then waits. At least he only has to do it three times before reaching the guard sleeping at the door.

Thaddeus, being Thaddeus, slams his cane on the ground and startles the guard awake. "What's the compound password?" he bellows into the penguin's face.

The penguin fumbles and drops his flashlight. "X, X, X, triangle, uh, sir."

"And what were you doing?" Thaddeus uses the hook of his cane to tilt the guard's head down, until he's looking Thaddeus in the eye.

"S-sleeping, sir."

"I was told to relieve you," Thaddeus says, "but maybe I'll just go to the commander and—"

"No! No, sir, please!" The guard actually starts to cry. He leaves his flashlight on the ground and runs for it, bawling.

Thaddeus crosses his arms and smiles as Sly makes his way forward. "What did you do?"

"Perhaps I gave him flashbacks to the military, although he'd never have made it through training." Thaddeus tilts his head at the door behind him. "Don't you have a task?"

Sly shakes his head and walks into the room. "Okay, Bentley, what am I looking for?"

"See that safe? I need the information inside it. To get at it, you're going to have to cross the, uh, room."

'Uh, room' is an accurate description. To start with, it may not have a floor. Lasers, sure. Ledges, definitely. Motion detectors, of course. And plenty of ropes stretched in weird ways. All of which conspire to make the safe at the far side of it a tiny bit of a challenge to reach.

Or a challenge for other people to reach, anyway. Sly takes to it like a kid on a playground. He runs along ropes, ducks under or jumps over lasers, shimmies along ledges, and avoids the motion detectors (they're all the lethal sort, anyway). At the far side of the room, as Bentley mentioned, is a safe; Sly kneels to open it, working through the lock with slow turns of—I kid. Sly spins the lock like a merry-go-round and gets it open in a blink, because he's trying to show off.

Maybe Thaddeus is getting to him.

In any case, Sly reaches inside and retrieves a pile of papers. "This what you want, Bentley?"

"Yep. I don't know which safe, but at least one of them has to have information on where these statues are being shipped. Head for the next safe; I'll look it over when you get back."

Sounds like a plan. Sly shoves the file in his leg pouch and makes his way through the room again, knocking twice on the door when he reaches it. "All clear," Thaddeus says.

Sly comes out and dusts off his jacket. "Ready for another go?"

"Of course," Thaddeus says. "I always am. You go off and amuse yourself."

Sly walks away to do who-knows what, and Thaddeus walks up the stairs to another hall. There's motion detectors again, and a guard, who is very much NOT asleep and instead walking two feet away from the door, pausing, glancing around, and then back in front of the door every few seconds. His pocket noticeably gleams. Also, the door has the largest lock in the history of locks on it.

"You're going to have to sneak up on that guard and pick-pocket the key before he sees you," Bentley says. "Could be tricky to time it around the motion detectors."

"Ah, but there's a decorative pillar by the door, Bentley," says Thaddeus. "I need to sneak past him, then use the pillar to wait for my opportunity. It won't be a problem."

Bentley humphs, but lets Thaddeus get on with it. And 'get on with it' Thaddeus does, timing himself through the motion sensors and restless guard, helping himself to the contents of the guard's pocket, retrieving the key, opening the wallet, tutting over the contents, slipping a few coins inside, and returning the wallet.

Then he steps into the light of the guard's flashlight. "You! What's the compound password?"

"X X X Triangle," Thaddeus says, sounding almost bored.

"That's it." The guard yawns and scratches his bum. "Couldn't we be stationed somewhere warmer?"

"I thought you were used to it?"

"Doesn't matter what you're bred for, no one ever gets used to these rotten temperatures." The penguin scratches himself again, belches, and wanders down the hallway. Thaddeus sighs and shakes his head.

Sly drops down from the ceiling. "That seemed to go well."

Thaddeus undoes the lock. "The manners of these guards are deplorable."

"Yeah, well, it's about average for guards in the modern day," Sly says. "You get used to it."

"I shall do no such thing," Thaddeus says, and opens the door with a bow.

Sly slips into the room and glances around. Ceiling fans swing lazily, motion detectors hanging from them, casting sections of the room in death's purple glow. There are fewer ropes in this room, more lasers—horizontal ones, good for sliding on if he can avoid the motion detectors. And there's a floor this time. Sort of.

I mean, if you can call dozens of conveyor belts, moving in four different directions, a floor. "It looks like if you hold still on the conveyor belts, the motion detectors won't notice you," Bentley says in Sly's ear. "Be careful, buddy."

Good advice. Staying on conveyor belts will keep him safe from the motion detectors, but slam him straight into some lasers. Getting through here will require timing and finesse. Naturally, Sly jumps and skips and slides through it, giggling like a child. He holds still on the conveyor belts when he has to, of course, and he makes his way around and on the lasers with style, because he's a professional.

And a show-off. Can't forget that.

When he reaches the end at last, another locked safe awaits him. This one requires a lighter touch on the spinner; he resets it once by mistake after going just a hair too far. Still, soon enough he's retrieved the file and made his way back through the room.

Thaddeus stands at attention there, turns to Sly, and demands, "What's the compound password?"

"You can't be serious."

"How else am I to know you're truly a member of this organization? What if that guard came back, and I was speaking with them?"

"Then Bentley would've warned me," Sly mutters, but tells Thaddeus the password anyway.

"Very good," Thaddeus says. "Remember, Sly: the unexpected happens. You must always be prepared, in case Bentley misses something."

As Sly walks away and play returns to Thaddeus, Bentley mutters, "That's not going to happen."

Thaddeus chuckles, but doesn't respond. Instead, he goes down the corridor and around the corner, to see what new challenge awaits him.

Two guards—both alert, facing different directions. A double-locked door. Two motion detectors, swinging lazily on ceiling fans. And a conveniently climbable pole to the ceiling.

Too easy. Thaddeus may be old, but he's been stealing for longer than Sly's been alive. Climb up, a couple jumps, drop down between the guards to pick-pocket their keys...

and then Thaddeus straightens up and all but bellows, "I see standards for paying attention have fallen. WHAT'S THE COMPOUND PASSWORD?!"

I'm pretty sure one guard wets himself. The other stammers out the password. Then both turn and run. Thaddeus stares after them, shaking his head. "How is this the standard for guards now?"

Sly materializes and puts a hand on his shoulder. "You get used to it."

"No," Thaddeus says, opening the locks for Sly. "No, I don't think I will."

Sly rolls his eyes and walks past Thaddeus, into the third room, and glances around. What a surprise. There are MORE MOTION DETECTORS. And lasers. And—ya know what, you've seen it all before, haven't you? Because it's a lot like before, but harder. Someone got a bulk buyer's discount on the things.

Sly bounds across it like a playground. Lasers? Motion detectors? Fans? Conveyor belts? None of that matters—or rather, none of that stops him as he moves forward. WHEE!

All too soon, Sly's across the room, fiddling with the last safe. He retrieves a wad of papers. "That should do it," says Bentley in his ear. "Come on back to the safe-house. And tell Thaddeus to stop harassing the guards."

JOB COMPLETE

Sly emerges into the hallway and immediately spits out the password, to Thaddeus's approval.