Chapter 3: Casing The Place
"Are you serious?" Rogue asked of Remy that next morning, she found him out on the precipice, sitting right on the edge, smoking a cigarette – since he was forbidden to smoke in the research centre.
"About?"
"What you told me last night?" Rogue asked quietly, she stepped over and sat beside him carefully, looking down at the great height, knowing if either of them should slip, a quick fall could be their doom.
"Hmmm?" Remy asked distractedly, he was writing in a notebook, Rogue noted that his writing was in French.
"About…y'know…breaking in," she kept her voice low.
Remy continued writing, "hold on…"
"What are you writing there?" Rogue leaned over, looking at the pages, she didn't understand much French, and for that matter, didn't understand what he was writing.
"Notes," Remy closed the book, "and to answer your question, yes, I am serious," he shoved the notebook into the backpack he'd brought with him, "gonna take a few days to prepare, can't do a job like this all of a sudden. Gotta be detailed as possible – a lot could go wrong," He looked thoughtful.
"What good is breaking into the place?" Rogue asked, "what's it going to prove?"
"It proves their intelligence," Remy smirked a little.
Rogue raised an eyebrow, "I don't understand."
"I need to know exactly what kind of intelligence I'm dealing with here…"
"How exactly?"
"By the difficulty of the job," Remy took a long drag of his cigarette, "the harder it is, and the more trouble I have with it, the more likely we're lookin' at someone who's either very clever or at least someone who has access to everything through their job," he explained.
"So…how do you plan to break in?"
Remy glanced around nervously, then pulled something out of his bag, it was a Superman comic.
"You're going to get Clark Kent to do it for you?" Rogue mused.
"No," Remy made a face at her, he opened the comic to the middle pages, stapled inside was a black and white photocopy of the layouts from the research centre. "I stole this," he explained, "Moira doesn't know – and its best that way, gives me an idea how someone else might have found ways to do it…" he explained.
"Okay, so what am I looking at?" Rogue asked.
"Way I see it, the only real way to get past at least three secured doors – without being seen – is through these air vents," Remy stated.
"Are you kidding me? Remy, those air vents can't be that big."
"They're decent sized, I might fit, the passage ways probably about three by three, give or take. I haven't exactly measured out the insides of the passages yet," he shrugged.
"Is this it here?" Rogue pointed to the map, noting a U-shaped bend in the air vent passageways hidden beneath the floors and behind walls.
"Yeah," Remy nodded.
"Jesus Christ, Remy, how the fuck are you going to bend your body enough to get through this section," she gestured to the bend.
"You'd be surprised at all the several different ways I can bend my body – and you'll be thoroughly – and I must say pleasantly – impressed when you see I can do it," he smirked.
"I always figured when I got to see you bend your body in shapes like that, it wouldn't be in an air duct passage way," Rogue made a face.
Remy laughed softly, "now now, don't distract me with thoughts like that," he nudged her playfully, "keep me focused," he smiled a little. "Way I see it, I'm gonna have to do this really sneaky, to get from one side of the building to another through this air vent and gettin' out at the other side past all the alarmed doors."
"How are you gonna do it?" Rogue queried.
Remy slid his arm around Rogue's shoulders, bringing her so she was leaning a little more over the map, "Okay, I enter the air vent through the security room in the basement – right here," he explained, pointing at the map area, "the security guard – Michael – takes a fifteen minute break at 3am exactly to go make a pot of coffee, this is when I sneak in…" he gestured to the air vent entry point, he'd marked it off in red felt pen. "Now, before I get into the entry way, I have to swap over three video tapes in the recorders, with three identical recordings from the night before," he explained, "this means that unknown to him, the Security guy gonna be watchin a video of nothing happening, while in reality, the camera would have been pickin' up me comin' out of the air vent at the other side.
Rogue nodded, understanding, "so what are these blue dots here," she gestured to the map.
"Those are the two remaining security doors," Remy stated, "the first once I can easily get past, it's a simple lock, I have my trusty lock picking kit with me at all times," he explained, "the last one, the one leading into the lab, is the one that requires the most work,"he sighed.
"What's tough about that one?"
"A security panel, needs an authorisation card and a code, but if I use my authorisation card to get past, it will log me down. So whoever has been breaking in has found some way of getting past it. My method will be destructive but hopefully easy to mend before I leave."
"How?" Rogue queried.
"I know a little bit about the wiring on electronic security to get by, cutting and twisting a few wires together here and there might be enough to get me past…"
"You're gonna go to all this trouble just to see what you're dealing with?"
"Yes," Remy responded, "It'll give me an idea of what needs to be secured and where the weak points are."
"You already know where the weak points are if you have all this planned," Rogue pointed out.
"Not quite," he assured, "Not until I've at either succeeded or failed in breaking in," he admitted.
Rogue looked at him, "are you breaking in from the outside?"
"Yes," Remy said, "that part is easy, I've done it before," he said. "There's this drainpipe, can shimmy up to the roof up it," he shrugged, "outside perimeters of the Research centre are totally neglected by security. I'll get up there no problem."
"What then?" Rogue asked.
Remy looked at her, his eyes burning deep into hers, "I pick a padlocked hatch on the roof, and bingo, I'm in," he stated.
"But that doesn't get you to the basement," Rogue pointed out, she gestured to the map.
Remy smirked, "But it does me near the staircase leading down three floors and into the basement," he explained, he gestured to the map, "this here is the staircase nearest the security room – the one the security guard conveniently uses to head up to the kitchen to make coffee…" he explained. "Now here," Remy gestured to another staircase marked off on the map, "is where I will be coming down…then I'm into the security room."
"How long is this going to take you?" Rogue queried.
Remy paused for thought, "okay, lets see…I leave at about 2.50am and start for the roof, it won't take long to get up there, get down there and at the bottom of the stairs, waiting for the guard to leave the security room at 3am, to go up the other stairs," Remy said. "By 3.10 I should hopefully have changed the tapes over, and have made my way into the passages. That's where it gets complicated."
"How so?"
"It can take some time to get through passages like that, its about movin' in the right way. But the guard gonna be sittin' watching videos of the night before on the monitor without even realising it, doesn't matter how long I take to get past the three doors through the passages – or how long I take to get the chemicals out of there – I'm gonna be using empty bottles of water instead of chemicals though," he pointed out.
"Alright…" Rogue nodded.
"Only leaves one problem," Remy made a face, "gettin' out again."
Rogue looked at him, "why?"
"The only way back out is the way I came…" he explained, "so before I leave the scene of the crime, I need to deliberately set one of the alarms off and make a break for it. This mean that the security guard will go to investigate, and I can get out – however, I gotta be fast in getting all the way back down to the basement through the passage, which is going to be extremely difficult. Once I'm out, switch the tapes back, put them on record, and rush for the stairs, and out. And bingo, I'm done."
"And when is this all goin' on?"
Remy grinned, "Tonight, I guess."
Rogue looked at him, smirking a bit.
"What's so amusing?" he asked of her.
Rogue chewed her lip, "I don't know, just seein' you so passionate about something…it's kinda sexy."
Remy smirked, "Bein' bad usually is."