HEART, AND EAR, AND EYE
Job 2: Stealing the Shot
Sly makes his way across the rooftops to the job start location. He pulls out his binoc-u-com. "All right, Bentley, what are the odd jobs I have to do?" Sly sounds like doing legal work while on the job is as bad as trying to get Murray to eat broccoli.
"This section of the city still uses old fashioned lamps. Lamplighters go around lighting them at dusk. I've gotten you a temporary job doing so."
"Seriously?"
"No. But I had to get Carmelita out of our hair somehow. Now, pawn shops in this time period weren't picky about legality. As long as it wasn't easy to trace, they'd take almost anything."
"You had me worried for a minute, there." Sly twirls his cane hand over hand. "What do we have to sell?"
"In this environment, locating the energy signature from a charged laser weapon is easier than hot-wiring a car. I've located several guards who've visited the local jewelry shops; Victorian-era jewelry is very high quality, and would sell in our time for a sizable sum. Pickpocket them; you're sure to get some great, era-appropriate goods to pawn."
"Nice."
"Unfortunately, you're going to have some... difficulties... stealing from them." Bentley adjusts his tie. "You're really going to have to be sneaky for this one."
"Why?"
"Because they've all taken up stations patrolling the shooting gallery."
Sly has to take a moment with that one. Bentley looks like he wants to pull right into his shell as he waits for Sly's response. "So, you're saying I have to steal under Carmelita's nose while she's in a shooting gallery?"
"I'm afraid so." Bentley's tucked so far back into his shell only his glasses poke out. "I'll send you the coordinates."
A new waypoint appears in Sly's binoc-u-com. Sly crosses a few lines of laundry and paraglides to a lower rooftop. From here, he can see a second-story window in the backside of the building, closed but not locked. It seems the owner was relying on the height to prevent thieves.
Sly's life is always easier when people are stupid.
Sly eases open the window and steps onto the windowsill, closing it behind him. Each station in the shooting gallery seems to be a tent, cloth roofs slanting down from boards he can walk on, wooden poles he can climb and ninja-spire jump to and from at the corners. Ropes with streamers and pennants with targets on them stretch from tent to tent and from the tents to the ceiling.
Wooden platforms stand at the front of each tent, giving each tent a roof over the playing area; guards stand there, watching what goes on below. Four others patrol the room, circling each tent. A last guard stands in the center, slowly turning clockwise in one place as he keeps an eye on everything.
One glance through the binoc-u-com confirms the five targets: two on the roofs—including the one standing closest to Sly, back facing him, an easy target—two patrolling the tents that don't have guards on the roofs, and of course the guard in the center.
And there, scanning the room, a polite smile on her face as she speaks with a rabbit, is Carmelita. She doesn't seem to be paying attention to the tops of the booths yet; she doesn't expect him to be here, after all. None of the guards are going to go for a paying customer, either, so she's safe enough that she holstered her shock pistol. No, she's just standing there, her left side towards him, talking to the rabbit. Probably asking the rules, making sure she won't break any.
Sly creeps forward on the booth he's on, headed for the guard in front of him, one eye on Carmelita. He picks that pocket in one move, retrieving a lovely pendant, then freezes as Carmelita turns in his direction. He hides behind the guard, knocking a balloon loose, and waits for her shriek of discovery.
It doesn't come. Sly breathes again and glances around the guard. She is right there, only a few feet below him, focused on the game. It is very, very obvious that he can't knock any of the guards out here: she'd be on him in a heartbeat, and while those rubber balls may not be lethal, he doesn't want to be pelted with them. Or have to deal with the fallout after.
Sly locates the next closest guard, a ground one circling the next booth over. He glances between the guard and Carmelita repeatedly, waiting until the guard's out of her view before dropping to the ground and relieving him of a golden brooch, then waits for the guard circling that booth and the next one over to go by before climbing up a pole supporting the third booth. The guard up there is pacing back and forth, a bit smarter than the last one... or just reckless. The rapid-fire whamwhamwham of Carmelita hitting targets lets him know she's still occupied as he waits for the guard to turn his back, digs a few coins from his pocket, ducks out of sight, and repeats the process until he wrangles a bracelet.
He waits before going back to the floor for the fourth guard's pocket; Carmelita's changing booths. This one seems to involve getting the balls in buckets, or something; the first shot makes it in with a very defined ringing noise and the obsequious encouragement of the rabbit running the booth. Sly goes to the booth next to hers and deftly removes a coral necklace right off the neck of the guard there.
Only one left, the hard one: the one in the center of everything. In full view of any of the patrolling guards at times, the guards on the rooftops limiting Sly's movement, and of course, the ever-present threat of Carmelita, now moving to tackle the fourth shooting climbs to a booth and uses the clotheslines of banners and balloons to get to a better position, the pennants beneath his feet showing no sign of his passing.
He stops right above the central guard and waits for his moment: all the patrolling guards out of sight, Carmelita shooting away, and drops down behind the circling guard. Two moves, fast and silent, and he has a beautiful pair of drop earrings.
The binoc-u-com's earpiece crackles a bit as Bentley says, "Perfect. I'll meet you outside the shooting gallery."
Sly ducks out of the building and waits there for Bentley. "You sure you don't want me to sell these? I've done it before."
"It makes more sense if it comes from a wheelchair-bound turtle," says Bentley, rolling up. When he's not using his jetpacks, it's hard to tell his wheelchair is different from any other... save for the umbrella wedged in it, keeping him (mostly) dry. "And I know how to bargain for what we need. Besides, I thought you'd like to cheer Carmelita on."
Sly grins and scratches his ear. Bentley does know him. "You have a point. All right. Just be careful; this place is thick with guards."
JOB COMPLETE
Sly strolls right off the victory screen and back into the shooting gallery, whistling.
Author's Notes:
Just a head's up, people, that there'll be an extra chapter posted this week. This is part because I do have quite a buffer (I'd have 92 chapters completed if I could think of a name for that heist), part because it's almost Christmas and I like the holiday season, part because I really want Job 4 posted on Christmas and think a slideshow is a nice way to start the year.
I've also had a couple reviews ask for specific jobs next. I may ask for people's thoughts on which job comes next in area 4, but the jobs for most of this area are... very, very deliberately linear. Plus, the time earlier when I asked for opinions, 90% were 'whatever you have next is fine'. If I do ask again, you won't know what job is what, you'll either be told which characters have jobs available or the names of the available jobs.
Enjoy the story,
-EikaPrime