HEART, AND EAR, AND EYE
Job 4: Dancing on the Wings
Sly stops on a roof across from the theater and pulls up his binoc-u-com. "How's Carmelita coming with her outfit?" he asks.
"She'll be along in a minute," says Bentley, adjusting his glasses. "You wouldn't believe how many skirts she has to wear to be fashionable! Have you set your own outfit to one of your trigger buttons?"
"I'll do that in a second. I just have to press select to bring up the gadget grid, then assign it to one of the buttons. Listen, Bentley, what are we looking for in here?" Sly zooms in on the entrance to the theater.
"Anything and everything." Bentley rubs his hands together and gestures as he talks. "I'm going to want pictures of all the technology that doesn't belong there, as well as anything else suspicious. And if you see anyone who seems a bit out of place for Victorian England, them too."
"Right." Sly twirls his cane a few times. "How will I get the photos? Bringing the binoc-u-com out in there will look a little suspicious."
"I've hooked the camera up to your monocle. You can take a picture by pulling on the chain."
"Handy." Sly uses the cane to scratch his back. "You've thought of everything."
"Don't I always? Anyway, Carmelita's left the safe-house and isn't listening, so pay attention. These tickets can be used to get into any of the parties and events at the theater, but once you see the play, it's gone. I'm working on forging some new ones, but the tickets are made out of special material. It's going to take me some time."
"So, if we need to see the play, we'll have to sneak in." Sly focuses down the street, where Carmelita's walking into view. "Woah..."
"Pay attention, Sly." Sly does no such thing, zooming in on the amazingly poofy dress Carmelita's wearing. Bentley waves his arms. "If we need to get to the theater, we'll arrange for a distraction with more of us in there. I haven't managed to sell Carmelita on the sneaking bits yet, so it'll have to be when she's not in the loop."
"She looks amazing, Bentley. Do you think we can take those clothes home with us?"
Bentley puts his head in his hands. "Maybe I should be telling this to Carmelita..."
Sly puts the binoc-u-com away and, in the blink of an eye, changes into his own formal wear; he even pulls a cloth over his cane, making it look like... well, like a cane you'd walk with. Mostly. He approaches Carmelita and offers her his arm. "May I just say you look lovely this evening."
"Can it, Ringtail," she says, but she smiles as she says it.
The two of them walk into the theater, and there is a LOADING screen. When it fades, they're being ushered through the lobby and into a room upstairs, over the theater, where an elegant party awaits.
And what a party it is. The play, it seems, is 'Variations on The Spider and The Fly', and decorations showing those variations are all over the place. Glistening fake spiderwebs, with fake flies, hang from the corners; waiters offer trays of food and drink on web-styled trays to those who stand around talking. A band plays on one side of the room, in a small orchestra pit lined with statues of foxes tricking mice and trapping turtles; fake, bright orange fox-tails dangle from the fence around it, ensuring guests don't step there by mistake. Well-dressed couples dance across the floor that—Sly gulps—is directly below a gigantic stone owl, carved mid-dive, talons extended as it heads for an oblivious raccoon statue alone in the center of the floor.
Comforting. And life size, of course.
"This is fancier than any of the department affairs I've had to attend," murmurs Carmelita.
"I haven't seen a shindig like this since India," agrees Sly.
"If you two are done with your trip down memory lane, we need to get to work," Bentley says in their ears. Carmelita frowns and taps something in her hair; Sly, of course, has his speaker hooked on his monocle chain. "I need those photos. Carmelita, you stay nearby and keep anyone from thinking the two of you are suspicious. If you see anyone you recognize that we don't, or something worth taking a picture of, tell Sly. I couldn't fit your outfit with a cam, too."
Play resumes as Sly. Carmelita nods at him and shadows him as he moves, a few steps away, stopping to talk to people and intercepting waiters as he looks for interesting things. The first picture? That giant hanging owl, of course. "Interesting," says Bentley. "If that falls, it's sure to break into the theater below."
The next picture is of that raccoon. "Wait, is that..." Bentley sounds almost dumbfounded. "Sly, unless I'm seriously mistaken, that's a reference to Clockwerk! But who'd know about that? Be careful, buddy."
Sly doesn't bother to respond. Instead, he makes his way towards the orchestra pit. Something glowing catches his eye, and he takes a picture: a computer screen, tucked in the back of the pit.
"Interesting," says Bentley, "if inconveniently placed. We'll either need an amazing distraction or to wait for this place to be deserted before I go in."
Someone moving through the crowd catches his eye; Carmelita comes close to elbow him and nod at the person. Sly takes a picture. It's not a picture of a person he's ever met; it's not a picture of a person Carmelita's ever seen.
But Thaddeus Winslow Cooper, the most gentlemanly thief in the Thievious Raccoonus, is hard to miss. All the black parts of his fur—his mask, his mustache, the stripes on his tail—are streaked with silver; he leans on his cane—the hook longer and narrower than Sly's—as though he actually needs it. I wouldn't have thought it possible, but he's dressed better than Sly.
And he's heading straight for them.
"Whatever you do, Sly, do not cause a scene here," says Bentley over the binoc-u-com. "We need to avoid drawing attention, and having someone freak out about time travel would be disastrous."
Sly doesn't have a chance to respond before Thaddeus reaches them and clasps his shoulder. "My dear nephew," he says. "Sly, wasn't it? I am most pleased you made it."
There's a moment when you realize something has happened that you never expected to happen, and when it does you just have to go with it. For Sly, that was the moment when he was recognized by a relative he'd never met. "It's great to see you too, Thaddeus. Listen, I, uh—"
"Great-Grandmother wrote of you," he says, swirling his glass of sarsaparilla and holding it to the light. "Her pictures are surprisingly accurate. But I don't believe I've made the acquaintance of your wife, here."
"Listen here," hisses Carmelita. "I am not married to this jumped-up—"
"Fiance, then," interrupts Thaddeus, "since you wouldn't be here together without a chaperon otherwise. Propriety and all that." He winks at them.
Bentley sighs in their ears. "Great. We messed up time. Now everything is wrong."
"I don't know, Bentley," murmurs Sly. "Considering everything else that's going on, this might be to our advantage."
"You can rest assured of my utmost discretion," says Thaddeus, not batting an eye at the conversation with no one. "Now then, will you introduce us?"
"Of course," says Sly. "Thaddeus Winslow Cooper, this is Carmelita Fox. Carmelita, Thaddeus."
He extends his hand to Carmelita. When she takes it, he kisses her hand in a deep bow. "Marvelous. You know about the troubles, then, my dears? You'd never come just for a social call."
"The troubles?" asks Sly.
"If you don't, we can get into it later. Now, my boy, the owner of this fine establishment can be found down a secret corridor. There's a switch hidden in that spiderweb." Thaddeus gestures with his glass. "It leads backstage. I'm certain you'll want to see it, but getting there, with this many people around, will require some finesse."
"Oh, I'm all about finesse," says Sly.
"I don't know about this," says Carmelita. "This does not sound—"
"We're under cover, remember," says Sly. "Couldn't you just think of it as—"
"No," says Carmelita. "There are some lines I cannot cross, Ringtail."
"I admire conviction in a lady," says Thaddeus. He bows to her. "Would you care to dance? I assure you, I'm a sought-out partner. Sometimes, I even draw a crowd."
Carmelita smiles "I'd be delighted."
Time for some fun, everyone! Because if this were an actual game, here's where we'd need to do two things at once, in classic 'rewind' fashion. However, I have absolutely no skill or interest in writing out a dance between Thaddeus and Carmelita (she was awfully easy to convince, wasn't she?) when there are far more interesting things going on.
Namely, Sly taking advantage of Carmelita—and the crowd—being distracted by an excellent dance in order to investigate. Though he does stay to watch for the first minute.
Thaddeus is an even better dancer than Sly is.
"Sly, this is your chance," says Bentley in his ear. "Get to that spiderweb and see what Thaddeus thinks is important. You'll have to hurry; that song is only five minutes long."
Players, start your engines, because there's a timer on screen... one Sly feels, even if he can't see it, as he moves, edging behind the crowd of watching dancers to the corner Thaddeus indicated. The spiderweb isn't a mere switch: it spins and clicks like a combination lock. Sly has to feel for the moment the lock catches and spin it the other way, listening to the music rise and fall behind him, the rustle of clothes and muted coughs of the crowd.
A muffled click and one section of the wood paneling opens a tad. Sly eases his way inside, closing it behind him, making note of the button needed to open it again, the peephole set at eye height. He's at the top of a spiral stone staircase, electric lights—fluorescent and far too bright and modern for this theater—dangling overhead. His shadow precedes him, so he takes the stairs slow and quiet, listening, listening, listening, feeling the time tick away, knowing he must have enough.
The bottom of the staircase has a similar peephole and button. No one's on the other side of the door, the room beyond dark, so he opens it with care, checking to see how to reopen it—a simple button, no need for theatrics on this side—before closing it behind him. He seems to be at the back of a costume room, circular racks of clothes with all sorts of items on them around him; jester's costumes, antlers, webbed feet, suits in different types of faux fur. He creeps past them, looking, always looking.
There's a door at the far side of the room, hanging open, revealing a hallway. There are many other doors along it, which Sly would like to investigate, two on the right side of the hall with computers keeping them locked that he takes pictures of, two others on the left that are locked and barred so tight it'd take a bomb to get in, but he's running short on time and there's only one open door with a woman's voice trickling from it like water: "Ridiculous, to have our progress halted by the loss of such an insignificant stone."
Sly knows that voice. But he doesn't want to believe it. In fact, he doesn't believe it, until he creeps into the doorway and takes a photo of the person side-on, from where she stands in the dim light, scowling into a phone.
The Contessa stands there, a phone to her ear, streaks of gray in her blue hair. She's wearing a yellow dress with a blue belt and a deep blue shawl. On the belt, holding the shawl closed, glowing faintly in the dim light, are matching blue gemstones.
"Not to worry," she says into the phone. "Our current resources are enough for our present team. But if we wish to expand, we will need additional resources. I trust you will take care of such things?"
Sly creeps backwards along the hallway, out of her sight.
"Very well then. I'll be in touch."
Sly is gone before she can discover him, escaping back into the party before the end of the song, one mystery solved. They know who's here.
Now they have to deal with her.
JOB COMPLETE
Sly emerges into the party to applause as Thaddeus and Carmelita's dance ends.