Author's Notes:
Starting things off here with notes, and updating my chapter, just for one detail. Yes, the chapter is intended to end where and how it does. Enjoy.
HEART, AND EAR, AND EYE
Job 6: Hacked Into A Corner
Bentley wheels himself through the city, using his hoverpack to jump between rooftops and occasionally putting guards to sleep. He's already in his disguise: a very nice suit, wheelchair polished, all technology hidden (except the jetpack). He, of course, has the mustache on. He loves that mustache.
The mustache also appears to have gotten bigger since the last time he wore it.
He stops at the waypoint opposite the theater and pulls out his binoc-u-com. "All right Sly, I'm about to head inside."
"Okay Bentley. Look, I know we need that information and The Contessa's distracted, but be careful. If you see any sign of her, or there's even the slightest possibility you could get caught, get out of there."
"Don't worry about me, Sly," says Bentley. He zooms in on the theater's entrance. "If anything happens, Carmelita's in shouting distance, and once you and Thaddeus are in the field, you will be, too. Keep an eye on Carmelita instead. I'm still not sure she's going to get the 'thief' thing down without help."
"If you say so," says Sly.
Bentley puts the binoc-u-com away and wheels in front of the theater. Unlike earlier in the day, there's no posh fly waiting to check tickets. There are no parties right now, no bands, no performances. The only people who should be inside are the actors, rehearsing; the cleaning staff; and, if she hasn't already left, the Contessa. The door stands closed, solid and imposing.
Not solid enough to stand up to a trigger bomb, but hey, it's the thought that counts. One minor explosion later, and the door swings open, the lock broken but otherwise unharmed.
Bentley wheels himself into the theater as a LOADING screen rises and fades. Once inside, he makes his way to the same room Sly and Carmelita were in the previous evening, hopping up the stairs and peeking through the crack in the door.
The multitude of porcupines sweeping the floors is not encouraging, not when so many of them have been patrolling the streets or standing on rooftops outside. Getting to that computer in the orchestra pit will be impossible with that many people around. The spiderweb with the hidden switch, though... that's another story. It's in a rather shadowy corner, and it appears that area's already been cleaned. All he has to do is get there without being spotted.
For most wheelchair-bound turtles, getting through a fancy room crawling with prickly janitors unnoticed would be impossible. For Bentley, it's Tuesday. No one even blinks.
He has to pause a moment, in the corner with that shadowy spiderweb, to place his hand on the knob and open the door. Feeling for the fall of tumblers, the sound of janitors cleaning around him, is nerve-wracking. Still, he gets the door open and wheels inside with no one the wiser.
The hallway is dark at this time of day; the only sound is the muffled thumps of Bentley's wheels as he descends. At the bottom door, he pauses to peek through the spyhole.
The dressing room on the other side is so well lit it hurts his eyes. But it is empty, and that matters more than Bentley's comfort. He slips out, into the room, and wheels himself silently forward. With the bright overhead lights, and several more on the walls, there are no shadows, no convenient hiding places. He'd have to duck into a pile of clothes and hope no one noticed him.
The door to the hall is already open. Bentley peeks through it, just to make sure. The hall isn't empty; he ducks behind the door as someone strolls past. "Dress rehearsal starts in five minutes," she says.
"We're doing a full run-through today, right?" asks another voice. "No stops or hesitations?"
"Probably three run-throughs," says the first again. Their voices fade as they continue down the hall. "Contessa still isn't happy with Pete's performance. What a buzzkill."
"As long as that isn't literal." The voices were definitely further away. Bentley peeked out again to see a reddish mouse tail and gray fox tail slip through the door to the theater. "Be gentle next time you have to 'catch' me, okay?"
The door closes behind them. Bentley wheels his way out, cracking his fingers before him. Based on their conversation, no one else should be coming this way; he has plenty of time.
His earpiece crackles to life. "How you doing, buddy?" asks Sly.
"Fine," says Bentley, wheeling himself to the nearest computer. "I'm about to start hacking. What's going on with Carmelita?"
"She found another octopus-style machine," Sly said. "Named this one Onigiri. I'll head out once she's dealt with it."
"Her obsession with foreign cuisine is absurd," Bentley mutters.
"I don't mind it," says Sly. "You sure you're okay there?"
"Perfect," says Bentley. "I'll call back once I've got this room open. It shouldn't take long."
And with that, Bentley starts to hack. It takes him absolutely no time to discover something he already suspected.
"Hello, Bentley."
Penelope had, yet again, programmed this system. And by Einstein's boots, did she choose to use big bots. Worse, in Bentley's opinion, were that the big bots laid smaller bots. Not only were the big bots nasty and shot in four directions, but the tiny ones laid bombs and got in his way, and they guarded encryption keys.
"Get out while you can, Bentley," says Penelope's mechanical voice.
Bentley snorts as he takes care of her firewalls. He's never leaving the gang.
"She's always watching," the computer whispers as he finishes. Bentley shakes his head. If his calculations are correct, The Contessa is out checking the grounds after Carmelita's mess right now.
Just to be sure, he pauses before opening the door. "How's everything going down there?" he asks over the earpiece.
"Carmelita just finished with onigiri," says Sly. "I'm going to meet Thaddeus at the first lightshow. You holding up all right?"
"Everything here's going according to plan. I'm leaving a backdoor in these computers; now that I've opened it, any of us will be able to get inside."
"Nice."
With that, Bentley opens the door and wheels himself inside.
This room is a mess, no question about it. Spiderwebs lay in every corner, sticky and untouchable; piles of props and debri form unstable piles that Bentley absolutely cannot climb, not in his wheelchair. It's entirely possible to navigate the mess with his grapple-cam, though.
One good throw later, and Bentley's got his cam out and is navigating a mess of items. It seems safest to stay near the ceiling, though he has to go down through some weird angles as well. Once he's past the initial near-wall of clothes, he has to navigate precariously-balanced piles of paint, spider webbing, and of course, laser grids. "This is complicated," Bentley mutters to himself. "I'd better activate the video feed and send this back to the safe-house. If there's anything important back here, we'll need Sly to come get it later."
With the mess this place is in, I doubt there's anything worthwhile. But I'm not a genius like Bentley, because once he's navigated the maze of mess to its center, he discovers a hole in the floor and a sturdy rope made of braided spiderweb going down at an angle. By lowering his binoc-u-com down, avoiding the spiderweb as he traverses the sides of the hole, he gets almost to the bottom of it: close enough to see a familiar purple darkness that seems to absorb light.
The same darkness found in the orbs in both Rajan's and Tsao's towers.
With that interesting little tidbit stored away, Bentley brings back his binoc-u-com and wheels out of the room. "I'd better blow up one of these other doors next," he says, wheeling over to it. "That took a while; they may be ready to take a break pretty soon."
His earpiece crackles to life with Murray saying, "You already got through one of the doors?"
"It wasn't a problem." Bentley sets one of his trigger bombs right inside the door's keyhole. "How are the others?"
"Carmelita couldn't figure out how to get in—oh, I'm not supposed to tell you that," Murray says. "But she made it in the last building. Sly and Thaddeus seem to be having fun."
"I bet they are." Bentley backs to a safe distance and presses the trigger; the bomb goes off with a muted whumph! and the door swings open. "We'll probably need him to come down here later; it looks like we've got another of those temporal anchors down here."
"I'll tell him."
Bentley wheels himself into the room, pushing the door closed behind him; with the lock blown, it won't stay closed all the way, but that's not a problem for this.
The laser wall that extends from the ceiling until a few inches above the floor means he has to stay where he is and deploy his RC car for this job. Hello, laser maze.
Besides the tight corridors and the occasional moving laser fences Bentley has to dodge through, this isn't too much of a challenge. He does have to shoot some things out of the way, though. Carefully. The laser emitters will set off an alarm if they're broken, so he has to drive around them, but there's plenty of space under here. If the lasers were disabled, Sly could get through without any issues.
Behind him, he can hear footsteps in the hall, quiet conversation, mumbling and grumbling about The Contessa's tight schedule. Someone eats a fast snack; another guzzles from a bottle of water. They're gone, back to rehearsal, before Bentley's finished.
At the end of the room is another hole, and more braided spiderweb going down it. Bentley can't see all the way to the bottom, and there's no way his car can go down, but it seems obvious that this is another anchor rope.
With that decided, Bentley brings his car back and listens at the door. It's quiet. A peek outside shows that everyone is gone, back to rehearsal.
"How's Carmelita doing?" he asks over his earpiece as he wheels himself forward.
"The tea house had a basement. She's climbing her way out," says Murray.
"Once she's back, hand the binoc-u-com controls over to her and head out yourself," says Bentley. He wheels over to the next metal door and puts another bomb in the lock.
"Okay. Are you sure you'll be okay?" Murray sounds like he's chewing something as he speaks. "No one's seen The Contessa yet."
"I'll be fine, Murray." He blows this door's lock just as carefully as the last one. "Just keep your mind on your mission."
With that, Bentley wheels himself into the third room. Just like the last two times, the way forward is blocked. Unlike the last two times, technology won't be needed to get through it. No, Bentley leaps up a few piles of random crud, avoiding spotlights, to the top of a wall of... something vaguely web-like... and bombs a wall he finds up there. It opens a corridor filled with platforms surrounded by sheer drops, and lasers to dodge through, and moving spotlights. And, of course, more places to bomb.
By the time Bentley's reached the far side of the room, he's almost getting tired. And, sure enough, another braided strand of spiderweb can be seen there. Stretching taught from the ceiling down into the floor. Now that he's close enough, he can examine it more carefully. "Interesting," he says aloud.
Carmelita's voice crackles in his ear. "Something I can use to make an arrest?"
"Not yet," says Bentley, "but I've found three of the four ropes for this area's temporal anchor. Her spiderweb will stick to any blades that try to chop through it. We'll need to use fire to destroy them. Perhaps the Contessa has a portable laser-emitter in the vicinity."
"I'll make a note. You almost done in there?"
"I have one more computer to hack in the downstairs hallway," Bentley says. He starts making his way back out of the room. "Once I've examined that room, I need to see about getting to the one in the orchestra pit."
"All right. Sly and Thaddeus are nearly done with their bit, and Murray's moving fast."
"Understood. I'll be quick." Bentley wheels his way into the hallway. "I'll contact you again once I'm done with the fourth room. If you need me, I may not reply if I'm hacking; it requires intense concentration."
"Don't I know it. I learned early on to never disturb one of the Interpol techs. Specialist Brown threatened to bite me."
That seems to be the end of the conversation. Bentley cracks his knuckles and settles in to the second computer.
"Stop it, Bentley," the computer—Penelope—whispers in greeting. "You don't want to go in there."
Bentley ignores it. Great, another bot-laying bot. Only this one lays tiny bots that shoot instead of laying bombs. Bentley has to pay attention to this one.
"Come inside, and you can join me." Bentley shudders as he hears that. No, thank you! "They all know I'm the smarter of us two."
Bentley laughs when he hears that, and it almost makes him spoil the hack job. Nope, not happening. With just another few key strokes, he's conquered the computer.
He finishes by installing a backdoor, making it so this computer—like the previous one—will open when someone with a binoc-u-com tries it. Then he opens the door and wheels himself inside.
"Hey Bentley, you still hacking in there?" asks Carmelita. "Sly's on his way back to the safe-house, but he can swing by the theater if you need a hand."