RIGHT AND LAW

Job 3: Master Thief Tower

Sly crouches behind the pile of rocks with Carmelita, scratching idly at his ear. The earpieces are fussy, bulky, and nowhere near as efficient as his mask. To be honest, being out here without it makes him feel naked.

This isn't a museum stake-out or chasing down some gas station robbers, this is the sort of target he goes after as a thief. The badge gleaming at his breast pocket catches the light and is all wrong. Having a breast pocket, even, is wrong. He should have his leg pouch and his comfortable blue shirt, not all this frippery. But Carmelita's right. He's a cop, bringing down criminals now.

It just itches somewhere under his skin that he can't have everything.

"Is everyone in position?" asks Bentley.

"You know The Murray is!" Murray says.

Sly twirls his cane and pulls out a wall-hook, anything to give his hands something to do. "Carmelita and I are set to go up that wall."

"They won't even know we're here." Carmelita grins at him.

"How about..." Bentley's voice catches. "Penelope?"

"Once you give me the signal, I'll use my—er, your—RC chopper to set off an alert and get all the guards over here," she says.

"We'll let you know if she goes off-plan," Carmelita promises.

"Once they're over in our area, shooting at the helicopter, you take advantage of the quiet and blow up the wall," Sly adds. "We've been over this a dozen times."

"Then you won't mind going over it again," Bentley says.

Murray starts; the usual routine of calming down Bentley. "You and I run through the walls and split up for the towers."

"Then Penelope's helicopter ducks out of sight, the guards run to look at the hole, and Carmelita and I get ourselves over and to the other two towers." Sly tries to keep his voice light: if Bentley thinks they're nervous, he'll get even worse. "Relax, Bentley. We live for this stuff!"

Carmelita sighs. "We do, don't we?"

"Yep," Sly grins at her, but she's not looking at him; she's watching the sky, a far-off look on her face recognizable from when she was so angry at breaking and entering without a warrant in Holland. She's brooding again, so Sly puts a hand on her shoulder. "It's what makes you such an awesome cop. Thieves can hide, but you find them. Thieves can run, but you chase them. And sooner or later, they will mess up." He resists the urge to kiss her; she won't appreciate that right now. "After all, you caught me, Inspector."

Carmelita smiles then, her eyes still on the skies, and alarms start going off. Sly murmurs instructions to Bentley, things Bentley knows and is no doubt already doing, but will appreciate anyway.

They've just made it to their respective towers when Carmelita elbows him. "It looks like all the guards are at the hole in the wall now. We'll make our way over and to the other towers. Move it, Ringtail!"

"You don't have to tell me twice." Sly matches her pace for pace, reaching the wall the same moment she does but pausing at the bottom. He watches as she makes her way up and over, changes back into his familiar thief's outfit, and pulls on his mask. Much better.

With that done, he throws a couple wall-hooks and makes his way up the side, flipping over the wall and landing without a sound, only to break into a sprint in the opposite direction from Carmelita. But when the tower looms in front of him, he finds himself wishing she'd chosen this direction.

The tower before him is the one Rajan used in Egypt, where he'd been chained hand and foot for well over a week. It's a good thing Bentley told them to climb up the outside, because he wasn't going in the thing's base again for love or money. But he doesn't need to.

There are no spice plants growing on it here, now, but the multitudes of pipes and hoses and electric zappers still stick out from all sides of the thing (well, it's round, so that goes without saying) and he doesn't hesitate a second before taking a flying leap onto the nearest point, spire-jumping off it onto a vine-like hose that he starts sliding down on, and snagging a hook with his cane to swing higher.

It's like a jungle gym made by a mad botanist who wants to kill any child who goes on it. When Carmelita climbed it, she had to stay pressed to the edges, easing herself along sideways, or rely on long jumps to the limited amounts of solid ground. Climbing even halfway up the tower was a challenge that took the better part of an hour.

Sly grabs the edges of fans that once helped plants but now do absolutely nothing, wall-hooks up the uneven siding, swings from decorative loops and gets halfway up the tower in a matter of minutes, chuckling under his breath. The inside was a memorable nightmare, sure, but the outside is pure fun.

Wonder if Bentley could make a hazard room course based off of this?

But a glance at what comes next shows it won't be quite so simple continuing up.

Sure, there are still small platforms for holding plants and pipes to water them, pennants dangling in weird places and uneven siding, but now there are also spotlights. And laser security.

LOTS of laser security.

In fact, a length about three times more than Sly can jump-starting just above the mid-level balcony-that is nothing but laser security.

Good thing Sly can slide on lasers, even if they're slanted in odd ways. Sly has to time his jumps, go back and forth between different areas, dodge moving lasers, and watch that he doesn't jump too high in the wrong spot. When he finally reaches solid(ish) ground again, his tail smells like singed fur.

With that accomplished, it's time to start the jungle-gym climb again, but the addition of spotlights and moving lasers makes it all a bit more challenging. Timing himself between three and four different obstacles at once takes effort and skill, and he's very grateful he's in his comfortable thief clothes instead of the cop's uniform.

It takes him much longer to get from the middle to the top than it did to get from the bottom to the middle, and he groans when he sees the spotlight on a rail moving in circles around the top, looking at the balcony platform before the eight large windows. "These guys are paranoid," he grumbles, ninja-spiring on top of it and riding it in a full circle. One of the windows is open, just a crack; the second time the spotlight passes it, he jumps off, eases it the rest of the way open, and creeps inside, closing it after him.

The room is empty, with an open trapdoor on one side. The light from the spotlight spins in lazy circles outside, illuminating small patches of ground near the windows; besides that, the only light comes from the glowing, flashing things near the pillar and a little bit through the trapdoor.

Sly glances through the trapdoor and closes it without a sound, then turns to study the pillar, which is making a noise like a dying fire. He hasn't looked much when Carmelita says, "The top is clear of criminal interference."

"Man, that was tiring," says Murray. "I'm here guys!"

"That was fun," Sly says, and he can't keep his enthusiasm out of his voice. "I haven't gotten to climb like that in ages. Hey, Carm, think we can ask to keep this tower?"

"No." She doesn't even hesitate. Spoilsport.

Bentley chimes in at last. "It looks like, to deactivate the force field, we have to press the red button at the same time. On Three."

"One," says Sly at the same time Bentley does. The red button's impossible to miss; it's the biggest thing on there.

"Two," Murray joins in.

"Three!" shouts Carmelita along with them, and Sly presses the button down.

JOB COMPLETE

The noise stops. All the lights go out. Sly looks outside and shakes his head, because even with the force field deactivated, the spotlight is still going round and round.

Author's Notes

So, if I post two chapters this week, then the last chapter will go up a few hours before my 30th birthday (in my time zone).

See you on Friday?