Disclaimer: I don't own the challenge; that belongs to Lee. Buffy and Angel and respective characters belong to Joss Whedon, and Ocean's Eleven belongs to Warner Bros.
Feedback: Please do.
Challenge: Basically, redo the basic plot of Ocean's Eleven with Buffy and Angel characters. Angel should take the place of Danny Ocean, and Connor as Linus Caldwell. The other characters are up to you.
Other Requirements:
Keep the running gag of the Rusty character always eating/drinking something.
All characters should be at the jobs they were in the movie (Frank a dealer in a casino, Basher in the middle of another heist, Rusty teaching movie stars how to play poker, Danny/Angel in jail, Livingston working freelance for the FBI, etc.)
vaguely amused: Well, she'll be coming in, yes, but you've got a bit of a wait before we get there…
buff: Thank you; hope I didn't keep you waiting too long
loz: Ask and you shall receive
a2zmom: Glad to hear it; I was worried about whether it would work, particularly with Darla's death sequence…
Imzadi: Well, the matter of who's been raising Connor doesn't really matter, in my opinion, but glad you're liking it anyway
wackycavegirl: Buffy's coming up, but if Xander DOES appear, it'll just be a minor role, I'm sorry to say
Angel's Eleven
The next night, the ten recruits were lounging around David Nabbit's poolside bar while Angel prepared things in the main lounge of the villa. Connor was sitting a bit of a distance away from the others, staring listlessly into the pool, while Spike talked a little with Giles and Wesley, Faith and Gwen quizzed Nabbit about what cars he had, and Oz and Willow just sat awkwardly beside each other, sipping at some drinks they'd ordered.
Eventually, Willow broke the silence.
"So… you're looking well," she said, nodding slightly at Oz.
"Thanks," he said, shrugging dismissively. "You too."
"Hi guys," Angel said, as he walked out of the room where he and Wesley had been setting things up since the others had arrived.
As they turned to look at him, Angel smiled again. "Good to see you all made it," he said, indicating Connor. "Not all of you know Connor; he's my son from back in Ireland."
A few people- notably the Molloys- were a bit surprised at that statement, but evidently enough people knew that it wasn't too much of a shock to anybody.
"OK then," Angel said, looking around at the others, "nobody's on the line here; what I'm about to propose is both highly lucrative and highly dangerous. If that doesn't sound like the cup of tea for anyone, enjoy your snacks, have a good ride home, and nobody will fault you."
He turned around and walked into the room, followed by most of the people outside. Only Connor remained, staring idly into the pool beside him.
Nabbit walked towards him, a shot of vodka still in his right hand.
"You're Angel's son?" he asked.
Connor nodded.
"You lived in Ireland?" Nabbit said.
Again, Connor nodded.
"It's nice over there," Nabbit said, smiling at the memory. "I spent a couple of holidays there myself. You liked it?"
Another nod from Connor.
"That's wonderful," Nabbit said. "Get in the goddamn house."
The lounge room was dominated by a large computer screen on one wall, currently showing a wire-frame schematic of the Strip, focusing on three casinos/hotels at one end of them. Angel, who was standing right beside the screen, tapped a button on the remote control he held, and the three casinos were lit up with a yellow light.
"The 14000 block of Las Vegas Boulevard," he said, inrespone to their quizzical expressions."Otherwise known as the Bellagio, the Mirage, the M.G.M. Grand. Together, they're the three most profitable casinos in Las Vegas..."
He pushed another button, and the view changed to another picture, this time showing a complex substructure, featuring three tunnels, each apparently leading from a casino to a single freight-sized elevator shaft that descended into an enormous vault.
"Gentlemen- and ladies," Angel added, nodding atWillow, Faith and Gwen briefly before continuing, "the Bellagio vault. Located below the Strip, beneath two hundred feet of solid earth. It safeguards every dime that comes through each of the three casinos above it."
He paused for a moment, and then finished his sentence. "And we're going to rob it."
Connor shrugged dismissively. "Smash-and-grab job, huh?" he asked dismissively.
"Slightly more complicated than that, actually," Wesley said, looking over at Connor with an exasperated,annoyed expression on his face.
Ignoring the briefconfrontation between his son and his best friendas though it wasn't happening, Angel tapped another button on the remote, and the screen changed to show several pictures, apparently recordings of security camera footage.
"Courtesy of Charles Gunn, the new blackjack dealer at the Bellagio, we have security tapes of the vault from all three casinos," Angel explained, giving Gunn a brief thumbs-up before continuing, as another button focused on the screens showing three corridors.
"OK, bad news first," Angel said, as he looked around at the gang. "This place houses a security system which rivals most nuclear missile silos. First: we have to get within the casino cages-"
"Here, here, and here," Wesley said, indicating them on the display, which had once again gone back to the vault schematic.
"Which, as anyone knows, takes more than a smile," Angel finished. "Next, through these doors, each of which requires a different six-digit code changed every twelve hours. Past those lies the elevator- and this is where it gets tricky," he added, enjoying the incredulous expressions on the face of most of the other group members at that statement.
"The elevator won't move without authorized fingerprint identifications-"
"Which I'm guessing we can't fake," Willow put in.
Angel nodded at her and continued; "-and vocal confirmations from both the security center within the Bellagio and the vault below-"
"Which we won't get, right?" Faith asked.
"Furthermore," Angel added nodding briefly in approval at Faith as he did so, "the elevator shaft is rigged with motion detectors-"
"Meaning," Wesley explained, "that if we manually overrode the lift, the shaft's exit will lock down automatically and we'll be trapped- and before you ask, Oz," he said, looking over at the trapeeze artist, "the security net's too fine for even you to slip in; any open spaces in a straight line aren't consistently large enough to let in anything that isn't the size of a guinea pig at best."
"But," Angel said, smiling at everyone's suddenly worried expressions, "once we've gotten down the shaft, though, then it's a walk in the park."
Then his smile faded. "Just three more guards with Uzis and predilections toward not being robbed, and the most elaborate vault door conceived by man. Oh, and the vault itself, once locked down, is covered with motion detectors that will go off as soon as anyone touches the floor, and a state-of-the-art temperature sensor that would be triggered by so much as a rise in temperature by a single degree. Think the room Tom Cruise penetrated in Mission: Impossible without the vent in the roof, and you're pretty much there."
He looked around quizzically at the group. "Any questions?"
"Tunneling?" Oz asked, looking over at Wesley.
Wesley shook his head. "No, that wouldn't work; they have Richter scales monitoring the ground for one hundred yards in every direction. If so much as a groundhog tried to nest there, they'd know about it."
"Anyone else?" Angel asked.
Spike raised his hand.
"You said something about good news, right?" he asked his old friend. "Or was the good news just that you've got us a decent lawyer when we fuck up and get caught?"
"No, Spike, it's not, and we're not going to mess up, anyway," Angel said, smiling slightly at their demolitions expert before turning back to the others. "The Nevada Gaming Commission stipulates that a casino must hold in reserve enough cash to cover every chip at play on its floor. As I mentioned, this vault services each of the three casinos above it, meaning that, during the week, by law, it must hold anywhere from sixty to seventy million dollars in cash and coin. On a weekend, between eighty and ninety million. On a fight night, like the one two weeks from tonight, the night we're going to rob it…"
He looked around at everyone else to make sure they got the point he was about to make. "At least a hundred and fifty million, without breaking a sweat."
Angel gazed around the room. "Now, there's eleven of us," he said to them all. "Each with an equal share. You do the math."
Everyone's eyes widened as they went over the figure in their heads. Everyone was easily able to work out that they were talking between ten to fifteen million each, but Wesley, Giles and Nabbit- whose minds treated numbers as merely a second language- had already worked out the exact figure; $13 636 363. 63.
Giles coughed politely to attract attention.
"I have a question," he said, looking at Angel inquiringly.
"Yes?" Angel asked, looking at the man who'd come close to becoming his potential stepfather-in-law, before the woman he'd have married had died of a brain tumor…
Stop that! he told himself, as he turned his attention back to Giles.
"Assuming we doget into the cage," Giles said, lookingcritically at the younger man,"and through the security doors we can't access, and down the elevator we can't move, and past the guards with guns, and into the vault we can't open...
"Without being seen by the cameras around the vault itself," Wesley added.
Angel smiled casually as everyone looked at him in astonishment. "Oh, right; sorry, I forgot to mention that."
"Yes, well…" Giles said, looking at Angel again. "Even assumingwe can do all that. We're just supposed to walk out of there withat leasta hundred and fifty million dollars- in cash- on us... without getting stopped?
Everyone looked over at Angel at that, waiting his answer. Angel put the remote he'd been using down in front of the screen, and smiled at Giles.
"Pretty much, yeah," he said.
Giles nodded.
"Oh," he said simply.
Maybe he should have thought more about this…
Angel looked around the room. "OK, guys; here's the plan," he said.