Chapter 2: Mouse Mission

"Looks like I need to change my attitude for once." LaWahini headed right for Gadget's room. "Because the only safe way for me to keep Fat Cat from stealing that diamond is stealing it before him." With a swing, she opened her sister's wardrobe. "Of course, I'll bring it back when the danger is over, but for now, it's safer in my hands. Now where has she put—ah, there it is." Among an assortment of lavender overalls plus an orange pair, she found the only black pair. "The overalls which Gadget dyed black for Dad's so-called funeral. It's perfect for my plans. And it's certainly easier to move in overalls than in a sarong." Quickly, LaWahini changed from her usual blue dress into the overalls. "Hope you don't mind me borrowing it, Gadget. Especially since Dad isn't even dead, and the funeral was staged anyway. And now for the rest of the equipment."

Leaving the wardrobe and room doors open, LaWahini ran to the workshop where Gadget kept her equipment. "Ah, there it is." She flipped through what she had memorized from the exhibition room in her mind and picked up the plunger crossbow. "The first invention of Gadget's I learned to use." Taking the suction cup shoes, a golf ball helmet, and a pair of goggles with her, she rushed into Monty's room where she grabbed one of Monty's extra large turtlenecks to wrap the diamond into.

Her last stop was inside the hangar. Both Rangerplane and Rangerwing were there, but LaWahini decided in favor of something smaller and probably easier to handle, and that was Dale's hang glider. She remembered it from the previous year's mission on which she and the rest of the Rangers tried to play matchmakers for Chip and Gadget. She hung the net with the suction cup shoes and the turtleneck inside on the hang glider's handle, strapped the plunger crossbow onto her back, and took the small but famous flying device which her sister had made for Dale so he could fly with Foxglove.

"I promise you I won't damage it, Dale. I'm depending on it, too." These were her last words before she put on the helmet and the goggles and took off. Thanks to the above-average intelligence she had inherited from her mother, it didn't take her long to understand how to handle it. Her way led her over rooftops and through alleys and courtyards, everywhere that she didn't expect any Ranger to see her.

As she crossed the street in front of the gallery, she spotted the five crooks she had met an hour ago. Snout tried to open a back door, carrying a rope slung around his shoulder and using Mepps and Mole as a makeshift ladder. Wart stood nearby with a screwdriver, a human-sized telescopic fishing rod and a rolled-up piece of paper while Fat Cat tried his best to coordinate the operation.

"What do these morons think they're doing there?" LaWahini landed on the gallery's roof and ran to the edge so she could hear them talk. A click and Snout's words, "Hey Fat Cat, it's open!" told her they succeeded.

"Good," Fat Cat said, "do you have the map of the air-conditioning system?"

"Here it isss!" Wart hissed.

"Fine, now you two, Wart and Snout, should be able to find your way to the fuse box without my help. Mepps, Mole, you two guard the operation from outside."

"Fuse box?" LaWahini shouted out. "They're stealing my idea! Time to act!"

She entered the air-conditioning unit on the roof, but stayed away from the air canals. She knew that she couldn't afford encountering Fat Cat's gang in there all alone. Instead, she used her advantage of being a mouse and climbed down a cable duct. "I still remember my sister's words. Every wire in a house leads to the fusebox. Now let's see who gets there first."

It was clear who got there first when she arrived inside the fusebox after removing some covers from unused fuse slots. The hatch of the box was still shut, so Wart and Snout hadn't made it yet. She couldn't help but giggle. "Hope you enjoy the hot air and the hot steel. So, unless I'm wrong, this should be the same fusebox I discovered in the room with the diamond."

She carefully pushed the hatch open and saw that she was right. The diamond was still there. And so was the dark marble covering the walls and the ceiling. "This is almost too easy," she commented.

However, a closer look at the fuses revealed that it wasn't all easy. "Can't they label these things properly? Now I have to shut down half the building or so! Oh well..."

The noises of animals creeping through the air duct right above her came to her sensitive ears before any human could hear them. She grinned while she memorized the windowless room's exact layout. "Okay, showtime!"

Within a few seconds, she flipped the switches on all the fuses. Then she put on the suction cup shoes and walked up the wall—diagonally to avoid Fat Cat's goons who tumbled out of the air duct into the almost dark room, unable to see where to step. According to their plan, they should have used the modified fishing rod to get the gem while staying inside the air duct, but the sudden darkness had irritated them enough to go a few steps too far. The humans were too busy panicking or keeping themselves from panicking to take notice of them.

"What happened?" Snout asked. "Why is it so dark in here?"

"Dunno," Wart replied, "it'sss too dark to sssee what happened."

"We'd better stay close to the walls. These humans can't see where they step, and they probably don't care either."

LaWahini was in a far better situation. She had made it to the middle of the room, right above the diamond. The only light illuminating the scene was emitted by the light barriers and the controls of the security systems on one wall, both of which were fed separately from the rest of the building.

"So the security is still up and running, huh?" LaWahini remarked. "Well, that should even out the lack of a glass orb covering the gem. They're putting a lot of confidence in these systems, it seems. Not that it were in any way important for me." She took the plunger crossbow from her back and aimed at the diamond which was only visible by the control lights it refracted, and even then only when no human happened to stand in their way.

Despite these difficulties, the first shot hit immediately. "Bullseye," she said and began to wind up the cord on the plunger. The diamond's weight being released from the cushion set off the alarm. One thing LaWahini had not added to her plan was the possibility of a pressure sensor under or inside the cushion. Red strobes were flashing in various corners of the room.

"Stupid alarm! Oh well, at least I've got a bit more light now," LaWahini found an advantage in the alarm as she headed for the fuse box. "But that noise is more than annoying." She didn't mind much, though, as it was time for her to leave anyway.

She had made it across the ceiling and climbed down the wall almost to the box when a white light below her almost blinded her. After a moment of adjusting, she identified the source of that light. One of the two guards had made it to the fuse box and illuminated it with his spotlight.

"Hey, come here and have a look at this!" he called his mate.

"What's up?"

"For some reason, all the fuses in here are turned off. Whoever did this must have something to do with the alarm."

'You don't know how right you are,' LaWahini thought by herself. 'I'd better get lost before the lights go on.'

While the guard with the spotlight began to switch on the fuses one by one, trying not to overload the building's wiring, his companion went to see if the diamond was still there, and Wart and Snout stayed in their hiding and waited for a chance to escape, LaWahini took the only remaining safe way out—the air-conditioning. Once she was inside the canal, she took off the suction cup shoes to make less noise and to be able to run faster.

"The alarms in the entire building must have been set off," she figured, "and I can't afford leaving through any other room. Besides, Mepps and Mole may guard the canals, or at least their buddies' entrance. No, I've gotta find a way to the machinery on the roof."

Finding that way was fairly easy in winter. She just had to run where the heat came from. And she did have to run most of the time, the metal below her feet got hotter and hotter, too. As it suddenly went upwards, she put on the suction cup shoes again, the first one while hopping on the other foot, the second one hoping that the heat won't melt them.

Driven by the hot air surrounding her and by the thought of being pursued, even though nobody may have noticed that a mouse had stolen the gem, she raced up the air duct. "Must... make it... past the heaters..." There was no chance for her to leave the canal before them. The only maintenance hatch she came past was held in position by a too strong lock, so she had to head on against the burning gale coming from the air-conditioning which had hardly cooled down during the blackout, having nothing but her feet in the suction cup shoes to cling to the galvanized steel walls around her.

Within a minute which seemed like half an hour for her, she reached the machinery. "Whew," she said and exhaled in relief as she examined what she saw in front of her, "they mounted the heating elements after the ventilators." It got much chillier around her as soon as she made it past the heaters on both sides of the canal with their red hot wires. Again, the basic mechanical knowledge she got from her sister that winter proved useful when she found out that the ventilator unit could be removed for maintenance purposes, but detaching it was only possible from outside.

She sighed. "If only Sparky was here... He could stop the ventilators." For a moment, she wasted a few thoughts on the laboratory rat who had joined the Rangers on the same day as her. "No," she motivated herself then, "I must get this done by myself. And I can do it."

She clung to the frame below one of the ventilators, took off the suction cup shoes, held them with her hands, and studied the motion of the large fans. Finally, the right moment came. She hurled herself and all her payload upwards, passed through between two blades, and landed on one of them, held in place by the suction cups in only one hand. After pulling herself forward and slipping her feet into the suction cup shoes again, she began to slam the wrapped diamond against the rusty wire girders above her which finally gave in and broke. She held the gem in the pullover with her teeth, gripped the wires as she came past the position where they were broken again, and with two plopping noises pulled herself and the suction cup shoes off the fan blade. All she had to do was climb out now. Nobody would ever suspect the thief having left the building through a tiny hole in a ventilator grid, at least no human would.

The fresh air helped her overcome the dizziness. She didn't know for how many rounds she had ridden on the fan, but it felt like thousands. As soon as she had regained her senses, she took the hang glider that was still parked nearby to the edge of the roof, and, holding the gem between her feet, jumped down. The winds caught her, and she glided back to the Headquarters, albeit on a different, even better hidden route than the one she came on.

However, as well as the route was hidden, her escape from the building stayed as little unnoticed as her payload. Among the rodent witnesses of her flight were two squirrels in dark green shirts and black pants.

"Do you think she's got anything to do with the alarm?"

"Do you have any doubt?"

"Well, I can't believe that she is who she seems to be."

"You mean..."

"Either way, it's the MSS's duty to investigate. No matter who she is and what she and her friends have done for the city until now. C'mon."

Meanwhile, the lights were on again in the exhibition room. They shone on the diamond display and revealed the lack of the diamond.

"The diamond's gone!" the second guard shouted over to the first one who had reactivated the electricity and was now dealing with the security systems.

"Yes, I began to suspect just that," the latter replied. "But what's even stranger is that the girders are still in position, and the light barriers haven't been triggered either. As if someone has stolen it from above."

The walkie-talkie on his belt started crackling, and a voice came from it. "What's up up there?"

"You won't like it if I told you, sir."

"Tell me anyway, it doesn't matter if I like it or not."

"The diamond's stolen, sir. And the thief didn't leave the slightest trace."

"What'd you say? It sounded as if you were telling me the diamond's stolen."

"You understood correctly, sir, it is stolen!"

"It's... oh no!" The voice on the walkie-talkie sounded like being directed away from its counterpart then. "Alert! Get the other gems outta here! We had a theft!" The speaker turned back to the microphone. "Are the police on their way?"

"I'm sure they are," the guard answered. "They're alarmed automatically."

Activity awoke in the backyard. Guarded by men in uniforms, another man carried a black box to an armed van and placed it in its cargo room. Unnoticed by him and the guards, however, three rats made it into the vehicle, too, and hid behind the box until the rear doors were shut and locked.

The man who had carried the box took his place behind the van's steering wheel while one of the guards sat down on the passenger seat. They were about to leave the backyard when a police car suddenly blocked the only exit. Two officers got out. "Stop!" he ordered. "Nobody leaves the crime scene!"

Inside the building, Sergeant Spinelli was busy investigating and questioning the witnesses, accompanied by Officers Kirby and Muldoon, and for the umpteenth time in his career with the title "Lieutenant Spinelli" ringing in his head. Time was running, he had only four years left until his retirement. "So," he asked one of the two guards in the exhibition room, "you're trying to make us believe that the stone vanished into thin air?"

"Well," the guard answered, "as we already said, whoever got in here and back outside with the gem left no traces at all. They must've come from above, from the ceiling or by flying or whatever way. I know how absurd it sounds, but that was about the only possible way to get the diamond past both the girders and the light barriers."

Officer Kirby who had examined the room confirmed, "He's right, there's no evidence of a burglary at all. And the alarm was indeed triggered by the sensors in the cushion."

Spinelli sighed loudly. "Why is it always me who gets these wicked cases?"