Chapter 28: Oakmont's Twelve, Part 2

The guards took a look around in the room. They didn't check each and every rack in it, probably because they didn't expect to find anything suspicious inside them. But they did examine the space above them, and Todd had to step aside from the air vent when the beam from one of their spotlights hit the grille. He wasn't keen on finding out the hard way what would happen if the guards discovered mice in the air conditioning. He held his breath until they were gone.

He exhaled loudly out of relief. "Phew! They're gone. And they didn't notice the playing recorders."

"Great!" Dale said. "Then we can crack the vault now."

"Not yet, Dale. Let's wait for them to return to their room. They might still hear us through the closed door as long as they're in the hallway."

Another three minutes passed while Todd had two eyes on the guards room. Finally, the two guys in uniforms returned to their room and closed the door behind them. Todd gave two thumbs up and ran back to the others. "We're clear! Now we can, as you said, Dale, 'crack the vault.'"

The entrance room air extraction was not too close to the guards room. In fact, the air duct even had several corners on the way there. But this greatly reduced the chances for the team to be heard. Another air grille barrier was quickly unmade, but this time, there was nothing below the vent to step upon, the vent was right beneath the ceiling again, and the room was completely dark. The air duct wasn't illuminated much better, the only source of light was the PDA screen.

"Sparky, Foxy," Dale said, "here comes your part."

"Alright!" Sparky replied eagerly. "Uhm, what is my part?"

Foxy retold the plan. "First, I'll fly to the entrance door and remove the cover from the lock which I'll find by using my echolocation. Once it's gone, I'll carry you to the lock which you'll short-circuit."

"Excellently told, Foxglove," Todd praised. "By short-circuiting," he added, "the door will unlock, but it will not open, the security systems in this room will be shut down, and the lights will go on."

Dale placed himself behind Foxglove and laid his hands on her shoulders. "Ready, Foxy?"

She turned around, nuzzled him tenderly, said, "Ready, cutie," and took off into a darkness in which only bats could find their way. Her teammates listened to her flapping and sonar pinging, this way, they were able to estimate where she was. "I got it!" she suddenly shouted. She knew she couldn't lay it onto the floor, so she decided to carry it back to the air duct. "Step aside, up there, here comes the panel!" She safely pinged her way back to the hole in the wall where her friends were waiting.

"Sparky," she asked after she had lain down the aluminum panel on the ground of the air duct, "can I get an electric shock when I hold you by your shoulders?"

"I'm not sure," the lab rat responded, "but I think the lab coat insulates me pretty well. Just stay away from my hands, they're the most dangerous."

"Thanks for the warning." Foxglove lifted off again and planted herself on Sparky's shoulders. With some effort, she managed to get him airborne, but she still had to make it through half of the room with a payload significantly heavier than Dale. She was glad that she remembered the way to the lock, so it didn't take her too long to fly Sparky there.

The opening with the lock in it wasn't very deep, it was in fact barely large enough for Sparky to stand in. From where he stood, he could see the lights of the photoelectric barriers across the door. To stay safe, Foxglove hovered behind him. He felt his way through the hole and by and by found what he had been searching for. "Ah, here's one wire... and here's the other one... Hey Foxy, close your eyes for a second or two!" Immediately after this warning, bright lightning bolts cast a ghostly light onto the room before the neon lights on the ceiling lit up. A closer look of Sparky's revealed that the photoelectric barriers had gone, too. The team members in the air duct had to adjust their eyes to the light before they applauded for Sparky who had twisted the two wires so that they were permanently connected.

Foxglove picked Sparky up and carried him back. When they had almost arrived at the air vent, Sparky commented, "Nice crane there, Gadget." The others turned and saw a simple crane-like contraption Gadget had assembled mostly from tent parts even before the lights had gone on.

The inventress smiled and blushed a bit. "Golly, we need something to get our equipment and ourselves down there and back, don't we?"

Together with its stand, Todd's PDA was hung upon the crane and lowered to the floor. Todd took the chance and rode on it, and when they both reached the floor, detached it and moved it into a good position for disarming the vault's security via infrared. "I could use a little help now to enter the code and my handprint," he shouted.

A plunger on a rope dashed through the room and planted itself firmly in the wall niche with the fingerprint scanner and the numeric keypad, right above the latter. At the other end of the rope which in fact was a yarn thread in human scale, LaWahini stood with Gadget's plunger crossbow in her hand. "Bullseye!"

Her sister was busy fixing the rope on her crane when Melissa came to her. "May I ask what that's gonna be?"

"I want to go over there and help him up to the niche with this rope." Gadget held up another piece of thread.

"Oh, you've already done so much. Let me do it," Melissa offered.

"Do you think you can..."

"Sure, otherwise I wouldn't propose it."

Gadget shrugged and handed her the coiled-up rope. With it slung over her shoulder, Melissa swung herself onto the rope that crossed the room until she stood on it, balancing with her arms spread out.

"Melissa," Chip reminded her, "I'm not sure if we've got enough time for a tightrope show."

"You're right," Melissa replied, "but I never said I wanted to make a show out of it. See you later!" And she started to run along the rope, setting one foot in front of the other securely and at the same time incredibly fast, and still holding her arms out. The rope itself did not swing the slightest bit to the sides. At the end, she simply jumped off of it and landed in the niche just as safely. She then knotted the rope she carried to the one she had run on and dropped the other end down to Todd. "Climb up here!"

Todd did as he was told. However, being as untrained as he was, he was only able to move very slowly. "That takes way too long," Melissa decided. She took the rope in her hands and hoisted him up to her. When he arrived at the niche, she took his hand and pulled him up the last few inches so he could stand on his feet again.

He looked at her in disbelief for a moment, then he explained, "Now you're here, you can help me unlock the vault door. After I've entered my handprint and the code number, this button has to be pressed." He pointed at a large, square green button with the writing "Open" on it. "I want you to do that when I'm back on the floor, operating the PDA. But don't press it before I say the word, 'Silence.' And the most important thing: After you've pushed it, stay absolutely silent until I say otherwise."

"Got it," Melissa said.

She turned her back on him while he entered the six-digit code number. To his relief, it was correct. "You can look again," he declared, and she watched as he laid his right hand onto the fingerprint scanner which immediately came to life. A bright bar of light moved up and down below the surface. In the end, the green "Open" button lit up, a sign for Todd's successful part of the unlocking. He wiped a few drops of sweat from his forehead.

While Melissa helped him down on the floor, Zipper left the air duct and began to fly wide circles around the room, gaining both speed and height. Hardly distracted by Zipper's buzzing, Todd started a special program on his PDA that was designed to maintain security systems like the ones around him. He prepared for switching the vault's system to maintenance mode and entered the access code. After that was done, he shouted, "Silence!"

All members of the team fell silent, even Zipper stopped buzzing in mid-air. Melissa pressed the large green button. The huge steel door had already unlocked noiselessly after entering the codes, but now it opened slowly and just as silently. Zipper slipped through the gap as soon as it was wide enough. The whole team held their breaths as he disappeared behind the door. For himself, everything seemed to happen in slow motion. Still flying at an utterly high speed, he spotted the one aluminum tile right ahead. He used his tiny wings to glide upon them, to steer, and on the last bit of the way, he used them as air brakes. With a precision he himself couldn't believe, he hit the tile and got hold of its upper edge.

He then turned around until he stood on his hands and slowly and carefully pushed the tile off the wall, always watching Todd through the opening door. After seeing Todd's thumb up, he pushed harder and detached the tile. The moment they both began to fall down towards the still touch-sensitive floor, the PDA's infrared transmitter was already working. The devices worked together perfectly, and Todd gave another thumb up as a sign that the security was down. Zipper dared flap his wings again and kept himself and the tile from hitting the ground mere inches above it. Todd pumped his fists into the air. "It's defeated!"

"Ya mean we can enter?" Dale asked from above.

"That's what I mean!"

"Oh boy oh boy, we cracked it!" Dale cheered. "C'mon, everyone, to the vault, an' let's get the gems outta there!" He was the first to climb down the rope, and being a chipmunk, he was fast, too. The Rangers made a mad dash for the vault to find and open the locker no. 305. Only Clarice stayed back in the air duct and watched the scene below unfold.

The locker was found within no time. Chip climbed onto Monty's shoulders right below the lock, and they both helped Gadget up who picked the lock with her tail. Together, they opened the door. There it was again, the black box which they had chased almost across the whole USA. From inside the locker, Monty pushed it out of the locker and onto the waiting hands of Chip and Dale. The other Rangers were standing ready to assist them if necessary.

Suddenly they noticed that a large shadow and a few smaller ones were cast upon all of them, and two different voices spoke.

"Return the box to the locker now!"

"Oh, no, no, don't listen to what he said. Get it out and give it to ME!"