Chapter 363. Operation: Fatman (5/10)
“You know, lately, something seems to have changed a bit about my older sister.”
“What’s changed?”
“I’ve been catching her spacing out and looking out windows far into the distance a lot.”
“Is it that strange for her to do that?”
“Yeah. She never used to do that before. It’s made me curious about something.”
“Curious about what exactly?”
“Well… it’s a bit hard for me to believe… but… I think it might be… love.”
I swerved on the road as my body twitched a bit.
“Be careful how you’re driving!”
“Sorry, I just heard something very strange and unexpected come out of your mouth. Didn’t you say she has an emotional quotient of zero?”
“I did. But my older sister might just be a late bloomer. I think spring has finally come for her. It just came a bit late was all.”
“Don’t you think you might be mistaken? Maybe she’s just thinking deeply about some research she’s conducting.”
“No, I know that look. I’ve seen it on my own face in the mirror before. It’s love. It must be love.”
“Did you ask your sister about it directly to confirm your suspicions?”
“I have, but she keeps denying it. She said she doesn’t understand a concept like love, but she also said she definitely isn’t feeling that. When I asked her what she’d been thinking about when spacing out lately, she did say she was thinking about a boy though. My sister just doesn’t understand that she’s thinking about that boy because she’s in love. I’m sure of it.”
“I think you’re probably interpreting things in whatever way you find most convenient.”
“I’m not.”
“Yes, you are.”
“I’m definitely not.”
“You definitely are. There’s no way it’s what you’re thinking. She probably just found an interesting specimen to research or something and you’re misunderstanding. She did major in biology after all.”
“If a boy is interesting to her in any way, the only explanation I can muster up for it is love.”
“Haaaaaah. I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree.”
“Yes. We will. Putting that aside though, I bet there’s something you never figured out before.”
“What?”
“The identity of the person I got to disguise themselves as me that one time we met in the school lab at lunch.”
“Wait… you’re not implying that was your sister, are you?”
“Correct~ it was her. You didn’t know that, did you?”
“No… I hadn’t connected the dots at all. I’d even completely forgotten about it.”
“You may have seen through the fact that I got someone to disguise as me at the time, but you didn’t ever figure out it was her. She was able to mimic the way I sounded perfectly.”
“Why’d she help you out with that when she’s a teacher though?”
“Because she loves me so dearly.”
“And the real reason?”
“I paid her $20 and bought her lunch.”
“A bribe. I see. She’s got no moral integrity after all. Money does make the world go round and she was complaining about her class budget.”
“There are both pros and cons of a sister with no moral integrity.”
We continued talking for about twenty to thirty minutes on our way to the school. When we were two blocks away, I turned into a back lane. There was a car parked up a bit off the road to one side as I turned the corner. I confirmed it was the same make and model as Irene’s car. The only difference being the dark tinted windows preventing you from seeing inside and the color of the vehicle which I found strange, but I figured it was related to the part of the plan I left up to Rosa to figure out. If things went wrong and the police showed up, I’d tasked her with coming up with an escape plan.
“We’re getting off here.”
“Okay.”
When she got off the back she removed her helmet and hung it off the back seat. I checked the surroundings and made sure nobody was looking before I rolled the motorcycle between two thick bushes and left it hidden there with the lights and engine off.
I led Izora to the car, opened the back door, scooted over to the opposite seat when I sat down, and said, “Get in. We’re going to go over the plan.”
“Heya Izora,” Rosa greeted in a friendly tone when Izora sat down in the back seat.
“Huh? Rosa? You’re also helping him out with this?”
“Yeah. It originally would have been just the two of us, but this guy was worried that the security might have been upped a bit after what happened at the school dance. It’s a good thing he did decide to enlist your help since it seems they really did. We’re going to have to be quick, in and out. If I was blindly searching around inside by myself, I might take too long to find what we’re looking for. Plus, we weren’t sure whether the theater club would have what we were looking for, but judging by how you’re here, it seems they do.”
“The school upped their security? How can you tell?” Izora asked curiously.
“When I came earlier, I inspected the doors more closely through the classroom windows, it looks like they installed infrared sensors low to the ground behind all of the doors inside the rooms to detect when they’re opened. They’re pretty cheap and easy to set up. Just embed an infrared laser into one side behind the door and a sensor directly across from it. When the door is opened and blocks the infrared light going into the sensor, the signal strength the sensor detects drops below a threshold and it trips.”
“I see. You said they’re inside the classrooms, are they also at the entrances?”
“Yes, I checked the front entrance and saw them through the window. It’s safe to assume all the entrances have them. They’re positioned a bit differently though. The laser points toward the door while the sensor is on the door itself. When the door swings open, the laser is no longer pointed at the sensor and it trips.”
“However, I don’t believe a sensor was installed on the door to the school roof though. Theoretically, we could get into the building through there if we can get up there, but the theater club room would still make things impossible to get in and out undetected. If the theater club room had a window to the outside, it’d be possible to sneak in through the window without tripping the infrared sensor when the door is opened, but unfortunately, it doesn’t have a window.”
“Uh… if the alarm is tripped… do you think the police will show up?”
“Well, if they were willing to install this system, it’s safe to assume the police will receive an alert and come check the building for any trespassers.”
“But to begin with, how are we supposed to even get into the theater club room?”
I took the chance to speak up, “There’s no need to worry about that. You can leave that part to Rosa. She’s really skilled at picking locks.” I probably wouldn’t be able to do the locks on the doors to the classrooms very easily, so I’d left this task entirely up to Rosa. Though I might be able to do it if given enough time and without the pressure to perform, we didn’t have such leisure. Rosa was much more skillful than me when it came to picking locks, it was a task I was confident I could leave up to her.
“Really? You’re sure she can pick it?”
“Yeah. You can trust her with that.”
“Ran, I’ll go over the entirety of the plan from here since you’re in the dark about the escape part of the plan in the event the police show up.”
“Sure, go ahead.”
“Izora, just the two of us will be infiltrating tonight. We’ll be going full speed, hard and deep, without any time to slack off and take it easy. I get us in the front door, we sprint full speed to the theater club room and I pick any locks on the door and inside the room. As soon as we’re in, your mission is to locate the goods. We’ll stuff it into this duffle bag to make it impossible for anyone to figure out what was taken.” Rosa lifted up the duffle bag on the front passenger seat.
“Okay. Then what?”
“After that, we make our escape out the back door which will be easy. They’re only locked to the outside and not the inside after all. From there, we’ll cross the street and cut through the houses to get to the back lane where this car will be parked. The back seat will be lowered, you are to dump the duffle bag into the trunk through it. Do you understand everything up to this point?”
“Yes. But what about Ran? What is he supposed to be doing while we’re doing all of this? He can’t be just here to look pretty, right?”
“Of course, he has his own role to play. He’s going to be our eyes. She opened up the duffle bag and pulled out something from inside it.”
“Is that… a drone?”
“Yes. Ran will be on standby here in the bush laying low beside his motorcycle. He will be controlling this drone remotely and keeping a lookout for the police. As soon as he spots any sign of the cops, he’ll notify me over the radio.”
Rosa pulled out a two-way radio from the duffle bag and tossed it over to me.
Chapter 363. Operation: Fatman (5/10)
“You know, lately, something seems to have changed a bit about my older sister.”
“What’s changed?”
“I’ve been catching her spacing out and looking out windows far into the distance a lot.”
“Is it that strange for her to do that?”
“Yeah. She never used to do that before. It’s made me curious about something.”
“Curious about what exactly?”
“Well… it’s a bit hard for me to believe… but… I think it might be… love.”
I swerved on the road as my body twitched a bit.
“Be careful how you’re driving!”
“Sorry, I just heard something very strange and unexpected come out of your mouth. Didn’t you say she has an emotional quotient of zero?”
“I did. But my older sister might just be a late bloomer. I think spring has finally come for her. It just came a bit late was all.”
“Don’t you think you might be mistaken? Maybe she’s just thinking deeply about some research she’s conducting.”
“No, I know that look. I’ve seen it on my own face in the mirror before. It’s love. It must be love.”
“Did you ask your sister about it directly to confirm your suspicions?”
“I have, but she keeps denying it. She said she doesn’t understand a concept like love, but she also said she definitely isn’t feeling that. When I asked her what she’d been thinking about when spacing out lately, she did say she was thinking about a boy though. My sister just doesn’t understand that she’s thinking about that boy because she’s in love. I’m sure of it.”
“I think you’re probably interpreting things in whatever way you find most convenient.”
“I’m not.”
“Yes, you are.”
“I’m definitely not.”
“You definitely are. There’s no way it’s what you’re thinking. She probably just found an interesting specimen to research or something and you’re misunderstanding. She did major in biology after all.”
“If a boy is interesting to her in any way, the only explanation I can muster up for it is love.”
“Haaaaaah. I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree.”
“Yes. We will. Putting that aside though, I bet there’s something you never figured out before.”
“What?”
“The identity of the person I got to disguise themselves as me that one time we met in the school lab at lunch.”
“Wait… you’re not implying that was your sister, are you?”
“Correct~ it was her. You didn’t know that, did you?”
“No… I hadn’t connected the dots at all. I’d even completely forgotten about it.”
“You may have seen through the fact that I got someone to disguise as me at the time, but you didn’t ever figure out it was her. She was able to mimic the way I sounded perfectly.”
“Why’d she help you out with that when she’s a teacher though?”
“Because she loves me so dearly.”
“And the real reason?”
“I paid her $20 and bought her lunch.”
“A bribe. I see. She’s got no moral integrity after all. Money does make the world go round and she was complaining about her class budget.”
“There are both pros and cons of a sister with no moral integrity.”
We continued talking for about twenty to thirty minutes on our way to the school. When we were two blocks away, I turned into a back lane. There was a car parked up a bit off the road to one side as I turned the corner. I confirmed it was the same make and model as Irene’s car. The only difference being the dark tinted windows preventing you from seeing inside and the color of the vehicle which I found strange, but I figured it was related to the part of the plan I left up to Rosa to figure out. If things went wrong and the police showed up, I’d tasked her with coming up with an escape plan.
“We’re getting off here.”
“Okay.”
When she got off the back she removed her helmet and hung it off the back seat. I checked the surroundings and made sure nobody was looking before I rolled the motorcycle between two thick bushes and left it hidden there with the lights and engine off.
I led Izora to the car, opened the back door, scooted over to the opposite seat when I sat down, and said, “Get in. We’re going to go over the plan.”
“Heya Izora,” Rosa greeted in a friendly tone when Izora sat down in the back seat.
“Huh? Rosa? You’re also helping him out with this?”
“Yeah. It originally would have been just the two of us, but this guy was worried that the security might have been upped a bit after what happened at the school dance. It’s a good thing he did decide to enlist your help since it seems they really did. We’re going to have to be quick, in and out. If I was blindly searching around inside by myself, I might take too long to find what we’re looking for. Plus, we weren’t sure whether the theater club would have what we were looking for, but judging by how you’re here, it seems they do.”
“The school upped their security? How can you tell?” Izora asked curiously.
“When I came earlier, I inspected the doors more closely through the classroom windows, it looks like they installed infrared sensors low to the ground behind all of the doors inside the rooms to detect when they’re opened. They’re pretty cheap and easy to set up. Just embed an infrared laser into one side behind the door and a sensor directly across from it. When the door is opened and blocks the infrared light going into the sensor, the signal strength the sensor detects drops below a threshold and it trips.”
“I see. You said they’re inside the classrooms, are they also at the entrances?”
“Yes, I checked the front entrance and saw them through the window. It’s safe to assume all the entrances have them. They’re positioned a bit differently though. The laser points toward the door while the sensor is on the door itself. When the door swings open, the laser is no longer pointed at the sensor and it trips.”
“However, I don’t believe a sensor was installed on the door to the school roof though. Theoretically, we could get into the building through there if we can get up there, but the theater club room would still make things impossible to get in and out undetected. If the theater club room had a window to the outside, it’d be possible to sneak in through the window without tripping the infrared sensor when the door is opened, but unfortunately, it doesn’t have a window.”
“Uh… if the alarm is tripped… do you think the police will show up?”
“Well, if they were willing to install this system, it’s safe to assume the police will receive an alert and come check the building for any trespassers.”
“But to begin with, how are we supposed to even get into the theater club room?”
I took the chance to speak up, “There’s no need to worry about that. You can leave that part to Rosa. She’s really skilled at picking locks.” I probably wouldn’t be able to do the locks on the doors to the classrooms very easily, so I’d left this task entirely up to Rosa. Though I might be able to do it if given enough time and without the pressure to perform, we didn’t have such leisure. Rosa was much more skillful than me when it came to picking locks, it was a task I was confident I could leave up to her.
“Really? You’re sure she can pick it?”
“Yeah. You can trust her with that.”
“Ran, I’ll go over the entirety of the plan from here since you’re in the dark about the escape part of the plan in the event the police show up.”
“Sure, go ahead.”
“Izora, just the two of us will be infiltrating tonight. We’ll be going full speed, hard and deep, without any time to slack off and take it easy. I get us in the front door, we sprint full speed to the theater club room and I pick any locks on the door and inside the room. As soon as we’re in, your mission is to locate the goods. We’ll stuff it into this duffle bag to make it impossible for anyone to figure out what was taken.” Rosa lifted up the duffle bag on the front passenger seat.
“Okay. Then what?”
“After that, we make our escape out the back door which will be easy. They’re only locked to the outside and not the inside after all. From there, we’ll cross the street and cut through the houses to get to the back lane where this car will be parked. The back seat will be lowered, you are to dump the duffle bag into the trunk through it. Do you understand everything up to this point?”
“Yes. But what about Ran? What is he supposed to be doing while we’re doing all of this? He can’t be just here to look pretty, right?”
“Of course, he has his own role to play. He’s going to be our eyes. She opened up the duffle bag and pulled out something from inside it.”
“Is that… a drone?”
“Yes. Ran will be on standby here in the bush laying low beside his motorcycle. He will be controlling this drone remotely and keeping a lookout for the police. As soon as he spots any sign of the cops, he’ll notify me over the radio.”
Rosa pulled out a two-way radio from the duffle bag and tossed it over to me.
