Mission 3 Part 4

“Glad you’re so happy to see me,” Emmy replied sarcastically.
“No, no, it’s not that it’s just, wow did you ever scare me. What, how, why, I mean, when?”
“Don’t ask how, or why, or what, or anything else, just listen,” Emmy said.
“Okay, I’m listening,” said Tim, still in shock.
“The emperor assigned us to watch you, and give you help if you needed it, remember?” Emmy reminded him. “So he sent you with this handy dandy little device.”
“Oh yeah,” Tim said, remembering. “Why didn’t he tell me about the little device?”
“You mean he didn’t tell you? That’s funny.” Emmy shrugged. “Oh well, he just wanted to make sure everything was going according to plan.”
“Like the emperor’s plan?” Tim asked.
“Yeah, what else?”
“Well, not exactly.”
“What do you mean, ‘not exactly’?”
“We kind of changed the plan around, or Ryan did.”
“You mean we did,” Kayla suddenly came on screen.
“Kayla?” Timothius said, amazed.
“Yeah, it’s me. When the emperor laid out his plan, we all knew it was impossible, so me, Emmy, Cathy, and Shelly cooked up a plan to get you guys in there safely.”
Timothius nodded thoughtfully. “So, does Ryan get all his good ideas from you guys?”
Kayla thought about it for a while and then replied, “Pretty much, except for those stupidly brilliant ones.”
“Ah, I see.” Tim paused. “So why are you contacting me now?”
“Oh yeah,” Emmy smacked her forehead and laughed. “I almost forgot.”
“Now you’re starting to sound like Ryan,” Timothius interrupted.
“Yeah, I know. Anyways, we came to warn you that Q is moving the TNW’s tonight, which means—”
“That we better get going and find out where they are,” Timothius finsished.
“Exactly,” Emmy clapped her hands together. “I love it when people finish my sentences before I even say them!”
“Thanks for the information,” Tim thanked them. “Anything else?”
“Nope, by now, and good luck,” Emmy waved at Timothius through the screen. Kayla waved goodbye too, and then they disappeared and the screen became black.

Meanwhile, Ryan and Laz were crawling through the air ducts as quietly as possible, making their way to the secret room. Suddenly they bumped into a wall; there was no longer any room to go forward but there were two “tunnels” so to speak, to the left and to the right.
“Which way?” Laz asked.
“Left,” Ryan replied confidently.
“How do you know?”
“Because,” Ryan answered as they turned to their left. “I’ve got GPS.”
“Really?”
“No actually I was joking.”
“Oh,” Laz said. “I knew that.”

Timothius was peering underneath the door with another one of Ryan’s gadgets as he waited for Ryan and Laz to return. The gadget was a camera that was small enough to slip underneath the door so that Timothius could see what was happening on the other side without anyone seeing him. All of the sudden he saw a whole troop of guards marching by, and in their midst was a very familiar figure. “Pat?” Tim was of course surprised to see Pat here, but he was even more surprised to see him in chains. Being too curious to stay put, Tim decided to follow them and see where they were going.
He tapped on the handheld device, trying to turn it on. “Hello? Emmy, Kayla, where are you guys? How do turn this thing on?” He shrugged and put it back in his pocket. He went to the door and slowly pulled it open, quickly jamming all the cameras in the hallway. Then he crept out into the hall and started tailing the guards, forgetting all about the earpiece that Laz had given him, which was still sitting in the janitor’s closet.

While Tim was following Pat, Ryan and Laz were just arriving at the secret room, or rather, above it. So far they hadn’t run into any problems but now they were starting to run into some security. Laser beams blocked off the air duct leading to the grate above the secret room.
“Great,” Laz threw up his hands, or tried to, there wasn’t really enough room. “Now what?”
“Not to worry,” Ryan shook his finger. “I have a plan.” He pulled a strange-looking device out of his pack, which was still strapped to his back. “This will reroute the lasers,” he told Laz. He took the device and another one that looked just like it and clamped it onto the side where the lasers were projected. Almost instantly, they disappeared.
“Wow, that was cool,” Laz said in awe. “Great idea.”
“I know,” Ryan said, trying to be humble.
They continued until they came to the grate that was above the secret room. Laser beams blocked this to. Ryan simply repeated the process and removed the grate. He attached a cable to his flak vest and fed it through a pulley. “Here,” he handed Laz the end of the cable. “Lower me down.”
Laz obeyed and lowered Ryan down inside the room. There was a single computer in the room on top of a desk. Inside that computer was the information they needed to find the TNW’s; the only problem was that they didn’t know if they could get to it.
Laz slowly lowered Ryan down towards the computer. When he reached it, Ryan pulled himself over towards the computer and turned it on. Instantly, he was met with a prompt for a password.
“Dang,” he said, clamping a hand over his mouth as soon as the words were out of his mouth. He’d forgotten that the room had an alarm that was sound sensitive! The alarm did not go off, however, so much for state of the art. “It’s got a password lock,” Ryan whispered.
“What’d you expect?” Laz whispered back. Ryan couldn’t have heard him normally, but the earpiece enabled him to understand what Laz was saying.
“I don’t know, what do you think it is?”
“Let me have a hack at it,” Laz offered. “I was always pretty good at hacking into people’s accounts.”
“I know,” Ryan glared up at Laz. Ryan had caught Laz hacking into his computer many times before.
Laz whispered down several different passwords to try, but none of them were the right ones.
Suddenly, it hit him, literally. Deep in thought, Laz raised his head without thinking and banged it on the air duct. He shoved his hand up to his mouth to keep from crying out. Then Laz came up with a great idea. “Try this Ryan, ‘Emperor Q’”
Ryan typed in the password. “Access granted,” it read. “It worked,” he whispered excitedly. He quickly searched the computer until he found the file he was looking for. “‘Transportation of TNW’s’, here it is.” He read the file. “Uh-oh,” Ryan didn’t sound too thrilled.
“What?”
“They’re headed straight for the heart of the Touché Empire. Q’s going to blow up the whole empire!”
Laz gasped. “Come on, let’s get out of here.
“Hold on, let me copy all this information onto a disc so I don’t forget.” He inserted a disc and downloaded the file onto it.
Laz started to pull Ryan up as soon as he gave him the green light. When he was about halfway up, the rope started to fray. Laz was so intent on pulling Ryan up though, that he didn’t notice, until it was to late. The rope suddenly snapped and Ryan dropped heavily to the ground. Laz was thrown back and crashed against the side of the air duct. Not a second had passed before the alarms started to go off and guards could be heard making their way into the room. Two guards burst in and pulled Ryan, who was still dazed from his fall, to his feet.
“Well,” Ryan laughed nervously. “This is awkward. What do you say I just crawl back up there and we can forget this every happened.”
The guards didn’t respond but stared at him blankly. They stepped to either side of him as if waiting for someone. Before Ryan could ask whom they were waiting for, a woman stepped into the room, a terribly familiar looking woman. As she stepped inside, recognition flashed across Ryan’s face. It couldn’t be! It was M! ...