Part OnePart TwoPart ThreePart FourPart FivePart SixPart SevenPart EightPart NinePart TenPayday, Part Eleven
Somewhere in the Antslinngs Islands
Antslinngs Islands Territory, TrendstartThe villa that Fruity Arellano had said had once been his exotic home away from home was perched on the side of a hilltop, one of many hills scattered throughout the ladscape of Antslinng, the main island of the Antslinngs Islands. A small path carved into the hillside led from the main road to the house, and Alexandra had been told by Fruity to drive up the road as far as a sign that said "Trespassers will be shot on sight," which he told the girls to ignore because it was just one of his scare tactics, to make sure no one made to snoop the place.
"All right, now we walk," Fruity said.
The four of them walked past the sign and continued on up the road until the arrived at a large paved area that had to be the villa's outside parking lot. "All right, the two of you stay over there in the bushes," Fruity told Destiny and Alexandra. "You, you're coming with me," he told Allison. The two of them walked over to the door, and then Fruity went down on his knees. "Remember the motion detectors?" Fruity asked Allison. "We gotta get down on our knees while we're going to the alarm controls. And the dogs are also loose within the house. If you meet one, don't move. Tell me where it is, and let me distract it."
"Oh, shit," Allison muttered. Fruity squeezed into the dog flap--a hard task given his bulky body--but eventually he managed to get his whole body through, and now Allison had no choice but to follow him inside. "Remember, Allie, this is for Cornelius," she muttered to herself before going through the dog flap herself.
"All right, now stay down," Fruity said. "See that blinking white light? That's the motion detector. Don't move in front of it, or else game's over."
"Okay, so we're in the house now," Allison said. "How do we get to the alarm controls?"
"Just follow my lead, bitch," Fruity said. "I got this." Right then, a guard dog--what looked to be a mix of a mastiff and a doberman--walked in front of Fruity and Allison. "Oh, shit," he muttered. "Nobody move a muscle."
"What the fuck are we supposed to do now?" Allison asked.
"Uh, run," Fruity said. "Don't follow me now!" he shouted as he crawled towards the dog. "Go the opposite direction of where I'm going!" Fruity loped off to the left, and the dog soon followed him, barking all the way. Allison crawled to the right, but since Fruity didn't say where she was supposed to go next, she was soon lost within the massive interior of the villa. She didn't dare stand up to see where she was for fear of setting off the motion detectors.
"Fruity?" Allison called out. "Where the hell are you? I'm fucking lost!"
She felt something sniffing at her backside. She didn't want to look for fear of knowing what was behind her, but curiosity got the better of her common sense, and she turned around. It wasn't a guard dog at all; it was Fruity. "What the fuck are you doing smelling my ass, man!?" Allison demanded.
"Hey, it's how dogs greet each other, bitch," Fruity said. "Mm! it's also how they find the dog that they want to mate with. Man, I'm just looking at your ass and I'm like, I wanna mount that bad girl!" Fruity then tried to clamber up Allison's back, but she shook him off.
"Hey, hey, hey! We're not fricking dogs, man!" she said. "Besides, I'm not the type of girl that enjoys anal. What happened to that dog that you lured away, anyway?"
"He's sleeping off a whole raw steak fresh from the freezer," Fruity replied. "All right, back to business now. Resist the temptation in front of you, Fructuoso!"
"Shit, man, just tell me where the controls are," Allison said.
"Oh, yeah, about that, that's the reason why I needed you," Fruity said. "This alarm, it's designed so that one hacker can't disable it just like this." He snapped his fingers to prove his point. "This one needs two people to disable it at the same time, or else it trips. I had them put in opposite ends of the house just so something like that can't happen without good coordination. But since I had it installed, I know how to bypass it. Ah, here's your spot now." Allison saw an average alarm panel with the standard ten numerical keys; nothing that said that it was some kind of advanced alarm.
"All right, what you need to do is cut the red, green, and yellow wires at the same time, and you should cut it when I cut it," Fruity said. "Here's a knife to help you with that." He handed Allison what looked to be a dull butter knife. "I'll go look for the other panel. Don't do anything naughty while I'm away!" As Fruity loped off away from Allison, she heard him shout, "No! Bad boy! No more steaks for you!"
"All right, I'm at the second panel," Fruity called out. "What did I say the wires we should cut again were?"
"Uh, red, green, and yellow," Allison replied.
"Oh, crap," Fruity said. "What? What did you do?" Allison asked.
"I didn't do anything, I'm just color-blind," Fruity replied.
"This is not the time for jokes, man," Allison said.
"All right, all right, I'm just playing," Fruity said. "Once I say cut, cut. Got that?"
"I think so," Allison muttered, looking at the butter knife that Fruity had handed to her. It looked hopelessly dull. "Oh, God, I hope it works," she said. She took off the panel cover and grabbed the three wires that she needed to cut. "Okay, man, I'm ready," she called out.
"Okay, on three," Fruity said. "One, two, three, cut 'em!"
Allison ran the butter knife over the three wires. She was surprised with the ease with which it cut through the plastic and copper, and soon all three wires were cut. "Did you cut yours?" Fruity asked. "Cause I cut mine, and I don't know if it worked or not."
"I think it worked, man," Allison said. "I don't hear any alarms or anything."
"Oh, that's good. All right, get your girl friends over here; we've got a cellar to smash open."
Destiny, Alexandra, and Allison were now standing in front of the door leading to the villa's cellar, along with Fruity. Fruity had taken a large antique-looking key and inserted it into the cellar door lock, which opened with a mournful groan. The tunnel to the cellar was moist, damp, and humid, but Fruity soldiered on deep into the tunnel, and the three girls followed close behind.
"Over there," Fruity said, pointing at a bit of wall between two wine casks. "That's where I stashed the gold and diamonds and all that. I bricked it up pretty well, but thankfully I've got a sledgehammer handy for cases like this. Help me move the casks first before I break them with my sledghammering." They shifted the casks out of the way, and then Fruity made the first strike at the wall with the sledgehammer. He was able to make a small hole in the wall before he handed over the sledgehammer to Destiny. "Your turn," he said.
"Oh, boy," Destiny muttered, and then she took a swing at the wall. Her first strike took out as much mortar and brick as Fruity did in all the time that he had been wrecking the wall.
"Damn, girl, you got talent for this!" he told Destiny, who ignored the comment and continued hammering at the wall. Finally, they managed to make a hole big enough for a person to walk through comfortably, and Fruity walked inside and began taking out gym bags filled with ingots of gold and uncut diamond stones. "What are y'all standing there?" he asked. "Help me out here!"
Destiny shrugged at Alexandra and Allison, and then the three of them began helping Fruity with taking out the bags and bringing them out to Alexandra's minivan. Finally, only one bag remained in the cellar, and Fruity took it with him as he went up the stairs to the house. The three girls made to follow him, but then, just before they got out of the cellar, Fruity said, "I think it's best if we parted ways here."
"Huh? What are you talking about?" Alexandra asked.
"I'm sorry, girls," Fruity said, "but this part of the journey I have to take by myself. I hope you'll understand why I'm doing this, but probably not today." Then he closed the door on the girls' faces, and he locked the door.
"Fruity! Why the fuck are you doing this?" Alexandra shouted from beyond the door.
"So sorry, girls, but you helped me, not the other way around," Fruity replied. "Toodaloo, motherfuckers," he said as he reconnected the alarm wires--he had actually just pulled them out instead of cutting them--and when the system detected a break in the circuit, alarms blared all over the villa and its surrounding estate.
"Well, at least we won't die here," Alexandra said.