Tales from Podex: Burglary Tunneling Effort Goes Under

He'd get them this time.

When he first targeted them, it was nothing personal. Just go in, grab a few Lindens, and leave. Simple as that. But instead everything went wrong and he ended up in the slammer for a while. Since then, he'd tried and tried again to rob this Podex Bank. And every time bad luck would throw his plans into a tailspin. He could almost hear these guys laughing at him. They were even referring to him as "Clumsy Cooper" as a joke.

Well, soon they wouldn't be laughing. Soon he'd finally walk away with the Lindens.

He'd discovered this old map by sheer coincidence, a map of a tunnel network running under a number of places. And one branch led under Moonbeam, and under the Podex bank building. All he had to do was follow the tunnels, dig a few feet, break in, get the Lindens, and go back out the way he came.

Going through the tunnels, they were simple at first. But then the chambers and larger passages became full of sets of bars, resulting in a kind of maze. And it wasn't long before be began getting lost. He sighed in frustration. Would he be once again be denied his prize? Would be be denied the victory that would vindicate all the effort he spent?

It was then he noticed something moving in the shadows. Cautious, he crept closer, and found a girl, a brownish vixen. Her unusual feature, two tails, with a band near the base with a glowing star. He thought he was unseen, but he brushed against a loose bar, which fell and clanged against another.

The girl turned and smiled, "Oh, hi there. I don't get many visitors here. Who are you?"

"Um," he wasn't sure whether to give his real name or not, "My friends call me Cooper."

"Hi Cooper, I'm Jasmine." She gave a sweet smile, "I come here to pick a few mushrooms. What'cha doin?"

"Um, exploring. I wanted to check out what was under the Moonbeam area."

"Moonbeam? I know where that is. Need help?"

"Oh yes." Cooper smiled, his luck was improving after all.

And so Jasmine led him through the maze-like passages. They soon were under the Moonbeam area, and not far from the bank. Cooper was already counting the Lindens in his head. Then they went through a passage that reminded Cooper of a prison area with cell-like chambers with bunks in them. He did his best to put that out of his mind. Then she walked into one such cell and began looking under one of the bunks.

"What're you looking for?" Cooper asked her.

"I had some keys to a door up ahead under here. Can you help me?"

He then got down and began looking under the bunk. After a couple moments though, he heard a metallic slam. He turned, and he found the door shut, and Jasmine looking at him from outside with a cunning grin, the keys in her hand.

"Wha- what was that for?"

"I know who you are, Clumsy Cooper. And I know why you're here. You wanted to use my tunnels to rob my neighbors."

"How did you - I mean no I didn't!"

"Don't worry, I won't keep you here. I'll just call the police and they'll take you out, to jail."

"No! Please, let me go."

"So you can rob my neighbors again?"

Cooper got on his knees, "Please, please please! I'll never come down here to rob them again, I swear."

The vixen looked at him, then her look softened, "Well, all right. you can go. But remember your promise."

"Oh thank you! Thank you!" Jasmine then let him out, and the humbled Cooper followed her to an exit.

"Here you go. If I ever see you again in my tunnels, it better not be anywhere near the bank."

"Cross my heart, hope to die." Cooper then left the tunnel network and was back on the surface. He wasn't angry, just glad to be out of his predicament.

Some time later, Jasmine approached the bank. Cooper did seem kind of cute, almost snuggly and huggable. He just had to be watched when it came to the matter of valuables. But she had a feeling he would honor his promise to at least leave the tunnel network out of his robbery plans. But even if he had made it to the bank, the silly Cooper wouldn't have walked away with a single Linden. All business was done through electronic transfer. There was never any threat to the banks' funds.

She walked up to a teller, who asked, "Hi, may I help you?"

The Podex Exchange has a record of being one of the safest Linden exchange services in Second Life, the data processing done outside the exchange, and has a record of thousands of satisfied customers. Transactions can be done at their website, or their location inworld at Moonberry (26, 223, 34).

Note: The preceding is a fictional story, written for the dual purpose of advertisement and entertainment.

Special thanks to Jasmine Dawn.

Bixyl Shuftan