“Could you explain that again, Kaoru?” Mei asked, confused by Kaoru’s speedy explanation.

“The museum we were hired to rob has security cameras fixed at certain points to catch any abnormal happenings. We should be able to get away safe if we stay in their blind spots and/or find a way to disable them. But there are also lasers we need to avoid, so don’t be stupid.”

“I think she meant the technical part of it, Kaoru,” Kiku corrected.

“Oh.” the Cantonese man’s face remained stoic as ever. “Well, here are the cameras’ angles.”

He laid out a large, blueprint-like piece of grid paper. It was labeled with where the cameras were placed in certain hallways and the angle at which they met the wall.

 

“Lien and Kasem are driving. Cheng will calculate the lasers; he said he’d send in the numbers by afternoon today.” Kaoru finished.

“Okay, aru, we will solve problems now.”

“Aniki, that sounded so Asian, da-ze!” Im commented.

Mei punched the Korean teen’s arm. “You’re Asian, too. Im. Yong. Soo.”

“Mei, Im, calm down.” Kiku said, “Yao-san is right, we need to figure out the angles of the cameras and the area they cover.”

Im laughed with a confident shrug, “She just likes me-”

A blink later, the Korean was on the ground being strangled by a furious Taiwanese girl.

Kaoru, ignoring them, jotted some numbers on the margins of the blueprint. “The cameras apparently gather videos in a foot by half a foot rectangle. They’re mounted at the very top of the ceiling so...”

Mei stopped strangling Im to answer, “Lien said that the walls are about 11 feet tall, but how are you going to calculate the volume the cameras can see? The pyramid-shaped volume the cameras can detect are slanted.”

Im weakly tried to grab for something, and Mei continued making sure he would never recover.

Kaoru thought for a moment, then continued writing, “By Cavalieri’s principle, the volume would be the same as if the pyramid was not oblique. So each camera can monitor about 1.83 feet cubed. There are 16 cameras, so in total they can cover about 29.28 feet cubed.”

Just as he finished, the door swung open.

“Sorry guys, “ Cheng said, waving a rolled up piece of blue paper, “We got held up by traffic, hope we’re not too late.”

“Can’t… breathe…” Im gasped.

Lien stepped over him. “What he means is, we stopped for lunch on the way.”

Yao was slumped in a chair, stomach growling. “Could’ve gotten us some too, aru…” He said mournfully.

Kaoru retrieved the paper from Cheng and laid it on the ‘blueprint.’

 

“The lasers form 30-60-90 triangles, and they sit at the very top of the ceiling.” Kasem said.

Kaoru typed a few numbers into the calculator he borrowed from Yao.

 

11/√3 = 6.350852961

 

“Then the floor length they cover is about 6.35 feet,” He announced, slipping the cover onto the calculator, “so the area each laser can sense about 34.925feet squared.”

He turned to Cheng, “And there are 36 lasers right?”

“Yes.”

“So the total coverage is about 1257.3 feet squared.” Kaoru rolled up both papers and handed them to Cheng. “Then we can easily stay out of their path. That takes care of the lasers and cameras.”

By now, Im, Mei, and Yao were sprawled across the couches in the room, their stomachs explaining what they couldn’t in their starved state.

Kiku had mysteriously disappeared, as did his bento box.

“I think that’s enough for today.” Lien said, jabbing Im with her paddle, “These three won’t be very productive.”

Kasem stepped forward, “Okay everyone, meeting dismissed! Meet back here tonight at 10:30pm.”