It had all started so innocuously.
Darken Mysterius took a tactical swig of hydrolysed water from his tactical 'containment' water bottle, as he tactically scanned the tactically-rich environment with his penetratingly keen and tactical eyes, before adjusting and cinching the straps on his Tactical Kumbat(™) gear, which included a tactical backpack, and a tactical "Kevlin" vest.
Apparently, this series was the brainchild of a certain "Kevlin", apparently a real Agent with countless successfully cum-pleted missions to his name.
Kevlar? Pfft. Why get Kevlar, when you could get Kevlin?!
In particular, its main selling point was that it claimed to be "bullet proven" - meaning that in the tests, when a bullet was fired at it, then the bullet was "proven" to go through the material.
Accordingly, the vest was also "Knife-proven", "bomb proven" and a whole list of other things to boot, including the boot itself.
Impressive.
Moreover, It looked good, and was quite comfortable, so there wasn't much to complain about.
It was all very nice, possibly overkill for a simple game of "Cops and Robbers"…
Except as you would know by now, as a veteran grandmaster of this novel, that the word 'overkill' would immediately trigger various alarm bells.
Indeed.
This was no ordinary game.
There were stakes. High stakes.
You got it. The reward was in fact: steaks, personally marinated by Gordan Handsey, a legendary Touchmaster who particularly excelled at berating people in the hospitality industry to 'better' themselves and their businesses.
For one thing, in the game, Darken Mysterius was firstly a Robber. But that was, of course, only the beginning. In actual fact, the cops believed that he was in fact on their side, as an undercover agent who would turn the tables at a critical moment. As a result, both sides might currently leave him alone, or would give him knowing nods, as if they knew what was up.
However, this of course was just the surface of Darken Mysterius' true designs. The head of the robbers in fact knew of the fact that Darken Mysterius was in fact an undercover agent, except that from the very beginning, this had been part of the plan.
"Well... let's think about this logically. Currently, both sides are evenly matched. As a result, we would need to shift the balance of power at a critical moment, in order to deliver a critical blow."
"How could this be done? Well, what if someone pretends to be an undercover agent for the cops, to gain their trust…? Only then could we spring a high-level betrayal successfully."
Fairé Enuff, current leader of the Robber Faction in the game nodded. "Fair enough." She said. "It makes sense. If you do not gain their trust, then, any betrayal would mean nothing. You would have to first infiltrate their ranks, gain something worth betraying, only then could we deliver a crushing blow, allowing the high-quality steaks to be ours…"
Accordingly, the upper echelons of the Robbers believed that Darken Mysterius was a robber that was just pretending to be a cop in order to win their trust - but was actually still a robber, and gave him a knowing look as they began the game.
Of course, nevertheless, this was not the full picture.
The leader of the Cops knew that the Robbers would be a wily bunch.
"The robbers would be expecting us to pull a reverse switch…"
Darken allowed Over Thortit, Captain of "the Cops" in the game, to extrapolate his 'master plan'. In these instances, he knew it was best to keep quiet, since then Over Thortit would do the mental heavy lifting for him.
"Darken… If we just send you in as an Undercover agent - that is, a cop pretending to be a robber - your cover would easily be blown. You would need to gain their trust, and so you actually *need* to become a robber. Only then could you convincingly win them over and play your undercover role to perfection."
It was true. Nothing beat authenticity in these matters - give them the truth to sell the lie.
As a result, Darken Mysterius would tell the Robbers the Truth - which had in fact already been approved by Fairé Enuff, though Over Thortit didn't know that - that Darken *was* actually a cop, but only for the sake of the Robbers' mission of course!
However, it was here that Over Thortit believed he was one step ahead. He, with his exceptional strategic intellect, knew the truth: that Darken Mysterius was in fact a cop, who was simply pretending to be a robber who was pretending to be a cop but was actually still a robber in order to thoroughly sell the deception, but in actual fact, he was *actually* still a cop.
And yet.
Darken Mysterius had thought still one step further. Amidst all this confusion, it was inevitable that at some point, the Leaders of both parties would grow tired of having to think about all of this, and as in most situations where effort is actually required, would take the path of least resistance - which would be of course to simply kill him to avoid having to keep track of what was actually going on.
To counter for this eventuality, he needed to rise beyond this duality, and become indispensable to both parties.
That's right. In fact, accordingly, he had let loose the rumour that he had been handpicked by Gordan Handsey himself as his personal successor - it was actually true - and so, regardless of whoever won the "Cops and Robbers"game, whoever was good friends with him would no doubt reap the benefits of the secret marinade and culinary techniques to cook the perfect steak.
As a result, it was in the best interests of all the participants involved to treat him like royalty, regardless of his true allegiance, so that they could literally, 'make the cut' later post-game, in order to be part of his inner circle, the connoisseurs club if you will of satisfied steak-enjoyers.
In this way, he essentially elevated himself to a role where he was more overseeing the game as a kind of teacher or spectator figure, everyone knew that he didn't really need to win as he could just cook and eat the perfect steaks himself anytime, and so he basically became a friendly, respected and admired character that both sides trusted, so long as he laid low and didn't get too full of himself.
Indeed, this was the key, for regardless of logic, sometimes, people would still do irrational things, just because they could, and so the final variable to account for was pure randomness of human free choice 'for the lols' 'just because'. In other words, it was entirely possible that Darken might just be killed in the game for just existing, or because someone felt like it, and he couldn't rely solely on his elaborate quintuple agent setup in order to presume a good outcome.
Accordingly, he had a few options.
The first was to engineer or orchestrate the randomness himself, a highly dangerous and volatile move that would surely backfire and lead to chaos and pandemonium. It wasn't a viable option.
The second was to kill everyone before they killed him, and accordingly, get the steaks for himself. However, this was thinking too short-term - the other players, filled with resentment at being betrayed, would certainly band together to destroy him in the future.
Fortunately, of course, as you would expect being a true grandmaster reader, there was another way.
Gordon Handsey. He was the key. The lynchpin to the game.
As a result, Darken Mysterius' plan was this.
The true win condition for the game was to have *everyone* believe that he had helped them to the utmost of his ability, and to also actually provide a great outcome for all the people involved, in other words, to create a true win-win for all involved.
How would this be possible?
Well. First, he had discussed things with Gordan Handsey. "It's better to teach a man to fish, than to give him a fish right?... Instead of just giving them the steaks to enjoy, why not teach them how to cook it for themselves?!"
"Brilliant, Darken, absolutely f*****' brilliant…"
As a result, upon the completion of the game, the contestants would in fact be given not the marinated steaks, but the ingredients only… the recipe was something that they would have to follow along with the instructions and learn, so that they could enjoy perfect steaks forever in the future.
At this critical stage, Darken Mysterius would surreptitiously pass around the instructions of the secret recipe to the Robbers and the Cops, enabling them to have at least a guide on how to cook the perfect steak, whilst Gordan Handsey would be pleased that so many people had learned how to cook steak properly thereby not letting the sacrifice of innumerable cows be in vain for the future.
Indeed. This was of course Bob's raison d'etre for creating the Darken Mysterius alter-ego. He wasn't having Darken Mysterius play Cops and Robbers just for fun - although it was certainly enjoyable! The point was to gain experience in understanding how different people thought, and to see if it were possible to create win-wins for all involved. The Cops and Robbers game was just the start - a test if you will, to practice for the real world.
And yet, things, as always, weren't so simple…