When Things Go Wrong
Hard Contact
Chapter 1 The Inspector's Search
Even though she was only a few feet from burning lava, the place still sent a chill down her spine. She looked up to a gate blown open by some sort of turret a long time ago. Its doors resembled outstretched wings long forgotten that descended from a miniature statue of the notorious Clock-Work himself. Inspector Carmelit Fox looked up at the head with a look full of sadness, 'How did I get stuck with this job?' No more than six years ago a younger version of her strutted through these very doors looking for her greatest catch, the infamous Sly Cooper. She had tracked, trapped, and lost this slippery raccoon and his gang more times than she dare count. However, she went from trying to capture a criminal to a criminal capturing her.
She walked forward, entering the cave. All around were craters created from detonated mines shot down by the Cooper Gang when they fought their way to defeat the metallic bird who had terrorized the Cooper Family since their very existence.
Carmelita dodged around several mines that the gang had happened to have missed and continued out of the cave and down a single road leading up to Clock-Work's Tower. Sly Cooper had had fought through to the place where she was captured and tried to save her. Unfortunately it was a trap, but with the fast hacking skills of Bentley, he overrode the system and saved them both from having their brains turned to cheese.
Carmelita arrived at the very spot where she had been captured remembering how most of her police life she had chased this man and tried to put him behind bars but when he got the chance to leave her behind he set her free. The thought still confused her a little as she walked around the left over shattered glass and on to the tower.
At long last and several memories later she arrived at the brim of the volcano that over looked the remains of the tower. What had once been a weapon of doom was now only overhanging wires and a single walkway off to the side of the pit.
Carmelita smiled as she spotted the walkway and could still see a single handcuff attached to the railing on the right side. The sight brought a small, almost unnoticeable smile to her face, for on that spot Cooper had made his most daring escape ever in ten seconds.
She lowered herself so she could sit on the ledge with her legs dangling over the side. She recalled everything that had happened since then. Since then Sly had taken down all of the Klaww gang members trying to collect all of the clock-werk pieces to try and destroy them forever. However, the plan backfired horribly. Arpeggio the leader of the Klaww gang was able to put all the pieces together so he could be immortal. However, his plan backfired too, Captain Neyla, Carmelita's temporary partner, put herself into clock-werk to become Clock-La. Once again, becoming a team, they took down Clock-la and his legacy forever. Yet just like always, Sly and his gang escaped right under her nose.
Within months the Cooper Gang went from its traditional three to two, and up to seven. Their first job as a complete team resulted in Sly getting into the Cooper Vault while battling the insane Dr. M. But just as Sly was going to finish him off in the inner sanctum the inspector had broken in and told them both they were going to jail. However, Doctor M had a different idea and shat at Carmelita but Sly dove in to take the full of the blast throwing him across the room. The Vixen (fox) quickly defeated the Doctor and ran over to find that the raccoon had lost most of his memories. Taking the opportunity she made him her partner and got out of there. They then had marvelous adventures together and brought down some big criminals.
Until one fateful day. The very thought of it brought tears to her eyes and she tried to think of something else. 'Remember Carm,' she told herself mentally, 'you're here on an assignment to find out how a base like this could be set up without anyone knowing about it.'
She stood up and shook out all thoughts of Cooper and his gang and walked down to the rim of the pit of lava and began looking for some sort of secret entrance to some super computer or hidden office. She circled the pit multiple times studying every detail that was out of place of showed some sign of a doorway. It was about an hour later and she began to have doubts about starting up here until she came across something she never thought she would ever see again and didn't really care if she did. All alone under a large rock that had crushed it just enough not to be usable but was still noticeable as to what it was. There under that rock was her long forgotten jet pack.
Carmelita walked over to her fallen jet pack and tried to push it off with no hint of movement or budge. 'It's useless,' she thought, 'why should I care about it now?' Still she tried to push the rock off until she broke off one of the handles. She looked down at the handle now in her hand and simple gave up. If it could break off that easy then it's not worth it. With a simple shrug she started to walk off. She looked over her shoulder trying to get one last glimpse of her once prized jet pack and walked off once again. She sat down on one of the many rocks scattered throughout the pit and began to try and think of another spot where a working computer was stashed.
In few moments she kept rattling her brain and kept thinking of all the criminals she had ever busted and where they had kept all their valuables until she started to grow frustrated. She stood up once again and began pacing growing angrier with each step." You're better than this!" she yelled aloud, "You won't be outsmarted by some stupid freak!"She screamed and threw the handle. She continued pacing waiting for the sound of the metal hitting stone but when no sound came she became curious. Carmelita looked to see where she had thrown it only to find the side of the pit stretching strait up.
She picked up another rock and threw it at the wall and watched it go strait through. Reaching her hand forward and walking to the wall she expected to hit solid rock but instead she walked right through it and into a large room complete that was simply three solid metal walls and the one she had just walked through. The only thing in the room was a large circle on the floor. The inspector whipped out her precious shock pistol and walked toward the circle expecting a trap of some kind. She paused a step away from the circle and gently brought up a foot and oh so slowly put it in the circle. Suddenly clock werk appeared as her foot hit the circle and she instinctively shot at it while backing away, but the second she was out of the circle he disappeared.
Carmelita lowered he pistol at the sight she had just seen, 'Clockwerk can't be back. We destroyed him; this has to be a trick.' She carefully walked back to the circle with her pistol at the ready and put her foot in it again. Clockwerk appeared again but his time she didn't shoot and merely stood her ground examining the being in front of her. She started to laugh, "Why this is no Clockwerk! This is merely a holo…" Without warning the hologram of clockwork shot into the ground and the circle began to rise from the floor. Carmelita simply dove off it, for this wasn't the first time something like this has happened before, and rolled to a stop. The circle continued to rise until it touched the ceiling. Then the now large cylinder opened revealing it to be a large elevator, probably made for clockwork himself.
"Ok creepy elevator found, now all I need is a hotel key and I'll be set." The inspector casually walked over into the elevator like she did it everyday walking to the office with the doors closing automatically closing behind. Without even looking for a button to push it automatically started it's decent into the unknown.
Several minutes later the elevator stopped and opened into an even larger room than before but this one was chuck full of computers with millions of words and numbers passing every second from every computer on every screen.
"Jackpot!" the inspector raced over to the largest computer she could find that she could reach and began looking for a way to figure out what it was used for. After finding a sliding out keyboard she thought of all the good things it could be used for, there was a horrible pain to the back of her head and before anything else could register, everything went black.
A/N So what is going to happen to Carmelita? Where is she and what just happened? I honestly can't tell you yet, but everything gets better later. I love it when readers review so please make me happy and maybe my writing will get
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