For a brief moment in the vault, his eyes flickered with a flame of remembrance. How I rescued him, how he saved me, how much trouble I caused him, how much trouble he caused me… But that flame quickly died out. Especially when he asked
An argument quickly sprang up between the two major factions in my brain. He's ready for the taking! The man who's evaded you for years… is just sitting there, scratching his head!
No, how could you live with yourself if you only caught him because he forgot he wasn't on your side?
It's your job! He's still a criminal!
Amnesia…
Amnesia or not, he's still a criminal, and all criminals deserve to be in jail.
What if you told him he was a police officer?
What good would that do?
Well, he's not in jail, but he'll make up for his crimes through a life dedicated to the public good.
Plus he's handsome… and he saved our lives… and helped arrest numerous other baddies…
Dang it, Carmelita-in-Love! We didn't invite you!
She raises a good point, though. Tell him that he's Constable Cooper, your partner at INTERPOL. Now, we'd better go. Otherwise she'll suffer from complete Schizophrenia.
We ran into the members of the Cooper Gang. Upon seeing them, Sly stopped and was puzzled. "Hey Bentley! Hey Murray! Are you Policemen too?"
Bentley was visibly worried. "Um… no, we're not, Sly."
Sly looked apprehensive. "Hmm. Well, it's nice to see you again after all these years."
"Umm… you too… Sly?"
I interrupted, fearing that one of them would break the amnesia in Sly. "Come on now, Constable, we've got to get back to headquarters." I began to pull him towards the helicopter.
He stopped. "What are they doing here?"
Behind his back, I quickly dropped a small business card, then pointed to it, mouthing 'call me.' Then I continued. "They own the island. Dr. M, hearing tales of a fabulous treasure in the island, invaded."
The only country that would allow him to live without jail time was the U.S.A. He'd never robbed them, the information they'd collected from the arrest of Muggshot had reduced crime drastically west of the Mississippi, and because (it was rumored) that the U.S. wanted to get even with the Swiss and French for refusing to extradite Roman Polanski. His citizenship helped.
INTERPOL very reluctantly let him go- they first tried to force the U.S. to extradite him. That failed. Then they claimed that he was allowed to not be arrested, as long as he was in law enforcement, and I kept an eye on him. That narrowly passed the committee discussion (though some say that they held a vote on whether they wanted INTERPOL to cease intercession, and all said 'Yes.'
But before the American Police let Sly in on the force, they wanted to know the extent of his injury. Sly checked into a Washington area mental hospital. The test was simple, yet long. The psychologist asked Sly to tell him his life story. They then hooked up a lie detector onto Sly, and brought in the Guru as a consultant. From this, it was determined that Sly's memories were correct- until he turned 11. Then they took a large deviation.
The Guru, after probing Sly's mind, found that all of his memories were there, but the blow from Dr. M's laser blast broke the timeline structure. His brain started reconnecting, but when I destroyed Dr. M's robot, the shock wave caused the timeline to be redirected down an empty path. The brain, confused as to why it was blank, created new memories- His police days.
Despite this, Sly was determined healthy and fit for duty. We were stationed in Washington, not too far from the orphanage where he'd grown up, and where his family estate was. And not too far from where I grew up, the house that used to be mine, but a good distance away from the Police Academy I attended.