Disclaimer: Sly Cooper is a registered trademark of Sony Computer Entertainment America LLC. I do not own the aforementioned company. No financial gain will be made of any sought from this work, which is done for entertainment purposes only; unless you don't find it entertaining, in which case I didn't intend for it to be entertaining at all.
Chapter 1 – …Not Like Me
Kensington, London, England. 7:03am, 3rd November 2032.
Tim McSweeny was never like his father. Where his dad used to bash peoples heads in for a living in a previous iteration of the Cooper gang, his son was the opposite. Tim made the decision to save lives instead of end them by becoming a doctor before becoming specialised in remote robotic surgery. He would sit in a room nearby at his clinic, holding the two controls with buttons attached to the metal joysticks to perform the movements needed to complete complicated surgeries such as removing tumours and cancers, which are still on the rise. The patient could be on the other side of the world and be connected to his workstation, but this morning he was called in to save a patient in Turkey who needed to have an artificial valve inserted into his heart to keep the artery from collapsing in on itself, thus preventing blood from flowing eventually leading to death. Most people would think this is an incredibly hard job to do, it is, but it's nothing like what he's had to put up with over the past 10 years.
In an act of good will and a gesture of thanks for financially being set up already thanks to the exploits of his father working in Connor Cooper's gang, he adopted Alex and Erin Cooper; twins that have probably seen more action than most people many times older. They were eight at the time, having been shielded by their parents as they evaded law enforcement; they saw Interpol capture their parents in the remote north west of France. The first he knew about it was when he received a mysterious phone call about what he needed to do by someone who claimed to have worked with Sly Cooper, their dad, now dead. Dead, a lethal cocktail of sleeping chemicals injected in fear by his captors to prevent his inevitable escape, but this fact is very much hidden from the rest of the world. Officially, he is still in prison, reflecting on the illegality of his crimes. Tim was told by this person it was of utmost importance that he adopt them in order to protect the Cooper line for this generation before they are assimilated into society working boring desk jobs in an office tower. He didn't know how to be a parent; he was single as well and no children of his own so he was as inexperienced as possible.
However, much like everyone faced with the prospect of children, he learnt how to cope with these very special kids. Alex caused the most hassle for him in that he was less disciplined than his sister Erin, especially when he was younger. But as he grew older he realized that in order to climb the thieving ladder, his name could only get him so far and that he'd have to work for it as much as anyone would need to get what they want. In school, he was struggling between tests but that didn't make him dumb. He never thought that the things in school really mattered to his career path, except for physical education perhaps. He would rather learn how to climb up poles faster and know what makes a painting worth so much rather than how to anti-differentiate a logarithm. This was a stark contrast to Erin, who soaked up knowledge like a sponge. She didn't really mind if it was about Victorian poetry or how silicon is mined, every little bit of information seemed to matter for her in the hope it may be useful one day. She was the model student, smart, punctual, respectful. But she was also shy, preferring to keep to herself rather than interact with people who she considered unintellectual and ignorant of facts.
As soon as Alex could get out of school, he did. At the end of year 10, when he was 16, he left London and began to travel. He wanted to see as much of the world considering he thought that he would be all over the place in future, he may as well take in some of the sights and perhaps make some contacts along the way. Alex thought that he could find jobs along the way to bankroll his travels, but unlike in the Thievius Raccoonus, his family's treasured tome holding the secrets of special thieving techniques and stories of their exploits, which told him to go on TheifNet, he could hardly believe to find that it didn't exist anymore. ThiefNet, the once thriving underground website hidden in the dark corners of the Internet called the deep web, had been shut down. The story goes that police began to assume identities and learn of people's plans and therefore catch them before they even committed the crime. So the only way he thought was to go actively searching for them in foreign cites he travelled to. The things he did weren't pretty, and they didn't even raise enough money. So he usually had to swallow his pride and call back home and beg for money from Tim, which he would wire to his bank account.
Erin meanwhile was attending university, Oxford nonetheless, studying engineering. Because if there was knowledge that she really wanted, it was how things worked. Thieving was something that she hasn't considered doing during school, it is the domain of Alex and the probably wouldn't be enough room for two Coopers in the world of thievery. It's not that she didn't have the ability, in fact she always thought that she could be much better than Alex, who knew this as well; but it wasn't as interesting or as captivating for her as it was for Alex who would intently listen to any mention of past heroics from his father.
Meanwhile, in the Tim's office, the phone rings right in the middle of the operation. Tim goes and turns off the communications with the doctors he is assisting and answers the phone, seeing that he knows who is calling.
"Answer call." Tim commands and the phone call begins.
"Alex, I'm the middle of an operation." Tim explains in his English accent.
"Sorry, I just wanted to tell you that I'm in town and I'm going to be staying at home for a bit." Alex says.
"Finished your trip?" Tim asks as he props up the artery, holding it open for the valve to be inserted.
"I don't know, I'm taking a break from travelling and I'm just going to focus on London for now." Alex reasons.
"Are you broke? Is that why you're returning?" Tim asks.
"Not really." Alex answers, not wanting to admit it.
"Admit it." Tim insists, he can sense the hesitation through the phone lines.
"Yeah, I'm broke, again." Alex admits plainly.
"Maybe this time you can get a more stable job that pays an income you can live off, I may have room for an office clerk if you are interested." Tim offers.
"No thanks, I was never cut for the boring day jobs people work so that I can be miserable for 5 days a week just for 2 days of pleasure." Alex explains.
"I love my job, find one that you like and you'll never have to work a day in your life." Tim answers.
"I have a profession that I love, but it's not working out as I hoped but I'm not giving up." Alex says.
"Just take a break from it all, a couple of months, work in my clinic and you can learn what people do in order to earn money." Tim offers. "If you don't then I'm not giving you any more money. You have to earn it now, no free handouts anymore."
"Ok, fine, just give me some time to think." Alex replies.
"When you return I want an answer, okay?" Tim asks.
"Okay." Alex replies.
"Goodbye." Tim says. "End call."
Tim then turn back on the communications with the hospital and the nurses next to the patient whose voices are translated perfectly from Turkish as they speak via computer. It takes another 35 minutes to finish the operation, which allows Tim to leave his clinic and have another cup of coffee as well as a proper breakfast at a real café instead of a takeaway breakfast he grabbed as he rushed to be on time.
"Is that him?"
"Of course it is, have you traced the call?"
"He's waiting in Paris for the 7:47am train to St. Pancras from Gare du Nord"
"Have a car waiting for him when he arrives in London."
"Certainly."
"Then I will see how capable he can really be."