Sly 6: Thieves' Requiem

by EikaPrime

They may have stopped the previous villain, but he didn't work alone. In order to find his partner and stop any more attacks on the Cooper family, the gang has only one lead: robots. And following that lead will lead them to events, and people, they never expected. Sequel to Sly 5: Thieves and Robbers

20. Slinging Through The Trees: End

SLINGING THROUGH THE TREES

Sly Voice-Over

We spent the entire walk back talking over the binoc-u-coms, and by the time we got back, I had just enough time to change into a police uniform before the rest of Interpol arrived. (Carmelita throws the clothing at Sly, who ducks behind a curtain; Murray, Bentley, and Tennessee make themselves scarce as red and blue lights flash outside.) They were shocked and horrified to discover the robot in our custody, and set about bringing her back to civilization for proper questioning. (The Neylabot, still unconscious—or whatever passes as such for a robot—is handcuffed and put in the back of a police helicopter.)

They launched a full investigation into the place, shutting down the illegal drilling operation with our help... but we also kept them away from the canopy. When Le Paradox stole the Cooper canes and brought them to our time, we wound up bringing people from the past here briefly to retrieve them (brief bits of scenes from that whole scenario flash by). Each of them were transported back to their time as soon as they were reunited with their cane. Bentley supposes Tennessee will be sent back as soon as we've got all his gold ready to go with him.

That doesn't quite work out as planned. (Tennessee lounges on top of a huge pile of gold, grinning, while Bentley points what looks like a remote control crossed with a mad scientist's version of a TV at him and stares in befuddlement). According to Bentley's readings, we got everything back together, but, well... (the gold slowly vanishes, dumping Tennessee to the ground) it didn't take Tennessee with it.

And Tennessee flat-out refused to go when Bentley tried to force the issue. I'm not gonna argue.

We need Tennessee—and we need more information. Who is Lady Patch? And what does she have against me? We need more information—and we need it now.

END AREA 1

Author's Notes

And so, we come to the end of the first area. I gotta admit, your reactions to Tennessee's appearance didn't disappoint: I had people messaging me or writing reviews/comments (depending on the site) predicting everything from alternate timelines, people coming from the future/visiting the future, more traveling back to the past... but no one, absolutely no one, thought I'd bring everyone's favorite wild west outlaw to the modern day. It wasn't even a possibility in your minds.

I spent yesterday and today (May 1st) uploading the second half of Area 1—slideshow 2 to the end—and I'm writing these notes now. This morning, I got the first hundred words down on Area 3, Job 7; I'll probably (hopefully) be either finished with or writing the end to area 3 when this goes up, but I may forget to update this author's note, so that's about the summary of progress. EDIT June 18: Area 3 is completely written.

Unfortunately, writing speed will probably drop at that point. My outline document has a two-paragraph description of every area, but areas 4+ don't have... well, this is from my outline for this area:

'JOB 8: Pipe Bomb

Make up whatever you want, but Sly has to go out and collect 5 of them from locations around the area (mushrooms? Ferns?) for Bentley to add to his bombs to make them super powerful. HAVE THEM BE LOCATED DOWN THE STAIRCASES AND AMONG THE PIPES.'

The all-caps bit was added later, as a reminder to myself, but the point stands. For areas 4+ I don't have jobs with any descriptions. I know where it'll take place/Big Important Things/Baddies but before I actually write the durned thing I need to get those paragraphs so I have some idea how to navigate. If I don't make nice fast progress on those, I may end area 2 with an announcement of reducing updates to once every 2 weeks. I hope that won't happen, but them's the breaks. EDIT June 18: Nothing written on area 4, but it's outlined up to the third slideshow (I realized I screwed up and gave a character two different name spellings and stopped to fix it). Getting things outlined up to this point took... by the time I finish outlining area 4, it'll probably be a full 2 weeks. I may take more time to continue/finish outlining or jump write into writing, with my average speed being 1, sometimes 2 chapters/week. It's very unlikely I'll end Area 2 announcing an update slowdown, but still possible. I'll keep you posted.