At last, the chapter that's been kicking my ass all month! You wouldn't believe how much I struggled with this one, I gave myself so many creative liberties that I didn't know what to do with them! I tried so many different ideas for this chapter that my cut/unused material document is longer than any chapter I could ever write. Seriously, the little scroll bar on that document is practically non-existent.
It took me a while, but I finally came up with something that worked with everything else, and I'm pretty happy with how this chapter turned out. I really liked getting to write some more Murray/Nyx conversations, they're always so fun. I hope you guys like this chapter as much as I do, and it was worth the wait!
Chapter Nine: A 50/50 Chance
I heaved a sigh as I stared up at the prison ceiling. There were so many things going through my mind that I honestly couldn't pick just one to think about. My fingers idly poked the bruise around my left eye from where Constable Neyla had punched me. It still hurt, and I figured that it would for a while more; Neyla had a really strong right hook.
After Rajan's temple had been scoured top to bottom, and no sign of Bentley or Sly had been found, Neyla had been pretty pissed off. She'd angrily chained the three of us together, and marched us off through the woods, to destinations unknown to us.
And I had thought the hike into the temple had been bad... I would have honestly given anything to just do that again - Quicksand and all. Anything was better than being forced through the woods by a two-faced cop; Especially when you're pretty sure something isn't quite right with your ankle. At least I knew it wasn't sprained, I could still walk on it and it didn't hurt too badly. It made keeping up and not jerking the chain a little bit tough, though.
Despite the gravity of the situation I had found myself in (I'd just gotten myself arrested for Pete's sake!), I wasn't all that angry or scared on my own behalf, and that was something that surprised me. As soon as I realized that I was going to jail, I was expecting to be angry at myself for possibly throwing away my entire life; To be guilty for helping a high profile criminal.
But none of those feelings ever came. Instead, I remained angry at Neyla for turning on Sly, and letting him get hurt just so she could try to make an arrest; And I was certainly angry at her for being so two-faced. Somehow, I felt like someone should have known not to trust a cop that was being so convienient...
I was scared for Sly, too; I didn't know how bad his injuries were, and if he was going to be okay. That was really my biggest worry... He'd said they'd 'faced worse' and come out alive before the heist, but I wasn't sure if there was anything worse than being struck by lightning; At point blank range, too. He'd been a complete mess when I'd gotten to him, and I could only hope that he'd pull through and be alright.
But amongst all of the negative feelings, there was a sense of pride and peace; I had actually managed to help Sly get away, and I'd done it all by myself. Wherever he and Bentley were, they were safe. And I knew that once they sorted everything out, they were going to come for Murray and I.
After exiting the jungle, an Indian police van was waiting for us, and took us to a small prison building, where we waited overnight while the authorities presumably filed all the necessary paperwork that goes with an arrest, and tried to figure out where to incarcerate us.
When the decision was made and we were informed of it, I was finally hit with the realization that this was probably going to be really bad.
We were to be incarcerated at Contessa's Criminal Rehabilitation Center, in Prague. Just the name of the place made my fur stand on end, and it was made worse by the fact that Contessa ran the whole place. Her name was in the title! The way she had spoken when she'd 'assisted' in our arrest was so... Off-putting. She spoke too deliberately, like she was reading from a script, and it made me suspicious of her motives.
But even with the knowledge of our undesirable destination, I tried to put on a brave face and not panic or freak out. I couldn't give Contessa - Or anyone - The satisfaction of breaking me so easily. And once I had made this resolve, I made an attempt to keep a level head, and think about this situation a bit objectively...
I had faith that Bentley and Sly wouldn't let anything awful happen. I trusted them with every fibre of my being, and I knew that they would come for us as quickly as they could. Despite Contessa's prison being insanely secure, I had faith that if anyone would be able to break us out of it, it'd be Bentley. I had no idea what that turtle's IQ was, but I had to guess it was pretty high. He'd get us out, I had no doubts. And with this belief, I was able to stamp down the majority of my panic. This wouldn't be forever, I kept telling myself.
Along with that, I put to rest my confusion about why I wasn't angry with myself for choosing this path. I remembered the conversation I'd had with Bentley shortly before Operation: Wet Tiger, and decided that this was still a cause I was dedicated to, and that life was certainly not all black and white.
After having spent the whole plane ride to Prague sorting through all of these things in my head, when we arrived at the prison, there was only one thing on my mind that was truly bothering me, and it was something I wasn't too sure how to make sense of.
It was the feeling of inadequacy. Feeling like I had failed. And I while I knew it was ridiculous, I was having a bit of a hard time stamping down those feelings. My logic somehow kept going in a circle, and I couldn't settle on an answer that pleased me. I would have just ignored it, like I'd done everything else, but when you're in prison, you really don't have much else to think about.
I was finally roused from my circle of confusing logic by the sound of heavy footsteps approaching me. I turned my head to see whome was walking into my cell, and smiled. "Hey, Murray," It was nice to have someone I was familiar with around; It was helping me to keep that resolve to not freak out.
"Hey, I wanted to make sure that you're alright," Murray said. "This place is kinda creepy,"
"Yeah," I gave a small laugh, sitting up so that Murray could join me on the uncomfortable prison bed. "Kinda reminds me of Dracula's castle, y'know? ...Ooh! That totally ties into my vampire theory from before, doesn't it!" I wasn't really sure how it actually did, but it made me think of the analogy I'd made when I was observing Sly pickpocket the guards in Dimitri's nightclub. And I wanted to try keeping both our spirits up, so I tried my hardest to make a joke out of it again.
Murray actually laughed, whether it was real or for my own benefit, I'll never know, but it helped me relax a bit more. "Yeah, I guess it does!"
I laughed a bit, too, but then the humor faded, and I found myself staring morosely at the floor again, and I didn't know what to say. I wasn't freaking out at least, but being confused and feeling like I'd messed up wasn't really much better.
There was a brief silence, before Murray spoke up again. "Do you wish you hadn't gone out there to help Sly?"
The question caught me off guard, and my head snapped up to stare at Murray incredously. The look on my face quickly changed to a more severe one, as I replied firmly with the only feasible answer. "No. Absolutely not,"
"Oh," Murray sounded like he'd expected me to say yes. "Then why do you look so sad? You know that Bentley and Sly will come get us out, right? And while we're here, 'The Murray' isn't gonna let anything happen to you!"
I laughed just a little bit. Those were all legit things I could have - And should have - been worrying about, but none of them bothered me anymore. "No, that's not it, Murray..." I didn't know how to go about saying it. Would he understand?
"Then what is it? You know you can trust me, right?" Murray put an arm around my shoulders in a comforting embrace, and I leaned towards his warmth.
I sighed, and decided to bite the bullet. "I should be angry at myself for acting on a whim and getting myself arrested, right? I should feel guilty for associating myself with a high profile criminal and probably ruining my chances of going back to a normal life... But I'm not,"
"Soo then what are you mad about?" Murray asked.
"I'm mad because I feel like I didn't do good enough... And that I never will..." I said it before I had the time to decide that I didn't want to. Maybe if I just got it out of my system now, I could stop worrying about it for a while?
"What do you mean? You helped Sly escape!" Murray objected. He sounded so absolutely honest about it, and it was nice to know that at least one person didn't think that I'd messed up.
"I know, and I can't believe I actually did that! But it feels like it was beginner's luck..." I took a deep breath; It felt so stupid to be saying this aloud. "And I know that it's not my choice if I stay and help, but I've never felt so... Dedicated to a cause before... And I'm scared that this one time I decide to step out of the sidelines and try to be someone more... I'm going to fail miserably. Does that even make sense?"
"'Course it does, it's totally normal to be scared of failing," Murray replied. "But you've gotta remember that no matter what you try doing, you're always gonna suck at it at least a little bit when you first start off, y'know,"
"Rome wasn't built in a day, yeah," I nodded; It was true. No one was born knowing exactly how to do something. It took time and determination to master something.
"Exactly! You've gotta start off small when you really get into learning something, and of course you're gonna mess up, that's what people do, no one's perfect," Murray continued. "And it's not like you'd be doing it alone, either. If you mess up, that's what having a team is for, we watch each other's backs!"
"You're exactly and one-hundred percent right," I agreed. "It feels like I've just been a nobody on the sidelines for so long, though... I don't know if I'm capable of suddenly becoming somebody in a cause so grandoise as this one... I suppose I have a deep-seated feeling of never being good enough..."
Murray hummed thoughtfully. "Do you know that when we started out, I was just the getaway driver?"
"Uh. No?"
"Yeah! I was all shy and timid and I'd never hit anyone in my life! I was just meant to drive the van to make a quick escape. But on our journey to reclaim the Thievius Raccoonus, we all overcame a lot of trials. I learned to face my fears and rise up above them! And after that, I decided I wanted to be someone a lot better! And so I worked really hard to become that!" Murray explained.
"And thus 'The Murray' was born?"
"Yep!" Murray replied. "Anyone can become someone awesome, if they put their mind to it! And with great friends to help you, you'll totally succeed! So don't doubt yourself okay? If this is what you really want for yourself, we'd be happy to have you!"
I was quiet a moment, and I blinked a few times as I factored in all of that information into the circle of confusing thoughts I'd been caught up in. This was different than anything else I had ever been involved in... It was unique, and I'd been juggling around all the pieces to it for a while, trying to figure out if I fit into them.
And as I looked up at Murray's smiling face, all the pieces finally seemed to fall into place, and I smiled back.
The week following Operation: Wet Tiger was possibly the most stressful week that Sly and Bentley had ever lived through. And the five hours it took to hike out of the woods was definitely the highlight of it.
Sly insisted that he could walk, and was fine, but Bentley wasn't so sure about it. The raccoon could barely walk a straight line, if what he was doing could be called walking. Being electrocuted had definitely taken more of a toll on him than he was ready to admit, and thus the pace of their hike was set pretty slow.
With Murray and Nyx arrested, and Sly injured god-knew how badly, Bentley felt as if suddenly the weight of the whole world had been dropped on his tiny turtle shoulders. For the first time ever, everything seemed like it was up to him.
And for the first time in a while, Bentley was doubting himself. They'd always been a team, working side by side; One person's strengths covered another's weakness. Bentley had never worked alone before, and he wasn't sure if he was ready to. He supposed he had no choice, though... Murray and Nyx were surely counting on him to get them out of prison, and there was no way he could let them down, and allow them to spend however many years there.
Like it or not, he had to rise up to the occassion... He only hoped that he'd actually be able to.
When they'd reached the van, Sly wasted no time in crawling into the back, and promptly passing out. Bentley was concerned for a moment and considered trying to wake the raccoon back up, before realizing that he sort of had bigger problems... He didn't know how to drive a stick shift.
The next hour and a half were nearly as stressful as the previous five, as Bentley tried to aquiant himself with the controls of a stick shift. It was a miracle that the constant stop-and-go didn't wake up Sly in the back, whom was most likely getting shifted about back there. He was lucky that Bentley had finally mounted the Clockwerk wings up on the top of the van, so as not to have a repeat of last time.
By the time Bentley reached a civilized road, he'd mostly gotten the hang of driving the van, and would at least not be pulled over for driving like a maniac. After passing through a few small Indian cities, Bentley picked a small hotel, and booked a room.
Normally, he wouldn't have minded just camping in the van as he tried to locate their friends, but Sly needed a proper place to rest. Who knew how long it would take for Bentley to get any leads, it would be best if Sly wasn't sprawled in the back of the van for that long.
And thus the next week was spent rather routinely in that small hotel room. Bentley would make sure that Sly didn't keel over from his injuries (keeping the stubborn thief in bed once he was awake turned out to be a whole other task), and spent the rest of the day hacking at record speed, trying to find some trace of Murray or Nyx.
Interpol however, was doing a real good job of not releasing any form of public information about the arrests, which was doing nothing but making Bentley's job harder.
There were about nine hours left before a week became eight days, when Bentley finally had a breakthrough. He could swear he heard angels singing as he finally found a miniscule point of information that led him on a bread crumb trail of data, which finally led him to the solution.
Looked like they were going to Prague. Bentley wondered if Sly spoke Czech...
"This kinda reminds me of the famous Alcatraz escape..." I mused, trying my hardest to not be nervous about this at all.
"What's Alcatraz?" Murray asked curiously.
"It's a prison on an island in the San Fransisco bay. Most secure prison in the US or something like that," I explained. "But there's only one escape that happened there. Three guys made a raft out of raincoats and rubber cement, and escaped through the storm drains of their cells,"
"Did they make it?"
"Yes, and no. They got off the island without being noticed, but they never showed up anywhere else. It's presumed that they drowned somewhere in the bay," I said.
Thankfully, we weren't trying to raft our way out of Contessa's prison, otherwise thinking about the fate of the Alcatraz escapees would have made me more nervous than I already was. Though we were indeed trying to escape an insanely secure prison, via the storm drain of my cell. Sort of. The plan was that I would slip out via the storm drain that Murray had managed to pry open, and see where it led me. If possible, I would steal some keys or a keycard, or something that might be useful in getting us both out.
I really wished that it didn't have to be me doing this. But Murray was too big to fit into the drain. Hell, I barely fit, myself. But my feline genes were helpful for once, and I was pretty certain I could get through. People had slipped through smaller spaces... I recalled a prison escape where an Asian man who practiced yoga managed to slip out of the food slot of his jail cell. I could totally go through this much larger storm drain...
I was entirely certain that had it not been for the emotionally reassuring presence of Murray, I would not be doing this at all. This wasn't something I would come up and decide to attempt on my own. But we both agreed that we had to try something. We'd discovered quite quickly that Contessa was a grade A lunatic.
Not to mention a member of the Klaww Gang. I hoped that Sly and Bentley knew that... It didn't take Murray and I long to realize that Contessa was serving meals covered in those illegal Indian spices, and via other inmates, we began to speculate that she was somehow using the effects of the spices to achieve mind control via hypnosis.
This was not something that either of us wanted to experience. And we decided that it would be better to try and fail, than to not try at all. The results would be mostly the same if we failed or just didn't try, but on the off chance we succeeded... Well, that was worth the shot.
"Well, at least we're not making a raft," Murray said. "You're sure you can fit in there, though?"
"Yeah. Yeah, of course. I'm a cat, I can totally do this," I was almost lying through my teeth. Physically, I was pretty certain it'd be fine. Mentally? I wasn't so sure. But I had to try. We also couldn't stand there with the storm drain open for much longer before someone noticed what we were up to... It was really lucky that the screws on the storm drain were rusted enough that Murray could pry it open without being noticed. I probably couldn't afford to go pushing that luck.
I took a deep breath, and began to crawl into the storm drain, trying to calm the panic in the back of my mind. This had the potential to go incredibly and horribly wrong, but I tried to tell myself that the probability of it was only 50/50, so I also had a good chance of making it.
"Good luck! 'The Murray' will cover for you while you're gone," Murray said as he closed the gate behind me.
"Thanks. I'm definitely going to need all the luck I can get," I sighed. It was dark in the drain, and definitely sort of dirty. I tried not to think about that. I gave my eyes a moment to adjust, and began crawling through it. I couldn't see the end, and I figured that it would possibly make a few turns before coming out somewhere.
I tried to not think about somehow getting stuck in there... There were a million horrible things going through my mind, and it took a whole lot of willpower to not succumb to them. I felt pretty acomplished for actually managing not to.
It felt like forever that I was inside the storm drain, and I'd taken quite a few turns, before I finally saw an exit. And lucky me, there was no grate over it, meaning that I could easily get out.
Okay. The easy part was over. Now I had to get out into the prison grounds, and not get caught whilst trying to find something useful. I had literally no experience in sneaking around, and I really wished I'd been more open about Sly teaching me things back when he'd first offered. They would really come in handy right now...
But I supposed that for now, I'd just have to make do. I'd played some stealth video games before; Assassin's Creed, Splinter Cell, probably a few others... I totally had a general concept of what needed to be done to be sneaky.
...The question was; Did I have the physical skill to pull it off? We'd just have to wait and see, I supposed. I looked left and right as I peered out of the storm drain. It really had been such luck that the screws on the grate in my cell were rusted, I thought idly. This prison was meant to be inescapable. It had to be pure luck that I'd found a way out so easily...
The fact that it had indeed been so easy was putting me on edge, too. It felt too easy... We should have had to work for all aspects of our escape. The Alcatraz guys jumped through so many tiny hoops to achieve theirs. And here I'd found a way into the prison yard so easy? It felt too good to be true.
Once I was sure the coast was relatively clear (it was a prison, no way it would ever be 100% clear), I climbed out of the storm drain, and took a better look around. I had no idea where I was. I assumed I'd came out the other side of cell block D, but I couldn't be sure. None of the buildings were obviously labelled, so I could only imagine what anything was. Various buildings had lights on, and I decided it was maybe best to avoid those.
I hadn't seen any guards yet, and that made my suspicions continue to rise. This felt too easy... Contessa kept boasting about how we'd never escape, how her guards were highly trained, and had motion sensors and everything... Yet I'd escaped my cell and could easily make a break for it if I wanted to.
Of course, I wasn't going to do that. If I was going to be actually escaping, Murray was going to be coming with me. That was the plan, and I refused to leave without him. I needed to find some guard's keys... If we could just unlock the doors and get out, maybe we'd have some kind of chance of fighting our way out?
But where was I going to find a guard who had keys that would unlock the cell doors, and the internal doors to the cell blocks and such? Wouldn't I need to find a high ranking guard or something? Any guard who was high ranking could probably kick my ass real fast without breaking a sweat, so I would have to find a way to not confront him... Which was definitely easier said than done.
Perhaps there was a break room or something? Would that be inside the actual prison walls, or in the surrounding buildings that were probably storage or something? I had no way of knowing... But if it was out here with the rest of the buildings, it would most likely be one of the ones with the lights on...
And I'd already established that I didn't want to go near those... Ugh, conflicting ideas... There was no way of even knowing if any of the lit buildings were break rooms for the guards, and I wasn't sure if I wanted to risk this whole plan for nothing.
I was totally overthinking this, wasn't I? Yeah, I was. I had to stop just standing there and trying to think of every little possibility there was. I had to do something. I had to rely on my instincts here. If I even had any... I was wasting time just standing by the grate, and increasing my chances of being caught.
So I swallowed back all my fears, and began to move. Directly in front of me was a building that didn't seem to have windows, and so I very quickly moved into the shadow that the side of it created. I was lucky it was already dark, it made the shadows even deeper.
My heart was beating out of my chest, and it took everything I had to keep my breathing under control. I could do this, I kept telling myself. I was capable of this. From this tall building, I could see train tracks off in the distance. Why Contessa needed train tracks, I would never know. But I made a note to be aware of any possible trains. The last thing I needed was for this to fail because I got hit by a train... No, no I wasn't going to think about that.
Across from the building I currently stood at was another one. This one was smaller, but would provide enough cover. Or so I hoped. So I very quickly made a mad dash to it, and then peered around the side of it, looking at the rest of the prison ground.
Not too far off, I saw a vulture guard patrolling, and a few wolves up on the rooves. Okay, so there were definitely guards out and about. Somehow, that actually made me feel relieved.
Off to my left a bit was what appeared to be an abandoned building, and to the right were a few others with purposes unknown to me. One of the ones to the right had lights shining through the windows, and I was debating heading over to it.
Of course, right when I had made my decision to go check it out, I was scared out of my wits by the loud screetching of the prison alarm.
I hissed out an expletive under my breath. Did they know I was gone?
My question was answered moments later by a thickly accented voice over an intercom. "Attention all guard personnell. There has been a security breach in the evidence lockup. I repeat, there has been a security breach in the evidence lockup. All personnell are instructed to remain where they are, and cut off all escape routes. I repeat, stay where you are and cut off all escape routes,"
The evidence lockup? Someone was breaking into the evidence lockup...? It took my brain a moment to put it together.
Were Sly and Bentley here? Sly's cane had been confinscated as evidence in the case, and of course he'd need it back if he was going to help break out Murray and I. But did this really mean that they were here?
The stunned moment that I took to rearrange my thoughts turned out to be a really big mistake. I tensed up upon hearing an unfamiliar word shouted by someone very close to me, followed by, "Freeze! Do not move!"
Yet another expletive escaped my lips, and for a split second I pondered what I should do as I stared down the wolf who'd spotted me. I'd made it this far...
Perhaps it had been a generally bad decision, but I turned and ran, darting around the corner of the building, and heading diagonal of it. It was just this one guy who'd seen me. All I had to do was lose him, right?
Wrong. After the announcement over the intercom, the guards had assembled into some kind of formation (which I really should have seen coming), and were positioned literally everywhere. As soon as I reached the next building, I promptly had to turn around as I came face to face with two vultures.
This was totally a really bad idea, holy crap! I darted to my left, around another building, and was starting to consider diving into the water. I wasn't the best swimmer ever, but I could tread water and I could move forwards. The water looked pretty calm, and I was pretty sure that vultures couldn't swim. Of course, the possibility of tiring out or messing up and drowning was not a very pleasant one...
I'd try to lose them for just a little bit longer, before trying to swim... I was smaller than these guys, meaning I was just a bit faster. If I could just get far enough away, and then slip into a hiding place...
That idea failed before I could even attempt to implement it, as something very heavy suddenly plowed into me from the right, knocking the wind out of me, and knocking me to the ground. I tried to struggle, but the left side of my forehead hit something hard, and for a few long moments, nothing seemed to exist at all.
When my hearing finally crackled back into existence, along with my ability to think and feel, I was aware of someone still holding me down, and could make out vague words between various people. I was too busy trying to retain my conciousness to focus on what they were saying or doing. My head was pounding like crazy, and it wasn't helping me to not pass out again.
Amongst the jumbled thoughts in my head, the most prominent one was that this plan was most definitely busted.
I clung on to my conciousness for as long as I could, trying to entirely rouse myself, but it was a battle I was destined to lose, and eventually I slipped into total darkness.
Apparently that 50/50 chance wasn't on my side this time.
