Disclaimer: I don't own Sly and the gang.

PREDATOR IN THE DUNES

JOB 3: Getting Cryptic With It

Bentley has a bit of a harder time getting around unnoticed. While he can maneuver very well in his wheelchair, he can't hide in barrels, and more than once he has to switch out his sleep darts to send someone to dreamland. With the help of the bouncy cacti, though, he does reach his destination: the roof of a building across from a laser-guarded crypt.

He pulls out his binoc-u-com. "Okay, Carmelita, I'm in position to begin."

"And you expect me to spot you while you pull off some breaking and entering?" she demands.

"If we were in Paris, you'd have everything you needed for a warrant," Bentley reminds her. "And a trained team of specialists to deal with it. Here you just have me. Now, do you remember what I told you about—"

"I can't believe I'm using this—this criminal technology."

"Really?" asks Bentley, leaning back in his chair. "What about the technology is criminal, anyway?"

"You use it!"

"We also use the internet," Bentley says dryly, then pauses as she folds her arm and glares. "Okay, maybe that wasn't the best example. Look, Carmelita, if you had this at Interpol, would you be complaining?"

Carmelita stares at him through the binoc-u-com in silence for several long seconds.

"That's what I thought," said Bentley.

"Come to think of it, why don't we have this at interpol?" asks Carmelita.

"Because I invented it. Look, there's an area guarded with both laser security and locks. I've located the guards that have the keys; you just have to update their positions on the binoc-u-com for me. Once I've got the keys, getting in will be a cinch: I've analyzed things, and they'll turn off the laser security systems. Maybe we'll get enough evidence to go home and get you to arrest someone properly."

"All right, fine," says Carmelita. She looks down, presumably at the keyboard, as she taps something out. "There's your first objective. But I cannot believe I'm doing this!"

Bentley tucks his binoc-u-com away. "Sheesh!" he mutters, too quietly for it to be picked up, then jumps down from his post and sneaks behind the first guard. "As soon as I get close enough, I just have to press the circle button," he mutters, his mechanical arms extending as he inches closer and closer behind the alligator. It takes several picks, but he gets the key and wheels his way towards the other one. "How you doing, Carmelita?"

"The guards won't stop moving," she says. "How am I supposed to get a lock on them when—there we go."

"Perfect." Bentley has to do some jumping and use his hover-pack to get behind this guy, and it's a more difficult job. With that done, Carmelita projects his new objective, and he opens the door. "Okay, I'm going in."

"Make sure you bring back any evidence I might be able to use," says Carmelita as Bentley enters.

The area Bentley finds himself in appears to be a single large room, closed for the night. A fireplace dominates one large wall, the fire providing the only light. "This appears to be some sort of smithy," says Bentley as he looks around, "but not for anything I've ever seen before." In addition to the fireplace, Bentley finds a high-tech laser melter, used for metals such as titanium and steel, both of which are stacked in large, irregular blocks around the place; expensive molds in the shape of feathers are stacked on one wall, and a number of metal feathers have been driven into the wall, stem first, and used as hooks to hold bags of equipment. There appears to be another level, but Bentley can't exactly climb the rope ladder up there.

But he can use the blocks of metal as a makeshift staircase, using his hover-pack to make one jump. One item glows green up there, catching his eye: a computer. "Carmelita, you there?" he asks, putting one hand to his head to ensure his communicator's in position."

"Where did you expect me to be? Swimming?"

"Cute. Give me a shout if someone comes in; I've got some hacking to do."

"Sure, just let me ring out my hair."

Bentley cracks his knuckles and gets to work. And not long after he's in, he experiences a very real sense of deja vu. "Hello Bentley," whispers the computer, just as the systems he hacked did during that fiasco with Le Paradox. "How are you doing?"

This was Penelope's work. Whatever's going on here, she had a hand in it.

"Destroy it all, Bentley," says the computer. "It shouldn't be here."

But, he decides as he works his way through the code, she's been very, very sloppy about it. "This is strange," he says.

"What? Did the computer go swimming, too?"

"No. This is Penelope's work. I've got a command to shut down half the spotlights aimed at that central crypt."

"What's weird about that? We came here on a hunch that rat was involved."

"She didn't set any alarms for if it was turned off," Bentley says. "Penelope liked putting so many alarms on things even I thought it was excessive."

"Wait, someone more obsessive than you?"

"Cute," says Bentley, turning off the lights. "I'm all done in here. Time for the next area."

The next building Bentley wants is well across town. One of the guards he has to pickpocket is patrolling the dry part of the river; Bentley has to take care not to splash in the low water nearby and alert him. The other is walking around the building in a slow circle; again, not a challenge. Bentley lets himself in.

Large metal containers line the walls and cordon off rows barely wide enough for Bentley to navigate. Each one has drawers, dozens of them; Bentley opens one and gets heat to the face. "Drying racks," he says aloud. "But I'm not familiar with this type of herb."

"Bring some back with you," says Carmelita. "I'll analyze it."

Bentley nods, pocketing some, and continues up a ramp to the second floor. Dozens of automated grinders are hard at work up here, crushing and smashing a form of red powder into being. Past them is a second computer. It takes Bentley some smart dodging and jumping to reach it with all the machines active. "Don't worry, fair computer, this'll be over in a jiffy."

"Why are you here, Bentley?" asks the computer.

Bentley ignores it as he hacks, traversing the B-list with his hacker code and taking down firewalls.

"Do you want to save your friends, Bentley?" asks the computer.

This job's a little harder. Penelope set up a defense avatar. But it's not going to stand up to his coding skills.

"Don't want... the doctor..." says the computer as Bentley finishes.

"This should turn off the rest of the spotlights," says Bentley. "Can you confirm it, Carmelita? You should be able to pick something up from one of the transmitters Murray placed earlier."

"Hang on—ugh, I hate computers—there we go. It's off, all right. But it looks like there are still a couple padlocks on the door."

"All right," Bentley says, wheeling himself out into a fade-to-black exiting screen. "Here's how to find the guards with the keys."

By the time Bentley's gotten out of the herb drying room, Carmelita's got his next two targets online. These two guards are circling the formerly spotlit crypt (with newly installed steel door), going in opposite directions. "Sly would make this look easy," he mutters as he darts into the circle, grabs some coins, and darts out again to avoid the circle of torchlight. "It just isn't as fun without him around."

"Did you say something?" asks Carmelita, just as Bentley grabs the second key.

"No," Bentley says at once. "Probably just static. I'm going in."

And so he does. On silent wheels.

The atmosphere of this place takes him back to the crypts of Prague. The descending hallway lined in stone. The grotesquely exaggerated statues of tigers and foxes. The swinging ax trap...

...without any axes. Or, for that matter, spikes in the floor. When Bentley fires an experimental dart at them, what comes up are bare sticks. "That's... weird," he says.

Bentley continues down the airless corridor. Past log traps that twitch back and forth, futilely, as something unseen prevents them from moving. Past the torchlight flickering on statue after statue, making them appear to move; he turns around more than once to see nothing behind him. Three, four, then five rooms... of broken traps with no cause, no explanation.

Finally, Bentley reaches the very end of the corridor, to find an old-fashioned prison cell, bars and all... and a door swinging open. He swallows hard. "Sly?" he calls into the empty cell. "Are you there?"

"I must admit, when Sly told me to expect his friends from the future, I expected someone... sneakier."

Bentley almost jumps out of his chair. He turns on the spot to find a raccoon looking him up and down. The raccoon is wearing a tall gold-and-white striped hat, an oversized gold necklace in lieu of a shirt, and- strangely, to Bentley's perspective- a gold and white wrap-around skirt that falls to his knees. The clincher, though, was what he's carrying: twin canes, one in each hand, with staffs half as long as the one Sly used.

"Of course, he also said that times had changed," the raccoon said. "I am Slytenkhamen Jr. Please, call me Khamen."

"Fascinating," Bentley says, adjusting his glasses. "It's an honor to meet you. According to the Thievious Raccoonus—I shouldn't tell you, I'm not sure if you've done it yet."

"The book my father started is still around?"

"And referenced often," Bentley says.

"Much as I would like to chat, I believe your presence means I can leave this accursed place," says Khamen. "It would be best if we talked elsewhere."

"Right," says Bentley.

JOB: COMPLETE

*Bentley victory pose... with Khamen looking on in befuddlement*