RIGHT AND LAW
Job 11: It Takes A Thief
Sly perches on the RC copter as it takes him down the tunnel of lava, a perfect circle around him. Lava above, lava below, lava on every side.
Penelope's voice crackles in his ear. "That helicopter's laser-proof, so it can handle the heat. But I can't hear you, or see you, when you're riding it. I'll just stay at a constant pace, okay Sly?"
"Sure," Sly says, even though she can't hear him. He's sweltering under his fur, but he can handle it.
"Bentley also stuck a movement control on there. You can go left, right, up, and down with the left analog stick."
Sly tries this as she explains, moving so close to the lava walls and floors he almost expects it to singe his fur.
"I don't know if you can swing your cane without falling off, but you can try."
Sly sure can.
"And if you need to jump for some reason, well, you can, but unless there's solid ground somewhere there's really no point."
Oh, little does she know.
Because of course, as soon as she's said that, some solid ground comes into view. And with the solid ground comes a solid wall of laser security. The odds of Sly getting through it on the helicopter are about nil. Crawling under it? Easy.
But he has to move fast, because that helicopter isn't waiting around. He has to make a flying leap back onto it, in fact, and just in time for laser security without any ground around. He has to dodge by moving the helicopter left and right, up and down, and at least once by jumping off the helicopter and spire-jumping back on immediately. Wonderful.
Coming up next: lava cannons. It appears Sly has two choices. He could stay on the helicopter and dodge the fireballs... or he could jump from cannon to cannon, jumping off the one he's on when it changes color just before firing. "How did that old man get through here, anyway?" Sly mutters as he dodges.
Well Sly, I'd assume he turned the security off before getting shot at, or has it so it deactivates at his approach, or something. Then again, I also thought he needed that cane to walk, not as the key to a lava tunnel, and I can't explain how he's walking through a lava tunnel any more than I can explain how Murray aced their high school forensics class. Sometimes things just happen.
And Bentley is still sore about Murray's average being 0.01% higher than his in that class.
All right, it looks like we have moving lasers next, as well as somewhat slanted stationary ones, easing their way down as they go further along the tunnel. The helicopter's pace is just enough that Sly'd singe his fur on the lasers if he stayed on the copter. It's a good thing he knows how to literally walk on lasers—or slide on them, in this case.
But he has to get back on the helicopter, fast, because sections of the walls/floors/whatever (it's a circle, there's technically only one side, but still) opposite sides start deciding to meet in the middle and Sly has to make sure he and that copter are where they aren't because fried raccoon is significantly less tasty than it sounds. Besides, singed fur smells terrible, as Bentley's told him many times over the years, and would still be saying if he and Carmelita hadn't come to an understanding.
What a woman.
Unfortunately, Sly couldn't think about pleasant things for very long, because the lava tunnel's ceiling was getting closer and the sides further away. Soon he was riding the helicopter just over the lava floor, his ears nearly brushing the ceiling, unable to jump but with plenty of side-to-side movement. Which is good, because it appears someone is shooting at him.
Or, you know, in his general direction. You know how it is. Sly moves the helicopter back and forth, leaning this way and that as he lets the bullets pass by on either side. It doesn't last very long, but Sly is getting very, very hot, and he swears some of the fur on his tail must be singed by this point. How much longer can this go on?
Until he asks that question, it seems. The lava tunnel widens into a proper circle, and is replaced by rock. And just in time; the RC chopper starts making funny noises. Sly jumps off and grabs it before it can hit the ground. He holds it in front of him, so the camera can see him. "Everything okay?" he asks.
"Hang on; lemme get Murray. He can read lips."
Sly snickers softly to himself until Murray comes on. "Everything okay?" he asks again.
"Sly wants to know if everything's okay," Murray tells someone. "I don't know, if he weren't okay he wouldn't tell me. He looks okay. Why don't you—"
A crackle in his ear. "Sly's fine," says Carmelita. "Sly, based on what Penelope's muttering, the helicopter overheated. It should be fine once it's cooled down." After a pause, she adds, "Where are you, anyway? Bentley's wandering around the surface of the volcano, trying to get us a better signal."
"The lava tunnel turned into rock," Sly says, glancing around. "I lost sight of Dr. Foxworthy, but he should be around here somewhere. Lemme take a look around."
Sly tucks the RC Chopper in his leg pouch and starts forward. The walls and ceiling are rock, but there's a lava flow in the floor ahead; there are enough stalagmites for him to jump on and get past, though. Spotlights next, and he ghosts his way past them and turns a corner.
Bentley is a crackle in his ear. "You there, pal?"
"I'm here, Bentley," Sly whispers as he surveys the room. He can climb the supports holding the catwalks, and there are a couple spots on the wall that look like a wallhook or two wouldn't go amiss... "Can you hear me?"
"I can. You're almost directly beneath the mouth of the volcano. I set a waypoint on you before you went into that lava tunnel, and it's holding up so far."
The room Sly enters easily holds all five of the time machines spaced out evenly along the walls. Spotlights move around the edges of the room, and they're protected by laser security as well, vertical and horizontal lines so tightly together Sly'd be hard pressed to get his cane through. Between the time machines, still in the spotlights, are six large robots, interspersed evenly with the time machines. A penguin, a mandrill. A moose, a bat. A tigress and a snake.
"Bentley," Sly says, "it's the same animals as those statues you destroyed in Holland."
"Drat," Bentley says. "They've been planning this for a long time. I imagine that each animal was supposed to go to a different area, based on where it would be best acclimated."
Sly raises his eyebrows. "Can you put that simply?"
"Penguin would go to the far south, I can tell you that much. The rest of them could be in any number of locales. Though there seem to be two missing. I can only hope they're unfinished, not that they're being stored elsewhere."
"Lovely."
The only other thing in the large circular floor is, in the very center, a table, with a helmet connected to several wires on it. The area Sly stands is dark, but there's light on the walls above him; Sly squints up, and spies a catwalk going around the edges of the room and a platform in the room's center, connected to the catwalk by four walkways—one at each corner and in the center of all four sides. There doesn't appear to be a ladder, or a staircase, or any other obvious way up. But there are footsteps overhead, so that must be where Dr. Foxworthy is.
Sly just has to get there.
Sly climbs a catwalk support partway before jumping to a wallhook, his eyes moving in all directions. He can't go through the catwalk, like his ancestor Sir Galleth could. But the spotlights focused on the (multiple) time machines are attached to the edges, just low enough to be in reach... though if he misses, he'll get spotted, and probably burned alive. He just won't miss. "Well, that doesn't help me much. There's a lot here we need to destroy." He lands on the spotlight. "Looks like there's a chimney or something in the corner, though, so maybe you can toss me something to take care of that mess. And I still have to find..."
Sly lands on the catwalk.
Dr. Foxworthy stands there, waiting for him, leaning on yet another cane.
Sly wasn't prepared for a confrontation quite this soon, to be honest. He figured he'd have some time for sabotage first. The author was planning on it, actually, and had all these ideas for sneaking around, cracking combination locks, Bentley hacking into spotlight controls from the surface so Sly could sabotage things, but Dr. Foxworthy is apparently an impatient irritation. That, or he is REALLY freaking paranoid, enough to suspect Sly was coming.
Of course, given the whole 'top secret base in a volcano' and 'lava tunnel' bits, the paranoid should be a given. My bad.
"So," Dr. Foxworthy says, looking Sly up and down. "It appears you escaped. Or were never caught. I suppose it was foolish to rely on my assistants when dealing with someone of your background. Particularly after you thwarted the distraction Le Paradox set up."
Sly leans back, offended. "My background?"
"Don't play the fool with me, my boy," say Dr. Foxworthy. "Your 'amnesia' routine may have worked on my niece, but it never did on me. But I was willing to let bygones be bygones so long as you toed the line for the future and devoted yourself to the law."
"Yeah, about that 'toeing the line' thing," Sly says. "That really doesn't seem like what you're doing here. And, about Carmelita? She's known for months."
Dr Foxworthy scowls at him. "Regrettable. I suppose she wouldn't be the perfect subject after all... but no matter. One works with what one has. Are you here to assist me?"
"There are a lot of problems with your plan, besides how it'll never work," Sly says, "but here's the big one. The law? That isn't always right."
"What on earth are you talking about, you foolish child?"
"Sure, people can do great things when they follow the law," says Sly, and as he speaks pictures of Henriette's time as a privateer pass by on the screen, translucent and shimmery. "But there are situations the law isn't prepared for, that the law doesn't know about, and your robots will be helpless there." Pictures of Slaigh's conquests, and his reputation, slip past now.
"Bah. We can create laws to neaten up any loose ends!" Foxworthy slams his cane on the catwalk, rattling it.
"Oh? But what about the people who do great things because they break the law?" Sly thinks of Otto, crossing the border to Germany again and again. "Just because it's legal doesn't mean it's right."
"That's just stupidity," Dr. Foxworthy slams his spare hand into the railing.
"And what about the creativity, the inventiveness, people need to get around the law?" Sly asks, this time referencing Khamen. "Things they create will help others later!"
"They can still create great things legally," Dr. Foxworthy snaps, brandishing his cane at Sly. "If you're not with me, you're against me. Choose now, Cooper."
Sly settles into a fighter's crouch, memories of Thaddeus floating by. "And sometimes, it takes a thief to catch a thief."
"Idiocy spoken by someone whose true colors have shown." Dr. Foxworthy lifts his cane again and points it at Sly."I suppose it's time to end the Cooper Thievery once and for all!"
With that, Sly learns two Good Things and one Bad Thing
The first Good Thing is that Dr. Foxworthy doesn't have a shock pistol.
The Bad Thing is that his cane is a shock shotgun. And his shooting skills rival Tennessee's.
The second Good Thing is that, for all Dr. Foxworthy's skills, he is still an old man. And Sly's been dodging Carmelita for years.
The boss fight that follows is... almost disappointing, really. I mean, sure, he can shoot, but he's an old man. He's slow. He doesn't turn around very fast. He can't really maneuver around the catwalks very well, so while he can get in some free hits if Sly falls off, he also can't keep up with Sly as he races around the catwalks, rail-running around and spire jumping off the spotlights.
Granted, he also does, like, a quarter of Sly's health every time he freaking hits, and Sly's hits barely seem to tickle him, but that's nothing. General Tsao was harder!
So it's with almost a sense of disappointment that Sly deals the finishing blow, knocking Dr. Foxworthy to the ground below.
JOB COMPLETE