Chapter 26: The Deadliest Weapon

—

Okay then. Sly Cooper is Sucker Punch's thing, not mine. I'm just a guy trying to entertain the people who read this.

Still having trouble with inspiration, but I'll try my best. Since we're in the final stretch, I don't want to reuse the same tired formula. Instead… Well, you'll see.

This is still interim, lots and lots of talking. Big important stuff begins… two chapters from now. Still a lot of important info, though.

With that out of the way… Let's roll.

—

Eyes open… What had happened? Oh man, his back hurt.

He forced himself to look up. Blearily blinking the blindness back, List scanned the world around him. Surprise quickly cleared his mind.

"Oh, crud."

"Quelle chance inouïe."

—

"I told you, you'd regret keeping your mouth shut… Such as it is. Seems you've recovered from first exposure. Now… Talk."

"Oh god… That was the worst three hours of my life." the goon gasped, before dry heaving again.

"Talk about something I don't know."

"Do you have any idea… What the Shadow will do to me… If I talk?"

"Worse than another round of the B&B?"

"The Shadow wanted us to hunt down your thief. Concerned about his 'unlikely successes' and how close he was becoming to a member of Interpol."

"Good start. Go on."

—

"I guess my luck's finally run out. So, what am I in for?"

"Everything on your warrants, Voleur. And, to my dismay, they've decided holding you here isn't good enough."

"So…?"

"You'll be transferred to the Interpol Maximum Security Outpost. Your warden, none other than the Interpol Commander. I'll be honest, I'd much rather see to your security myself… Haven't even had a chance to fire my shiny new shock pistol."

"Well, you only got it yesterday. How about I give you the rundown on why I was unconscious in the street?"

"Just like that? Figured you'd want to keep your embarrassment to yourself."

"Ever heard of the Shadow?"

—

"So, since the Shadow didn't want anyone getting too close, she decided to send a fake tip through ThiefNet. We were already supposed to take those idiots out, so this was the cherry on top."

"You said she didn't want him getting too close to Interpol. Why?"

"Because she runs Interpol. The officers are all goody-two-shoes blind-to-the-world types or on her payroll, no exceptions. The Cooper kid was… Influencing… One of the officers."

"Wait, wait, wait. It sounds like you're saying the Shadow is…"

—

"…Interpol Commander Daeva Tyagi."

"It's nice to meet this famous little thief at last. You'll be under my supervision for the remainder of your sentence." the older wolf grinned. She commanded a strong presence, that much List could tell at a glance. Wearing the standard issue all-environ outfit all Interpol officers were issued, she looked surprisingly young at a glance.

"If I had to guess, I'd say you're… 50?"

"Hm. Do I really look that old to you?"

"No. You look 25 at the oldest, but there's a few signs of age hidden under all that good self hygiene."

"Clever little thief."

"A sharp eye is a must in my line of work. I was just informing the good Inspector of the conditions preceding my… Eh…"

"Street nap." Alayna suggested, looking rather smug.

"…More or less, yes."

"Really? I'll look forward to reading the report, then. Your transfer will take place tomorrow morning."

"I can't help but notice that my cane appears to be missing."

"Weapons are confiscated when you're behind bars, thief."

"Aw. It's a family heirloom, though."

"Tell you what - you can have it back when your transfer is complete. Until then, no dice."

"And we have not even begun to file the gear taken off of you. Comment vous portez tous ces trucs-vous (How do you carry all this)?"

List quickly took inventory of the equipment dumped onto the floor. "Hey, my Binocu-com. Classy little thing, don't you think? Lock picks, easy to carry but hard to secure. Backup radio. Pocket of holding - a lot more carrying room than you'd think. Assorted other trinkets and equipment, both for practical use and maybe a bit of superstitious flair. Geez, you cleaned me out."

"That was the point."

—

"If the Interpol Commander is the Shadow…"

"Don't spread it around. I don't know that much about the operation personally, but I can tell you this for sure. The Steele Ring's been working towards something big."

"Big profitable, big political, big ideological…?"

"Big unnatural. There's all sorts of rumors running around, but none of them are true. Here's the truth, and I've seen this with my own eyes; the Shadow is trying to do something like voodoo."

"Voodoo? Listen, the supernatural is something the Cooper Gangs before us have dealt with, but…"

"No, I mean it! Some kind of techno-magic stuff. Like she's trying to… I dunno. I just know there's something that isn't at all right with the machines she's got around the site."

"Site?"

"Under the IMSO. Interpol's Maximum Security Outpost. We were supposed to take your friend there - no idea why. I swear, that's all I know."

"…Fine. But we can't let you run back to the Shadow. You have to disappear."

"…If you plan on…"

"We aren't barbarians, you idiot, and we've got cash to spare. I'll cut you a deal. You keep your mouth shut about this. When asked, tell them you fought your way out without letting anything slip. In return - you get to take a trip. All expenses paid, anywhere you like, anyway you like."

"Wait, really?"

"Of course. You cooperated, so you get a reward. Simple as that."

"You should've opened with that."

"After forcible abduction? Wouldn't have worked. I had to use one hell of a stick. But now you get the carrot. And I get to go and get my friend back."

—

List sighed as he reclined in his cell. "Maximum Security… That's going to be a pain to bust out of. But if I know my team, they're already on their way…"

"Sans blague. Expliquez cela, s'il vous plaît?"

"Explain what?"

The half-coon sat up quickly, looking over at Alayna as she walked back into the room. He grinned as he saw the note she was holding.

"One of the Cooper calling cards. Since I'm in here, it has to be from my gang… And it probably means they want to talk somewhere private."

"Private?"

"Secure. Bugless. You get the idea."

"…I may do just that."

"In any case, I wouldn't tell the Commander if I were you. Something smells fishy about that old wolf."

"The Commander? What in the world are you talking about, Voleur?"

"Simple. You already know not all criminals are equally bad. Sure, I steal, but I only steal from those who didn't deserve to have the stuff in the first place. On the other side of the law, the rule holds; not all cops are equally good. Even those in a position of great power can be corrupt."

"The Commander has a spotless record and psych profile. She has no dirt to dig up."

"Maybe. But I've learned to trust my gut, and my gut says she's a very, very dangerous woman. Do me a favor; talk to my team, then do a little investigation of your own. Decide for yourself."

A moment of silence, before the thief laid back down on the hard steel bench. "But then again, what do I know? I'm just a thief who got caught."

Relaxing on the uncomfortable piece of furniture, he heard the door open once more, and then was alone in the room.

—

Alayna leaned back in her chair. The conversation from earlier was still eating at her, but she had no idea what to do. There was no way she could see to satisfy her curiosity - no way she could conduct an organization without the Commander finding out. Whatever skeletons were in Daeva's closet, if there even were any, the old wolf would bury them long before she had any chance of finding them.

"…I really need to get this evidence filed away, anyways." she muttered, looking over at the stack of thieving gadgetry in the corner. A glint of gold caused her to blink, and she paused.

"Or…"

—

Abby sighed. She had just found the blueprints to the IMSO, and it didn't look good.

"Damn it all. Without a skilled thief, there's no way of getting List out even mid-transfer. The guard is just too heavy and too elite. It'd be like running at a machine gun in the hope of taking out the guy firing without being shot."

"So find someone else who can do acrobatics and pick locks. Shouldn't be that hard, right?" Rick suggested, looking worried for his friend's safety.

"Are you kidding? Even if we could get someone as good as List is - which is really unlikely - the odds of finding someone that skilled willing to break into Interpol'smost inescapable jailare next to nada. Even then, getting in and back out is even more impossible."

"But then how do we get him back out?"

"No bail, life sentence - it's looking like he's stuck there unless we break out everyone in the whole damn place, and there's some real salt-of-the-earth characters in there, too. I think we've got the resources for a prison break en masse, but…"

"Even getting List back out isn't worth letting these jerks out?"

"Something like that, yeah. I'm thinking we're out of options. Especially considering that the good Inspector seems to have rejected our offer to meet…"

"Do not be so quick to assume."

Both bear and jackal whirled around in shock to find a figure crouched in the windowsill, clutching an all-too-familiar cane.

"Sneaking up on you two is much easier than surprising le Voleur. So, what precisely did you want to tell me?"

—

"…And that's what we've dug up so far. A little hacking brought some real dirt to our attention - apparently, the Commander has had a stake in almost every unsolved crime in the Interpol files for the last ten years, and has been in bed with the leaders of practically every large-scale criminal group for at least fifteen years. Real progress against any criminal syndicate is only made at her discretion, but Interpol has a perfect record against those who refused to strike a deal. I might've missed a lot, but I got really lucky and broke her password quickly on her home computer." Abby finished, spinning her chair away from the screen she had been explaining from for a half-hour.

"This kind of corruption… It's ridiculous. How could I have not noticed…?"

"She's gotten really good at concealing evidence and keeping the wool over the upstanding officers' eyes. Sure, she's effective, but this is dishonoring both the criminal underground and the police force. And now she's got List."

"…So what's your plan?"

"We don't have one. The transport is heavily guarded, way too heavily. Meanwhile, the IMSO is practically impenetrable. Short of breaking everyone in the whole place out via large-scale demolition, there's no way we can get him out."

"Practically?"

"The Cooper Clan isn't known as a line of Master Thieves for nothing. If anyone could get in and out undetected, it's List. Or maybe his dad, but even the phone line back to the Cooper residence is under Omega-class quantum encryption five levels deep. Whoever did their data security, they're an absolute genius."

"Sounds fancy. Are there any alternatives?"

"…I suppose there's one. List's got the family book, after all. The Thievieus Raccoonus is a complete guide to being a Master Thief… But List would never want to dispense the secrets in that book. Honestly, I'm pretty sure he'd kill us if we let anyone else read it."

"Even as an alternative to spending life in jail?"

"That book is a piece of family history stretching back as long as books have existed. Letting anyone else have a good look at it is big."

"How big?"

"Let me put it this way. Before it was passed down to him, he told me it was stored in a vault that his father tried - and failed - to break into five separate times. And his dad had the key! He was just testing it to see if it was absolutely thief-proof!"

"That… Wow. Sounds like he would rather be dead than give up the book."

"Look, I think the choice is pretty clear here." Rick interjected, looking annoyed. "Either we let someone read the book and save List, or we don't and he spends the rest of his life rotting away in a cell. I don't know about you guys, but I'd rather he hated me forever than let my pal just sit there forever."

The hacker sighed, then turned back to her computer, beginning to type again.

"…Rick brings up a good point. But who can we get who's willing to break into the IMSO? Hell, who can we trust to do that?"

Abby blinked, then slowly turned away from her computer. A confused expression came across Alayna's face as she found herself being looked at by both bear and jackal.

"…Qu'est-ce tout le monde me regarde pour (What's everyone looking at me for)?"

—

…Yeah, I'm not dead. Sorry to leave everyone hanging like this. I cannot promise a 'soon' chapter, but I'll try. It's a problem of mine. Inspiration is a finite resource and it's difficult for me to keep it flowing for a single project.

I'll try to bring this story to a satisfying conclusion, I can promise that. Anyways, tune in next time for Chapter 27: The Hazard Room, and a crash course in the ways of the Thievieus Raccoonus.

KeyFire, peacing out!