Chapter 5: Something strange
Sly looked for an escape route. He looked for a gap in the police's defense a tree in the line of fire, a blind spot, a shadow to crawl in. There was no escape route this time. No means of escape, no way to freedom.
"You kids never learn, do you?" Sergeant Spike asked rhetorically. He blew out some smoke and began to shout. "You are completely surrounded. Give up now and I promise that no harm will come to you or your friends! I must remind you that if you do not surrender, I have been given permission to use lethal force! Give up!"
'Lethal force?!' Sly thought to himself. 'We're just thieves. Why the hell are they allowed to kill us?' He looked down at the ground and smiled. 'He's bluffing. That's what he's doing. There's no way that he'd have permission to kill a trio of thieves. Even if he was, he wouldn't get permission so quickly. We can get out of this alive if we cut down the side.' "Sorry old timer, but we have places to go, things to steal." He signaled the others to follow him and prepared to run.
"Fine. Men… Open fire!"
"What!?" Sly said to himself. 'He really is going to shoot us. This is bad!' Police began pulling the triggers of their pistols and rifles. All aimed directly at the cooper gang, making sure not to put another cop in the line of fire. Not that it would matter, since all of their guns were jammed.
"What's going on?!" Spike growled. "I said fire damn it." He snatched a rifle from one of his men and pointed it at cooper. He pulled the trigger several times, but nothing happened.
"Quick guys! Now's our chance!" Sly and the gang made a run for it, police on their tail. "We'll have to split up if we want to escape. I'll meet you back at the hideout." The other two nodded and split off to the sides. All three of them took separate routes.
"What the hell just happened?" Spike asked himself as he checked over the rifle. He fired off a shot into the sky. The gun was only temporarily jammed. What could have possibly happened to have jammed all of the guns at the same time? Spike looked up to see a disappointed Carmelita Fox staring him in the face.
"You let him escape." She said plainly as she crossed her arms. Spike shook his head. "You mean like you've done a thousand times?" Carmelita scoffed at this comment. "Look Carmel, if I hadn't taken things into my own hands, Sly would have escaped indefinitely. However, something jammed all of the guns, allowing him to escape." Spike admitted. "Guess I should have thought of a back-up plan." He frowned. Carmelita looked at the rifle in Spike's hands.
"Did you have to try and kill him? It seems a little extreme." Carmelita placed her hands on her hips and grimaced.
"You clearly haven't done your homework." Spike said.
"What do you mean?"
"Your 'former flame'…" Carmelita growled at that comment. "… has been named an enemy of the country."
"What!?"
"Just as I said. He's caused so much trouble that the government want him gone. His total stolen loot amounts to the kind of money that could be used to build entire fleets of ships or to build a few skyscrapers. A lot of the stolen stuff isn't from France. Some are even from countries that we don't consider being our friends. However, Sly hails from France. Some people are beginning to think that he's one of our agents."
"That's insane."
"Insane or not, it's making the government look bad. They want Sly out of the picture."
"They want him dead just so they can look good?!" Carmelita questioned.
"You're attitude tells me that you don't like what you're hearing." Spike frowned. "Meet me in the discussion room at HQ. I'll tell you everything you need to know." He shoved the rifle into her hands and began to walk off. "Oh and Carmel…"
"What." She asked, annoyed.
"The CIA is American, not French. Next time you lie, lie right."
Sly made his way over the rooftops. He could see for a miles from all the way up here.
"What a view. He said to himself." Sly proceeded to jump to the next rooftop and climb around it. "The cooper hideout shouldn't be too far from here." He looked over Paris. "At least I don't think it is." He reached the other side and climbed up. Before he jumped to the next building, he paused to think about prior events. Sly looked at the bandages that covered his body. "What happened to me? Carmelita said that I was shot. But I can't remember being shot. Last thing I remember was being at the hideout and then a fuzzy memory of walking up to Interpol HQ." He looked at the next building and judged the distance. "I should be able to make it if I use my cane." His eyes grew wider. He then looked over his garment (which were bandages and an orange shirt) and looked at his hand. "Wait a sec… I forgot my stuff!"
Murray took to the streets. This did not prove beneficial to escaping from the pigs (You think I'm using that as a slang word for cops? I'm actually being literal). The police chased him down several roads, picking up other patrols as they did so. The horde of cops chasing Murray was progressively getting larger as time passed on. 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 22 etc. It was surprising how many cops were patrolling such a small area. Then again, maybe Murray had just run further than he thought he did. In any case, he had to find a way of losing them, and fast. Or perhaps there was another way of dealing with this situation. Murray immediately turned into the nearest back alley and stopped at the end. The thin walls of the alley forced the cops to funnel through in two lines of men. However, this did not matter to the pink hippo whatsoever. He allowed the policemen to completely surround him, save the far wall that he faced. Peeking over his shoulder at the officers of law, Murray turned to face them and cracked his fists.
"No man is a match for… THE MURRAY!" He punched his fist.
Bentley had gone into the sewer system in order to escape from the cops. They were prepared for this however and had patrols wandering around in different sections of the sewer.
"I've got to be careful." Bentley said to himself as he zoomed down the different passages. It wasn't long before Bentley came across one of the patrols. There were only two of them, but you can't be two careful. Bentley used one of his robotic arms to throw an object at them. It landed dead centre between them. The two cops looked down at the object, confused. The object then began to spew gas, causing the cops to quickly pass out. "It worked!" Bentley cheered. The tortoise quickly made his way through the next set of passages. "Oh man, it stinks down here!" Bentley waved his hand around and held his nose. "I better get out of here quickly, before I pass out." He wheeled his way towards the nearest exit, only to find four more police officers waiting idly by the ladder. Bentley reached for another gas grenade, but found that he'd come ill prepared. After all, he hadn't foreseen this occurrence… occurring. He had no darts and no fancy equipment other than his radar and P.D.I that were built into his wheelchair. It was time to do things the old fashioned way.
Sly opened the vault containing his personal belongings and left a 'little present' in its place. His call-card. However, just as he was about to make his exit, he felt something cold press against the back of his head. It was the barrel of a gun. And not just any gun. It was a special type of gun used by the one and only… Carmelita Fox. Sly raised his arms in the air.
"Miss Fox." Sly said acting surprised. He turned his head slightly, but not enough to see Carmelita.
"Ringtail." She replied.
"So what happens now? Do you capture the 'nasty criminal' and send me to jail?"
"As much as I would like to do that, it's not in my power."
"Hmm? What do you mean by that?" Sly turned around so that he was facing her.
"You're in trouble Sly. Big trouble. Trust me, in any other case I would be glad to have you locked up for how knows long."
"Thanks." Sly said sarcastically.
"But in this case you might…" She frowned deeply and lowered her gun. "Get out of here sly." She said.
"What?" He asked.
"Just go!" Carmelita shouted as she took a shot at the wall next to sly.
"Don't have to tell me twice!" He smiled. Sly climbed his way up one of the walls and made his way out of a hole he had made. Carmelita began to stare at the hole for a while, then sighed and began to leave.
"I thought as much." A voice sounded. Carmelita looked around for the owner of said voice. "Up here." The voice was gruff and manly, yet sounded like it was from a man well into his years. Inspector Fox looked up at a small ledge on the wall. On it sat Sergeant Spike.
"Were you spying on me?" Carmelita asked.
"No, but I still know what you did." He looked down at her. You could see the disappointment in his eyes.
"Oh? And what would that b-"
"You understand that I'll be compiling a report on this." Spike interrupted/
"Compiling? You make it sound like you're…"
"Yes. This isn't the first time that you've voluntarily let Sly go. In fact, you even got him a job at Interpol once, didn't you? Sneaking a criminal into Government property and Law enforcement. Honestly Carmelita, what did you think was going to happen? Did you think that the Government was going to give you a promotion for letting a renowned criminal run loose and you could both run into the sunset surrounded by unicorns and bunnies… no offence Ralph."
"None taken." The vault guard replied.
"Listen Carmelita. I don't enjoy bringing out the worst in people, but in this case it can't be helped. You were a credit to your uniform; at least you would be if you wore one." He chuckled. "Sorry, bad joke. Anyway, the point it, your beginning to become an obstruction of justice rather than its enforcer. I'll see to it that you don't get another chance to screw up."
The gang relaxed at their hideout after a successful job.
"It sure was nice of Carmelita to let you go like that." Murray smiled.
"Yeah." Sly lay on his back and looked up at the ceiling. "Something didn't seem right though. That's not like Carmelita. Plus everything went so smoothly. Too smooth if you ask me."
"How can you call that mission smooth?" Bentley asked as he wheeled himself over to his raccoon friend. "There were so many unexpectancies it was like a surprise party. A frighteningly lethal surprise party."
"Yeah, but every time something else popped up, it would just lay down flat and let us trample over it. The guns jamming, Carmelita letting me go on a moment's notice. Something has to be wrong."
"Maybe it has something to do with your amnesia." Bentley said. He examined Sly purely through vision. "Perhaps something happened that you don't remember. Something important."
"What did happen?" Murray asked. "You were gone for a long while before Bentley found you. "Where were you?"
"That's the thing, I don't know. But it's our closest bet." Sly sat up and grinned. "So we're going to find out." He smile slowly faded. "But where do we start? I can't remember anything besides collapsing."
"That may be an easier choice to make than we had initially thought." Bentley explained. Sly turned to face him, as did Murray. "I just opened my computer in order to start looking for an answer to that question and I just received a message.
"Who's it from?" Sly asked.
"It doesn't say. But it does say that we should look for 'The Grey Fox' if we want to get answers. Although it doesn't say where to find him. However, it shouldn't take too long to find him if I do a full sweep of the internet and shave my findings down to the priority files and add in some criteria that might help. I think that this is the perfect chance to use that new software I've been making!"
"Bentley." Sly said.
"I could also try and…"
"Bentley." Murray said.
"Maybe if I hack into Interpol's systems, I could use their…"
"Bentley!" Sly and Murray shouted.
"What?" Bentley asked. Sly stuck a finger to the monitor and scrolled down the page. And surely, there it was… A link to a map of the facility where 'The Grey Fox' resided. "Oh, how did you know that was there?"
"It had a file attached to the email."
"Oh, my bad. I must have missed it." Bentley twiddled his thumbs, embarrassed. Sly and Murray shook their heads and smiled.
Next chapter is when the 'real' stuff starts. R&R and I'll see you next time.