Chapter 2: Tech me Out

Carmelita tried to gather her thoughts, she stood in the center of her office, tears racing down her snout. She looked to her safe and screamed in rage. The Sly Cooper logo sat the same way it did once before in the very same safe. All the files, all the Intel, everything gone.

She fell to her knees. Her fellow police circled the office and looked for anything they could go off of. She didn't want Bonnie to know that Sly Cooper was her father. She didn't want Bonnie's life to be consumed by him just as hers had. Now she lost everything, the files, and her daughter. In her persistent pursuing of Sly Cooper she had managed to do exactly what she didn't want to, she pushed her daughter into the very life style she had fought to keep her from. She knows she wasn't around much of her life but everything she needed was given to her. She had wanted to tell her so many times, but telling her would make it real, there would be no coming back. Yet now here she was. Crying like the weak on her office floor, wishing to take back all those years where her chase had been about Sly Cooper. She felt the irony in it, the day she vowed to give up on Sly Cooper was the day she pushed her daughter too far. Now she has to start another chase to find her, for how long this time? Why didn't she think like a mother and not a cop all these years? I've got to find her. Not for the sake of jailing her, for the sake of apologizing. For the sake of finally being a Mother. She knew she'd have to sell it to her co-workers that she wanted Bonnie jailed, but still she couldn't fight the sadness that was filling her soul, the sadness she had to blame herself for.

Carmelita curled her arms to her chest and ignored the constant buzz of officers around the office.

"He must have known she had taken off today?" One detective said.

"How? He must have been watching her!" Another retorted.

"Isn't he dead?" One more added commentary.

Carmelita stood slowly and the room quieted at her rejoining the force both mentally and physically. "It wasn't Sly Cooper."

All the detectives in the room froze and raised their brows with suspicion; something they'd never even thought would come out of her mouth. She blamed everything on Sly Cooper. Hell when the coffee pot in the break room broke she was cursing his name as if he'd had something to do with it. Now they all stood in her corner office, Cooper's calling card in her safe and now is the time Carmelita Fox decided to defend the very man who was the bane of her existence? She felt their suspicion and she glanced up and around the room at each officer, her expression grew angry, she felt a fire in her that she let die that morning except this time it burned with fierce passion to find this Fox. She was herself again, except in a new light with a new purpose.

"I want police everywhere, eyes everywhere. Down all the riverbanks and in the most remote allies we've got a thief to find." Everyone stood in awe, "Are you going to sit around all day or do your job?"

"Pardon me but if not Sly Cooper," Detective Peter Pig questioned her in between bites of a donut, "who exactly are we looking for?"

Carmelita strode over to her safe and plucked out the calling card of the notorious Sly Cooper. "Get the best men we've got. We're looking for Bonnie Cooper."

The precinct was in awe, realizing that finally after all these years Bonnie was the daughter of the very person that Carmelita wanted to bring to justice. This lawful cop, who wouldn't even search a partner's desk without a warrant, had broken the law. Now her daughter was following in her father's footsteps. What drama, what gossip! It spread around the headquarters like wildfire, but no one confronted Carmelita, she had the same rage she once did the same kind that if you got in the way of back then you'd wind up broken one way or another on the floor, except this time it was fueled by her very own daughter.

Carmelita walked down to Corporal's office, she didn't hesitate because she needed to be fast and brief, and she was on the hunt again. "I am demanding for my Captain's title back."

He looked up from his newspaper and pushed his glasses back to his eyes since they had fallen down his snout. He was a beefy guy. Pure bred German Sheppard clearly made for his job. "You gotta lot of nerve making a demand like that Fox. I could have you arrested. Allowing a thief to escape all those years back?"

"Corporal I made a mistake, I had planned to book him but come morning the rotten thief was gone. I was handcuffed. I didn't plan on Bonnie, but she happened. You have to understand I did everything to keep her away from this. A good girl. Mommy's good little girl. Do you realize how heartbroken I am? I need to find her and it has to be me. She'll never understand or listen if it's anyone else."

He put his paper flat on his desk and stood. Buttoning the jacket he was wearing and strode around the desk. "I understand Carmelita, but you're too close to this case as it is, I can't have you running around destroying the precinct's reputation because now your goose chase has suddenly evolved into a daddy-daughter-mommy issue chase. Go home and let us sweep the streets, she couldn't have gotten out of Paris. If you need to find her for your sake, then do what any other mother would do, go home and grieve that your daughter is missing let us handle it."

Carmelita was outraged, she threw the swiftest punch she could and made sure it hit him right in the face. Immediately he fell backward and crashed into his desk. "All due respect Corporal, take that as my letter of resignation." Carmelita threw her badge at his feet and walked out. Several secretaries and fellow policemen went to his aid as she flung his office door wide open.

Nothing was going to stop her now, she needed to find her daughter, and if no one was with her they were against her. She was on her own.

*On the streets Paris.*

Bonnie stuck to the shadows, avoiding the main streets and highways. She snuck down the block where her house was, only once she'd noticed her mother leave and she strode to the backyard just behind the fence in a deep enough hole was the briefcase of files and her father's hat and cane. She retrieved the items and left them at the back door of the house. She climbed up the usual drainage pipe leading to the balcony and swiftly moved to her room. She packed a backpack with some disguises and regular clothes. Then she strode to her mother's room, thieving whatever money she could find and pawning anything that looked valuable she stuffed a backpack to the brim then peaked in her mother's closet.

She saw several of those yellow jackets she wore, and those godforsaken navy blue pants. Bonnie looked deeper and found a pair of gray pants that strongly resembled the ones sly wore, she figured they would be useful. She slipped them on and felt like she was becoming more and more like her father. She rummaged for anything else and realized that her mother's wardrobe was kind of bland. Bonnie changed into a decently put together disguise and once again headed down the drainage pipe. She stuffed the files in her new backpack and ditched the briefcase in the garbage can. The cane was harder to hide and she realized she couldn't fit it in the backpack.

Her choices were limited but she wouldn't ditch the cane for the life of her, so it was back to sticking to alley ways and avoiding citizens. She didn't have to worry about school anymore because she had dropped out just this morning after she found out. On the basic premise that going to school would be kind of foolish and they would expect her there.

A different thought plagued her mind where will I stay tonight? The sun was setting rapidly and she was at the moment homeless. However she knew her first hit was happening tonight, she could stay there once the place closed up.

That same boutique that she'd bought an entire wardrobe at when she was younger closed at 9 judging by the time and a rough guess Bonnie assumed it to be around 7:30pm. Okay, she thought to herself first step to survival, find food. She knew just where to hit and who to steal food from. Her thieving skills have to start at the bottom, but she's determined to get better.

*Kaine Island*

"The signs point to the same thief that has been missing so many years ago…" A television announcer stated. "Allegedly it is a new thief with the same calling card as the notorious Sly Cooper…"

A voice downstairs interrupted. "Morgan, come down please it's time for dinner!"

"Hang on mom there's something cool on the TV." She retorted

"Morgan if you do not come down here this instant!"

"It's the news mom! Someone thinks Sly Cooper is back, well a copycat Sly Cooper!"

There was no response just ruffled footprints climbing up the steps, the door to the study swung open and Penelope walked in and abruptly stopped to watch the newscast.

"They say the hit came early during the day but Paris Police Department is having issues scraping together clues. The office was owned by Inspector Fox and the calling card was allegedly left by a sixteen year old girl who goes by the name Bonnie Cooper…"

Penelope looked baffled and shocked, "Bently, you might wanna get up here and see this!"

Morgan heard the sound of her dads jet powered wheel chair flying up the stairs, "What is going on I'm ready for dinner?" He said with his permanently nasal congested voice.

He fell silent as the news reporter continued.

"… Inspector Carmelita Fox is denying comment and has resigned from the police force. Other members of the force commented on her behalf claiming her daughter to be the one who's broken into the safe and stolen the Intel. Sources say that Bonnie Cooper is a product of Carmelita and she grew an obsession with Sly Cooper based on her mother's persistent search of him for all her life, while others claim that Inspector Fox and Sly Cooper are in cahoots. If any information is found please contact the Paris Police Department. Be on the lookout and prepare yourselves. If Sly Cooper is back there is a master thief roaming the streets of Paris once more…"

The newscast went to commercial, Penelope and Bently just looked at each other.

"Could he be?" Penelope asked.

"No, I mean I don't think so. It's not probable." Bently began calculating his sources. "Alive alone is questionable, but the possibility of him in Paris is absolutely, positively improbable!"

"His cane, it went missing all those years back!" She retorted.

"A reasonable retort Penelope, but this could be a copycat. Inspector Fox having a daughter seems improbable to. Yet given the circumstance it will have to be prosecuted and researched in much greater depth. I'll get researching possibilities as soon as we finish dinner!"

Morgan sat their dumbfounded, sure she'd inherited her father's brain and mother's distinguished ability to fly planes, but she couldn't compute this in her head. I don't get it is it Sly Cooper? She'd heard so much about him and she was raised off of tales and adventures they've shared from her father and occasionally her mom. If this was Sly Cooper, why wouldn't they go see him? Why contemplate and research it's the calling card clearly! It has to be a
Cooper at least. Why wait on research? This Cooper person whether it be this alleged Bonnie or Sly, it was worth investigating and worth investigating up close.

Penelope and Bently began they're descent down the steps discussing possibilities, Morgan trailed behind wondering why they don't just go find out for themselves. Bently went on about computing algorithms to track Sly's sighting history over the last sixteen years. Penelope said she would begin preparations on the safe to make sure that it was complex and more challenging to enter. If there was a copycat Cooper around, it wouldn't be long before they've got incentive to go looking for the Cooper legacy.

Her parents seemed to think the worst, barely eating because there was too much to discuss, theories, ideas, beliefs, all of them circulating around the idea that it had to be an imposter a phony, a copycat, or in this case copy-coon. Morgan let out a smirk at her ingenious pun but quickly pushed aside her quick wit and began thinking of possibilities.

It was entirely possible that Sly could have a daughter, he went missing sixteen years ago and they knew he wasn't really dead then because his cane went missing shortly after that. He left her father a way into the vault of the Cooper Legacy, and both of her parents have been here since then. She had never been off of Kaine Island not even once, in her fifteen years of life! If there was a Sly Cooper Jr out there, it was worth investigating.

After dinner Bently and Penelope got to work they first started their search into Sly and possible sightings over the years. They came across countless trip vouchers in the name of Carmelita Fox, they had come to the realization that she was barely in Paris the last sixteen years, apart from getting demoted six years back, it didn't make sense for her to have a child she was never around and the vouchers were only in her name.

"Is it possible Sly is using an alias?" Penelope asked.

Bently shrugged and typed swiftly on his keyboard and began hacking into databases worldwide to see where exactly Carmelita went, "It's possible, but it wouldn't make sense, it's not like Sly to pretend to be someone else, his jobs were always done as himself. Why start an alias now."

Penelope thought profoundly to herself, "But Carmelita couldn't have a daughter, and if she does it can't be possible for it to be with Sly. She would have had to have sent the child off somewhere with all the traveling she's done! Just 8 years ago she took 72 trips in a span of a year and a half. It just doesn't make any sense."

Morgan decided to stop listening at that point. Why was it so unbelievable for Sly to have had a kid? What sense does that make? Just because Carmelita was never really in Paris according to them, doesn't mean she didn't have a kid. Sure she must have felt rejected to no end, it makes sense. Why are her parents denying such possibilities?

Morgan might have lived with her parents all her life, but she was neglected just the same. There was always something technological to do and someone on thiefnet to be selling equipment to. She was neglected even if her parents never even left the island they resided on. She related, and she started to believe that Carmelita's daughter must be Sly's too.

She didn't want her parent's research to continue because she knew that with enough digging they'd find out that Carmelita did have a daughter, it wasn't that hard of a conclusion to come to. They just denied it for some reason. She raced to her laptop and researched furiously, she scrolled through months and months of birth certificates dating back 16 years in all of the hospitals in Paris databases she key worded Sly Cooper and Carmelita Fox and found what she was looking for. She printed it out and ran down the steps through the hidden bookshelf passage down the hall and into her parent's lab.

"Stop everything she shouted!" They looked up only briefly, realizing that wasn't going to help anything she raised her voice, "SLY COOPER HAD A KID, LOOK HERE." Her parents both pointed to the big screen above the main corridor of the lab, the same document she was holding was up on the screen, she felt defeated but somewhat annoyed that they had figured it out that Bonnie was indeed real and was indeed Sly's child.

"All that's left now is to take her down." Bently said.

"But why not recruit her?" Morgan asked.

Bently turned from his computer, "Morgan we are working with the assumption that Sly never knew he was a father. Bonnie isn't a priority right now. We need to know if Sly is alive and so we are centering our focus on that. Getting Sly back is the first step and then we take down Bonnie."

Morgan felt shattered, Bonnie was following her father's footsteps not trying to dishonor it or cause harm it was blatantly obvious, and she was a Cooper she just didn't get the chance to be. From what she had heard of Sly he was an easy going kind of raccoon. He didn't sweat the big stuff and often made light of it. Her father on the other hand needed to to prepare for every possible outcome, he had plans of backup plans and contingencies for almost everything. However Morgan wanted to embrace this Bonnie Cooper in the sense that welcomes her to the alleged "Cooper Gang" or what's left of it anyway. Who knows maybe Bonnie wanted to find Sly as much as her parents did now. While her parents searched the internet looking for any remnants of Sly, Morgan was going to go to Paris in search of Bonnie.

She had an idea.

*The alley ways of Paris.*

The night had officially set in. Bonnie had thieved a whole bunch of baked goods off of a bakery before they closed up shop. She did them a favor anyway; they usually throw out the stuff at the end of the night. Now she had a gloriously big bag of muffins bagels and cookies to last her the night. She stuck to the alley ways heavily and found herself checking her back every so often. She kept her father's cane with her at all times and used it to grab hold of things and help her swing over fences occasionally. She was getting good with it and she figured at this point it had to be genetics.

After a few blocks and climbing up pipes and over some buildings, Bonnie reached the back of the boutique store. She'd hidden her backpack behind the dumpster a few hours earlier just to make traveling slightly less complicated. She plopped down behind the garbage dump and feasted to her hearts content. Nibbling on some bagels but gorging down the muffins and cookies until she couldn't fit them down anymore. She then stalked from a distance the backside of the boutique she heard voices inside and saw lights eventually being shut off. She waited for a solid hour after she knew everyone was gone just in case someone forgot something or had to come back.

It was getting kind of chili in the night air, but Bonnie stood her ground behind the dumpster. The clouds that rolled over the city all day and made her think of impending rain began to rumble. She knew rain was coming and that it was coming soon. She grabbed her back pack and cane then rushed under the awning over the back door of the boutique. Her hands worked feverishly at the lock, applying knowledge she'd learned from years of practice. She made haste but was also careful. Eventually she heard the familiar click and the lock opened with ease. She pushed the door open and raced inside as she heard the inevitable downfall of the thunderstorm.

She took a moment to take in the boutique itself. Little girls 'clothes lined the front of the right wall and young woman attire was all along the left. She noticed the fabrics in the employee's room too and saw some striking nice ones. She ditched her disguise in the garbage and began working.

She snaked around the store for a royal blue top and found the most perfect sport sweater V-neck. It was form fitting and fit around her nicely. She began sneaking around again, careful not to get to close to the front windows. She lurked around the back right wall where all the various forms of shoes were. She searched and couldn't find what she was looking for. That didn't stop her though. She knew there was a store dedicated directly to shoes on the other side of the fence out back. It'd just be another picked lock and a quick search.

Piece by piece she modeled her costume as close to her fathers as she could get it. The end result wound up looking similar to the picture of her father's that she'd taken out of the file. She had a blue V-neck sweater with a yellow undershirt. She used the same gray pants she had pawned out of her mother's closet and she plucked her dads hat out of the old backpack and placed it proudly on her head. She rounded up some blue gloves careful to pick the right shade and she wound up stealing one of the boutiques small red backpacks that they had simply by chance. She stuffed the files inside along with the jewelry and money she'd pawned off of her mother. She also decided stealing a few wigs wouldn't hurt in case she needed to be publicly disguised. The last thing she did was break into the register, stealing whatever money was inside. Bonnie was going to need cash if she was going to need to travel. Everything else would have to go into the dumpster. She thought of it as throwing away what was left of Bonnie Fox.

After a quick hop skip and cane swing over the fence out back she was faced with yet another lock on another door to the shoe store. Bonnie was perplexed by this one. She didn't know where to begin considering it wasn't your usual lock. It had fingerprint identification and was much more complex than anything she'd ever seen. She was about to touch it when she heard a voice and immediately jumped and tried to be alert.

"Don't touch that!" it said. Bonnie turned around and swung her cane without even seeing anything first. "Easy there, you must be Bonnie. Finding you was easier than I thought it was going to be. Your style of fleeing is quite recognizable to intelligible people. You left a trail behind that the cops will be following soon. I suggest we get out of here now while we still can."

Bonnie was quite perplexed, who was this strange little mouse like girl. Why was she talking to her and how did she even know who she was? "We? Who are you?"

"Oh excuse me, my name is Morgan, I'm a…friend. I am tech savvy and I know that one touch and need I add not the right one could set off alarms immediately alerting the police. Here let me get at it." Morgan walked over to the digital lock and start working quickly, in no time at all the fingerprint scanner turned green and the door unlocked. "Come on in."

Bonnie was skeptical but she didn't refuse the help, she needed to find durable blue boots. "Judging by your costume you're missing a few pieces. I did a full scan of this place and found that they have blue combat boots that should match your outfit pretty well in a box in the back room." Morgan went off to retrieve the box and came back with several sizes. "Take your pick."

Bonnie was astounded but she didn't argue or counter this person. She seemed like she genuinely wanted to help. Morgan continued, "I also tracked your escape pattern from the wreckage at the bakery downtown. I calculated the most logical path and realized with the things you'd stolen from your mother's house that you were trying to build a suit kind of like your fathers. My calculations indicated that you'd be missing a piece that you wouldn't be able to retrieve in your route so I got it for you at the masquerade store just a few blocks over before I found you here." Morgan reached into her pocket and pulled out a black mask as Bonnie tied the laces of her new boots. She looked at Morgan completely baffled.

"Listen, you've got to get better at this, and I'm gonna help you. I have ample knowledge with technology and I've got our way out of Paris if you'll trust me." Morgan said.

"Thanks for your help, uh, Morgan," Bonnie said scratching her head. As she took the mask and tied it around her head. "But I don't exactly understand how you know me or why you're helping me. I don't even know you, for all I know you're an undercover cop trying to stall me. I have to go now."

Morgan reached into the satchel she'd been carrying. She pulled out a book that had the same Sly Cooper logo on it that she'd seen so many times before. "You may not know me, but you know my father, Bently. He worked with your dad. This is my proof, this book it…" she said handing over The Thievius Racoonus to Bonnie "it belongs to a Cooper."

Once more Bonnie was baffled, Bently the guy she'd read about in the files? He had a daughter? How odd, Bonnie didn't know what to make of the book either. She'd read up on it in her mom's files but she never thought she'd get to see it. How did this Morgan even have it? There was so much she needed answered. Morgan was starting to look like a smart option.

"Now we've got to go, we can chit chat later. My indicators are telling me that police are heading up town and are a few minutes out from this area we have to move." Morgan said as she led Bonnie outback. Morgan took out two metal boxes from her backpack and pressed the center of each one. Two jetpacks unfolded in her hands. "Come on Cooper," she said. "My jet is parked by the Eiffel Tower!"