Amsterdam, The Netherlands. 3:23am 24 July 2013.
He has outlasted the camera crew as usual, while others lie fat on the floor, Dimitri is still going. He has left this club for now; they shut at 1am and that is way too early for the disco-dancing Iguana. He heads off to his dirty, or rather smoky secret. Living the fast paced life he has is tiring. Even for those who can 'rock a party to the early light' as he would say. He just wanted to slow down. So, in one of the 'coffee shops' in the Dutch capital, he lights a joint. He gets around the limitation of not selling to tourists by having a forged EU Dutch passport, he still hasn't lost his abilities as a counterfeit artist. So here he is, smoking away in the shop when the blue van he hasn't seen in 8 years arrives on his doorstep. He is too stoned to realise the significance of it, but he gets up and stumbles his way to the van, Bentley opens up the side door of the van where Dimitri walks slowly towards the van, joint in hand, and falls in, making him fall asleep. The thud wakes them all up. Carmelita half draws her gun, expecting to be ambushed. Murray isn't that fazed.
"Is that?" Carmelita asks herself, she turns to see Dimitri lying in the back with smoke surrounding him. "Cannabis?"
"We're not far away." Bentley says, trying to downplay the situation, he just wants to get to Sly as fast as possible. But she is right, the smell lingers in the air. Drugs are a big part of what Carmelita deals with, many drug smugglers have been put away by this vixen, she know the laws here are different, even if she doesn't agree with them. The windows are opened fully as they drive to the location of Bentley's lab, or rather Bentley's chair drives them. The van stops outside a small shoe shop in the centre of Amsterdam, It doesn't look like the place for a top-secret lab. That's just how Bentley wanted it to be. He gets the half awake gang out of the van and walks them out of the van. Then opens up the shop.
"Is this your lab?" Murray asks seriously.
"Yeah, it's just not in this room." Bentley replies.
"Do you have a shoe fetish or something?" Carmelita asks. Bentley let's the possible paraplegic joke go.
"It's the perfect cover, the back entrance is actually a cargo elevator. Murray you can drive around and park the van in there." Bentley instructs. Murray does as he says while the rest of them, slightly more awake now, move into the back room. Which contains an elevator that leads down to the lab.
"Why is your lab here?" Carmelita asks. Bentley hesitates briefly.
"Because she chose it." Bentley replies loudly like he's wanted to get it off his chest. Carmelita didn't expect such a response from Bentley, he never seemed like a shouty type, even when he did his plans. They descend down to the lab. To Bentley, it is home. To the others, it's a sea of white. The time machine parts are in a corner, waiting to be re-assembled when needed. Everything is quiet inside, even the elevators are quiet, they are magnetically suspended along the shaft along for fast transportation and quiet movement. The van is already downstairs with Murray looking at all the glowing lights and flashing dials. Bentley is already getting into putting the time machine back together. This moment has been planned and rehearsed several times. It is like a blur watching Bentley assemble the piece back together. When they see this happening, one can only appreciate his brilliance even more. In about 5 minutes, with Murray's help, it is re-assembled to the van. But being the detective Carmelita is, she spots something that doesn't belong, a huge pink graffiti tag, the same as they saw in the alley. The room which it is in is completely empty.
"She's been here." Carmelita announces. Bentley drops everything and rushes to the scene.
"Everything of hers was here when I left for you guys. She's erasing her tracks." Bentley concludes.
"Someone having trouble letting go." Carmelita jokes, noting that her stuff was still there after 3 weeks since the betrayal. Bentley gets right on the offensive.
"I could say the same for you." Bentley replies.
"Touché." Carmelita replies back, that comment really hit hard. She regrets instantly saying it in the first place. Murray comes to change the mood.
"Hey Bentley, did you make a giant pizza oven here? I'm starving." Murray announces. I guess 5 pizzas in Paris are not enough for Murray.
"Yeah, but we need to get Sly back now" Bentley says as he wheels his chair back to the time machine. The final adjustments are made and the cane is placed in the receptacle. The time machine is on; they are going to get Sly back.
Cairo, Egypt. Night-time, 1298 B.C.
Sly is sleeping, although not well. Throughout the day he has being trying to complete a heist, from 6 attempts, 6 failures. It ends the same way, a card and a coin. They lay on a table in the main hut. Sly still wonders how he, the greatest thief of the modern era, is not able to perform one simple heist. He doesn't doubt his fitness, or his technique. He just is always one step behind this warlord. It's like he's taunting Sly; Drawing him out of hut in search of riches and finding nothing. It's become about more than money; he never needed it in the first place. It is now about pride, Sly needs to get his confidence back. So in the cover of darkness, he sneaks out and aims to steal something, anything that could help him get his confidence back. There was one thing that Slytunkahmen II was talking about before he went to bed, an iron dagger kept in the palace. While most thefts he had read about in this time period were about gold, iron was a more valuable commodity in ancient Egypt.
He has been noticing something strange recently as he wandered the streets in the day. Every time he goes into a shadow, he gets weird looks from people. Sly doesn't see anything different with himself; he's just an outsider to this town. It's hard to not stand out if you're the only one with a colour other than blue and yellow on you. On the way to the iron dagger, he puts more effort into his moves than usual, trying to block any possible faults associated with himself. This warlord has tormented him, trying to sap all of the will and spirit from Sly for some purpose. Sly gets into the palace under the cover of darkness, He hides in the shadows of the throne room, away from anyone that could find them, the guards maintain their positions beside the empty throne, unaware of the thief amongst them. A small room that is meant to be holding the dagger is now full of something else, cards, too many for Sly to count. He sees the guards who were guarding this room almost drowning in the cards.
"Whoever is doing this must have something to do with me." Sly utters to himself. Using a conveniently placed sack in the corner, he fills it up with as many cards as he can and carries it over his shoulder out of the palace. As he stands atop the stairs leading into the palace, he spots something that seems out of the ordinary. Light, not just the flickering fires scattered around the city, but artificial light.
Cairo, Egypt. 3:34am 1298 B.C.
The gang arrive in Ancient Egypt, but it is almost pitch black except for the fires that are almost burnt out. It would be impossible to find Sly in this light; he could be anywhere.
"Why don't I rev the engine, he'll definitely hear this." Murray says, as he is about to stamp on the accelerator. Bentley intervenes quickly.
"We can't wake up everyone in the city. We get Sly and return to figure out what to do next." Bentley warns.
"Urgh, we'll never find him in this light, even with thermovision." Carmelita says. It pains her to wait a few more hours before they can have a chance to find him. They hear a noise coming from the rooftops, they can't see anything in the darkness.
"Guys!" Says a jubilated voice in the night. It sounds a lot like Sly's voice to them. Carmelita thinks she's gone insane and can hear a voice in her head, the voice of Sly. The sound gets closer and closer but they still see nothing. Sly is now right next to them shouting but they see nothing.
"Sly?" Bentley says, unsure whether this voice is Sly.
"I'm right in front of you." Sly happily says, he is ecstatic that he is reunited with his gang again. Sly goes right up to Bentley and waves his hand frantically in front of him. While Bentley wears glasses, Sly doesn't think his vision is that bad that he can't see him. Sly is having his own doubts as well. Are these the actual members of his gang or are they a figment of his mind? He goes over to Carmelita and gives her a hug. This catches Carmelita off guard, she can't see anything either, only feeling the tight squeeze around her torso.
"It's me." The calm reassuring voice of Sly states to Carmelita gently into her ear.
"Sly? I can't see you?" Carmelita worryingly says, wondering if she has gone mad.
"I guess you are blinded by my love." Sly jokingly states. Carmelita now knows that this is Sly, even though she still can't see him, only someone of Sly's humour would even dare to pull that joke off. She embraces the air as well. Murray is confused, to him, it looks like Carmelita is hugging the air. He takes out his binocucom and turns it to thermovision, the outline of Sly is clearly visible. He stands stunned at what is happening.
"You're invisible Sly." Murray blurts out as he hands the binocucom to Bentley who confirms it, this cuts the atmosphere that is between the two lovers.
"Am i?" Sly asks Carmelita, slightly worried about the prospect.
"Yeah." She says after a small hesitation. This causes Sly to step back slightly; he is not one to be afraid of many things. But this really scares him, has he been invisible all this time? He takes a look at himself, in the darkness he can still see his body, his hands, his cane, his feet. They are all visible to him and they are not visible to them. Suddenly another figure emerges from the darkness, it is Slytunkahmen II.
"Sly? What are you doing out here? Who are these people?" Slytunkahmen II asks frantically.
"These are my gang, Bentley, Murray and Carmelita." Sly explains, he turns visible again but is aware of it.
"And Dimitri." Bentley adds, not seeing Sly's transformation.
"Dimitri's here?" Sly asks. They notice him now. Slytunkahmen II isn't surprised about Sly's new ability.
"Yeah." Bentley says, both surprised and shocked at Sly's re-emergence. "He's in the back." Sly walks over to the van to see Dimitri lying on the floor, burnt-out joint in hand in a pile of smoke that wafts out as Sly opens the door.
"Looks like that's the crazy iguana I know." Sly says to the completely motionless body so heavily baked. Sly turns around to Bentley while holding the sack he brought with him.
"I was wondering if you could take a look at this for me." Sly asks Bentley. Sly dumps all the cards over the sleeping Dimitri, he doesn't feel a thing. Bentley picks up one of the cards, it doesn't a take a genius turtle to see who it is.
"We need to talk now." Bentley says to Sly, he is worried about the implications of this card. Yet another card is going to cause him so much trouble.