Bentley's Lab, 5:43am 28th July 2013
Sly can't sleep. After what he has been through yesterday, it is no wonder why sleep continues to desert him. He's tossed and turned in bed, Carmelita, who is sleeping on the other side of the bed, doesn't feel anything because she has absolutely crashed. Sly goes over to the source of his discomfort. The heavily locked down room has not been left by Otto, who is sleeping at the foot of the door, wanting to be as close to her as possible. Sly takes control of the surveillance system for the room, a small monitor is revealed from inside the wall as Sly inputs some commands on a keypad. It shows the 'cell' from various cameras placed in the cell. Penelope is fast asleep on the ground. A small microphone juts out from the wall to allow for communication. Sly presses and holds the button to turn it on.
"Wake up." Sly whispers into the microphone. She doesn't move at first, he waits a little longer, wanting a response.
"Yeah." Penelope groggily replies. Still drugged from the sleeping dart.
"Hi." Sly awkwardly greets her. It's the only thing he can think of to say at this moment, he tries to be friendly.
"Hello yourself." She says, picking herself off the ground, trying to find the speakers in the room. There is a short pause.
"It's almost 6am." Sly says. He is not the best with small talk.
"What day is it?" She asks.
"Uh, it's the same one." Sly replies back.
"You know what I'm going to say next, right?" She asks.
"That you're sorry and you want to make it up to us." Sly answers.
"Nope, well, maybe a little bit." Penelope corrects him.
"Well then, what are you going to say?" Sly asks, wanting to know what she has to say.
"That you might not be existing soon if you don't let me out." Penelope says confidently to Sly. Sly thinks it's complete bull.
"You may be smarter, but I know when my hands and feet are still there." Sly remarks.
"Seriously, you need to let me out now or you will cease to exist by the end of the day." Penelope explains quickly to Sly.
"That's just crazy, you'll have to convince Bentley first." Sly warns knowing that Bentley is the only one that can open the door.
"Go wake him up now." She commands. Acting like she's extremely worried with herself.
"Listen, what you did to my family and my friends was unforgivable. I have no reason at all to let you out. In fact I should add in some devices for myself but I don't. Do you want me to tell you why?" Sly tempts the mouse.
"No." She replies back, expecting to hear some hateful response back.
"Good, because I'm going to show you." Sly states. "I'll be right back." He says as he sneaks around the lab, the lights turn on automatically so really there is no point. Anyone looking at him will see his silhouette illuminated by the overhead LED lights. He goes over to Bentley's desk and grabs a few items from it and returns with a crate full of goods. Somehow, Otto is still asleep at the foot of the door.
"I'm going to perform an experiment." Sly says to Penelope, turning on an overhead camera above a small bench beside the computer. The back wall is illuminated in Penelope's room; one of the walls is actually a screen.
"On what?" Penelope asks.
"You'll see." Sly says, quietly confident of completely blowing her off her feet with this revelation of his. He takes out the machine that Bentley was using before, It looks like a sandwich press. He places it on the bench and opens it up. On the screen, Sly's hands work quickly to assemble the machine.
"Are you making me a toasted sandwich?" Penelope asks. "It's not beyond you to do that." Sly then takes out the hair samples of Penelope, Otto and himself. Penelope sits silently knowing what he is trying to do.
"Now if I put these into here, and push this down. Turn the knob to on. Make sure it is securely fastened. It should be ready to go." Sly states, trying to figure out how to use this machine he has gathered up. Penelope knows it's a DNA matcher and she knows whose hair is in the device. The matcher pings and prints out the result. Sly takes the print out and turns it to face the camera, expecting to hear some sort of shock from Penelope. But nothing visible eventuates from her face.
"What do you think about that now?" Sly says, like he wants to get it off his chest.
"I believe you." Those three words are the last thing Sly expected from her mouth.
"But… but how?" Sly stutters for answers.
"I just do, can't you accept that?" Penelope states but she knows that Sly isn't going away anytime soon without a very long answer. He waits for the explanation to come.
"I never knew who I was for a long time, I just knew I was called Penelope. I lived in an orphanage since birth, to this day I do not know exactly who my parents are. When I was there, I didn't have any friends, people laughed because I wasn't strong or fast. But one that day at on my 8th birthday, I got a gift that would change my life, an RC plane. I flew it for hours and hours, it was the only thing that could make me happy. That was until the others decided to destroy it. It mad me so mad that I tried to take one of them on with my fists, that didn't go well. But it fixed my resolve. I learned how to box, it was awkward being the smallest out of them all but, with practise, I got the hang of it and soon I was able to fend for myself. I took my plane and left, I walked away to find my own path. That when I decided to take on the real thing. Me being only 16 at the time, first snuck into a hangar and tried it out for myself, it was great feeling the rush of air and the feeling of going up and down and sideways with nothing to impede your progress. I tried to enter competitions but no one would allow it, so I became the Black Baron. I won every competition that I entered and had gathered a huge fortune, so I set up the ACES competition. Once you guys found me out and joined you for my RC capabilities. I actually felt that I could be myself without having to hide my body under layers of clothes or metal. As I got to be close with Bentley for more time, I began to look inside your book, you know how it is. I was just curious, y'know. I opened the book and that changed my life. I saw things; things that I knew you wouldn't want me to see. But I kept going, I saw these flashing blue lights everywhere, on railings, on ropes, on ledges. I thought I was going crazy, it thought it must have been the book so I put it back, but it's allure only made come back for more. It was like a sickness, being away from it only drove me to get back at it. I'm sure Bentley knows about it though he never told me anything about it." Penelope explains.
"But you betrayed him." Sly says, still not rising his anger at her. That was the past.
"Bentley. He was just, so focused of this secret project of his. He was going to end up like one of those mad scientists that you see on TV. Just pawing around fragile ideas that would grapple his psyche like your hands on anything valuable. His great mind was being wasted on such fruitless projects. A time machine isn't going to pay the bills, at least not in the way he was planning to use it. So I took a risk, a big risk that would equal big reward if it paid off. I took the plans off to someone who would give me the best chance to rid you so I could get him to myself. Someone who had such a beef with you that by sheer determination would jump at any chance he had."
"Le Paradox."
"Yep. I became completely fixed on getting Bentley out of his state that I forgot about everything else, I just had to get my Bentley back. I thought that once you were out of the picture, Bentley would come running back to me, having no one else to go to. When that didn't work out as well as I'd hoped, I was put into prison. Prison is a great place to think about yourself. For those few hours in prison, nothing really happened, I was going to get used to having a cell for the rest of my life. But I heard footsteps from the outside, a group of men in suits came up to me and offered me a deal. In exchange for bringing the 7 best thieves in the world to justice, I would get as many military contracts I would like and a very early release. They handed the pink spray paint over to me in order to cover up the situation, faking my escape. It's why no one knows anything. It was an inside job. They gave me everything I needed. A plane, guards and money. I had the airfield done before as part of my own secret projects. The prize was big and it seemed easy at first. The first 6 took less than a week to capture. I had to wait for you get yourself right. That's right, I checked on you while you came out for your 15 minutes of sun. I knew you would be the hardest one out of them all. But I didn't realise the cost it would take on me. So I got some help."
Sly looks down at the sleeping raccoon at the door.
"I told him the old lie and he was all set. He was going to help out anyway considering how many advances he gave me in the first day. He was creeping me out a bit. Once you came back, the director was hard on my heels, trying to get me to capture you quicker. That's when I started to question myself, he was going to pull the contracts so I kept going, and failed. He became angrier and angrier, demanding my head if I didn't deliver you to him so he could parade you down the street. So I tired to do more research, thinking you would have to have some sort of weakness. That's when I began to do some covert tests on Otto, maybe there was something in your genetics that would help me understand more about you. I only knew by accident. Only a few hours ago I was sequencing Otto's DNA when it came up with a match. For what? I said. There was no other DNA in there. I opened the machine and saw one long blonde lock of hair in the mix. I realised who I truly was for the first time in my life. It brought me great sadness as lay there inside the plane. I hid it from everyone thinking, why am I doing this? What has come over you? How is this possible? What came next was even more research. I found the old records from my orphanage and found all the evidence I needed. On that scanned copy I found the partially rubbed out trace of a six-letter surname on the line for the name given on the sheet. I devised a plan to save you guys by capturing you for the director then breaking you out again once I had collected my money then we would hide and live out our lives. Sadly he was on the phone all night, shouting threats about missile attacks and blowing up the airfield and my plane about slaving me for all my useable life. I had no choice but to have one last shot. "
"And now I'm here. You know everything else; you've heard what I've said. What do say back?"
Sly just lets it sink in. It will never be a full explanation; he will never know exactly what she did or what she was thinking at the time. It is just too complicated to map out all the different connections and causal events that brought them here to the point where Penelope is in a makeshift prison, Sly is standing outside, Otto is sleeping at the foot of the door and Bentley has heard it all.