Luxembourg City 11:12am 28th July 2013.
The wallaby and the vixen walk slowly down the smoothly paved street of Luxembourg City, looking for a car that would suit his inner 9-year-old, something that would destroy your face when the accelerator hits the floor, something where the grip is monstrous, and something that can beat a souped up van to Lyon. That car has not yet appeared for him, all of these cars are just super luxury vans, something a senile but rich old man would get around in while sitting in the back and having a chauffer do all the work for him. The idea make Joey feel old himself. Carmelita is still worried about his pickiness because it is only slowing her down. She also thinks about Sly and their latest acquisition together. This even makes her think that she might have an early retirement and live with Sly in some isolated place where no one could touch them.
"Just take one of these cars and get us out of here." She begs at Joey, who is still looking around at all of the cars to gauge their performance. He doesn't answer back as he checks for things like the tires wear. He moves on around the corner where his jaw drops.
"Pinch me." He says in awe. Carmelita walks around the corner and she can see why. The most powerful car in production is parked on the side of the road, no doubt by some playboy banker who earns millions per year, financial crimes are such a bore to her, they have no action to it and use terms she could never understand. Joey walks up to it, but slowly, in reverence to its presence. It is like an artwork that isn't going to be stolen; it is there to be admired. Joey feels so bad that he has to break into it. That would damage its carefully made body panels with the scrapes made by the thin metal strip he uses to break into cars. It is like he is tearing open his own insides when he fiddles with the lock-picking device to get inside the car. It is like a piece of it is inside him. After his internally painful episode, the door opens to reveal a quilted interior of the finest cream coloured leather. Just touching it's seats makes him feel as dirty as a garbage can. Carmelita just forces him out of the way due to his hesitation and claims the driver's seat for this part.
"Get out of that seat." Joey says in complete hopelessness, like a dream has been whisked away from him. He trudges over to the passenger seat and gets in, sad at the fact that he has to watch. Carmelita this time gets to work hotwiring this car, Joey wouldn't dare intentionally destroy such beauty. Despite her legal background and all of the strict paperwork at Interpol, it is in the field where she gets into gear so to speak. She throws away all of those concerns to Geoffrey and gets to do what she does best. Getting crims locked up. The car is hotwired and the two wires are crossed to produce a spark required to get the huge engine to start up. Once it does though. It sounds as if they have the keys to a small nuclear bomb. Even the short reverse out of the space is enough to shake the ground. This picks Joey out of his mood, like even having the ability of doing that is so naughty. She slowly turns the hypercar out of the space and head south towards the highway. It shouldn't be hard for them to find Murray. They just have to look for the armada of helicopters tailing him.
15 kilometres south.
"Can't you call off these things?" Murray complains at all this attention, hoping Bentley has all the answers to their problems.
"It's impossible since they can see us, there's nothing I can do to make the van invisible." Bentley replies while monitoring the radio traffic from the police. He even has a video feed from one of the TV helicopters following this pursuit. This turtle has conquered time travel and overcome the loss of the use of his legs but has yet to discover the key to invisibility.
"What is it that we are doing anyway?" Murray asks to Bentley, suddenly realising that he doesn't know the answer to it himself. Bentley strings out the rhetoric that he has used to justify this entire trip.
"We need to get Penelope back because Sly got her out, she has managed to trick Sly into getting her out though their family connection." Bentley explains. "She needs to pay for what she did." Murray, at first, is convinced of these words that have been repeated so often by Bentley over this trip. However, Murray begins to think otherwise. He suddenly realises he can think this over for himself, what has Bentley been telling him all along. Has he really been that naïve to constantly accept what comes out of Bentley's mouth? Surely he trusts Bentley, they have been together since childhood, and he wouldn't lead him astray like that? Murray dismisses the idea on the back of their friendship but even this on this hulking hippo, the thought creeps up on him like a fly towards a cookie. Murray takes a quick look to the side to check on his friend, to look at his features, to see if what he thinks is right. He can see no such things that can give him the answer. He goes to plan B. His plan B in life is to follow the 'golden rule' of destruction, break stuff. He is going to break the current silence between them with a question.
"What has Penelope actually done?" Murray asks Bentley, the taping away at the keyboard doesn't cease while he rings off the reasons.
"She killed Dimitri, she ruined Otto, she almost made me loose my guts, she stole and sold off Sly's cane and most of all, betrayed my love." Bentley answers back as his voice grows into desperation at what she has done and that he is always on the receiving end of it all. He becomes rather agitated that he has to name and shame not only himself but also their gang and all of their recent failings. So many things have gone wrong in such a short amount of time, was this going to be the end right now, being chased by the police down a highway with the world watching? He doesn't want to go like that. He would prefer to die at an old age where his legacy would remain for millennia and not in a cell. Murray keeps pressing on with his questions, driving is second nature to him so he can't lose concentration.
"Why?" Murray asks. It's a question that they will not get the answer to without referring to the recorded testimony from Penelope late that night. Bentley loads up the sound file and turns up the volume so it can be heard over the engine.
"Why am I doing this?" Penelope's recorded voice says while Bentley tries to find the correct passage. Murray takes this to mean that she doesn't know what did she also.
"Okay, here's the correct part." Bentley asserts as he clicks to play.
"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." Is played over the speakers of Bentley's laptop. Bentley looks at Murray, hoping that he comes to his own conclusions.
"Is that it?" Murray asks desperately, like he's eagerly anticipating the next instalment of this aural episode. "Play the whole thing Bentley, just showing that is like saying you have a pizza with just the cheese. You need the base, the tomato sauce and all manner of treats on top." He replies back to Bentley. Bentley has no choice but to scroll to the start and play it again. Bentley now has his own doubts about what he is doing, he is going to listen to what she says closely, not like before where he only caught bits and pieces of it as he drew his plans for Penelope. Bentley, even with his vast intellect, can't remember the true reason why he started chasing after her in the beginning. He has undoubtedly changed it in his mind in order to keep these 'emotions' on a constant simmer, ready to come to the rapid boil when required. Now, the heat has been taken away and he grapples with the proverbial lighter to start it up again. Bentley has no choice but to reveal it to him.
"I never knew who I was for a long time…" The tape starts with Penelope talking to Sly. Murray even gets into a higher gear to lower the sound of the engine so he can hear this for himself. He passes straight through spike strips as he listens to this, trying to figure out who Penelope is for himself. Murray had thought she was just like a female version of Bentley, they were both smart and could build stuff, they were in love! Apart from that, he doesn't know the details. The police outside try to get their sirens to wail as the traffic pulls over to let this procession of cars flow through the motorway at high speed. Police cars of all types are following, squad cars, vans, and high-speed pursuit cars. The helicopters fly above, providing both the police and the public with images of this pan European pursuit.
The minutes roll on by with this monologue of one's life flowing through the air around them. Murray listens to it with wonder, Bentley listens to it to formulate a good and reasonable reason to back up this plan. They are still several hours away from Lyon. Bentley knows that Sly and Penelope must have been in Lyon for a while now. If they have been caught or seen, he would know about it. It is what he doesn't know that scares him the most. He doesn't know what Sly and Penelope are doing right now, that is what scares him the most. Not the recent atrocities made by Penelope, but he can't figure out why they would have to escape like this and go over to Lyon. It has to do with Interpol for sure he thinks, but he doesn't know if he is correct. There shall only be one fix for this and that is time but for that, the only solution is to wait.
The result of the changing vibrations in the air that most people call sound is that Murray looks at Bentley for reasons. Like Murray is going to blame Bentley for what Penelope has done. Bentley can see it as well.
"I know what you are thinking Murray, but it's not true." Bentley says in an attempt at self-preservation. But he is seriously wide of the mark.
"Are you sure that you know who you are? I don't know who I am." Murray replies back.
"Of course you do. Your name is Murray, You drive vans for us, and you break stuff. I mean, how could you even suggest such a thing?" Bentley mockingly says back. Not reaching into the meaning of what Murray was trying to allude to. The subtle subtext underneath the perceived meaning that Murray is trying to convey in such simple terms.
"How could you not know?" Murray asks. He can see that Bentley has taken it the wrong way. "The orphanage." Bentley can't believe he overlooked that one, it was the start of his life there, delivered as an egg to it's doorstep. It is a tiny piece of knowledge that Bentley has not as much forgotten to find out but more that he has ignored it. Being caught in the past is not what he wants to be. He has all the family he needs. Why go looking for a family that you don't need to be with?
"Why can't we find out?" Murray asks. It is a valid point that their true origins have been unknown for all of this time. Even in this fast paced life of crime they have never stopped to think about how they are. They have all just heard about Penelope's story, how she knows about herself and her left of centre way of coping with it. Bentley hypothesises that he has never found out because it wasn't his concern, almost to easy and to mundane for someone of his intelligence.
"You know, out of all of the things I have done if have never once thought about doing that." Bentley replies. For good reason as well, the orphanage wasn't the best place to be. They always preferred to be out on the town; usually it would be Bentley watching Sly working on his climbing at the local park with Murray eating what can only be described as a big bucket of chicken. Bentley takes great pride in being able to see Sly's development from a child to the thief he is now. It is who he always was meant to be. Sly has never has this problem of not knowing who he is, it is there for him to see and read. His family tree is solid. Whereas Bentley's and Murray's is unknown to them.
"After we finish whatever we are doing here, we are gonna to find out, just the two of us. What'd ya say?" Murray gleefully asks. Bentley realises that he has slipped a bit in terms of allowing Murray to be sidetracked and focus on something else, that could get dangerous.
"I don't know about that, Let's just finish this first and we can talk about it later." Bentley replies. He hopes that Murray will forget this conversation and that they can move on with their lives. Bentley doesn't want to find out. It is perhaps the only piece of knowledge that he doesn't want to know.