Sly Cooper 5: Promises Made By Thieves

Chapter 58: Penelope

"How many more till the plane's ready?" asks Raleigh. "I need a break soon, these rocks don't have a light core."

"We just started, Raleigh," I point out. "Weren't you able to sleep last night?"

"I was. I'm just not used to doing all this laborious work. I always had servants who did this sort of lame warehouse job."

I blink. "And you've been in prison for years, but that hasn't shaken you up?"

"I guess freedom and being able to eat good meals again has...made me a little greedy for what can be again."

"Fair enough. We should be done in a few hours. Make sure The Guru doesn't pass out. Give him an additional adrenaline shot if need be."

I look down at my old companion. Whenever we've needed him in this process, it really takes the life out of him. I do honestly wish we didn't have to do it this way, but one day he'll hopefully understand. Hopefully Bentley will.

After I finish stirring our concoction, I walk over to the blimp, kind of deliberately going slow, and I look inside our supply. We've still got a fair few to take care of, and I suspect we'll be here another few days if we must stay till the job's all done. I wish more guards were around to help us out. Maybe we're so more educated that they're worried their own inferiority will somehow mess up the process and cost them their heads. I honestly wouldn't blame them; Raleigh and I are incredibly smart and the price of screwing up in the Order is definitely not lenient. They are admittedly near. Quite near, in fact. Maybe they have so many people locked up they feel they need to be ready, or they have fun threatening them with their weapons. Both could certainly be true.

Anyways, I've been holed up in this gastro pit for the last couple of days and I really feel I need a break. Some fruit punch from a reliable source, away from all the purposefully planted poison ivy, would just hit the spot. I'm honestly not sure how many more fumes I can endure. I think I'm now habituated at least a bit, but I can't lose my cool if something comes up that needs my full attention and sanity.

"All personnel," I hear in my radio. I see Raleigh touch his ear so I know he's hearing it too. "A guard has lost his ID. We may have been compromised."

Lost his ID? I normally would shrug that off as someone clumsily misplacing it, but it's a rule in the Order to always wear it while on duty and keep it on tight. And with all the tension and indefatigably illegal things we are partaking in, this could mean anything.

I hear a twig snap, and I freeze. I look up and see none other than Sly, spying on us and caught in the act.

"Cooper!" hollers Raleigh.

Sly looks horrified both in the sense of being caught and what he's seeing in front of him. One way or another I can't have Sly get away with messing up this operation. I run for my glue gun.

"Let the Guru go!" he shouts to me defiantly.

Sly looks so angry that he doesn't consider the fact diving right for me is stupid. I prove it by hitting him square in the chest with a blast of the goo. He ends up flying back the way he came, stuck to the wall tight.

I talk into my radio. "We have an intruder. He's restrained. But don't hurt him. We need information."

"Don't hurt him?" says Raleigh. "You must be delusional, Penelope."

"I'm not. This could be an ambush-"

The Guru does something that silences us and blasts us back a few feet. When I get up, I see that although the Guru is still restrained, Sly isn't anymore. The glue has slipped off. I see from the back of the chair one of the Guru's hands levitating one of the purple rocks. Then with the other, I see he's lifting up Sly. The mind helmet is jerking and buzzing, trying to fight the might the Guru is draining the life out of himself to exert for this one job. He then makes another flicker, and Sly flies in the sky, right through the temple roof and out of our reach.

Raleigh and another guard run up to the Guru and hold him and the helmet back down. I guess there's nothing else I can do right now but to help. I make a mental note, once we're sure we're secure again, that we'll be expecting company very shortly.