This story is a work of fiction based on the story of "Sly Cooper" as seen in the game "Sly Cooper and the Theivius Racoonus" and subsequent video games. All copyrightable/trademark elements of the game have full rights reserved by Sucker Punch Productions. All other elements of this story are copyright 2005 to Aurrin Lightpaw.
The Hunted
Chapter 1
Ghazi Khalid strode down the hall, personal affects in his arms, with all the cautious confidence one would expect on the first day of a job. It'd taken years of hard training, but he'd finally passed the police academy with honors, in spite of the flack he'd caught from his instructors. In the political climate of today, people of middle-eastern descent did not find warm welcome in the western world. Not that he could especially blame them. It was a truly frightening thought that the enemy could be literally anyone, anytime. And that's precisely the way they want it. he thought, not for the first time, with a mental sigh. But he'd presevered, toughing out the hardest classes with a determination that was nothing short of hurculean.
Now, the jackal found his office, right where the Chief had said it would be moments earlier. He laughed quietly to himself about how tense he must be to even note that a room hadn't moved of it's own volition. The plaque outside the door was a standard paper-slip holder type. To his lack of surprise, it still contained the name of the former occupant, a one "Bruce Mikhail". Ghazi pulled the strip out without a second thought and carried it inside with him, looking for a trash can.
The office was about what he'd expected, though far better than he'd feared. It wasn't spacious, but one couldn't expect that for someone just starting out. Getting his own office at all was, in fact, an unexpected development at first. Usually, new employees find themselves in a cubical, even in Interpol. He chalked it up to the age of the building, which was built long before someone ever had the wretched idea to use cardboard spacers to cram more people into an office...
The desk was clean, with an obvious 'just dusted' look that suggested the maid had had to remove the mothballs to make the room ready. As he set down the box with a few of his belongings, he noticed a faint whiff of a chemical smell in the air, and he realized that mothballs might have been the literal truth. The plaster was cracked on one wall, but not exceedingly so. There was a file cabinet in one corner with a disgusting green paint job that could only have come from the 1970's. He was grateful at every reminder that he hadn't had to live through those years. The cabinet was rather beat up, and upon inspection, completely empty except for a few general office supplies in the bottom drawer. Those, too, looked to be from the '70s. He put them back, and made a mental note to sort through them later.
He started to pull things out of the box. A few pictures to place on his desk, a few momentos from the academy, a picture of a girl he'd known in school... all of them he carefully found a place for. He didn't place them obtrusively, but arranged it so that they highlighted the office from the sidelines. It gave it a less sterile appearance. Then he put a small lamp on the filing cabinet and pointed at the desk. It made the room, which had no window, a little lighter.
He sat down in his chair and set a pad of paper on the desk along with the case file he'd been given. Opening the manilla folder, he began to scan through the contents, preparing for tomorrow's meeting with the Chief.
Vllad Iklo never knew what hit him. A knife plunged through the Ocelot's heart so quickly there was no time to scream -- exactly as the killer had planned. It had taken months of practice to perfect that, but the time had been well spent, as this mission was proving. The operator's body slid to the floor, leaving a streak of blood on the wall, while the figure wearing baggy camoflauge pants and a black face-mask jerked the knife out and sheathed it. Checking his watch, he noted the time. The situation was too tense for a smile, but he did note satisfaction at being fifteen seconds ahead of schedule. It wasn't much, but it was more than he'd expected.
Quickly, he dashed the door at the other side of the room, to the door with the keypad next to it. He punched in the numbers he'd memorized and was rewarded with a metallic snick in the locking mechanism as the bolt slid back. In one fluid motion, he drew his silenced pistol and opened the door. A bullet landed between the eyes of the ferret in a white uniform even as he turned to see who had entered. Crimson sprayed the status display behind him, but it wasn't the display that the intruder wanted, so it was of little consequence.
Quickly, the burly panther leapt to the console, which was precisely where the layout he'd commited to memory told him it would be. He'd never seen the actual panel, but he knew exactly how it looked and exactly what to do. He reached over and began pushing the sliders, numbered in Russian from one to four. The first one he pulled all the way down. The rest he slid in one push all the way up. Without even checking to see if it was working, he turned on a heel and ran.
He jerked the hand-held radio from his belt and barked the harsh syllables of his native tounge into it. There was a relpy on the other end, and he uttered a sound that couldn't be mistaken as anything but a string of curses. There was no time for errors in this job. It was down to plus or minus ten seconds of pulling it off entirely, with no room for undertrained buffoons. Up ahead, the hall forked, with one side branching off toward the cores. He stopped for two seconds and wondered about whether to finish their portion of the job for him. He knew the layout of the power plant better than probably anyone else on the mission. If it could be done...
A deafening alarm began blaring from a siren overhead, beneath a yellow and magenta three-armed symbol. He made his decision and turned the other way, headed for the number one reactor. A job was a job, and if they couldn't get out, then so be it. The goal was more important than any one person or persons. Even he was expendible, and he knew it. Quickly, he darted into the room and dashed the console. His fingers, nimble even within their leather gloves, tapped out a sequence on the keypad. The machinery in front of him began to rumble in compliance, even as it's sisters down the open bay began to rumble much more ominously. He heard a couple of shouts from his team members, but ignored them.
A few seconds later, he beheld the prize. The giant concrete construction, painted a dirty white perfectly in keeping with the former Soviet Union, reluctantly yielded it's innermost secret. He grabbed the case that had been planted their by operatives earlier from the corner, and quickly scooped the silvery-purple metal bars into it, sealing it shut. He checked his watch, making sure he'd been quick enough. It was close, but he should be able to survive the dosage. Even if he didn't... he knew he wasn't really expected to survive anyway.
He grabbed the case and backtracked to his point of entry like a juggernaut, each step pounding the cracked tile floors like it was on borrowed time. He ran out the door and to the chain-link fence, ducking through the hole that had been cut. A brilliant explosion lit up the night sky as Cheyrnobl once again blew itself to hell. Damn! It's twenty seconds early! the fleeing figure thought in a flash as he ran toward the woods. Even as he pulled out his make-shift dosimeter, he knew it was too late. The tell-tale black only served to confirm it.
No matter what... I must complete the mission... he repeated like a mantra, steeling himself. He now had only a matter of minutes, maybe an hour at the outside, to reach the drop-off point...
Author's Notes:
No, the connection with Sly Cooper isn't blatantly obvious yet. It will be, have patience.
Have I intrigued you, dear reader? Then by all means, do read on...
Please be patient with me as I figure out how to work the story system. It's quite exhasperating.
Comment and Critique welcome, flames will be outright ignored.
(Thanks to Yuoofox for getting me interested in this game to start with.)