Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego, Home by the Sea, Ch 5 (Dying Informant, 6)
Title: Home by the Sea, chapter 5: With Us You Will Stay
Author/Artist: Crystal Rose of Pollux (rose_of_pollux)
Theme(s): 6; The tragedy called history will just be repeated.
Character: the Dying Informant
Fandom: Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?
Disclaimer: The characters aren't mine (unless otherwise noted) and the story is!
Cross-posted to 31_days and my journal
The Informant had fallen over in an attempt to escape from the forms of ectoplasm arriving to surround him. They were slowly beginning to form into transparent shapes, staring at him with unreadable expressions.
“What have we here…?” the lead one asked, with a frightening amount of relish in his voice. “You are not one of us…” He turned to the others. “He is a mortal!”
“So sorry for trespassing on your little get-together…” the boy said, paling. “If you’ll just point me to the way out, I’ll be on my way…”
The spirits responded by swooping more quickly around the room. The boy’s hair was flying wildly due to the swooping spirits.
“There is no way out!” the lead spirit snarled, his eyes burning. “You may be a mortal, but the curse of this house will keep you here for all eternity, as it has for us! No one escapes from the Home by the Sea!”
“Look… I need to get out of here!” the Informant said, trying to budge the window. “My brothers think I’m dead; I have to get back to them--” He could not stop his mind from adding, If they still care…
His heart twisted. Of course they still cared! They had just accepted that he was no longer with them, that’s all… Perhaps if they somehow realized that he was alright, they would find him and get him out of here… He did not want to believe that they really had abandoned him!
“Anyone in this house when the clock chimes midnight becomes a permanent resident of this house; they are dead to the world,” another spirit said. “You can take our word for it, Boy. Several of us have been trying to escape for years… Some for decades…”
“And I, for more than a century!” the lead spirit said, eyes once again burning. “If we knew a way out, we would not be here!”
“I…I don’t understand…” said the Informant.
“We’re cursed-this house is cursed!” a different spirit said. “This house has been in the possession of a cruel, vindictive family. They were very wealthy, and used this house as a summer home one or two weeks of the year, most of the times even less than that. However, they were enraged to find out that people were coming into the house, using it as shelter from the weather, despite the fact that they rarely used the house and that they left it unlocked because they did not care what happened to it. But the thought of people admiring the house and looking inside enraged them; they felt as though they should be paid for it. So they laid a curse upon the house, which would strike anyone who came in. The second the clock strikes midnight, they pay the price by never being able to escape the house ever again!”
“And here is the proof!” another spirit, a female, screamed. “Look! Look!” She indicated a strange mark upon her left shoulder. “This is the mark of this house--- of the curse! All who have this mark upon their shoulder are doomed to stay here for all eternity!” She pointed to the boy’s torn sleeve.
The Informant glanced down and gasped-the mark was visible on his own shoulder, glowing a dark green.
“There is no getting rid of that mark, Boy…” said the lead spirit. “No way except one-one that only a mortal can attempt. You must escape from the house and break free of its hold upon you.”
“But if the mark prevents you from leaving…” the Informant began. “How can you escape the house?”
“You catch on fast,” said another spirit, dully. “There is no way out.”
“But… But Carmen said that she could get me out…” the boy said, holding onto the possibility that there was some means of escape.
“Then she must know some magic,” the lead spirit said. “There has only been one person in the history of this house to have escaped it-and even then, though he escaped, the mark of the house is still upon him-his spirit will come here. His body escaped the house, yes… But his spirit belongs to the house. The other mortals have declared him insane and have locked him away, paying no attention to his desperate pleas.”
“So even if I get out of here, I’m coming back here after it’s all over!?” the Informant cried. “Isn’t there some way to break this curse!?”
“Only one who can be freed of the mark and the house can break the curse on all of the other captive souls,” said the leader. “And no one, not even the fool who escaped, has been able to do that.”
“And so you must get to know us!” said another spirit. “You will be spending eternity with us, after all!”
The boy cried out as he was levitated, surrounded by the spirits.
“Can you show us some happy memories…?” a female spirit asked. “We have forgotten what it means to be happy…”
“Show us, please!” another asked.
“Yes, show us!” a third asked.
The Informant cried out as the transparent hands all placed their hands on his face, reading his thoughts and memories, searching through the feelings and memories he had. Memories flashed all around him in a jumbled blur of visions and voices. But, the oddest thing of all was the odd sensation that he could somehow hear his brothers calling out to him. A wistful wish or old memory no doubt…
“Little brother…!” the Techie’s voice cried.
“Infy, can you hear us!?” the Messenger’s voice yelled.
“Just hold on; we know--” the Inspector’s voice began to call out, but the Informant couldn’t take it anymore.
“Make it stop!” the boy cried, trying to push the spirits away. It was too painful, reliving those memories and hearing those voices, knowing that he’d never hear them again, or see their faces. And the spirits were draining the feelings of happiness associated with those memories. They had not known happiness in so long; they were absorbing it. “I can’t take it anymore! STOP!” He trembled. He was already going crazy-no wonder Carmen had said that he would want to get out of here as soon as possible.
He gasped, considering for the briefest instant taking her up on her offer and getting out.
No! his mind screamed, ashamed for even thinking about it. You can’t betray them-you can’t! You’re the only one who can keep them safe by keeping your mouth shut…
He let out a shuddering gasp as the spirits kept searching through his memories, the voices screaming for him louder and louder.
“Little brother!”
“INFY!”
The boy’s head grew too light. With a quiet cry of despair, he slipped into unconsciousness, his last awareness being still floating in midair, hearing voices all around him as his shoulder stung.
************************************
The Messenger gasped, stunned and horrified by what he had heard. As the Techie had said, he couldn’t see anything, but he had heard the Informant, as clear as day, crying out because of… something. The older agent wiped his forehead. The Informant had heard them, though-all three of them… But that had only seemed to make it worse…
“He heard us that time…” said the Techie, horrified. “But… But he…”
“He told us to stop…” said the Inspector, having heard it, too. He had been relieved at first to hear the Informant’s voice-the one sign that proved that he was alive. But the words the boy had spoken… The utter despair in his voice…
The Techie had tried to be strong throughout the whole attempt to contact him, but the Informant’s reaction was one he had not expected.
“What have we done to him…?” he asked, horrified. “Just because he got into this horrible mess because he wanted to buy me a birthday card… Just because we went along with what everyone was saying and believed that he was dead… Look at what we’ve done to him!” He buried his face in his hands, sobbing. Even if they somehow rescued him and brought him home, there was every chance that the Informant they knew really would be dead, never trusting them or anyone else ever again. And after what he had been going through, no one would be able to blame him… Even though the Techie wasn’t at all sure what his brother was going through.
He wasn’t going to lie-it had hurt very deeply to hear the Informant telling them to stop…
The Techie suddenly froze. Or had he been telling them to stop? There had to be more to it that they understood… Maybe… Maybe he wasn’t addressing them at all… What if he had been given some serum and made to believe that they were attacking or abandoning him!? Or what if it was something else…?
“He needs us…” he said, drying his tears furiously.
“Of course he does…” said the Messenger. “Even if he thinks we’re the problem, we have to help…”
“No, I won’t believe that he meant that he hates us!” said the brunet. “There’s more to this than we can see!” He glanced from the Messenger to the Inspector. “It’s like I’m understanding more and more… But I still hardly know anything. All I know is that he needs us, and we can try to make things better once we find him…!”
“Then let’s find him…” the Inspector said, once again deciding to go with the Techie’s instincts.
The Messenger nodded in agreement, glancing out the window as they landed in Colorado.
“If we’re lucky, we can bust him out of V.I.L.E. HQ before they’re even aware of what happened,” he said. “And then… We help Infy get back on his feet.”
“I hope it’s that simple…” the Techie said, a sinking feeling returning to his stomach.
“Techie…?” the Inspector asked, sensing that something was amiss.
“I’m not sensing his presence…” he said, softly. “You would think that I’d be able to sense him better the closer we get, but I’m not… What if he’s not here?”
“Where do you think he is…?” the Messenger asked, unsure of what to say.
“I don’t know…” he replied. “Look… Someone needs to search V.I.L.E., just in case. I’ll do it; maybe I can pick up some information from a couple of the agents here. You guys need to search in other places… around the world. They could’ve taken him anywhere-like maybe an international branch of V.I.L.E., so we wouldn’t think of looking for him there…!”
“We’re not leaving you alone…!” the Messenger exclaimed. “Techie, we need to stick together now more than ever! Infy would want…” He trailed off. “Infy would want to be rescued and back with us…” he admitted.
“But we really shouldn’t be alone… Especially if we’re going to look around V.I.L.E.,” said the Inspector.
“I’ll be fine,” the Techie promised them.
He was placing his hand on his left shoulder, frowning. The others noticed this, concerned.
“Did you pull a muscle?” the Inspector asked.
“No…” said the Techie. “I don’t know why it’s hurting…”
“Come to think of it, my shoulder didn’t feel right since we tried reaching Infy…” said the Messenger. “It’s not as bad now, but…”
“I felt it, too…” the Inspector realized. The pain was gone now, for him, but the Techie was clearly feeling it still.
“Infy must be hurting in the shoulder, too…” the Messenger said, staring blankly at the ground.
“There isn’t time…” the Inspector realized. “I really don’t like the idea of splitting up, but…”
“I don’t, either…” said the Messenger. “I think we should try looking into V.I.L.E. HQ here and then split up. They won’t know us as well in the other branches.”
“But what if he’s somewhere on the other side of the world…?” asked the Techie. He wasn’t sure of that himself; he wasn’t sure where the Informant was at all, but was feeling as though he was not in Colorado.
The Messenger looked to the Inspector. What were they supposed to do? They did not want to leave the Techie alone-he was the most affected by what had happened to the Informant. What if his emotions left him an easy target for V.I.L.E.? But on the other hand… What if he was right, and the Informant was somewhere else? Every moment that went by was another moment that their brother was suffering… every moment that meant that they might not be able to help him recover from if they ever found him.
The Inspector could only shrug helplessly, furious that there didn’t seem to be anything they could do that could guarantee a successful rescue.
“It’s not that we don’t trust you, Techie,” said the Messenger. “But…”
“I know…” said the Techie. “I’m hurting because of what happened to our brother, and that probably makes me weaker…” He glanced into the others’ eyes. “But then I think about how we know that he’s alive, and that he needs us, and that fills me with a determination that I’m going to find him and bring him home.”
The Messenger stared back for a long time before nodding; the fire in the Techie’s eyes was burning even brighter than they had during the Veran case. He was not going to let anything-be it his own doubts and fears or any enemies-stand in his way of finding the Informant and bring him home.
“I hope I won’t regret saying this…” the Messenger said. “But… If you feel that strongly about it, then we aren’t going to stop you.” He looked to the Inspector, who nodded in agreement.
“We’ll leave you to this part of the world, then,” said the Inspector. “The Messenger and I will look up some of V.I.L.E.’s bases elsewhere-we’ll also split up to cover more ground.”
“Right,” agreed the Messenger. “And we’ll keep in touch at all times, finding as many clues as we can. Between the three of us, we’ll find the Informant.”
“That means a lot to me,” the Techie said. He took a deep breath, looking around. “Even though I’m pretty sure he’s not here in Colorado, Carmen might have told the other members of V.I.L.E. here about the plan, and I might be able to get some information from them. So I’ll start here.”
“But you need to be careful, Techie,” the Inspector reminded him. “V.I.L.E. will say and do anything to throw you off the trail-maybe even try to convince you that he’s not alive.”
“I know what to believe,” said the Techie, placing his hand back on his shoulder. “As long as I can feel him out there, I know we can still find him.”
The Messenger nodded. “And we will,” he said. He turned to the Inspector. “I want you to take this ACME plane back to Europe and start searching there.”
The older agent nodded. “What about you?”
“I’ll take a rental car or something and head west; I can take an ACME plane from the San Francisco branch, and I’ll also have them send one out here for Techie to go wherever he needs to go,” he said. “I’ll probably head across the Pacific, and we’ll reconvene when any of us comes up with some information.”
The Techie nodded. It would be a slow and tedious process, but it was the only thing they could do.
The three agents soon parted ways, each promising to each other and to the Informant that the four of them would meet up once again.
Author/Artist: Crystal Rose of Pollux (rose_of_pollux)
Theme(s): 6; The tragedy called history will just be repeated.
Character: the Dying Informant
Fandom: Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?
Disclaimer: The characters aren't mine (unless otherwise noted) and the story is!
Cross-posted to 31_days and my journal
The Informant had fallen over in an attempt to escape from the forms of ectoplasm arriving to surround him. They were slowly beginning to form into transparent shapes, staring at him with unreadable expressions.
“What have we here…?” the lead one asked, with a frightening amount of relish in his voice. “You are not one of us…” He turned to the others. “He is a mortal!”
“So sorry for trespassing on your little get-together…” the boy said, paling. “If you’ll just point me to the way out, I’ll be on my way…”
The spirits responded by swooping more quickly around the room. The boy’s hair was flying wildly due to the swooping spirits.
“There is no way out!” the lead spirit snarled, his eyes burning. “You may be a mortal, but the curse of this house will keep you here for all eternity, as it has for us! No one escapes from the Home by the Sea!”
“Look… I need to get out of here!” the Informant said, trying to budge the window. “My brothers think I’m dead; I have to get back to them--” He could not stop his mind from adding, If they still care…
His heart twisted. Of course they still cared! They had just accepted that he was no longer with them, that’s all… Perhaps if they somehow realized that he was alright, they would find him and get him out of here… He did not want to believe that they really had abandoned him!
“Anyone in this house when the clock chimes midnight becomes a permanent resident of this house; they are dead to the world,” another spirit said. “You can take our word for it, Boy. Several of us have been trying to escape for years… Some for decades…”
“And I, for more than a century!” the lead spirit said, eyes once again burning. “If we knew a way out, we would not be here!”
“I…I don’t understand…” said the Informant.
“We’re cursed-this house is cursed!” a different spirit said. “This house has been in the possession of a cruel, vindictive family. They were very wealthy, and used this house as a summer home one or two weeks of the year, most of the times even less than that. However, they were enraged to find out that people were coming into the house, using it as shelter from the weather, despite the fact that they rarely used the house and that they left it unlocked because they did not care what happened to it. But the thought of people admiring the house and looking inside enraged them; they felt as though they should be paid for it. So they laid a curse upon the house, which would strike anyone who came in. The second the clock strikes midnight, they pay the price by never being able to escape the house ever again!”
“And here is the proof!” another spirit, a female, screamed. “Look! Look!” She indicated a strange mark upon her left shoulder. “This is the mark of this house--- of the curse! All who have this mark upon their shoulder are doomed to stay here for all eternity!” She pointed to the boy’s torn sleeve.
The Informant glanced down and gasped-the mark was visible on his own shoulder, glowing a dark green.
“There is no getting rid of that mark, Boy…” said the lead spirit. “No way except one-one that only a mortal can attempt. You must escape from the house and break free of its hold upon you.”
“But if the mark prevents you from leaving…” the Informant began. “How can you escape the house?”
“You catch on fast,” said another spirit, dully. “There is no way out.”
“But… But Carmen said that she could get me out…” the boy said, holding onto the possibility that there was some means of escape.
“Then she must know some magic,” the lead spirit said. “There has only been one person in the history of this house to have escaped it-and even then, though he escaped, the mark of the house is still upon him-his spirit will come here. His body escaped the house, yes… But his spirit belongs to the house. The other mortals have declared him insane and have locked him away, paying no attention to his desperate pleas.”
“So even if I get out of here, I’m coming back here after it’s all over!?” the Informant cried. “Isn’t there some way to break this curse!?”
“Only one who can be freed of the mark and the house can break the curse on all of the other captive souls,” said the leader. “And no one, not even the fool who escaped, has been able to do that.”
“And so you must get to know us!” said another spirit. “You will be spending eternity with us, after all!”
The boy cried out as he was levitated, surrounded by the spirits.
“Can you show us some happy memories…?” a female spirit asked. “We have forgotten what it means to be happy…”
“Show us, please!” another asked.
“Yes, show us!” a third asked.
The Informant cried out as the transparent hands all placed their hands on his face, reading his thoughts and memories, searching through the feelings and memories he had. Memories flashed all around him in a jumbled blur of visions and voices. But, the oddest thing of all was the odd sensation that he could somehow hear his brothers calling out to him. A wistful wish or old memory no doubt…
“Little brother…!” the Techie’s voice cried.
“Infy, can you hear us!?” the Messenger’s voice yelled.
“Just hold on; we know--” the Inspector’s voice began to call out, but the Informant couldn’t take it anymore.
“Make it stop!” the boy cried, trying to push the spirits away. It was too painful, reliving those memories and hearing those voices, knowing that he’d never hear them again, or see their faces. And the spirits were draining the feelings of happiness associated with those memories. They had not known happiness in so long; they were absorbing it. “I can’t take it anymore! STOP!” He trembled. He was already going crazy-no wonder Carmen had said that he would want to get out of here as soon as possible.
He gasped, considering for the briefest instant taking her up on her offer and getting out.
No! his mind screamed, ashamed for even thinking about it. You can’t betray them-you can’t! You’re the only one who can keep them safe by keeping your mouth shut…
He let out a shuddering gasp as the spirits kept searching through his memories, the voices screaming for him louder and louder.
“Little brother!”
“INFY!”
The boy’s head grew too light. With a quiet cry of despair, he slipped into unconsciousness, his last awareness being still floating in midair, hearing voices all around him as his shoulder stung.
************************************
The Messenger gasped, stunned and horrified by what he had heard. As the Techie had said, he couldn’t see anything, but he had heard the Informant, as clear as day, crying out because of… something. The older agent wiped his forehead. The Informant had heard them, though-all three of them… But that had only seemed to make it worse…
“He heard us that time…” said the Techie, horrified. “But… But he…”
“He told us to stop…” said the Inspector, having heard it, too. He had been relieved at first to hear the Informant’s voice-the one sign that proved that he was alive. But the words the boy had spoken… The utter despair in his voice…
The Techie had tried to be strong throughout the whole attempt to contact him, but the Informant’s reaction was one he had not expected.
“What have we done to him…?” he asked, horrified. “Just because he got into this horrible mess because he wanted to buy me a birthday card… Just because we went along with what everyone was saying and believed that he was dead… Look at what we’ve done to him!” He buried his face in his hands, sobbing. Even if they somehow rescued him and brought him home, there was every chance that the Informant they knew really would be dead, never trusting them or anyone else ever again. And after what he had been going through, no one would be able to blame him… Even though the Techie wasn’t at all sure what his brother was going through.
He wasn’t going to lie-it had hurt very deeply to hear the Informant telling them to stop…
The Techie suddenly froze. Or had he been telling them to stop? There had to be more to it that they understood… Maybe… Maybe he wasn’t addressing them at all… What if he had been given some serum and made to believe that they were attacking or abandoning him!? Or what if it was something else…?
“He needs us…” he said, drying his tears furiously.
“Of course he does…” said the Messenger. “Even if he thinks we’re the problem, we have to help…”
“No, I won’t believe that he meant that he hates us!” said the brunet. “There’s more to this than we can see!” He glanced from the Messenger to the Inspector. “It’s like I’m understanding more and more… But I still hardly know anything. All I know is that he needs us, and we can try to make things better once we find him…!”
“Then let’s find him…” the Inspector said, once again deciding to go with the Techie’s instincts.
The Messenger nodded in agreement, glancing out the window as they landed in Colorado.
“If we’re lucky, we can bust him out of V.I.L.E. HQ before they’re even aware of what happened,” he said. “And then… We help Infy get back on his feet.”
“I hope it’s that simple…” the Techie said, a sinking feeling returning to his stomach.
“Techie…?” the Inspector asked, sensing that something was amiss.
“I’m not sensing his presence…” he said, softly. “You would think that I’d be able to sense him better the closer we get, but I’m not… What if he’s not here?”
“Where do you think he is…?” the Messenger asked, unsure of what to say.
“I don’t know…” he replied. “Look… Someone needs to search V.I.L.E., just in case. I’ll do it; maybe I can pick up some information from a couple of the agents here. You guys need to search in other places… around the world. They could’ve taken him anywhere-like maybe an international branch of V.I.L.E., so we wouldn’t think of looking for him there…!”
“We’re not leaving you alone…!” the Messenger exclaimed. “Techie, we need to stick together now more than ever! Infy would want…” He trailed off. “Infy would want to be rescued and back with us…” he admitted.
“But we really shouldn’t be alone… Especially if we’re going to look around V.I.L.E.,” said the Inspector.
“I’ll be fine,” the Techie promised them.
He was placing his hand on his left shoulder, frowning. The others noticed this, concerned.
“Did you pull a muscle?” the Inspector asked.
“No…” said the Techie. “I don’t know why it’s hurting…”
“Come to think of it, my shoulder didn’t feel right since we tried reaching Infy…” said the Messenger. “It’s not as bad now, but…”
“I felt it, too…” the Inspector realized. The pain was gone now, for him, but the Techie was clearly feeling it still.
“Infy must be hurting in the shoulder, too…” the Messenger said, staring blankly at the ground.
“There isn’t time…” the Inspector realized. “I really don’t like the idea of splitting up, but…”
“I don’t, either…” said the Messenger. “I think we should try looking into V.I.L.E. HQ here and then split up. They won’t know us as well in the other branches.”
“But what if he’s somewhere on the other side of the world…?” asked the Techie. He wasn’t sure of that himself; he wasn’t sure where the Informant was at all, but was feeling as though he was not in Colorado.
The Messenger looked to the Inspector. What were they supposed to do? They did not want to leave the Techie alone-he was the most affected by what had happened to the Informant. What if his emotions left him an easy target for V.I.L.E.? But on the other hand… What if he was right, and the Informant was somewhere else? Every moment that went by was another moment that their brother was suffering… every moment that meant that they might not be able to help him recover from if they ever found him.
The Inspector could only shrug helplessly, furious that there didn’t seem to be anything they could do that could guarantee a successful rescue.
“It’s not that we don’t trust you, Techie,” said the Messenger. “But…”
“I know…” said the Techie. “I’m hurting because of what happened to our brother, and that probably makes me weaker…” He glanced into the others’ eyes. “But then I think about how we know that he’s alive, and that he needs us, and that fills me with a determination that I’m going to find him and bring him home.”
The Messenger stared back for a long time before nodding; the fire in the Techie’s eyes was burning even brighter than they had during the Veran case. He was not going to let anything-be it his own doubts and fears or any enemies-stand in his way of finding the Informant and bring him home.
“I hope I won’t regret saying this…” the Messenger said. “But… If you feel that strongly about it, then we aren’t going to stop you.” He looked to the Inspector, who nodded in agreement.
“We’ll leave you to this part of the world, then,” said the Inspector. “The Messenger and I will look up some of V.I.L.E.’s bases elsewhere-we’ll also split up to cover more ground.”
“Right,” agreed the Messenger. “And we’ll keep in touch at all times, finding as many clues as we can. Between the three of us, we’ll find the Informant.”
“That means a lot to me,” the Techie said. He took a deep breath, looking around. “Even though I’m pretty sure he’s not here in Colorado, Carmen might have told the other members of V.I.L.E. here about the plan, and I might be able to get some information from them. So I’ll start here.”
“But you need to be careful, Techie,” the Inspector reminded him. “V.I.L.E. will say and do anything to throw you off the trail-maybe even try to convince you that he’s not alive.”
“I know what to believe,” said the Techie, placing his hand back on his shoulder. “As long as I can feel him out there, I know we can still find him.”
The Messenger nodded. “And we will,” he said. He turned to the Inspector. “I want you to take this ACME plane back to Europe and start searching there.”
The older agent nodded. “What about you?”
“I’ll take a rental car or something and head west; I can take an ACME plane from the San Francisco branch, and I’ll also have them send one out here for Techie to go wherever he needs to go,” he said. “I’ll probably head across the Pacific, and we’ll reconvene when any of us comes up with some information.”
The Techie nodded. It would be a slow and tedious process, but it was the only thing they could do.
The three agents soon parted ways, each promising to each other and to the Informant that the four of them would meet up once again.