Fic: a double-dealing diva with a taste for thievery (Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?, PG)
Title: a double-dealing diva with a taste for thievery
Fandom: Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? (video game)
Characters: Carmen Sandiego, Dazzle Annie Nonker, original characters, surprise character
Word count: 8800
Ratings & warnings: PG for a little bit of language and implied sexual activity
Disclaimer: No copyright infringement is intended toward Broderbund, The Learning Company, or anyone associated with the video game, the TV show, or the theme song.
Summary:
Well she sneaks around the world from Sydney to Copenhagen
She's got a stolen Moustache of the Pharaoh from Cairo
You know her as a thief who'll take a private jet to Lisbon
But who in the world is Carmen Sandiego, really?
Notes: Despite the title and summary, which are from the TV show's theme song by Rockapella, this story is based almost exclusively on the 1990 Deluxe version of Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? If you get the urge to play a round, you can do so at archive.org's online software emulation database.
Many thank-yous to betas rosefox and Madison, who gave a lot of awesome mechanical and overall suggestions, and Elfwreck, who helped with some of the formatting.
This was written for
desertghost in Yuletide 2017.
a double-dealing diva with a taste for thievery
Cairo, Egypt
Sunday
The ACME agent is getting close.
Carmen Sandiego knows it. She can feel it in the prickle on the back of her neck. She can see it in the flash of metal and glass as a car disappears just outside her line of vision when they think she isn't watching. But she is. She's been doing this for years. She knows.
Of course, the note helps. The concierge hands it to her when she arrives back at the hotel. It's a plain white envelope, sealed, with nothing except her initials on the front. She smiles her thanks and gets on the elevator, ripping open the envelope as she heads for her room.
The note is neatly typed and simple:
Super Sleuth DG has been assigned to the case. Get the Moustache of the Pharaoh out of the country.
It's not signed. It doesn't need to be. She knows. It's time.
Carmen Sandiego checks out of the hotel ten minutes later.
* * *Sydney, Australia
Monday
This is always Carmen's favorite part of a run: the first day, when the heist has been successful, her travel is planned out, and she's climbing the steps to one of V.I.L.E.'s private jets with only her red purse over her shoulder. Her luggage is already on its way to the hold thanks to her personal flight attendant, Brody. As she settles into the massive sofa built into one side of the jet, he delivers a steaming plate of enchiladas and a bottle of Corona coated with opaque frost.
Once the flight gets underway, Carmen pulls out her charts and settles in for some serious work. Some of her crew are trying out these new portable computers that their telecommunications guy swears are the future, but Carmen prefers to do her planning in longhand with a legal pad and a map. Bjorn, who used to be litigator before he chucked it all and joined V.I.L.E., once told her that she looked like a lawyer. Carmen wasn't sure if he was joking, so she threatened to demote him to the Time unit and he shut up.
Speaking of Bjorn-Carmen opens her briefcase, which was waiting for her when she got on the plane, and digs out the personnel files. She has it on good authority that Bjorn accidentally dropped four clues when he was in Bamako last week, which is absolutely not acceptable. Carmen's preferred way of handling the situation would be to axe Bjorn immediately and let that serve as a warning to the rest of her underlings, but ever since V.I.L.E. started restructuring about six months ago, she hasn't had as much autonomy as she'd like. Now she's supposed to keep files and start a paper trail and submit reports. It's a pain, but she doesn't really mind giving Bjorn another chance, especially since he has a respectable serve and is the only one who can match her in a game of tennis.
By the time she's finished her enchiladas and beer, she's comfortable with her plans. Tomorrow night she'll be in Sydney; the next night, Lisbon. After that she's thinking Mexico City. It's been a while since she visited the Yucatán and even though the accommodations there won't be as classy as those in Europe, the food will more than make up for it.
She flips to the second chart, which lists all the active heists, the henchman assigned to each one, their current locations, and their travel plans. Every morning at five a.m. local time, no matter which hotel she's in, no matter what country, someone slides the printout under her door. Those runners really deserve a bonus this year. Carmen makes a note on her legal pad and turns her attention to the chart. There are three other active heists right now and the geographical balance looks pretty good. She does notice that Agatha and Sandy are both scheduled to fly to Budapest tomorrow, which won't work, so she reroutes Agatha to Singapore.
They land in Sydney about sixteen hours later, which means that Carmen's body has completely lost track of where and when she is, and she's grateful that her driver meets her at the airport. She greets Veky with a half-hug and is delighted to see that he's rented a convertible just for her, which seems to fit the stunning Sydney weather. She asks Veky to put the top down and clutches her red hat to hold it on as they head for the city center. "How's it going?" she asks over the roar of the wind around them. "Any news from down under?"
"No, ma'am. There hasn't been much activity here this month," Veky says. He shoots her a tentative smile. "You must not be including Australia in enough travel plans."
Carmen usually tries not to get too familiar with the lower staff, but she's always liked Veky, so she smiles back. "I'm not neglecting you," she assures him. "I love Sydney. The Opera House, the art museums… hey, Veky, do you have time to drive me down to Melbourne Park so I can see where they play the Australian Open?"
Veky laughs. "It's about an eleven-hour drive, Miss Carmen. How long are you in town for?"
"Just overnight." Carmen glances at her watch and shakes her head. "I mean, today and tonight. It's morning here, right?" She twists the stem of her watch, trying to get it in sync with the car's clock. She really needs a personal assistant just to help her keep track of what the local time is.
"It's nine a.m." Veky slows down as they start to encounter more traffic, and Carmen's heart beats faster. People, restaurants, bars, hotels, museums-the buzz of activity in a new city is one of the things she loves most about all the travel she does. "You're staying at the Park Hyatt?"
"Yeah." Carmen's trying to be blasé, but her eyes widen as Veky pulls up in front of the brand-new hotel. She'll have to thank Gilbert for getting her a reservation here.
She checks in. Veky carries her luggage and briefcase upstairs; Carmen carefully totes the red purse containing the Moustache of the Pharaoh. By the time the manager has shown her the room, the minibar, the rooftop pool, and a view of the Sydney Opera House across the water, Carmen decides that Gilbert deserves a Christmas bonus too.
Even though she's exhausted from nearly a day of travel, Carmen showers and heads out to sightsee, which she usually tries to do in every city, no matter how many times she's been there before. She takes herself out for an early lunch, then spends most of the day getting lost in the Art Gallery of New South Wales, which is full of treasures that would call out to her if her purse wasn't already filled with the Moustache.
She also picks up a pamphlet about a new art museum opening in Sydney next year. How interesting. Maybe she should take Veky's advice and schedule her V.I.L.E. operatives to come to Sydney more often.
By evening Carmen is tired. Her dinner is delicious and the waiters are overly attentive, but she's ready for bed. She piles Australian dollars next to her plate and calls for a cab to take her back to the hotel. She requests a wake-up call from the front desk, then climbs into bed.
Her last thought as she looks out across the cove at the brightly-lit Sydney Opera House is that it really is a beautiful building. Maybe she'll steal it the next time she's in Australia.
* * *Lisbon, Portugal
Tuesday
Crisscrossing the globe is one of Carmen's favorite things, but even she has to admit that the bragging rights are more fun than the reality. Even a trip on V.I.L.E. Three, which is the nicest of the private jets despite its designation, doesn't make up for the fact that she was in the air for eighteen hours yesterday-she's pretty sure that was yesterday-and that she's gearing up for another long flight today.
Today her destination is Lisbon. Carmen always tries to think in terms of "today" and "tonight," even though there are times that it's actually "tomorrow" by the time she gets there. Because she was on Australia time for a day, she's ahead of all of her operatives, so she doesn't have much planning to do. She does need to make a new map of her own itinerary, because she seems to have misplaced the one she drew up yesterday. It's fine with her because now she can mark off Sydney as "completed" and add New York City as the next leg of her trip. While she's there, she might take the Moustache on a field trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to see the Temple of Dendur.
Once her paperwork is complete, Carmen tells Brody to draw the curtains around the king-sized bed in the back of the jet. Without being asked, he brings her a sleep mask and a glass of warm milk before dimming the lights and adjusting the PA system so that the rushing sound of white noise fills the cabin. She's feeling generous, so she decides that he deserves a Christmas bonus too.
They land in Lisbon around 9 p.m., which is perfect because Carmen is well-rested and ready for dinner and Brody and the pilot are both dead on their feet, so she doesn't feel bad about sending them on ahead to the hotel. She draws her red purse close to her body, then steps off the plane and heads into the airport to find a pay phone.
A short taxi ride later, Carmen's stepping out of the car at Tavares and glancing around nervously to see if her companion has arrived yet. She doesn't see him, so she walks inside purposefully and stops in front of the maître d's stand. "I'm Carmen Sandiego," she says. "I need a table for two."
The little man raises his eyebrows. "Do you have a reservation?" he asks in English, with only a hint of an accent.
"Não," Carmen says, switching easily to Portuguese. "I'm with an organization called V.I.L.E. Perhaps you've heard of us." She passes a business card across the stand, tilting it just enough to conceal the 10,000-escudo note folded beneath. "We'd very much like to keep doing business here in Lisbon."
The maître d' takes both the card and the banknote, and although his face doesn't change, Carmen can see the glint of recognition in his eyes. "This way, Senhora Sandiego," he says, leading her to a table in the corner. Carmen sits down and orders a glass of Vinho Verde while she watches the door impatiently.
Antonio walks in five minutes later, and her stomach gives an unexpected lurch as the maître d' leads him over to her table. She pats her purse nervously and stands to greet him with a handshake.
Antonio actually laughs at her outstretched hand and pulls her into a hug, then kisses each of her cheeks before they sit down. "Carmen, how are you?" he asks, reaching for his napkin. He knocks over his silverware, then his empty wine glass, before he finally fumbles the napkin onto his lap. "I apologize. Tell me, where have you been lately?"
Carmen scoops up the wine glass from the floor and smiles at Antonio, feeling better. It occurs to her that she should have picked a different place, something more to Antonio's taste. Carmen loves any restaurant that has enormous antique chandeliers suspended from its crown-molded ceilings, but she suspects that Antonio would have been happy with sausages and a pastry for dinner.
"I was just in Sydney," Carmen says. She doesn't tell Antonio why or for how long. That's their deal; they both love to travel and often discuss their adventures, but they avoid talking about their work, even though that's the reason for all of said traveling. "It's a beautiful city. Have you been there?"
"Sadly, I have not. It's very far from here, you know."
"And even farther from Brazil," Carmen agrees. "How long are you here?"
"A few months this time. I came home to spend some time with my family. Did I tell you that Fábia has a little son now?"
"No!" Carmen says, appalled. The last time she saw Antonio's youngest sister, Fábia, the girl was sixteen years old… wasn't she? Maybe she's lost track. It wouldn't be the first time.
Antonio seems to be thinking the same thing. "How long has it been?" he asks. "Since you were in Lisbon?"
"Only a couple of months," Carmen says. "I came through, hmm, between San Marino and Buenos Aires, I think."
"No. That is, how long has it been since you were here with me?"
Carmen makes a show of studying the menu, reading the Portuguese names of the dishes with ease. She's not sure if Antonio remembers how fluent she is, so she asks, "What does agua mean?"
"Water," Antonio says flatly in a tone of voice that says Carmen isn't fooling him. "Carmen." He stares at her until she lifts her head reluctantly. "How long has it been?"
"Two years?" Carmen says hopefully. She tries to sound charming and flirtatious, but she's pretty sure that they both know she sounds guilty.
Antonio looks torn between indulging her and yelling at her, but his genial nature wins, and he gives her a look that almost includes a smile. "It has been two years since we saw each other in Brazil," he says patiently. "It has been eight years since the last time you were here in Portugal. Fábia is twenty-four years old. You'd like her husband, Graciano. They have visited me several times since they got married."
"Eight years, huh?" Carmen says thoughtfully. She looks around Tavares, with its gleaming ceiling and glittering walls. This restaurant has been around since the 1700s. In comparison, eight years is nothing. And yet, she thinks of all that she's missed, all that has happened while she's been flying on private jets and staying in five-star hotels and stealing artifacts, unawares.
"Yes, 'huh'," Antonio says. His voice is gentle now. He glances at the waiter, who is hovering a respectful distance away. "Are you ready to order now?"
"Um," Carmen says, putting down the menu and taking a gulp of her wine. "You know, Antonio, I'm not really in the mood for seafood tonight."
Antonio makes a hold-on gesture to the waiter. "Do you want to leave?"
"Sort of."
"What is this 'sort of'?"
"It means yes."
Antonio smiles for real. "All right then." He stands up, sets his napkin on the table, and then steps over to pull out Carmen's chair. Carmen leaves enough escudos on the table to cover the cost of the wine that she barely drank, and she murmurs an apology in Portuguese to the waiter.
"Would you rather have Mexican food instead?" Antonio teases as they turn toward the door and the waiter begins clearing the tidy table.
She reaches for him with one hand and cradles her purse against her body with the other. "No, thanks."
"Then do you want to come back to mine?"
She doesn't have to think about it. She says, "Yes," and isn't at all embarrassed about the way the waiters and the maître d' are watching them as they walk outside, wrapped around each other.
* * *For years, Carmen Sandiego would have said that this was one of her favorite things: curling up in the half-moon of Antonio's embrace, listening to his even breathing until hers matches his. But tonight she can't sleep-she, the woman who can block out everything and fall asleep within ten minutes on a plane, in an unfamiliar hotel room, in a hut in the middle of a jungle.
She attributes it to the long nap she had on the flight, but still, it makes for a long night. At five a.m. Portugal time she hears the telltale thump outside the front door, and sure enough, when she sneaks downstairs she finds the familiar roll of charts on the front stoop.
There's also a note attached. Like all the others, it's terse and efficient.
They're close. Leave now.
Obediently, she goes upstairs to get her clothes and the precious red purse. As she pulls on her coat, she looks at Antonio's sleeping form. She feels bad about sneaking off in the middle of the night, but it's better than an awkward goodbye in the morning. Besides, he owes her from that time in the Amazon rainforest.
* * *Mexico City, Mexico
Wednesday
The note didn't say anything about changing her destination, which is good, because that's one of Carmen's least favorite things. She likes sticking to at least part of the plan. So she gets a cab to the airport, buys her own ticket on a commercial jet to Mexico City (Gilbert's going to be pissed), and grimly buckles in for a fourteen-hour flight with no Brody, meaning no homemade empanadas or perfectly chilled Dos Equis.
She lands in Mexico City mid-afternoon, their time, and finds a pay phone to call in to V.I.L.E. Headquarters. As she expected, Gilbert's heard about her surprise change in plans. He scolds her over the phone, sounding positively gleeful about it. Sometimes she thinks that he secretly likes when she changes her plans because it gives him the one and only excuse to scold Carmen Sandiego.
When Carmen checks in, the concierge snaps his fingers to assign a bellboy and hands her a folded note. Carmen takes it apprehensively, wondering if it's yet another instruction to leave immediately. She's relieved to see that it simply says "Annie" and gives the phone number for V.I.L.E. Headquarters.
She was so distracted on her flight that even though she looked at the charts, she completely forgot that Annie would be in Mexico City tonight. She's not assigned to a heist-Carmen wouldn't have flown to Mexico herself if that were the case-but she's on her way to Guatemala City to meet Eddie tomorrow so they can pull a job together. Carmen calls in to V.I.L.E. and arranges dinner with Annie, then drops like a stone for a two-hour nap.
When Carmen gets to the unassuming restaurant a few blocks from the hotel, Annie's already there, sitting at a table and nervously flipping the pages of a book way too quickly. Carmen greets her and makes a mental note to tell her to stop that because she isn't fooling anyone.
"It's nice to see you," Carmen says, which is sort of a lie. She and Annie made these tentative plans a few weeks ago when Carmen first drew up their assignments, but now, with her hasty departure from Portugal still fresh in her memory, Carmen would have preferred room service, a bottle of Bohemia, and an early bedtime tonight. Still, she's supposed to be mentoring Annie, so she decides to suck it up and deal with it. She orders a lot of queso flameado to ease the sting of yet another work commitment.
"You too," Annie says, fiddling with one of her dangly earrings. "How was your flight?"
"Long," Carmen says. "Just like most of them. What about you? You came straight from San Francisco, right?"
"Yep. It was a short flight. Gilbert put me on this little-what do they call them, turbo-prop planes? It was so noisy that I barely got any reading done."
"Speaking of reading." Carmen points at Annie's book. "Don't sit around reading books while you're waiting for someone. Number one, any ACME loser could tell that you weren't actually reading that book. Number two, you're already going to stick out enough in every country except for maybe Sweden, so don't call additional attention to yourself."
Annie looks crestfallen. Carmen immediately regrets her words as she removes her red hat, thinking that she's not the best person to give a lecture on not calling attention to oneself. The truth is, Annie's been the second on two successful jobs so far and will lead her first next month. She's a pretty good kid. She's young, enthusiastic, and pathetically eager to please. When she joined V.I.L.E., she got a tattoo and told them that she wanted her code name to be "Dazzle," but none of them took her seriously. They all call her Annie, and when Carmen catches her sending encoded telegrams to her parents, she's always signing them "Annabelle."
Still, one of the hallmarks of a good operative is being able to take criticism and change plans on the fly, so Annie swallows, nods, and shoves her book in her bag. "Okay."
"Tell me about your job with Eddie tomorrow," Carmen says, taking a tortilla and dipping it in the flambéed cheese and meat. This is basically the equivalent of smalltalk, since she already knows about Annie's job with Eddie tomorrow. She assigned it, for God's sake. She concentrates on the explosive flavors of the chorizo and chile.
"Oh, okay." Annie sits up straighter, like she's giving a report in school. "Well, tomorrow I'm taking a commuter flight to Guatemala City. I'll meet Eddie and we'll stay at Vista Real Hotel. I've got my own room this time."
"That's because Gilbert believes it's improper for a male and female op to share the same suite," Carmen says. Immediately, she feels bad about the flash of disappointment that crosses Annie's face. "Sorry. Go on."
"Then the next morning we go in to steal all the Olmec stone heads in Guatemala," Annie goes on. She hesitates. "Eddie said you won't like it, but we're going to bring in some of the Guatemala runners to help with the job."
Carmen nods encouragingly. "It's fine to bring them in," she says. "That's what they're there for. Just don't start depending on them all the time, because they're not well-trained. There's a reason they got stuck at runner status and never advanced to henchmen."
"Okay." Annie actually takes a notepad out of her bag and writes something down. Carmen swallows a laugh. "And then our first stop is Moscow. Eddie wants to know why you decided to send us to Moscow. He's not very happy about having to load all those stone heads on the plane."
"Whoa." Carmen holds up a finger as she takes a sip of her beer. "First of all, you don't load them yourself, kid. You get the cargo attendants to do that. If they're boxed up really well, sometimes you can even get the airport's baggage handlers to do it for you." That always feels like a double victory to Carmen, particularly in countries where the airports are run by government employees.
"And the flight plans are a closely guarded secret," Carmen adds mysteriously. Annie nods. Carmen doesn't tell her that the only reason they're going to Moscow is that nobody's made a stop there in a few weeks. Plus, Russia's a big country. Surely there's room for all those stone heads there.
"How long do you expect this job to last?" Carmen prods, feeling like an interviewer.
"Six days," Annie says confidently. "We can make it."
"Good. And then tell me what your plans are after the job."
"I fly to Headquarters," Annie says. "I have my three-month review. I'm actually going to meet with the Chief."
Carmen raises an eyebrow. Oftentimes the Chief doesn't meet directly with new operatives until their six-month review. Either he has a lot of free time in his schedule or he's really impressed with Annie. Maybe both. She's not sure how that makes her feel. "That's great," she says, hoping she sounds enthusiastic. "Do you think you'll be ready to be the lead on a heist after this?"
"Yes. Seriously. It's been great working with Irma and Bessie, but I'm ready to get out there on my own. I want to be in charge of an operation. I can't wait to fly on V.I.L.E. One. And Lady Agatha says that sometimes you even get to go play tennis if you're in a city with a good stadium."
"You sure do," Carmen says. "We'll have to play sometime."
"Really?" Annie lets out a squeak and then covers her mouth with her hand. "Have you ever been to Wimbledon?"
"Not only that, I've played on the courts," Carmen says. "I know one of the guards. He let me in once or twice after hours."
"That is so cool. Do you really mean it, you'd play tennis with me sometime?"
"Sure. And by the way, V.I.L.E. Three is a lot nicer than V.I.L.E. One."
"Really?"
"Yes. They were numbered in order of when we got them."
"How many V.I.L.E. jets are there, anyway?"
"Four."
Annie looks like she might explode out of her seat with excitement. Behind Carmen's chair, a waiter gives a small cough as she refreshes their drinks and drops off their meals-Carmen's not sure how long she was waiting. She says gracías as the woman sets down their food and they both tuck in, moving on to safer topics such as Annie's family, her plans for the holidays, and how much space all those stone heads will take up in the hold of the jet. Every so often Annie goes back to bubbling about how excited she is about her first solo heist and how grateful she is for the opportunity. And every time, Carmen's stomach twists a little tighter around the delicious tamales that she never bothers to order in any other country.
Back at the hotel, the rest of Carmen's trip is routine-she spends some time with the charts, calls in to V.I.L.E. Headquarters on the ultra-secure telephone line, and tries not to brood over her dinner with Annie. Instead of checking in with Eddie-which she really should, since he's the lead on tomorrow's heist-she decides to go to bed early so she can leave at a reasonable hour the next morning. She can find a pay phone at the airport to call him tomorrow, and besides, if she knows Eddie, he has better things to do with a night in Guatemala City than talk to his boss.
* * *New York City, U.S.A.
Thursday
While she's hunkered down in New York City, Carmen goes to visit her sister, which is close to the top of Carmen's list of least favorite things. For one thing, "hunkered down" isn't really accurate; she's staying at the Plaza, in a suite where white-gloved waiters deliver champagne in cut-crystal glasses promptly at five o'clock every evening. For another, her sister doesn't live in the city, but rather in a stately Westchester colonial that's a good hour away by car service. For another, even if Missy had agreed to come into the city without her insufferable kids and her even more insufferable husband Webb, it wouldn't have been a fun visit. Carmen often plays the game of keeping as little contact with Missy as possible while still qualifying as her sister.
But Missy's currently in the panicked phase of her contact with Carmen. It starts with letters to the Los Angeles apartment where Carmen spends less than three months a year. Phase two is Missy leaving enough messages on Carmen's answering machine to fill up the entire mini-cassette, which Carmen's house-sitter dutifully removes, labels, and sets aside for her before replacing it with a blank one. Phase three involves Missy doing a shitty-ass job of sending a stealth telegram in code to one of Carmen's few contacts whom she knows by name. Phase four usually includes a call to the Chief, and after the first two or three times that happened, Carmen figured out how fast she needs to head Missy off at the pass.
So she picks up a bottle of wine, puts on a conservative blouse and a smile, and charges the ridiculously expensive hired car to her V.I.L.E. credit card. When Carmen gets out of the car, Missy elbows her unnaturally well-behaved kids out of the way so she can hug Carmen first, and as always, for a second Carmen thinks that this visit might be different.
But it only takes until the salad is served for Carmen to start wishing she were back at the Plaza.
"So!" Missy says brightly, handing the bowl of dressing to Carmen. She waits until Carmen sets it down on the table, then adjusts it on the saucer (and really, the fact that her sister has become the kind of person who serves salad dressing in a saucer at home tells Carmen all she needs to know about Missy). "Tell us about your… uh, your job, Sissy. You were in Mexico for work recently?"
Missy gives her kids a look, and Lily says politely, "Mommy says you work for a museum, Aunt Sissy."
Carmen raises an eyebrow at her sister as she takes a polite bite of lettuce. She remembers why she likes Missy better from three thousand miles away. For one thing, she doesn't have to eat iceberg lettuce and pot roast while she's reading Missy's painfully inept telegrams. For another, nobody calls her "Sissy" when she's in Australia or Europe or Central America. Missy likes to act like she's Carmen's mother, particularly now that their parents are both dead, but that ridiculous childhood nickname always reminds Carmen that Missy is only sixteen months older and could barely talk when Carmen was born.
Besides, she's not really sure what Missy's look meant. Do her niece and nephew know what she actually does, and was Missy giving them a reminder to go along with the polite fiction that Carmen works for-she almost snickers-a museum? Or was it the standard parental hint about making cordial conversation in front of guests?
Since Carmen has no idea where to begin with that minefield, she tries to stick as close to the truth as possible. "Yes, I was in Mexico City just before I flew to New York," she says, resisting the urge to pat her purse and make sure the Moustache is still safely in there. At least this is easier than the time she had to steal all those sheep from Wales and find a place to keep them wherever she went.
"We learned about Mexico in school," Billy says. He's already finished his salad and has moved on to the mashed potatoes and gravy. Still, he wipes his mouth and puts his napkin back in his lap-what kind of ten-year-old keeps his napkin in his lap?-before he asks, "What did you do there?"
"Oh, I had dinner with a friend," Carmen says. "And, uh, I went running."
This time Missy shoots Carmen a dirty look, which Carmen has no trouble reading. She stares back at her sister as Billy shoves all his food in his mouth. Lily's watching her in what she probably thinks is a sneaky manner, but she's what, eight? She's not very good at being sneaky yet, though Carmen thinks she might have potential. Missy alternates between pushing her lettuce around her plate and folding her hands together. Webb's attention is elsewhere; he spends half his time staring at his watch and the other half flicking through the business section of the newspaper. Every so often, he tips the antique mahogany dining chair on its back legs so he can crane his head and try to catch a glimpse of a ball game blaring from a TV in the sitting room.
As soon as Billy's plate is empty, even though Lily's is still mostly full, Missy says, "Billy, why don't you and your sister go tidy up your rooms before we eat dessert?"
Carmen is pretty sure that normal children would whine and complain about being told to clean their rooms, but instead her Stepford niece and nephew obediently get up from the table, put their folded napkins on their chairs, and head upstairs.
Once the kids are gone, Missy lets out a sigh and sets her own napkin down on the table. "For God's sake, Sissy, don't talk about your job with the kids."
"What?" Carmen asks. "You asked-I mean, you were the one who brought up my job in the first place."
"You know what I meant. I asked about your 'job.' Not your… you know, your job."
"Oh, get off it, Missy," Carmen says. "I don't hear you complaining about my job when I send Christmas gifts every year. How did Lily like that necklace, by the way?"
Missy crosses her arms over her chest. "How long are you planning to keep this up for?"
"Keep what up for?"
"This-what you're doing," Missy says. "This immature lifestyle. Running all over the world, pretending that you're some kind of fancy and successful person-"
"Hey, wait a second-"
"-when all you are is a thief."
Carmen takes a big gulp of wine before setting her glass down. She sneaks a glance at Webb, but he's doing a damn good job of pretending to read the stock reports and ignoring both of them. She looks down at her plate, not at her big sister. "That's all you think I am?"
Missy sighs. "What else am I supposed to think?" She rubs her eyes. "Look, Sissy, I know we agreed a long time ago that I need to be respectful of your choices-"
"Excuse me," Carmen cuts in, "but I believe that the agreement was to be respectful about each other's choices." She makes a heroic effort not to look pointedly at her sister's husband or her sister's emaciated size-two figure or the chairs where her sister's robotic children were sitting just a few minutes ago.
"But I'm worried about you," Missy says, ignoring Carmen's interjection. "What happens in a few years when you want a real life? You're going to want a home and a husband and a family and a real job, and it's going to be too late for any of that."
"I have a home," Carmen says, which is the first thing she can think of to refute her sister's argument. It's even true. She has a nice apartment in L.A. It has a bed in the bedroom and a sofa in the living room and textured wallpaper in a soft shade of peach. Or maybe it's purple. No, she's pretty sure it's peach. Whatever. It's great wallpaper, even if she doesn't spend that much time looking at it.
"And the other stuff?" Missy asks, looking steadily at Carmen. "Think about when you want to get out of the life-"
Carmen snickers aloud this time. "The life?"
Missy ignores her and goes on, "And you meet some nice guy and go out on a date and he asks what you do. Or where you used to live. What about when you have kids and you're trying to teach them that it's wrong to steal candy from a store?"
"Missy," Carmen says with a smirk, "when I go out on dates, we don't spend a lot of time talking about what I do for a living and where I live."
Missy rolls her eyes. "Jesus." She shoves her chair back from the table, picks up Carmen's plate, and carries it into the kitchen.
Carmen balls up her napkin and tosses it down on the table. She misses, and it bounces onto the floor. "Great to see you, Webb," she says to the back of her brother-in-law's head as he glances toward the TV again. "Always a pleasure."
She finds her sister in the front hallway, which Missy would probably call a foyer, shaking Carmen's wrap out of the closet. Missy extends it to her like she's holding a snake. "How nice of you to come by, Sissy," she says. "Maybe we'll do it again in another two years."
For a second, Carmen's mostly-empty stomach clenches. Missy is her only sister, and she hates to leave with this bad feeling between them, the way she always seems to. She remembers how she used to look up to her sister, who seemed so much older and braver and more confident than Carmen.
But the skinny, polished woman who kisses the air somewhere in Carmen's direction has very little in common with the big sister that Carmen remembers from childhood. "Think about what I said," she says as she opens the front door. "Think about what you've become."
"Yeah, thanks," Carmen says. "Maybe you should think about what the hell you've become, too."
The door slams behind her. She storms toward the car still parked down the street, grateful that she told the driver to wait and even more grateful that V.I.L.E. is picking up the tab for this little side trip.
Despite her anger at Missy, and her relief at the way Missy always makes it easy to go away angry, Carmen actually spends most of the long drive back to New York City thinking about her sister's words. Not the part about finding a husband and having children; that's a laugh. It's not like Missy's husband or children have much to recommend on the subject. No, she thinks about the other things her sister said, the ones that have a grain of truth.
This immature lifestyle-
Running all over the world-
It's going to be too late for any of that-
I'm worried about you.
Carmen loves her life. She loves what she does, what Missy would call her job. She still gets a thrill every time she lands in a new city, checks into a hotel, casually passes a tidbit to a fellow V.I.L.E. member. She can't imagine giving up any of that.
But she's been doing this for a long time, and she's tired. Will there be a day when she feels ready to step aside and let someone else take charge? What in the world is Carmen Sandiego supposed to do then?
When she gets back to the hotel, she goes straight to the bar. On the third gin and tonic she decides that, Plaza be damned, she has to get out of New York tonight. She makes an easy mental checklist of things she has to do: go upstairs, pack up her room, check to make sure the Moustache is still safely in her purse, call Gilbert, check out, get a cab to the airport.
Carmen finishes her drink, tosses down some cash, and gets on the elevator. For once she hardly notices the opulent surroundings, the mirrored walls caged in ornate brass. Instead she closes her eyes so she doesn't have to see a slice of her reflection and wills the fourteen floors to go quickly.
* * *Copenhagen, Denmark
Friday
As it turns out, the only flight that Gilbert can get on such short notice is a commercial jet to Copenhagen. Neither of those things is her favorite, but on the plus side, Carmen doesn't have any ex-boyfriends or employees or sisters in Copenhagen. She wants to be alone. There's a seat in first class, at least, and since it's too late for a meal to be served, she orders a glass of red wine and passes out under the soft blankets before she can take a sip.
When she lands in Denmark, she hails a cab and asks for the nearest hotel, not caring about its star rating or amenities at all. She goes over the entire room looking for bugs, then calls Headquarters. The Chief isn't in, which is good; Carmen suspects that he isn't going to be happy about her abrupt change in plans. To make up for it, she spends the afternoon drafting a new itinerary and dispersing instructions. She assigns some of her henchmen to head out as decoys-the most important one is Merey LaRoc, who looks so much like Carmen that she's confused those ACME agents more than once. She changes Merey's assignment from Karachi to Washington, D.C., hoping that the agent will think Carmen is still in the country. Sarah Nade is still in Oslo-she was supposed to make a break for Port Moresby today-but Carmen tells her to stay put. She doesn't look anything like Sarah, but she's not taking any chances.
Once she's finished, there's not much else to do but brood. Carmen throws herself down on the bed fully clothed and falls asleep, hoping to dream off the booming headache that's been building ever since she got in that cab to Westchester yesterday evening. It doesn't really work. Her dreams are a circle of Missy scolding Carmen, Carmen scolding Merey, and the Chief scolding them all.
She wakes up several hours later, so late that the evening shadows are already striping the ceiling above the windows. She gathers herself up-red coat, red hat, red purse-and goes out to get something to eat. Carmen has never been a fan of Danish cuisine, if it can even be called cuisine, so she doesn't bother to look for a fancy restaurant. She ends up eating some kind of pickled meat-two other things that she doesn't much like-from a little place where the waiter blinks in surprise at her handful of 500-kroner banknotes.
It's too late to do any sightseeing, so Carmen decides to just wander around. The air is damp and cold by the time she makes her way to the Langelinie promenade, which is famous for the statue of the Little Mermaid. Carmen stands on the pier and gazes at the mermaid gazing at her. Recently, she read in the New York newspapers, someone tried to hack off the statue's head. They didn't succeed, but even from here, Carmen can see the deep cut in the Little Mermaid's neck.
It's been a long time since anyone read her the story of the Little Mermaid, but Carmen more or less remembers the details. She can very clearly imagine how that poor girl must have felt: paying a price to get something she loved, then choosing to give it all up, even at great cost. Now she lives only in bronze, her expression eternally pensive. As she gazes at the Mermaid's smooth face, Carmen realizes that she feels no desire to steal the statue, and it has nothing to do with the Moustache that's still heavy in her purse.
Her face is wet-from the mist coming off the harbor, she assumes.
But that's her excuse for why she doesn't see the uniformed police officers coming for her, or the group of ACME sleuths who close in from all sides.
* * *This time there is no first class. No champagne, no blankets, no bacon-wrapped scallops. There are handcuffs and ACME agents looking smugly delighted and a cacophony of phone calls being made from the local police station where they dragged her. All around her, ACME agents are blathering away in twenty different languages and the only words that Carmen understands are her own name.
There is a private jet, at least. Carmen is surprised to see that it doesn't look very different from the V.I.L.E. private jets. The police handcuff her to a middle seat with an ACME agent on either side of her, which seems like overkill to Carmen. She's a little insulted, actually. Are these two young agents so incompetent that they need to handcuff a woman to keep her from escaping at 35,000 feet in the air? And these are the people who managed to catch the famous Carmen Sandiego?
It's a long flight back to San Francisco, perfect for brooding and dozing, but Carmen's done too much of that over the last few days. Instead, she's surprised to find that she's angry. Without her sleep mask and white noise track, it's impossible to ignore the ACME agents, all of whom are talking about her as if she isn't even there.
"Did you send the new evidence into Headquarters?"
"That business card she dropped in the Plaza? Yeah. I Expressed it to San Francisco yesterday-no, that was earlier today."
"How about that conversation with the boyfriend in Portugal, huh?"
"Oh yeah, we catalogued that one days ago. We had to send it in to Warren to get the warrant."
"Hey, did you see the map that we found in Sydney? Can you believe she lost that so early in the run?"
"So much for the great villain."
Carmen sits perfectly still, her wrists firmly bolted to the arms of her seat, her face flaming. She's not sure if it has to do with being the subject of so many conversations or not being allowed to go to the bathroom by herself, but still, it replaces the twist in her stomach with fire.
How dare they eavesdrop on her conversations with Antonio and Annie?
How dare they sic the Danish police on her?
How dare they mishandle the Moustache of the Pharaoh with their bare hands, shoving it in a flimsy box in the cargo hold of the jet?
How dare they handcuff Carmen Sandiego?
She is not a common criminal. She is not just a thief. She is the lead operative for V.I.L.E., and no wet-behind-the-ears ACME agent-even a dozen of them-is going to make her forget that.
By the time they land in San Francisco, where ACME Headquarters are located, Carmen's not sure she has a job anymore, but her anger at the ACME agents is white-hot. It's one of her favorite feelings.
* * *San Francisco, U.S.A.
Monday
The trial is a blur. There are plenty of people in the courtroom, casting sidelong looks at her and gossiping among themselves even as the judge bangs his gavel for "order in the court." Carmen stares straight ahead and ignores them all. They came to get a look at Carmen Sandiego, to try to judge whether she's better or worse than her reputation makes her out to be, but Carmen doesn't care what they think of her. She knows who she is, and she isn't here for them.
She repeats that over and over in her head as the judge announces, "The court finds the defendant guilty."
* * *It's getting close.
Carmen sits on the floor in her cell, eyes closed, waiting for her sentencing hearing. She tries to block out the echoing clangs from outside the cell, the hollow pounding of footsteps up and down the hall. The unfamiliar smells, the damp cold of the cinderblocks-none of it seems real to her. This isn't her life.
The buzzer at the end of the hall echoes, and she's not surprised when the footsteps and the clink of keys stop in front of her cell. She opens her eyes and squints a bit as the door swings open for the first time since she was permitted yard privileges eight hours ago. There are two people there. The guard is standing in front, blocking the man behind him, and at first Carmen wonders whether it's her attorney. Then the guard nods and walks away, and the only person left standing in her doorway is the Chief.
It's time.
He walks into the cell like he's done this a thousand times before, which maybe he has. "Come along, kid," he says. "You're getting out of here."
She doesn't move right away. "Are you kidding?" she asks.
"Of course not." He scowls and glances at his watch impatiently. "Come on, we don't have all day. Let's go."
Carmen gets to her feet, a little unsteadily. "I screwed up this time," she says, the closest she's willing to come to an apology. "I'm sorry. I got distracted, and I… I was just off my game."
The Chief studies her for a long moment, and Carmen looks away. She always feels like a child next to this Chief. He's probably not that much older than she is, but his hair and moustache are completely white and he has a proper, precise way of speaking. It doesn't help that he never uses her name, just "kid." But then again, what else would he call her? It's not like Carmen Sandiego is her real name.
He crosses his arms and shrugs. "You'll do better next time, kid," he says. "This group of agents was excellent. They made a good show. You should be proud of how far V.I.L.E. took them."
The Chief probably doesn't mean it that way, but Carmen hears a subtle rebuke in his voice. It's not all about her. She thinks of the rest of V.I.L.E., of Annie, Bjorn, Li, Nick, and all the rest. She thinks of the miles they've flown and driven and run, with ACME agents in hot pursuit every step of the way. She closes her eyes again. She's tired, and the day of sitting alone in maximum security following her trial hasn't done much for her.
"Kid," the Chief says impatiently. "Talk to me. What's going on? You need a sabbatical? We can get someone else to lead V.I.L.E."
She supposes that he means it as a nice offer, but that seems like a rebuke too.
"You've been an example to us all," he says, his voice softer. "You've been running hard for, what is it, five years now? If you need a break, we can arrange that."
She thinks of Antonio, of her sister. Of the lives that they would choose for her, if it were up to them. They'd be easier in some ways. She tries to imagine an adventurous Carmen Sandiego hacking her way through the Amazon rainforest, or a suburban Carmen Sandiego raising small children in a sterile mansion outside of New York City. But she can no more imagine those lives than she can imagine the Chief calling her by her real name. For better or worse, this is who she is. She knows.
Besides, who would they put in charge instead? Scar? Irma? Forget that. This is Carmen Sandiego's gig, the way it's always been.
So she opens her eyes and takes a deep breath, meeting his gaze directly. "No way, Chief," she says. It occurs to her that she doesn't know his real name either. They all call him Chief, both the ACME agents and the V.I.L.E. team.
She wants to say something else, wants to tell him about the other Carmen Sandiegos and the lives she knows she'll never live, but he doesn't really care. She knows that. He's not one of those bosses who sends out holiday cards or hosts team-building exercises at ACME's corporate retreat on Point Reyes. This is business; this is her job. She knew it when she signed up, and it's her job to get back in the field right now.
Instead, she says, "I'm in."
The Chief lets out a deep breath, and she wonders if he's relieved. If he thought she'd really take him up on his offer of a sabbatical. "Good show, kid," he says, shaking her hand. He heads for the door. "Come along, the car's out front."
For a stocky man, his strides are long, and Carmen has to half-run to keep up with him as they head down the hall. "Tell me about ACME's new recruits," she says. "Any good ones?"
He snorts a little. "Not at all," he says dismissively. "They're all gumshoes at the start, you know. You have your work cut out for you." He loosens his tie and pulls his ever-present notepad out of the pocket of his vest. "Now, I think we should send Robin out first. How does that sound? He can steal the 96th Thesis."
Carmen laughs a little. Robin isn't going to like being up first; he never does. He says the early cases are boring, all travel, no play, no time to hit the Alps for a little climbing. He'll complain to both her and the Chief, but he won't really mean it. None of them do. Just like Carmen Sandiego, all the others have chosen this life. And it is an amazing life. Beneath the veneer of frequent flyer miles and private jets and opulent hotels and fancy technology, what they do matters.
She doesn't say any of that to the Chief, either, although she thinks that if she did, he would understand. He leads her out the front door, and as they step outside into the bright San Francisco sunshine, Carmen Sandiego says, "Let's go."
Press SEND/RECEIVE to begin your next case, CANCEL/DELETE to assign a new detective.
Fandom: Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? (video game)
Characters: Carmen Sandiego, Dazzle Annie Nonker, original characters, surprise character
Word count: 8800
Ratings & warnings: PG for a little bit of language and implied sexual activity
Disclaimer: No copyright infringement is intended toward Broderbund, The Learning Company, or anyone associated with the video game, the TV show, or the theme song.
Summary:
Well she sneaks around the world from Sydney to Copenhagen
She's got a stolen Moustache of the Pharaoh from Cairo
You know her as a thief who'll take a private jet to Lisbon
But who in the world is Carmen Sandiego, really?
Notes: Despite the title and summary, which are from the TV show's theme song by Rockapella, this story is based almost exclusively on the 1990 Deluxe version of Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? If you get the urge to play a round, you can do so at archive.org's online software emulation database.
Many thank-yous to betas rosefox and Madison, who gave a lot of awesome mechanical and overall suggestions, and Elfwreck, who helped with some of the formatting.
This was written for
desertghost in Yuletide 2017.
a double-dealing diva with a taste for thievery
Cairo, Egypt
Sunday
The ACME agent is getting close.
Carmen Sandiego knows it. She can feel it in the prickle on the back of her neck. She can see it in the flash of metal and glass as a car disappears just outside her line of vision when they think she isn't watching. But she is. She's been doing this for years. She knows.
Of course, the note helps. The concierge hands it to her when she arrives back at the hotel. It's a plain white envelope, sealed, with nothing except her initials on the front. She smiles her thanks and gets on the elevator, ripping open the envelope as she heads for her room.
The note is neatly typed and simple:
Super Sleuth DG has been assigned to the case. Get the Moustache of the Pharaoh out of the country.
It's not signed. It doesn't need to be. She knows. It's time.
Carmen Sandiego checks out of the hotel ten minutes later.
* * *Sydney, Australia
Monday
This is always Carmen's favorite part of a run: the first day, when the heist has been successful, her travel is planned out, and she's climbing the steps to one of V.I.L.E.'s private jets with only her red purse over her shoulder. Her luggage is already on its way to the hold thanks to her personal flight attendant, Brody. As she settles into the massive sofa built into one side of the jet, he delivers a steaming plate of enchiladas and a bottle of Corona coated with opaque frost.
Once the flight gets underway, Carmen pulls out her charts and settles in for some serious work. Some of her crew are trying out these new portable computers that their telecommunications guy swears are the future, but Carmen prefers to do her planning in longhand with a legal pad and a map. Bjorn, who used to be litigator before he chucked it all and joined V.I.L.E., once told her that she looked like a lawyer. Carmen wasn't sure if he was joking, so she threatened to demote him to the Time unit and he shut up.
Speaking of Bjorn-Carmen opens her briefcase, which was waiting for her when she got on the plane, and digs out the personnel files. She has it on good authority that Bjorn accidentally dropped four clues when he was in Bamako last week, which is absolutely not acceptable. Carmen's preferred way of handling the situation would be to axe Bjorn immediately and let that serve as a warning to the rest of her underlings, but ever since V.I.L.E. started restructuring about six months ago, she hasn't had as much autonomy as she'd like. Now she's supposed to keep files and start a paper trail and submit reports. It's a pain, but she doesn't really mind giving Bjorn another chance, especially since he has a respectable serve and is the only one who can match her in a game of tennis.
By the time she's finished her enchiladas and beer, she's comfortable with her plans. Tomorrow night she'll be in Sydney; the next night, Lisbon. After that she's thinking Mexico City. It's been a while since she visited the Yucatán and even though the accommodations there won't be as classy as those in Europe, the food will more than make up for it.
She flips to the second chart, which lists all the active heists, the henchman assigned to each one, their current locations, and their travel plans. Every morning at five a.m. local time, no matter which hotel she's in, no matter what country, someone slides the printout under her door. Those runners really deserve a bonus this year. Carmen makes a note on her legal pad and turns her attention to the chart. There are three other active heists right now and the geographical balance looks pretty good. She does notice that Agatha and Sandy are both scheduled to fly to Budapest tomorrow, which won't work, so she reroutes Agatha to Singapore.
They land in Sydney about sixteen hours later, which means that Carmen's body has completely lost track of where and when she is, and she's grateful that her driver meets her at the airport. She greets Veky with a half-hug and is delighted to see that he's rented a convertible just for her, which seems to fit the stunning Sydney weather. She asks Veky to put the top down and clutches her red hat to hold it on as they head for the city center. "How's it going?" she asks over the roar of the wind around them. "Any news from down under?"
"No, ma'am. There hasn't been much activity here this month," Veky says. He shoots her a tentative smile. "You must not be including Australia in enough travel plans."
Carmen usually tries not to get too familiar with the lower staff, but she's always liked Veky, so she smiles back. "I'm not neglecting you," she assures him. "I love Sydney. The Opera House, the art museums… hey, Veky, do you have time to drive me down to Melbourne Park so I can see where they play the Australian Open?"
Veky laughs. "It's about an eleven-hour drive, Miss Carmen. How long are you in town for?"
"Just overnight." Carmen glances at her watch and shakes her head. "I mean, today and tonight. It's morning here, right?" She twists the stem of her watch, trying to get it in sync with the car's clock. She really needs a personal assistant just to help her keep track of what the local time is.
"It's nine a.m." Veky slows down as they start to encounter more traffic, and Carmen's heart beats faster. People, restaurants, bars, hotels, museums-the buzz of activity in a new city is one of the things she loves most about all the travel she does. "You're staying at the Park Hyatt?"
"Yeah." Carmen's trying to be blasé, but her eyes widen as Veky pulls up in front of the brand-new hotel. She'll have to thank Gilbert for getting her a reservation here.
She checks in. Veky carries her luggage and briefcase upstairs; Carmen carefully totes the red purse containing the Moustache of the Pharaoh. By the time the manager has shown her the room, the minibar, the rooftop pool, and a view of the Sydney Opera House across the water, Carmen decides that Gilbert deserves a Christmas bonus too.
Even though she's exhausted from nearly a day of travel, Carmen showers and heads out to sightsee, which she usually tries to do in every city, no matter how many times she's been there before. She takes herself out for an early lunch, then spends most of the day getting lost in the Art Gallery of New South Wales, which is full of treasures that would call out to her if her purse wasn't already filled with the Moustache.
She also picks up a pamphlet about a new art museum opening in Sydney next year. How interesting. Maybe she should take Veky's advice and schedule her V.I.L.E. operatives to come to Sydney more often.
By evening Carmen is tired. Her dinner is delicious and the waiters are overly attentive, but she's ready for bed. She piles Australian dollars next to her plate and calls for a cab to take her back to the hotel. She requests a wake-up call from the front desk, then climbs into bed.
Her last thought as she looks out across the cove at the brightly-lit Sydney Opera House is that it really is a beautiful building. Maybe she'll steal it the next time she's in Australia.
* * *Lisbon, Portugal
Tuesday
Crisscrossing the globe is one of Carmen's favorite things, but even she has to admit that the bragging rights are more fun than the reality. Even a trip on V.I.L.E. Three, which is the nicest of the private jets despite its designation, doesn't make up for the fact that she was in the air for eighteen hours yesterday-she's pretty sure that was yesterday-and that she's gearing up for another long flight today.
Today her destination is Lisbon. Carmen always tries to think in terms of "today" and "tonight," even though there are times that it's actually "tomorrow" by the time she gets there. Because she was on Australia time for a day, she's ahead of all of her operatives, so she doesn't have much planning to do. She does need to make a new map of her own itinerary, because she seems to have misplaced the one she drew up yesterday. It's fine with her because now she can mark off Sydney as "completed" and add New York City as the next leg of her trip. While she's there, she might take the Moustache on a field trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to see the Temple of Dendur.
Once her paperwork is complete, Carmen tells Brody to draw the curtains around the king-sized bed in the back of the jet. Without being asked, he brings her a sleep mask and a glass of warm milk before dimming the lights and adjusting the PA system so that the rushing sound of white noise fills the cabin. She's feeling generous, so she decides that he deserves a Christmas bonus too.
They land in Lisbon around 9 p.m., which is perfect because Carmen is well-rested and ready for dinner and Brody and the pilot are both dead on their feet, so she doesn't feel bad about sending them on ahead to the hotel. She draws her red purse close to her body, then steps off the plane and heads into the airport to find a pay phone.
A short taxi ride later, Carmen's stepping out of the car at Tavares and glancing around nervously to see if her companion has arrived yet. She doesn't see him, so she walks inside purposefully and stops in front of the maître d's stand. "I'm Carmen Sandiego," she says. "I need a table for two."
The little man raises his eyebrows. "Do you have a reservation?" he asks in English, with only a hint of an accent.
"Não," Carmen says, switching easily to Portuguese. "I'm with an organization called V.I.L.E. Perhaps you've heard of us." She passes a business card across the stand, tilting it just enough to conceal the 10,000-escudo note folded beneath. "We'd very much like to keep doing business here in Lisbon."
The maître d' takes both the card and the banknote, and although his face doesn't change, Carmen can see the glint of recognition in his eyes. "This way, Senhora Sandiego," he says, leading her to a table in the corner. Carmen sits down and orders a glass of Vinho Verde while she watches the door impatiently.
Antonio walks in five minutes later, and her stomach gives an unexpected lurch as the maître d' leads him over to her table. She pats her purse nervously and stands to greet him with a handshake.
Antonio actually laughs at her outstretched hand and pulls her into a hug, then kisses each of her cheeks before they sit down. "Carmen, how are you?" he asks, reaching for his napkin. He knocks over his silverware, then his empty wine glass, before he finally fumbles the napkin onto his lap. "I apologize. Tell me, where have you been lately?"
Carmen scoops up the wine glass from the floor and smiles at Antonio, feeling better. It occurs to her that she should have picked a different place, something more to Antonio's taste. Carmen loves any restaurant that has enormous antique chandeliers suspended from its crown-molded ceilings, but she suspects that Antonio would have been happy with sausages and a pastry for dinner.
"I was just in Sydney," Carmen says. She doesn't tell Antonio why or for how long. That's their deal; they both love to travel and often discuss their adventures, but they avoid talking about their work, even though that's the reason for all of said traveling. "It's a beautiful city. Have you been there?"
"Sadly, I have not. It's very far from here, you know."
"And even farther from Brazil," Carmen agrees. "How long are you here?"
"A few months this time. I came home to spend some time with my family. Did I tell you that Fábia has a little son now?"
"No!" Carmen says, appalled. The last time she saw Antonio's youngest sister, Fábia, the girl was sixteen years old… wasn't she? Maybe she's lost track. It wouldn't be the first time.
Antonio seems to be thinking the same thing. "How long has it been?" he asks. "Since you were in Lisbon?"
"Only a couple of months," Carmen says. "I came through, hmm, between San Marino and Buenos Aires, I think."
"No. That is, how long has it been since you were here with me?"
Carmen makes a show of studying the menu, reading the Portuguese names of the dishes with ease. She's not sure if Antonio remembers how fluent she is, so she asks, "What does agua mean?"
"Water," Antonio says flatly in a tone of voice that says Carmen isn't fooling him. "Carmen." He stares at her until she lifts her head reluctantly. "How long has it been?"
"Two years?" Carmen says hopefully. She tries to sound charming and flirtatious, but she's pretty sure that they both know she sounds guilty.
Antonio looks torn between indulging her and yelling at her, but his genial nature wins, and he gives her a look that almost includes a smile. "It has been two years since we saw each other in Brazil," he says patiently. "It has been eight years since the last time you were here in Portugal. Fábia is twenty-four years old. You'd like her husband, Graciano. They have visited me several times since they got married."
"Eight years, huh?" Carmen says thoughtfully. She looks around Tavares, with its gleaming ceiling and glittering walls. This restaurant has been around since the 1700s. In comparison, eight years is nothing. And yet, she thinks of all that she's missed, all that has happened while she's been flying on private jets and staying in five-star hotels and stealing artifacts, unawares.
"Yes, 'huh'," Antonio says. His voice is gentle now. He glances at the waiter, who is hovering a respectful distance away. "Are you ready to order now?"
"Um," Carmen says, putting down the menu and taking a gulp of her wine. "You know, Antonio, I'm not really in the mood for seafood tonight."
Antonio makes a hold-on gesture to the waiter. "Do you want to leave?"
"Sort of."
"What is this 'sort of'?"
"It means yes."
Antonio smiles for real. "All right then." He stands up, sets his napkin on the table, and then steps over to pull out Carmen's chair. Carmen leaves enough escudos on the table to cover the cost of the wine that she barely drank, and she murmurs an apology in Portuguese to the waiter.
"Would you rather have Mexican food instead?" Antonio teases as they turn toward the door and the waiter begins clearing the tidy table.
She reaches for him with one hand and cradles her purse against her body with the other. "No, thanks."
"Then do you want to come back to mine?"
She doesn't have to think about it. She says, "Yes," and isn't at all embarrassed about the way the waiters and the maître d' are watching them as they walk outside, wrapped around each other.
* * *For years, Carmen Sandiego would have said that this was one of her favorite things: curling up in the half-moon of Antonio's embrace, listening to his even breathing until hers matches his. But tonight she can't sleep-she, the woman who can block out everything and fall asleep within ten minutes on a plane, in an unfamiliar hotel room, in a hut in the middle of a jungle.
She attributes it to the long nap she had on the flight, but still, it makes for a long night. At five a.m. Portugal time she hears the telltale thump outside the front door, and sure enough, when she sneaks downstairs she finds the familiar roll of charts on the front stoop.
There's also a note attached. Like all the others, it's terse and efficient.
They're close. Leave now.
Obediently, she goes upstairs to get her clothes and the precious red purse. As she pulls on her coat, she looks at Antonio's sleeping form. She feels bad about sneaking off in the middle of the night, but it's better than an awkward goodbye in the morning. Besides, he owes her from that time in the Amazon rainforest.
* * *Mexico City, Mexico
Wednesday
The note didn't say anything about changing her destination, which is good, because that's one of Carmen's least favorite things. She likes sticking to at least part of the plan. So she gets a cab to the airport, buys her own ticket on a commercial jet to Mexico City (Gilbert's going to be pissed), and grimly buckles in for a fourteen-hour flight with no Brody, meaning no homemade empanadas or perfectly chilled Dos Equis.
She lands in Mexico City mid-afternoon, their time, and finds a pay phone to call in to V.I.L.E. Headquarters. As she expected, Gilbert's heard about her surprise change in plans. He scolds her over the phone, sounding positively gleeful about it. Sometimes she thinks that he secretly likes when she changes her plans because it gives him the one and only excuse to scold Carmen Sandiego.
When Carmen checks in, the concierge snaps his fingers to assign a bellboy and hands her a folded note. Carmen takes it apprehensively, wondering if it's yet another instruction to leave immediately. She's relieved to see that it simply says "Annie" and gives the phone number for V.I.L.E. Headquarters.
She was so distracted on her flight that even though she looked at the charts, she completely forgot that Annie would be in Mexico City tonight. She's not assigned to a heist-Carmen wouldn't have flown to Mexico herself if that were the case-but she's on her way to Guatemala City to meet Eddie tomorrow so they can pull a job together. Carmen calls in to V.I.L.E. and arranges dinner with Annie, then drops like a stone for a two-hour nap.
When Carmen gets to the unassuming restaurant a few blocks from the hotel, Annie's already there, sitting at a table and nervously flipping the pages of a book way too quickly. Carmen greets her and makes a mental note to tell her to stop that because she isn't fooling anyone.
"It's nice to see you," Carmen says, which is sort of a lie. She and Annie made these tentative plans a few weeks ago when Carmen first drew up their assignments, but now, with her hasty departure from Portugal still fresh in her memory, Carmen would have preferred room service, a bottle of Bohemia, and an early bedtime tonight. Still, she's supposed to be mentoring Annie, so she decides to suck it up and deal with it. She orders a lot of queso flameado to ease the sting of yet another work commitment.
"You too," Annie says, fiddling with one of her dangly earrings. "How was your flight?"
"Long," Carmen says. "Just like most of them. What about you? You came straight from San Francisco, right?"
"Yep. It was a short flight. Gilbert put me on this little-what do they call them, turbo-prop planes? It was so noisy that I barely got any reading done."
"Speaking of reading." Carmen points at Annie's book. "Don't sit around reading books while you're waiting for someone. Number one, any ACME loser could tell that you weren't actually reading that book. Number two, you're already going to stick out enough in every country except for maybe Sweden, so don't call additional attention to yourself."
Annie looks crestfallen. Carmen immediately regrets her words as she removes her red hat, thinking that she's not the best person to give a lecture on not calling attention to oneself. The truth is, Annie's been the second on two successful jobs so far and will lead her first next month. She's a pretty good kid. She's young, enthusiastic, and pathetically eager to please. When she joined V.I.L.E., she got a tattoo and told them that she wanted her code name to be "Dazzle," but none of them took her seriously. They all call her Annie, and when Carmen catches her sending encoded telegrams to her parents, she's always signing them "Annabelle."
Still, one of the hallmarks of a good operative is being able to take criticism and change plans on the fly, so Annie swallows, nods, and shoves her book in her bag. "Okay."
"Tell me about your job with Eddie tomorrow," Carmen says, taking a tortilla and dipping it in the flambéed cheese and meat. This is basically the equivalent of smalltalk, since she already knows about Annie's job with Eddie tomorrow. She assigned it, for God's sake. She concentrates on the explosive flavors of the chorizo and chile.
"Oh, okay." Annie sits up straighter, like she's giving a report in school. "Well, tomorrow I'm taking a commuter flight to Guatemala City. I'll meet Eddie and we'll stay at Vista Real Hotel. I've got my own room this time."
"That's because Gilbert believes it's improper for a male and female op to share the same suite," Carmen says. Immediately, she feels bad about the flash of disappointment that crosses Annie's face. "Sorry. Go on."
"Then the next morning we go in to steal all the Olmec stone heads in Guatemala," Annie goes on. She hesitates. "Eddie said you won't like it, but we're going to bring in some of the Guatemala runners to help with the job."
Carmen nods encouragingly. "It's fine to bring them in," she says. "That's what they're there for. Just don't start depending on them all the time, because they're not well-trained. There's a reason they got stuck at runner status and never advanced to henchmen."
"Okay." Annie actually takes a notepad out of her bag and writes something down. Carmen swallows a laugh. "And then our first stop is Moscow. Eddie wants to know why you decided to send us to Moscow. He's not very happy about having to load all those stone heads on the plane."
"Whoa." Carmen holds up a finger as she takes a sip of her beer. "First of all, you don't load them yourself, kid. You get the cargo attendants to do that. If they're boxed up really well, sometimes you can even get the airport's baggage handlers to do it for you." That always feels like a double victory to Carmen, particularly in countries where the airports are run by government employees.
"And the flight plans are a closely guarded secret," Carmen adds mysteriously. Annie nods. Carmen doesn't tell her that the only reason they're going to Moscow is that nobody's made a stop there in a few weeks. Plus, Russia's a big country. Surely there's room for all those stone heads there.
"How long do you expect this job to last?" Carmen prods, feeling like an interviewer.
"Six days," Annie says confidently. "We can make it."
"Good. And then tell me what your plans are after the job."
"I fly to Headquarters," Annie says. "I have my three-month review. I'm actually going to meet with the Chief."
Carmen raises an eyebrow. Oftentimes the Chief doesn't meet directly with new operatives until their six-month review. Either he has a lot of free time in his schedule or he's really impressed with Annie. Maybe both. She's not sure how that makes her feel. "That's great," she says, hoping she sounds enthusiastic. "Do you think you'll be ready to be the lead on a heist after this?"
"Yes. Seriously. It's been great working with Irma and Bessie, but I'm ready to get out there on my own. I want to be in charge of an operation. I can't wait to fly on V.I.L.E. One. And Lady Agatha says that sometimes you even get to go play tennis if you're in a city with a good stadium."
"You sure do," Carmen says. "We'll have to play sometime."
"Really?" Annie lets out a squeak and then covers her mouth with her hand. "Have you ever been to Wimbledon?"
"Not only that, I've played on the courts," Carmen says. "I know one of the guards. He let me in once or twice after hours."
"That is so cool. Do you really mean it, you'd play tennis with me sometime?"
"Sure. And by the way, V.I.L.E. Three is a lot nicer than V.I.L.E. One."
"Really?"
"Yes. They were numbered in order of when we got them."
"How many V.I.L.E. jets are there, anyway?"
"Four."
Annie looks like she might explode out of her seat with excitement. Behind Carmen's chair, a waiter gives a small cough as she refreshes their drinks and drops off their meals-Carmen's not sure how long she was waiting. She says gracías as the woman sets down their food and they both tuck in, moving on to safer topics such as Annie's family, her plans for the holidays, and how much space all those stone heads will take up in the hold of the jet. Every so often Annie goes back to bubbling about how excited she is about her first solo heist and how grateful she is for the opportunity. And every time, Carmen's stomach twists a little tighter around the delicious tamales that she never bothers to order in any other country.
Back at the hotel, the rest of Carmen's trip is routine-she spends some time with the charts, calls in to V.I.L.E. Headquarters on the ultra-secure telephone line, and tries not to brood over her dinner with Annie. Instead of checking in with Eddie-which she really should, since he's the lead on tomorrow's heist-she decides to go to bed early so she can leave at a reasonable hour the next morning. She can find a pay phone at the airport to call him tomorrow, and besides, if she knows Eddie, he has better things to do with a night in Guatemala City than talk to his boss.
* * *New York City, U.S.A.
Thursday
While she's hunkered down in New York City, Carmen goes to visit her sister, which is close to the top of Carmen's list of least favorite things. For one thing, "hunkered down" isn't really accurate; she's staying at the Plaza, in a suite where white-gloved waiters deliver champagne in cut-crystal glasses promptly at five o'clock every evening. For another, her sister doesn't live in the city, but rather in a stately Westchester colonial that's a good hour away by car service. For another, even if Missy had agreed to come into the city without her insufferable kids and her even more insufferable husband Webb, it wouldn't have been a fun visit. Carmen often plays the game of keeping as little contact with Missy as possible while still qualifying as her sister.
But Missy's currently in the panicked phase of her contact with Carmen. It starts with letters to the Los Angeles apartment where Carmen spends less than three months a year. Phase two is Missy leaving enough messages on Carmen's answering machine to fill up the entire mini-cassette, which Carmen's house-sitter dutifully removes, labels, and sets aside for her before replacing it with a blank one. Phase three involves Missy doing a shitty-ass job of sending a stealth telegram in code to one of Carmen's few contacts whom she knows by name. Phase four usually includes a call to the Chief, and after the first two or three times that happened, Carmen figured out how fast she needs to head Missy off at the pass.
So she picks up a bottle of wine, puts on a conservative blouse and a smile, and charges the ridiculously expensive hired car to her V.I.L.E. credit card. When Carmen gets out of the car, Missy elbows her unnaturally well-behaved kids out of the way so she can hug Carmen first, and as always, for a second Carmen thinks that this visit might be different.
But it only takes until the salad is served for Carmen to start wishing she were back at the Plaza.
"So!" Missy says brightly, handing the bowl of dressing to Carmen. She waits until Carmen sets it down on the table, then adjusts it on the saucer (and really, the fact that her sister has become the kind of person who serves salad dressing in a saucer at home tells Carmen all she needs to know about Missy). "Tell us about your… uh, your job, Sissy. You were in Mexico for work recently?"
Missy gives her kids a look, and Lily says politely, "Mommy says you work for a museum, Aunt Sissy."
Carmen raises an eyebrow at her sister as she takes a polite bite of lettuce. She remembers why she likes Missy better from three thousand miles away. For one thing, she doesn't have to eat iceberg lettuce and pot roast while she's reading Missy's painfully inept telegrams. For another, nobody calls her "Sissy" when she's in Australia or Europe or Central America. Missy likes to act like she's Carmen's mother, particularly now that their parents are both dead, but that ridiculous childhood nickname always reminds Carmen that Missy is only sixteen months older and could barely talk when Carmen was born.
Besides, she's not really sure what Missy's look meant. Do her niece and nephew know what she actually does, and was Missy giving them a reminder to go along with the polite fiction that Carmen works for-she almost snickers-a museum? Or was it the standard parental hint about making cordial conversation in front of guests?
Since Carmen has no idea where to begin with that minefield, she tries to stick as close to the truth as possible. "Yes, I was in Mexico City just before I flew to New York," she says, resisting the urge to pat her purse and make sure the Moustache is still safely in there. At least this is easier than the time she had to steal all those sheep from Wales and find a place to keep them wherever she went.
"We learned about Mexico in school," Billy says. He's already finished his salad and has moved on to the mashed potatoes and gravy. Still, he wipes his mouth and puts his napkin back in his lap-what kind of ten-year-old keeps his napkin in his lap?-before he asks, "What did you do there?"
"Oh, I had dinner with a friend," Carmen says. "And, uh, I went running."
This time Missy shoots Carmen a dirty look, which Carmen has no trouble reading. She stares back at her sister as Billy shoves all his food in his mouth. Lily's watching her in what she probably thinks is a sneaky manner, but she's what, eight? She's not very good at being sneaky yet, though Carmen thinks she might have potential. Missy alternates between pushing her lettuce around her plate and folding her hands together. Webb's attention is elsewhere; he spends half his time staring at his watch and the other half flicking through the business section of the newspaper. Every so often, he tips the antique mahogany dining chair on its back legs so he can crane his head and try to catch a glimpse of a ball game blaring from a TV in the sitting room.
As soon as Billy's plate is empty, even though Lily's is still mostly full, Missy says, "Billy, why don't you and your sister go tidy up your rooms before we eat dessert?"
Carmen is pretty sure that normal children would whine and complain about being told to clean their rooms, but instead her Stepford niece and nephew obediently get up from the table, put their folded napkins on their chairs, and head upstairs.
Once the kids are gone, Missy lets out a sigh and sets her own napkin down on the table. "For God's sake, Sissy, don't talk about your job with the kids."
"What?" Carmen asks. "You asked-I mean, you were the one who brought up my job in the first place."
"You know what I meant. I asked about your 'job.' Not your… you know, your job."
"Oh, get off it, Missy," Carmen says. "I don't hear you complaining about my job when I send Christmas gifts every year. How did Lily like that necklace, by the way?"
Missy crosses her arms over her chest. "How long are you planning to keep this up for?"
"Keep what up for?"
"This-what you're doing," Missy says. "This immature lifestyle. Running all over the world, pretending that you're some kind of fancy and successful person-"
"Hey, wait a second-"
"-when all you are is a thief."
Carmen takes a big gulp of wine before setting her glass down. She sneaks a glance at Webb, but he's doing a damn good job of pretending to read the stock reports and ignoring both of them. She looks down at her plate, not at her big sister. "That's all you think I am?"
Missy sighs. "What else am I supposed to think?" She rubs her eyes. "Look, Sissy, I know we agreed a long time ago that I need to be respectful of your choices-"
"Excuse me," Carmen cuts in, "but I believe that the agreement was to be respectful about each other's choices." She makes a heroic effort not to look pointedly at her sister's husband or her sister's emaciated size-two figure or the chairs where her sister's robotic children were sitting just a few minutes ago.
"But I'm worried about you," Missy says, ignoring Carmen's interjection. "What happens in a few years when you want a real life? You're going to want a home and a husband and a family and a real job, and it's going to be too late for any of that."
"I have a home," Carmen says, which is the first thing she can think of to refute her sister's argument. It's even true. She has a nice apartment in L.A. It has a bed in the bedroom and a sofa in the living room and textured wallpaper in a soft shade of peach. Or maybe it's purple. No, she's pretty sure it's peach. Whatever. It's great wallpaper, even if she doesn't spend that much time looking at it.
"And the other stuff?" Missy asks, looking steadily at Carmen. "Think about when you want to get out of the life-"
Carmen snickers aloud this time. "The life?"
Missy ignores her and goes on, "And you meet some nice guy and go out on a date and he asks what you do. Or where you used to live. What about when you have kids and you're trying to teach them that it's wrong to steal candy from a store?"
"Missy," Carmen says with a smirk, "when I go out on dates, we don't spend a lot of time talking about what I do for a living and where I live."
Missy rolls her eyes. "Jesus." She shoves her chair back from the table, picks up Carmen's plate, and carries it into the kitchen.
Carmen balls up her napkin and tosses it down on the table. She misses, and it bounces onto the floor. "Great to see you, Webb," she says to the back of her brother-in-law's head as he glances toward the TV again. "Always a pleasure."
She finds her sister in the front hallway, which Missy would probably call a foyer, shaking Carmen's wrap out of the closet. Missy extends it to her like she's holding a snake. "How nice of you to come by, Sissy," she says. "Maybe we'll do it again in another two years."
For a second, Carmen's mostly-empty stomach clenches. Missy is her only sister, and she hates to leave with this bad feeling between them, the way she always seems to. She remembers how she used to look up to her sister, who seemed so much older and braver and more confident than Carmen.
But the skinny, polished woman who kisses the air somewhere in Carmen's direction has very little in common with the big sister that Carmen remembers from childhood. "Think about what I said," she says as she opens the front door. "Think about what you've become."
"Yeah, thanks," Carmen says. "Maybe you should think about what the hell you've become, too."
The door slams behind her. She storms toward the car still parked down the street, grateful that she told the driver to wait and even more grateful that V.I.L.E. is picking up the tab for this little side trip.
Despite her anger at Missy, and her relief at the way Missy always makes it easy to go away angry, Carmen actually spends most of the long drive back to New York City thinking about her sister's words. Not the part about finding a husband and having children; that's a laugh. It's not like Missy's husband or children have much to recommend on the subject. No, she thinks about the other things her sister said, the ones that have a grain of truth.
This immature lifestyle-
Running all over the world-
It's going to be too late for any of that-
I'm worried about you.
Carmen loves her life. She loves what she does, what Missy would call her job. She still gets a thrill every time she lands in a new city, checks into a hotel, casually passes a tidbit to a fellow V.I.L.E. member. She can't imagine giving up any of that.
But she's been doing this for a long time, and she's tired. Will there be a day when she feels ready to step aside and let someone else take charge? What in the world is Carmen Sandiego supposed to do then?
When she gets back to the hotel, she goes straight to the bar. On the third gin and tonic she decides that, Plaza be damned, she has to get out of New York tonight. She makes an easy mental checklist of things she has to do: go upstairs, pack up her room, check to make sure the Moustache is still safely in her purse, call Gilbert, check out, get a cab to the airport.
Carmen finishes her drink, tosses down some cash, and gets on the elevator. For once she hardly notices the opulent surroundings, the mirrored walls caged in ornate brass. Instead she closes her eyes so she doesn't have to see a slice of her reflection and wills the fourteen floors to go quickly.
* * *Copenhagen, Denmark
Friday
As it turns out, the only flight that Gilbert can get on such short notice is a commercial jet to Copenhagen. Neither of those things is her favorite, but on the plus side, Carmen doesn't have any ex-boyfriends or employees or sisters in Copenhagen. She wants to be alone. There's a seat in first class, at least, and since it's too late for a meal to be served, she orders a glass of red wine and passes out under the soft blankets before she can take a sip.
When she lands in Denmark, she hails a cab and asks for the nearest hotel, not caring about its star rating or amenities at all. She goes over the entire room looking for bugs, then calls Headquarters. The Chief isn't in, which is good; Carmen suspects that he isn't going to be happy about her abrupt change in plans. To make up for it, she spends the afternoon drafting a new itinerary and dispersing instructions. She assigns some of her henchmen to head out as decoys-the most important one is Merey LaRoc, who looks so much like Carmen that she's confused those ACME agents more than once. She changes Merey's assignment from Karachi to Washington, D.C., hoping that the agent will think Carmen is still in the country. Sarah Nade is still in Oslo-she was supposed to make a break for Port Moresby today-but Carmen tells her to stay put. She doesn't look anything like Sarah, but she's not taking any chances.
Once she's finished, there's not much else to do but brood. Carmen throws herself down on the bed fully clothed and falls asleep, hoping to dream off the booming headache that's been building ever since she got in that cab to Westchester yesterday evening. It doesn't really work. Her dreams are a circle of Missy scolding Carmen, Carmen scolding Merey, and the Chief scolding them all.
She wakes up several hours later, so late that the evening shadows are already striping the ceiling above the windows. She gathers herself up-red coat, red hat, red purse-and goes out to get something to eat. Carmen has never been a fan of Danish cuisine, if it can even be called cuisine, so she doesn't bother to look for a fancy restaurant. She ends up eating some kind of pickled meat-two other things that she doesn't much like-from a little place where the waiter blinks in surprise at her handful of 500-kroner banknotes.
It's too late to do any sightseeing, so Carmen decides to just wander around. The air is damp and cold by the time she makes her way to the Langelinie promenade, which is famous for the statue of the Little Mermaid. Carmen stands on the pier and gazes at the mermaid gazing at her. Recently, she read in the New York newspapers, someone tried to hack off the statue's head. They didn't succeed, but even from here, Carmen can see the deep cut in the Little Mermaid's neck.
It's been a long time since anyone read her the story of the Little Mermaid, but Carmen more or less remembers the details. She can very clearly imagine how that poor girl must have felt: paying a price to get something she loved, then choosing to give it all up, even at great cost. Now she lives only in bronze, her expression eternally pensive. As she gazes at the Mermaid's smooth face, Carmen realizes that she feels no desire to steal the statue, and it has nothing to do with the Moustache that's still heavy in her purse.
Her face is wet-from the mist coming off the harbor, she assumes.
But that's her excuse for why she doesn't see the uniformed police officers coming for her, or the group of ACME sleuths who close in from all sides.
* * *This time there is no first class. No champagne, no blankets, no bacon-wrapped scallops. There are handcuffs and ACME agents looking smugly delighted and a cacophony of phone calls being made from the local police station where they dragged her. All around her, ACME agents are blathering away in twenty different languages and the only words that Carmen understands are her own name.
There is a private jet, at least. Carmen is surprised to see that it doesn't look very different from the V.I.L.E. private jets. The police handcuff her to a middle seat with an ACME agent on either side of her, which seems like overkill to Carmen. She's a little insulted, actually. Are these two young agents so incompetent that they need to handcuff a woman to keep her from escaping at 35,000 feet in the air? And these are the people who managed to catch the famous Carmen Sandiego?
It's a long flight back to San Francisco, perfect for brooding and dozing, but Carmen's done too much of that over the last few days. Instead, she's surprised to find that she's angry. Without her sleep mask and white noise track, it's impossible to ignore the ACME agents, all of whom are talking about her as if she isn't even there.
"Did you send the new evidence into Headquarters?"
"That business card she dropped in the Plaza? Yeah. I Expressed it to San Francisco yesterday-no, that was earlier today."
"How about that conversation with the boyfriend in Portugal, huh?"
"Oh yeah, we catalogued that one days ago. We had to send it in to Warren to get the warrant."
"Hey, did you see the map that we found in Sydney? Can you believe she lost that so early in the run?"
"So much for the great villain."
Carmen sits perfectly still, her wrists firmly bolted to the arms of her seat, her face flaming. She's not sure if it has to do with being the subject of so many conversations or not being allowed to go to the bathroom by herself, but still, it replaces the twist in her stomach with fire.
How dare they eavesdrop on her conversations with Antonio and Annie?
How dare they sic the Danish police on her?
How dare they mishandle the Moustache of the Pharaoh with their bare hands, shoving it in a flimsy box in the cargo hold of the jet?
How dare they handcuff Carmen Sandiego?
She is not a common criminal. She is not just a thief. She is the lead operative for V.I.L.E., and no wet-behind-the-ears ACME agent-even a dozen of them-is going to make her forget that.
By the time they land in San Francisco, where ACME Headquarters are located, Carmen's not sure she has a job anymore, but her anger at the ACME agents is white-hot. It's one of her favorite feelings.
* * *San Francisco, U.S.A.
Monday
The trial is a blur. There are plenty of people in the courtroom, casting sidelong looks at her and gossiping among themselves even as the judge bangs his gavel for "order in the court." Carmen stares straight ahead and ignores them all. They came to get a look at Carmen Sandiego, to try to judge whether she's better or worse than her reputation makes her out to be, but Carmen doesn't care what they think of her. She knows who she is, and she isn't here for them.
She repeats that over and over in her head as the judge announces, "The court finds the defendant guilty."
* * *It's getting close.
Carmen sits on the floor in her cell, eyes closed, waiting for her sentencing hearing. She tries to block out the echoing clangs from outside the cell, the hollow pounding of footsteps up and down the hall. The unfamiliar smells, the damp cold of the cinderblocks-none of it seems real to her. This isn't her life.
The buzzer at the end of the hall echoes, and she's not surprised when the footsteps and the clink of keys stop in front of her cell. She opens her eyes and squints a bit as the door swings open for the first time since she was permitted yard privileges eight hours ago. There are two people there. The guard is standing in front, blocking the man behind him, and at first Carmen wonders whether it's her attorney. Then the guard nods and walks away, and the only person left standing in her doorway is the Chief.
It's time.
He walks into the cell like he's done this a thousand times before, which maybe he has. "Come along, kid," he says. "You're getting out of here."
She doesn't move right away. "Are you kidding?" she asks.
"Of course not." He scowls and glances at his watch impatiently. "Come on, we don't have all day. Let's go."
Carmen gets to her feet, a little unsteadily. "I screwed up this time," she says, the closest she's willing to come to an apology. "I'm sorry. I got distracted, and I… I was just off my game."
The Chief studies her for a long moment, and Carmen looks away. She always feels like a child next to this Chief. He's probably not that much older than she is, but his hair and moustache are completely white and he has a proper, precise way of speaking. It doesn't help that he never uses her name, just "kid." But then again, what else would he call her? It's not like Carmen Sandiego is her real name.
He crosses his arms and shrugs. "You'll do better next time, kid," he says. "This group of agents was excellent. They made a good show. You should be proud of how far V.I.L.E. took them."
The Chief probably doesn't mean it that way, but Carmen hears a subtle rebuke in his voice. It's not all about her. She thinks of the rest of V.I.L.E., of Annie, Bjorn, Li, Nick, and all the rest. She thinks of the miles they've flown and driven and run, with ACME agents in hot pursuit every step of the way. She closes her eyes again. She's tired, and the day of sitting alone in maximum security following her trial hasn't done much for her.
"Kid," the Chief says impatiently. "Talk to me. What's going on? You need a sabbatical? We can get someone else to lead V.I.L.E."
She supposes that he means it as a nice offer, but that seems like a rebuke too.
"You've been an example to us all," he says, his voice softer. "You've been running hard for, what is it, five years now? If you need a break, we can arrange that."
She thinks of Antonio, of her sister. Of the lives that they would choose for her, if it were up to them. They'd be easier in some ways. She tries to imagine an adventurous Carmen Sandiego hacking her way through the Amazon rainforest, or a suburban Carmen Sandiego raising small children in a sterile mansion outside of New York City. But she can no more imagine those lives than she can imagine the Chief calling her by her real name. For better or worse, this is who she is. She knows.
Besides, who would they put in charge instead? Scar? Irma? Forget that. This is Carmen Sandiego's gig, the way it's always been.
So she opens her eyes and takes a deep breath, meeting his gaze directly. "No way, Chief," she says. It occurs to her that she doesn't know his real name either. They all call him Chief, both the ACME agents and the V.I.L.E. team.
She wants to say something else, wants to tell him about the other Carmen Sandiegos and the lives she knows she'll never live, but he doesn't really care. She knows that. He's not one of those bosses who sends out holiday cards or hosts team-building exercises at ACME's corporate retreat on Point Reyes. This is business; this is her job. She knew it when she signed up, and it's her job to get back in the field right now.
Instead, she says, "I'm in."
The Chief lets out a deep breath, and she wonders if he's relieved. If he thought she'd really take him up on his offer of a sabbatical. "Good show, kid," he says, shaking her hand. He heads for the door. "Come along, the car's out front."
For a stocky man, his strides are long, and Carmen has to half-run to keep up with him as they head down the hall. "Tell me about ACME's new recruits," she says. "Any good ones?"
He snorts a little. "Not at all," he says dismissively. "They're all gumshoes at the start, you know. You have your work cut out for you." He loosens his tie and pulls his ever-present notepad out of the pocket of his vest. "Now, I think we should send Robin out first. How does that sound? He can steal the 96th Thesis."
Carmen laughs a little. Robin isn't going to like being up first; he never does. He says the early cases are boring, all travel, no play, no time to hit the Alps for a little climbing. He'll complain to both her and the Chief, but he won't really mean it. None of them do. Just like Carmen Sandiego, all the others have chosen this life. And it is an amazing life. Beneath the veneer of frequent flyer miles and private jets and opulent hotels and fancy technology, what they do matters.
She doesn't say any of that to the Chief, either, although she thinks that if she did, he would understand. He leads her out the front door, and as they step outside into the bright San Francisco sunshine, Carmen Sandiego says, "Let's go."
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