FIC: She Put the 'Miss' in Misdemeanour [Carmen Sandiego], G
Title: She Put in the 'Miss' in Misdemeanour
Author: rose_whispers
Fandom: Carmen Sandiego
Rating: G
Warnings: You might get a certain theme song stuck in your head...
Prompt: 39) Everyone thought I was bold and fearless and even arrogant, but inside I was always quaking. -- Katharine Hepburn.
Summary: "You should know that you're not the first intrepid reporter to approach me about an interview. You're just the first one I've agreed to." Thanks to my beta thescarletwoman and to gehayi for continuing to run this wonderful fest. It always bring out things in me that I never expected!
A smoky saxophone melody insinuates itself into the small office. Or is the atmosphere just making you imagine it? The air is smoky too, due to the lit cigarette resting in a marble ashtray that looks oddly familiar-- didn't you see that thing in a picture of Ronald Reagan? The windows, or what can be seen of them behind the crooked, dusty venetian blinds, are filmed over with grime. A ceiling fan grinds in slow circles, beating out a rhythm to accompany the sax while it pushes tepid air from one side of the room to the other. The furniture is thirty years out of date, ratty and covered in a layer of God knows what.
From out of nowhere, a woman appears. She is slim, though her flared carmine dress is covered with a stylish ruby trench coat. The brown fedora that shadows most of her face from view sports a matching ruby stripe. Her lips are the same glistening red, and her auburn hair cascades down her back, more full of body and bounce than Pamela Anderson on a trampoline. It's no secret what this woman's favourite colour is. Her stilettos click against the cracked beige tile, and she runs her black-gloved fingers over the back of the squeaky office chair. Her full lips, which suggest that her face is attractive, quirk into an insidious smile.
"Well, well," she says, finally deigning to turn in your direction. "I wondered when you would show up. You should know that you're not the first intrepid reporter to approach me about an interview. You're just the first one I've agreed to. I'm not sure why-- maybe because you promised you wouldn't interfere or ask questions, or record or take notes. Or maybe I like the challenge of letting you into my world for a day or two. After all, I might have put the 'miss' in misdemeanour when I stole the beans from Lima, but that was a long time ago, and I've moved on to far more interesting projects since."
Her voice is husky, confident. She wanders around the room, disturbing little poofs of dust with each footfall. You wonder if this office has been used in the last decade. "Look, not everyone is cut out to be the good guy. At the end of the day, being good just isn't any fun. You trail the same old scum around, stopping petty jewel heists and minor assassination attempts. It's a yawn, especially when the art thieves you catch every day are so damned... artless. No one puts effort into their schemes the way you find yourself putting effort into their captures. No one tries to be spectacular anymore. No one does it for the thrill."
She shakes her head, resting one hand on her hip and you catch a flash of her blue eyes from under the brim of her fedora. "I'm going to have to blindfold you now. Can't have too many of our secrets given away." Before you can object she ties a delicate silk scarf around your head, and it blocks out your vision entirely. "Yes, it's stolen," she says in response to your unanswered question. "But it works well. After all, it's kept Justice blind all these years." You catch a whiff of her perfume-- you've heard she bathes in Cleopatra's milk-- and before you can ask her any questions you feel the floor beneath you lurch and you and your chair are plummeting straight down. Your stomach cartwheels and you grip the flimsy metal armrests for dear life. It's not until she speaks again that you realise she's somehow made the descent with you.
"Not bad," she says. "I thought you might throw up, but you proved me wrong. Now just you sit there a second," and you can hear her manicured fingernails clicking against something that you guess must be a control panel because with a shudder, you're moving forward at an alarming pace.
"The good thing about governments that build new subway systems is that they abandon the old ones," she tells you. It occurs to you for the first time just how suicidal this plan of yours was, Pullitzer be damned. You're blindfolded and you lost track five turns back of the right-left-left-down-right-loop-de-loop pattern you're following. You picture the little trolley tracks in Indiana Jones or Harry Potter, envisioning yourself on something similar.
But without Carmen, you won't be getting out. Carmen. You can feel her standing next to you, her trench coat rippling in the winds created by the high speed of the contraption you're riding. She's enigmatic, this one. You can't be sure how old she is, and none of your contacts at ACME would tell you either. You decide to damn the torpedoes and plunge right in.
"I talked to to Julia Argent. She's the one who put me onto your trail," you shout into the wind, even as you feel yourself descending ever deeper into a pit in the earth. Your stomach drops.
"Ah, Jules," the woman next to you purrs. "Yes, she's a bit on the loudmouthed side, isn't she?"
"She was your partner."
"I've not forgotten that." Exasperation in her voice.
"She was also your best friend, and she blames herself for your... shall we say ignominious departure from ACME and the right side of the law?"
A rich chuckle. It might even be sexy if you weren't fearing for your life. "She might just be right about that, in the short run at least. But my schemes are much, much larger than the petty trials and tribulations of one Jules Argent, no matter how close we might once have been."
"And how close were you, really?"
You feel lips against your ear, and you can't suppress a shiver. "Closer than you'd ever think, intrepid reporter." And before you realise what's happening, the ride is over and you jolt to a halt. You have no idea how far from your starting point you are, only that you're very, very deep under the planet's surface.
She removes the blindfold and you are dazzled by what you see. You are on the edge of a precipice, a great crater buried within the earth itself. Below you is the lair of Carmen Sandiego. "The headquarters of--"
"V.I.L.E." She finishes your sentence with a mysterious smile. "This is where the magic happens."
"The felonies, you mean." You're not really paying attention to your own words. You're too overwhelmed by what lies before you. The concave walls that dip dangerously downward are covered with maps, screens, and surveillance of all kinds. The CIA has nothing on this. ACME doesn't come close. The walls are a deep slate grey, giving it the air of a giant laboratory, and you wonder for a moment if you're really looking down into a massive maze for rats.
As if on cue, the infamous Wonder Rat appears on a lift without a walls, a small platform that raises directly out of the lair's floor and arrives next to you. Carmen steps on, sparing a nod but not a smile to her subordinate. You follow suit, and the lift descends smoothly to the ground floor.
"The Rat of Steel," you say, and the Rat twitches his whiskers at you. "Reporter scum. Mistress, I have the plans you requested."
She tilts her fedora toward you, and then back to the Rat. "Show me."
"In front of the intruder?" A paw swipes at a pointy nose.
"Do it." You all step off the lift, and you gaze around at the people. Vic the Slick is sitting with his feet up on the desk, shooting the breeze with Eartha Brute. He looks almost like a child next to the weight-lifter's excess bulk of pure muscle. She is squeezing something in her hand. At first you think it's a stress ball, but as you squint for a closer look you see that it's a piece of granite. Absently, she picks up a second piece of solid rock and begins to chew it. With her teeth. You sense Carmen watching them with you, but she doesn't comment.
Across the cavernous lair, you see what looks suspiciously like Edvard Munsch's "The Scream" on a wall next to... a geyser? She has Old Faithful? You hadn't even heard it had been nicked. You stare, until Carmen's gloved hand rests on your shoulder.
"This way, please," she says. The perfect hostess. You do as she requests, mostly because you don't have any other choice.
She touches a control panel on what looks like an ordinary office desk, and two huge panels on the opposite wall part, rolling away from each other and showing the largest screen you've ever seen. This thing puts IMAX to shame. She taps another button, and the screen snaps to life, displaying a most recognisable landmark.
"The CN Tower," she says with relish. She doesn't speak loudly but her tone is imbued with confidence and professional glee. "The world's second tallest tower."
"I thought it was the tallest tower," you say, following its upward steeple where it pierces the smog in downtown Toronto, Canada.
"Emphasis on 'was'," she agrees. "Burj Dubai has trumped it. So this..." she runs a hand through her luxurious hair, "is practice."
"Oh my."
She works the control panel expertly. It seems she is a pro at everything. "Let's see what they've come up with." A list of bullet points appears next to the image of the Tower. You hear a growl of disappointment from under the fedora's brim. "Vic," she says, not raising her voice any. Somehow, the greasy little conman across the room hears her and jumps up, rushing to her side.
"Ma'am?"
"Are you responsible for that atrocity?" She points at a line of text on the screen. The Slick cackles nervously.
"Maybe I is. Maybe I isn't. Is it bad?"
"'Don't be a Cre-Tin'? What in the world is that supposed to mean?" The displeasure is evident in her tone and the purse of her lips.
"It sort of sounds like CN," he explains. "Cre-Tin, C-N?"
"Imbecile." She takes one step forward, and he leaps back, cowering. You wonder what she does when she is displeased. "You're off this assignment."
"What? No! I can do better, I swear."
"You're inactive for a month," she says smoothly, angrily. "If you cannot come up with the simplest pun with which to taunt ACME, you are of no use to me in a caper. Patty! Robocrook!"
Two more of her minions come to her side, Robocrook with a Terminator-like straight-kneed march, Patty Larceny with a teenaged slouch. You notice that while the crooks are chatting in a friendly manner amongst themselves, no one has yet approached Carmen unless summoned.
"Do not worry," Robocrook chimes mechanically, "You do not have Tower-ettes Syndrome. We have your Tower."
"Tower-ettes..." You catch a flash of bright hot anger from beneath the brim of Carmen's fedora. "Is that the best you can do?" Her voice drops until it is barely audible, a whisper of ice. "Is that the best any of you can do? Get out of my sight. You're on probation."
"What is it that you're doing?" you venture to break the frigid silence. "Why are you--?"
"We do this to show ACME that we're better than they are," Carmen drawls. "We leave them clues to indicate that we don't believe they would ever be able to find us otherwise. And we leave them in clever puns." She slams her fist against the nearest desk, the sound reverberating violently around the concave lair. No one moves. No one breathes. "That is, if we can even think of something clever. If we even have a brain in our heads in order to prove that we are better than our competition."
Her disappointment blankets them all. No one can think of a thing to say. She walks away, stilettos clicking, perfectly coordinated wardrobe flowing around her fit form, perfect hair flouncing over her shoulders. She is so in control, and yet...
You follow her after a few moments, after you've found your breath. She is standing ramrod straight, arms folded across her chest and chin tilted defiantly. She is surveying her people. And as you get closer, you see that she is also trembling. Ever so slightly, and you know that no one else in the room can see it, but it's there.
"How can I do my job if I don't have their support?" she hisses. "How can I be me?"
You swallow, and after two pulse beats you say, "How about 'We'll be C-N you'?"
She swivels toward you, stilling. "What did you say?"
"Like a pun. Seein', only, 'We'll be C-N you'?" You're inexplicably nervous under her invisible gaze.
"That," she murmurs, "isn't bad. Got another one?"
"Don't get caught with C-Nis envy?" Where the hell did that come from?
And she laughs. A deep, throaty laugh. "Intrepid Reporter," she says, an undertone of appreciation in her voice. "You already have the perfect villain nickname. Step into my private office, we have a lot to talk about."
She's back in control and somehow she's just made you feel like a million bucks. No wonder she can take you for a ride on a slow boat to China...
Fin
Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?
Well she sneaks around the world from Kiev to Carolina,
She's a sticky-fingered filcher from Berlin down to Belize,
She'll take you for a ride on a slow boat to China,
Tell me where in the world is Carmen Sandiego?
Steal their Seoul in South Korea, make Antarctica cry Uncle,
From the Red Sea to Greenland they'll be singing the blues,
Well they never Arkansas her steal the Mekong from the jungle,
Tell me where in the world is Carmen Sandiego?
She go from Nashville to Norway, Bonaire to Zimbabwe,
Chicago to Czechoslovakia and back!
Well she'll ransack Pakistan and run a scam in Scandinavia,
Then she'll stick 'em up Down Under and go pick-pocket Perth,
She put the Miss in misdemeanor when she stole the beans from Lima,
Tell me where in the world is Carmen Sandiego?
Oh tell me where in the world is... Oh tell me where can she be?
Ooh, Botswana to Thailand, Milan via Amsterdam,
Mali to Bali, Ohio, Oahu...!
Well she glides around the globe and she'll flimflam every nation,
She's a double-dealing diva with a taste for thievery,
Her itinerary's loaded up with moving violations,
Tell me where in the world is Carmen Sandiego?
-- Rockapella
Author: rose_whispers
Fandom: Carmen Sandiego
Rating: G
Warnings: You might get a certain theme song stuck in your head...
Prompt: 39) Everyone thought I was bold and fearless and even arrogant, but inside I was always quaking. -- Katharine Hepburn.
Summary: "You should know that you're not the first intrepid reporter to approach me about an interview. You're just the first one I've agreed to." Thanks to my beta thescarletwoman and to gehayi for continuing to run this wonderful fest. It always bring out things in me that I never expected!
A smoky saxophone melody insinuates itself into the small office. Or is the atmosphere just making you imagine it? The air is smoky too, due to the lit cigarette resting in a marble ashtray that looks oddly familiar-- didn't you see that thing in a picture of Ronald Reagan? The windows, or what can be seen of them behind the crooked, dusty venetian blinds, are filmed over with grime. A ceiling fan grinds in slow circles, beating out a rhythm to accompany the sax while it pushes tepid air from one side of the room to the other. The furniture is thirty years out of date, ratty and covered in a layer of God knows what.
From out of nowhere, a woman appears. She is slim, though her flared carmine dress is covered with a stylish ruby trench coat. The brown fedora that shadows most of her face from view sports a matching ruby stripe. Her lips are the same glistening red, and her auburn hair cascades down her back, more full of body and bounce than Pamela Anderson on a trampoline. It's no secret what this woman's favourite colour is. Her stilettos click against the cracked beige tile, and she runs her black-gloved fingers over the back of the squeaky office chair. Her full lips, which suggest that her face is attractive, quirk into an insidious smile.
"Well, well," she says, finally deigning to turn in your direction. "I wondered when you would show up. You should know that you're not the first intrepid reporter to approach me about an interview. You're just the first one I've agreed to. I'm not sure why-- maybe because you promised you wouldn't interfere or ask questions, or record or take notes. Or maybe I like the challenge of letting you into my world for a day or two. After all, I might have put the 'miss' in misdemeanour when I stole the beans from Lima, but that was a long time ago, and I've moved on to far more interesting projects since."
Her voice is husky, confident. She wanders around the room, disturbing little poofs of dust with each footfall. You wonder if this office has been used in the last decade. "Look, not everyone is cut out to be the good guy. At the end of the day, being good just isn't any fun. You trail the same old scum around, stopping petty jewel heists and minor assassination attempts. It's a yawn, especially when the art thieves you catch every day are so damned... artless. No one puts effort into their schemes the way you find yourself putting effort into their captures. No one tries to be spectacular anymore. No one does it for the thrill."
She shakes her head, resting one hand on her hip and you catch a flash of her blue eyes from under the brim of her fedora. "I'm going to have to blindfold you now. Can't have too many of our secrets given away." Before you can object she ties a delicate silk scarf around your head, and it blocks out your vision entirely. "Yes, it's stolen," she says in response to your unanswered question. "But it works well. After all, it's kept Justice blind all these years." You catch a whiff of her perfume-- you've heard she bathes in Cleopatra's milk-- and before you can ask her any questions you feel the floor beneath you lurch and you and your chair are plummeting straight down. Your stomach cartwheels and you grip the flimsy metal armrests for dear life. It's not until she speaks again that you realise she's somehow made the descent with you.
"Not bad," she says. "I thought you might throw up, but you proved me wrong. Now just you sit there a second," and you can hear her manicured fingernails clicking against something that you guess must be a control panel because with a shudder, you're moving forward at an alarming pace.
"The good thing about governments that build new subway systems is that they abandon the old ones," she tells you. It occurs to you for the first time just how suicidal this plan of yours was, Pullitzer be damned. You're blindfolded and you lost track five turns back of the right-left-left-down-right-loop-de-loop pattern you're following. You picture the little trolley tracks in Indiana Jones or Harry Potter, envisioning yourself on something similar.
But without Carmen, you won't be getting out. Carmen. You can feel her standing next to you, her trench coat rippling in the winds created by the high speed of the contraption you're riding. She's enigmatic, this one. You can't be sure how old she is, and none of your contacts at ACME would tell you either. You decide to damn the torpedoes and plunge right in.
"I talked to to Julia Argent. She's the one who put me onto your trail," you shout into the wind, even as you feel yourself descending ever deeper into a pit in the earth. Your stomach drops.
"Ah, Jules," the woman next to you purrs. "Yes, she's a bit on the loudmouthed side, isn't she?"
"She was your partner."
"I've not forgotten that." Exasperation in her voice.
"She was also your best friend, and she blames herself for your... shall we say ignominious departure from ACME and the right side of the law?"
A rich chuckle. It might even be sexy if you weren't fearing for your life. "She might just be right about that, in the short run at least. But my schemes are much, much larger than the petty trials and tribulations of one Jules Argent, no matter how close we might once have been."
"And how close were you, really?"
You feel lips against your ear, and you can't suppress a shiver. "Closer than you'd ever think, intrepid reporter." And before you realise what's happening, the ride is over and you jolt to a halt. You have no idea how far from your starting point you are, only that you're very, very deep under the planet's surface.
She removes the blindfold and you are dazzled by what you see. You are on the edge of a precipice, a great crater buried within the earth itself. Below you is the lair of Carmen Sandiego. "The headquarters of--"
"V.I.L.E." She finishes your sentence with a mysterious smile. "This is where the magic happens."
"The felonies, you mean." You're not really paying attention to your own words. You're too overwhelmed by what lies before you. The concave walls that dip dangerously downward are covered with maps, screens, and surveillance of all kinds. The CIA has nothing on this. ACME doesn't come close. The walls are a deep slate grey, giving it the air of a giant laboratory, and you wonder for a moment if you're really looking down into a massive maze for rats.
As if on cue, the infamous Wonder Rat appears on a lift without a walls, a small platform that raises directly out of the lair's floor and arrives next to you. Carmen steps on, sparing a nod but not a smile to her subordinate. You follow suit, and the lift descends smoothly to the ground floor.
"The Rat of Steel," you say, and the Rat twitches his whiskers at you. "Reporter scum. Mistress, I have the plans you requested."
She tilts her fedora toward you, and then back to the Rat. "Show me."
"In front of the intruder?" A paw swipes at a pointy nose.
"Do it." You all step off the lift, and you gaze around at the people. Vic the Slick is sitting with his feet up on the desk, shooting the breeze with Eartha Brute. He looks almost like a child next to the weight-lifter's excess bulk of pure muscle. She is squeezing something in her hand. At first you think it's a stress ball, but as you squint for a closer look you see that it's a piece of granite. Absently, she picks up a second piece of solid rock and begins to chew it. With her teeth. You sense Carmen watching them with you, but she doesn't comment.
Across the cavernous lair, you see what looks suspiciously like Edvard Munsch's "The Scream" on a wall next to... a geyser? She has Old Faithful? You hadn't even heard it had been nicked. You stare, until Carmen's gloved hand rests on your shoulder.
"This way, please," she says. The perfect hostess. You do as she requests, mostly because you don't have any other choice.
She touches a control panel on what looks like an ordinary office desk, and two huge panels on the opposite wall part, rolling away from each other and showing the largest screen you've ever seen. This thing puts IMAX to shame. She taps another button, and the screen snaps to life, displaying a most recognisable landmark.
"The CN Tower," she says with relish. She doesn't speak loudly but her tone is imbued with confidence and professional glee. "The world's second tallest tower."
"I thought it was the tallest tower," you say, following its upward steeple where it pierces the smog in downtown Toronto, Canada.
"Emphasis on 'was'," she agrees. "Burj Dubai has trumped it. So this..." she runs a hand through her luxurious hair, "is practice."
"Oh my."
She works the control panel expertly. It seems she is a pro at everything. "Let's see what they've come up with." A list of bullet points appears next to the image of the Tower. You hear a growl of disappointment from under the fedora's brim. "Vic," she says, not raising her voice any. Somehow, the greasy little conman across the room hears her and jumps up, rushing to her side.
"Ma'am?"
"Are you responsible for that atrocity?" She points at a line of text on the screen. The Slick cackles nervously.
"Maybe I is. Maybe I isn't. Is it bad?"
"'Don't be a Cre-Tin'? What in the world is that supposed to mean?" The displeasure is evident in her tone and the purse of her lips.
"It sort of sounds like CN," he explains. "Cre-Tin, C-N?"
"Imbecile." She takes one step forward, and he leaps back, cowering. You wonder what she does when she is displeased. "You're off this assignment."
"What? No! I can do better, I swear."
"You're inactive for a month," she says smoothly, angrily. "If you cannot come up with the simplest pun with which to taunt ACME, you are of no use to me in a caper. Patty! Robocrook!"
Two more of her minions come to her side, Robocrook with a Terminator-like straight-kneed march, Patty Larceny with a teenaged slouch. You notice that while the crooks are chatting in a friendly manner amongst themselves, no one has yet approached Carmen unless summoned.
"Do not worry," Robocrook chimes mechanically, "You do not have Tower-ettes Syndrome. We have your Tower."
"Tower-ettes..." You catch a flash of bright hot anger from beneath the brim of Carmen's fedora. "Is that the best you can do?" Her voice drops until it is barely audible, a whisper of ice. "Is that the best any of you can do? Get out of my sight. You're on probation."
"What is it that you're doing?" you venture to break the frigid silence. "Why are you--?"
"We do this to show ACME that we're better than they are," Carmen drawls. "We leave them clues to indicate that we don't believe they would ever be able to find us otherwise. And we leave them in clever puns." She slams her fist against the nearest desk, the sound reverberating violently around the concave lair. No one moves. No one breathes. "That is, if we can even think of something clever. If we even have a brain in our heads in order to prove that we are better than our competition."
Her disappointment blankets them all. No one can think of a thing to say. She walks away, stilettos clicking, perfectly coordinated wardrobe flowing around her fit form, perfect hair flouncing over her shoulders. She is so in control, and yet...
You follow her after a few moments, after you've found your breath. She is standing ramrod straight, arms folded across her chest and chin tilted defiantly. She is surveying her people. And as you get closer, you see that she is also trembling. Ever so slightly, and you know that no one else in the room can see it, but it's there.
"How can I do my job if I don't have their support?" she hisses. "How can I be me?"
You swallow, and after two pulse beats you say, "How about 'We'll be C-N you'?"
She swivels toward you, stilling. "What did you say?"
"Like a pun. Seein', only, 'We'll be C-N you'?" You're inexplicably nervous under her invisible gaze.
"That," she murmurs, "isn't bad. Got another one?"
"Don't get caught with C-Nis envy?" Where the hell did that come from?
And she laughs. A deep, throaty laugh. "Intrepid Reporter," she says, an undertone of appreciation in her voice. "You already have the perfect villain nickname. Step into my private office, we have a lot to talk about."
She's back in control and somehow she's just made you feel like a million bucks. No wonder she can take you for a ride on a slow boat to China...
Fin
Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?
Well she sneaks around the world from Kiev to Carolina,
She's a sticky-fingered filcher from Berlin down to Belize,
She'll take you for a ride on a slow boat to China,
Tell me where in the world is Carmen Sandiego?
Steal their Seoul in South Korea, make Antarctica cry Uncle,
From the Red Sea to Greenland they'll be singing the blues,
Well they never Arkansas her steal the Mekong from the jungle,
Tell me where in the world is Carmen Sandiego?
She go from Nashville to Norway, Bonaire to Zimbabwe,
Chicago to Czechoslovakia and back!
Well she'll ransack Pakistan and run a scam in Scandinavia,
Then she'll stick 'em up Down Under and go pick-pocket Perth,
She put the Miss in misdemeanor when she stole the beans from Lima,
Tell me where in the world is Carmen Sandiego?
Oh tell me where in the world is... Oh tell me where can she be?
Ooh, Botswana to Thailand, Milan via Amsterdam,
Mali to Bali, Ohio, Oahu...!
Well she glides around the globe and she'll flimflam every nation,
She's a double-dealing diva with a taste for thievery,
Her itinerary's loaded up with moving violations,
Tell me where in the world is Carmen Sandiego?
-- Rockapella