*These are a few chapters from my fanfiction of the Carmen Sandiego reboot on Netflix. You can find the rest on my page under "Shades of Gray".*364Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRzndLiYuxG
Chapter 1 -- Gray
As the young woman slipped out of her car, she noticed that the front window was open, ever so slightly. Her roommate wasn't home yet; classes weren't over for another hour, and besides, she had closed that window that morning. She slowly slid her key into the lock and opened the door wide. Someone gasped. A boy, no more than nineteen or twenty, stood in the middle of the room. His face was concealed in shadow, but his body was clad in black jeans, a t-shirt, and a jean jacket.
"Who are you? What are you doing in my house?" the woman demanded.
"I... I don't know," the boy said in an Australian accent. Suddenly he clutched his head. He dropped to his hands and knees, his legs buckling beneath him. Sweat beaded on his forehead and dripped onto the carpet. A sapphire necklace slid out of his breast pocket. The woman inhaled sharply.
"I'm calling the police."
The boy was panting, unable to escape the terror that gripped him like a vice. The police came and placed him in the back of their cruiser, but he didn't fight. When the police asked him questions about who he was, he gave them the same answer.
"My name is Graham Calloway. I have no idea why I was in that house. Before that, I don't remember."
Chapter 2 -- Carmen
"Okay, Player, what have you got for me?" The girl was tall, but she was only eighteen. She had a phone in her hand, but she wasn't on a call. She was the only one who could hear the voice that issued from her small jeweled earring.
"Well, Red, it looks like we have a hit on the Louvre in Paris, something on an emerald mining operation in Colombia, an- Oh my- Carmen, open up your laptop."
Carmen Sandiego walked over to the bench closest to her and sat down, pulling out a slender, scarlet-colored laptop. When she opened it and the screen booted up, a young teen boy stared back at her.
"Okay, Player, what are you going to show me? If it's about that sleeper operative in the Alps, I thought we agreed he was-"
"It's Crackle." The screen changed from Player to a teen in a jail cell.
"What?" Carmen gripped the laptop. "No. I thought he was one of the good guys now."
"Maybe. This is on the security feed in a cell in Reykjavík. Iceland has one of the lowest crime rates in the world, so maybe Crackle was picked up for littering or something harmless like that."
Carmen sighed. "Maybe, Player. But Gray was off the grid for two weeks. What's to say V.I.L.E. didn't get him? You know as well as I do Dr. Bellum loves her mind-control experiments.”
She closed the laptop and stood up. “Player, book me a flight.”
She heard a sigh. “Way ahead of you, Red. Zach, Ivy, and Shadowsan are already on their way. They’ll meet you in front of Hallgrimskirkja church. It’s not too far from the prison.” Player paused. “One question, though. Won’t A.C.M.E., the LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCY that still doesn't trust you entirely, think you've been playing them? I mean, we both know that you're going to break him out. And what if Gray defected to the Green Side, and he got caught trying to rob someone's house?"
"I don't know, Player, but I have to try getting him back. Somehow."
She looked up at the statue of Christ the Redeemer. Carmen had had to change her signature red trench coat and fedora for more common street clothes in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, so she knew she didn't stand out in a red striped t-shirt tucked into her favorite jean shorts.
As she looked down at the favelas and, beyond that, Copacabana beach, her mind plotted the quickest route to the airport from the top of the mountain. She could walk down, like the millions of tourists who have visited the statue, or...
She climbed up onto the railing. And she jumped.
Chapter 5 -- Gray
“Graham Calloway, there is someone here to see you.” The jailer on duty turned towards the shadow on the wall. “Ég verð í afgreiðslunni. Komdu bara út eins og við komum inn þegar þú ert búinn að tala við fangann.”
The shadow on the wall raised a hand. “Þakka þér fyrir herra. Það er vel þegið. Bróðir minn, honum gengur ekki vel að vera einn.”
The jailer walked out and the large solid steel door clanged shut behind him. Graham flinched. The shadow walked towards him. A figure clad in a scarlet coat and hat appeared. Her face was obscured by the fedora’s wide brim, but he knew who it was. He leapt to his feet.
“Carmen?”
The woman took off her hat and smiled at him. “Hey, Gray.”
“It’s Graham.”
“Yeah, yeah, we don’t have time for small talk.” Carmen crouched down by the lock and opened her coat, an array of tools arranged in pockets in the lining. She selected a slender lockpick and went to work.
“Carmen, you can’t- argh!” He collapsed on the floor, clutching his head, sweating. Just as soon as the pain started, it stopped and he stood up. He reached into his own jacket and pulled out his own lockpick. “Let me try.”
“What?”
“Let me try.”
Carmen moved out of the way and soon Graham had the cell door swinging open on its hinges.
“Now let’s get out of here,” Carmen grinned. She shot her grappler at the skylight. When it had embedded itself in concrete, Graham looked at her.
“Hold on tight, don’t let go?” He grabbed her around the waist and Carmen reeled in the grappler. They burst out of the skylight in a flash of broken glass. They landed near the edge of the roof and Graham looked down. A navy blue car had just pulled up next to the building and a man with slicked back, spiky brown hair climbed out.
“Le Femme Rouge!” the man yelled. A woman jumped out of the car next.
Graham looked at Carmen. “Friends of yours?”
She rolled her eyes. “I don't keep company in blue suits. You know my color is red. Besides, my friends are waiting for us at Hallgrimskirkja church.” She turned and started running in the other direction.
“Wait!”
She paused and looked back.
Graham looked at her determinedly. “If I follow, you tell me everything.” Carmen sighed but nodded, then turned and leapt to the next building. Graham followed swiftly behind. The steeples of the church rose to meet them. When they reached the building across from the church, a white van stood idling in the street. A red headed teenage boy hung out of the driver's side door.
“Carm, over here!” the boy yelled.
Carmen smiled at Graham. “Hold on tight?”
He sighed. “Don’t let go.” They held onto each other and jumped. Carmen’s hang-glider opened and gently flew them to safety. A tall man with black hair and a weathered face opened the back doors of the unmarked van.
“Get in,” he said in a deep voice. Graham held his head. That voice. That voice sounded too familiar. Carmen held him steady and pulled him into the van.
“Thanks, Shadowsan,” Carmen said. Graham saw him close the doors and heard Carmen yell, “Zach, drive! A.C.M.E.’s on our tail!” but all in a fog. He fought for consciousness. Carmen sat next to him in the back of the van. She put an arm around him, and he lost the battle and fell unconscious.
Chapter 7 -- Gray
When he opened his eyes, he was lying on a red couch with no idea of where he was. He jumped up and looked around for a weapon, but stopped when he saw Carmen.
“How are you feeling?” She asked.
He held a hand to his temple. “Not.. great,” he admitted. “I still don’t know what happened. And you promised to tell me.” Carmen bit her lip. “Please.”
“Fine. But you have to promise me that you’ll listen and not freak out. Promise me,” she implored.
“Okay,” He held up his right hand. “Scout’s honor.”
Carmen raised an eyebrow. “You never were a scout.”
“Fair enough.” He plopped back down on the couch. “Now, what happened?”
Carmen sat down on the couch across from him and took a deep breath. “From what I remember, you were a junior electrician at the Sydney Opera House, when ‘a light went out.’” She made air quotes. “V.I.L.E. approached you and told you that they would like to enroll you in a school- a school for thieves. During orientation, Coach Brunt called me Lambkins and you laughed and said you didn’t know V.I.L.E. Academy had a mascot. I happened to be sitting directly behind you and taught you a little lesson, telling you that my codename was Black Sheep, and that only my friends called me Lambkins.
“We met our roommates, Sheena, Antonio, and Jean-Paul. You and I became thick as, well, thieves.
“Classes and teachers were as expected. Shadowsan taught Stealth 101 and he was the mean teacher. He never smiled and he hated me. He thought I was a prankster and undisciplined. Professor Maelstrom taught lessons in psychological manipulation, and Sheena was the first of many victims of his psychotic ways. When he introduced the Bait and Switch, she was on the receiving end of some particularly nasty bait. Coach Brunt taught us how to hold our own in a fight and told us to always protect the face. Countess Cleo showed us how to detect forgeries and tried to tame my wild side. Dr. Bellum was your favorite teacher. She taught us gadgetry and science. She was kind of a mad scientist, and you,” Carmen took a deep breath, “you used her CrackleRod as your signature weapon.”
“My signature… weapon?” Gray stuttered. She nodded and continued.
“On December first, you and I and the rest of our roommates bombarded the V.I.L.E. bookkeeper, Cookie Booker, with water balloons. Unfortunately, we were caught by the Cleaners, the Faculty’s number one henchmen. They kindly brought our pranks to the attention of the Faculty. It nearly got us expelled, but Coach thought that was extreme, so they gave us detention, where we were required to come up with our codenames.
“I stayed with Black Sheep. For you, I suggested Power Failure, but you said it didn’t have that ‘crackle’ you were looking for.” Carmen smiled at the memory. “Then you stood up on the table and said ‘Get this! I’m Graham Crackle!’ Sheena thought you were an idiot. Jean-Paul said ‘Really? Who would take us seriously if we had puns for names?’ and you said you would drop the Graham. Crackle was born. Sheena chose the codename ‘Tigress’, Antonio chose ‘El Topo’, preferring to be underground than anywhere else, and Jean-Paul chose ‘Le Chèvre’, turning into the ‘Human Goat’.
“From then on, we threw ourselves into our schoolwork. We all passed every class, except,” she gritted her teeth, still sore from the image, “I failed Shadowsan’s pickpocket class.”
“What?” Graham leaned forward in his seat.
“I failed. The rest of you passed. And you left me to plan your first caper.”
“Carm, I-” he dropped his head into his hands. Sweat beaded on his forehead. Different images flashed in his head, stories that contradicted the one Carmen was telling him. She dropped to the floor in front of him and put a hand on his shoulder.
“Gray? Are you okay?”
“No, no, I'm not okay.” He swayed back and forth, and he was afraid he was going to be sick. He grabbed Carmen’s hand. “Please tell me that this is the truth.”
Carmen’s face hardened. “Believe me. It is."
ns 15.158.61.20da2
