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"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.
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