x
After her hang glider was securely tucked away and her signature outfit was covering her body, Carmen boarded the private jet, ready for the fifteen hour flight ahead of her. She sat down on one of the less than comfortable seats in the back of the plane and called Shadowsan.
While she waited for him to pick up, she started planning how to best break Gray out of prison. When her mind drew a blank, she sighed.
"What happened, Gray?" She whispered to the water far below.
"Are you alright, Carmen?" Shadowsan had answered and was looking up at her from her laptop screen.
“What? Oh, hey, Shadowsan. Just… thinking about Gray, I guess. Did Player pick up any more chatter about what happened?”
Shadowsan shook his head gravely. “Not a word. But he did discover something interesting on A.C.M.E.’s servers.”
“What?”
“I think it would be best if he told you himself.”
Player popped up on a split screen. “Red, A.C.M.E. just sent a couple of agents to Reykjavík.”
Carmen smiled. “Anyone we know?”
Player grinned. “It says here that agents Chase Devineaux and Julia Argent were dispatched to investigate.”
“Ah, good old Jules and Chase. I can't wait to see the look on his face when he realizes I got away.”
“Again,” Player added.
“I wonder how Jules will try to explain my stealing a person. I mean, Gray’s not exactly the Eye of Vishnu. I can’t return him to prison after I foil V.I.L.E.’s evil plan.” She smirked. “Player, add Ivy and Zach on this call.” Soon the redheaded siblings were waving up from the screen.
“Hey, Carm!” yelled Zach, the younger of the two.
“Yo, Bro, I think you burst my eardrum.” Ivy elbowed her brother. The siblings were from the south of Boston and spoke with heavy Boston accents.
“Hey, team,” Carmen said. “I wanted to take a vote. How many of you think Chase is going to land on the hood of his car again?” Ivy, Zach, and Player raised a hand. Shadowsan raised an eyebrow.
“The hood of his car?” The ninja looked skeptical.
“The first time I attempted to steal the Eye, Devineaux chased me over the rooftops in Poitiers, France, but he sorely miscalculated and plummeted onto the hood of his car.” Carmen shrugged. “At the time he was an inspector for INTERPOL. He was recruited for A.C.M.E. that same night. Anyway, I was just kidding. The real question is: How do we break Gray out of prison? We don’t know what happened, or if he was re-recruited by V.I.L.E., or if Bellum messed with his brain, or-”
“We basically know nothing,” Player cut her off. “Well, almost nothing. I just got a ping from the servers. It says that ‘A Mr. Graham Calloway voluntarily agreed to test an experimental device that could alter any blockages in his memory caused by past mental tampering.’”
Carmen’s expression hardened. “So this is Chief’s fault.”
Player looked at another of his many computer displays and typed in a few commands. “Says here her name is Tamara Fraser.”
Carmen pulled a pen out from her trench coat pocket. “I’ll see you guys in Iceland.”
“Carm, don’t tell me-”
“Yes, Ivy. Bye, guys.” She closed her laptop. Holding the pen out in front of her, she clicked the pen open and dropped it. It landed on the tip, impossibly balanced. A holographic image projected from the pen. A tall woman in a gray suit and a buzz-cut looked at her with a smirk.
“Ms. Sandiego, I presume?” The holograph spoke.
“Chief, I presume? Or is it Tamara?” Carmen was smiling, but her face was a thundercloud of hatred.
“Your sources are good. Do you think they would be interested in a career with us?”
Carmen frowned, thinking about how much Player disliked anything with an acronym. “No. I don’t think that at all.”
“To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“What did you do to Gray?” Her voice broke on his name.
“Who? Oh, the Aussie. He wanted to remember that year of his life, and we had an experimental device that could help with that. But I must say, when we took it off of him, he knocked out my agents and went MIA.”
“I know what happened that year.” Carmen fought to keep her anger under control.
“Really?” Chief raised her eyebrows.
“Yeah. He was with me. At crime school. Then he got caught by INTERPOL and V.I.L.E. wiped his mind and then you came along and screwed up his second chance.”
“Red,” Player’s voice sounded in her ear. “Calm down. We’ll spring Gray and you won’t have to talk to Tamara again.”
Carmen smiled. “Gray was like the big brother I never had. V.I.L.E. took him away, and then I got him back.” She frowned. “Then you stole him again. But don’t worry, Tamara, I’ll steal him back. I always take the most important thing.”
She smiled once more. “You made him remember things. I will give you nightmares you will never forget."
ns 18.68.41.175da2
