Carmen Sandiego - The Final Caper

Chapter 7 - One Month Later

(Switching between POV's)

(Jules's POV)

Carmen Sandiego has been a prisoner of ACME for about a month now. She still refuses to see a proper therapist, but she has opened up to me. Chief has only done the necessary amount of checking in, but will completely avoid the topic other than that. After talking to Carmen, rather than interrogating her, I learned almost everything that we needed to know. The only things that she wouldn't reveal were the names of her teammates, referring only to them with codenames, and the location of her base. She never gave a reason for refusing any therapy, and would never speak to them beyond a polite hello or goodbye. It took a week of building up trust before she stopped calling me 'agent' or referring to me by my last name alone. She still only calls me Julia, and I worry that we will never get back to the level of trust we had before. I was jostled out of my thoughts when I ran into the wall. I heard some laughter and whipped around, blushing.

"You ok there Julia? It looks like you hit that wall pretty hard."

Carmen was sitting on her bed, reading a copy of Maze Runner. With its many dog-eared pages, it shows how many times she has read it. I feel a pang of guilt at how little Carmen has to do, but I have to push it down as she is looking at me expectantly.

"Yeah I'm fine, just got lost in thought."

I pull up the chair that is kept just outside her cell and sit facing her. I start our regular checklist that I created to monitor her health and progress.

"So how have you been eating?"

She sighed and rolled her eyes. She closed the book and put it beside her.

"Do we have to go through this every time? You never just show up for a chat, you always have to go through the same list over and over."

I gave her a quick smile and then get more serious.

"If you actually talked to any of the therapists then..."

She put her hand up, stopping me. I knew that it was a sore subject, but I had to try.

"I'm not seeing any of your doctors. You know this. Just please... stop bringing it up."

She sighed.

"Let's just get your list over with."

We went through the usual, checking on her health, both physically and mentally. Afterwards she said she was tired and went to sleep, ending any chance of a conversation. I put my chair away and left, finishing up my paperwork for the night. As I was about to leave I got a ping from my phone. It was from Heath, the agent who was on surveillance for Carmen tonight. My heart raced as I opened the message, wondering if something bad had happened. The message was vague, just instructing me to come to the security room. I went over as fast as I could, my pace quickening as I went. When I arrived Heath just showed me the screen, not saying a word. Carmen was lying in her bed, thrashing violently. Heath turned to me with a worried expression.

"It started maybe two minutes ago. I thought you should know."

I knew I had to get there quickly. I thanked him and left, almost running in my rush to get there. When I arrived at the cell, Carmen was still shaking, but I could hear what she was saying this time.

"Please Professor, no more! I won't run away again, I promise!"

Ignoring protocol, I quickly used my key and tore open the cell doors. Running into the room I cleared the blankets off the bed and shook Carmen awake. She woke up with a scream, jolting upright and breathing heavily.

"Carmen are you ok? You were thrashing and screaming in your sleep!"

Her breathing started to go back to normal as she became aware of her surroundings. Slowly she started to sink back down into the pillows, relaxing slightly.