Carmen Sandiego - The Final Caper

Chapter 11 - The Release

(Players POV)

I was sitting at my desk falling asleep. I had barely moved for days, just watching the screens. I had resorted to slapping myself awake when Ivy came up.

"You ok there Player? You're looking kind of rough."
She handed me a travel mug which I started to down before remembering that it was hot. Sputtering, I put the mug down and started to clean everything off, with Ivy cracking up off to the side. Once I regained taste I realised something.

"This isn't coffee!"
I stared at her with accusing eyes, while she slowly stopped laughing.

"Sorry Player but you have to sleep sometime. Besides what are you, 12? Coffee isn't good for young kids, so I got you a hot chocolate instead."
I let out an exasperated moan.

"Ivy I'm 16 and if I don't get coffee in me right now I will throw something heavy at your face."
She kept laughing and walked off.

"Good luck with that. We've hidden the coffee maker until you get some sleep."
This was promptly followed by a large rubix cube narrowly missing the back of her head. I turned back to my monitor and sighed. Taking another sip of the hot chocolate I thought about what Ivy said and promptly dismissed it. As I was about to go down to find the expresso machine I heard a ding on my computer. Heart pounding, I opened the message. It was from the same account Carmen had messaged me from.

"Hey Player, we need to talk. Get the whole crew there."

Immediately I scoured through the systems to look for the redheads. Taking note of the coffee machine being on top of the fridge I quickly found them in the living room. I called for them to come up, and they could hear the urgency in my voice. They ran up, Ivy coming in first, Zack closely behind.

"Player if this is about the coffee I swear to god..."
I ignored her and typed back a message to Carmen, letting her know. When she called us I quickly moved out of shot, on the off chance that there was an ACME agent on the other end. Once I saw it was Carmen I moved back.

"Red what's wrong? Has something gone wrong at ACME?"
I didn't want to jump to conclusions, but I knew that if she managed to get hold of a device it was important.

"First things first, Player stop tracking us. I know that you're doing it."
I blushed and sheepishly turned off my tracker. She rolled her eyes and continued.

"Thanks. Now I don't know how much time we have so I'll be brief. ACME has presented me with an ultimatum. I either join them and get out of jail on probation, or I get moved to a maximum-security prison."

We all gasped, with Zack letting out an expletive before Ivy punched him in the arm and Carmen shot him a warning look. There were a few seconds of awkward silence before Zack spoke up.

"So... which did you pick?"

We all stared expectantly at Carmen for an answer. She looked at us and we could see the bags under her eyes, showing late nights from this decision.

"I haven't decided yet. I'm leaning towards joining them, I don't plan on being in prison forever. However, I don't particularly like Chief, as you all know."
We all nodded, waiting for her answer. She took a deep breath, followed by a long sigh.

"I eventually decided to leave it up to you. If we worked for ACME we could keep doing what we're doing, just reporting to a higher up. It would also mean that the money we steal from VILE wouldn't be keeping us afloat, they would be paying us. It is quite a large amount, and with them funding any transportation or field costs, we wouldn't have to worry about keeping costs low. After a long debate, I eventually told them I would only take the job if my crew was on board. They've given us a week to decide, if we take any longer then they'll send me to the prison."
We were all stunned into silence. After another few awkward moments Zack was the first to speak.

"I'm with you boss. All the way."

After some deliberation I made my decision.

"I'm coming too. There's no way I'm ditching you now."

We both turned to Ivy expectantly.

"Are you both out of your minds? Why should we trust them? They kidnapped Carmen, caused everyone a sh*tload of mental trauma and we don't even know what horrible things they did to Carm!"
After shooting a glare at Ivy for swearing Carmen went quiet.

"Maybe you don't know about horrible things because there weren't any."

Shame crossed Ivy's face, chased back by anger once more. Seeing this, Carmen continued.

"This is why I asked first. We have time to talk and come to a consensus together, but we need to be civil about it. I can talk for another hour and a half before my time is up. Let's have a calm discussion about it, ok?"
After everyone made some sort of agreement I took another swig of my thermos. Carmen noticed it, as well as the brown stains on my shirt, and lost that calm look she had on her face.

"Who thought it was a good idea to let Player have coffee!"

After some debate (and proving it was hot chocolate) we came to an agreement. Ivy wanted to see Carm come home as much as the rest of us, and eventually it won out. Carmen was coming home.

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