Back to you || A Redcrackle Story

2-A New Caper?

Song: Meet you there by 5SOS

Carmen POV:

Two weeks later

The sound of Zack banging a hammer rang in the background. He and Ivy were fixing up parts of their new HQ, Carmen Brand Outerwear, and she had to admit their touch-ups were looking good.

She and Shadowsan has just returned from their latest Caper in Moscow, trying, and failing, to stop VILE from stealing classified information from the Russian Government.

They had sent an older operative. Neal the Eel, class of 2010. The lanky man had a knack for getting out of tricky situations and had managed to evade Shadowsan, something that was no small feat.

Carmen thumbed her forged Russian military badge and set it on the table. She had become General Cheryl Delmar-Vasquez for this mission and had not at all minded the authority the Russian soldiers paid to her.

Unfortunately, Neal the Eel wasn't as good as listening. While he had escaped with the information, Carmen and Shadowsan had managed to find a clue to his slimy trail, though.

Carmen's laptop screen flashed with a call request. She hit the accept button, smiling. "Player. Nice of you to finally join us."

"Oh, come on red. I was five minutes late!"

"Still late. You know punctuality is an important life—"

"Okay don't mother me now. I think I've found the Eel's trail."

"What?" She leaned forward, instantly becoming more serious. Shadowsan walked over to hearing range and Zack & Ivy stopped hammering to pay attention.

"It took some serious decrypting, but I pinpointed what VILE was after. Technical specs for an experimental electromagnetic pulse generator, codename TripWire." Carmen leaned forward, waiting for him to elaborate.

"The Russian Government attempted to design the next generation of EMP device, long range with ultimate. Pinpoint. Accuracy."

"Attempted to?" She pondered.

"Yep. They couldn't crack it, so TripWire was shuttered."

"Dr. Saira Bellum thrives on solving the unsolvable." Shadowsan added his two cents.

"And," Carmen said, catching on, "if she manages to engineer a working prototype from the stolen plans.....VILE will possess the means of disabling any electrical grid in the world. From anywhere. At any time." Her eyes narrowed as the cold, hard truth sunk in.

"As in cause instant blackouts?" Worry was in Ivy's voice as she paused her work and turned to the laptop.

"Create power outages that would shut down entire Security systems. And, allow VILE to steal from the cover of darkness."

"Sounds....like the ultimate Crackle rod." Player leaned forward. Carmen realized what he was implying. "Any chance the electrician formally known as Crackle is involved?"

"Crackle has no memory of ever being associated with the Villains international league of evil." Shadowsan offered, beginning to pave the width of the room.

"My old classmate Gray suffers from amnesia....Which we now know was caused by Dr.Bellum." Carmen said, confirming it. She tried to keep her tone neutral and not let emotions come into her voice.

"Fair enough. So, what's the caper?"

"What else?" Carmen smirked knowingly, her eyes narrowing from scheming. "We disable Bellum's prototype before she can use it. And delete the plans so she can't rebuild it."