A New Beginning...?
By: Athena

All characters appearing in the show "Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego" are
copyright DIC and are used without permission.

(There is some violence contained in this section.)

Part One:

        Sirens blared as a pair of teenagers chased the woman in the dimly 
lit museum. She turned a corner, down a long hall with no way out. The two 
teen detectives followed her around the curve, but she was gone, vanished 
without a trace.

        Just when the duo thought they ought give up their search for the 
woman, she called out from behind them, but they still blocked her only way 
out.

        "You should watch your backs, Detectives," she taunted, gazing at 
them with ice blue eyes from under the brim of her bright red fedora.

        "Carmen, give it up! There's no way out of here."

        "Ah, but there's always a way out, Ivy."

        Ivy noticed a slight snap of the woman's wrist. 

        Suddenly, smoke blinded the detectives, and when it cleared, she was 
gone, leaving only a small box in her place. Carmen Sandiego had escaped 
again.


        Carmen chuckled slightly to herself as she flew her tiny aircraft to
her next destination. This is fun, she thought, her mind playing over the
events in the museum and pondering what would happen further along in her
caper. 

        She silently shook the thought away. This was no time for levity. She
had to consentrate and focus on the task at hand. A theif whose mind wandered
was a theif who got caught, she told herself.

        The clue Zack and Ivy had recieved would point them toward Mount 
Vernon, Virginia, home of George Washington. If they'd seen the pattern to 
the items she'd already stolen, they would realize that Carmen was after the
key to the Bastille that hung over the door to the portico in the entry hall.

        Again she smiled to herself, knowing that she would fail to keep
her stolen goods, but realizing that the joy was not in the accomplishment 
but in the doing of the task itself.


        A light snow fell in the late January night in northern Virginia. 
Carmen hid in a tree on the back lawn, awaiting the detectives. She felt
her coat pocket once more to be sure the key was still in there. Good, it 
was.

        Her caper was almost complete. Carmen quietly breathed a sigh of 
relief. Running across the globe without sleep for three days had worn the
master theif down. Just one more thing to get and then I'll be done, she
thought.        

        Voices came from the front lawn. It sounded like a man and a woman 
arguing. That doesn't sound like Zack and Ivy, Carmen thought. Perhaps it's
the museum curators....

        The woman had gone through the house out to the back lawn. Carmen
watched her, curiously. She was in her mid-twenties with short blond hair 
and wore an oversized sweatshit over a pair of faded jeans. In her arms, the
woman carried a bundle wrapped in cloth.

        The man followed her but was hidden in shadow. Without warning he 
pulled out a gun. The woman's eyes grew wide with fear as she tried to plead
for her life. Carmen stared down at the scene, too far away to do anything.

        A gunshot ripped through the air. 

        Carmen cringed at the all too familiar sound that brought back less 
than desirable memories from her detective years.

        The man departed, leaving the woman in a growing pool of blood. As 
soon as Carmen was sure the shooter had left, she jumped down from the tree
to aid the fallen woman. 

        Blood covered the newly fallen snow with a bright red that Carmen 
couldn't help alude to her own clothing. The woman's face was deathly 
pale and her green eyes were open and staring. Carmen removed her glove from 
her left hand to feel for a pulse as she knelt beside the victim.

        With lightning speed the woman grabbed Carmen's hand as it touched 
her neck. She pleaded in a weak voice:
        "Please, help...."

        Calmly Carmen spoke to the woman, hoping that her own voice didn't 
tremble with the torrent of emotions that she felt. 

        "It's all right, I'm going to get you some help."

        The woman shook her head. "No, I'm dying. Please, take care of my
baby. Don't let them send her to an orphanage. I have no one else...."

        Baby? What baby? "I can't."

        The woman's grip on Carmen's wrist grew tighter, and she held fast 
with surprising strength.

        "I have no one else. I don't want my child to grow up not belonging
to someone."

        That hit Carmen close to home. Practically her entire childhood had
been spent with that empty feeling of never knowing exactly who she was. At 
times, even as an adult, she still felt it.

        The woman's voice cracked as she spoke, "Promise."

        Carmen was indecicive. A baby was a huge responsibility, one that she
didn't have time for. But still, the child's mother was indeed dying....

        "Promise me...."

        Carmen spoke quietly, "I promise."

        A small smile passed across the woman's lips as her grip on Carmen's
arm loosed. 

        Carmen felt for a pulse. Nothing. The mysterious woman was dead.

        Nearby, she noticed the bundle the woman had been carrying when she 
was killed. It moved. Carmen blinked her eyes, thinking that she imagined it
in her exhustion. It moved again.

        Cautiously, Carmen crept up to the moving bundle and lifted the 
cloth to look inside it. A small, pink face with startling green eyes stared
back at her. The baby opened its little mouth and let out a wail belying its
size.

        THIS was the woman's baby! Unsure of what to do, Carmen gingerly 
picked up the child and tried to comfort it with soothing words. They didn't
work. The girl cried even louder than before.

        In the distance, Carmen heard the electronic sound of the C-5 
opening. Not knowing what to do with the baby, Carmen held it tighly to her
chest and ran into the night, before the Acme agents came. 


Three hours later:
        
        "I don't understand it, Ive. The key to the Bastille is gone, but 
Carmen didn't leave a single clue. And what about that woman out there? What
happened to her?"

        "I don't know, little bro. We've searched this place from top to 
bottom. There's nothing here. This isn't like Carmen not to leave a clue.
She did at all the other places-"

        Ivy was cut off by the sound of both her and Zack's communicators 
going off at the same time. "Come in, Chief."

        The Chief's disembodied head floated before them.

        "I got bad news, Detectives. You're officially off this case."

        Ivy jumped, furior blazing in her green eyes. "What!"

        "Why, Chief?"

        "Sorry, Gumshoes, this case has left our department."

        "You mean with the murdered woman?"

        "Yeah, Zack, with her." The Chief sighed. "You two need to come back
to Acme now."

        "Chief, what's wrong?" Ivy asked, aware of his sudden change in
demeanor.

        "I'll explain when you two get back."
 
        Zack and Ivy jumped through the C-5 when it opened, going back to 
Acme.
        

        Zack plopped down into a computer chair in front of the large monitor
in the main computer room at Acme. Ivy paced behind the chair nervously, 
already guessing what the Chief had to say. 

        "Zack, Ivy, I don't really know how to say this but...."

        "What, Cheif?" Zack asked, ignorant to what Ivy knew.

        "Well," the Chief took a deep breath, "Carmen...."

        "Chief, what about Carmen?" Zack asked. Then his eyes widened as the 
idea came to him. "No way! Chief you don't mean that...."

        "Yes, the authorities are looking for Carmen to arrest her on 
murder charges."

        "Murder! But they don't have any evidence!"

        "I'm afraid they do, Zack," the Chief answered quietly.

        Ivy looked up. They had EVIDENCE?!?! "What is it, Chief?"

        "Carmen's glove."

        Ivy breathed a sigh of relief. "That doesn't connect Carmen to the 
murder. We know she was there, but-"

        "Ivy, it does."

        The two detectives waited in stunned silence.

        "The murdered woman's fingerprints were on Carmen's glove."

        "So the woman found a glove on the ground and picked it up...."

        "Carmen's fingerprints were also found on the woman's watch."

        Zack and Ivy stared in utter disbeleif. Carmen? A murderer? They 
couldn't count how many times she had saved them. Now the Chief was saying
that she had killed some woman. The Chief went on:
        "Interpol is getting in on this. As of now, Carmen Sandiego is no
longer Acme's business."

        "But, Chief," Zack said, his voice trembling slightly, "what happens
if she's convicted?"

        The Chief's computer generated expression looked as though he'd been
stabbed. Tears coming to his eyes he said, "She could be put to death."


To be continued....