A New Beginning...? By: Athena Part Ten: Acme Detective Agency HQ; San Fransisco, California; same day; 15 minutes later Carmen walked into the computer room to find a sleeping Armando and a very pleased looking Esmeralda who had been occupying herself by sitting on the floor coloring on some paper. Carmen hoped that there was nothing important on that paper. "Ma petite," she called out to her daughter. Armando awoke with a start to see Esmeralda crawling over to her mother. "Carmen Sandiego!" Carmen picked up Esmeralda and turned to Armando. "I'm glad to see that you remember me, Armando. Thank you for taking care of Esmeralda." "She's YOUR daughter?" Carmen nodded and held her little girl close. She was hankful that she had the chance to do that. "Welcome back, Detective Sandiego!" the Chief shouted from a monitor. Carmen turned around to see the Chief pop up out of nowhere. In her arms, Esmeralda laughed. "I see she's become quite attached to you, Chief." "Yeah, Essie and I got along great. So, how'd the case go? You find out who it was?" "Yes, I did. He's in police custody right now." Armando looked from Carmen, to the Chief, to Esmeralda, VERY confused about what was going on. Just moments before he'd been babysitting another detective's daughter while she was on duty, and now.... He didn't know what was going on. "Chief, perhaps, it's time for me to go home, now," Armando said, hoping that the Chief would catch his hint. "I guess, Armando. See ya later." As Armando C-5ed back to Argentina, Carmen put Esmeralda down and went to retrieve her hat from the hidden closet. Her red hat didn't match her detective clothes in the least, but she felt more comfortable with it on. With a start she realized that she hid behind it. There was a hum in the computer room from the C-5 opening again. This time Zack and Ivy came out. Carmen noticed that Ivy was leaning heavily on her brother. Esmeralda crawled over to the two young detectives. Zack picked her up after setting Ivy down in a chair. "Whoa! You've gotten big in the last couple of weeks. Hasn't she, Ive? Uh, Ive? You okay?" Ivy was looking at Carmen. She noted how strangly perfect her red hat went with her detective clothes. Like an inspriation, the idea came to Ivy out of the blue. <> Ivy thought. Carmen went over to the computer and programed something in. "I'd love to stay and chat, but I really must be leaving now, Detectives. Chief, can you C-5 Esmeralda and me to those coordinates I gave you?" "Carmen, aren't you going to stay at Acme?" Carmen shook her head as she took Esmeralda from Zack. "Are you going back to VILE, then?" Zack asked. "I don't know what I'm going to do, yet, Zack. I suppose that's the true challange of life, finding out what's waiting for you around the bend in the road. Even I don't know what's going to happen in the future." A thought to the night Vera Lockhart was killed came to Carmen's mind. When she began that caper, she never knew that it would lead to this, but she wouldn't have had it any other way. The C-5 opened up, and the Chief tried one last time to convince Carmen to stay. "Chief, I can't. If I stay, I'll just get bored and turn thief again. Besides, I think it would be very awkward for me to be going after my former VILE employees and for Zack and Ivy to suddenly be working alongside the woman they've tried their whole careers to catch." The Chief nodded and watched as Carmen carried Esmeralda through the C-5. Acme Detective Agency HQ; San Fransisco, California; one week later; 12:15 PM Ivy hobbled into her office as best she could with her crutches. Her Achilles tendon had been cut and the doctors had to opperate to try to stitch it back together. It wasn't a pretty sight, and it hurt terribly. Ivy locked the door to her office and walked over to her small closet, the way she'd done two days earlier on her lunch break. She opened the closet door and pulled out a hat box. She took the box to her desk and sat down. Inside it was a symbol of the person Ivy most admired: the detective Carmen Sandiego. Ivy was glad that she decided to drop the hat off at headquarters before following Carmen to Chicago. As she examined the hat, Ivy noticed a pin, pinned to the inside of the hat ban. Ivy pulled it out. It was a four-leaf clover. Carmen was supersticious? Ivy held the charm up to the light to see it, all the while, thinking about her role model. When Carmen was a detective, Ivy wanted to be just like her. Every rookie at Acme had heard about the brillant young detective, Carmen Sandiego, but when Ivy found out that Carmen was no longer a detective and had turned thief, Ivy felt that Carmen had personally betrayed her. And until the fiasco with Garner, Ivy thought of Carmen as a liar who was really no better than Lee Jordan. But now.... After seeing the way Carmen handled Garner, Ivy saw the detective that was still in Carmen. Carmen had saved Ivy and Zack's lives. But there was still a part of Ivy that said that Carmen made the choice to become a thief and that she should be punished for it. Ivy shook her head. I don't think I'll EVER understand you, Carmen Sandiego, she thought. Ivy then took Carmen's old good luck charm and pinned it to the inside of her jacket, where no one would see it. There would always be a part of Ivy that admired the detective Carmen, but at the same time, Ivy wanted to see the theif Carmen behind bars. Ivy realized though that both detective and thief were as much parts of Carmen now as 12 years earlier. "What will Carmen do now?" Ivy asked the empty room. The answer came from a voice in Ivy's head. The one that had been telling her this whole time that she was a lot like Carmen. "What would you do if you were Carmen?" it asked. Suddenly, Ivy knew the answer, and she nodded sadly as she put away the box, knowing that she'd never get to work alongside her role model. Epilogue: The Louvre Museum; Paris, France; one month later; 11:00 PM 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. Zack stopped and looked at Ivy. "Hey, sis, is it just me, or do you have the strangest feeling of deja vu?" "Yeah, I know what you mean, little bro." "You should watch your backs, Detectives," Carmen 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." Carmen touched the brim of her fedora in a farewell to the two detectives. Ivy then 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. "Man, I thought we had her this time, Ive! Why couldn't she have just stayed at Acme, anyway? What's she gonna do about her kid?" "I don't know, Zack. Esmeralda's probably being taken care of by someone at VILE though." "Yikes! I wouldn't want to be that kid. Having Carmen Sandiego for a mom and people like Sara Bellum for relatives! She's going to be really whacked when she grows up!" Ivy laughed. "Zack, I doubt Carmen would have had a child if she thought that she would grow up 'whacked'." Zack turned around to pick up the clue, and while his back was turned, Ivy felt for Carmen's clover pin under her jacket. <> she thought. "I just don't get it, sis. I thought Carmen had REALLY changed this time." She did, Zack, she has a family now, Ivy wanted to say, but only muttered, "I don't know, little bro. I guess this wasn't the new beginning Carmen had planned on after all." But in a way, it was, Ivy thought as she and Zack walked out of the museum. The End