Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?

The bespectacled man sitting in a large comfy recliner smiled as he read the headline on the front of the day's newspaper. It was a phrase that had shown up in many articles and newspapers over the decade that the gentlewoman thief had been at large, but this time it was a different take, a new concept. This time, the news was not wondering where Carmen would be going next, but where she'd gone altogether.

Taking his time, the skinny man read through the article fully. It went on about how Ms. Sandiego had been missing for over six months. But now it had a different angle to work, as apparently a member of V.I.L.E. with information had finally flipped. The ACME Detective Agency was no longer hunting Carmen purely for her numerous crimes and her laundry list of offenses across the world. No, now they were searching for her as a kidnapping victim.

The thought of it caused laughter to bubble up in the man's throat. He chuckled to himself for a little bit. It was hilarious, was it not? That a woman like Carmen Sandiego could be reduced to nothing but another victim, despite all she'd accomplished. It put the skinny man in quite the tizzy, his chuckle dissolving into giggles, until he had to suddenly stand up. He had to share this revelation with someone else, and he knew just who to do so with.

Clutching the newspaper in one hand, his other closed around the hook handle of his cane, set against the side of the chair until he needed it. Not that he actually needed the cane. He just liked it. It was his walking stick. Sure, one could walk on their own two feet, but what was better than two feet? Three feet! Simple inventions like the walking stick were a god send for people like him. He did an awful lot of walking after all.

The dog that lay by his recliner perked up when he rose, but when he didn't move towards the kitchen, it put its head back down on its paws, returning to its rest.

Making his way through his home, the skinny man exited the living room and moved down the hall, his cane making thumping sounds in the carpet as he eventually came to a stop in front of a locked door. Pulling a chain with a key on it from beneath his long-sleeved striped shirt, the wavy haired brunette quickly unlocked the door and opened it up with a loud bang.

Before him lay a dimly lit staircase, but he had no issue getting down said stairs, his cane clacking against the wooden steps and his brown boots pounding down alongside it as he made his way into his basement. The light in the basement was a single bulb hanging from the ceiling. The basement itself was rather cluttered with boxes full of knick knacks and trinkets of indeterminate value.

The man was a collector of all kinds of things. He was regularly labeled an explorer and a traveler, but his true love was in finding something new to bring back home and put in his collection. Slowly, he moved through the maze of boxes. His basement was quite a bit bigger than his small three bedroom house. He had a decently sized backyard of land to dig under after all, and as time had gone on and his collection had grown, the storage for said collection had grown as well.

Eventually though, he reached his destination. The man, who at this point still had a wide smile etched across his face, came to a stop in front of the bars and reached out with the newspaper in his clutches, smacking it against the prison cell in front of him a couple times to catch the attention of the occupant within.

The body curled up on a rather dinky mattress didn't shift, but the man didn't think he was being ignored. His glasses gave him pretty good eyesight, even in light such as this and from here he could see the slow rise and fall as the body breathed in and out, clearly still slumbering. Well then, it seemed he'd have to wake her up.

"Carmen, time to wake up! It's half past eleven you know! You've already missed breakfast, but lunch is just around the corner!"

The naked female form flinched violently at the sound of his voice as his captive woke up. Slowly, the body uncurled and Carmen Sandiego rose from her resting place to sit on the edge of her 'bed', glaring at him with those beautiful chocolate eyes of her. He just kept smiling at her, seeming altogether too happy.

But then he was always happy. Why wouldn't he be? He had his collection, he had his dog, and he had Carmen Sandiego. How could he possibly be upset with any of that? The man was pulled from his thoughts as Carmen stepped up to the bars of her cell, her movements languid. It gave him a very good view of her nude body as she did so, in all its glory.

One of the first things one lost in captivity like Carmen's was a sense of propriety. She didn't even care that he was looking at her naked form right now. She took no umbrage at the way his eyes traced over her full breasts or the cleft of her cunt that rested between her legs. No, Carmen Sandiego had other better reasons to hate the man that held her prisoner, rather than hating him for seeing what he'd already seen a thousand times over by now.

The gentlewoman thief reached out and clutched at the bars, staring with defiance into her captor's eyes. Then she spoke, her voice raspy from disuse. She knew how much her kidnapped enjoyed their discourse, and as a result she was sparse in providing it. This led to issues though, when she did decide to speak.

Gritting her teeth, the criminal mastermind threw the truth that had held her together these last six months in the face of the bastard before her, his stupid smile etched across his face, his red and white striped shirt perfectly ironed as always, his blue jeans completely impeccable, and that stupid poofball hat on his head.

"Waldo. You cannot keep me here forever."

Waldo just kept smiling, but then his smile was more a permanent fixture on his face than any sort of actual expression of emotion. His true feelings were almost impossible for Carmen to discern. Still, he seemed happy today, regardless of her continued defiance.

"I think my dear Carmen; you'll find I most definitely can! You're my most prized possession after all! I wouldn't give you up for anything in this world or the next!"

A growl escaped the Latina woman's mouth.

"I am not a thing to be kept Waldo! I am my own person, a human being just like you! You cannot keep me as some sort of slave! I WILL break free, and when I do, I'm going to kill you."

Waldo just chuckles in the face of her vehement desire to end his life.

"Adorable as ever Carmen Sandiego! But you've had six months to escape. Why haven't you yet? Perhaps you like it here more than you let on!"

The naked thief's face morphs into a look of incredulity. She glances around her piss poor accommodations for a long moment before shaking her head in disbelief at the idiot's assumption. He'd have to be insane to believe that, for even a single second. But then, he was insane. Completely fucking bonkers. Carmen had figured that out really early on, just like she'd figured out he wasn't as much of an idiot as he pretended to be.

The fact was, the woman hadn't escaped because Waldo was smart and observant. He'd made an excellent cage, and for now, Carmen couldn't find a way out. At least not yet. She was always watching, waiting for an opportunity to get away. In the meantime, her hope lay somewhere else…

"V.I.L.E. will find you. You think kidnapping the head of a world-wide organization isn't going to bring it down on your head, you perverted twerp? Soon enough, they'll get a bead on you. When they do, they'll find this place and they'll come here, in force. I'll be freed and your little collection you're so happy about, it'll go up in flames. I will personally oversee the burning of every last THING in this basement, while you're forced to watch. Then, we'll really get going."

Another laugh. Waldo was seemingly unflappable, and it always unnerved Carmen just how easily he could brush off the worst she had to say without getting visibly angry. She'd had enough time to learn how to read between the lines though. Her idea of burning his collection, it'd definitely pissed him off. She'd garnered that much from her imprisonment down here. The lanky weirdly dressed man lived for his collection. Carmen truly did want to tear it apart and destroy every bit of it when she finally did get out of here.

First she had to get out of here though… quite suddenly, a newspaper was thrust in her face. The naked Latina blinked and reached out, taking the thing from Waldo's outstretched hand carefully.

"What is this?"

Waldo's smile widened imperceptibly, but there was something ever so slightly terrifying about it now, changing from one moment to the next.

"You made the front page Carmen. Have a look."

A spike of dread slammed into her heart. There was no way this could be good. The criminal mastermind turned kidnapping victim unfurled the folded up newspaper and looked at the front page article. The headline barely grabbed her attention, instead her focus was on the words in the column itself as her eyes traced back and forth at a fast pace.

Before she could get a hold of herself, a choked sob escaped her lips. They knew. Not just V.I.L.E but everyone. ACME itself was trying to find her, not to bring her to justice now, but to SAVE her. The thought should have given Carmen solace. The agents at the ACME Detective Agency had foiled or stymied many of her plans. If anyone could locate her, besides her own people, it would be them.

That wasn't what the gentlewoman thief focused on however. Instead, she focused on exactly what Waldo had found so amusing. They weren't looking at her as the criminal mastermind she was anymore. Instead, the whole world now knew her as Waldo's victim, a prisoner in some unknown place from which she could not escape.

The paper suddenly tore, pulling Carmen out of her inner thoughts. She looked down to find her hands shaking, two halves of the newspaper in each of her balled up fists, her knuckles white from the strain she was putting under them. She was unbelievably pissed, and it was all the fault of the damn fool in front of her. Her reputation, in tatters because of HIM!

With a roar, Carmen Sandiego threw the remnants of newspaper aside and lunged forward, her hands going through the cage bars and grabbing hold of Waldo's long-sleeved striped shirt, pulling him close and yelling into his ever-smiling face.

"WHY?! WHY DID YOU DO THIS TO ME?! DAMN YOU, YOU PSYCHOTIC BASTARD! I HAD A LIFE! I HAD DREAMS, GOALS, PLANS! YOU CAN'T FUCKING JUST TAKE ME FOR YOUR GOD DAMN COLLECTION!"

Waldo let her exhaust herself, just staring at her as she went from anger to despair in an instant, her yelling choked off as she began to sob against his shirt through the bars of her prison. The beautiful criminal mastermind broke down like a child right in front of her kidnapper. The news had had exactly the effect Waldo had wanted.

Showing just a bit of his teeth as his smile morphed into a grin, Waldo piped up again, now that Carmen had petered out.

"Do you want to go for a walk Carmen?"

Once she processed them, the words caused the woman to freeze up. It was not something Waldo had ever offered before. In fact, she hadn't left this cell in six months. She hadn't seen the outside in all that time, breathed in the scent of fresh air or felt the sun across her face. There was a shower in one corner of her cell, and a functioning toilet in the other. Waldo had no reason to let her out. The fact that he was offering now…

"Yes."

The heartfelt one word response was more than a little out of character for the gentlewoman thief. But these were not normal circumstances, and months of captivity had only deteriorated her character, her very personality.

Carmen held her breath as Waldo, still smiling, took out a key and undid the lock on her cell. The door opened and for the first time, freedom lay before Carmen. But what was the catch? There had to be one. The brilliant woman gazed around the area, trying to figure out just what game Waldo was playing. He was still holding his cane in his hand, resting his weight on it ever so slightly. It was a weapon, there was no doubt about it. And she couldn't be sure of just what sort of training the psychopathic man could boast.

Perhaps he was waiting for her to attack him. Then he'd have an excuse to escalate things beyond simple captivity. He could hurt her. More than that, he might decide to graduate past just stripping her of her clothes as well. He clearly lusted after her body, but for some reason he'd held back these last several months from doing anything about it. Carmen had almost wished he would try it, if only so she could perhaps turn the tables on him in the middle.

But right now, she'd been promised a walk. It may have been nothing more than a trap, but Carmen intended to breathe fresh air if she could. For now, she would stay passive. Slowly, the nude woman stepped forward out of the cell, turning her body to face him slightly and looking at him in silence. Waldo just kept right on smiling. Then the man turned and began walking through his maze of boxes, away from her still open cell.

Carmen hurried to keep up with him. It was a chance for her to make good on one of her more fervent fantasies. She was in the midst of Waldo's collection right now, completely unrestrained. If the Latina woman wanted to, she could do so much damage, before he stopped her. IF he could stop her. But while destroying this place was one of her goals, it was not her greatest goal. Freedom had to come first, always.

They reached the stairs, and Carmen's mouth went dry as Waldo walked up them without even pausing. She couldn't help taking the staircase a bit more slowly. It felt like ascending from hell, leaving that basement. The woman couldn't help feeling deliriously happy as she stepped into the hall of a surprisingly average home. Waldo closed the door to the basement behind her as she looked around, taking in every detail.

Then he cleared his throat.

"If you want to go out, there is a condition."

She turned her eyes towards the psycho. There was always a catch and Carmen had been waiting for this since he first offered things. Waldo was holding up a collar attached to a leash, still smiling like a damn buffoon. She could see words etched onto the side of the leather collar. It was her name, Carmen Sandiego, emblazoned in gold lettering on brown leather. As soon as her mind processed what it said, she reared back from the offered collar.

"Over my dead body!"

Waldo just laughed at that.

"I'm sorry Carmen, but this is non-negotiable. We can go back down if you like, but I rather thought you'd like to see the sun after so long."

Oh fuck this, she wasn't going back down, and she wasn't about to put on that collar. Carmen Sandiego did not give up, not for anything. Still, she could do subtle. She could do sneaky, even if she was a few months out of practice. The Latina thief pursed her lips together and then stepped forward, affecting the look of a woman cowed as she lowered her eyes and reached out for the proffered collar with shaky fingers.

A quick glance showed Waldo's smile had grown even bigger as a result of her impending capitulation. As her fingers very nearly brushed against the collar he was holding out to her, Carmen finally acted. The woman had used a common sleight of hand, though a very crude version of the trick. Waldo's focus on the hand reaching out for the collar meant he didn't see her pulling her fingers in on her other, forming it into a fist and winding it up.

The lanky man was completely unprepared for said fist to come sailing out, smashing into his cheekbone with enough force to break the jaw of any human man. Carmen had a moment of vicious satisfaction right before her punch connected. Then it was replaced by sheer agony as her bones crunched against his immovable cheek, her hand meeting his smiling face and losing the battle so utterly and totally that she couldn't even comprehend why she was in so much pain for a moment.

A scream tore its way out of the normally composed gentlewoman thief's throat, and Carmen drew her hand back instinctively to her bare chest, cradling her broken fingers and staring at Waldo with wide terrified eyes. The tall weirdly dressed man hadn't been moved even an inch. The only sign of what she'd tried to do was a bit of her blood in the dimple his wide smile was making, from where she'd torn a knuckle open on what felt like punching densely packed cement.

"Aw, Carmen. You shouldn't have done that."

Her kidnapper and captor suddenly seemed so much more horrifying than he had but a moment before. This was no man, it was a monster. She had to get away, she had to escape. With fight an abject failure, Carmen's panicked mind immediately went to flight, and she dove past Waldo, down the hallway and to the front door. Scrambling at it's handle with her good hand, the naked woman flung the door open and stumbled out onto the porch.

She was blinded for a brief moment by the sun, but as her eyes adjusted, she found herself in a nice looking neighborhood with uniform houses, tall trees, and picket fences. It was the epitome of suburban life, but she didn't see any people around, at least at first. A cold chill hit her naked form and Carmen shivered as she realized it must have been very early morning, the sun just rising over the house in front of her to hit her in the face with its beautiful bright rays.

As much as the Latina criminal mastermind wanted to admire what she'd been missing out on for so many months, Carmen knew the monster that had kidnapped her wouldn't be far behind. She had run across Waldo's perfectly manicured lawn while taking in the sights around her, and now as she reached the sidewalk, she turned to keep running away from the house only to slam face first into the big baggy red and white striped shirt that she feared so much.

Bouncing back, Carmen fell hard, her bare ass and more importantly her tailbone hitting the sidewalk as she looked up in horror to find Waldo standing over her, smiling at her.

"Well hello there little lady. You look lost… and a little familiar. Have we met before?"

Practically hyperventilating now, Carmen turned over and scrambled across the ground like a common animal, half running half clawing at the sidewalk with her hands and knees and feet as she tried to put distance between her and Waldo, only to find a pair of jeans blocking her direction the other way as well. She looked up and found Waldo yet again standing before her, once again smiling down at her.

"Hm, and who might you be? Did one of my neighbors really lose track of a scrumptious treat like you?"

Looking back over her shoulder, Carmen found that her first assumption, Waldo having some sort of super speed ability, was not in fact correct. No, it seemed things were much worse, because there were two Waldos on the sidewalk with her, both on either side of her now, looking down at her with smiling inquisitive looks on their faces.

Carmen Sandiego screamed in horror, only to be silenced when a blanket landed over her shoulders. Instinctively, the naked woman grabbed hold of the blanket with her good hand, still cradling her broken one to her chest as she huddled down. Looking behind her, she found Waldo standing there, smiling down at her with a look of concern on his face. It was her Waldo almost certainly, considering the house she'd run from was definitely behind him, and she could see his foot prints in the grass beside hers.

For a brief horrible moment, Carmen actually felt relief that her kidnapper was there with her, in the face of two new strangers who both looked identical to him. The three Waldos stood over her, exchanging small talk as she shivered helplessly on the sidewalk. Her eyes darted around and she saw more Waldos coming from their homes and starting their days, now that she actually looked.

The street, the houses… the neighborhood was filled with Waldo. What was this?! Where was she?!"

"Why darling, you're in the Land of Waldos!"

Carmen startled badly, realizing she'd said that last bit out loud only as she looked up to find all three Waldos looking down at her now with those wide smiles on their faces. Her Waldo took advantage of the lull in conversation, crouching down beside her with a bandage roll in his hand and snaking his fingers into her blanket to grab at the arm that she cradled to her chest.

Slowly, even lovingly as Carmen shivered, frozen like a deer caught in headlights, her Waldo wrapped up her hand in gauze. She wanted to say that he was stupid for doing that, that this wasn't the correct medical procedure for broken fingers on top of a broken wrist at all. But as he used the bandages, the pain went away and she watched wide eyed as her fingers began to fix themselves, and her bones straightened out properly.

It was all too much. Carmen Sandiego might have been a criminal mastermind of world-class renown, she might have been a gentlewoman thief who accomplished impossible feats and baffled the world's best and brightest detectives. But she wasn't ready for this. Here, she was just a scared, slightly malnourished naked woman, in a world she didn't and couldn't understand.

Her eyes lowered to the ground, unwilling to rise to meet any of the grinning faces of Waldo that were gathered around her.

"… I'd like to go back inside now please."

And that was that. Slowly, her Waldo pulled her to her feet and gently but firmly, with fingers on her blanket clad shoulders that Carmen knew full well were probably strong enough to rip her apart, guided her back towards his house and in through the front door, closing and locking it behind them. Carmen stood there in the hallway, until Waldo took hold of her again and led her, not to the basement door, but to the kitchen.

He sat the traumatized woman down at a standard looking kitchen table, in a standard feeling wooden chair.

"You look like you could use some tea!"

And thus did the inhuman monster hiding in the skin of a lanky, awkward looking man make her a cup of tea, which Carmen Sandiego dutifully sipped at as he watched her with those wide eyes behind those big round glasses, set on an ever smiling face.