Summary: In the wake of devastating betrayal, someone must take charge and make the difficult decisions. Junk food takes the edge off.
Disclaimer: I'm just a fanfiction writer. All hail the rightful owners.
Content Warning: A few violent references and some cussing.
I fix the unfixable. That is my job.
If you're about to tell me I don't look the part, I've noticed. With thirty one years on this beat, believe me, I've figured out that I look like a sweet old lady. Don't you worry, honey. I'm not your nanna.
It's a shame I don't fit the stereotype better. Power and affluence so often coincide that it can be difficult to separate the concepts. It can be a true disappointment to find out that the person behind the prestige resembles a senior citizen. You expected champagne and sunglasses, perhaps? Shame. You're getting a woman with a walker, like it or not. They put up with it because no one else can do what I do.
If you expected me to be a coddled figurehead, guess again. All of that stereotypical luxury belies that I do my best work over stale potato chips and flat root beer. Today, my work looks even less glamorous than usual. This mess calls for a family sized bag of junk food.
These are a mongrel assembly, ill matched. Sullen glares and sunken shoulders are the only consistent feature. That doesn't surprise me. In my line of work, cheerful greetings are an anomaly. Perhaps their manner is a fitting tribute to the capricious teenager whose antics brought them together, jammed into an unused Acme conference room.
They're afraid of me. Well good. If it weren't for their incompetence I might be out working on oil barons and crack dealers. You know the kind, my usual bread and butter. Teenagers aren't my type. People get sentimental. Maybe if they hadn't been so damned soft about it, they wouldn't be sitting here wondering who I'm about to blame for this farce.
"What happened?" I demand.
No one responds. I take a sip from my root beer bottle. Drat, it's still bubbly. I hate fizz.
"A damn eighteen year-old girl has gone rogue and is somehow running circles around the entire United States government, and no one knows anything? You all are pathetic!" Fingers sporting a chipped manicure cut into my hips. I don't why I bother to paint the fool things. Lacquer always comes off.
Someone might have coughed. I pay close attention. These are the ones who knew her best. Concealing her motivations is practically their obligation.
"What was that?" I take a swig of the soda.
That old man, her ex-partner, says. "It is not… surprising, that you are finding Carmen… difficult."
I respond derisively. "Do you think so Mr. Suhara?"
Footwear is suddenly an incredibly interesting topic to the entire assembly. While they're thinking about it, I recap the bottle, shake the heck out of it, and then open it up again. I pull that off without spilling a drop, of course. It's easier than diffusing a bomb.
"Billions of dollars in government money to start." I rant, over the hiss of the carbonation. "Proficiency in every major martial arts system, top level security clearances in every branch of the military, eighteen different college level degrees, fluency in 30 languages, the best espionage training we or anyone else have, a pilot's license on several different classes of aircraft…"
"She's good…" A woman mutters sullenly.
"And it's thirty one languages…" That CGI head that they use as a reference book pipes up. "Carmen picked up Malayalam about a month ago."
"My apologies… thirty one languages." I answer, rather gracelessly. "And none of you wondered if you might be trusting her with too much?"
"Can't you … defeat her?" The mechanized image looks droopy. "Gently?"
"Let me assure you." I say coldly. "That if I were capable of defeating Ms. Sandiego in any capacity at all, we'd be having this discussion over her corpse." The woman is out of my depth, out of anyone's really. She's practically invincible and here I am scrounging for any scrap of information that might help control her. Right now she could decide she wants to make off with the sun, and it would probably even work. We are far beyond gentle. We need her dead, or failing that, appeased. I doubt it would do us any good to catch her as I can't think of a single prison that could hold her. Damn, I need some potato chips.
The computer-man shudders. I wonder what he would do if he realized that the reason for my visit is the failure of several elite teams of assassins to get within snipers range of his friend. Probably loose another body part. He's been holding together like a Mr. Potato head doll thus far. Come to think of it, he sort of looks like one too. Damn I still can't get potatoes out of my head.
"Did none of you see this coming?" I finally ask something calmly.
Everyone shakes their head. There has to be some warning sign, so I let them stew, to see what the come up with. Sure enough when the silence gets to them, people start guessing. I wish I'd brought something salty to have while I wait. That imbecile low-sodium diet will be the death of me. I'm eighty-four not a hundred and four, and I've got bigger problems than my blood pressure to contend with.
"Carmen was restless."
"Complained of boredom all the time…"
"Problems with authority…"
"Some of the books she was reading…"
"The way she talked…"
"Just not normal…"
I whisper. "You seem quiet Suhara." Silence from him disturbs me more than from the rest of them because he's the only one here to show any insight so far. I have to be careful about how much speculation I believe. Hindsight is clarity after all.
Wearily he says. "I thought she was happy."
Hopefully my sip of soda looks suitably casual. "So?"
"So you don't use Joseph Conrad to try and claim you knew this all along." He growls and then suddenly looks exhausted. "No one knew. So help us no one knew."
It is clear to me now that this man is the only one in this entire group who has a clue. So I decide he merits my full attention. I bend my back towards him and look gentle. I do a decent impression of sympathy when I concentrate. "Someone made Carmen very angry Suhara." I tell him softly, and if you heard my voice you could almost believe I cared about her. "I believe she was a good detective, and I believe she was kind to you. But something upset her so much that she decided she would rather be a criminal than stay where she was. What could do that?"
"I don't know." He finally answers.
I need some potato chips. I really need them. Why the hell didn't I bring any?
The CGI head looks at my strangely and I get the feeling he's onto something. Unfortunately for the rest of the world, it's not about the case. "Here." He says suddenly, and a bag of potato chips floats towards me.
A lesser woman might feel embarrassed or guilty, but I don't. I just grab them and keep going. "Let's get to the solution."