The photograph was a bit brown in color and faded. It had a stain in one corner and seemed a bit chewed at another. I took a closer look at the subject: two young girls, one with blonde pigtails and one with brown stood in front of a rather chunky set of parents. All four were beaming at the camera as if the sun had just come out for the first time. The grass was half-mowed, the house an understated gray.

"Give that back, ACME scum." I looked up to see a seriously annoyed woman wearing her trademark red fedora and trench coat.

"Why?"

"Because it's mine." She snatched it easily out of my hand. I hadn't had any intention of keeping it. Mostly because something about one of those girls had seemed familiar. And now I knew what it was.

"Wait . . . that's your family?! You have parents and a sister?!"

She just looked at me, gave me an inscrutable smile, and did what Carmen Sandiego did best - disappeared. I just stood there watching as she disappeared into the helicopter. At least I foiled her from taking something I tried to reason, knowing full well the Chief would never forgive me for letting her slip from my grasp like that. But I could not move for a full five minutes.

Carmen Sandiego had a family (or, at least, had had a family). She was a real human being. Theoretically, I knew perfectly well that she was. She must get sick, eat, use the bathroom, and have hangnails just like the rest of us. But when your job is to hunt down the most elusive spy in all of history, who eluded capture by any government, and who was infamous for doing it while standing out like a sore thumb in her red fedora, the spy you're trying to hunt gains a sort of legendary status. Nobody at ACME talked about Carmen with anything less than the utmost respect (and sometimes fear).

I shook my head and turned back around. My little motorcycle I had used to get to the London Bridge was waiting. And there was a little card lying on the seat. I picked it up and had to read it out loud to believe it.

ACME agent scum,
Next up will be a trip to the Hollywood of Asia. The game is afoot.
Carmen
P.S. If you'd like to keep your job and your life, you won't mention the photo to anyone.

I laughed and said, "Ohh, Carmen. Yes, the game is afoot indeed."