Here's chapter 2! Or is it chapter 1? You know what, this is gonna be chapter 1 since the other is technically the introduction.
Thanks as always to Vodonn!
WARNINGS: Violence, torture, and more which I'll update as the story is written.
I do not own Carmen Sandiego (Netflix). This story is a work of fiction that came from my own horrible brain because I have been searching for Player!whump and haven't found many fics like that.
"You're going where?" Carmen asked, eyebrow quirked in amusement.
Player scowled at her throwing his arms up in exasperation while Ivy and Zach sniggered out of frame of their video chat.
"Apparently, I'm going on vacation," Player wrinkled his nose in distaste.
"I heard you. I meant where are you going geographically speaking?" Carmen rolled her eyes.
"The Virgin Islands, Saint Johns to be exact," Player sighed, leaning back in his chair to stare at the ceiling. "We're flying into Saint Thomas but the resort is on Saint Johns."
Player turned to the monitor on his left to bring up information that he'd usually be relaying to Carmen over the comms.
"Saint John is a constituent district of the United States Virgin Islands, situated in the Carribean Sea. It's the smallest of the three U.S. Virgin Islands, around 50km squared. Today its economy is based around tourism, but historically the Danish West India Company used it primarily for sugar kane and cotton plantations that were run by slaves. Though Denmark emancipated the slaves in 1848, it wasn't until 1850 that most of the plantations were abandoned. It wasn't until World War I that the Danish Government sold the United States the three islands that now make up the U.S. Virgin Islands so they could build a naval base. Now, most of the former plantations have been turned into lavish vacation resorts, perhaps most famously Laurence Rockefeller's Caneel Bay Resort, which is where I'll be for vacation," Player concluded.
"Wait, you're complaining about jetting off to the Caribbean for some fun in the sun instead of staying in freezing cold Ontario?" Zach blurted out from over Carmen's shoulder.
"Okay, first off, it isn't like I am lounging around in the snow; you know I prefer to stay right where I am," Player gestured to his room, "and two, I thought we agreed that tropical islands were a bad idea and should be avoided at all costs?"
"No, we agreed that Carmen should avoid tropical islands," Ivy corrected.
"Who is this "we" you speak of?" Carmen frowned, crossing her arms defensively.
"Us!" Ivy and Zach chorused.
"Plus me," Player grumbled.
"Good luck enforcing that," Carmen snorted. "Besides, we don't even know if VILE has set up their new headquarters on a tropical island or not."
"Maybe they ran out of tropical paradises to evil-ize," Player proposed with an eye-roll.
"I don't think "evil-ize" is a word," Carmen countered. Player sent her a deeply unamused look.
"Semantics," he deadpanned.
It was Carmen's turn to send him a look.
"C'mon Player, it's not like we're planning any capers right now anyways," Ivy said.
Player grimaced at the reminder. Without any knowledge of where VILE's new base of operations was, they couldn't steal the new hard drive of criminal data which, considering it was December 1st, should've been downloaded today. Going on vacation meant he couldn't work on pin-pointing where VILE was now relocated which meant planning new capers wouldn't be easy to do. Player knew none of Team Red blamed him for being unable to track down VILE yet, but that didn't stop him from feeling guilty. Four years ago he'd been able to hack into VILE without any knowledge of who, where, or what they truly were. Player tried to not have an ego, but it would be a lie to say that not finding VILE yet, stung.
"Oh for-! Player, that isn't your fault!"
Damn. Either something had shown on his face, or Carmen knew him that well. Fifty-fifty chance on that.
Carmen scowled, arms crossed as she leaned back against the sofa in their home base. Ivy and Zach wore unimpressed looks over her shoulders; it seemed they'd picked up on his train of thought too.
"Carmen, I managed to hack VILE four years ago without any knowledge of who, where, or what they were. I'd like to say I've improved since then, yet I still can't find a trace of them!" Player retorted, verbalizing his earlier thoughts.
"Last I checked, hacking them and finding them are two different things, and you couldn't locate them until I left the island," Carmen shot back.
Okay, she may have had a point. Carmen had more-or-less told him she'd been on a tropical island for "school", but that didn't exactly narrow things down when it didn't show up on any map. It may or may not have become a side project of his to recreate whatever tech VILE used to hide their location from the world besides forbidding contact with the outside world. Player wasn't necessarily afraid of the Troll, and thereby VILE, finding out where or who he was, but he wasn't going to take the risk of them discovering his location.
"PLAYER!" Carmen snapped, jerking him from his thoughts.
"Sorry, what did you say?" Player asked dully.
Carmen studied him carefully, before calling to Ivy and Zach, not taking her eyes off of the laptop screen, "Hey guys, give us a moment."
It wasn't a question.
"Sure thing Carm. Seeya later Player!" Ivy said with a wave.
"Laters!" Zach said cheerfully, earning a smack on the head from his sister.
"What was that for?" Zach yelped as Ivy walked out of frame. Whatever her response was Player didn't hear it as the sound of a door closing echoed around the room.
"Don't do this again," Carmen sighed, leaning forward to rest her elbows on her knees and clasp her hands together. "You almost worked yourself to the bone after Stockholm."
"Not exactly something I can just shut off, Red," Player grumbled. He knew better than to play dumb with her.
"Jacob," Carmen said gently and Player winced.
Out of all of Team Red, Carmen was the only one who knew his real name. It wasn't that he didn't trust the others, but… well it was just that Carmen was... Carmen. Carmen rarely called him by his real name, his birth name, and when she did it wasn't his full name. Usually she'd call him Jay, on the rare occasions she actually used his name, and he could count on one hand the number of times she'd done that. The only other time Carmen had called him Jacob was when he'd told her his actual name a month after Black Sheep became Carmen Sandiego.
Player was quiet.
"Working yourself to death isn't going to help anyone," Carmen chided softly. "I'm worried about you, Jay."
"And you're guilt-tripping me," Player muttered. "Jay" was preferable to "Jacob", but it still felt weird to hear her call him anything but "Player".
"Is it working?" Carmen teased.
"...Yes. I mildly hate you," Player snipped, the answering grin he got from Carmen was both annoying and comforting.
"Love you too," Carmen replied with a laugh. "At least try to sleep some more?"
"Yeah, yeah… Besides, with my parents actually home and soon to be dragging me to Saint Johns, I won't have much alone time," Player sighed.
"Is it the vacation or your parents that are bothering you?" Carmen asked.
"Both?" Player replied. "It's just, they're almost never home and when they are, it's never for more than a few days. So why now, completely out of the blue, are we going on vacation, all three of us, for four weeks?"
"They want to spend time with you?" Carmen ventured.
"We'd have to actually have a relationship for them to want to do that," Player griped. "I'm not sure if it'd be better to have a bad relationship with them instead of no relationship with them."
"Maybe they want to build a relationship with you?" Carmen offered but grimaced at Player's skeptical look.
Before Jacob became Player, his parents were around a lot, but their job switch when he was eight ruined that. Now they were gone weeks, often months, at a time, leaving him alone to be homeschooled online.
"Yeah, and VILE has decided to give up evil for good and turn themselves in to the authorities," Player said sarcastically but sighed. "Sorry Carmen, I don't mean to complain about having parents, it's just…"
He trailed off, but Carmen seemed to sense where he was going and nodded.
"It's almost like you don't have parents or know them, even if you know their names," Carmen continued, lips pursed. She never said it, but Player knew Carmen did not approve of his parents. If it wouldn't compromise his status as her "secret weapon", he knew Carmen would visit his parents personally to verbally rip them apart.
"That and even when they are home, they never spend this much time with me," Player said. "I'm not having any one-on-one time with my parents, yet I'm never alone. They keep "checking in"," Player continued using finger quotations.
"Which is why we're talking at 3am your time," Carmen summarized.
"Yup. The security cameras and alert system I set up when I met you, tell me when they're coming towards my room, but that only works to a certain extent. I can't exactly go MIA when I'm talking with you for capers." Player's eyes flickered to his cell phone, checking that his alert system was silent. So far so good.
If anyone got within 10 feet of his room, an alert would be sent to his phone which gave him enough time to hide the VILE hard drive in its secret compartment and set all of his monitors to sleep. The compartment was hidden and locked up well enough that even Carmen would have difficulties breaking in to it. That, plus the numerous cameras he had set up in every room minus his parents', their office, and the bathrooms, helped ensure his privacy. Not that his parents were aware of them.
"See? It's not like you've had much time to even try and find the hard drive with your parents breathing down your neck. That and sleep is an actual thing," Carmen remarked dryly.
"Like you can talk!" Player laughed, relieved that their conversation was moving away from the tension it had previously held.
"Oh hush you," Carmen grinned.
Player returned her smile, before glancing at his phone and wrinkling his nose in annoyance.
"Sorry Red, I gotta go. My parents will be up soon since we have to leave at 3:30am to get to the airport and I'm totally not packed yet," Player apologized.
Carmen waved away his apologies. "No worries. At least try to relax a bit? If it makes you feel better, we'll all take a break for a few weeks too. We'd be lost without you."
"Thanks. I'm bringing one of my laptops and both of my phones, so I'll contact you if anything comes up on those searches I have running. But that tech isn't enough for me to walk you through capers," Player warned.
For the sake of anonymity and safety (and the fact that his parents didn't pay enough attention to him to watch what he did), he had a second phone to talk with Carmen and the rest of Team Red along with a few computers and laptops.
"Sounds good. Safe travels Player!" Carmen waved.
"Bye Carmen," Player returned, hanging up on the video chat with a sigh.
He spun around in his chair, the momentum slowing until he made lazy circles and finally stilled. Player wasn't looking forward to the family "vacation", let alone the flight he'd have to take to get there. With a final huff, Player sat up, grabbed his "personal" laptop which had the least potentially-dangerous-Team-Red-related-data on it and both phones to go finish packing. It wouldn't be long until his parents were awake and they'd be headed to the airport.
Now he only had to ignore the sinking feeling in his gut that told him all of Team Red should avoid tropical islands, including himself.