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C a r m e n S a n d i e g o -- ravens at dusk
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The thief had known even before she started planning her latest crime spree that there was a risk, a danger, involved that she had never taken before. It had come to pass, and she could only wait to find out what the lasting repercussions would be.

Carmen had never been one to shy away from risks when it came to herself, but she avoided putting other people in jeopardy at all costs. Even though she had executed her most grandiose series of heists ever for the sake of the two detectives' careers, she knew she had gambled their young hearts in the process. If they were able to see through her ruse, to perceive that the end of the chase had been orchestrated even before its beginning, where would that leave them? How were they supposed to deal with the fact that they owed their livelihoods to their adversary? And how could they engage in future chases after such an epiphany?

She had risked nothing more and nothing less than the entire equilibrium of their strained and clandestine bond. In any relationship, there were certain gestures, both positive and negative, that couldn't be ignored or taken back. They could never again pretend to be strangers when they crossed paths in a closed museum.

Well, they had seen through her ruse. Carmen would have thought that Zack would be the one to put it together if anyone, but it had been Ivy. Or rather, Ivy had been the one to call her out. The girl had looked so tired and defeated at the end of the case, Carmen wondered if she really knew the words coming out of her own mouth.

The woman's heart ached to think of the young girl. Of the two siblings, Ivy would surely suffer the most. Zack would be confused, but he would probably learn to adjust his mental image of her so that he could continue to play her game. Ivy, on the other hand, would have no way of dealing with her nemesis' sacrifice for her own benefit, except to try to forget.

Carmen was always monitoring Acme's network. When the Chief had told the detectives about the emails with their names as the subject heading, she had overheard the entire conversation. The Chief had only been able to speculate, but she actually read the content of the emails and knew that his deductions were only too correct. There had been only one thing to do; she had started blueprinting the crime spree immediately.

The real tragedy of the whole affair was that the detectives had put themselves on the line so many times for her sake. In her own mind, Carmen wasn't so much giving them a gift as merely paying them back. But it was different when she was the one violating the age-old code of enmity between cops and robbers. Maybe it shouldn't have been, but it was. The ties that bound them together were tenuous and tangled.

After Zackary and Ivy Evans' 'brilliant capture of Carmen Sandiego' (as the New York Times chose to put it), the emails between Otto Bernarde and Patrice Skinner changed in tone considerably. A few more unwelcome, unsolicited suggestions for internal improvement, and he was let go under rather vague circumstances. Carmen waited two weeks afterwards before breaking out of the ultra-maximum security prison that had been built especially for her, and no one had connected the two events to each other.

And now she stood watching a roseate sunset from the balcony of her secret base, in much the same posture of deep reflection that she had assumed while waiting for the detectives at Mont Saint Michel. The thief tented her long fingers momentarily, her crystalline gaze turning inward, then walked back into the compound. Inside there was an innocent looking laptop computer, abnormal only because of the mass of wires and ports attached to it. She had hacked into the Pentagon with it, but for now she had her sights on a more routine invasion...

"Good evening, Chief."

"Carmen! What are you doing on Acme's frequency this time?!" he demanded, his eyes bulging with suspicion.

"Glad to see you, too," she quipped lightly. "Don't overheat your circuits - I'm not here to cause any trouble. This is purely a social visit." The holographic head immediately calmed. Carmen's word was still trustworthy; it was one of the few things about her that hadn't changed over the years.

"How did Acme take my capture and defeat?" she inquired, smiling softly.

"How did the people in Times Square take the last minutes of 1999?" he asked rhetorically, in a long-suffering tone. Carmen laughed. "It was a three-ring circus here until you finally broke out of that suped up Sing Sing. Your escape seems to have brought my agents back down to Earth, thank goodness for that."

"And Zack and Ivy?"

The Chief sobered. "They're glad their place at Acme is secure." A pregnant pause. "They've taken it very differently. Zack tries to act casual about the whole thing, but he's more subdued than usual. I know he thinks about you and what you did for him often. And Ivy, well..." He sighed, and his whole countenance was transformed by his uncharacteristic melancholy. "Ivy tries to see the world in black and white, and she's not sure how to process your magnanimous gesture. She's talked to me about it a lot; I like to think that's a good sign..."

"What has she said?" Carmen asked earnestly. She knew she was putting the Chief in the uncomfortable position of betraying an unspoken confidence, but she was almost desperate to know.

He fidgeted for a moment. "She feels grateful to a person she has spent an entire career trying to lock away. She's confused. She told me that, when the police took you away, she was unprepared for how...sad...she felt. She was sad to see you go. She thought the day you went to jail would be a monumental occasion for her, whatever the circumstances, but instead she truly regretted seeing you reduced to the status of a common crook." The Chief gazed keenly at Carmen's image, watching for her reaction.

She was unable to speak. She wondered how much of what the Chief had said came directly from Ivy and how much was his own interpretation of the detective's feelings, but it didn't really matter; she trusted his judgment implicitly.

"Carmen, thank you for helping them." Something very human and real gleamed through his holographic eyes. "They would thank you, too, if they could."

"They are the ones who helped me. This was just my way of returning the favor," she intoned hoarsely, shaking her head.

The two were silent for a long time, wholly absorbed by their own thoughts. At last, Carmen stirred.

"Good night, Chief."

"Hm? Oh, yes, good night, Carmen."

The thief disengaged from Acme's network and turned off the computer. The Chief only confirmed what she had already intuitively understood. The detectives could not, and would not, simply forget what had taken place between them. Neither could she.

In the chilly coastal dawn of Mont Saint Michel, Carmen Sandiego had reflected that there was no one who knew who she really was. Now she realized that there was no one, but there were two. Two. Zack and Ivy both knew things about her, held fragments of her being, and between them there was a complete and true picture. Perhaps that's why it was so much fun to play against them.

The game might never be the same again, now that both sides were so mutually indebted to each other. Or maybe the game would be better than it had ever been before. Maybe the ties were stronger than they seemed. There was only one way to find out.

- - - - - - - -

One fine evening, a piece of registered mail arrived at the detectives' old Victorian. Zack tore open the thick envelope to find a postcard within, with a very familiar emblem on one side and a note written in an elegant hand on the other. He excitedly called his sister and they read it together, their eyes practically dancing across the card. When they were finished they exchanged a secretive smile.

Their bond with the master thief was by no means straightforward or easy. Something changed with the last case, but they wouldn't know what that was until they saw the raven-haired woman again. The future never seemed so uncertain. But at that moment, they were both just very surprised at how eager they were to go back to work.

Dear detectives,
Zack, this time I've taken your advice and used a postcard. I hope you two have enjoyed your vacation. Let's play a real game this time. I look forward to seeing you again.

Sincerely,
Carmen Sandiego

-Finis-