Author's Note: All the usual disclaimers apply. Fans of "Retribution" will note that the Robot Chief's love of musical theater references is entirely canonical.
Nearly a week later, Carmen still hadn't taken the $1.50 MUNI ride from ACME headquarters to her old home, the Golden Gate Girls' School. Somehow, she kept putting it off, filling her schedule with various tasks that she convinced herself were more important than finding her parents. This included getting her picture taken with the Mayor on Wednesday, speaking about "stranger danger" at a local elementary school on Thursday, and accepting an award at a Junior League luncheon on Friday. Madre de Dios, the Junior League; if she saw another cucumber sandwich again it would be too soon. In short, she procrastinated by doing the type of PR work the Agency had always pressured her to do, but which she normally avoided like the plague. She really, really did not want to go back to the orphanage.
It was the Chief, of course, who finally called her out on her behavior.
"Howdy, pardner! How's the case coming along?" He peered over her shoulder and caught Carmen half-way through a very challenging crossword puzzle in yesterday's Le Monde. "Is the answer to vingt-across 'postponement?' Because, um, you're not working on the case."
Carmen just grimaced and looked away. "I'll get around to it."
"How about today? Doesn't seem to be much going on around here."
"We'll see," she replied cagily.
"Weeeeelll, while you've been busy socializing with San Francisco's upper crust- loved you in the tea dress last week, by the way. And the white gloves, very early Jackie O." Carmen rolled her eyes. "I've found our next lead!" The Chief proclaimed and dropped a folder onto her desk.
Carmen rifled through the pages with expert efficiency. The folder contained some old sales receipts and a black and white brochure from Harrods department store featuring a gold locket identical to her own. "The locket was from Harrods? The famous London landmark?"
"Righty-o, chap! Sold exclusively at Harrods. Still waiting to hear if they have any records of individual sales. I sent an image of your necklace with the portrait along to see if anyone recognized it. Shall we celebrate over tea and crumpets, milady?" The Chief inquired in his plummiest Oxbridge tone.
Carmen was stunned, but still wary. Me, British? "Well done, Chief. I'm impressed." He beamed. "But, it's been twenty years. It seems unlikely they would still have the records after all this time. Or, that someone from the jewelry department would still be working there. What about the burglary reports?"
"Why do you have to rain on my parade, Barbara Streisand? It's a lead." The Chief twisted his features into a mechanical frown. "And well, a couple lockets were stolen…I've got to follow up. But, I give you landed gentry and you still think drug lords! I like my theory better." He crossed his arms with a note of superiority.
"Anything on the portrait?" Carmen asked, hopeful yet detached.
Now the Chief looked disappointed. He dropped the locket into Carmen's outstretched hand. "Zip. Zilch. Nada. I cross-checked it with thousands of paintings and artists, and there are no defining characteristics. Chemical analysis of the paints revealed nothing out of the ordinary. It's a fine example of mid-century portraiture, but that's all." He looked slightly sheepish. "I did run an analysis using the Crimenet's newest facial recognition software…still a few bugs…"
Carmen was curious. "Show me."
The Chief brought up a side-by-side comparison of the locket portrait and a picture of Carmen taken at last year's Christmas party on his viewscreen. "Do you have any idea how hard it was to find a photo of you without that hat of yours? Hard. People have spent less time looking for Jimmy Hoffa." Blue dots freckled across both pictures, illuminating key facial landmarks. The arch of the eyebrows, the length of the nose and the distance between the pupils were some of many points that the Chief highlighted in a glowing red. "You and this mystery lady have almost exact values for some of the more commonly measurable facial nodes."
"Meaning?"
"Other than you've both got great cheekbones? This woman could be a relative. But the software is still in the early stages. And as it is a painting and not an actual photograph, it's hardly an exact science." The Chief paused and looked sober, almost sad. "Carmen, can I ask you a personal question?"
"Sure." Since you will probably ask anyway.
"Do you really believe this woman is your mother?"
His question pierced her, a pinprick to an already wounded heart. Her first instinct was to lie and say "no." The truth made her feel vulnerable and naïve. "Yes….no…I don't know. Sometimes it's nice to have a mother to believe in."
The Chief intertwined his mechanical hand with her fleshy one. "Well, if that's how you feel, you've got to go and find her, Carmen. You'll never find peace until you do," he spoke with utmost sincerity.
Moments like this, Carmen felt that the Chief was already a better human than she would ever be.
"Why don't you want to go to the orphanage? Do you want me to come with you?"
"No, no. I need to do this on my own. It's just…I haven't been back since I joined the Academy at fourteen." The thought of the place, its colorless grey curtains, the dreary rows of identical beds in the dormitory, quickened Carmen's heart in protest. She felt the walls of her office slowly close in as her body temperature seemingly climbed ten degrees. Not this again…
"Were they mean to you there? Did they hurt you?" The Chief's bottom lip trembled.
"Of course not," she spat out, sharper than she intended. She fought to breathe slowly, remembering her Zen training, each breath its own hard-won battle. "I just didn't like who I was there…I was nobody, going nowhere in life." Alone, abandoned, and unwanted.
"But you're somebody now! Somebody special," the robot insisted.
"Special is one word for it," she muttered to herself as she felt her breathing return to normal. The Chief had a worried expression on his face that bordered on pity- something she refused to accept from anyone, robot or human. "I need some fresh air. I'll swing by the Girls' School while I'm out."