carmen sandiego oneshots

Nightmare

It takes Jake Bouchard about two months after Carmen's big VILE escape to start having nightmares.

The nightmares all start with Carmen's fear: "They're going to get me, Player, oh my God," and "I can't escape them, they always find me," and "Please don't let them catch me, please, please, please..." over and over again, a dizzying loop. In the nightmare, the computer screen he views her from has the blurry photo of her, taken on the VILE mission she had apparently photobombed. And then she comes into focus on the icon, her eyes all black, streaking ink over her face.

And then it shifts to Ammi, finding his never-ending call with Carmen. In the nightmare, her face is taut, every muscle in her body coiled. It's the angriest he's seen her in his life. She hears Carmen's pleas of "Don't leave me, please Player, you can't, you can't, they're gonna kill me, please-" and hovers her fingers over the hang-up button. When she turns to him, she softens, becoming the spitting image of her photo on the mantle with Abbu, and tells him to be careful not to fall for scams on the internet. In the nightmare, there's an invisible wall between them: he begs and cries and screams, banging against the glass, because he knows, through dream logic, that once she hangs up, Jake will never be able to find Carmen again. Ammi coos at him once, says "Come on, beta, you can't spend all your time on some screen," and Jake starts throwing himself at the wall. He can't fail Carmen. He's her only lifeline.

And it shifts, again, to the VILE faculty. He doesn't know enough about what they look like for his brain to fully develop their forms, so all he sees is their shadowy sillhouttes; a tall, wiry man with bleach-white hair; a short, labcoat-clad person with skunky hair; a strong, intimidating woman with green hair; a woman in a mermaid dress; a shadow ninja with a sword. They're standing over his computer set up, the one he's payed half and Ammi payed the rest for, with baseball bats. There's still a wall, but it stretches around him; he can get so close to tugging their bats away, but can never quite do it. In the nightmare, they smash at his moniters, one after another, faceless with he exception of Joker-like grins. With every hit is a flurry of red fabric and splatters of blood that float through the plastic to stick to him. Through dream logic, Jake somehow knows that this is Carmen's blood, Carmen's trenchcoat. He throws himself at the wall, over and over, the stretchy material molding around him, making his skin sting. Eventually, he gives up. Eventually, the pain becomes too much, and they keep beating his computers, or maybe it's Carmen, until there's nothing but blood-splattered shards of circuitry and screen.

The scene changes again: Carmen speaks up, from behind him. She's drenched in blood, crying inky black again, and screaming. She doesn't say any words for a while, just an endless, pained howl. Jake is crumpled on the floor, watching her with a burning sensation enveloping every cell in his body. She shrieks, like a siren song, and Jake drags himself up onto his hands and knees, crawling towards her. Every time he moves, she gets farther and farther, until she's only some pixels on a screen. In the nightmare, that's when she starts speaking words, begging "Why, why, why, Player, why," over and over, until the fuzziness around Jake's vision gets to be too much.

When he opens his eyes again, it's to Ammi, tied in a chair, and Carmen to her back, surrounded by the VILE faculty. they both have gunshot wounds -- Carmen in her side and Ammi in her arm. They're blank-faced, glassy eyed: dead. Jake can see their ghosts, looming over over him, larger than life. They condemn him, swiping at him with ghostly fingers, sending shudders wracking his body, and he looks down to his hands.

They hold a gun.

This is where the nightmare takes two paths. One is that he wakes up, sweat-drenched at three AM. This, despite it's horrid nature, is his favorite ending. He can't shake it off for another hour, instead choosing to comb through the internet for any possible Carmen sightings -- being in an unmarked, undocumented boat without any knowledge of sea procedure was bound to ruin their plan -- but at least it's not the alternative.

The other option, the much-dreaded alternative, is that he finds himself on VILE island. He knows, somehow, that he works for VILE, and is sent to kill Carmen Sandiego. She's still on the island, young and short. Her face is the same. In the nightmare, a shadow with a sword hands Jake a weapon; on certain nights it's a gun, on others it's his blade. His fingers shake around the trigger, the hilt but he goes through with it. When she seess him, its too late. Her eyes don't close, stare at him with horror and fear for what feels like an eternity.

It's now that he's certain to wake up. The second option always sets him in a bad mood, coils around his ribs like a vice, unwilling to leave him alone. Carmen always asks what's wrong, when the nightmare plays all the way through. He always says it's nothing: she has more than enough to deal with, surviving on a boat in the middle of the Pacific.

inspired 'what we are is the sum of a thousand lies' by elliptical on ao3

not the rewrite i hinted at on my conversations board: this idea was sprung from a half finished fic i had in my drive that i tried to rewrite and kept getting stuck at different parts of until i gave up and took vague inspiration. i might actually finish my og fic idea, and maybe even do the rewrite, but not quite yet :3 so have a dabble!! (that's literally 100 words less than a normal oneshot for me so basically a oneshot but shhhshshshshshsh)

urdu player is a headcanon I've had for a hot minute now but because i don't write much carmen sandiego stuff anymore, i haven't been able to incorporate it into anything. but now i'm writing stuff, so!! lets go!! DISCLAIMER: i am not urdu. this is mostly based off of google. if anyone has any suggestions or concrit on the way i wrote player, i would love to hear it!! <33

cya qwerts!!

~qwerty