Season 1, Episode 10:
Catch Her If You Can
Part 7 of 10
Pearl
glanced at the screen, where Emerald’s face was giving her one of her annoyed
looks. It made her wonder if she had any
others at times. “Em, don’t worry. There’s a way in through the ventilation
system you’ll have to use. You should be
able to get in completely unnoticed.
And, just to be safe, I’m taking out the signals of the security
cameras.”
“I’m
going to kill K for assigning me on a case with Grasshopper-”
“Anger
without merit is like a flower without trees.”
“UGH! What the fuck does that even mean?!” Emerald rolled her eyes, as Pearl tried her
hardest not to laugh. She’d have to tell
Nick about this when he returned. He’d
get a kick out of the fact that a new mission had come up, and K’s idea had
sent Emerald and Grasshopper to handle it.
“Anyway, thanks.” Agent 005
disappeared from the screen.
Once
she did, Pearl couldn’t stop laughing.
No one ever understood a word 004 said.
A mission with him would be a test of anyone’s patience. Now that there was no one in the field
needing her at that moment, she went back to her latest project. Several items littered her work table. Among them were a set of fake nails, various
chemicals Red had put together for her, and her toolkit. Before she could actually start working
again, the main screen above her computer lit up once more.
A
sign came into view, slowly rising up so that she could read it.
“Where in the world is Nicky
Sandiego?”
Nick’s voice sang, from behind a handmade sign saying the same thing. She started laughing again. The sign lowered, revealing Nick’s face, as
Pearl heard someone else entering her lab.
Still, her attention was kept on Nick in amusement. “Alright, we’re gonna play a little game. I want you – and I know this is crazy, but
you don’t have to if you don’t wanna play… but it’d kinda fuuuun – but anyways,
I want you to tell me, where you may think that I’m at right now. Hence…”
He held up the sign once more.
“Nicky Sandiego! And no cheating
and looking up my trace, Pearly! What
does this look like to you?” The camera
panned to a hotel room window, looking out upon the city for a moment. Nick giggled, as his face came back into view
of the screen, and began to sing. “So tell me… where in the world is Nicky
Sandiego? Watch your back!” And the video ended.
“That
boy is insane,” Pearl said to herself, still chuckling.
“But
sooooo hot,” Lancy added, sighing. K
stood next to him, shaking his head. “So
where… in the world… is… Nicky Sandiego?”
K
grinned, and Pearl raised a brow, as K did something she didn’t expect,
something she’d never thought she’d see coming from him. In fact, it was more typical of Nick. K began to sing. “Ooh
whop, do be do be, ooh whop…” And
then, much to her shock, Lancy joined in.
“Ooh whop, do be do be, ooh whop…” The two of them sang together, in perfect
harmony, no less.
K’s
hands snapped in time with the beat Lancy continued to carry alone, while K
started singing a song she’d never once imagined him singing. Having a feeling this would be more than
epic, Pearl turned the small camera on her desk towards the two men.
“Well,
she sneaks around the world from Kiev to Carolina.
She's a sticky-fingered filcher from Berlin down
to Belize.
She'll take you for a ride on a slow boat to
China.
Tell me, where in the world is Carmen Sandiego?”
“Ooh whop, do be do be, ooh
whop…” Lancy
continued, beginning to shimmy to the beat.
He had jazz hands going, as well, with spirit fingers to top it off.
“Steal their Seoul in South Korea, make Antarctica cry ‘Uncle!’
From the Red Sea to Greenland, they'll be singing the blues.
Well, they never Arkansas her steal the Mekong
from the jungle.
Tell me, where in the world is Carmen Sandiego?
“She goes from Nashville to Norway, Bonaire to
Zimbabwe,
Chicago to Czech and Slovakia and back!
“Well, she'll ransack Pakistan and run a scam in
Scandinavia,
Then she'll stick 'em up down under and go
pick-pocket Perth.
She put the ‘Miss’ in misdemeanor when she stole
the beans from Lima.
Tell me, where in the world is Carmen Sandiego?”
K began dancing as well as he sang,
completely oblivious to Pearl, who was staring in astonishment. He was doing what she would best be able to
describe as a turtle dance. It was quite
awkward, the way he wiggled from side to side along to the melody. His arms moved in synchronization to the beat
that Lancy kept going. The two were
completely into their little performance, a smile brightening the face of their
normally far-too-serious leader.
K paused, belting powerfully, “Whoooooaaaa, tell me where in the world,
tell me where can she be?”
Lancy leaned in, his voice blending
evenly with Kevin’s. Pearl wondered if
it was a requirement to have a singing talent, as well, before joining
HimTak. If so, she was curious as to how
she got in, since she had the vocal skills of a howling cat. It seemed like all of her fellow HimTak
members had amazing vocal talent.
“Botswana to Thailand, Milan via Amsterdam
Mali, to Bali, Ohio, Oahu!”
The two beat-boxed together, breaking
down the song a bit before jumping back in.
“Monday through Friday at Five!
Well, she glides around the globe, and she'll flim-flam every
nation.
She's a double-dealing diva with a taste for
thievery.
Her itinerary's loaded up with moving violations.
Tell me, where in the world is Carmen Sandiego?
“Whoooooooa, tell me… where in the world is Carmen
Sandiego?” The two started clapping their hands to the beat, and Pearl,
laughing almost hysterically, joined in.
She couldn’t wait to show this to Nick.
This would probably be some of the best blackmail they’d ever come upon.
“Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego?
Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego?
Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego?
Watch your back!”
Pearl stared as K brushed himself off,
once again professional as ever. Lancy
winked at her before checking a text.
“Oooh, Di…” He wandered off, his fingers rapidly texting
as he walked out of the lab.
Pearl regained her composure, raising a
brow at her superior, as she went to her computer, stealthily shutting off the
camera. She felt it was best K didn’t
know she had actually recorded that escapade.
K looked at her odd expression.
“What?”
She shook her head. “Nothing, nothing…”
“I used to be Aladdin at Disney World,
remember? I am capable of letting loose
once in awhile.”
She snickered. “Right, boss.”
“What’s the status on Emerald and
Grasshopper?”
“They’re moving in now.”
“Good.
Now, the reason I came down here.
There’s been word from Italy. I
need you to hack into the mainframe of the Biblioteca Ambrosiana.”
“What was stolen?”
“Da Vinci’s Codex Atlanticus – twelve volumes of his
writing and drawings. And as with the
other thefts, there were virtually no witnesses, no prints. I need you see if you can’t pull anything up. The fact that this girl’s been like a ghost
isn’t something I’m fond of.” He headed
out of the lab as her fingers few across the keyboard, entering in what she
needed to rapidly.
“Oh, and Pearl?”
She glanced up. “Yes?”
“If you send that video to Carter, I’m
going to have to kill you.” With that,
he left her lab.
Pearl shook her head as she began her
work. “How does he always know?”
± ± ±
The sky was blue over the wide, open
ocean, with just a thin layer of cirrus clouds up high in the atmosphere. A cool breeze whipped over the waves, forming
whitecaps on the surface. It was the
perfect day to go out sailing, free as a bird.
But inside the vessel that was crossing
the sea from Africa, it was a different story.
The air was stuffy and stale, almost suffocating. The only light came from the tiny, round
portholes that passed as windows. Bodies
were packed together in tight rows, sweat glistening on their dark skin. Even without the chains that bound them to
their seats, there was little room to move.
His legs were cramping up; he had never felt so claustrophobic. All around him, he could hear the sounds of
discomfort – sniffles, coughs, moans.
Someone was crying. Someone else
was throwing up. He tried to hold his
breath so that he wouldn’t smell the stench of vomit mixed with the odor of
perspiration coming off the overheated bodies behind and in front of him.
“Damn,” muttered Jay, accidentally
elbowing Opal as he bumped the armrest they shared. “I hate flying coach.”
“Me too,” said Leo, from Opal’s other side. Lucky motherfucker had gotten the window seat. “But it was all we could get on such short notice. The flight was almost completely booked.”
“No shit,” said Jay, looking around. He was no longer enjoying himself on this
little world tour. They had just spent
three days in Juffure, a small town in the tiny, Western African country of The
Gambia, tracing the roots of the Dancing Men clue they’d found in Paris. As it turned out, the clue, poorly translated
into the Mandinka language, was the opening text of the novel Roots, by Alex Haley. “Early
in the spring of 1750, in the village of Juffure, four days upriver from the
coast of The Gambia, West Africa, a man-child was born to Omoro and Binta Kinte…”
That was all they’d had to go on, but they’d had no choice
but to go, once they’d realized the next clue had to be somewhere in
Juffure. The vagueness of the clue –
even in a small village, there were lots of places the next clue could be
hidden – coupled with the fact that not even Opal, nor Leo, could speak the
native African language, had made Jay worry it would take them forever to find
it. He had pictured them searching
primitive huts with thatched roofs and dirt floors, trying to interpret the clicky-tongued
gibberish of people in loincloths who spoke like Starvin’ Marvin.
What they found instead, when they arrived in Juffure, was a
tourist trap. Apparently, Americans,
inspired by Roots, came there
regularly to take the “Roots Heritage Tour” led by an African man who spoke
amazingly good English, then visit the nearby Museum of Slavery. The tour guide had led them straight to the
clue.
Deciphering it had taken longer, but as always, Opal had come through. The decoded clue had been in Spanish, a huge
relief after the obscure language of the previous one, and once translated, it
was revealed to be an excerpt from Love
in the Time of Cholera, a novel by a Columbian author, Gabriel Garcia
Marquez. That had led them out of Africa
and on the way to their next destination, the city of Cartagena, Columbia.
And what would they find there? Another clue?
The missing books? Or their
crook, herself? Jay wondered where it
was all leading. There seemed to be no
pattern anymore; there had been no thefts in Paris or in Juffure, and no clues
left in Munich or Milan, where the other group was currently
investigating. It seemed they were
following two different trails, one of clues, the other of crimes. Was the purpose of the clues to lead them to
the loot, or to distract them from the crimes?
Jay was beginning to think it was the latter, that they were foolish for
following this latest clue back to the Western Hemisphere, while all of the
recent robberies had taken place in Europe.
But he’d been overruled by Opal, who was desperate for answers, and Leo,
who seemed to be enjoying their little treasure hunt. “It’s
so Da Vinci Code!” he’d said enthusiastically, when they’d left Paris. Jay was starting to feel more like Dorothy
Gale than Robert Langdon, stuck following the yellow brick road when all he
wanted was to go home.
The way Opal suddenly sighed beside him made him think she
was starting to feel the same way. “You
okay?” he asked, turning to face her.
“I’m fine… just thinking about Brian.” Her unnaturally blue eyes were sad and
beautiful. “I hate not being able to
call him. We’re used to being apart, but
I’ve never gone this long without talking to him. After he almost died in Toronto, I
transferred back to the DC headquarters just so we could be together. And now we’re separated again. I know he’s got to be worried about me, just
like I am about him. I just hope he
doesn’t do anything stupid…”
“The Rok?” Jay
offered her a reassuring smile. “I’m
sure he won’t do anything too dumb. He
seems pretty level-headed. He’s related
to K, remember? Same genes. And K is anal and slow, not impulsive and
stupid.”
Opal managed to smile back.
“Thanks, Jay. I hope you’re
right.”
“I’m always right, babe.
And don’t you let K or Carter tell you any different.”
Leo snorted. “If
Carter tells you any different, then you know
Jay’s telling the truth.”
Opal laughed. “What
is it with you and Nick, anyway?” she asked.
“I don’t see why you two don’t get along; you’re so similar…”
“That’s exactly why they don’t get along,” put in Jay,
before Leo could respond. “Haven’t you
heard the phrase ‘opposites attract’?
Well, the opposite is true, too.
00Carter just likes to think of himself as a ladies man and doesn’t want
Vitruvian here mackin’ on his Carter girls and salting his game.”
“Carter girls!” spat Leo, rolling his eyes. “Half the girls at HimTak can’t stand
Carter.”
“Not half,” Jay corrected.
“Only Emerald. Which is fine with
me. Emerald’s my girl.”
“I won’t steal your girl.
But I think our little Diamond’s ready to be a Vitruvian vixen
instead. And Pearl… she seems like she’d
go for more of a ‘Renaissance man,’ if you know what I mean…” He waggled his eyebrows, a smirk tugging at
his lips.
“Pearl?” Jay laughed. “Don’t think so, buddy.”
“Why not?” Leo looked offended.
“I’ve never seen Pearl go for anyone.”
“Why, is she a lesbian?”
“I don’t think so…”
Jay considered this; what if she was?
That would be pretty hot… “She’s usually
just shut up in her lab, too involved with whatever project she’s working on to
get involved with a guy. She’s basically
a geek.”
“A hot geek,” Leo added quickly.
“Yeah…” Jay
grinned. “Definitely a hot geek. I guess that’s why Carter likes her.”
“Carter likes her,
too?”
“Well, sure. Carter
likes all the ladies, but especially the ones he can’t have. And Pearl’s made it clear she’s ‘just
friends’ with him. She won’t give it
up.”
Leo continued to smirk.
“I bet she’ll give it up to me.”
Opal rolled her eyes.
“Ugh, you guys…”
They were still arguing about whether Pearl would go for
Nick or Leo when they landed in Cartagena.
“I just don’t really think she digs blonde guys,” said Jay, turning his
cell phone back on. “Sorry, dude. She’s probably secretly got the hots for K or
something. Or Emerald…” He kept imagining that lesbian fantasy, and
it got hotter and steamier every time…
But no sooner had he put his phone back in his pocket than
it suddenly rang, interrupting the conversation, as well as his vision of Pearl
in her lab coat and nothing else, Emerald sprawled out before her on her work
table, wearing only Diamond’s sexy new gun shoes… “I’ve
gotta put you on standby,” purred Pearl, slinking closer to Emerald, “so I can
tinker with your mainframe.” She reached
out to cup one of Emerald’s breasts, then trailed her hand lower, lower, down
across Emerald’s toned abs and below. “I
need to enter my digits into your system…”
“You gonna get that?” Leo asked dryly. Startled, Jay flipped open the phone without
even bothering to check who was calling.
“Hello?” he answered irritably.
“Yo, it’s 00Carter,” said Nick’s voice. “You guys landed yet?”
“We literally just did,” replied Jay, still annoyed about
the timing of his call. “What’s up? Any luck in Italy?”
“A little bit. We
missed her again, of course, but we got another picture of her off one of the
security cameras. I just sent it to
Pearl to clean up for us. Looks like a
better angle than the crappy one we got in London.”
“That’s great, man,” said Jay, his mood improving. “Any other evidence? DNA, prints, anything?”
“Nothin’. The crime
scene’s totally clean. I bet she’s been
doing shit like this for years. She’s
just upped her game enough to get us to take notice.”
“You’re probably right,” Jay agreed. Suddenly, his phone beeped in his ear. “Hey, hang on a sec, bro, I got another
call.” He glanced down and saw K’s name
flashing at him. What now? he wondered. They
weren’t even off the plane yet! He
switched over to K’s call and answered, “Jay.”
“003,” K said curtly, “You’ll be pleased to see, we’ve ID’d
the thief! Check your screen, and you’ll
see what I mean; you can thank the other team for placing her at the scene.”
Jay frowned. Was K
really speaking in rhyme? “Hold on a
sec; I’ll check,” he told him, as his phone beeped again. Shit,
now he’s got me doing it, too!
There was a picture text from Pearl, but before he opened it, he
switched back to Nick’s call. “Dude, you
were right; K’s acting really trippy with this mission, talking in rhyme.”
Nick snickered.
“You’ve noticed, too? Diamond
says it’s more alliteration, what he’s doing, but yeah…”
“Nah, man, this was definitely more rhyme. What’s he on?”
“I dunno, but Pearl said he was actin’ weird in her lab the
other day, too. She wouldn’t say what he
was doing, though, said she was sworn to secrecy.”
K and Pearl, doing something secretive in her lab? Jay’s mind returned to his daydream, but this
time, it was K stretched out on the work table… naked… Sick,
dude! Bad thoughts! Bad thoughts! He pummeled the side of his head with his
free hand, trying to make the image go away.
“I bet he got laid,” was all he said to Nick.
“Laid? K?” Nick giggled.
“By who?”
“I dunno. Pearl?”
“Pearl?! No way,
dude. No way.”
“Just sayin’… maybe they’re having a secret affair.”
“Fuck no, Pearl’d never go for K, not even if she had the
technology to remove the stick from his ass.
I mean, would she??”
Jay laughed at the desperation in Nick’s voice. It would have been easy to keep razzing him
about the possibility of Pearl hooking up with K, but then he remembered he had
a text from Pearl, and that K was still waiting on the other line. “I dunno, dude. Hang on, I gotta check this text.”
“What on earth is going on?” asked Opal, as Jay lowered his
phone again. “Why were you hitting
yourself in the head?”
“Trust me,” said Jay, without looking up. “You don’t wanna know.” He pulled up the text from Pearl and waited
for the image to load on the screen. It
appeared, blurry and pixilated at first, but as the pixels loaded, it grew
steadily clearer and clearer, revealing a still of a woman in a red trench coat
and matching hat. The wide, floppy brim
cast half her face in shadow, but he recognized the wavy, blonde hair flowing
beneath it, and the oversized, red sunglasses peeking out from under it. “Holy shit!” he gasped loudly.
Heads turned, and he remembered he was still on a crowded
plane. Luckily, as most of the other
passengers were African or South American, their English probably wasn’t too
great. “What??” Opal hissed again, but
Jay ignored her and passed his phone across her to Leo.
“Dude, you have to see this!
It’s a pic from the surveillance cameras at the library in Milan! Look familiar??”
Leo’s eyes widened.
“Shit!” he echoed Jay. “The
Louvre! That girl from Denmark! We talked to her!!”
Jay snickered. “You flirted with her!”
“That’s her?? She’s
our crook?”
“Gee, let’s think – she’s dressed like Carmen Sandiego,
wearing the same tacky shades we saw her in, and standing at the scene of the
crime. I’d say so, Sherlock!”
“What?!” came a tinny voice from Jay’s phone. Jay quickly held it back up to his ear. “Did I just hear DoucheCrapio say you guys
met this chick in Paris?!” Nick exploded.
Jay felt incredibly sheepish. “Uh… yeah…
He talked to her a lot longer than I did, though.”
“Oh, thanks, way to throw me under the bus there, Jay,” he
heard Leo grumble from his seat. All
around them, people were starting to get up, retrieving their luggage from the
overhead compartments. In the aisle
seat, Jay stayed put, listening to Nick’s tirade.
“And he didn’t catch on to anything??” Nick asked
incredulously. “I mean, how retarded do
you have to be, to stand there with the crook right in front of you and not
realize it?!”
“Well, to be fair, we hadn’t seen a good picture of her
then…”
“Fuck that! She was right there! God, first I thought he was just sabotaging
the mission so that he could catch her himself and get all the glory, but now I
see he’s just a total idiot!”
“Chill out, Nick.
You’re right, we could have caught her and we didn’t, but at least now
we know what she looks like. We’ll get
her,” Jay said confidently, tucking his elbow in as passengers filed past him to
exit the plane. The worst thing a thief
could do was show her face. K would see
to it that that picture made it onto all the major news networks, worldwide. She wouldn’t get much further looking like
that!
“Not with Leonardo Retardo around, we won’t!” Nick ranted.
Jay could tell he wasn’t going to let this blunder go
anytime soon. “Alright, well, catch ya
later, Carter. Good luck on your end,”
he said, and disconnected the call with Nick.
Switching back to K’s end, he said, “K, you’re not gonna believe this…”
± ± ±