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2. First shared secret
By definition, Carmen’s entire life was a secret.
Player managing to hack her stolen phone that day was the first step. The first thing he found out, that he shouldn’t have known, was that she existed in the first place. Even if he didn’t know at the time that he wasn’t supposed to know her.
And it only went on from there.
Learning her code name, even if he thought it was just a username. Learning she lived on a remote island. That she had strange classes and subjects she couldn’t tell him about, even if crucial details slipped occasionally. There was something more to all of it, and the more time that passed, the more the hacker pieced together that these were things someone probably wouldn’t have wanted him to know.
Things that were, after all, supposed to be secret.
Maybe that meant, when she did finally tell him the thing that explained it all, it wasn’t that much of a secret. Because he’d pieced so much together, questioned the strangeness or the parts that didn’t make sense. If it hadn’t been such a strange answer, he’d have come to the conclusion long before she flat out said it.
“What if I told you I had wicked skills too… from being raised in a school for thieves?”
He should have been skeptical, disbelieving. That doesn’t really happen, right? She must be joking. But he never thought anything like that, even if it would have been the appropriate reaction. No, he’d already seen all the puzzle pieces, and she just gave him the means to make them fit together.
So technically, it was the first secret she really shared with him. But it didn’t feel like a secret. It didn’t feel like a huge revelation, like anything he didn’t already know.
No, the one that actually felt like the first real secret they shared together… that one was much simpler, and yet so huge to them. Much more normal than the pure outlandish explanation of being raised by a super secret crime organization, while also being extraordinary at the same time.
And in hindsight, it may have been one of the biggest things that made them bond as quickly as they did. In fact, he was sure it was.
“Player, I…” Her voice was stuttering, bleak and quiet from where she hid in her hotel room bed. “I don’t know how to feel.”
“Torn up over leaving again, Carmen?” His voice was the same as always, caring and friendly, understanding. It was the only familiar thing she had, now.
“Yeah.” She whispered. “I don’t know. They raised me, I feel like I should feel guilty. But I also feel… like I’ve been betrayed, too.”
The hacker was silent, for a moment. Long enough for Carmen to bury her face in the pillow beside her phone. “The people who raise us aren’t always good people. Whether they’re our real parents or not, everyone has the capability of being bad, even if they had their good sides, too.”
“There were good times.” Carmen agreed, thinking back on Coach Brunt’s surprisingly gentle, albeit blunt, kindness.
“But those don’t outweigh the bad. Those don’t make up for the things they’ve done, or are willing to do. They had the good conscience to take in an orphan baby, sure, and raise her like their own. But-- does that really make up for the fact that they’re willing to, and do , kill people for their own gain?”
Carmen’s reply was instant, firm. “No. No, it does not.”
“So maybe they did do a lot for you. Maybe they were decent guardians, maybe they did do the bare minimum of letting you grow up safely and cared for. But that doesn’t change that they’re villains, and they’re okay with hurting others, and you’re not okay with that. You’re not like that. You had to leave, Carmen. Sure, maybe some could see you as the bad guy, for leaving the family that adopted you, just because you don’t agree with them. But that disagreement happens to be over murder, and personally, I think that makes every action on your part justified.”
“But what do I do, Player?” She could feel tears trying to gather in her eyes, again, and tried to blink them away. When that failed, she went rigid, refusing to let out any sobs as tears did silently escape and make cold tracks own her cheeks and into the pillow. “I feel so alone. I’ve turned my back on everyone, everything I’ve ever known. Your family is supposed to be there, always, for you to fall back on when you struggle in life. What am I supposed to do, without that safety net? If you stopped talking to me, right here, right now, I’d have absolutely no one.”
“I’m not going anywhere, so stop thinking that part right now.” Player cut in, firmly. “Second, you don’t need that safety net, Carmen. You said yourself you’ve got wicked skills, and you single handedly made it undetected through a super secret crime organization’s high security base, stole a year’s worth of their super secret plans and intel, and escaped with all your limbs intact. That’s more than a lot of adults have accomplished in their entire lives.”
“But still, that doesn’t mean--”
“You’ve got this. From here, you can decide anything. You can use this chance to escape completely and start an entirely new life, and no one would ever know any different. You wouldn’t need family to back you up, because you’d find friends who would support you just as much, minus being evil super villains.” The hacker said, speaking grandly, as if the entire world was at her fingertips. Maybe it was? “Or… You can choose to use those wicked skills for good, again. You could turn all their evildoing ways back on them, become the hand of karma and make them regret hurting people like they have. And you’d be good at it.”
Her, an orphan raised by thieves, become a hero?
“Yeah. You could. If that was what you wanted, that’s what you could do. You stole that hard drive for a reason, I know you did. You want to use what you learned for good purposes, don’t you?”
“I…” She worked through her thoughts, debating what she really felt. Questioned herself, her own motives, what she really wanted. “I can do things the majority of people can’t. I know things about V.I.L.E. that no one else in this world does, no one who would turn on them, anyway. Things that, if used against them, could cause them a whole world of trouble.”
“Mhmm, annnnd?”
“They sent us, er… my old classmates, to steal that artifact. The one that rightfully belongs to the people of that country, just because they wanted it. Just so they can say they’re the only ones who have it. And the police, or anyone, won’t have any idea where to look, or who took it. They’ll have no leads, nothing, it’ll just be gone forever and no one can do anything about it.”
“No one, except for one person.” Player pressed, something in his voice that she didn’t quite recognize. Something… encouraging? “One person, in the whole world.”
“Player, do you really think I could do it? Take on an entire evil mastermind organization, who have gone undetected for decades, all on my own?” It was a scary thought. Daunting, beyond anything she’d ever had to do before.
“I know you could. I know you can. And, you know…” She could almost hear him smiling. Or was it a smirk? “You wouldn’t be all on your own.”
“You know what you’re offering, right? You know that you could be getting into something way too big, way over your head?”
“I’m okay with it. Truth be told… Just hacking regular old websites is getting pretty boring. But helping you take down a crime empire? Now that’s what I’d call really using wicked skills for good.” Player said, confident and even excited.
Carmen paused, mulling over her thoughts. Then, finally, “Player, I… I want to do it. I want to take down V.I.L.E.”
“Glad to hear it. Because I do, too.”
Maybe being raised in a super villain crime empire wasn’t that big of a shock, didn’t feel like that much of a secret to tell, somehow. But for some reason, the complete opposite did. Maybe because it wasn’t just her secret; wasn’t just the circumstances she’d grown up in. No, this was their secret. The decision made there, together, halfway across the world from each other, that would decide the course of their lives. The decision that they could tell no one about.
Not circumstances, not an experience. A choice, to keep to themselves, for only the two of them to know, and for the rest of the world to have no idea about. And maybe, that was a better kind of secret to share.