《Shades of Gray》2. "It's Crackle."

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"Gray, we need to move," he heard Carmen say from behind him.

"It's not Gray, its-"

"Graham, I know, I know." she smiled.

"No," he said, turning around to face her puzzled expression, the crackle rod humming in his hands. "It's Crackle."

Understanding and horror dawned on her face, and she backed away from him by a few steps.

"I assume you'd prefer me to continue to call you Carmen?"

"Gray, no matter what they told you, you're not that guy anymore," Carmen told him fiercely.

"But I am that guy," Graham replied, glancing down at the crackle rod he held. "I've always been that guy."

"No. Sydney, the cafe. We're the good guys, remember?" she asked desperately.

"When you finally had that cuppa with me." He let out a short, bitter laugh. "Being good only mattered to me because Dr. Bellum rewired my thinking. Programmed me to be some sort of innocent fool."

"It's never too late to change," she whispered.

"I've had time to reflect. Piece together the fragments," Graham said firmly, pointing the crackle rod at her. His eyes were dark. "And there's only one thing I ever regretted doing for V.I.L.E." Carmen blinked at him, and he sighed, powering off the rod and dropping it on the floor.

"Trying to hurt you."

Carmen's eyes went wide, and he stepped closer to her. "I know you won't come back to V.I.L.E. We've had that chat on the train to Paris. But I'm begging you, give up trying to stop us. Because I don't ever want to have to be put in a position to hurt you again."

He gazed into her teary eyes, willing her to agree. But she shook her head, blinking the tears away.

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"Then apologies," she said, her voice husky but determined. "Because I won't ever stop trying to take down V.I.L.E. Not ever. And definitely not now."

She pulled some sort of detonation device out of her pocket and pressed a red button. An explosion rocked the entire laboratory, throwing Graham to his knees. When the dust cleared, he caught sight of Carmen perched on the edge of a crater in the wall.

"Goodbye, Gray," she murmured sadly. Graham couldn't find the words to respond. He watched as she skied away across the frozen mountain landscape, his heart heavy and his vision blurred by tears.

That was the last time he had truly seen her. Because when they next met, the person he encountered was not the Carmen he knew and cared for. At that start, he was ecstatic to have her back, just as if she had graduated V.I.L.E. academy her first year. But he quickly found that something was wrong.

Black Sheep had been lively and optimistic, but this V.I.L.E. Carmen was different. There was coldness behind her words, and cruelty beneath her smiles. At first, he tried to ignore it. She's just getting used to life as a thief again, he told himself. But eventually he could no longer ignore the feeling that something wasn't right. Her endeavors were getting much more dangerous, and harmful too. She was promoted to faculty, and began to obsess over taking revenge on Shadowsan, who the other faculty members had said murdered her father. Graham knew he had to step up before she did something she could never undo: Take the life of a former friend.

He was able to catch A.C.M.E.'s attention by getting himself re-arrested in Iceland, and they formed a plan to hopefully give Carmen her memories back using the device that restored Graham's own memory. Soon, it was time to see if their scheme would work by baiting her with the Eye of Vishnu.

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And that heist was what had landed Graham in this hospital. His eyes were still fixed on the window, and he could see dawn light beginning to brighten the dark sky. He glanced at the clock. 7:04 a.m. The nurses would be making their morning rounds soon, and he could find out how long he'd been unconscious and when he was allowed to be released.

But they couldn't answer the question that bothered him the most. Graham sighed, wishing he knew what had happened to Carmen.

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