Player is tracking Carmen Sandiego in Sydney, Australia, with the crimson thief standing outside the iconic Sydney Opera House, which happens to be playing host Carmen that night. Carmen sneaks backstage and scans the audience from behind the curtain, looking for any sign of a V.I.L.E. presence in the opera house. Suddenly she is caught off guard by a familiar voice from her academy days: Graham/Gray, AKA V.I.L.E. agent "Crackle". Carmen skeptically asks why he's at the opera house, thinking he's partaking in yet another heist, but Graham blithely informs her he's simply doing his job as an in-house electrician and attempts to escort her outside, not showing any sign that he's ever met Carmen before. Carmen realizes that V.I.L.E. has wiped Graham's mind and any memory of both her and any affiliation with the organization.
Player reminds Carmen that Graham used to be an employee of the Sydney Opera House and could simply be gaming her but Carmen is convinced that Graham's lack of recognition is genuine, which is confirmed when she notices Le Chevre lurking about the rafters, meaning Graham couldn't be the onsite operative. Le Chevre is holding a strange device with a conical dish, which Carmen takes upon herself to relieve him of. Le Chevre sneaks up on her and manages to knock the device from her hands but is unable to claim it himself, leaving it to fall onto a lighting rig above the stage.
Le Chevre descends down to retrieve the device and puts in earplugs. Carmen attempts to thwart him once again but Le Chevre successfully keeps the device out of her reach and deploys it, sending out a powerful signal into the audience. His work done, Le Chevre simply leaves and ignores Carmen. Carmen has no idea what Le Chevre's objective was but using her communicator, Player plays back the audio feed from the moment Le Chevre triggered the device.
Meanwhile, back at V.I.L.E. headquarters, Le Chevre reports a successful mission back to Dr. Bellum. Upon being told that Carmen was also in attendance, Dr. Bellum gleefully hopes that the effect of the device also affected Carmen. Player decodes the audio stream and extracts the audio produced by the device. A voice saying "launch the boomerang" is heard, which Carmen recognizes as Dr. Bellum's. Player deciphers the purpose of the device was to implant a subliminal message and warns Carmen that whatever intent the recording had, it may have also impacted her. Player cross-references the message with V.I.L.E.'s intel and determines that they are referring to "The Boomerang"; an experimental rocket being developed under contract in the wilds of Australia by a company called "HelioGem." Running another comparison between the opera attendees and HelioGem's employee roster, a name pops out: Dr. Jeanine Dennam, the lead engineer on the project who is also at the opera that night.
Player quickly associates that V.I.L.E. must have used the subliminal messaging to prompt Dr. Dennam to launch the rocket upon hearing the same music, although he can't figure out what exactly the endgame of doing so would be. Carmen decides to visit the rocket site and solicits Graham's help to guide her through the Outback. Graham declines on account of work and mentions that an "accident" caused his memories to become scrambled for the past year, leaving him with no recollection of that time. He gives Carmen the address of a local cafe and offers to meet her that Friday.
The next day Carmen and her team set out for the rocket site, near Ayers Rock. As they drive past the landmark, Player informs the team that the rocket HelioGem is developing had to be sidelined thanks to a defect. However Carmen quickly realizes that this is exactly what V.I.L.E. wanted. Should the rocket be launched in its current state, the rocket would likely fail catastrophically and pollute the land when it does. HelioGem would be held responsible and have their contract revoked, allowing V.I.L.E. to acquire the development rights.
At the launch site, the team don lab coats in order to enter the facility incognito. Carmen instructs Zack and Ivy to locate Dr. Dennam and prevent her from hearing the music that will trigger the subliminal message while Carmen keeps anyone else from launching the rocket. Carmen hacks her way into the facility while Ivy and Zack enter the main lab under the guise of being interns and stop Dr. Dennam from using her portable media player. However after they talk to her, she reveals she was listening to a podcast and not an opera, meaning they rushed over for nothing. Carmen locates the launch controls and sets about disabling the launch system.
Outside, hanging from a radar dish, La Chevre has been coordinating with his underground partner-in-crime, El Topo, who is in the service tunnels beneath the launch site. Utilizing the facility's own speakers, El Topo pipes in music from Carmen over the sound system. Inside the lab, Dr. Dennam has been explaining to Zack and Ivy why she refuses to listen to opera while working when the music comes over the PA system, triggering her latent orders. Dr. Dennam falls into a hypnotic trance and Zack and Ivy try to stop her but the programming is too strong, forcing the pair to tie her up and stuff her into a containment chamber.
Unfortunately, Carmen is standing at the launch control deck and the music affects her as well and she engages the launch sequence instead of Dr. Dennam. Player contacts Zack and Ivy and tells them they need to disable the audio feed in order to break Carmen's trance, which is originating from under the facility. Zack heads into the service tunnels while Ivy tries to make it to the rocket to disable it manually. Le Chevre catches Ivy trying to scale the launch superstructure and goes in after her. Meanwhile, in the service tunnel, Zack runs into El Topo and fools him into thinking that his partner was attacked by dingoes, causing him to abandon his post. Zack disables the audio feed and brings Carmen back to her senses.
At the rocket, Ivy is almost successful in disabling the rocket but Le Chevre catches up to her and pulls her off. The two wrestle for the controls before both of them fall off the walkway, leaving Ivy clutching the edge of the rocket. Le Chevre makes a hasty getaway before Ivy loses her grip and falls off the rocket. Thankfully, Carmen happens to swing by and rescue Ivy as she's falling, grappling back to the top of the superstructure and disabling the rocket in a single move. El Topo and Le Chevre drive away from the launch site in frustrated defeat.
That Friday, Carmen heads to meet Graham at the cafe. Player offers his criticisms of meeting up with the man once known as "Crackle" but Carmen says she wants to reconnect and get a fresh start. However after being reminded of the effects subliminal messaging can have, Carmen concedes that there is too much at risk and sneaks away from the meeting within eyeshot of Graham, deciding that keeping separate is as much for his good as it is hers.
On V.I.L.E. island, Professor Maelstrom is meeting with his "star student" — a mysterious young woman with a penchant for creating razor-sharp weapons out of paper, which she demonstrates by decapitating a nearby skeleton. Professor Maelstrom gives her an assignment: to bring him the hat of Carmen Sandiego...
Tropes
- Bittersweet Ending: Carmen foils Le Chevre and El Topo's plan, but she must decline getting any closer to Crackle.
- Boring, but Practical: Unaware of how unusual a situation this is, Gray surprises Carmen at the opera and nearly gets her out of the picture simply by snapping at her for being backstage without clearance.
