Dr. Sara Bellum

Gender: Female

Occupation: V.I.L.E. Mad Scientist

Full Name: Dr. Sara Bellum

Known Aliases: Carmen's Main Brain

Age: Early 30's (unknown)

Physique: Slim

Height: 5'9", 176 cm

Eye Color: Blue

Hair Color: Auburn

Appearance: A slender, almost unhealthily skinny woman in her early to mid 30's, She has a shock of light gray hair on the front-left side of her scalp that offsets with her auburn hair. She is almost always wearing safety goggles of some variety, all with opaque or mirrored lenses.

She walks and gestures with frantic energy, and speaks forcefully in her accent that sounds like the love-child of every Eastern European accent, with a dash of Spain's for good measure.

Character Background: Little is truly known about Sara Bellum before her college days. There are immigration documents, pointing to the fact that she is a Ukrainian immigrant who went first to San Francisco, and then went to study in the United Kingdom at the University of Cambridge after earning a full-ride scholarship. There she excelled in her studies, achieving 3 doctorates over the course of her stay there. The first was in Mechanical Engineering, then Electrical Engineering, and finally in Physics. She also became well-versed in many other sciences, most notably aeronautics and the quantum sciences. During a summer hiatus in her second doctorate she returned to San Francisco, and there, one warm summer's eve at an open-air concert, Sara first met Carmen Sandiego. None but Sara know why she struck up a friendly conversation with her that night, but by the end of it the two were friendly acquaintances, trading numbers in case they should be in each other's area again. This was back in Carmen's ACME days, so she didn't have as much need to be secretive.

At Cambridge she seemed to grow very interested in the ACME Detective Agency, and as she was getting ready to finalize her third doctorate, it seemed as if she would offer her services to them as a mechanic and inventor. However, that was when Carmen made her decision to turn to a life of crime. It can be assumed that Sara contacted her soon afterwards, as she became a VILE recruit immediately after her final graduation. It's unclear why she seemed so set on following Carmen, and rumors abound as to her motive, but no one seems fully sure, perhaps not even Carmen herself.

Sara spent a couple years providing VILE with high-tech gadget after high-tech gadget, and life seemed to be good for her. Then, after a secret conversation between her and Carmen and which only a few witnessed and none but those two know the true content of, everything shifted. Sara grew restless, angry, and soon it boiled over. She kidnapped Carmen and disguised herself as VILE's leader, attempting to pull off a grand heist and cement herself as the new leader of VILE. Carmen, together with Ivy and Zack Monaghan, thwarted her and Carmen left her to be captured.

VILE's lawyers bailed Sara Bellum out a few days later, much to everyone's surprise, and Sara was last seen being driven away. She's dropped off the radar since then, but new rumors are surfacing that she's never left Carmen's employ, and has spent the intervening years working on a new and grand project for VILE that is nearing completion. What lies in store for her, VILE, Carmen, and ACME? Only time will tell.

Personality: Sara Bellum acts and carries herself as the very epitome of a mad scientist. She is always in motion, carrying on to the end of her latest project with wild abandon. She either speaks very quickly or very forcefully, rarely engaging in calm conversation. She has been known to give in to maniacal laughter and to talk to herself when thinking something through. Aside from her brief episode, she seems stubbornly devoted to Carmen and her cause, though her motives are unclear.

Aspirations: According to her, to make VILE succeed however Carmen wants it to succeed, and to give them every bit of technological advantage to make that possible.