"Charlie?! Hey Charlie!" The man's father shouted through the house. "You'd think that just because he had a break today he wouldn't up and disappear…" He dropped his newish beige jacket over the back of a chair and continued to look all around the house. He'd gotten that jacket a little while ago as a present from Mildred, or Millie as she liked to be called, he wore it most of the time these days. She'd seen it in a shop window while she was walking and promised herself to get it for him. That was months ago. She finally got around to giving it to him a week ago, though it really wasn't her fault – since he'd been taking classes at CalSci it was hard to find him at a time when he wasn't studying anymore. He'd just gotten back from classes and needed his math whiz son's help with a few things.
As if the man wasn't already doing enough with his life, he had to help his father with math. It's really not like it was difficult for him, though. He had a doctorate in mathematics and utilized this often to help his older brother with FBI cases. This was what he spent most of his time doing these days, other than his Cognitive Emergence work. These two big projects took up most of his life and as such he rarely had any free time, hence the fact that his relationships haven't gone well, if they've gone at all, for a long time. Yet his father knew this, and he still suspected he'd gone out with Amita until he looked in the garage.
Written on one of the blackboards, completely blank other than this note in the corner, there was a piece of writing that was hardly written by Charlie. This wasn't the handwriting of anybody else he knew either. It was on a purple post-it that was stuck to the upper corner of the blackboard, written in bright pink ink. They had very good cursive and were obviously proficient with a… whatever they wrote that with. It looked blatantly like something written with an old-fashioned quill and ink; however such mechanisms were hardly used anymore. Yet it looked exactly like that.
It was then that the man's father read the note itself.
"Mister Eppes,
I am sorry for the short notice, but I have borrowed your son for a while to work on a case. He will be back in, at most, a week. If you would be so kind as to do me the favor of cancelling any appointments he has that may conflict with this, I would greatly appreciate it. If you would like to contact me, please wait until your son arrives home, I shall come with him to personally thank you. And do not worry; your son is not in any danger.
Oh, and one last thing. I'd appreciate it if you did not worry. As I said, your son is in no danger.
-T.S."