2. Squad

"So you haven't seen him at all today?"

"No. I've been on campus all day. If he came to school I must've missed him."

"Well. Alright. Thanks Gazo."

"Cadel's a smart kid. If something's happened to him he'll find a way to make it out."

"Okay. You get back to work."

"I will. I hope you find him." Saul Greanius broke the connection with a heavy sigh. As soon as he was finished Fiona turned to him with anxious eyes.

"Who was that?" She asked, her voice dripping with worry.

"It was Gazo. He said he didn't see Cadel at all today. Neither did Hamish, or the Wieneke twins." Saul looked to his wife hopefully. "You don't suppose Judith's seen him at all?"

"No." Fiona said staring anxiously at his phone. "She said Cadel didn't even come to their house today!" It was now 1 a.m. in the Greanius residence. While most of the houses outside had their porchlights on and their curtains drawn Saul and Fiona were beavering away in their bright kitchen, trying to look for their son.

After Cadel didn't come home by the curfew she had set Fiona began to grow a little cross. Immediately she had phoned Cadel and had been sent to voice mail. Fiona had complained loudly about teenagers and how they never listened to their parents. But as it grew closer to midnight this annoyance had grown to worry. After a few more late night (early morning?) calls to Cadel's phone the couple decided to go through all of Cadel's contacts, waking up all his friends to see if they knew where he was.

Unfortunately for them, Cadel's friends had no information whatsoever when it came to his current whereabouts.

"Oh. What are we going to do, Saul?" Fiona asked, tears pooling in her eyes. "He's been gone since this morning! What if they got to him then!? He could be out of the country by now!?" Fiona began to hyperventilate and Saul took her hand to steady her.

"I doubt that's happened. He's probably still in the country. Still in Sydney, in fact."

"Sydney's a big city!" She shrieked.

"I know, but we'll be able to find him." Fiona still continued to hyperventilate as tears streamed down her red, freckled cheeks. "Fiona look. Most missing person's cases are solved within 24 hours. We just need to contact the police and-"

"Are you sure we should talk to the police?" Fiona said tentatively. Her voice small and watery from all the tears she'd been crying.

"What do you mean!?" Saul was absolutely bewildered. "Fiona, Cadel is a missing child! Why shouldn't we go to the police?"

"W-what if it was P-P-Prosper who took him?" Fiona suggested tentatively through her sobs.

"WHAT!?" Saul shouted. He knew his wife was in distress but he couldn't help it. It was such an outlandish claim. "Prosper English is dead Fiona! How could he have abducted Cadel!"

"I-if we r-r-reported it he'd know we were l-looking for him and t-t-then we'd never find him!" Fiona shouted, almost choking on her tears.

"Fiona. Look. Listen to me." Saul took hold of Fiona's arms. The two looked into each other's eyes. Fiona's red and watery. Saul's with a determined look. "There is no way on Earth Prosper could have taken Cadel." He said speaking slowly and deliberately, in order to calm his wife down. "There is no way on Earth anyone that had anything to do with Prosper could have taken Cadel. Prosper is dead and his criminal empire is destroyed."

Fiona, by now, was nodding vigorously. "Yes. I know, I know. It's just..." she sniffed. "He was always there."

"I know." Saul said putting an arm around her. "You said so yourself once. But he's not here now. We can trust the police and there won't be any consequences."

"Okay." Fiona began. "But don't you think we should have a back-up team? Just in case?"

"Fiona?" Saul asked warily. "What are you saying?"

"I'm just saying..." Fiona began. She had her hands behind her back and she wasn't looking Saul in the eye. "I think it'd be beneficial for the case if we called on the talents of a particular squad." There was an awkward pause as Saul absorbed this comment.

"Genius Squad?" he finally answered, rather stupidly.

"Yes. Genius Squad." Fiona repeated.

"I don't know about Genius Squad..." Saul began in a cautious tone.

"Saul! Look!" Now it was Fiona's turn to convince her husband. "Even if Prosper's not a factor anymore anyone who kidnaps him has got to know about his past!"

"Not necessarily." Saul said.

"Saul!" Fiona shouted, "We need Genius Squad! Please!"

The desperate, pleading look in Fiona's eyes made Saul pause. As his wife stared up at him with her most helpless face it reminded him of his son and his bright, big baby blues.

"Alright." Saul finally conceded. "I'll see what I can do."

XXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Good Morning everyone. Can we have a bit of quiet please?" Saul said to the small group of noisy teenagers in the room.

"I said can we have a bit of quiet!" Saul repeated, raising his voice a little. Immediately everyone else in the room fell silent and turned to look at the detective.

"Thank you." Saul said. "Now, I'm sure all of you are aware by now that Cadel is now a missing child."

"Of course, we know." Devin snarked from his place in the corner. "You woke us up at 3 in the morning to tell us."

"DEVIN!" Shrieked Lexi. "Could you be a little more sensitive!? Cadel's missing here!"

"You're one to talk!" Devin shouted at his sister. "You're the one wearing a Monster High Necklace to a police meeting!"

"Well, it's better than that atrocious beanie you're wearing! Why don't you take that thing off!"

"Lexi! Devin! I asked for quiet, remember." Saul raised his voice, and the sharpness of the request caused the twins to stop talking.

"Now, I have reported Cadel to the police, so he is officially classified as a missing child in Australia."

"What? You mean you told the police about Cadel!?" Hamish asked aghast.

"How are we supposed to do anything useful to find Cadel if the police are always breathing down our necks!" Devin whined.

"You boys are idiots!" Lexi shouted. "Mr. Greanius never would've called us in if we were doing this illegal!"

"We don't know." Hamish retorted. "Maybe does want us underground and made an idiotic mistake."

Lexi's-right. Sonja's speech synthesizer retorted. Saul-wouldn't-bring-us-here-to-break-the-law. It was her first contribution since the meeting started.

"Yes. That's right. This is an official operation authorized by the police." Saul was already beginning to regret this decision. How was the Genius Squad supposed to get anything accomplished if Saul couldn't get a single word in? "Our mission will be to help the police find Cadel."

"Alright! Does this mean we get to go into SCATS and stuff?" Hamish asked enthusiastically.

"Absolutely not." Hamish pouted as Saul shot him down. "You'll only be able to look into the systems that the police have been authorized to and SCATS isn't one of them." Hamish sighed loudly and slouched in his chair.

"Then what are we supposed to do?" Devin asked.

"Well, there are a lot of things that the police have been authorized to look into to. There's CCTV footage, telephone signals." Saul mentioned counting the different ways onto his hand. "With stuff like that you won't need to look into SCATS. You'll be able to find Cadel in no time."

"But I already know what happened to Cadel."

"Really!?" asked Hamish excitedly. Devin and Sonja also came to attention. Saul who knew what was coming, mentally prepared himself.

"Yeah. It was probably Prosper English coming to take Cadel again. And he was so good this time he left no evidence behind."

Sonja snorted, Devin sighed, and Hamish scoffed. "Come on Lexi!" Devin shouted. "Prosper drowned in the Pacific! Or are you too dumb to remember."

"Y-yeah. A dead man can't kidnap anyone when he's dead." Hamish chimed in.

"But what if he's not dead!" Lexi argued. "What if he faked his death, or was stranded on an island this whole time, or something?"

"Lexi. Prosper is dead." Saul deadpanned. "It'd be impossible for him to get to Cadel."

Stop-creating-drama.

Lexi huffed and pouted. "You guys are no fun."

"This is a police operation. It's not supposed to be fun. I want you guys to take this as seriously as you did when you were taking down GenoMe."

"One of our friends is m-missing! You d-don't think we'd take that s-seriously?"

"Of course, I do Hamish. Just a little reminder for everyone. That's all."

What-about-Judith? Sonja's voice synthesizer piped in.

"Judith will join you later. Right now, she's participating in the search."

"Search?" Hamish repeated. "Where would they be searching?"

"Right now, they're searching the bus-stop because that was where Cadel was last seen." Saul answered.

"Huh." Devin remarked from his place in the corner. Suddenly, there was a loud ringing sound coming from Saul's cellphone. As everyone turned to look at him Saul pulled the device out of his pocket to see that Fiona was calling him.

"Alright." Saul remarked. "I have to step-out for a minute. I want all of you to get to work." Saul stepped out of the small room and into the hallway of the police department and closed the door behind him. Only when he had done that did he answer Fiona's call.

"Hello, Fiona."

"Hi!" Fiona's voice chirped from the other end of the line. "I just wanted to call to see how the Genius Squad was doing?"

"Oh. That. It's been a little slow going. We've only just started."

"Oh. So, you haven't found out any information yet?" Fiona sked. Saul couldn't help but notice the tone in her voice made her sound a little dejected.

"No. It's far too early for that, yet." Then a thought occurred to Saul. "Did you find anything during the police search?"

"Oh. The search? No."

"Seriously!?" Saul raised his voice just a tad. "Nothing at all."

On the other end, Fiona sighed. "No."

Saul sighed. This was certainly going to be tough.

"Hey! Detective Greanius!" Saul turned to see Lexi peeking through the doors. "We've found something that might lead to Cadel!"

"Really!? Already!?"

"Yeah! Come and see!" and Lexi disappeared into the tiny room.

"What's going on?" Fiona asked.

"I think the Genius Squad may have found something out."

XXXXXXXXXXX

"What's going on?" Saul Greanius asked bounding in. All of Genius Squad was crowding around Hamish's computer.

"It's Hamish!" Lexi said pointing at the computer screen. "He says he found something that could lead to Cadel's whereabouts."

"Like a clue?" Saul asked.

"Yeah." Hamish said, turning in his chair to meet Saul. "I've been looking at the telephone signals. At the closest tower to where Cadel was last seen there was a ping which means someone called him or he tried to call somewhere else."

"But here's the interesting thing." Devin said. "At the next tower there was a ping there too!"

"Which means he must have been sending or receiving calls for about 2 hours, if he was able to create a signal in the radio tower from the next town over." Hamish finished.

"It's almost like he left a trail of telephone signals." The detective mumbled to himself.

I-wouldn't-put-it-past-Cadel-to-do-something-like-that. He-is-very-clever.

"Yeah! It does seem like something Cadel would do!" Lexi agreed. "Finding Cadel is gonna be super easy now!"

"Not necessarily, Lexi." The detective cautioned. "Just because we know where Cadel's been doesn't mean we know where he is now. We don't know who stole him, and what their motives were. Cadel may not even be with the same person who first abducted him."

"Still, I th-think this lead is w-worth checking out." Hamish said. "Do you?"

"Of course." Saul agreed. "But you can never be too cautious."