Bob hesitated. He was fully suited up, mask included, so he wasn't worried much about being hurt. But he was unsure as to what to do now. If he just barged in, whoever it was could hurt Jack-Jack. On the other hand, it would show he was a force to be reckoned with. Finally, he just knocked.

The door swung open creakily, and Bob went in slowly, looking about him for a trap. "Hello?" he called cautiously.

His left foot stepped on a throw rug that had no floor beneath. With a bellow, he tumbled down a tunnel that he felt he ought to have been expecting.

It seemed that he fell for ages. Later he found that his guess wasn't very far off. Finally, he hit a solid stone floor. He tried to stand up, but the impact had taken too much out of him. Two guards came in and dragged him down the hall, and while he tried to escape he couldn't quite break free. Large iron bulbs were clamped around his hands and feet, and he was stood in an arch. One of the guards pushed a button, sending electricity to bind the large bonds to the arch--a sort of electromagnet--and the two of them left him there. Overcome by terror and fatigue, Bob fainted.

Syndrome rubbed his hands gleefully. "We've got him now, my girl," he said triumphantly to Caroline, who was seated at the console. "We'll leave him there until his family shows up, then kill them all."

Caroline grated inwardly at his use of the word we. "Dad, how did you get him here anyway?"

Syndrome smiled, leaned over his daughter, and pushed a single button. A five-year-old little voice said sweetly, "You don't know me, but I know who you are. You've lost something very precious to you..."

Syndrome switched it off. "Do you remember that, baby?"

"My speech therapy," Caroline murmured. "That was almost a month before you kidnapped Jacob...and you've been saving it all this time! You tricked me, Dad!"

Syndrome shrugged. "Rules of the jungle, baby. You gotta be quick on your feet, and I couldn't very well do the tape myself, not when they think I'm dead. They'd smell the trap in a second. But a little girl..."

Caroline tried hard not to be hurt. She'd known for a couple of years that her father wasn't the shining pillar of virtue she'd believed him to be as a five-year-old little girl with no one else to show her the way. Still, the fact remained that she had trusted him back then. And he had used her.

Getting her emotions under control, she asked carefully, "How long do you think it'll take for his family to get here?"

"Shouldn't take more than a day or so," her father shrugged. "They tend to be worrywarts, so they'll probably panic and rush to find him."

Caroline nodded, as if this was no more unusual than stars on a clear winter's night. Inwardly, she wished her father was less quick to jump to assumptions, particularly as they'd likely prove true. Caroline did not want to see the end of the Incredibles. Especially not if her suspicions proved true and Jacob would be forced to kill them--or watch her father as they were tortured to death.

Caroline didn't tell Jacob what Syndrome was planning or his assumptions, but he figured it out anyway. The two of them were on tenterhooks for the next two days. Astonishingly enough, though, no planes showed up. Caroline watched anxiously for three days straight under her father's impatient direction, scanning aerial radar, underwater sonar sensing, even sending out a couple of "sparrows", the little jets used for recon missions. Nothing.

Syndrome couldn't understand it. "Have they given up on him? Do they not care? Where are they?"

Caroline frowned…then suddenly remembered something. While she was "looking" for Dash and Violet, she had been ordered to do some investigation into Helen and Bob as well. Apparently, Jacob's kidnapping had adversely affected them both; they blamed each other for what had happened. A year before, they'd been a step away from divorce. Bob had backed down first and apologized to Helen, claiming responsibility for the kidnapping, and they were still together, but Caroline had no idea how close they still were.

She didn't mention any of this, though. All she said was, "I don't know, Dad."

Later that afternoon, Caroline was still scanning radar when her father put a hand on her shoulder. "Caroline. Right there, on that camera. Something moved."

Caroline looked, but there was nothing there. "I don't see anything, Dad."

"It was kind of a…a shimmer. Can you switch that camera to heat-sensitive?"

"One thermal imaging filter, coming up."

With a click, the monitor shifted into reds and blues and greens and yellows. In the midst of mostly light greens was a distinctly feminine red-and-yellow shape, looking around cautiously. Syndrome grinned. "That's one of them, at any rate." He stepped over to the console and flipped on a microphone. "Intruders in the Southern quarter, repeat, intruders in the Southern quarter. Squad Eight, check the Eastern quarter for other intruders. Squad Ten, search the Northern quarter. Everyone else head to the Southern quarter and get the intruder. Use thermal imaging filters on your helmets. Go! Go! GO!"

"Dad, what about the Western quarter?" Caroline asked innocently.

"Most of the Western quarter is the compound. If they come back here, we'll catch them."

Caroline didn't say anything, but she knew her father was right. And that was hard to take.