Helen crept cautiously through the compound. It was a miracle that she had gained access, but she couldn't find Bob or Jack-Jack anywhere. And she had lost track of Violet and Dash. Granted, they had split up intentionally, but she hadn't missed the guards heading for all the quarters of the island but hers and she worried for them.

Turning a corner, she found an open door and slipped in. The room contained a bed, a bookshelf, and a window seat. A book lay on the window seat. Helen walked over to get a closer look at it.

Curiosity killed the cat...right?

Naturally, she hesitated.

Satisfaction brought him back.

She opened the blue-and-gold tooled cover. On the front page, someone had very neatly written MY FAMILY ALBUM. Turning to the next page, Helen discovered a picture of a small child, no more than five, with huge green eyes and long golden hair drawn into a ponytail, looking frightened and clutching a brown teddy bearThe caption read Arrival, April 19th.

Turning the page, Helen discovered a few more pictures of the girl by herself. Then, on the page following, she paused. The small girl was sitting on the floor opposite a small baby with reddish-brown hair, trying to feed it a spoonful of somethingfroma jar. Helen's hand shook slightly as she brushed the baby's picture. Oh, Jack-Jack.

The pictures progressed. It was obvious that the little girl in the pictures loved Jack-Jack; he was in most of them. One showed the girl kneeling down, her arms out, as baby Jack-Jack took uneasy steps towards her. There was another of Jack-Jack holding a teddy bear in one hand as he hugged the small girl with the other in front of a Christmas tree. Another showed the girl running behind Jack-Jack, who was riding a two-wheeled bicycle as guards dove out of his way. Yet another had the two of them roller-skating hand-in-hand. Still another showed them with their arms around each other, posing proudly before a building block city they'd obviously made themselves. And so on and so forth.

Helen turned one of the later pages and stopped. The girl, looking about ten, stood next to a man, her arms around his waist, looking rapturously up at him. Jack-Jack sat proudly on the man's shoulders, laughing. The man himself had rather wild red hair and a square jaw. Underneath the picture was the caption Quality time with Daddy. The man looked familiar...but he couldn't he?

Helen kept looking. There were few pictures with the man in them, and the girl was in very few of those pictures. In only one was he alone. In the rest he was with Jack-Jack. The two of them working on a model airplane. Repairing an electronic device. Decorating the Christmas tree. In the cockpit of a jet. There was even one of the man holding Jack-Jack as a small boy, perhaps three. Jack-Jack had fallen asleep on the man's shoulders and looked so peaceful. The man smiled lovingly.

On the next page, towards the back, was an 8x10 portrait of a stern and proper-looking elderly woman, holding the hand of a solemn and proper-looking little girl. It took Helen half a heartbeat to recognize her as the little girl in the rest of the album. Her emotion was so different in that picture. In all the others she seemed...loving, caring, adoring, brimming with life. In this one she seemed like a china doll on the shelf.

Turning the page, there was another portrait of the woman alone, looking stern and forbidding. The caption read Grandmother--Dad's mother. Next to her was a photograph of a laughing man with twinkling eyes. His caption was Pop-Pop--Dad's dad. Underneath them was a couple, smiling and holding each other about the waist. Their caption read Gramma and Grampa--Mom's parents.

Flipping the pages, there were other pictures that startled Helen--the man from earlier pictures and a woman she vaguely remembered at the altar, the woman resting her hands lightly on a pregnant belly, the woman holding a baby, a few of the woman by herself. On the next page--Helen's heart leaped to her throat--was a picture clipped from a newspaper. Two women stood together, arms about each other's shoulders, grinning in triumph. The caption was not handwritten but the newspaper headline: GIRL POWER!: Women Supers Defeat Villain Without Masculine Assistance. Both women wore skintight suits. One of them was ElastiGirl--Helen herself. The other was another super, one called Irony, which was just an awful pun. She had called herself Irony because she was "as tough as old nails," she'd once laughed. She wasn't super strong, but it took more strength than even Bob had in his fist to hurt her. Hard as iron. Her real name, a thought which brought a couple of tears to Helen's eyes, had been Austin.

There were more articles about Irony--not many, but a few--and then a picture of her in her super suit side-by-side with a picture of her out of it. The caption beneath read simply Mom.

Helen paled. Had Austin married Syndrome? Where was she now? Did they have any children? She flipped to the next page, hoping to find a clue, but found only the words To Jacob on his eighth birthday. May all your days be filled with sunshine. Love, Caroline.

There was a creak from behind her. Helen slammed the book shut and whirled around. A teenage girl had just come through the doorway, wearing a blue super suit. She gasped when she saw Helen. The girl's green eyes widened in surprise. Helen suddenly realized who she was. It was the little girl from the pictures!

Helen's arm shot out and grabbed the girl's shirt, pulling her inwards. "Where's Jack-Jack?" she asked in a low, dangerous voice.

"J-Jack-Jack?" the girl asked tremulously. "Oh, you m-mean Jacob? I d-don't know."

Helen dropped the girl but stood over her furiously. "Where. Is. My. Son?"

"I told you, I don't know," the girl repeated, her eyes wide with fright. "He--he told Jacob that he needed to be safe and took him somewhere. I don't know where."

"Who is he?" Helen demanded, a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach.

"Syndrome. He isn't dead." The girl picked herself up off the floor and looked up anxiously. "Please believe me. I really don't know where he took Jacob."

"Syndrome?" Helen gasped. "Oh, my God, he'll kill Jack-Jack!"

"Nobody calls him Jack-Jack anymore. He won't even answer to it." The girl put a placating hand on Helen's shoulder. "And don't worry. He'll be all right. And for right now, so will the rest of your family."

"'For right now'?" Helen repeated incredulously. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that my--that Syndrome wants you and your husband and your children captured before he kills you. He wants you all there."

"But--but why?"

The girl took a deep breath. "Because he's been raising Jacob like his son. And he's going to want to kill you all at once so Jacob can get experience in mass murders."

"What?!" Helen yelped.

"He's either going to make Jacob watch, or do it himself, or he'll guide Jacob's hand as he does it." The girl hesitated. "But if we can find him, then free the rest of your family, you can all get out of here."

"He's got Dash and Violet?" Helen asked numbly.

The girl nodded. "Dash they've had since about nine. Violet they just brought in five minutes ago. They're all looking for you in the Western quarter."

Helen regarded her suspiciously. "Who are you?"

"My name is Caroline. I want to help you."

"Why?"

Caroline walked over and picked up the photograph album. "Because you aren't the bad people my--Syndrome has been raising Jacob to think you are. And I want him to know what you're really like. I love Jacob and I want him to be happy."

Helen saw no reason to doubt this part of the story, but she was a bit suspicious about Caroline herself. "And how do you fit into this mix? Why are you here?"

Caroline sighed. "I knew this'd come up eventually, so here goes nothing. I'm here because my father is here and he's the only family I have. And before you ask, yes, my father is Syndrome. And even though he's my dad, I don't work for him by choice. That's why I'm helping you. Because I've finally realized that he isn't the perfect man I believed him to be when I was little. Because he's been lying--to me, to Jacob--for the last ten years."

Helen hesitated, then gestured to the album. "You know Aus--Irony?"

"Knew. Past tense. Sort of." Caroline tightened her ponytail and sighed. "She was my mother."

"Was?"

"She just...disappeared. My grandmother never mentioned it, and I never did find out what happened. I've searched my dad's records, but Irony's location is still listed as unknown--even after all these years--and he never killed her. She's just...gone." Caroline brushed the book lightly. "I think that's part of the reason I never gave this book to Jacob."

"It's addressed to him," Helen pointed out, trying not to show the consuming ache she felt at learning that Austin had vanished.

"I know. I was intending for it to be an eighth birthday present, but he never got it. Part of it was that I didn't want my father to know that Irony was my mother, part of it was that those are the only pictures I have of my mother and I wanted to keep them, and part of it was that I spent his eighth birthday in sick bay."

"Cold? Flu?"

"Menenjitis. And it was Joseph who pushed to get me care. Dad would've been happy just letting it 'run its course'. Anyway, I just kept it...I've never even showed it to him."

Helen wanted to ask if Caroline knew that Helen and Austin had been best friends as children...that Austin was in fact Helen's baby sister. But now was not the time for that. Her family was in danger and she had to find them. "Listen, Caroline, do you think you could help me find my family? Not just Bob and Dash and Violet, but Jacob too?"

"Of course. Actually, there are only three places Dad could have taken Jacob. He's either in his room, one of the cells, or Central Command. I just looked in his room and he wasn't there, so we'll check Central Command first. If he's not there, we can head down to the cell blocks and look."

"Let's go," Helen said firmly.