Title: The Mystery of the Missing Geek- Part Two
Author: Dru
E-mail: Rating: PG-13
Summary: Trapped at a box at the bottom of a lake, Yves, Jimmy, Kimmy, and Rebecca contemplate death while the Gunmen race to find them in time. Langly/OC
Disclaimers: However much I may wish, I do not own our favorite conspiracy theorists. Still, the only things in this story that I do own are Rebecca Morris and the plot. This is part six in the 'Objects out of Place' series.
A/N: I'm typing this while listening to the Phantom of the Opera, well at least the high school orchestra's version of it. I don't have the actual cd...-tear-. Also I was writing this with my cat sitting near the computer, which was why it took so long to write this. He kept trying to attack my fingers as I typed. Yes, I do have the cat from hell.


There are things one thinks about if they see death as imminent, these things do not generally include grilled cheese sandwiches. However, when you are trapped at the bottom of a lake, as was the case for Rebecca Morris, and you haven't eaten since the night before, food might be something that is on your mind. This may occur also when your stomach decides to growl loud enough for everyone in the Plexiglas coffin to hear her.

She wouldn't have been surprised to learn she had been voted out of the coffin after that.

She giggled at that thought, being very anti-reality TV as she was. The other members of the coffin looked at her strangely, not really seeing any reason to laugh at their predicament. Now, this, she thought bitterly, was a die predicament. Unlike flying, they all knew that they would die, the only question was when. Unfortunately, there was no digital clock counting down the minutes before the air tanks stopped pumping air.

Rebecca had been the first one to wake up after Jimmy, Yves, and her had been kidnapped from the Lone Gunmen offices. Jimmy had woken up next, then Yves, and finally last was the person she had assumed to be Kimmy. It had turned out that she had been right, he was Kimmy.

None of them knew why they were here, Kimmy claimed all that he knew was the hack they wanted him to perform-steal millions from an online bank. He had done the hack, at gunpoint he was sure to mention that over and over again, and then they knocked him out. Oh had he left out the part about them forcing him to hack at gunpoint? No, he had mentioned that at least four different times.

And by now Rebecca was really starting to get hungry, thinking of those grilled cheese sandwiches sticking to the ceiling, and wondered sadly if the Gunmen even knew they were gone. On top of her hunger, it was extremely cold, it being winter and them being in a Plexiglas coffin at the bottom of a lake. She was curled up into a ball, hugging her knees to her chest for warmth.

"I could keep you warm," Kimmy offered, scooting over to be closer to her.

"Touch me and die," she replied bitterly, wondering if there was any possible way for this day to get any worse.

"I'm going to anyway," he retorted, but moved away from her and into his own corner.

"Don't think like that," said Jimmy, trying to be reassuring. "The guys will find us, I know it," he was confident in his belief that help was on the way.

"What makes you think they've even noticed we're missing yet," Rebecca said, still bitterly. "Hell, what makes you think that they're not lying in a box just a couple of feet that way. We wouldn't even know,"

"Thinking pessimistic wont help anyone," Yves jumped in. "And, judging by the air tanks I think that someone is playing a game. And we're the bait to lure your little friends into some kind of trap. After all, if they just wanted to kill us they wouldn't put us in the tanks,"

"Still, what makes you think they'll plan to let us go once the guys fall into the 'trap'," she leaned back against the wall of the coffin. "They'll never find our bodies,"


"I just can't find a Poem Lake. It just doesn't exist" Langly said, banging on the keyboard out of frustration.

"It has to, he wants us to follow his trail of bread crumbs. He wouldn't give us an impossible first clue," Byers tried to calm Langly. It would do no good for him to be so frustrated.

"Well, then what are we going to do?" Langly asked out of desperation.

"We'll just keep trying. It's all we can do," Byers said reassuringly. "And just hope that we find something,"


Another hour, maybe it had been longer since none of them had a watch on, had passed. That was another hour that they didn't have left to live. Although, it could have been argued that waiting for death was not really living at all. There was no real plan, other than to wait to be rescued. Which, Kimmy had so kindly pointed out, was not a very good plan at all.

They really didn't have anything to occupy their time as they leaned against the walls of their coffin, when they had been kidnapped anything they had on them was removed. Even Yves, who almost always something that would be of use, was stripped of everything she had.

"It's over now," Kimmy commented after Yves had discovered that she didn't have anything that would be of use. "It's only a matter of time,"

"I'd agree that is the general feeling around here," Rebecca added as she examined all of the air tanks along the outside of the wall nearest her.

"What are you doing?" Jimmy asked.

"Trying to see if there is any way to dislodge the air tanks," she replied. "No doubt they have weights attached to them to keep us underwater. If we can manage to get them off then, since the box is full of air, we'll float to the surface and surely someone will notice us,"

"Let me see," Jimmy crawled over next to her, followed by Yves and Kimmy who were curious to see if Rebecca's plan could work.

"I don't see any way to dislodge it," Yves said, examining the complicated device.

"I'm going to try something. Get away," Jimmy ordered, and then proceeded to ram the side of the box with his shoulder, in an attempt to get off the air tanks.

"Jimmy stop," Yves ordered, placing her hand on his shoulder.

"Why?" he asked, stopping anyway.

"I hear something," she explained, sticking her hand in the pipe that pumped air into the box. After a moment or so, she pulled out a very sharp dagger. "This," she held it up for emphasis. "was rattling around as Jimmy was banging against the wall,"

"There's another one," Kimmy pulled out an identical one from the other pipe.

"Why are they here?" Jimmy asked, taking the dagger from Kimmy's hand and examining it.

"He wants us to kill each other off," Rebecca guessed. "Psychological torture,"

"Yes, I do assume that is the purpose of these," she stood up and examined the place where the wall met the ceiling. "However, I know how we can use them to escape,"

"How?" Rebecca stood up too, trying to grasp her idea.

"See," she pointed to the place where the two panes of Plexiglas met. "They're not melted together just sealed. I'm fairly certain that we can slide the knives into this space and take the top off and swim to the surface,"

"How do we know that we're not too far under the surface?" Rebecca asked, visibly nervous about the plan.

"Simply put, we don't," she replied. "However, it is a better plan than sit here and wait to die,"

"I see a flaw in that plan, other than the obvious one," Rebecca added, sheepishly.

"What?" Yves asked.

"I can't swim,"


"I just don't get his clue," Langly complained after watching the mysterious tape for the eleventh time. "It's just a poem, nothing else," he sighed and put his head in his hands.

"I know you're frustrated but you have to think," ordered Byers. "There has to be something else to it that we're not seeing. Something else to the clue,"

"What the hell it is then?" he asked, rewinding the tape to watch it again.

"I don't know. But we only have," he glanced at the clock. "eight hours before they run out of air,"

"According to the psycho on the tape," said Langly, watching it for the twelfth time. "Who knows, they could be dead already,"


"You can't swim?" asked Kimmy, incredulous.

"Well you wouldn't be able to either if a vacuum cleaner nearly drowned you when you were four," Rebecca replied, angrily.

"Vacuums are inanimate objects, how could they make a conscious decision to try to drown you?" Kimmy asked. "Unless it's some sort of AI vacuum,"

"Very funny," she stated, folding her arms across her chest. "I got tangled up in the chord,"

"And then what? It vacuumed itself to the nearest large body of water?"

"It actually just fell off of the dock,"

"Why was a vacuum cleaner on a dock?"

"Shut up both of you," Yves ordered, tired of their antics. "Rebecca, you can just hold on to me and kick to the surface,"

"Right," she nodded.

"I can't swim either," Kimmy added, hopefully.

"Well then you can hold on to Jimmy," Yves suggested.

"Never mind I just remembered that I can swim," he said quickly.

"Then it's all settled. Jimmy you start on that side," she pointed to the opposite wall. "And I'll start cutting here,"

"Okay," he dashed to the other side of the coffin, nearly running into the wall.

"On the count of three," Yves ordered. "One, two, three," and they both slid their knives into the crack and almost immediately water came dripping into the box, and began to fill it. A very anxious Rebecca was standing very close to Yves, as the water washed over her ankles.

"Hurry," she pleaded.

"Almost there," nearly as soon as Yves said Jimmy forced the top of the coffin off and water flooded in, engulfing the four of them. Fortunately Rebecca was able to grab onto Yves and they began to swim upwards.

After only a short while, and before they had even gotten to the point where they could even see the surface, Rebecca's lungs began to burn with lack of air. It was incredibly painful and it took all of her self-control to keep from trying to take a breath of water. She could barely keep kicking but, noticing Yves slowing down, she tried to keep going.

She had lost sight of both Jimmy and Kimmy and had no clue if they were even heading in the right direction. The last thing she remembered before blackness took her was seeing the water become lighter and warmer.


Bright light burned her eyes as she coughed up water. She was lying on a hard surface, and as she looked around Rebecca saw that she was lying on a boat with Yves kneeling over her.

"What happened?" she asked, groggily and gasping for air to fill her aching lungs.

"You passed out as we reached the surface," Yves explained. "We were picked up by a boat and I revived you,"

"Thanks," she coughed again and a little bit of water was expelled from her mouth. "Jimmy and Kimmy?" she asked, looking around and not seeing them.

"I didn't see them," Yves said apologetically. "But we aren't far from shore maybe they made it there,"

"I hope so," Rebecca said, looking off to the shore. "Hey," she shouted pointing to the nearest beach. "There they are," she exclaimed.

"Yes they are there. Can you take us there?" she asked the man piloting the boat.

"Yes, I sure can ma'am," he said in a southern drawl, turning the small boat to the beach.

"Jimmy, Kimmy!" Rebecca yelled, waving her arms to try to get their attention. She could clearly see both of them turn around to face her.

"Rebecca, Yves!'" Jimmy shouted back, waving at them as they neared into very shallow water.

"This is far as I can really go in this boat," the man said, but they had already jumped out and ran onto the beach.

"We did it," Rebecca said, gleefully.

"We made it out," Kimmy exclaimed, also very happy.

"Yeah, well where are we?" Jimmy asked, looking around until he saw a wood sign with painted letters carved into it. "'Welcome to Lake Peru, Virginia'," he read off of it.

"Ok, and how do we get back to D.C.?" Rebecca surveyed the area.

"There's a campground about half a mile that way," the man on the boat said from beneath his blonde mustache, as the pointed to the well worn pathway leading from the beach. "Lake Peru Campgrounds. I bet they have a phone you could use,"

"Thank you, we'll go there," Yves said, walking onto the path with Jimmy, Kimmy, and Rebecca behind her.


Later that night, Rebecca Morris lay on her bed half-asleep. She was exhausted but she didn't want to fall asleep for fear of the nightmares that her mind would surely conjure up after her ordeal today. However, she knew that she would need to sleep eventually, she just figured that the later the better. After all, there was no way in hell that she was going to work the next day.

The telephone on her bedside table rang loudly, chasing any thoughts of sleep from her head.

"Hey Rebecca," it was her next door neighbor, one of the few friends she had other than the Gunmen and Jimmy. "A bunch of us are going to his new club that just opened. Wanna come?"

"I don't really have anything to wear,"

"Don't worry, I've got tons of dresses,"

"Then sure, I'd love to come,"

THE END