A/N: Thank you for all your lovely reviews, and I hope you did well on the clue! Maybe there will be another one waiting in this chapter..! Beta read and bunny-enhanced by the Gublerific editor frog, my partner in crime!
Morgan and Emily had just finished instructing the sketch artist, and the drawing was done. The woman in the sketch was a perfect likeness of the woman they had seen leaving with Reid in the bar. Morgan was still silently cursing at himself for pushing his younger colleague into talking with her. Even if she wasn't the UnSub he shouldn't have pressured Reid into doing something he didn't really want to do. This is all my fault, he thought.
The two agents spotted their superior bolting towards them. "Do you have it?" Hotch sounded as tense as ever.
"We have it." Emily showed the sketch to Hotch.
"Good. Prentiss, scan it and run it through the system, see if you get a match in the criminal records database. Take that sketch and go to the bar, see if anyone recognizes her." He turned to Morgan. "Go down to Garcia and relieve JJ, she's going with Prentiss on this."
"No, I'm going with Prentiss." There was a good portion of irritation in Morgan's voice.
"No, you are going to help make the profile."
"Hotch, it's my fault Reid's gone! I practically shoved him into the arms of an UnSub!" Morgan couldn't hold his anger in anymore, and Hotch was getting a taste.
"Morgan!"
The younger agent realized he had gone too far and fell silent. He knew Hotch was right, like he usually was. Moderately annoyed, he pushed past his superior and rushed towards Garcia's office.
"I'll be down in five!" Hotch called as he watched his subordinate disappear behind a corner. Facing his female colleague, he sighed. "Take JJ and go, we need an ID on this woman." A sharp ringing interrupted him and he pulled his cell phone from his pocket. "Hotchner. I see. Nothing? Okay, thanks." Hanging up, he looked at Emily. "Reid's apartment came up clean, not a trace."
"So whoever took him did so before he got home Friday night."
"Looks that way."
Emily nodded. "Make the profile. We'll get the ID."
With that, they went their separate ways, determined to identify the UnSub.
--
Emily Prentiss began steering the car towards the team's usual bar haunt whenever the mood took them for a drink. Today, however, even liquor wouldn't help solve her troubles. She slammed on the brakes suddenly as a red Mercedes cut her off, and she slammed the heel of her hand on the steering wheel and screamed.
"Son of a bitch!"
"Calm down, Emily. It's..."
"It is not gonna be all right!" she said. "Morgan's right - we basically set Reid up for this. Not one of us stopped to consider..."
"What - that every attractive woman who looks at Reid is out to torture and destroy him?" JJ shot back, nearly on the verge of tears.
"Think about it - when's the last time we saw Reid even look remotely interested in a woman?"
JJ thought about it for a moment. "There was this one case, before you came; he kissed an actress and everything. She was gorgeous, but a sweet person, too."
"Okay, one time."
"And then he took me to a foot ball game for his birthday..."
"And you guys are just friends. Good friends, but friends." Emily thought of the last guy she'd seen JJ with - he was tall, dark and oh-so-very-handsome. Hopefully we can find this woman in time, Emily thought as the SUV pulled into the bar's parking lot.
--
Morgan, Hotch and Gideon had gathered in Garcia's office . None of them felt it was a good idea to move too far away from the computer screen in case they would be able to see Reid again, or if any new clues came up. Garcia was frantically working with the last one as the men tried to make a profile of the UnSub.
"He's organized and technically skilled, probably well-educated." Hotch paced the room.
"Considering the make of the cell he wants to keep Reid there for some time. There's enough water there to last at least a week, maybe more." Morgan looked at a recording of Reid receiving the basket through the ceiling. "The UnSub wants to degrade him, make him feel worthless. That's why he's feeding him through the hole in the ceiling. Sort of like an animal in a cage."
"And he obviously has something against me." Gideon leaned over, resting his elbows on his knees. "I've been going through cases in which the victims didn't make it, but nothing rings a bell." He sighed and dropped his head a few inches. "Garcia did a search for any UnSubs who have been released during the last year, and that came up empty as well."
"There's no bed in the cell." Morgan kept looking at the playback. "The UnSub probably wants to keep Reid in a constant state of exhaustion, since there are no means to be comfortable or sleep properly."
"Sleep deprivation is an effective way to play with someone's mind, it keeps the person docile and makes him easy to manipulate." Hotch stopped to watch the playback for the umpteenth time. "This UnSub needs him to be in a state of helplessness. That would suggest a physical handicap, lack of strength or size or any incapability of physically repressing the victim."
"This UnSub also has control issues; probably suffers from OCD and paranoid delusions. He believes that Gideon has wronged him in some way, and now he's taking it out on Reid." Morgan turned to his female colleague. "Have you done a search on parents of victims who were killed?"
"Done and done, baby. It all came up clean."
"Do you still have a trace on Reid's phone?" Hotch leaned over Garcia's desk.
"It just passed Lincoln, Nebraska."
"Can you cross check that with any airplanes in the air right now?"
"I'll have to hack their system, but give me a few minutes and I'll have it for you."
"Good. How's the clue coming?"
"Well, it's so weird... The flag in the picture doesn't match any flag belonging to any country, city, state or regime in the world. But I just know I've seen it somewhere before."
"Keep searching."
Gideon rose and looked over Garcia's shoulder. "Why is the 'e' in 'Eyes' capitalized?"
"I don't know. Typo?"
"No, this UnSub is way too organized to make any mistakes. That has a meaning. The 'Eyes' represents one or more people, possibly in the sense of being all-seeing."
"Wait, wait, wait!" Garcia began to furiously type on her keyboard. "Wikipedia, I could kiss you!"
"What did you find?" Morgan rose and joined the others beside Garcia.
"I knew the flag was familiar, but it's no wonder I couldn't find it. It doesn't exist!"
"Come again?"
"It's a fictional flag; it's from a book I read in college! The Handmaid's Tale, it's a dystopian novel about a country, the former US, which is governed solely by men, where women are in total subjugation. The country is called Gilead and that" she said, jabbing a finger at the screen, "…is its flag."
"What about these 'Eyes'?" Hotch listened to his female subordinate as she described the book to him.
"The 'Eyes' were a Gestapo-like kind of people, all male of course. They were the internal intelligence agency who attempt to root out those violating the rules of Gilead."
"I have a feeling that refers to us."
"Exactly what course did you read this book in, Garcia?" Morgan frowned.
"Women's Dystopic Literature, I think."
Hotch looked at Morgan. "Our UnSub is a woman."
"Tell me something I don't know. I saw the bitch."
"Okay, Garcia – pull up as much info on this book as possible, find out why the 'Eyes' see no more." Hotch turned to Gideon. "You have a new focal point."
"Wives, daughters, girlfriends, sisters." He rose. "I'll be in my office." Leaving, he wiped the sweat from his brow. This was a task much greater than his profound knowledge could master. But he would damn well give it a go.
--
"Yeah, I've seen her." The bartender held the sketch of the woman in his hands, scrutinizing it. "She's been in here every Friday and Saturday the last couple of weeks. Real looker."
JJ looked at the bartender, hope in her eyes. "Do you know her name?"
"Yeah. Angelica something."
Prentiss scribbled all the info down in a note book. "Do you know where she lives?"
The bartender shrugged. "No clue."
"Did she ever talk to anyone, leave with anyone?"
"A couple of guys tried to talk to her every night, but she never gave them the time of day. And she never took anyone home, as far as I could see. Except last Friday, she left with some scrawny guy looking like I should have checked his ID."
"Yeah, we know. He's missing."
"And you think Angelica took him? That little thing? She couldn't overpower a turtle!"
"You don't always have to be strong to bring someone down", JJ retorted, sick of the bartender's attitude. "Did she ever talk to you?"
The bartender sighed and rolled his eyes. "Yeah, she talked to me."
"What did she say?"
"I don't know!" The bartender began to geet annoyed with the two women's questions. "The usual stuff! She's new in town, she was just looking around to find that one special guy. She had some business here, so she was only staying until she found her guy. Well, she found him, and she's probably left."
"Where was she from? Did she tell you?"
"Yeah, some place called Smithstown. Are we done here?" Looking exasparated, the bartender grabbed a glass and started rubbing it with a towel.
Prentiss nodded. "Yeah. We're done."
The two women turned and walked out of the bar. JJ was not happy with the bartender's behaviour. "Nice guy."
"Well, at least he gave us what we needed. Call Hotch, tell him everything. I'll drive."
Pulling up her cell phone, JJ jumped into the car and dialed the number to her boss.
--
"I can't find any passage where it says that 'the Eyes see no more'!" Garcia scrolled through the eBook version of The Handmaid's Tale. "It doesn't even say that they stop seeing at any point!"
"The book may just be a reference to the work we do here, or at the very least the work our UnSub thinks we do here. When have we ever stopped seeing?" Morgan moved around the room, hands folded on his head.
"Well, we better think fast, we only have 20 minutes left on the timer!" Garcia tapped the screen, pointing out their limited time.
"Aaah... I have no idea. This is impossible."
"Every riddle has an answer. It might not always be the answer you think but it still exists." Gideon leaned back in his chair. "When the 'Eyes' stops seeing, what happens?"
"Chaos." Hotch sat down in the only available chair.
"Our UnSub might not see it that way. She might think that blinding the eyes is a way of saving the world, like in the book – the 'Eyes' are the bad guys who the protagonist is out to stop." Morgan never stopped pacing the room.
"So, when the 'Eyes' stop seeing, the world is saved?"
"It's worth a shot. It can't hurt to try."
"Okay. Garcia, type that in." Hotch rose and walked over to the technical advisor.
"You got it." The blonde computer specialist let her fingers fly over the keyboard, and as she hit ENTER everyone had gathered around her. The textbox disappeared. A few moments later, a single word written in bright red showed up in its place.
Incorrect.
The four agents watched in dismay as the textbox returned on the screen.
"Well that wasn't right." Morgan growled. "Now what?"
"Why don't the 'Eyes' see? Perhaps because they are blind?" Hotch motioned Garcia to try the next answer in the textbox.
Once again, the textbox disappeared and the disheartening message reappeared.
Incorrect.
"This is crazy, how are we supposed to figure this out?" Morgan punched the air as he turned away from the computers, mostly to hide his anger and frustration. He had to stay calm, no matter how hard it was at this point, knowing he had been the cause of Reid's abduction.
Gideon simply stared at the screen. Thousands of thoughts went through his head. Most of them consisted of cases he had put behind him - all with victims, wives, daughters, girlfriends, sisters, anyone who could be a possible UnSub. "The most likely scenario is that this is someone whose son or daughter I have either helped to put away or failed to save. Considering the profile we made, it would be a mother – not a father."
He narrowed down the number of possible suspects in his mind. Soon, there were none. This made no sense at all. He remembered every single case he had ever been involved in, but none of the women fit the profile. Gideon had never been more confused in his life. What was going on?
"How about that the 'Eyes' don't see because Offred has stopped them?" Garcia spoke up from her place by the keyboard.
"Who stopped them?" Hotch had a questioning look on his face as he turned to his female colleague.
"Offred, she's the protagonist in the book. She's working against the government to bring it down. Maybe she's the one who's stopped the 'Eyes'?"
"Type it in."
Full of expectation, the four once again huddled around the computer. As Garcia pressed ENTER, not a breath was drawn. They all prayed that it was the right answer. But as the message on the screen showed up, their expectation was replaced by confusion.
Strike three. You're out.
Dumbfounded, they looked at each other. "We only get three shots?" Morgan asked.
"Apperently." Gideon sighed.
"Now what?"
Before they could finish their very confused conversation, the image of Reid sleeping on the floor of the cell showed up on the screen.
"This can't be good." Garcia stared at her sleeping friend and colleague.
"He got a reward when we solved the clue. What happens when we fail?" Hotch felt his heart begin to beat a little bit too fast. They had failed their friend. What was going to happen to him now?
Garcia noticed her colleagues draw closer to her and her screens as they waited anxiously to find out.
--
The ice cold shower hit Reid like a bolt of lightning. He was startled out of his much needed sleep by a hard stream of freezing water. Jumping up from his place of rest, he tried to shield himself from the spray of fluid, emanating from the sprinklers above him. He was instantly soaked and began shaking from the shock of waking up to this downpour. "Stop!" he cried, wiping water from his face. The young doctor waved at the camera on the other side of the room in an attempt to catch the UnSub's attention. "Please stop!" There was desperation in his voice.
The water burned in his eyes, and he realized it was salt water. The flow suddenly reduced to a thick mist instead of the massive cascade that had just hit him. The air around him became heavy and difficult to breathe; it felt like the humidity had just risen 200 percent. At the same time, Reid noticed to his despair that the room temperature rapidly decreased. The cell was turning ice cold. "Please, don't! Don't do this!" The young man was soaked to the bone, and shaking violently, both from the initial shock and from the sudden cold.
The mist emerging from the sprinklers had ceased, but the humidity hung heavy in the air. Reid wrapped his arms around himself, trying to conserve some form of body heat. "Oh, God..." he whispered as he took a few steps on the concrete floor, which was now covered with water. "Please! I'll freeze to death!" His voice cracked as spoke, and he broke out crying before he could finish his sentence.
But another disturbing feeling came over the young doctor. He had to go to the bathroom.
--
The four agents watched in horror as their young colleague was hit by water from the sprinklers. "Oh, Reid..." Morgan dropped his head as the screen once again went black.
"That son of a bitch."
Everyone turned in shock. Hotch had just cursed, something that did not occur on a daily basis. "Now what? Are we going to get a new clue?"
They watched in silence as a new URL appeared on the screen accompanied by a textbox and a timer, this time set on 1 hour.
Morgan looked at the clue that was being played in front of them. "What the hell is this?"
A/N again: Do you want to help the team solve the riddle? Look up Riddle Number 3 on YouTube and see what the BAU is seeing. Can you solve it?