With A Ghost

4. The Missing Phone

Silas

We were all in Victor's lounge, waiting for Kota and Mr. Blackbourne. As soon as Victor realized one of his old phones was missing, he called Mr. Blackbourne, and a family meeting was called.

I was out plumbing with my dad when I got the call. It was 8 AM. My dad wasn't too happy about that, but he didn't say anything much except for how plumbing was enough to earn a comfortable living and to give up all this Academy business. But I knew there's no way that I would.

Nobody was discussing the possibilities of how the phone went missing, but I knew that everyone was brainstorming, especially Victor. He felt guilty, especially because we were already in a situation we weren't sure of, and were under the Academy's surveillance for our own safety.

The discussion would start after Mr. Blackbourne arrived with Kota. The others may be smart, but our glasses-wearing leaders are the best thinkers. But for now, I let my surroundings influence my thoughts. Victor sure had it rough, was all I could think. I didn't feel that comfortable in his humongous fancy old house. His parents' house. Victor isn't defined by all these riches and this fame. His room and his office is the only place I didn't feel uneasy in, because it is Victor's. I glanced at him. He was clearly worried. His wavy brown hair looked like a mess, and so did his normally neat dress shirt. I got up and plopped down beside him. It shook him out of his thoughts. "You didn't know it would somehow go missing. Don't beat yourself up about it."
"There's so much in that phone," he said quietly.
"Oy, we'll find a way to fix this shit," Gabriel said, sitting down on Victor's other side, "Mr. B and Kota will solve this in the blink of an eye."
"Doc, did you call them?" Nathan asked from the other side of the room. His reddish hair stood out against the pale elegant walls.
"Yep. They'll be here any minute." Doc answered. He had his eyes closed as he leaned back on the couch.
"You should really take some of your workload off," I said even though I knew he wouldn't.
"Sure. I will. When I can, that is," he said, eyes still resting, but he had his usual smile on, "Like now. See, Victor, this situation isn't too bad. I can now recharge myself a little bit. I think I would've died today otherwise."
"Uh-huh," Victor still looked upset. Try harder next time, doc.
"None of that now," Dr. Green raised his head and looked at Victor, even pointed at him, "You better believe me when I say it. My brain would've shut down. I'm a doctor. I would know."
I had to smile at that. The "I'm a doctor" line was getting old, but it was some sort of an old tradition now. And in this case, this familiarity worked, because Victor rolled his eyes at him. Yes, it's a good thing. He looked lighter now. Doc's definitely a healer.

It didn't take long for Mr. Blackbourne and Kota to arrive. Mr. B, the flawless head of the family, and Kota, our team leader. Mr Blackbourne was in his grey suit, complete with a tie even in the morning. I always wondered how many of those grey suits he owned. I know he has a few of other colours, at Gabriel's insistence. Even Mr. B has to give in to Gabriel's demands when it comes to fashion, which is fortunately less stressful because Gabe didn't have much to complain about. Mr. B is a perfectionist, even in his dress code.

"Mr. Morgan, please start from the very beginning."
"I was looking for my phone on my desk, the phone with the broken screen and a broken edge from a week ago." We all knew which desk he was talking about. It's that long old one where he kept a lot of junk, well, tech stuff. Including all of our old phones. Ones that got broken or inefficient and were no longer being used. I guess he thought they might come in handy someday. Or he liked to store the memories. "I replaced that one already. I just needed to transfer some other things from the old one and stop the monitor system. I thought I'd do it today since I had time. When I couldn't find it on the desk, I looked everywhere else I could think of. That's when I called Mr. Blackbourne." And we knew the rest. Victor turned off the entire monitor system, so that nobody had access to any of the cameras at our houses, or could easily track us down. He tried tracking the phone, but it was either turned off or something was blocking the signal. The rest of us quickly gathered at his house. We looked for the phone in the other rooms too, but to no avail. We tried not to make a scene, in case somebody from his house did take it. We didn't want to be too transparent.

"Let's first take necessary precautions. Since the monitor system cannot be turned on without giving access to whoever may have hold of Victor's phone, nobody is to be anywhere alone, considering our already uncertain situation. Always stay in pairs or more," Mr. Blackbourne ordered.
"Does this have anything to do with the threat the Academy mentioned?" Nathan asked what was on everyone's mind.
"We can only assume."

The meeting ended with orders to look for the phone and pick up any leads to where it might be. Two of us were also to run to a store and buy new sets of cameras to monitor our houses and replace the old ones. Victor would then arrange them to be connected to our phones. We thought about setting an administrator system that could shut down access from anyone's phone, so that we wouldn't have to replace the cameras if it ever happened again, but decided against it in case the administrator device got hacked or stolen. Old-fashioned replacement worked safely for us.

Victor and Gabriel went to buy our things while Kota, Nathan and I went to Nathan's house to start our search there and meet up with Sang.
Sang.
I wonder what she'd think of it all. Will she think of us as a careless bunch? Will she think of it as an urgent issue? I'm glad that she's only a manager. She would only need to report to the Academy. She's so small. Even with Academy training, she may get hurt. I don't want to see her caught up in this mess.