Chapter Text
Nicholas Negroponte should have really known what he was getting into when the Department of Defence complimented his work. ‘DARPA will fund the entire thing’, they said. ‘The most resourced MIT project since the goddamn Apollo guidance computer,' they said. Well now, Nicholas was down five students who just happened to be carrying the majority of the results from this project! Nearly two years of research, and it had vanished in the back of a Ford fucking Dodge! After four days of no-contact from the team, DARPA was beginning to get impatient. ‘What do you mean you sent your findings off with five unsupervised college students?’ He hadn’t anticipated them all vanishing off the face of the Earth, had he?!
Taking a deep breath, Nicholas made his decision.
He picked up his phone and began to dial the number he had learnt off by heart during this last year and a half. Only once he’d heard the call go through did he remember the time difference. If it’s just 8am here, a fact alone that wanted to make him weep into his coffee, that meant it was… 5am in California.
Shit.
He’d nearly thrown the handset back onto its stand in frustration when he heard the telltale click of someone picking up on the other end.
“Still no response?” A voice came down the line sounding a lot more awake than he currently was.
“What are you doing in your office at 5am?”
“Waiting for you to call and tell me our students are alright. Also, it’s the start of the semester, I’ve got tutorials to plan.”
“They’re not alright, Kristina.”
“This is the third day?”
“Fourth.” The corrected dejectedly.
"Well, there’s still time left today, Nicholas. They are students, after all. Getting up early is outside their abilities.”
“Becca’s an early bird.”
“It’s only 6am in Colorado. And who knows what they’re doing with their stipends? They could still be partying from last night!”
“Y’think Fisher is partying?”
“...Well, no. I doubt the reggae scene out there is up to his standard. But he might’ve murdered the other guys when they woke him up with their racket!”
Nicholas’ breath caught. “Don’t say that.”
Kristina was quiet down the line for a moment. “I might know some people who could help.” She sounded unsure, but the number of options they had was rapidly dwindling, especially now that the DOD had noticed their stalled progress. “If you still haven’t heard anything by the end of the day, I’ll arrange a meeting. They don’t usually operate outside California, but I’ve heard they’ve handled this kind of thing before.”
He scoffed. “They’ve dealt with a missing person/missing evidence case all with the government breathing down their necks? This isn’t Hollywood, Kristina!”
He hadn’t meant to snap, and he heard her sigh deeply. “Keep me updated.”
And then the line went dead.