The Osmium 2 Code of Abduction

          The morning soon came, and the skies filled a cerulean color with a couple clouds drifting aimlessly. The first to wake was Ceres. She stumbled out of her bed, still half asleep. It was exactly 6:00 a.m., and she was always the one to wake everyone up. To her, this was the worst job, because though she was doing everybody a favor and nicely awakening them instead of listening to the dreadful sound of an alarm, everyone seemed to hate everything and everyone around them when being disturbed-Including her. And after the time of her living there, she learned to get used to all the shouting, name calling, and cursing--Especially from Coren. She tiredly sauntered door to door stirring up each affiliate. So far, the wakening went smoothly, and she had one last member to rouse--Coren. She descended down the long staircase and trailed to the bedroom closest to the front door. "Here it comes.." She sighed to herself. The red head then knocked on the door and waited for shouts or swears, but they never came. "…Coren? It's morning!" She spoke through the door, knocking a second time. Still, no answer. Cherry gradually cracked the door open and peered inside-there was nobody in sight. "That's weird… He's never awake when I come."-she muttered-"He's probably in the kitchen." The sixth rank shrugged it off and walked away, leaving the door swinging emptily on its hinges.
           "Ugh… I hate mornings.." The orange haired grumbled laying on the kitchen table. "Kaelem, get off the table! We all can't eat on you!" Bel, irritably shouted with a plate full off food.
"Yes, your majesty.." Kaelem slid into a chair waiting for the breakfast to be served to him, along with the others. One missing teammate happily entered the kitchen. "Oh hey, Ceres! You're just in time." The fourth ranked smiled and waved to the red head in the entrance. But just as quick as she smiled, she soon started to frown and stare into the room, as if something were missing. " Is… something wrong?" Zodack went on, noticing her gaze.
"Have.. have any of you seen Coren?" Ceres asked to the present members.
"Nope-he hasn't been in here. Why?" The pink headed asked, setting plates on the table.
"I've looked all over the house and he's not here!"
"Did you check for a note? He could have went out." Jennesses suggested.
"No notes-no nothing!" she replied as worry began to show.
"Could something have…? No it couldn't be-" The fifth rank spoke nervously.
"Let's all search the house!" The young trainee spoke as he jumped out of his chair. All seven of the associates concurred and instantly left the kitchen without touching their food.
           Bedrooms, living room, offices, cellar, and all around the house, the group searched, but still no trace of the leader. They even wandered the woods with the slightest of hope he would turn up. It was already 9:00 a.m. and no progress had been made-The team was starting to give up, but not completely-The Osmium had never quit. Instead of wandering without direction, they began to investigate. They first went back to the bedroom, the last place he was seen. All seven of the remaining force crowded in the bedroom looking at every detail and searching for the tiniest clue. At last, something had been found-well, not actually found, but missing. Jake searched the unmade bed, pulling off layers of blankets and a couple of pillows. After clearing the bed, he observed its emptiness, until something finally came to him. "Guys," he announced, "I found something!" Everyone quickly rushed to his side, all asking what he found, in unison. "Coren always keeps a gun under his pillow. It's not here!" Kaelem stated.
"Something must have waken him last night and made him pull his gun out.." Jennesses finished his sentence.
"But what was it?.." The fourth rank wondered.
"Keep looking-we might find more evidence." Bel demanded and kept searching. For the next five minutes, everybody continued rummaging around the leader's bedroom-unfortunately, no other clues were found.
"I can't find anything else.." Ceres exclaimed.
"Neither can I." Kaelem also spoke. The others nodded in agreement.
"Hmm… You know how you said that something might have woken up Coren and made him take his gun out?"-The  green haired spoke-"We should follow in his steps. Maybe if we see it from his view, we could find more about what happened."
"That might work." The third rank smiled. She looked closely at the indention made by Coren's weapon and traced her eyes to the window above the bed. "So… his room is closest to the front door… That would make it easier for him to here anything outside. Something most likely made some sound outside that could have waken him up.." She continued, in thought.
"And he probably thought it was an intruder and grabbed his gun and went up front." Ceres proposed and walked out of the room and around to the front door-The team followed behind her. She swung the front entrance open, following in the first rank's steps. Up until then, all they could guess was that this was where he had been kidnapped. They examined the porch closely for any more answers. Still, they had no luck and had run out of guesses of what could have happened.
"I don't think this plan is going to work out.. We'll probably have to start from square one again." The seven year old girl moped and sat down on a wooden step, resting her head on her knees.
"-Wait , wait! Get up!" Kaelem huffed at the girl.
"What?.."
"Come on, you heard me--up!"  Kaelem brusquely demanded, motioning his hands upward. Lailie, with confusion, got off her sitting spot and walked back up the porch. The second rank then stood on top of the step she had been sitting on and repeatedly pressed a foot on it.
"What are you doing, Kaelem?" Bel asked as if he were crazy.
"Don't you remember? This one step--every time you set foot on it, it would always squeak!" He responded fervently.
"So?-" The fifth rank was interrupted by the enthusiastic twin of Kaelem.
"I see!!" Zodack shouted and leaped down next to the stairs. He gaped at the one un-squeaky step and found something wedged in between the floorboard of the single stair. Jake soon joined his side and also found the object lodged in the wooden step. The object was a shining silver color and very small. Together, the friends heaved the small device out-it was what was once a working cell phone. The top screen was missing--possibly ripped off. Every one stared, as also did the two friends.
"Isn't that… Coren's?" The shyest asked, the first to notice.
"So… I guess something did happen to him.." Taco said sadly.
"Does it mean anything?" Bel asked, looking at the half of a phone.
"I don't know. All I know is that whoever did this, wanted us to find out." Kaelem replied and clenched the phone that once belonged to Coren.
           It was now 11:56 a.m., and the seven had already found some of the clues the kidnapper left for them. First, the gun, which lead to the porch. The un-squeaky floorboard lead them to discover their leader's crushed phone. At this point, they had no doubts that this was an abduction. They all knew that they had to do what ever it took to get their leader, founder, and friend back. Five hours and fifty-six minutes it took to figure this much out. But who knew how long it would take to find the remainder--if there was one. Or had the hostage taker just done this to play with their mind? For all they knew, the top rank could already be dead. But either way, they had to figure it out for themselves and solve the code.
           "Well.. We all know it was no accident that this was put under the floor board. The kidnapper did this-I'm certain." Ceres stated.
"Yeah, but what is it supposed to mean? Other than that he kidnapped him?" Zodack asked himself and the others.
"M-maybe… he left a message on there?" The small girl suggested nervously
"No, that's the total opposite of what he wants to show us! Do you see a screen on here at all?" The agitated second rank spoke and held the broken cell phone in front of her.
She tensely looked down in embarrassment. "Oh. Sorry…"
"Kaelem, don't be so mean!" Bel shouted at him. Kaelem said nothing as he looked up into the sky and thought. Everyone stood silent for a while, all thinking of the message the captor tried to send. The first to speak was Jenesses, the third rank. "C-can I see the phone please?" Kaelem silently handed over the evidence. She then spoke after giving the device one last look. "I think… maybe he is trying to point something out to us-by removing the screen, maybe he wanted to clearly show us something on the bottom half…"
"All there are is numbers and letters for texting." The green haired spoke with confusion.
"… Well.. it was just a thought."--She shrugged shyly--"We should just do what we did before and look around some more." The white haired handed the phone back to Jake. The team agreed and began searching around in the front yard.
        Ten minutes of searching did not help the group much, but determined the kidnapper had left another clue, they investigated more. Once they all thoroughly scanned the yard, everyone gathered in front of the gates to conclude what they had found, but to no surprise, no one had found anything. "Are you all sure you didn't miss anything?" Bel asked. They all nodded. Behind bushes and every small opening they looked, but nothing had appeared. "We looked though everything and in every possible place, but we couldn't find anything!" Zodack stated sadly. The sixth rank sighed and leaned against the security gates. A noise then blared around the front yard, making them jump in shock. The team turned to each other, with questionable expressions, but then retained their previous composure when hearing the words ACCESS DENIED ring out of the intercom above the gates. "Oops.. I'm sorry, I must have pressed a button by accident." Ceres spoke, giving a fake laugh. She leaned off the security gate and walked over to the group. That was when the code was solved.
          After walking away from the digital security lock she had been leaning on, one of the members noticed something odd. From a couple feet away, numbers were made out on the digital lock. "I don't remember ever punching in a code.." Jennesses thought to herself. "Did any of you type a code in the lock?" She asked the group.
"No, not since last night. Did you find something?" The second rank spoke and walked to the gate. He bent over, observing the digital lock, and soon his frown turned into a wide smile. "You found something!! You're a genius, Jen!" He shouted and danced around the yard. The remaining five sped up to the gate and looked at all the numbers that had been typed into the lock. "You're right! This was probably left by the kidnapper!" Zodack then joined Kaelem in his celebration.
"Don't get your hopes up, though. We still don't know what it means, or if it's just an attempt to unlock it." The fifth rank spoke bleakly. She looked at the numbers once more--It read: 8 44 999 66 444 88 7777 777 3 6 2 55 33 2 9 444 7777 44--an unnecessary amount of numbers for just a 4-digit code. The two twins returned to the gate without hesitation and looked at the code once more.
"I don't think it was an attempt to unlock it. I mean look at all the numbers he put in! If it was trying to unlock it, then he's pretty stupid." Kaelem explained.
"Apparently he's not stupid--he set up all these complex clues-and this is another one!" Ceres replied.
"How will we solve this one..?" The young boy spoke to himself. No reply came to the question, not even heard. Already the others were in thought and puzzled by the many digits.
         Not much later, the seven were sitting on the bare ground in silence. Some were looking around for any possible trace while some were just ripping grass from the neatly cut yard. Every member was deep in thought with millions of options running through each mind--except for one individual. The small brown haired boy sat twiddling his fingers with an empty mind. Every now and again, he would have thoughts of what they would all eat after this was over. He glanced at the others, all with puzzled faces. The seven year old suddenly felt at distress. "They're all trying their hardest while I'm just sitting here doing nothing! I'm a horrible teammate… I have to at least do one thing right." He thought to himself and wandered his eyes to the lock. "Hmm… What were those numbers again? 77.. 443… I don't know! Just a bunch of stupid numbers! Jennesses said before… It all leads to something. What do numbers lead to..?" He turn his direction to the second rank who was also sitting on the grass playing with his fingers. He then noticed something hanging out of his pocket. "Phone! The phone has numbers on it!" Taco jumped to his feet, making everyone turn their attention to him. "I think I have it!" He announced to the team.
"Have what?" Zodack repeated the words back to him.
Taco began to explain. "The code on the gate has numbers on it, and so does the phone!"--He pointed at the cell phone crammed in the second rank's pocket--"M-maybe that's why the top was broke off--to show only the numbers!" One after the other stood back on their feet, dumbfounded. Ceres was the first to snatch the phone from Kaelem's pocket, and looked it up and down.
"I can't believe I didn't think of this before." The fifth spoke, smacking herself aside the head.
Kaelem butted in with words of discouragement. "Wait, I don't get it. They both have numbers, I know that, but how would that help in explaining the lock?" The others fell still trying to answer the question, but not much longer, the third had an explanation.
"You out of the eight should be the first to know--how do you think you text?" Jennesses asked the rhetorical question with upraised lips. Jake soon smiled along with embarrassment, realizing his dim query.
"Alright, quick! Read me the numbers and I'll translate it!" The red head spoke still clenching the phone with both hands. The last member pulled a notepad and pen out of the bag she always carried around, in case a situation like this arose. Zodack bent lower until he was face-to-face with the code lock and started calling out each set of digits.
"8…" He called out. Ceres scanned the phone until she came a cross the number 8--directly above the number was the letter T.
"… T." She answered back. Lailie then began writing.
"44."
"44? There's only single-digit numbers on here!" The sixth pointed out sadly.
Bel looked over the girl's shoulder at the phone. "I'm sure it means the set of 4 and 4--not as the number 44. So that would be H." Ceres nodded with understanding and signaled the green haired to go on.
"999.."
"Y."
"66."
"N."
The two went back and forth calling out numbers and letters to each other, all the while Lailie copied down each letter. The long train of integers finally ended. Upon reading the letters the eighth rank wrote, the team's worry of mixed letters was eliminated. It had spelled out real words.
         They all gathered around the single notepad and anxiously read it.
"Thynius rd make a wish?" Kaelem repeated the written words. "What does that mean? Rd isn't even a word."
"R-D  is short for Road--Thynius Road--I know where that is!" Ceres spoke with excitement.
"But we still don't know what make a wish is supposed to mean." Bel noted. Without answering Kaelem rushed to the lone car parked in the driveway. "We'll figure that out when we get there. Right now, we need to hurry before we're too late!" He shouted from across the yard and thrusted himself in the driver's seat of the huge black car. With no wavering  the seven joined him, filling the vehicle. "Coren… Just wait a little longer. We're on our way." The second thought with promise as he drove down the path of the mangled forest.