CHAPTER FIVE: WHEELS ON THE BUS !

8x08

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DEREK MORGAN'S MORNINGS ALWAYS STARTED OFF PRETTY NORMAL. As normal as the average guy's was. But it wasn't normal for Hotch to text him to come to his office first thing.

Morgan found it odd but didn't question it. He knew he wasn't getting fired but something was up. Once he walked in the office, he was met with both Rossi and Hotch. Morgan walked in and looked at the two men. "What's this about?" He asked curiously.

Hotch and Rossi exchange a look and Hotch sets a mugshot and a file down in front of him and Hotch crossed his arms. "Cooper Rogers has been released on parole." He revealed and Morgan furrowed his brows as he picked the file and mugshot up.

"Cooper Rogers?" Morgan looked at his boss. "The one who was framed as Casey's stalker — Cooper Rogers?" He clarified and Hotch nodded, "Yes."

Morgan looked at Cooper's mugshot and furrowed his brows. "I didn't even know he was on parole." He told.
"After what happened with Adam Brody, he shut down. Went crazy." Rossi stated. "He kept asking for Casey."

Morgan sighed and asked the million-dollar question. "Does Casey know about this?" He asked. Hotch shook his head. "Not yet, we just found out the news." Morgan looks at his boss. "How do you think we should tell her?" He asks. "I don't want it affecting her job like it did last time." Hotch admitted. "So, you don't want to tell her?" Morgan asked. "I do, I just want to find the right time to tell her."

Garcia had knocked on the door, causing to everyone to look her way. "Not to bother anyone, but we have a case and we need all hands on deck." With that, the three older men had walked down the steps and reunited with their team and didn't bother Casey, who had a polite smile on her face.

       "What we have is a school bus abduction which occurred at approximately 1pm this afternoon." Morgan told a couple of police officers once he had found out what the case pertained to. "What we do know is there were 24 students on board, along with the driver and a monitor." Rossi stated. "GPS appears to have been disabled. Last known ping was a little over two hours ago." Rossi added on, "Highway patrol has traced the route it was last traveling but found no signs of any accidents."

       JJ, Reid and Casey were speaking with a couple of other agents about this case as well. "We have helicopters and ground units in the DC area working local search and rescue. Which means we're likely dealing with more than one unsub." JJ explained. "We've attempted to contact everyone on board, but so far all calls have gone unanswered. But we can confirm that the students dropped off at the first two stops have been accounted for." Reid adds. "The average school bus holds approximately 80 gallons of diesel fuel, making it possible for them to travel up to 550 miles on a single tank." Casey adds on, "Which is why we believe they're still within a 200-mile radius."

       "It could be a kidnapping, but we can't rule out anything from a terrorist act to a child trafficking ring." Blake stated. "How does a busful of kids just vanish into thin air?" The detective in charge questioned. "It doesn't," Hotch told. "Whoever's got them's got a two-hour head start. We're treating this as a mass abduction. The SUVs are outside and we'll set up our command post at Central High." Hotch informs the rest of the team.

        They had debriefed over the case at the high school and Garcia and Kevin had gone with them to help closer. They'd discovered that a monitor had been with them on the bus. Hotch was speaking with the principal of the school when they had discovered a body dumped.

        Hotch and Casey had gone to check it out and discovered that it had been the bus driver. "It's Roy Webster." Rossi told. "He suffered two bullet wounds. The first was a clean shot to his left leg. The second in his chest."

      "Why not go for the kill first?" The detective asked. "They probably still needed him to drive." Hotch answered. "If they dumped Webster this quickly, I'm sure Carol Roberts isn't far behind. There's no way somebody pulled this off alone." Casey explained.

       "One unsub probably controlled the adults and one controlled the kids." Hotch told. "Well, why get rid of them before they reached their destination?" The detective asked. Casey's cell phone rings and she picks it up and talks. "You're on speaker, Garcia."

        "Hey, I reran the last GPS signal of the bus through a proxy server, retracing the route, and it turns out that the signal was never disabled, it was just masked. So I sent the coordinates to your phones." Garcia informed and Rossi had checked his phone and revealed: "This is less than a mile away."

        They had found fourteen kids hidden in a shed behind a barn and they were unharmed. Blake had spoken to one of the kids and they had revealed that there were two unsubs and they had divided them into groups and picked from the groups.

       "Dividing them into groups -- you think that was to maintain control?" JJ asked. "Mm, could be, but how do you explain the shock collars?" Blake asked. "Torture." JJ cleared. "Still, there doesn't seem to be any method to how or why they were chosen." Reid told.

       "Okay, so far we have two white males, early 20s, and wore gas masks, of all things." JJ told. "Abducting a bus, a form of transportation, gas masks, shock collars. Dividing people into teams. This sounds a lot like Gods of Combat." Rossi had come to the realization that — "This is a video game."

       "A video game?" Casey raised her brows on confusion and looked around. "Now, we're reaching."

      Rossi had told the team his theory. "These guys are replicating a video game?" Morgan asked. "In the game, you take over a form of public transportation. Subway, train, bus. That's how you get your players." Rossi explained.

      "Wait a minute. You've played this game before?" Blake asked. "Well, I may have played it once or twice." Rossi shrugged and Casey crossed her arms. "Well, you seem to know an awful lot about it. This what you do in your free time when you can't find your fourth wife?" Rossi raised a warning, playful finger at the girl. "Don't push me." He told as Casey put on a cheeky smirk.

        "As I remember, the game consists of five players. Captain, Lieutenant, a pair of soldiers, and the pawn." Rossi continued on. "Maybe the unsubs picked them based on their personality type." JJ assumes.

       "Well, Sage and Trent are both athletic. So they probably would have been considered lieutenants." Morgan tells. "Wendy would most likely have been considered the pawn. They preselected these kids."

       "Probably got details about their lives from social media sites. Most teens don't use privacy settings. Anyone can gain access." JJ told. "They planned their attacks and struck the bus when it was most vulnerable." Blake stated. "That explains why the unsubs only needed ten of these kids and left the rest behind."

       JJ looked back at Rossi. "So how do the collars fit into all this?" She asked. "They're used to keep your player from straying from their mission. The object of the game is to destroy as many of your opponents as possible. The one with the highest body count wins." Rossi explained.
  
      Casey sighed, "Well, this just became a bloodbath."

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      Since Reid and Casey hadn't seen each other for most of the case, Casey decided to reunite and walk with him down the school halls. The girl wrapped her arm around his and smiles at him. "Now, you definitely should've been the arm I should've been holding in high school." Casey joked.

      "Well, here we are, making up for our traumatic high school experiences. You probably would've been too cool for me." Spencer joked and Casey laughed. "No, you would've been."

      "Anyways, back to business," Casey started. "You think these guys just got together and decided to pull this thing off?" She asked. "You know, something this elaborate, it's likely they've known each other for years, actually." Reid told. "You're probably right." Casey nodded.

      Garcia had suddenly appeared next to the two. "Hey, lovebirds, I just got off the phone with the people who produce Gods of Combat. Turns out they have 6 million players worldwide, 40,000 of which are DC residents." Garcia informed.

     "Garcia, if they're capable of this type of violence in real life, do you think we'd see some sort of evidence of it in their gaming history?" Reid asked as they walked into another room with Hotch and the detective — which made Casey remove her arm away from Reid.

      Casey had often made it a habit to remove her hand from Reid's hand or her arm away from his arm when it came to Hotch. For starters, he was her boss and Casey didn't wanna hear the lecture about dating within the BAU. And second, Casey didn't like to admit it for obvious reasons but Hotch was like her dad. The closest thing she had to one, at least.

     "What type of evidence?" The detective asked. "Yeah, he's talking about the universal online gaming code of conduct." Garcia told. "Sure. It prevents against stuff like harassing, threatening other players, cyber-bullying, that kind of thing."

      "How's this supposed to help us find these kids?" The detective asked. "Instead of looking for people who play the game, we need to look for people who were kicked out." Hotch stated.

      Garcia started doing the research and Morgan, Casey and Reid were there to help if needed. "You find anything, Garcia?" Casey asked. "Still doing some digging, fair maiden but... okay, a month ago two players were kicked out at the same time for hacking into hell mod. Previous to that, they both logged thousands of hours playing the game, dating back to early 2000." She informed.

      "You got any names, Garcia?" Morgan asked. "No, just online handles, but -- you know what's weird? They were both playing from the same IP address." The three all looked at one another.

      "So they live together." Morgan concluded. "They're roommates, maybe?" Reid asked. "Or siblings." Casey assumes.

      The three had told the team about what they had just discovered and it stumped them. "It doesn't make any sense. It they are siblings, how do you explain the gaps in time when they weren't logged in at the same location?" JJ questioned.

      "Yeah, it looks like it happened several times a year, sometimes from different states." Garcia stated. "Maybe their parents got divorced." Reid figured out and everyone had widened their eyes — as if the brilliance of the genius boy continued to shock them. "Maybe the parents got divorced. Maybe the parents got divorced. Leave it to the genius to come up with the obvious." Garcia told as she typed on her computer.

      "All mine, everyone. All mine." Casey stated, making Reid blush a bit.

      "Here we go. Here we go. Joshua and Matthew Moore. They both went to Central High. Their parents worked two jobs each to make ends meet. Led to a messy divorce. Joshua went to live with his dad in Arizona. Matthew stayed with his mom in DC." Garcia revealed.

      "That's how they knew when to strike. They probably rode the same bus route." JJ told. "Long hours, different schedules. They were latchkey kids. Video games became their sitters." Casey told, speaking from her own experience.

       "As they got older, they got more competitive and it became more about bragging rights." Reid stated. "This game became the core of their sibling rivalry." JJ told. "Only it wasn't just a game. Gods of Combat was their one constant connection to one another." Morgan told. "Even in different states." Casey told.

       After Garcia discovered their location and hacked into their system, she sent the location to the team and fortunately, they had found the rest of the missing kids. Casey had the pleasure to take one of the brothers to the back of a police car.

     "Where's Josh? Where's my brother? Where's Josh?" He kept questioning. As if on cue, the boy saw his brother in a body bag being rolled away and Morgan walking alongside. "He's dead?" He questioned and Casey opened the car door. "I guess I won." Casey pushed his head down and put him in the car. "Get in the car and shut up." With that, she closed the car door.

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     After the case, Casey had gone back to the BAU and did paperwork on her part. Once she was done, she was beginning to walk out when Morgan stopped her. "Hey." He spoke. "Hey, what's up?" Casey asked.

     "I have to talk to you about something." Morgan told and Casey nods, "I know. I totally forgot we had that hangout thing tonight with Reid. We already got tickets to this show he's been wanting to see but don't worry, I'm rescheduling it as we speak." Casey explained.

      "No, it's not about that... Casey." The girl turned her attention to Morgan because it sounded serious now. Morgan didn't know how to come about this but he decided to rip the bandaid off clean. "Cooper Rogers has been released on parole." He revealed.

      Casey looked at the man in disbelief and began to chuckle. Her face came off as scathing, mad but she still laughed. "Is that like a sick joke?" She questioned. "Casey—" Morgan tried. "Because if it is, it's not funny, Morgan." The girl told. "He wants to speak with you." Morgan told.

       Casey shook her head. "Well, I don't wanna speak to him." Casey hadn't spoken to Cooper about the Adam situation in over three years since what happened. Casey had no desire to speak to him considering that Adam paid him big money just for him to take the fall and for her to be kidnapped and traumatized. And speaking to him, it would bring up a lot of memories that Casey didn't want to remember.

      "You don't have to," Morgan told. "I just wanted to have you hear it from me. I'll support you no matter what you do." Casey nodded and took a deep breath, "Thanks." Morgan nodded and patted Casey on the shoulder.

       Casey took another deep breath and began to think. She'd never known the truth about what happened with Adam and Cooper. Could it be a sign that maybe it was time to talk to him? To figure out the truth? She had time to decide if maybe that was the best option. For now, she just wanted to enjoy her time with her boyfriend.

this kinda sucked ass lol
anywayssss
cooper kinda has something to do with the "maeve equivalent" storyline lol🤭
and if you wanna have a sneak peek at what the storyline may be, take a look at my recent tiktok @/k4revsreid.wp hehehehe
-mya </3