Whatever Happened to Susie Schmidt? – Chapter 1
by Grant E. Moninger
September 6th, 2018
The Fazion Technologies Museum of Innovation, or FMoI, was the place to be as a kid. It had all sorts of fun exhibits, as well as a dedicated play area slash daycare center designed specifically to entertain children while their parents were off doing other things. That way the kids could have fun and learn at the same time, while the poor souls who raised them went off for some private time.
“We knew that she could handle herself. She was nine, after all. Susie prided herself on her independence. We often left her at the daycare center when we went out to dinner. She didn’t mind, though, as she loved it there. On this particular day, it was later out, and we had gone to our anniversary. When we came back, however, she was missing. Please, Rua. Please, Detective. Do whatever you can to find her.”
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February 22nd, 2019
Detective Rua Cicatrix looked out from the balcony of her small studio apartment. The used cigarette stump fell from her fingers to the street far below. Lightning made a flash in the distance, although the pouring rain masked the sound of the thunder.
No wonder this place is called Hurricane, she thought. It’s a real storm out there. I hope nobody gets hurt.
She paused.
I hope nobody else gets hurt, she amended.
She walked back into her not-quite-home, off the frail-seeming metal bars that felt like they could give way with every movement. Closing the door only slightly muffled the sound of the everpresent downpour. Her eyes turned to the mess of folders on her desk.
She shuffled through the cases – some solved, some not – until she found the one she was looking for. She glanced at the cover – a name, ‘S. Schmidt’ printed on there in big black letters, with RETIRED stamped over it in red – before flipping it open. This was the thirty-second time she had looked though the file, and it made the exact same amount of sense every time.
She took a moment – again – to go over it in her mind. On September 4th last year, a girl named Susie Schmidt disappeared from the Fazion Technologies Museum of Innovation in between 5:32 and 7:08 PM. The police had decided that Susie had simply ran away, but that just didn’t seem right with her. She had been friends with the Schmidts before Susie went missing, and she loved her parents. She certainly didn’t seem the type to run away.
Her mind kept returning to one specific detail. The camera outage. The period when Susie disappeared. It just seemed too… convenient that she would go missing the one day the cameras were scheduled to update. So she had looked through the files, and she had found other cases. All missing, all children, all at the FMoI, and all during a suspiciously timed camera update. Only one ever reappeared, a girl named Cassidy Brooks.
Rua returned the folder to the mess on her desk. This case was one she was determined to solve. But for now, she had to get some sleep. The file would still be there in the morning.