Disclaimer: Cam, Sensei, and the Rangers belong to BVE and Village Roadshow.

Spoilers: Some for first and second episodes of Ninja Storm.

Notes: This is a slight companion piece for "Home in a Breeze".

Looking for Cam
By Selma McCrory
Copyright 2003

"Where is he?" Tori asked. She tucked her long blonde hair back. "I haven't seen him anywhere!"

Dustin looked up. "Who?" he asked.

"Cam! Sensei asked me to look for him, but... if he's outside, he's hiding," Tori said in frustration.

"Maybe this is one of Sensei's training exercises. Probably Cam's working on something and Sensei's having you play hide and go seek for a reason."

"That would be true," Sensei said, flipping up onto the table from parts unknown, "Had I a reason other than Cam being missing. I did not engineer Cam's disappearance."

"He's not outside," Tori said. "I went out as you told me and if he's there, he's not responding to my calls."

"Maybe he wanted some time alone," Shane reasoned. "I mean, he's been more frustrated than usual lately."

"Cam would not have done that, Rangers, unless he told me beforehand. He did not, either verbally or in his posture. I doubt he is not responding to Tori's calls because he wishes to ignore her." Sensei folded his paws. "We must widen the search."

"Wait a minute," Dustin said, "Dudes, you remember the other night when I tried to play games with Cam's computer? It wasn't a game he had up on his system, it was some kind of tracking program."

"Yes," Sensei said. "He uses it to keep track of the three of you through your morphers. He insisted on tracking the two of us as well, in case either of us was kidnapped."

"Great!" Dustin said. "Then we can track *him* as well, see where he's gone." He sat down. "Um... anyone any good at undocumented computer programs?"

"I'll do it," Tori said, sitting down at the main computer where Cam usually sat. She called up the tracking program - named RangerTrack, thanks to Cam's utilitarian naming system, and brought up the tracking screen. Obviously Cam had thought his father might make some use of it, for when it came up, it came up with five colors and a question on which one to replay or track. She could see Shane's red, her light blue, Dustin's yellow, a dark-bluish green, and an olive color. She guessed the olive tracker might be Cam's, and was rewarded with another screen: Current Tracking/Replay History. Carefully, she chose Current Tracking, but the screen only displayed 'unable to track, transponder out of range'.

Backing out, she selected hers, and was able to find her current location within their secret base. Same for Shane's, Dustin's, and Sensei's. She went back to Cam's olive-colored tracker and selected tracker history, time replay. Cam's tracks went all over the place, and then suddenly he went through the portal.

And didn't come out.

"Guys," she said.

"I see it," Shane said. "Somebody took him while he was going to Blue Bay."

"Why'd he go to Blue Bay?" Dustin asked.

"I don't know, but when we find him, we'll ask," Shane said. "Come on, let's go!"

The Red Ranger led the charge upwards and the other two followed him to the location where the portal stood. "So, what do we do now?"

Dustin shrugged. "Maybe we should have picked up one of those tracker things and tossed it through."

"Good idea," Tori said. "I'll get the tracker."

"We'll look for clues," Shane said. With a quick nod, the Blue Ranger was gone.

"I can't believe we're hunting for *Cam*," Dustin muttered. "How come we can't let him work his way out of this?"

"It could be because he knows an awful lot of stuff about our morphers and Sensei's base," Shane pointed out. "Lothor's not stupid. And Cam's not all that great a fighter."

"Right, I knew that," Dustin said quickly. "So, let's find the guy before anything happens."

The two of them searched the surrounding woods, but neither was having much luck. Tori returned with a small boxy thing and a handheld device of some kind. "Here's the tracking device," she said, "and here's a scanner that Cam was using to test the devices. It asks the computer underground where the device is. For example, this one's brown."

The other two Rangers looked at the display. "So, what next?" Dustin asked. If you couldn't ride it, play it, or if it didn't have art, he wasn't interested.

"Next," Tori said, "We toss the device through the portal." She did so. The scanner bleeped. "And... it's across."

"Hope it's waterproof," Dustin muttered.

"It's waterproof, and it's on the Blue Bay side of the portal," Tori said. "So... maybe the tracker just *thought* he was going through the portal."

"Yeah, so where is he?" Dustin asked. "Nobody's been here except us and him. There's no signs of a struggle."

"Well, he didn't just *disappear*," Tori replied. "He has to be around here somewhere."

"Not necessarily," Shane said. "If he was drugged and the tracking device destroyed..."

"Except it wasn't destroyed, and..."

"Tor," Shane said, "look at his path. It's uneven. If that's not a forced removal, I don't know what is."

"Why?" Dustin wanted to know.

"Cam walks at a certain speed," Shane said. "and he doesn't usually zigzag. The last few seconds he was doing both."

The other two fell into silence. "That means Lothor or one of his people has Cam," Dustin said, voicing one of their unvoiced fears.

"We've got to rescue him. Let's talk to Sensei, maybe he has some ide of what Lothor might have done."

As they walked back, Tori said, "I can't believe that Lothor's people grabbed him and none of us noticed, even Sensei. Who knows what they're doing to him?"

"Yeah, Cam might be an arrogant... you know what," Dustin said, after a look from Tori, "but he doesn't deserve to be kidnapped. Nobody does."

"And you heard what Sensei said," Shane added. "Cam knows more about Sensei and our systems than anybody else. If they can break him... we're talking serious security breach problems, guys."

"So, let's get to Sensei and find out how to get Cam back," Dustin said.

As they walked back to the shelter, the scanner in Tori's hand beeped. "What's it reading?" Shane asked, sounding excited.

"That looks like an olive dot to me," Dustin contributed, looking over Tori's sholder.

Though not for long. Tori turned around and started running.

Not to be left behind, the other two followed. All three of them didn't need to be told where they'd find either Cam or the device. Hopefully Cam.

When the trio got there, the portal was still waving, and Cam was dusting himself off. "Cam!" Shane yelled, and Cam looked up. The three of them surrounded Sensei's formerly missing son. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," Cam said brusquely. He kept dusting himself off.

"Um... Dudes, are we sure this is really Cam?" Dustin asked reluctantly. "I mean... it could be an evil duplicate, or Lothor could have used some evil magic on him."

"Good point," Shane replied, looking thoughtful. "Anybody got some bandannas? I do?"

Cam stepped away. "I *am* Cam and I'm not booby-trapped. Unless you count you three."

Shane looked at the other two meaningfully and produced a bandana. "Tori, get his feet, Dustin, his arms."

Cam was shortly tackled to the ground, where Tori held his feet while Dustin and Shane tied his arms and hands together. Shane tossed Tori a bandanna and she tied his legs together at the ankles.

With that, the three Rangers got up to look at their work, in the form of an annoyed and struggling Cam. "Dude," Dustin said. "Better get a blindfold and a gag, too." He pulled two more bandannas out of his pocket and cheerfully took care of those two details.

Shane nodded. "Okay, let's get him back. I'll get his legs, Dustin, get his arms. Tori, you support his back."

After some attempts to get moving while carrying the bound and gagged Cam, the three made it up to the shelter. They put him down once again while Tori opened the door and the other two manhandled him in. Once Tori could support his back again, the three slowly made it down to the shelter, Shane providing the required handprint.

"Sensei," Shane called. "I think we found him."

"So I had guessed," said Sensei, indicating Cam's computer, "from the paths that you four had made."

"Of course, we're not sure this dude is him," Dustin said as they put him down on the floor.

Sensei hopped down and put one paw on the young man's forehead. "This is my son, and he is not under any influences. Perhaps you could untie him?"

"Sure thing, Sensei," Dustin said, and the three of them untied Cam, who glared at them and started elaborately dusting himself off again in a show of annoyance.

"I could have told you that I was all right," Cam said.

"Yeah, dude," Shane said, apologetically, "But we had to make sure."

"Do not take offense at their actions," Sensei counseled. "They were merely concerned with your well-being... and mine."

At that, Cam calmed down. "All right, dad," he conceded. "I guess they were." He sat down.

"So, where were you?" Tori said. "You had us all worried!"

"Well, more or less," Dustin added, as Shane shushed him.

Cam seemed to ignore the Yellow Ranger's comment. "I got blown into an alternate universe that was two years in the past. It was actually rather interesting. There was a Ranger team there, and they were actually professionals, and I also got to meet a colleague among the Rangers. I didn't have any problems at all, other than needing some help from that team to get home."

"So, you were never in any danger at all," Tori said.

"I don't think so," Cam responded. "My colleague thought that a combination of Lothor's presence on our Earth and some future technology on theirs caused a weakness in the time/space continuum. So when one of their villains did some work on a time-travel device, it drew me through into their world. Fortunately, their Ranger team's techie found me, and so I was able to get home after a few hours in their world."

"So, we were busting our butts off trying to find you, and you were having *fun*?" Shane asked.

"I wouldn't call it *fun*, but I guess I learned something," Cam said. "But now I'm home, everybody's here, so everything's back to normal."

"Yeah, it is," Dustin said. "You're you usual grouchy stuff, we're here, everything's normal." His stomach growled. "I'm hungry. Anyone for a pizza?"

Laughing, as if nothing had ever happened, the three Ninja students made their ways upwards for a pizza celebration, leaving Sensei and Cam behind.

All was right with the world.

-end