Code (5 page)

CHAPTER 8

“H
imitsu-Bako.”

Shelton flourished the sheet of paper we’d found inside the geocache.

“Himso Bucko?” Hi’s face scrunched in confusion. “What the what?”

“Himitsu-Bako,”
Shelton repeated. “It’s Japanese, means ‘personal secret box.’ That’s what this gadget must be.”

“So there
is
something inside.” I grabbed the page, embarrassed to have forgotten it. “And the phrase is a clue on how to gain access?”

“Exactly.” Shelton rose and moved back to the workstation. “I’ve been googling. Puzzle boxes like this originated in nineteenth-century Japan. Hakone region. They’re designed as games, and usually contain a good luck charm.”

“Great work, Wikipedia,” Hi deadpanned. “Now how do we open it?”

“It’s not that simple.” Shelton rejoined us at the table. “
Himitsu-Bako
only open through a specific series of manipulations. Some you just squeeze in the right place, but others require several movements at once. Each box is unique. The trick is figuring out the sequence.”

My eyes fixed on the dancing, sneering clowns. They seemed to leer back at me.

“Are these things typically metal?” I asked.

“Nope,” Shelton said. “Wood, usually. This puppy’s a modern version.”

“Fascinating.” Ben sat back and crossed his arms. “So what next?”

“I’ve got some ideas.” Shelton trained his thick lenses on Ben. “Unless you wanna take lead?”

Ben raised both arms. “Your show, maestro.”

“Damn right.”

As Shelton centered the box before him, the rest of us watched in silence.

“I’ll start with an easy one,” Shelton said. “Four corners.” His fingers pressed the closest two, then the pair across. No effect. He flipped the box and tried again. Nada.

Shelton grunted. “Top and bottom.”

Holding the box between his palms, Shelton squeezed, slid his hands forward and backward. Strike two.

“Side to side.”

Nope.

“Rotating top.”

Nyet.

“Bottom drop.”

Nothing doing.

All attempts were futile. The box remained stubbornly sealed.

Frustrated, Hi rose and wandered to the computer. “I’m gonna check my email.”

“I’m going to kill myself,” Ben muttered.

Shelton ignored them. “Only three sides will move. This rectangle piece—which is either the top or bottom—and both short, vertical ends.”

“Does knowing that help?” Hiding my impatience. “Maybe include that in a search string?”

“On it,” Hi called.

Moments later the printer hummed. Hi snagged the page and handed it to Shelton.

Shelton scanned the instructions, shrugged. “Might work.”

Spinning the box so it faced him longwise, Shelton gently pressed the left side. The metal slipped down a few millimeters, then stopped. Holding that position steady with one hand, Shelton pushed the top of the box toward the right with the other.

“Put your finger here.” Motioning me to hold the cover in place, Shelton switched ends and pushed the right side down as he’d done with the left. Thumbing that in place, he pushed the top of the box back toward the left.

This time, the cover slid all the way off.

The box was open.

“Yes!” I fist-bumped Shelton. “And nice work, Hi.”

“There’s a ton online about these boxes.” Hi was scanning the list of hits. “Man, how did people do
anything
before the Internet?”

“They actually had to think,” Ben replied. “Cheating wasn’t so easy.”

Ignoring the banter, I reached into the box and withdrew another thick cream envelope. Like the one before, it was adorned with the now-familiar swooping
G,
dancing clowns, and a wax seal.

“Our host has a unique sense of style,” Hi said. “And spares no expense.”

Suddenly, Coop popped into the room. Drawing close, he froze and growled.

“Coop, no!” I tried to rub his muzzle, but he shied away, barked, then lunged at the envelope.

“Down, boy!” Sharp. His reaction was somewhat unnerving. “Bad dog!”

Coop growled again, then crossed to a corner and sat. Silent as ordered, but eyes glued to the envelope.

“Must hate clowns,” Shelton said.

“Who can blame him?” Hi said.

“I’ve never seen him act like this.” Shaking my head, I cracked the envelope’s seal and withdrew two more sheets of bond paper.

The first contained a black semicircular drawing that looked like a serrated, gap-toothed smile. Centered below the smile at its lowest point was a large black square. Ten rectangles were spaced along the curve of the semicircle, five to each side. Nine of the rectangles faced inward, like teeth on a cartoonish lower jaw. But the last rectangle on the left faced outward, on the exterior side of the arc. A snaggletooth.

Below the strange image, a long string of numbers stretched across the page.

“Wonderful,” Hi said. “Another wacky clue.”

The second page was styled as a letter, but the words were nonsense. The only legible portion was an elaborate signature at the bottom.

The Gamemaster

“Excuse me?” Shelton pulled his earlobe. “Who the hell is the Gamemaster?”

“A dork with
way
too much time on his hands,” Ben answered.

I tapped my lip in thought. “The body of this letter is gibberish, but we’re clearly supposed to read it.”

“It’s a code,” Shelton said. “The message must be scrambled.”

I flipped both pages over, checked the envelope, and rifled through the box. No other clues. “How are we supposed to decode this without a key?”

“Easy!” Shelton rubbed his palms theatrically. “We
break
that mug. And I know how to do it.”

“Feeling pretty confident today, eh, tiger?” Hi leaned back in the astronaut chair. “Do tell.”

“Using this.” Shelton tapped a short string of characters just above the signature: Hrmxvivob.

“That’s useful,” Hi said. “Sounds like a sex position.”

“Actually, that’s the key.” Shelton looked smug. “Look at where this word is. It stands alone, just above the sign-off, followed by a comma. Dead giveaway.”

Nine characters, the first capitalized, followed by a comma.

Of course.

I stole Shelton’s thunder. “‘Sincerely.’”

“It’s gotta be, right?” Shelton tapped his temple. “And if we know a keyword, we can plug the whole thing into a cipher program for decoding.”

“Internet, baby.” Hi chuckled. “You make my heart sing.”

“You’re sure that will work?” Ben asked.

“No,” Shelton said, “but I’m guessing it’s a basic substitution cipher. My dad used to leave me coded notes like this when I was younger.”

My mouth opened, closed. Hi grunted. Ben fixed Shelton with a squinty stare.

“Maybe you should explain a little more,” I prodded.

“Look here.” Shelton pointed to the keyword. “We all know how to spell ‘sincerely,’ right? The fifth and seventh letters are both
e.
” He finger-jabbed the page. “In the scrambled keyword, the fifth and seventh letters are both
v.
So it looks like
v
and
e
are swapped in this cipher.”

Okay. I could see that.

“In fact . . .” Shelton smiled wide. “I already cracked this sucker.”

“BS.” Ben, always the skeptic. “Prove it.”

“Happy to.” Shelton grabbed a blank sheet of paper and listed the alphabet. “I know
e
is the fifth letter in the alphabet. Guess where
v
is?”

“Twenty-second.” My gray cells made the connection. “Fifth from last.”

“Exactly. This is an inversion cipher.
A
and
z
flip-flop, so do
b
and
y,
c
and
x,
and so on, working toward the middle. Check it out. The last letter in the keyword is
b.
That replaces
y.
”

“All right,” Ben said. “I’m officially impressed.”

“Don’t be, this formula’s super easy.” Shelton began scrawling letters, decoding the message. “Just give me a sec.”

I leaned close to observe. Shelton’s eyes rose to meet mine.

“A minute, Tor?” Finger-shoving his glasses back up his nose. “This is more difficult if you micromanage.”

I stepped backed, mildly offended, but not wanting to slow the process. I crossed to Coop and rubbed his head. The wolfdog was still tense and agitated.

“It’s okay, boy. Clowns are dumb, aren’t they?”

Patting him one last time, I joined Hi at the computer for a game of Angry Birds.

Five minutes dragged by. Then five more.

“Done.” Shelton’s voice was tight, tense. “I won’t lie, this message gives me the willies.”

From deep in the corner, Cooper rumbled another low growl.

CHAPTER 9

T
he message was short.

Four sentences. Thirty-eight words. It took mere seconds to read.

Adventurous Souls,

Congratulations! You’ve passed The Test, and have proven yourself worthy of The Game. My challenge is simple: Do you have what it takes to play? Follow the clues and unlock the ultimate surprise.

Sincerely,

The Gamemaster

“Hmm.” Hi scratched his chin. “Okay, that’s not normal.”

“What do you mean?” A scowl crimped Ben’s features. “I thought you understood this geocaching nonsense.”

“I do,” Hi said primly. “And this isn’t how it usually works.”

“Explain.” My arms folded across my chest.

“There are specific rules.” Hi returned to the computer and began punching keys. “This is Geocaching.com, one of the main websites.” A green and blue homepage appeared on-screen. “It lists the coordinates for all active caches, and any clues about how to find them.”

“How many caches are out there?” Shelton asked.

Hi glanced at the monitor. “Currently, over 1.5 million. With five million players, worldwide.”

“For real?” Shelton shook his head. “That’s crazy!”

“
Soooo
many dorks,” Ben muttered, his coal-black eyebrows forming a steep V. “A giant nerd army, digging up plastic boxes they hide for each other.”

“Like everything
you
do is cool,” Hi snorted. “Still have that ninja costume you wore to my twelfth birthday party?”

“Go back to what you said earlier,” I insisted. Their trash-talking was wearing thin. “What isn’t normal about this?”

“Let me show you.” Hi spun back to the keyboard. “I’ll record our discovery of the Loggerhead cache.”

With varying degrees of enthusiasm, we crowded around the workstation.

“Enter a place-name, address, whatever, and the site compiles a list.” Hi’s fingers flew as he spoke. “Nearby caches are mapped. Last week I searched our zip code, and found a surprise.”

A satellite image of Morris Island filled the screen. He pointed to a single red icon dotting the southwestern point.

“There. Someone planted a cache inside the Morris Lighthouse. I found it a few weeks ago, tucked under the spiral stairs.”

“That’s trespassing.” Ben sat back down at the table and began examining the decoded message. “The lighthouse is off-limits to the public.”

“Never stopped us,” Shelton replied with a grin.

Hi shrugged. “Anyone can log a cache into the database. The site doesn’t police where a box is hidden, or if a player has permission to be there.”

“What led you to Loggerhead?” I asked. “It doesn’t even
have
a zip code.”

“I figured, why not check? Maybe some LIRI guys play among themselves.”

Using the cursor, Hi dragged the edge of the map eastward into the Atlantic until an outline of Loggerhead Island appeared. As on Morris, a lone red marker glowed, positioned near the base of Tern Point.

“This Gamemaster didn’t include much information.” Hi double-clicked the icon. “There’s no difficulty rating. No size info. Not even a user name, which I didn’t think was possible. Just an exact set of GPS coordinates and a clue: ‘Be sure to scratch the surface.’”

“Here’s how it
should
look.” Hi moved back to Morris Island and moused over the lighthouse box. “See? This one has complete info. ‘Danger Mouse’ buried his prize three months ago, and rated the difficulty, terrain, and cache size all as fours on a one-to-five scale. There’s also a page-long clue. That’s how it’s supposed to work.”

“What did Danger Mouse hide?” I was curious.

“Toy sailboat,” Hi said. “He didn’t want exchanges, so I signed the log and put the cache back where I found it. Later I logged on here, reported a successful find, and posted a comment.”

“Why bother?” Ben quipped. But I could tell he was paying attention.

“The website tracks your stats. How many you’ve found, how many times a cache has been located, stuff like that. It’s cool, noob. Get on board.”

“Anyone find the Loggerhead box before us?” I asked. “This letter could be old news.”

“Nobody,” Hi said. “At least, no one’s recorded it online, which almost every player does. It’s a pride point when you crack a new geocache.”

“So
you
had to find it.” Shelton wasn’t asking.

“Um,
yeah.
In fact . . .” Hi navigated back to the Loggerhead cache. “I’m claiming first blood right now.”

“How’d you know the cache would be buried?” I asked.

“The clue.” Hi grinned. “And I really just wanted to use my metal detector. The coordinates indicated that clearing, so it seemed likely the cache would be underground.”

“Wait a second.” Shelton’s brow furrowed. “You need a GPS device for this, right? To check the coordinates, make sure you’re on target?”

Hi nodded.

Ben leaned forward and gave Hi a hard look. “So when you’re out playing hide-and-seek, you’re being tracked the whole time. That program must know you’re
here,
right now. In our secret, hidden clubhouse.”

That got my attention. Bad memories tumbled through my mind. Hi’s game risked revealing the bunker’s location. The thought made me nervous.

“Not true,” Hi replied. “I log out when I’m not playing, so the GPS isn’t active. Don’t worry, I’m careful.”

“You’d better be,” Ben warned. “We’ve got too much invested in this place.”

Uncomfortable with the sudden tension in the room, I glanced at the other piece of paper lying on the table. The smile-like image remained a mystery, but the numbers running beneath it jumped out at me: 32.773645 -00.065437.

A synapse formed.

“Guys.” I scooped up the sheet. “If the Gamemaster’s into geocaching, wouldn’t he leave more coordinates to follow?”

Hi shot from the astro-chair. “Of course! We can plug those numbers into the database.” He made “gimme” hands. I complied.

Hi punched in the digits and hit search.

No hits.

“Shoot.” Hi scratched his temple. “The numbers don’t match a listed cache.”

Hi blew out his lips, then clicked “display coordinates.” A world map appeared, with a red flag pinpointing the exact location.

Northern Algeria.

“Err.” Hi grimaced. “Geeh.”

Ben snorted. “Should I track down my passport?”

“I’m not down with hiking the Sahara,” Shelton said. “So unless you know a good place for camel-riding lessons, I think we can rule this out.”

“But these
must
be coordinates.” Hi knuckle-rapped the desk in frustration. “It’s the correct number of digits for longitude and latitude. The second set is negative, for Pete’s sake! That can’t be a fluke.”

“Agreed.” I distrust coincidence. “We’re obviously missing something.”

“This Gamemaster’s not even playing right,” Hi grumbled. “You’re supposed to list caches separately, not send players from one to the next. That’s a completely different game, and even then you’d put the log in the
last
box, not the first.”

“Dude’s playing you,” Shelton said. “It’s a wild-goose chase.”

“I doubt that.” Hi’s fingers shot through his hair, forming a mohawk. “I mean, why bother? Why put all this together for no reason? Leaving things to be found is the whole point of the game.”

A second insight occurred to me.

“The Gamemaster’s message was coded,” I said. “Maybe the numbers are, too.”

“It’s possible,” Shelton agreed. “I can test some numerical ciphers tonight.”

“Wait.” Ben glanced from face to face. “We’re actually going to pursue this nonsense? We suddenly care what this fruitcake hid in a box somewhere?”

Ben’s question caught me off guard. When
had
I decided to play?

From the moment you read the letter.

“I’m in,” I said. “I’ll admit it, I want to solve the puzzle.”

“Me too,” Hi said quickly. “Let’s take Mr. Creepy Clowns down to Chinatown.”

Shelton shrugged. “Could be fun. I like breaking codes.”

Ben shook his head. “Whatever.”

I looked again at the Gamemaster’s challenge.

The numerical string. The mysterious picture.

So we’d passed The Test, and were invited to play The Game?

Like I could turn
that
down.

“Bring it on,” I whispered.