His daughter (Sequel to intertwined fates)

Chapter 4: Cracking the code

Austin: It's some kind of black leather book with a lock on it. And there's some initials on it. H.S.

I looked at the book in his hand and felt I had seen it before. There was definitely something familiar with this book.

Hannah: Where do you think the key is?

Austin: I don't know. You reckon we have to figure that out?

Hannah: I mean....I guess that's what we do. Maybe the computers have some clues.

We went over to the computers and turned them on. Immediately a screen popped up asking for a face I.D. or a password. Unsure of the password I used face I.D. hoping it would work. To our surprise, it worked.

Austin: Okay. Now that is weird.

Hannah: You're telling me.

When the screen loaded we began looking through everything. There was nothing of any interest until we looked inside the files. There were many odd things including pages of nonsense, random images of the orbital station and some high and low contrast images we couldn't make out.

Hannah: Maybe if we check some other time well get it.

Austin: Yeah. Say what's the time?

We went out to check the time and saw it was 12:02

Austin: Lunch. C'mon let's head to the cafeteria.

We went to the cafeteria. Austin ate his food and talked to some of the clan members. I meanwhile couldn't stop thinking about the stuff that had happened today. First the items. Then the strange book. And now all those files. Hopefully, I'd find an answer soon.

The next day.....

I walked into the room again and went back to the computer. This time I looked over certain words in the pages. They didn't make sense. Words like "Uif" or "boe". I thought back to everything I knew about code cracking.  Caesar cipher didn't seem to work. Nor did 3 letters forward. Then I tried 1 letter back. I remembered it from a Tv show I saw called "Favity Galls". First I picked a word. "Boe" seemed like a good choice.

Hannah: So the B becomes an A and E becomes D. Which means Boe is.....And.

I tried it on other words as well. Eventually I got the a bunch of words. I looked at the selection of words in different ways until I saw a pattern. Every other word had one letter missing. Putting each missing letter together it made a sentence. The sentence read "Wear the headset. But be carefull. Make sure you prepare yourself. Be very carefull. And stay alert.". I had no clue what the message meant but I knew what I would have to do. And I knew I would not be able to do it now.