Spy School and the Dead Agent

Chapter 6

Chapter 6: Cipher

1500 Hours

Thursday

CIA New Training Facility, ███████, ████████ Montana.

I arrived at Helena Airport two hours ago, but some CIA officials took me to a black site detention center for questioning. They heard that Russians or someone had attacked me, which took another two hours. I didn't tell them what I had found; I only mentioned that I was ambushed and didn't know who the attackers were. Mentally and physically exhausted, the CIA provided a fake cab to get me to the secret academy. The weather was quite bad, and it was raining. Without an umbrella, I asked the driver if he could go inside the academy. He replied, "My rank's too low, buster." So sadly, I ran to the academy on my own.

Although the academy is hidden, its high walls, made of old medieval bricks covered in moss, provide camouflage. I walked through the main gate, along the brick path, and made my way into the academy's main entrance. There weren't many people outside due to the rain, and there were only about 150 of us anyway. I walked a few more steps until I arrived at the library, where most people were reading, chatting, or simply relaxing. I looked around to see if I could find her, checking the corners of the library and the second floor, but she wasn't anywhere. So, I decided to go to the CIPHER section of the library. I took some books and my phone out of my backpack to study the carved writing I had found on the tree house. I took out a notebook and started to try to solve the cipher.

"In the circle's realm,

Servants brought him 26 pies,

He gasped in surprise

As Omega's end drew nigh."

What could it mean? Who is Omega? What servants? Why 26 pies? And most of all, who scratched it? Is it a trap by the enemy? Some cryptic kid who wanted to play a prank, or is it written by–

"Whatcha got there?" a weary voice said beside me. I looked behind me, my eyes strained, and it took me two seconds to figure out who was talking to me.

"Hey, Zoe," I responded. She narrowed her eyes at my phone and then at the stacks of cipher books on my desk.

"What's this?" she asked, pointing at my notebook. I slowly looked at her, then at my phone.

"Well, someone left some sort of carved note at my burrow," I said, staring at it. "It looks like some sort of cipher," I added. She rested her arms around my shoulders from behind, her face close to mine. I saw her eyes twinkle.

"Could it be... Ben?" she asked, her eyes sparkling. I gave no expression.

"I'm not sure," was all I said. She took her arms off me, grabbed a chair, and sat beside me.

"Well, it could be. There's a chance. After all, we haven't found his body," she said, putting a hand on my shoulder.

"Yeah, but maybe there's nothing left of his body. It's been two months, and nobody has found a single sign of him," I responded grimly. She placed her finger on my phone.

"This, might be his sign," she said. She stretched her arms and took a book from my stack.

"Come on Mikey, let's solve it," she said as she flipped the first page of a cipher book. I smiled at her and picked up a book to help her.

Zoe and I dove into the cipher. We pored over the carved note and compared it to various cipher techniques we found in the books. At first, we tried simple substitution ciphers, replacing each letter with another. Then, we moved on to more complex methods like the Vigenère cipher, but nothing seemed to make sense.