Secrets

Chapter 11: Xa

Hi guys! I'm just letting you know that Chapter 12 is going to be published very, very quickly after this chapter is published to make up for how long it's going to take me to finish Chapter 13. I apologise that they will be short.  

Xxx Wakagrl

Chapter 11: Xa

As soon as Reagan was leaning against the wall, Xa had a brainwave. Yes! That was it, she thought. But she just had to be sure, just in case...

Xa ran her finger over the top of the paper. She found her prediction correct. Rico was looking at Xa like she was mental, so she explained quickly.

"Reagan, your theory was right. The heat has made the texture of the paper different. At first I thought that it may be braille, but then I realised it wasn't." she said very quickly, because she was meanwhile also spinning the cogs of her brain and grabbing a pencil from her pencil case. She kept the paper against the wall and started lightly shading it with the pencil. Something started to appear on it...

Reagan was standing upright now, looking at the paper. Rico, too. The words had started to appear on the paper- but then Xa realised that they weren't words. Then she thought they were numbers, because some of the things appearing were numbers, but that wasn't right either. Then she thought that it may be braille after all, but it still felt wrong, like you were placing the last piece in a puzzle upside down and leaving it be.

Suddenly, Rico opened his mouth. Out of it came two words, a simple two words that manage to slot the puzzle piece into a perfect position.

"Morse Code." he whispered. He repeated the words. "Morse Code."

And Xa could've almost slapped herself. Of course! Why didn't she think of that? Dots and dashes- if a code that had those two only wasn't the Morse Code, then what else could it possibly be? In a minute, Xa had thanked Rico, finished shading in the paper and decoded the code. But then it came out with random letters, which Rico pointed out.

"No. They're not random letters, Rico. We're dealing with an anagram." she had said. In less than a minute she had unscrambled the letters. The numbers went on the end. The message read:

WE ARE COUNTING ON YOU TO GET THERE. GO BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE, OR ELSE THE WORLD SHALL BE PLUNGED INTO A TIME OF APOCALYPSE 39.9831° N, 0.0331° W.

"Well, our note-writer was probably in a cheerful mood when they wrote this!" Rico joked.

"Yeah. Hilarious." Xa drawled, the words dripping with good-humoured sarcasm.

"Now, what do those coordinates mean?" Reagan frowned, her eyebrows furrowed in concentration. "Hmm.." Xa trailed off. Math and coordinates and other similar activities had never been her strong suit.

Rico looked at the paper, his mouth moving in soundless words. Then he looked up.

"39.9831° N, 0.0331° W. These are coordinates." he said.

"Yes, we know. But to where?" Xa and Reagan said in unison.

"39.9831° N, 0.0331° W are the coordinates for Castellón de la plana, capital of the Province of Castellón." Rico said this with a note of certainty as if he expected Xa and Reagan to know where this was. He also said this with a note of sadness, as if he had just realised something terrible.

"Where is that?" Xa asked.

"Spain."

"Where?"

"Better known as The Land of the Savages, Land of Dying Hope, The Country Where the Embers Die, and Military Territory of The Dark."

"What?"

Xa didn't know what to say. She remembered now. Spain, she recalled from a history book, had been one of the few countries to lose the name it had before The Third World War. The Dark had conquered it, showing minimum mercy to the previous inhabitants. Now those inhabitants were either dead or living in nearby countries. Now Spain was a war ground, strewn with the signs of battles and blood and death.

And they were expected to go there?

"Wait." Xa said. She had had another thought. "What about the other side of the paper? Is there a message on that?"

They turned the paper.

Indeed, there was another message, in Morse Code as well.

It translated to a slightly easier goal to accomplish.

OPEN THE ENVELOPES AT THE DUSK OF DAWN. THE TIME WHERE THE OLD MEETS YOUNG. 1.210

"Well, that's very specific." Rico muttered. "That's their style: Straightforward and easy to understand."

"It's midnight." Reagan blurted.

"What? It is?" Rico blanched, surprised.

"No it's not, it's only 6:29." Xa said, double checking her watch.

"No, I meant the time that it means on there." Reagan persisted.

"How?"

"The dusk of dawn, I'm not that sure about, but when the old meets young- that's got to be midnight, right? I mean, think about it: The old day meets the young day. Right?" she reasoned. "So we have to open the envelopes at midnight..." she trailed off.

"But what about the numbers? 1.210? What could that be?" Xa said. She had never been the best at maths, and she doubted she could solve this mysterious figure. But Rico suddenly had a spark in his eyes.

"Did you say 1.210? Does it show the decimal point?" he asked in a eager, slightly impatient tone.

"Yes, it does." Reagan replied, evidently having no idea where Rico was heading with this confirmation, like Xa.

"They've put a deliberate mistake in."

"How do you know that?"

"Because it's meant to show us the time around midnight we're meant to open the letters. We're not meant to open it at midnight, because that would be too simple, wouldn't it?"

Xa nodded. So far, all what they had discovered had had something more linked to it, something that thrust them further into this mystery. Reagan seemed to agree, too.

"Well, yeah. So, they must have made a deliberate mistake." Rico continued, "And so, if you move the decimal point one space left, then you end up with 12.10, 12.1 if you want to be mathematically precise. Anyways, you end up with 12 point ten. 12:10. Ten minutes past midnight. That is the time we're meant to open the envelopes." He stopped, leaving the theory to dwell and think upon. Xa thought that it was a remarkably logical idea. She felt slightly guilty for once thinking that Rico didn't know how to figure out any mathematical problems. He was quite good with numbers, really. Reagan's mouth was moving, so Xa snapped out of her thoughts and listened to her.

"You know, Rico, you'll have to sneak out of your house to do this." She looked like she felt bad. Xa did, too. Rico tried to lighten the mood. He stood up, straight as the walls of the room. He raised his hand to his forehead, in a military salute.

"Yes, Ma'am, confirmative, Ma'am. Sneaking out is my speciality, Ma'am." Rico said this in such a good mock-serious voice that they were guffawing in no time. Even though it wasn't that funny.

Laughter was the best medicine, Xa thought. Even if it couldn't shake off a bad feeling completely. Not for long, anyway.