Bang and Burn ~ Dreamnotfound + Skephalo

Chapter 18

"WHAT DOES THIS CODE MEAN?!" Geo screams as everyone scrambles to figure out Dylan's message. "WHY WOULD HE SEND US SOMETHING THAT ISN'T IN A NORMAL CODE?!?!"

"Calm down, Geo," Darryl says. "We will figure this out. I'm sure there is a perfectly good explanation as to why he sent us his message."

"Why did he choose the word 'pew'?" George asks.

Clay copy and pastes the message into a program on his computer to crack the code. "It's a stupid inside joke we all have. He was trying to discreetly tell us that someone got shot while we were on a mission. Instead of saying that they were shot, he said that they got 'pew pewed'. We laughed for hours over it, but I don't know why he'd try to give us a message using it." He bangs his fist on the desk when the program found nothing to decode. "SHIT!"

"Do you want me to look at it?" Vincent asks.

Jake shakes his head. "You don't do codes."

Vincent crosses his arms. "So? You don't seem to be getting anywhere with it!" He looks over Jake's shoulder. "Have you tried counting the 'E's'?"

"Counting the 'E's'?" Geo asks.

"Yeah. Maybe they mean something," Vincent suggests.

"Jake, how many 'E's' are in each word?" Clay asks.

Jake responds with, "19, 1, 22, 5, 26, 1, 11."

Clay writes down the numbers, then screams, "ITS LETTERS OF THE ALPHABET! JESUS WE ARE IDIOTS!" He writes down the numbers and counts on his fingers as he hums his ABC's. By the time he gets to the end of the code, he finds its meaning.

Save Zak

Darryl begins to panic when he sees the message. "He took his earpiece out! He won't be able to hear us warn him!"

"So what do we do?" Geo asks. "Dylan is missing and Zak is in danger. How are we going to do this?"

"I'll go help Zak," Nick decides. "Darryl and Vincent will come with me. If this turns into a fight, then the field agents need to be there."

"You two aren't the only field agents," Geo says. "Jake and I are handy with a gun."

"No, they're right," Jude decides. "Think about it. Zak is more likely to stay calm if his teammates go after him. And we need to somehow track Dylan down if we want to find him, so it'd be best for the rest of us to work on finding him." After everyone agrees, Nick and Darryl take off to try and get to Zak before it's too late.

A small bump from the kitchen was enough to wake Zak up. He rubs his eyes and yawns as he sits up. He looks into the kitchen. "Darryl? Is that you?" He stands up when he doesn't get a response. Zak stretches out his back and walks towards the kitchen. Everything looked perfectly fine. Nothing was messed with and everything was calm. He started to walk away but noticed something out of the corner of his eye. One of the knives was missing from his knife block. He then heard running footsteps behind him. He turns around and knocks the knife out of a kid's hand, then pins him against the kitchen island. The kid was in some sort of green turtleneck that muffled their grunts as they tried to get free.

"What the fuck?" Zak asks. Then, out of the corner of his eye, he sees a girl with short black hair move towards him. He pulls the kid up and places them in between him and the girl. "Look, I don't know who you are, but you both need to leave before I call the cops." He squints his eyes. "Wait, Brooklyn? What are you doing here?"

"I'm sorry Skeppy, I'm only doing my job. And it's not Brooklyn. It's Thundah." She charges at them, but Zak pushes the kid in front of him towards her. Thundah barely manages to avoid stabbing the sweater kid.