Rich or Poor, A Lottery Winner's Adventure

Rich or Poor, A Lottery Winner's Adventure - Chapter Three

Chapter Three

I awoke at around ten o’clock on Sunday morning, feeling ten times heavier than usual. After forcing myself to get out of my warm bed, the realisation of everything that was going on hit me like a speeding freight train. I went downstairs, still keeping my eyes open for any small listening objects. The slight smell of popcorn lingered in the bright air of the kitchen. This reminded me that we were almost out of food and I couldn’t rely on the usual shoppers to get the groceries in, not today anyway, hopefully soon. After checking the morning’s mail, I fired up the computer in preparation for Becky’s Skype chat; something I had been looking forward to ever since she had suggested it. While waiting, I checked my emails and phone but had nothing from this insane madman. Then the bleep of the Skype call came in and I hit the ‘connect’ button that rewarded me with an image that made me smile for the first time today. Becky looked so radiant I could practically smell her scent through the computer. “Morning Ryan… Has he made any contact since over at Pedro’s?” She asked, with a slight sparkle in her eyes, like she knew something.

“Hey Beck’s… Um… Morning”. I said. I wanted to tell her just how great she looked this morning. “No he hasn’t made any contact at all. No email, no phone call and no text. It’s clear there are at least two of them, I just wonder who the others are?”

“Yes I’d like to know too. Anyway Ryan, I did a bit of work on the video clip last night with my new anti-encryption coding device. I didn’t manage to finish it all before my shift so I did more when I got back home. I think I may have found something that could help, but nothing major. I’m now gonna email you the results. It’s only one sheet.” She said. A second later, a short sound told me that my inbox had grown by one.

“Thanks Beck’s… You’re the best!” I said, she smiled and took the compliment. “OK, it’s now printing. Let me go over and check it out.” I said, and walked over to the printer and grabbed the paper to see what Becky had in the way of a result. I stared at the image and it made no sense at all. Just lots of encrypted squiggles all jumbled up. “Um… Becks… this… this doesn’t make any sense? It’s just a bunch of mixed up words, letters and other symbols,” I told her, with a feeling of failure as I glanced back at the piece of paper. Hoping that she could shed some light on what looked like nothing.

It read…

ÿÿÄÆÇW$"ÑÑåY'£ÕÀpÍèÿÿ

###/-14-1-19-8-22-9-12-12-5-\###

¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯

-----------------------------------------

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­

##/-3-8-1-20-20-1-14-15-15-7-1\#

ÿÿÄÆÇW$"ÑÑåY'£ÕÀpÍèÿÿ

Well this is extremely helpful, I thought to myself. Looking back in the direction of Becky’s warm glow at my computer, I asked. “So what does this mean Beck’s? Did you manage to work something out from this?” It meant nothing to me at all.

“I did, only this morning Ryan. It’s not a great deal, but I think it may help point us in the right direction.” She seemed to be playing with my eagerness and intense desire to find out what the hell this encryption meant. Sensing the tension in my room all the way from her house at the other side of town. “OK… well the symbols don’t really have a meaning. They simply represent the start and finish of the anti-encryption result.” She said.

“But what about the rest? All the arrows pointing in all directions?” I asked, impatiently wanting to know more.

“Well, I used a map and the alphabet system to work it out. You see there are two sets of numbers.” She said, still probably wondering if I had worked anything out yet. I hadn’t. “Ryan, if you look at the numbers, none of them are above twenty six so if ‘A=1 and B=2’ and so on, then I’ve worked out that the two sets of numbers represent two different places.” She told me, with a rather sexy look of ‘nerdy’ about her.