Dark Days

by James Ponti

  “So what brings us to the Battery?” he asked.

  “This,” I said, handing him the envelope. “It came addressed to me and contained a map of the George Washington walking tour and a note.”

  He pulled out the note and read it aloud.

  “ ‘Reserve a place in history.’ ”

  He looked up at us and asked, “What does that even mean?”

  “I wish I knew,” I replied. “I thought maybe I needed to reserve a spot on an official tour of the locations, but there isn’t one. Then I looked into getting reservations at different places along the route, but that didn’t lead anywhere. So basically I’m stumped.”

  “That’s why we’re here,” Natalie said, taking charge. “With four really smart people working together, we should be able to figure it out.”

  “You know there are five of us, right?” said Alex.

  “I know,” she said as she put an arm around him. “I’m sure you’ll help too.”

  I absolutely loved the fact that they were able to joke the same as always. It was a sign their friendship was strong no matter what. That same relaxed mood continued as we followed the map from the Battery up to Bowling Green Park. I acted as tour guide, since I’d already walked it twice before and because I had been reading up on New York during the Revolution ever since I got the assignment months earlier.

  “This is where they used to have a statue of King George III riding a horse,” I said as we entered the park. “And don’t ask me which way the horse’s rear end was facing.”

  Natalie and Liberty exchanged confused looks, but I didn’t bother to explain. Instead I told them a story that I’d learned in the history book about the city during the Revolution.

  “Washington and his troops were in Manhattan when the Declaration of Independence was signed. And after he had it read to the troops and the local citizens, a bunch of people came here to the park, toppled the statue, and melted it down.”

  “What did they do with it after they melted it?” asked Natalie.

  “They made it into forty thousand musket balls for the Continental Army.”

  “Hey, maybe that’s what Marek’s doing with all of that Tungsten he’s melting down,” Grayson said. “Turning it into musket balls.”

  “Is that what you think he’s doing?” asked Natalie. “Melting it?”

  “I know he is,” Grayson responded. “I’ve gone through all the files that Beth got on the flash drive and can track all of the shipments from the moment he buys it up until he melts it.”

  “And then?” asked Alex.

  “And then . . . nothing,” said Grayson. “He just buys it and melts it down. I can’t find any record of what he does with it after that. I don’t know if he’s turning it into something or if he’s just storing it to use later.”

  Grayson was down. Despite his lighthearted observations about the Statue of Liberty, he’d been in a funk for a while. First he was upset that he hadn’t been more “heroic” (his words not mine) during the fight on New Year’s. Then Natalie had to rescue him when the cop from the Dead Squad was trying to throw him off the Chrysler Building. And now he was struggling to solve what was going on with Empire State Tungsten, even though he had tons of data. He felt like he wasn’t helping the team at all, even though we all knew that wasn’t the case.

  “If anyone can figure it out, it’s you,” I said, trying to boost his morale.

  “This conversation has gotten me hungry for cheeseburgers,” Alex said. “Did George Washington have a favorite cheeseburger joint?”

  Natalie stopped and looked at him. “In what way did this conversation make you think of cheeseburgers?”

  “Melted statue, melted cheese,” he explained, incredulous. “It’s kind of obvious.”

  “Only to you,” she said.

  “Maybe,” I added. “But a cheeseburger does sound really good.”

  We took a break from the walking tour and found a burger place that was just greasy enough to be delicious. This was also important for Natalie and Liberty because, while the undead crave different tastes than us, they do like greasy foods. We all crowded around a table as we ate our burgers and shared a couple large orders of fries.

  “So do you suppose old George liked burgers?” asked Alex right before he took a big chomp out of his.

  “We can check,” I said. “One of his favorite places to eat is still open over on Pearl Street. It’s also where the Sons of Liberty held their secret meetings.”

  “I didn’t know you had any sons,” Natalie joked to Liberty.

  “Neither did I,” he replied.

  “The Sons of Liberty were a secret society of patriots,” I explained. “They were the ones who toppled the statue of King George and had it melted down.”

  “They were a secret society, we’re a secret society,” Alex said. “We should call ourselves The Friends of Liberty.”

  Liberty looked both embarrassed and pleased. We held up our sodas in a toast and said, “The Friends of Liberty.”

  We continued eating, and a couple moments later Grayson was nibbling on a fry when he looked at Natalie.

  “Can I ask something personal?”

  Natalie shrugged. “I’ve been wondering when you would.”

  He hesitated for a moment, then asked, “How did you tell your parents?”

  She chuckled for a moment and looked at Liberty before answering.

  “I didn’t.”

  “They don’t know?” I asked surprised.

  “They know,” she said. “But I didn’t tell them.”

  “Then who did?” asked Alex.

  Natalie nodded to Liberty.

  “First of all you have to remember that her parents are surgeons,” he said. “They knew something was wrong with what they were reading in her medical charts and I knew that they’d have to change their whole world for her to survive. So I got my mother to come with me and we met with them in the hospital.”

  “And you just blurted out that Natalie was undead?” Grayson asked, incredulous.

  “I was a little more subtle than that. Although, I couldn’t be too subtle. At one point I performed a couple demonstrations to show them my state of undeadness,” he said. “I think it was my ability to completely dislocate my fingers and snap them back into place without screaming that really convinced them.”

  “And then?” asked Alex.

  “Then my mom came in and told them the parents’ side of it all,” he said.

  “They came around amazingly well,” Natalie said. “It’s funny, because when you think of them being plastic surgeons on Fifth Avenue, you think about all the rich women who come in for facelifts and nose jobs. But every year they go down to Haiti and spend two weeks helping children and really saving lives. That’s the side of them I’ve been seeing. I think the medical component helps. Sometimes I have to remind them that I’m their daughter and not an experiment. But they’ve done great.”

  Not only did this surprise me, but so did Alex’s response. He turned to Liberty.

  “Thank you for looking out for her,” he said. “I really am proud to be a Friend of Liberty.”

  Liberty smiled.

  All That Glitters

  After we ate, we resumed our tour and continued on to Trinity Church and St. Paul’s Chapel. Trinity is where some Revolutionary War heroes like Alexander Hamilton are buried, and St. Paul’s is where Washington went to church every Sunday when he was President. (New York City was the capital back then.)

  “What does any of this have to do with reserving a place in history?” Grayson asked, trying to solve the mystery of the note.

  “Think about what the word means,” Natalie suggested. “How can you reserve something if it’s already happened?”

  “I know what it could be,” Alex said, getting our hopes up. “Molly said that the tavern where George Washington liked to eat is still operating. Maybe we need to make a reservation there. Oooh, we can eat dinner there tonight. I could use a good meal.�
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  “Seriously? You’re already thinking about dinner?” Natalie said. “You just ate. You still have a little burger juice on your chin.”

  “I can’t help it,” he complained. “You guys keep bringing up food.”

  “Actually,” she said, “you’re the only one who’s bringing up food.”

  “About his idea, though,” I said. “You can make reservations there. It’s called the Fraunces Tavern and it’s a museum and a restaurant. They serve old-style food from the Colonial era. That might be the solution.”

  “You see?” Alex said to Natalie. “You’re welcome.”

  “We’ll look into it,” she said begrudgingly, “but let’s keep on with the tour for now.”

  Our next stop was Federal Hall. When the United States began, New York was the capital and Federal Hall was where George Washington took the oath of office as the first president. We were walking down Nassau Street toward the building when I pointed something out to the others.

  “This street is where my anonymous letters supposedly came from,” I said.

  “What do you mean?” asked Grayson.

  “Both envelopes had a return address on Nassau Street.”

  “Did you try to find it?” asked Grayson.

  “No, that never occurred to me,” I said, giving him the stink eye. “Of course I did. But it’s phony. It doesn’t make any sense.”

  I handed him the envelope and he read it aloud. “356852 Nassau Street.”

  “See what I mean? It’s way too high a number to be an actual address,” I explained. “The longest addresses on Nassau are only three digits.”

  “Maybe it’s the number of an office in one of these buildings,” Natalie said. “If we can find the office, we can find the answer.”

  “Nope,” Liberty said, interrupting. “It’s not an address and it’s not an office.”

  I stopped and gave him a look too. “How do you know that?”

  “Because it’s my name,” he said with a cheesy smile.

  Now I was even more confused.

  “It was one of the first things I memorized when I learned the Omega code,” he said. “3, 5, 68, 52 is lithium, boron, erbium, tellurium. Li, B, Er, Te, that spells Liberte. It’s the French spelling, but still the best way to spell my name in the code.”

  I couldn’t believe I hadn’t figured that out. “How did I miss that?” I said, taking the envelope and looking down at it. “It’s as plain as day.”

  “No it’s not,” said Alex. “The numbers aren’t split, so you don’t know if they’re one digit or two. And it’s not part of any other coded material. I wouldn’t have thought it was code if I saw it.”

  “But if it is code, that’s huge,” said Natalie. “That means ‘liberty’ is part of the clue.”

  “It could be the Statue of Liberty,” suggested Grayson. “Does Nassau Street run all the way?”

  “Yes,” said Alex. “But you have to take a submarine for the part that goes under New York Harbor.”

  Grayson rolled his eyes. “I meant does it run all the way to Battery Park, where we were looking at the statue earlier this morning. Maybe if you stand there on the street and look at the statue it all lines up and makes sense.”

  “No,” I said. “Nassau only goes to Wall Street. There’s no way you could see the statue from there.”

  “It could be the Sons of Liberty,” Alex said. “You said they used to meet at the Fraunces Tavern. That gets back to that whole reserve a place in history thing.”

  “That’s good,” Liberty said. “That makes a lot of sense.”

  “Let me see the note again,” Natalie said, a hint of excitement in her voice.

  I handed it to her and she held it up so that the sunlight shined through the paper. She looked at it for a second and smiled.

  “There’s a comma,” she said, her excitement building. “It’s faint but it’s definitely there.”

  “A comma? That’s why you made the big smiley face?” Alex said. “Because there’s a comma?”

  “Don’t you see, Alex,” she replied, playing up the moment. “A comma changes everything.”

  “I think it’s safe to say that none of us see that,” he answered. “How does a comma change everything?”

  “Because without a comma in the sentence ‘Reserve a place in history,’ ‘reserve’ is a verb,” she said. “That’s what we’ve been trying to figure out. How you can make a reservation. But if there is a comma, as in ‘Reserve, comma, a place in history,’ then ‘reserve’ is a noun, an actual place in history.”

  And that’s when I realized where we were standing.

  “You are a total genius!” I said.

  She flashed a grin. “I know, but don’t get discouraged. I had to develop the skills.”

  “Okay,” Alex said. “For us mere mortals, do you want to explain?”

  “Look where we are,” I said. “It’s the Federal Reserve.”

  Sure enough, we were standing right next to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

  “This is the Reserve! It’s a place in history.” I continued, thrilled that we’d finally figured it out.

  “And check out the address,” added Natalie. “We are at the intersection of Nassau Street and . . .”

  We all looked up at the street sign and smiled.

  It was Liberty.

  “This must be where Marek is getting his money,” I said as we stood looking up at the massive Federal Reserve Bank. “Remember what Milton said, the money is the key to everything.”

  “I don’t know,” said Grayson. “It’s not that kind of bank. The Federal Reserve isn’t for people to use. It’s for giant banks and the governments of countries to use. Marek’s not a country. He can’t just go in and open an account or take out a loan.”

  “Yes, but that’s not all it is,” said Alex. “The Federal Reserve is also home to the world’s largest . . .”

  He stopped midsentence and left us hanging.

  “. . . never mind.”

  “Never mind?! The world’s largest what?” asked Natalie.

  “Four really smart people and me,” he said, referring to her joke from earlier. “I’d hate to embarrass you all by solving the big mystery. I’ll just go lift weights and eat cheeseburgers until you geniuses figure it out.”

  “Okay, okay, okay,” she said with exaggerated emphasis. “I was joking and I’m sorry. Five really smart people.”

  “How about four really smart people and one Albert Einstein level supergenius?”

  She gave him a look. “You’re pushing it.”

  “Okay, five really smart people will do. As I was saying, the Federal Reserve isn’t just a bank. It’s also home to the world’s largest gold deposit.” The mention of gold caught our attention and Alex took a dramatic pause before he continued. “Almost a quarter of the world’s gold is in the basement of that building.”

  “That’s a lot,” Natalie said, laughing. “That’s a whole lot.”

  “Yeah, but I’m pretty sure they keep it locked up tight,” said Liberty. “How would he even get in to see it, much less have access to it?”

  “That’s the best part,” said Alex. “They give tours. I saw a documentary about it on television. “

  “I think we should take that tour,” Natalie said as she started walking toward the entrance. “By the way, supergeniuses don’t sit around watching TV.”

  “It was a documentary,” Alex corrected as we all followed her. “Supergeniuses watch documentaries.”

  Considering what’s inside, it’s no surprise that we had to go through some major security hurdles just to get into the building. It took about twenty minutes to make it through the first wave of armed guards, metal detectors, and bag searches. At one point I think they took our pictures and ran them through facial recognition software, but I couldn’t tell for sure because it was all kind of top secret-y and they weren’t exactly talkative.

  Finally, we made it to the end of the line. There was a woman at
the counter in a crisp blue uniform with her hair pulled back tight in a bun. She wasn’t what you’d call friendly.

  “Tickets?”

  That’s all she said. Unfortunately, we didn’t know what she was talking about. Natalie was in front, so she took the lead. “How much are they?”

  “They’re free.”

  “Great,” she said. “We’ll take five.”

  “No,” the woman corrected. “You must already have them. Tickets are ordered online at least one month in advance.”

  “Well,” Natalie said, trying to charm her a little. “Since we’re here and have already gone through the security line . . . and since they’re free . . . is there any way we can get them now?”

  “No.”

  Alex started to try a follow-up but it was obvious Ms. Single Syllable wasn’t going to change her mind. Luckily, her supervisor was a little nicer. He was older, his hair and moustache on the silver side of gray, and his smile was welcoming.

  “What seems to be the problem?” he asked as he walked up behind her.

  “No tickets,” she explained curtly.

  He looked at us for a moment, and I used my best pleading eyes. We all did.

  “Wait a second, I think they’re part of that school group from Texas,” he said as he winked at Natalie. “Isn’t that right? Aren’t you from Texas?”

  “Yee haw,” said Natalie with a drawl. “We sure are.”

  Before the woman could protest, the supervisor told her that he’d watch the counter for fifteen minutes so she could take a break. That took care of her, and once she was gone, he turned to us and asked, “You’re not going to make me regret this, are you?”

  “No, sir,” we said in unison.

  He smiled and handed each one of us a ticket and directed us to join a group of sixth-graders who were wearing matching purple MANSFIELD TAKES MANHATTAN T-shirts.

  “Yee haw?” I said to Natalie as we walked over.

  She shrugged and laughed. “It was the best I could think of.”

  We had to wait about ten minutes for the tour to begin, so we bonded with the school group. And by “bonded,” I mean all their girls looked dreamily at Alex while Natalie and I helped their teachers with directions to their next stop. Finally, a tour guide came out and led us toward the vault.