Scimitar

by Terry Wheeler

  Her father watched over her carefully and was pleased to see that she seemed to be settling down at school. Four years went past and he began to relax, allowing himself the luxury of dreaming of a happier future, and then he had a chance for promotion which meant that they would have to move to a different part of the country. It would mean a new start for both of them and he agonised over the decision he had to make. He relished the chance to move on but he didn’t want to upset his daughter. He tried to explain it to her.

  ‘You see,’ he said, ‘it will mean that we’ll have to sell this house and find a new one. And there’ll be a change of school for you.’

  ‘I don’t mind,’ she said.

  She couldn’t tell her father that she was pleased at the thought of leaving, as if a load was about to be lifted from her. The house held too many secret memories of her mother and she never went to the park, not even when the other girls invited her.

  ‘Can I help choose our new house?’ she asked.

  ‘I can’t do it on my own,’ her father replied, relieved that she had taken the news so well.

  They began looking through the papers the estate agents sent them and then one Friday they went out to look at some houses.

  The countryside was so different from the town where they had been living, It was open and bright, and they both felt lighthearted. It was the first day when they felt free of the past.

  ‘The agent says they have a good school here and, when you’re older, the senior school is quite close.’

  They looked at a house on the edge of a village. It wasn’t big but the rooms were a good size and the private garden looked out over open fields.

  ‘It’s very quiet here,’ his daughter said. ‘I like the house and the road and I could have a big room.’

  ‘You won’t know anyone for a bit, you’ll have to make new friends.’

  ‘I can do that. I’m old enough. I’m not a kid any more.’

  They looked at a few more houses in different places but none of them came close to rivalling the village and the house they had seen at the start of the day and so they went back for another look.

  ‘Why don’t we stay the night at the pub?’ her father suggested. ‘And then, if it feels right, I’ll make an offer on the house tomorrow.’

  They made the move towards the middle of August and Robert took time off to settle them in, working from home. They went for walks together, exploring the nearby countryside. Robert was reminded of the walks he and Kerry used to take but he was also aware that his daughter was still apprehensive about being outside. She was clearly scared about walking in the woods.

  ‘It’s not like before,’ he said, facing up to the challenge. ‘Your mother’s death was beyond our control. If someone decides to come after you, there is nothing that you can do to avoid it, but it won’t happen again. I know that whoever attacked your mother was never found but, even if he was looking for you, it’s unlikely that he’ll find you here.’

  ‘It’s difficult.’

  ‘It was a long time ago and you’re not a toddler any more; you’ve changed beyond recognition. It will get better, you’ll see. When you have friends you’ll feel that you belong and that will alter everything.’

  But friendship was not something that came easily to her and, although she liked her new school and felt comfortable there, she was still the new girl, set apart from the rest of her class.

  Life improved when her class left the village school and moved on to the local comprehensive where they were all new for a while. The students from her old school stuck together, seeking support from each other in their new environment, and she began to make new friends, girls from other schools who felt equally alone.

  Life at home settled down, too. Robert worked from home for some of the time and, now his daughter was older, he didn’t feel the need for her to be looked after by child minders. She took on some of the household chores and became a competent cook, preparing the evening meal with her father.

  At the end of the first year at her new school she brought home an excellent report and, for the first time in her life, she felt relaxed and happy as she started her summer holiday. They left and visited Robert’s parents and then went on to Kerry’s parents where she stayed for a few weeks.

  ‘She’s growing up to be the spitting image of Kerry,’ her grandmother remarked to her husband.

  ‘Kerry would be so pleased to see how she’s come on,’ he said. ‘It’s good having her here; it’s like Kerry has come back to us.’

  The holidays ended all too soon and the new term began, sweeping up Robert and his daughter into its familiar routines.

  Chapter 14

  Daniel was in bed and asleep. Gradually, as he emerged from deep sleep, he became aware of a strange sensation in his head. It felt as if something was knocking against the inside of his skull. He could feel it tapping away. He tried to ignore it but the sound was too insistent. He tried to pretend that it wasn’t there but it continued tapping away. He could hear it, ping, ping, ping ... When he could ignore it no longer he jolted upright in bed, suddenly wide awake and fully conscious. The noise stopped instantly.

  A storm was raging outside and he could hear gusts of wind, and rain scudding across his window, striking the glass like a handful of grit thrown against the pane. The wind was whistling and moaning through the tree branches outside the inky blackness of his room. And then the noise was there again. He thought it might have been a twig or a branch tapping against his window — except that he knew there was nothing anywhere near his window. And it wasn’t outside; it was in his room, deep within his head.

  His eyes began to adjust and he could see the dark grey sky through his window. He rubbed his eyes, not believing what he thought he could see, but there, in front of his eyes, framed against the darkness as if it were on his computer screen, he saw a series of digits and characters. He blinked and rubbed his eyes. It was still there. He wasn’t dreaming. It was definitely there, flickering slightly, but then, even as he watched, it faded from his sight. He closed his eyes again, snuggled down beneath his bed covers and promptly went back to sleep. He had been awake for less than a minute.

  Daniel didn’t believe in ghosts, lost spirits, UFOs or any of that nonsense; his feet were planted firmly on the ground, he was pragmatic and believed in what he could prove. A fact was a fact and a theory was just that, simply a possibility, something to be thought about, a starting point but not something to be confused with fact.

  Since he had been old enough to think for himself he had felt compelled to test things that people said. He soon learnt that his parents told him things that weren’t true. It wasn’t that they told lies; it was more that they were willing to compromise the truth for what they considered a higher purpose. He hated half-truths. If something needed to be told and understood then it was only right and proper that it should be fully explained.

  If anyone asked him what he liked best he told them straight — his computer. It was the best present he had ever been given: it didn’t talk back, it didn’t give wrong answers and it did exactly what you told it. He was neither an anorak nor a geek; he was just an ordinary boy who happened to like the freedom that his computer gave him to do things. It had opened up a world of logic to him, a place where cause and effect were wholly predictable. And more, it acted as a think-pad, somewhere that he could explore ideas; it was like an extension of his mind.

  His mother didn’t understand Daniel’s obsession.

  ‘It’s not healthy,’ she repeatedly told him, ‘cooped up in your bedroom, staring at a computer screen. It’ll ruin your eyes.’

  ‘Excuse me,’ Daniel pointed out bluntly, ‘you’re the one who wears glasses. There’s nothing wrong with my eyes.’

  When he woke up the morning after his dream Daniel reached out for a notepad and wrote down 0P3N 0113 452D 3NT3 R — the code he had seen the previous night. At least, the code he remembered seeing although logically he though he must have dreamt it. />
  The strange thing was, he didn’t even have to think. It was as if it was still there, hanging in the window. He studied what he had written down. Where had it come from? It didn’t make any sense. It looked like a random collection of digits and letters, devoid of any logical pattern. He shrugged, dressed and went down to breakfast.

  As he munched his way through his cereal, his brain was at work. There is always an explanation for everything, no matter how strange it might seem. The trouble was, at that moment he couldn’t find any connection between the digits and letters and so the key to what they meant eluded him. It occurred to him that he might have seen the code on his computer screen; one of those almost subliminal messages that flash up from time to time when you open up or close the system down. It could have been lingering in his memory or there again, perhaps the whole episode was just a dream, something that he had half remembered when he woke, not an event that had actually occurred in the middle of the night.

  Back upstairs, he sat at his desk and pulled out a couple of books so that it looked as if he was working just in case his mother came in, and turned back to his computer. He was comforted by the familiar whirring of the hard disc as it powered up and he entered his password. While it was busy loading his desktop defaults he turned to the pad where he’d written the code. He counted the letters. Seventeen characters, what was special about them, he wondered? Seventeen was a prime number. So what? So it couldn’t be divided up into regular groups of three or four characters; it was an interesting but useless fact.

  He checked all his software in case one of the pass codes had become corrupted but everything was working and in any case, the code didn’t match any of them. He looked at it again, searching for a logical basis, trying to understand what it meant. It wasn’t an anagram; anagrams didn’t mix numbers and letters; and it didn’t look like an acrostic. He tried some of the more obvious codes but they made no sense of it at all. If it was a cipher he hadn’t the faintest idea what it could be but, the more he looked at it, the more he was convinced that it had some meaning.

  He began doodling on the pad, splitting the groups of numbers and letters apart. The result was interesting but it didn’t look any better and it still refused to make sense. There were no vowels amongst the letters. He hadn’t noticed that before. How could he have missed something as obvious as that? He’d been playing with it for just over half an hour when he heard his father come back from his morning run, heard him take his shower and go downstairs.

  He gave up. Why was he wasting time playing with it? Just because he’d had a bad dream and imagined this cryptic code, it didn’t mean that he had even remembered it correctly. He moved the mouse and pointed to his games folder, settling back to enjoy the challenge of a crossword; at least that was based upon logic.

  Next day at school, the classroom was incredibly noisy. There was nothing unusual about that, particularly since they were waiting for a maths lesson. Mr Fraite, their maths teacher, was old-fashioned and very strict; once he arrived the room would fall as silent as the grave and it would stay that way until the bell unleashed its former chaos. As if to compensate for his rule of silence, the class was always rowdy while it awaited Mr Fraite’s arrival which made the descent into silence seem even more impressive.

  Jed, his best friend, arrived just ahead of Mr Fraite and slipped on to the chair next to Daniel at his table. Daniel nodded. It didn’t do to talk while Mr Fraite was sorting out his books. Jed pulled a face and puffed his relief. Being late for one of Mr Fraite’s lessons was not wise. Even as Jed was getting out his books, Mr Fraite was tearing into James for coming in late.

  After he had sorted his books Jed fiddled with his calculator, turned it round and slid it towards Daniel who looked at the display, nodded and pushed it back. All of a sudden he jerked as if he had been poked in the back. He reached out, picked up Jed’s calculator again and read 0.01134. He turned the calculator the other way up and looked again — now it read ‘hello’. The numbers were strangely familiar. For a moment he couldn’t think why they were jangling in his mind and then he remembered. They had been in the code he had written on his pad on Sunday morning.

  He prickled with excitement and grinned at Jed. Why hadn’t he thought of that? Every school kid knew how to write ‘boobs’ on a calculator and in the past he had spent hours trying every possible combination of the digits on his calculator. While Mr Fraite was rattling on about the finer points of equations he opened his pad. Sure enough, the numbers 01134 were there, right in the middle of the code. He would have liked to have had time to think about the other characters but it was unwise to allow your concentration to wander in maths. ‘Train’, as he was affectionately known, seemed to have an advanced radar system which enabled him to home in to anyone who wasn’t listening and the idea of a lost lunch hour or an after-school detention didn’t appeal.

  It was a long time until the lunch break and when it finally came Daniel tucked himself into the corner of the canteen and quickly finished his sandwiches. Taking a pencil and his pad, he slipped out and made his way to the library where he found a quiet table in the study area. He re-wrote the code on the top of a fresh page and substituted the letters ‘hello’ for the numbers in the middle, separating the word from the characters on either side. He grinned; this was too easy.

  0P3N HELLO 52D 3NT3 R

  It still didn’t make any sense, though. He tried putting an E in the place of each of the other 3s and rewrote the code again.

  0PEN HELLO 52D ENTE R

  It still didn’t make much sense but at least it looked as if he was on the right track. The 52D bit in the middle remained a problem but he didn’t have time to think about it; the bell rang and he had to go.

  Later that evening, bored with his homework, he turned back to the cipher. He opened his pad and looked at the end of the code where he had regrouped the letters; the word ENTER was clearly the last part. It suggested that he should be putting the rest into something and then it would make sense. He had no idea where to put it and, even if he did, what could OPEN HELLO 52D mean? He still couldn’t understand what he had to do. His homework beckoned again and he put the pad aside.

  He was on his last piece of work and he needed to look up something from the net. He clicked on the icon and waited for the program to open. There were several choices and he searched each one, looking for the best answer, jotting down the possibilities before he closed the program. Something was ticking away at the edge of his mind but he was too involved with his history to pay much attention to it. He doodled on his pad, trying the code in different ways, splitting apart the words that he had found. It still left him with the problem of 52D and he couldn’t think of anything to do with it. He drew a ring round his last attempt and turned back to his history, reading through his reconstruction of the evidence he had been given.

  It still wasn’t good enough; he could see the obvious mistakes and circled them in red felt tip. It was going to be one of those evenings, he thought. The more I look the worse it seems. The stubborn streak in his character wouldn’t let him leave it; his work had to be right. Knowing that he had done a poor job was not good enough; he had to improve on it.

  He flicked the mouse on his computer and while he waited for the screen to come to life he listed down the points he needed to search on. The first word he entered came up with several options. ‘Do you want to open another screen?’ the computer asked him.

  All of a sudden his mind put the disparate pieces of information together and he turned to his pad again. OPEN HELLO 52D and ENTER the code read. Perhaps ‘OPEN’ was an instruction, just like ‘ENTER’ at the end. Excitedly he typed in HELLO 52D and pressed the key. Nothing happened.

  He sat back in his chair and looked at the screen. He couldn’t believe it; he had been certain that something was going to happen. He closed the program and as it whirled out of sight he had another idea. Perhaps if the 3 had been an E then the 5 was not a 5 but an S. That would be logical
. He opened the program again and typed in HELLO S2D and sent it. There was still no response.

  There must be something wrong with the S2D bit. He said it out loud, just to see if it made any better sense. He repeated it and then repeated it again. What he was hearing was not what was written on his pad. Picking up his pencil, he wrote S to D. He was still playing with the idea out aloud. All of a sudden it dawned on him that he might be the D. D for Daniel. On a whim he reversed the letters — D2S.

  It made sense. If he had received a message from S, he would have to invert the letters to send S a reply. Confident that this would work he typed the new option, HELLO D2S and pressed the key. The screen flickered once and then went blank.

  He swore under his breath. What a time for it to hang. His fingers were poised over the Ctrl, Alt, and Del keys when he saw a tiny dot in the centre of the screen. Slowly it expanded and he saw that it was a red spiral and that it was unwinding. He watched it, fascinated. The movement was slow and deliberate. The leading edge of the spiral worked its way round and round, always unwinding from the centre, until it had almost filled the complete screen. It stopped abruptly and a message began to form in its centre.

  ‘HELLO Scimitar to Daniel’ it read.

  He grinned. Somehow he had sent a message to Scimitar who was presumably the ‘S’ part of the message. For one dreadful moment he wondered if he had unleashed a computer virus which would go on and destroy all his data. He checked his desk drawer and was reassured when he saw his backup disks.

  The message began to fade and he saw another spiral opening inside the red one, a green ribbon that grew like the red one had done. He waited eagerly to see what the next message would be. Who was Scimitar and what did he want? The green spiral was still moving; as he watched it seemed as if it was growing out from the screen. Another message began to form.