“May I?” he asked.
“Why do you think I'm here?”
“Alright. I guess I could take a look at it right now.” He went round and sat down at his desk and held the cube up, putting on a pair of light-magnifying goggles clipped to his overalls. He studied and timed the blinking light. Then turning it over and over he set it down and opened a drawer in his desk and took out an old book filled with leaflet pages of drafts, freehand drawings, daguerreotypes, notes and old disks taped to pages. He came to a series of pages of handwritten notes. He slowed down, deliberately flipping through these. These pages were filled with strange looking symbols and words I didn't understand and nearly arcane looking drawings. A few symbols I thought I recognized. He studied these carefully while also staring at the cube. Then he got up and left the main office, disappearing into one of the back rooms. When he came out he was holding an old dog-eared notebook, opened to a page with a similar object drawn on it with hand written notes surrounding it.
He read this page as he sat down and then he carefully set the notebook down. He looked at me, his expression unreadable. He pushed a button on his desk and a sign drew down from the ceiling just outside the doorway that said: OUT TO LUNCH. Then the main doors to the lab closed and locked. He gave the cube another wordless round of study and then he sat back, regarding me with sharp curiosity.
“I believe that what you have here, and this is only a guess, is a cipher. It's an unusual one, but I think that's what this is.”
“You mean something that encodes or decodes information?”
“Yes. This one also can encrypt or decrypt information, if I'm right.”
“How can you tell?”
“I can tell from the information I've gathered and studied about old, unusual and fantastic machines over the ages. I have a lot of old machines and books on them at home, too. You know, I've come across some truly strange things that most people have never encountered. Some of them have convinced me that we're not alone in this universe.” He gave me a meaningful look.
Perhaps Edwin knew and saw some things I hadn't. I was intrigued by this statement but I wasn't yet sure I wanted to reveal the whole truth that I knew. And then a sudden memory hit me like a bolt out of the blue. I sat up straight. Tulos had said the same thing to me. Yes! It is a cipher! But the workings of this object remained opaque.
“But what sort? Wouldn't a cipher be in digital form or a classic cipher? Why would it come in such a fashion?” I was truly perplexed.
“Not necessarily. I'm not clear on exactly how this would be used but it's designed to be used to decode or encode vast amounts of unusual information. I don't know whether it is set up for asymmetric or symmetric encryption. I have no way of finding that out here. It's a black box as of now. Can you tell me more about it?”
“I can't speak a great deal on it as I'm trying to find out more about it myself. I found it on a space station. It had a twin, I was told, which self-destructed.”
“What? Self-destructed? A twin cipher? How can that be?”
“I don't know. All I know is that there used to be two of them. Maybe it's more than a cipher.”
“It would have to be then. In fact, my suspicion is that this object employs asymmetrical encryption. But it's just a guess. Is this an illegal object?”
“I don't know. All I know is that I found it on a space station outside of Earth's jurisdiction.”
“So it's a piece of black market material then?”
“It might be.” This didn't seem to phase him at all. In fact, it seemed to interest him even more.
“How did you manage to get this on the company premises?” I took a deep breath, weighing my words carefully.
“I have special clearance because of the work I do here.” He looked me up and down, a look of disbelief on his face.
“You're in quality control, aren't you? What's so special about that?”
“I do more than QA for the company these days. A lot more and I can't discuss what I do.” He regarded me with a suspicious gaze.
“Hmm. Chip did say there were a lot of deeply weird things going on around here.”
“What I can say is that it isn't an Earthside object.”
”No kidding. Most of the more interesting objects I've come across over the years tend to be non-Earthside and “under board”,” he murmured, studying the cube again. “if you know what I mean.” He touched the little fingertip indentations and they lit up with yellow light.
“That green light goes off every ten seconds. And then there's a specific pattern to these indentations. Are you sure it isn't a bomb?” he asked.
“I'm not entirely sure of anything here. I'm guessing, remember? I would guess that it has the ability to protect whatever information it's supposed to hold, hide or transfer by exploding. Or maybe it has to be activated remotely for that to happen,” I said.
“Yeah, you could be right. At this point anything could be right or wrong. I think that if it were actually a bomb or grenade of some kind and you've had it with you all along you'd be suffering from radiation poisoning or you'd be dead. Have you had a recent check up?”
“I'm healthy as a horse.”
“Well, there you go. I guess.”
“I think I've figured out the pattern for these.”
“Really? Try it!” He said. We were both excited. This was a blind discovery stage. I recalled what I'd learned in the schematics on the disk. I carefully touched each indentation in the pattern. All of a sudden the entire cube erupted in yellow light which made us both yell and jump back, with me falling onto the floor. Symbols engraved on them appeared out of the cube's metal sides. And. Then . . .nothing. Sweat peeled down my back under my clothes. Edwin had jumped back against the wall behind him and two of his cartoon prints became dislodged from the wall and fell to the floor.
“How fascinating,” he said. “So you won't tell me where you found this?”
“I did tell you. A space station. It's rare technology. And it isn't US or UK military issued.”
“Foreign?”
“In a matter of speaking, yes.”
“And you say it had a twin? How interesting. I swear, this is the most fascinating thing I've seen in a while. How old is it?”
“Very old. I don't know how old but it isn't modern in any sense that we would understand.”
“How cryptic. What's your name?”
“Bob.”
“Well, Bob, this reminds me of something interesting from history.” He finally came back to his chair.
“What sort of history?” I asked pulling a chair beside his desk and sitting down.
“World Wars I and II. I'm something of a war history buff. Especially of WWI and WWII. Did you know that the United States military used Choctaw and Cherokee soldiers for secret communications during the war? There were natives of other tribes who were code talkers as well. Also, have you ever heard of the German Enigma cipher?”
“I read about it years ago in college.”
“Well, this may very well be the foreign updated version of such a machine. An enigma machine. You said this was old? It doesn't look like old technology.”
“I know. But I was told that it was old.”
“Who?”
“On my business trips out there on the moon and beyond I've met all kinds of people. Some of them are collectors of rare and unusual artifacts. The person who once owned this is such a person. That's who informed me.” He gave me a quizzical look.
“Are you sure you didn't steal this?”
“I didn't steal it.”
“Well,” he said, staring at the indents at the top, “the German enigma machine was overcome and the Allies were able to decipher important messages being sent back and forth between the Germans, thwarted by British efforts at Bletchley Park. Let me see here,” his voice trailed off as he set it inside a small box and picked up a wand. The wand began to crackle and buzz loudly.
“This thing is picking up signals,” he said.
“From where?” I asked, feeling nervous. He shrugged. Will was picking up signals lately too.
“Not sure. Very curious. I do say, do you see this thin slit right here?” He showed me at the top, something I'd completely missed!
“Yeah.”
“According to the papers I have this is a bay for a physical key. You need a key to unlock this cipher. I say this because once I saw something here in the lab very similar in structure though less high tech looking. It's fascinating to me because it was built in very much the same fashion except the cube I had was of copper and steel. It was roughly the same size and more of a fanciful steam punk-like machine. It worked largely as a rotary device. The man who'd made it wrote a book, no longer available. It was a very obscure book called The Workings and Intricacies of Alien Machines. He's long dead now. But one of the machines he found and studied, a cipher-like cube like this one, made its way to the Odd Parts Lab. How or why or from whom I'll never know. I lost it, regrettably. It was a beautiful object and my losing it was very distressing.”
“Where did he come across the cube?”
“From someone who bought and sold these kinds of things. Like you did. They had some association with a UFO museum, now closed.”
“Wow. I wonder if I could ever find one.”
“It was fascinating. Peering into its inner workings was like peering into the mind of an alien intelligence. Of course, most people thought the guy was a crank so I don't mention him. But he was on to something. And he was something of a mechanical genius, too. In his book, he mentioned that the cube was like a code talker as well as a cipher. It was supposedly able to connect to a main AI with which it could communicate. People who possessed the proper key, it used symmetrical encryption I believe, could use it to communicate secret messages through the device. It was a device that was primarily used within a larger system to communicate to other vessels from very far off, according to him. Like a ship or an aircraft. I don't have the book with me or the digital file online, here. The computers I use at work exist in a closed ecosystem. They aren't connected to any networks outside of ODP or Recycling.”
He gingerly pawed at the indentations again.
“It's picking up frequencies around here. According to that book you'd need a physical key to unlock it and after that, a key to decode whatever messages you are trying to pick up and decipher with it,” and he gave me a pointed look, “and this should reveal them.”
“Problem is, could I understand them?” He nodded, giving me an earnest look. I don't think I'll have time to decode its messages. I wish I did.
“Does this book you have reproduce any of the symbols on it and did he give any explanation for them?”
“I think there were a few but he goes way off into left field on his ideas. Starts talking about the ending of the world, the prophecies of the book of Revelation and Nostradamus, and the horsemen of the Apocalypse and all of that. I'm sure he had no idea what they really meant. When I get home I'll make a copy of what I find in the book and send a mail message to you.” He reluctantly handed it back to me as I stretched out my hand to receive it. This ending of the world business isn't in left field. I thought.
“If I find out its secrets I'll send you information on what I know about it,” I said. His eyes grew wide and for the first time, ever, he grinned.
“Thanks! I'd love to know what this is all about!”
“You don't know how helpful you've been, Edwin. Thank you very much.” I said, truly grateful. “Say, I've been meaning to ask you, what exactly is it that you do in here?”
“When junk machinery comes down here I search out the metal and other materials that can be put to use again. I extract it, fix it up or file it off and send it to whatever division or campus on site that may be in need of it. Out of the junk I also make parts to be put back in circulation for other machines used on the production floors. What did you think I was doing down here?”
“I wasn't sure. Seems like you might need an assistant,” I said looking around. A large parcel of junk metal parts and plastics clumped down through one of the chutes, landing in a loud bang into one of the bins.
“Nah! I like working alone. Every now and then I get something valuable thrown down here and I put it away as part of my retirement account. I call it my Retirement Metal. Don't tell anybody,” he said, grinning wickedly. “Normally important tech like that never comes through here. It always brightens my day when it does.”
“So you actually do like working here then?”
“Did I say I didn't?”
“Well, last time I was in here you said it didn't make sense for the company to keep this department open.”
“Yeah? Well, it still doesn't make sense. But it's a paycheck just the same. And by the way, you can just call me Ed.”
Sure. Ed the curmudgeon.
Back at my office I felt hopeful. I decided to drop by and see Chip after work about the cube. Perhaps the hackers on the Dappa network might be able to help us out with deciphering some of these symbols. I decided to copy some of the files on the cube from the disc Darkman had given me for him.
So far, it felt like I was making some progress. Progressing towards what exactly, I wasn't sure.
. . .
That evening I found Chip in his garage lab as usual working on a coding project of his.
“Hey, so what's up?” He said turning around as I walked in.
“A lot, including what you told me about Will but I've got something else I want you to take a look at. Did you make any sense from the files I sent you?”
“Not yet. I've got some friends working on them. I've been so busy at work these days. Actually, we found one symbol that seemed pretty significant throughout the files you sent. It's this one here,” he pointed to a digital scribble drawing on his digital drawing pad. “We're working primarily on that right now. What else do you have for me?”
“This,” I produced the metal cube and handed it to him.
“So what's this? Alien too?”
“Yes. From my preliminary investigations, I found out that it's a cipher. I found it in Genevieve's hideout on Mars. It's an alien cipher.”
“Really?” Chip turned to one of his computers. “This thing looks like a grenade.” He had several monitors and holo-vid screens up around the walls of his lab and several on his desk. He was checking a wireless signal program on his main monitor. He sat the cube down near a small antennae.
“It's giving off a signal. And receiving one. It's faint but it's there. Some kind of encrypted communication. This light isn't just blinking just for the hell of it.”
“What kind of communication, I wonder?”
“Well, that's what we need to find out.” He turned toward a console and began tapping screens and pulling up information from the holo-vids.
“Would this be similar to what Will is experiencing?”
“It's different in that Will is picking up and eavesdropping on communications. He isn't being contacted by anyone. If Will were here he might be able to decipher some of the alien symbols in the file you gave me. But from what I see here, it's emanating from the same source.” I sat down and leaned in to get a closer look at the screen he was focused on.
He captured the image of the cube which read as an unknown object on the screen and then logged into Dappa. He then brought up a screen full of signals in the area that were being broadcast. They looked like green wavy lines across a grid. The one coming from the cube and emanating from it were pink.
“You see these here?” He pointed to the pink lines. I nodded. “If they were strong they would be red. There's definite communication on both sides.”
“You know what?” I asked slowly, staring at the screens, “I'm thinking the only reason why those lines aren't red is because this cipher is locked. Not only is it probably used to decipher streams of information from something, like a gate on the other side of a wormhole, or a high level alien made mech, but in order for it to work t
he way it's supposed to it requires a key to unlock it.” Perhaps at some point soon it might self-destruct.
“How did you find that out?”
“I did some research on my own. So what are you doing now? You've opened up Dappa.”
“I'm going to see what others have come up with on the signal. I've copied and pasted a small recording of the signal to some coders I know across the network. Just to see what they think or can get from it. I doubt we'll be able to decrypt it but you never know. I found out from a friend on the network that there were pieces of information from these Blackguard Project files uploaded to the network by one of the original hackers. The handle was: "altfox". One of the guys found out that the guy's name was Jason.” My face must have changed colors because Chip knew he'd gotten a reaction out of me. I felt cold inside at the name.
“Jason was one of the guys that helped exposed the project. As far as I know, all of those people, including him disappeared or were. . . killed.”
“Why doesn't that surprise me? I hope we aren't next.”
“So do I. That may depend upon how fast I can crack this cipher. What about Will? You said that when he's in certain places around the city that he's picking up a signal data.”
“Will's at the science lab right now. A cab was brought for us both and we were taken here and then some black-clothed security guards came to meet us right the doors when we got there. They're bringing him back tomorrow. What I've done is put the locations where he's picking up signal data and plugged them into another program called Signalfier. See here? These flashing red lights at these locations?”
Chip pulled up another screen with the Signifier program displaying the red light areas around a map of Seattle/Portland. I leaned in closer to study it. And found something very interesting. I'd noticed that they were all within a three mile radius of the convention center. But for some reason the convention center itself had no point or hub of blinking red lights, as if there the area was dead right inside it. Or cloaked.
Mission: Blackguard Conspiracy Page 6
