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Chapter One
The Link
It was one of those lazy summer mornings, where the June sun rolls around your bedroom and you relish the fact that you are indeed free from school, and have been for about a week now.
I had just gotten back to my room from breakfast and was in the process of tying my shoes when the doorbell rang downstairs and my mother went to get it. After a bit of chatter, the door banged shut and I heard a truck driving off. Glancing out of the window, I noted that it was from UPS.
"You have a package," my mom said from downstairs. Not bothering with my overlong shoelaces, I clambered down the stairs, snatched the parcel, and returned to my room, my fingers digging under the clear tape of the box.
The package was filled with Styrofoam noodles, and two bubble-wrapped items poked out of the top. The largest I scooped out first. It was big and rectangular, and I discovered it was a laptop computer, a very new model from Sony. Flipping it open, I was delighted to find that it had an enormous cache of memory, far more then I knew was possible. The hard drive was already almost thirty percent filled, though, with only two files: A massive Word file titled Modura a program I didn't recognize, titled Navi.
The second thing was a big paper envelope, with a safety deposit box key, a disk, and a note with an address on it:
Farmer's First Bank 210 Market Street Box 001
That was weird. I was about to put the disk into the laptop when I heard something coming from the box, a very faint voice. I stuck my hand into the noodles and found a plastic earpiece, like in the secret agent movies. I attached it to my right ear and distinctly heard, "Hey! Listen!"
Chapter One
The Link
It was one of those lazy summer mornings, where the June sun rolls around your bedroom and you relish the fact that you are indeed free from school, and have been for about a week now.
I had just gotten back to my room from breakfast and was in the process of tying my shoes when the doorbell rang downstairs and my mother went to get it. After a bit of chatter, the door banged shut and I heard a truck driving off. Glancing out of the window, I noted that it was from UPS.
"You have a package," my mom said from downstairs. Not bothering with my overlong shoelaces, I clambered down the stairs, snatched the parcel, and returned to my room, my fingers digging under the clear tape of the box.
The package was filled with Styrofoam noodles, and two bubble-wrapped items poked out of the top. The largest I scooped out first. It was big and rectangular, and I discovered it was a laptop computer, a very new model from Sony. Flipping it open, I was delighted to find that it had an enormous cache of memory, far more then I knew was possible. The hard drive was already almost thirty percent filled, though, with only two files: A massive Word file titled Modura a program I didn't recognize, titled Navi.
The second thing was a big paper envelope, with a safety deposit box key, a disk, and a note with an address on it:
Farmer's First Bank 210 Market Street Box 001
That was weird. I was about to put the disk into the laptop when I heard something coming from the box, a very faint voice. I stuck my hand into the noodles and found a plastic earpiece, like in the secret agent movies. I attached it to my right ear and distinctly heard, "Hey! Listen!"