Chapter 2
The X-men were in the library, sitting around a table with the gift box on it, looking at it curiously.
"So, do we just open it?" Bobby asked.
"Not a good idea, ice cube." Logan said. "For all we know, it could be a bomb."
He carefully picked it up, sniffing it and listening to it. "Well, I don't smell or hear anything unusual, so I guess it's safe."
He still opened it carefully though, and everybody could not hold back a small flinch at the prospect that the gift could be a trap. There wasn't any explosion though, so everybody got closer to the box to see what was inside.
"Aw man, there's nothing in here but junk!" Ray said as he pulled out a paper doll of a little girl that held something that looked like a needle. Jamie pulled out a mask that looked like a bird and put it on.
"Hey, what's this?" Kitty pulled out a small black box with a red button on it. Not knowing what else to do, she pressed it.
"No don't!" Logan exclaimed, but it was too late. Suddenly a voice crackled out of a speaker on the box.
"You are seeking one of man's greatest treasures. However, the journey is a dangerous one, through the frozen north of Neptune's kingdom. But if you proceed and succeed, you will find a secret greater than any other on the earth, and you will loll in the drunken ecstasy… of Rapture."
The recording stopped, and the bottom of the box opened. A small paper fell out. Scott picked it up.
The paper had these symbols on it, in this order:
a oval with a line through it, two interlocking diamonds 0, l', 3 curves
l, an upside-down triangle 0, a diagonal roman numeral 2, a diagonal roman numeral 2', three rows of scale-like markings
"It looks like some kind of code." Scott remarked.
"Uh… guys?" Amara said. "I found this in the box too."
She was holding a small, worn book: A Children's Garden of Cyphers, by Orson Oscar Liddel.
BX
"Have you figured out anything, Hank?" Prof. X asked Beast.
"Yes. If whoever sent that gift box was trying to be mysterious, he certainly didn't do a good job of it. He virtually just gave us the answer with that book."
"So you have translated the message?"
"Of course. It took me a while to realize that some of the symbols actually stood for numbers. In the end though, the answer is still the same: coordinates."
"Coordinates? But to where?"
"Well, it looks like we're gonna need a submarine, since we're going under the sea."