Yep. Chapter 10 is up. I really hope you like it. It took me a while and well... that's it I guess. I really don't have much to say in this A/N because...well I don't really know. Well enjoy the chapter.

CHAPTER 10

0550 Hours. November 30, 2525 (Military Calendar)/UNSC frigate Commonwealth en route to the UNSC Damascus Materials Testing Facility, Planet Chi Ceti 4

The Spartans had been fitted for their armor. Project MJOLNIR had been a success. Clyde was still in the hospital though. Mendez had been trying his best to keep away from the Spartans eyes and ears. So far he was succeeding, but it was one helluva challenge. After all, the Spartans had enhanced speed, sight and hearing.

What was he going to do? He was going to work where the Spartans weren't allowed. Where the Spartans were forbidden to go to? That's exactly what he did.

The Spartans were forbidden from entering Clyde's room. So he stayed with Clyde. It was strange being in Clyde's room with Clyde being in such a vulnerable situation. He was more comfortable with Clyde when he was an obnoxious little brat. Now Clyde seemed…dead. It was really awkward.

He was trying hard to figure out the puzzle that Clyde had so graciously left him and Halsey. He had spent endless nights looking at the piece of paper. Sometime Halsey would be there to work with him. They still hadn't figured out the puzzle. Today was no different.

He and Halsey sat hunched over a table in the far back. Clyde was still unconscious, and Mendez didn't think that that would change at all. Boy was he ever wrong.

They had been working non-stop for two days. Halsey had come over after fitting the Spartans for their armor. Mendez was supposed to have left a while ago, but decided to stay with Halsey to help her with the code. Now some other officer was substituting and teaching the next batch of would-be Spartans. Some officer by the name of Strathmore. He really didn't know…or care for that matter.

They had been working for a long time and didn't notice or hear Clyde groaning.

"You hear that?" Mendez asked. He was sleepy. He didn't know why he hadn't slept yet.

"No…not really." Haley answered. "Why?"

"Nothing…I just thought I heard… Never mind." Then it came again. Mendez turned around. Clyde was turning in his bed. Clyde hadn't moved, let alone turned, in his bed, at any given time. Mendez stood up and walked towards Clyde.

"Where are you going?" Halsey asked without looking up.

"Just going to check out if Clyde is ok…" he answered.

"What do you mean? He's—" Halsey stopped as she had turned around to see what Mendez was about to do. "What the…" Clyde had turned on his side. He was hugging a pillow. The covers were over his head. The IV drip attached to his hand was beneath the covers instead of above like it had been a minute ago.

The lump of Clyde was slowly rising up and falling down. Mendez was the first to reach the bed. He removed the covers covering Clyde's face. Clyde's eyes were shut tight. His face was crunched up, as if he were having a nightmare. He was biting hard on his lower lip. He had bitten hard enough that blood was coming out of his lip. He was shaking. Halsey stood and walked over to Clyde as well.

She shook him slightly. She wanted to wake him up.

"You sure that's such a good idea?" Mendez asked.

"I want to wake him up. He's been sleeping for so long. I just…want to make sure he's ok." She continued to shake him. Soon he woke up. His mix-matched eyes seemed lifeless. He looked pale, well paler than usual. His hair was really messy and his clothes were all wrinkled.

He stared at them blankly, as if he didn't know or remember them.

"You ok Clyde?" Halsey asked. Clyde continued to stare. His eyes showed that he was still very tired. Mendez helped him sit up. His back was wet wit perspiration. He sat slumped on his bed. His hands on his lap. He stared at his hands, breaking eye contact with Halsey.

"Are you alright Clyde?" Halsey repeated her question. He looked up at her. His eyes showed that not only was he tired and seemingly lifeless but also very vulnerable at the moment. They had to be very careful handling him at the moment.

Mendez was shocked. This was defiantly not the Clyde he was used to. The Clyde he had known was always smiling. Always had those kind soulful eyes. Always sat straight…well not always. Now those once life-filled eyes were hollow. Empty. Vacant. Void of any emotion.

Finally Clyde nodded. His head went up and down slowly. His eyes remained black, so did the rest of his face. He didn't show any emotion. This project was taking a huge toll on him. Mendez wasn't sure that this was such a good idea.

"Did you have a nightmare?" Halsey asked. Clyde's eyes finally showed some sort of emotion. Not the happy-go-lucky, I'm alive, sort of emotion. It was fear. He was scared. The question was, what exactly was he scared of? The nightmare? The penalty he was paying for Halsey's experiment? His inability to think straight?

Mendez wasn't sure, but he was pretty certain Clyde still wasn't able to think straight. He wondered how much of a price Clyde had to pay to keep his youth. How far was Halsey willing to go with this? How bad was Clyde's ability to think at the moment?

"Did you?" Halsey asked. Clyde nodded again. He clutched the blanket covering him hard. It wrinkled the once neatly ironed cloth. He was shaking again.

"Was it a really bad one?" Halsey asked. Clyde nodded again. Mendez just realized at the moment that Halsey was asking yes and no questions. Yes when Clyde nods and no when he shakes his head. She was trying to make this as simple as possible for him. His ability to form sentences was even working. That's how bad his ability to think was at the moment.

"Was it about you past?" Halsey asked yet another question. Another nod from Clyde. He was really scared now.

"Your parents?" Clyde started to shake his head, but changed his mind. He seemed unsure of how to answer. Perhaps his parents were in the nightmare but they weren't the main focus of the nightmare. Mendez didn't like this current position of Clyde.

"Your parents were in the nightmare?" Clyde nodded again.

"Were they dying? Were you watching them die? The person who killed you're parents were there? Your aunt and uncle? When you were kidnapped?" Tears formed in the vulnerable boy's eyes. He started to sob quietly. Halsey put him in an unbreakable embrace. She wanted to give him as much comfort as possible. Mendez realized that she hadn't mentioned a thing about the code he had left them.

He watched Clyde's shoulders shake as Halsey embraced him. It had been all about his past. He had been dreaming about what had happened a long time ago. All the events that had haunted him his whole life. All the things that he had tried to hide everyday of his life by smiling or shaking it off. All those demons had come back to haunt him. It made it worst since he was so defenseless. So unsure of what was happening around him. Mendez felt for the boy. He didn't know the pain, the agony, of having his parents killed in front of him. He didn't know what it was like to be so abused. To be so misunderstood by people around him. To be used as an object. To be a tool for war. To be considered a pet is some peoples eyes. He knew that he would never know.

After all, Mendez had been raised by wonderful parents. A couple who took great care for him. A couple who loved each other and their son. A couple who would do anything to make sure that their child would grow up wonderfully.

Clyde had parents who tried that, but it didn't work. He lacked something that most children had. A normal childhood. Mendez knew that the Spartans had also lost that, but they had been able to live normally for the first few years of their lives. Clyde was a weapon to be used. A weapon created by Colonel James Ackerson.

Soon Clyde had finished crying. An event that rarely would happen. Mendez doubted that he's see the young boy cry again. Halsey was wiping the tears off of Clyde's soaked cheeks.

After a few minutes, she broke out the question that the both of them had been wanting to ask Clyde for a very long time now.

"Clyde, what is the code you left for us?" The young boy looked up at her, puzzled. He wasn't sure was she was talking about. She walked over to the desk and took the paper. She rushed to Clyde's side. Giving him the paper. He stared at it for a while. It seemed that even he didn't know what it meant. The puzzled look on his face made Mendez's heart jump. He didn't know what his own code was!

Mendez looked at Halsey. She stared at him intently. She wasn't giving up just yet. Clyde just needed a little time, considering his current position. A small smile crept to the corners of Clyde's mouth. He was gave a small, tired smile. Then he whispered something.

"Caesar…" It was almost inaudible, but Mendez had heard it. Caesar? What was Clyde talking about? Another code? No, damn it! They needed the answer! Halsey too looked confused, but she understood that Caesar was a clue. They needed to figure out how that would help them.

Clyde took a deep breath. He seemed really tired now. "Do you want to go back to sleep?" Halsey asked. Clyde nodded. She walked over to one of the cabinets and took out a small needle. The needle had clear fluid flowing about in it. She inserted the needle to Clyde's neck and injected the fluid. His eyes drooped. Halsey lay him down. She changed his wet clothes with fresh ones.

Mendez walked over to the table. Confused at what Clyde had said. Halsey followed suit after tending the young boy. Halsey sat beside Mendez. She whispered the same word.

"Caesar…"

"Salad dressing?" Mendez asked. "Or the king?"

"Neither…" she said with a sly grin. "It's amazing how I missed one of the most famous, widely used codes. It's also one of the oldest and you're correct when you said king. After all, this code was used by King Caesar himself…no, not only used, but created." She explained how the code worked. Mendez grinned.

"That son of a bitch is a genius. Slipped right under our noses." Mendez said.

"Yeah," Halsey said.

John was worried. He had seen neither hide nor hair of Clyde. Clyde had been in the infirmary for a very long time. He was never in the infirmary for a very long time. The other Spartans were also agitated by the fact that they hadn't seen Clyde in a very long time. Maybe he had been in a very bad accident. But the chances of that were low. Clyde was way too cautious to be caught in an accident that could cause him such a long trip to the hospital.

"Hey, you ok?" Sam asked. John nodded.

"Yeah, you've been really tense lately." Kelly added. She slugged him on the shoulder, hard. He frowned.

"I've been worried…that's all." John finally said.

"You mean about Clyde?" Kelly asked. He nodded.

"Aww, he's as tough as nails. Probably tougher than the chief!" Sam said. John gave a weak nod.

"It's nothing for you to worry about John." Kelly said putting a hand on his shoulder. "Dr. Halsey's got everything under control!"

"I sure hope so you guys." he answered. "I sure hope so."

The Julius Caesar Box. A code invented by Julius Caesar himself, thus the name. Mendez and Halsey had figured out the code. The key to decoding the Julius Caesar box was to, well, make a box.

The thing was the sum of the total number of characters had to be a perfect square, or a number whose square root is an integer. For example you have a nine letter message. You could use the Caesar box to encode or decode that. Like "How are you?" would like this encoded "Hayoroweu." So solve this one must put it into a box.

H a y

o r o

w e u

Read down wards you get howareyou. Put the spaces in and you get How are you. Thus solving the riddle.

Mendez and Halsey spent some time trying to figure out the riddle. There were one hundred letters, just as Mendez had counted earlier. They put it into groups of ten letter per row.

H d i l t p t a n d

a s m a h a h t u i

l o p y e s e i m t

s m o b s s g o b C

e e r e t w o a e l

y t t n a o l n r y

F h a e r r d d s d

o i n a s d e i r e

unttMintem

ngIhysrsa.

HalseyFoundsomethingimportantIlaybeneaththestarsMypasswordisthegoldenratioanditsnumbersreaditClydem. It read. They added the spaces.

"Halsey Found something important I lay beneath the stars My password is the golden ratio and its numbers read it Clyde m." Mendez read aloud.

"Ok he found something important. He wants me to read it. But I don't get the "I lay beneath the stars, my password is the golden ratio and it's numbers, part." Halsey said.

"Perhaps he means the Golden Ratio and its number, which if I remember correctly is one point six one eight."

"Ok, that makes sense." Halsey said amazed that Mendez was able to figure it out so quickly. "What about the beneath the stars part though?"

There was a long pause. "I'm not sure." Mendez replied after a while. "I mean stars could mean anything. It could mean the stars like the ones in space."

"Or… the stars in his quarters." Mendez gave her a puzzling look.

"Remember the one time we entered his room and there was that scenery. It probably changes at night." Halsey said.

"Yeah…with stars."

They left the room in a rush, but carefully. Mendez, especially, didn't want any of the Spartans seeing him. Then a thought struck him.

"Wait…that happened a long time ago. In another place…" he said halfway there.

Halsey bit her lower lip. "Yeah that's true but I haven't been truthful. While Clyde's been out of action I've been sneaking visits to his current quarters."

"And…" Mendez said his curiosity peaking.

"It still has the same virtual reality look to it…" she said. "You'll see soon enough." They arrived at Clyde's room. They slowly turned the knob and entered the room. Quietly, as not to disturb or alarm any wandering ears, they closed to door.

Mendez had his breath taken away yet again. The sight of the room was absolutely astounding. It was night time now. There were stars above, twinkling. They looked around the room. Feeling the walls looking for any hollow spots.

"There's nothing here…" Halsey said after a while. Mendez frowned.

"There has to be someplace. Maybe it's not even hidden in the floors or walls." They both looked around the room. There were cabinets around the room. A neatly made bed. A study desk with papers piled on top as well as a shut down computer. Papers overflowed from a nearby garbage can, some littered around from missed shots. There were papers pinned to the walls, some containing codes, letter and documents in different languages and others just diagrams for future project. They could not, however, find any sign of any stars.

Halsey sat at the foot of his bed, wrinkling the once neat blankets. Mendez was studying some of the woodwork. The bed had a headboard. There were shapes on it that Halsey couldn't quite make out in the dark. She dismissed the thought. It probably wasn't that important anyway.

Mendez, on the other hand, walked closer to the head board. There were shapes, defiantly. But they weren't just any shapes, like circles or triangles.

"Ma'am would you please come here?" Mendez asked gesturing Halsey over. She stood up and walked towards Mendez.

"What is it chief? I've already seen those shapes…" she said.

"Look closely." Mendez said pointing to one of the shapes. "What are they?"

Halsey squinted here eyes to get a better look. "Stars…" she mumbled. They looked under the bed. There lay a small box. It was metal, computerized. There was a padlock with number and letters. This was where they were supposed to type in the password. Halsey's fingers swiftly typed in the series of letters.

"Golden Ratio, 1.618. Cross your fingers chief. Hopefully this is correct." She hesitantly pressed the enter button. They heard a series of soft clicks as the mechanics inside the metal box moved to unlock the box. As soon as they had stopped Halsey gradually opened the lid. Inside was a bomb. One willing to explode if forced open or if the password had been wrong for more than five times. Other than the small bomb was a piece of paper. Not something Halsey had expected considering how much of a techie Clyde was. On the sheet of paper was a handwritten message. She carefully took it out. hoping of no other secret or hidden traps that would trigger the explosion of the bomb and the end of her and Mendez's life.

She slowly raised the paper up to the light Mendez had provided her with a flashlight he found in one of Clyde's drawers.

"I can't read it…" she said. They were quiet for a while.

"We need a mirror." Mendez suddenly blurted out.

"A what?" Halsey asked, hoping she had heard wrong.

"A mirror." Mendez repeated.

"You're kidding right?" she said. "Why would we need a mirror?"

"Look carefully at the writing. Don't some of the 'words' or 'letters' seem familiar?" Halsey looked at the paper again. This time carefully analyzing the letters.

"They're backwards…" she said. Mendez nodded. They walked over to the single mirror inside Clyde's washroom. They held it up against the mirror and read it.

I hope you guys and/or girls understand the concept of the Caesar Box. Well, I hope you enjoyes the chapter. Oh and yes. I know that the Caesar box isn't and exact box, but it was sort of hard.

Without wax,

I-HaTaKeKaIsHi-RaIkIrI-CoD3-I