Disclaimer: Check first chapter for full disclaimer and other warnings.

Chapter 14 – Surprise, surprise

The Rush had passed, and Gabriel and Joan were now following the current of classes in the local high school. Most of the other students had welcomed him warmly, despite their first reaction of fright caused by his unusual appearance. Supposedly aged of 15, he also had gained some height during summer, and his face was still scarred. Some of the students, though, mostly from higher classes, continually tried to mock him and trip him, when no teacher was around. They had succeeded in making him fall down the stairs at some point, thankfully without breaking anything, but, since then, he was always moving around with Joan, to the snickers of these brutes. They had to be taught a lesson, though, he reflected, and his mind unconsciously tried to recover some of his forgotten information relative to pranks.

Joan had presented him to her circle of school friends, two boys and one girl, and they were generally seen together between classes, and tried to sit together during them. One of the boys had looked at him with apprehension first, and perhaps something like jealousy, but, seeing as they were going well together, the feeling had gone away after a few days. His name was Jason Asaloch, he was smaller than most, but muscular, and had brown hair and blue eyes, with a fair complexion. He was always dressed with good-looking clothes, although generally dark, and Gabriel learnt from Joan that his family, although upscale, had decided to put him in a public school, supposedly to teach him human interaction. After his first reaction, he hit surprisingly well with Gabriel. The other boy's name was Kevin Nockear, and he was quiet as a mouse. His twinkling grey eyes, though, even from behind his long black locks, showed that under the silent facade, the boy was clever, and not to be messed with. Even his tattoos proclaimed his independence, as he had an eagle on his left shoulder, and a badger on his right. Joan had told Gabriel that Kevin was always speaking about either advanced school material, or weird stuff, and the little time they discussed together proved that. Gabriel even got into an argument with him once, about the efficiency of cryptography methods. When not being with the whole group, he was always seen holding hands with the other girl of the group, Tamara O'Malley. She was beautiful, she was hot-tempered, and she was black. As her name suggests, her father came from a long line of Irish blacksmith. However, following the tendency, he had left the place and had explored the world, under the guise of a travelling salesman for a large airplane builder. He had only settled and married her mother after several years, and was now working in an office in London. The five teens had different personalities, but were going well together. Their foremost problem was the local group of bullies that had dubbed them "the group of freaks" and that were unsuccessfully mocking the "adopted" one. Still, they didn't dare attacking them.

Contrarily to what Gabriel had thought at first, the schoolwork wasn't too difficult. He had to work harder than the others at first, though, because he didn't remember many things of the usual knowledge people their age had. But he wasn't dumb, and quickly caught on. They had a course in history, geography, and politics, where they learned facts and dates about their country and the rest of the world, and in which Jason excelled. The boy wanted to become a politician anyways, like both his parents, and he had also taken French and Spanish, unlike the others. They had a course in mathematics and another in physics and chemistry, where they made interesting experiments, and in which Kevin surpassed everyone in the group, even if Gabriel found himself catching up on him during chemistry experiments. The mere action of mixing reagents called to him, even if he didn't know why. On the other side of the scale, Tamara almost always failed hers, strangely because the reagents never mixed correctly in front of her eyes. The leader of their group in English and literature was Joan, and Tamara outclassed them in physical education. They also had a period where they could use the library and its computers. All of them were not bad in all subjects, and even worked as a group to understand the lessons better. Even Phys. Ed. was worked, by running laps in the morning, around their neighbourhoods.

After the first few weeks of school, they decided to take a break, and to spend a leisurely week-end, together. Jason asked his parents to lend them their remote cottage near the lake, and they agreed once the five youngsters promised that nothing untoward would be done there. Jason's parents even took upon themselves to propose that their chauffeur would drive the teenagers there on Saturday morning, leave, and bring them back Sunday evening. As it wasn't very far, he wasn't required of him to stay there, so they would be given free reign of the house, even if they had to call at some point Saturday evening and Sunday morning. When they said that, they looked towards Jason in a peculiar way, undoubtedly putting him in charge, should anything go wrong. Jason was mature enough to understand that, and to act accordingly.

Kevin, though, told them afterwards that he was going to bring plenty of interesting activities. The mischievous gleam in his eyes when he said that warned the others that, interesting or not, these activities were going to be weird. As usual. Joan and Gabriel decided to bring some food, even if Jason assured them that the pantry was always full. And Tamara reminded them to pack some swimsuits and sport garb, in the case they wanted to do some outdoor activities. At the pointed look of Joan and the question of rain, she shrugged her shoulders and answered that anyone could bring a book or two, also.

And they were gone. The 1-hour road trip passed uneventfully, and they arrived, unloaded their stuff, and prepared the place for the week-end. As they were his only non-school books, and as he hadn't had any time to browse them since school started, Gabriel had taken his three books, about puzzles, cryptography, and the one that seemed full of gibberish. Having the three of them in his hands, though, he had had an interesting thought. Was the whole book written using cryptography? He had then decided to give it a try, to attempt to decipher it using each listed method and to find if one was working. That evening, he hadn't slept until the first hours of the morning, unsuccessfully trying method after method.

Now that they were on site, they first decided to take a dip in the nearby lake, still warmed by the summer sun. Gabriel was a little shy about his pale and scarred body, but, as everybody else was freely going, he decided to follow suit, even if the shining sun was annoying him greatly. They spent a few hours bathing, splashing each other, and generally relaxing and having fun, with Gabriel trying to stay in the shadows of the shore's trees. He also remarked that Tamara, while being as playful as the others, didn't seem to like being in the water, as she spent most of her time on the drifting raft. After this, being hungry, they prepared something to eat and enjoyed a meal on the lake shore. To spend the time afterwards, as they wouldn't go in the water on a full stomach, they brought out their books and began to read, sometimes offering comment about their novel to the others. Only Gabriel didn't say anything, as he was busy writing numbers on his sketchpad, trying to compute the book's code. As he didn't say anything for a while, Kevin got curious, and, when Gabriel didn't react to his questions, he went up and silently approached the still scribbling teen. Then, with mischief in his eyes, he grabbed the sketchpad from him and ran around the place, quickly followed by an angry Gabriel, to the laughter of the others. When he saw that he was being had, Gabriel stopped, and, blushing, went to collect his books, while Kevin curiously parsed through the drawing pad. When he stopped, staring, Tamara wondered why and went behind him to see the page. She gasped, and that attracted everyone's attention. They all saw the first drawing that Gabriel had made about Ginny Weasley.

Jason and Tamara began asking who she was, while Kevin was turning the pages and gawking at the other pictures, especially the one on the broom. Joan, though, sensing the approach of the topic of Gabriel's failing memory, tactfully turned the conversation towards the end of the sketchpad, full of numbers. That earned her an inquiring look from Jason, who was sufficiently tactful himself not to raise the subject there and then. Gabriel showed them his books, and explained that he was trying all cryptography methods to decrypt the third one. That got Kevin interested, and off the hook about the drawn girl, for which Gabriel was thankful. He and Kevin spent the rest of the afternoon in deep discussion about how to adapt the different codes to decipher the book. But they still hadn't any success. Just before eating, though, he asked Gabriel if he had the smallest hint about what code to use. Reflecting about that, Gabriel brought up the page where he had written the ring's content. Still nobody had asked about it, and he hadn't raised the subject himself either. Looking at the small and obscure line, and after Gabriel had explained that the first part was only the book reference, they reflected silently for a while, before being called to eat.

During the meal that followed, they both went silent, until Kevin stood up suddenly, and, taking the sheet, showed it to Gabriel. There, his finger on the 7Transpose word, he asked him if that could be the code they were searching, a standard transposition method with the specified key number 7. Gabriel, his mouth full of potatoes, could only nod enthusiastically. They were suddenly interrupted by the annoyed tone of Joan, who, backed by Tamara and Jason, told them to stop separating themselves from the group on this week-end. At the notion of group, Kevin's eyes lit with mischief again, and, returning the paper to Gabriel, he returned to his place and explained what he had prepared for that evening.

Kevin introduced them to a game he had started to enjoy during the summer. These were called role-playing games, and the one he brought had the Middle Age for setting. In these games, he informed them, you have to play a character which is defined through talents and skills. At some point during the elapsed year, Jason had watched a television report that wasn't kind on these games, but Kevin assured them that, mature as they were, they wouldn't have problems of identification. They spent two hours getting to know the game, create basic characters, and play a short introduction game. Kevin was directing the game, thus didn't play a character, and the others had had to choose and personalize a character from a set of predefined ones. There were simple ones: the footman, the doctor, the thug, the knight, and the peasant. There were also some characters which were more difficult to play for beginners: the martial artist, the wizard, and the saint. However, Kevin warned them about the difficulty of playing a complex character for a first game, and they all chose simple ones. Tamara chose the thug, Jason chose the knight, and Joan chose the doctor. Gabriel, though, had trouble keeping his eye off the advanced characters. Without knowing why, he couldn't settle on anything else than the wizard. Reflecting that he perhaps played that game before, without knowing it, he took the character sheet, and began to browse through the accompanying books to learn what his character's skills were. The game they played was quick and easy, but Gabriel wasn't satisfied of his character, weirdly thinking it was hollow in a way.

After their characters had quickly dispatched the last monster of the game, they weren't tired, and Kevin hesitated before telling them of another interesting activity. Curious about his hesitation, as he was rarely cautious, they asked him about it and he set them around the table, while he got out of the room to 'prepare.' When he was back, he was dressed like a madman. Or a Middle Age wizard. Or both. With a haughty look, he took place at the table and put a glass ball on it. Saying that the crystal ball was going to help them sort through their many questions, he started playing the medium.

The others, minus Tamara, who already knew of her boyfriend's habits, were amazed at the play. Unknown to them, the glass ball that he was using like a divination crystal ball was tricked to display translucent and colourful twirls of smoke on the mere touch. They played like this for a while, asking random questions in turns, with the self-dubbed medium answering through the ball. After some time, the light table itself was raising in the air to indicate that spirits were participating to the game. Looking to his face, it was obvious that it was Kevin that was holding it, but they enjoyed the show nonetheless. After a few turns, Kevin got another accessory from his pocket, accessory tricked to be used together with the crystal ball for more interesting effects.

And Gabriel froze.

No one noticed this, as they were all looking at Kevin's wand. He started to move it in the air, its battery-lit tip showing off some colours in the darkened room. He also tapped the crystal ball with it, and the ball hummed and vibrated. They were all looking at the display, with mixed feelings on their face. Kevin was looking arrogant, but they knew it was a show, and they all saw the smug look behind it. Tamara looked proud. Jason looked a bit annoyed, even if he was following the show playfully. Joan was curious. And Gabriel was... in turmoil. His mind was screaming at him, but he couldn't understand. He tried to stand, looking fixedly at the wand, but failed and fell back on his chair with a loud thump, attracting the others' eyes. Joan, knowing that his mind wasn't stable, started to edge towards him to comfort him, but he stood again, successfully this time, and, in a choked voice, asked for the wand. He was unaware of everything but the wand, and his eye was open wide.

Not knowing his friend's exact state of mind, thinking that he was playing along, and not understanding the significance of it, Kevin just passed it around until Gabriel was holding it in both hands, transfixed in wonder. Being the closest to him, Joan noticed something that she would have difficulties to explain afterwards. Gabriel's eye was changing, its colour lightening. Again.

His eyebrows descended into a frown, as if trying to remember something very hard. He then looked at the table, and, pointing the fake wand towards it in a complicated motion, muttered two words in a voice that sounded younger and less raspy than he was used to.

"Wingardium... Leviosa"

To say that his friends were stunned would be an understatement. How could they not be? The table jumped three feet in the air, and the wand exploded in various coloured sparks, setting fire to the carpet and tablecloth. Gabriel then passed out and collapsed on the floor, his eye overturned, and the table fell back down, thankfully not hitting anyone because they had all backed away when it had shot up. Joan ran to him, trying to wake him up; Jason was too stunned to react; Kevin looked impressed, and Tamara...

Tamara was looking at Gabriel in fascination, before collecting herself. The fire was moving fast, and she looked around, noticing that everybody else was too stunned by the events to start moving, looking as they were towards the collapsed body of Gabriel. Sighing, and hoping that nobody would notice her, she spread her hand in front of her, and concentrated hard on the fire. She knew she was breaking centuries old rules, but she didn't have the time to get water or anything else, and everybody was still trying to register what had happened. The fire suddenly seemed brighter and 'turned' toward her, as if it was alive, before seeming to bow to her, and disappear, leaving the carpet and table intact. No ashes, no charred material, nothing. It was as if the whole thing had been an illusion of their senses. Apart from the destroyed wand, of course.

They looked to each other in fright at the episode. Tamara was frightened also, but because they might have seen her, not because of the fire itself. Like the others, she was still curious at Gabriel's display of unusual talent. She knew of people that could levitate tables, of course, but they generally did so without speaking or moving a stick like a wizard.

A wizard?

Could it be possible that the legends she knew about were true? Could it be possible that wizards existed? Was Gabriel one of them? If what she suspected was true, they would be as protective towards the outside world as them, and Gabriel wouldn't have cast a spell in front of strangers. She would have to explore that, and the first person to ask was Joan.

Joan didn't succeed in waking Gabriel, but noticed that he was sleeping soundly, as if recovering. She called for the others to get up and help her carrying him to his bed, and they did so, silently. They were too stunned by the display to even start trying to speak about it among them. Once he was tucked in his bed, his shoes removed, they all went to their respective beds.

The boys and the girls were sleeping in separate rooms, not being overloaded by hormones already and wanting to act proper should Jason parents come early in the morning like they sometimes did. When Joan and Tamara went to bed, Tamara couldn't refrain from asking her friend. "Joan?"

"Mmmm?"

"Is Gabriel a... a wizard?"

Not hearing the answer, she thought that Joan was already asleep, and started to drift herself, until the other girl spoke suddenly. "Tamara, there is something about Gabriel... which is not quite right. But I think that he'd rather tell the thing himself than being told behind his back. When he'll wake up tomorrow, he'll tell you everything. I don't think we should... build fanciful stories."

"Even after tonight's display?"

"Even."

The tone was final, and, guessing Joan's feelings, Tamara decided to keep quiet and wait for the morning to get some answers. She was even willing to share information, if that could give her insight about those fabled magic users! She went to sleep with dreams of damsels in distress, knights in shining armour, fabled beasts, mighty castles, and powerful sorcerers.

The next morning found Gabriel waking up early, feeling feeble and wary. His memory still wasn't working well, and he didn't remember the previous evening immediately. After the compulsory toilet pause, he went in the kitchen to fix himself a breakfast. A few minutes afterwards, a sleepy Joan came also, and they greeted each other. Well, Joan greeted Gabriel's back, and he greeted the sizzling bacon and eggs.

"Hi beautiful," he said. He was feeling mischievous today.

"Hi... mysterious," she countered.

"Hey, I'm not! You know everything about me!" he playfully answered, turning back with the pan in his hand.

She went to serve herself a portion, when, looking at his eye, she gasped. Even if the previous evening had been almost forgotten, even if they all could state that it was an illusion caused by Kevin's toys, nothing could explain that Gabriel's eye was now a dull honey colour. Nothing.

"What?" he asked after having served them both, and taking her shocked expression in.

"Your... your eye!" she raised a trembling finger to point at it.

"What?" he didn't feel as mischievous as before, except if... "You aren't pulling my leg, are you?"

Not saying anything, she darted to the bathroom and came back with a small mirror. Looking inside, he saw that she was right. His right eye was a dull honey colour now, not light brown that it was before. Reflecting about that, he also remembered that his eye had changed before. Four months from now, after the dump episode, it was crimson, not even brown. Why was it changing? Sighing, he closed his eye, and wished that it was brown like before. He wished hard, and felt a tingling in his eye. Opening it again to try to define the colour better, he got another shock, as well as Joan.

His eye was back to their light-brown colour!

They didn't have time to ponder that, though, because the others had woken up and were arriving in the kitchen, eyeing him warily. He went back to the stove, and made short work of putting more breakfast servings up.

Their silence was unnerving, and he didn't like that. Usually, Joan and Tamara were speaking about girl things, and he and the boys were arguing about technical stuff, like most boys do. Now, no one uttered a word, they were all eating silently, even Joan. Uncomfortably, he addressed them all.

"Hey guys? Cat got your tongues?"

After a silence, Jason turned toward him, and answered. "You don't remember, do you?"

That got him thinking. Of course, as a living example of amnesia, there were many things he didn't remember, but surely Jason wasn't speaking about that, because no one knew at school. He had wanted to tell them, but never found the proper time to do so. What was Jason suggesting?

"Errm... No?"

"You don't remember yesterday evening?" Jason elaborated.

That clarified his mind, and, instead of searching for long-lost memories, he inspected his immediate memory, and then frowned. Something had happened yesterday, but for an unknown reason, it had been classified as 'unreachable' by his unconscious mind. Problem was, he had had witnesses, and they were going to bring everything back. Sighing, he braced himself from the memory onslaught that he was going to experience, and told them his secret.

"I'm really sorry, guys. I wanted to tell you before, but I didn't have time to organize my few thoughts." He looked at them while speaking. Joan's face was encouraging, Jason and Kevin were curious, and Tamara looked... happy? As if he just admitted having hold of a fortune and going to give her half of it. Well... sort of. Shrugging it aside, he continued, and watched Tamara's smile fall at the same time he spoke. "I'm amnesic." A stunned pause. "I don't remember anything that occurred before this summer. I feel something really bad had happened, and I sometimes get flashes of memories, like the girl whose drawing you saw yesterday, but that's all." Feeling that he still had the biggest part to say, Joan stood up and went to hug him from behind, soothing him while he continued with tears on his face. "Guys, I... I don't even know... if Gabriel is my real name. It's... it's so hollow, sometimes..."

After a long silence, he started again. "I don't remember yesterday evening also, but I don't know why. I feel as if it was a part of my long-lost past. I just remember choosing between the seven characters for the role-playing game."

A silence. Everyone looked apologetic, except Kevin who was thoughtful. Then he spoke.

"Gabe? can we still call you Gabe?"

Gabriel nodded, smiling weakly.

"Gabe, have you seen a doctor? I mean, amnesia happens, and people often check this with medical care, I mean... their relatives bring them there."

"You see, I awoke on a dump, so, I think that if I ever had relatives" he spitted the word, as if it was something bad "at one point, they sure didn't want me. Unnngh!" He suddenly held his head and sat down on a chair, visibly in pain. After a minute, during which the others went to fetch him a tablet and a glass of water, he relaxed.

"Thanks, guys. I'm okay now. The very image of relatives..." he grimaced.

Sensing that he had been abused at some point, the others didn't comment or press him on.

"So, have you seen a doctor or not?" Jason asked.

"Well... no. I survived at first, and then found a place to work, and everything followed smoothly."

"If you don't want to see one, you know, there are alternative methods." Kevin said, matter-of-factly.

Joan answered. "What do you mean?"

"Sometimes, with this problem, hypnosis works miracles."

"I don't want to be anyone's guinea pig!" Gabriel was adamant.

"Don't fret. You can also do it yourself, by meditating. You can try yoga, for instance."

"...or martial arts." Tamara followed, ever so intent on promoting sports.

Gabriel thought about it for a moment, before agreeing. "I'll try it then. Thank you guys."

A pause ensued, and everyone reflected about the events.

Thinking about one of Gabriel's previous sentences, Kevin frowned, and asked, "Gabe, can I ask you a question?"

"Well, you never asked before, so you can shoot at will."

"How sure are you that what you did yesterday connects to your past?"

"Hmm... pretty sure. I mean, I don't remember it at all, and the same kind of veil is wrapped around it. It's kinda hard to explain. I feel that I recognize the texture of my memory block, and it's the same one."

"Can you give me the seven character types?" Kevin asked intently. Tamara's head shot up towards him, but he didn't move, and she smiled. She had understood, and turned towards Gabriel too. Gabriel frowned, trying to recover his thoughts.

"Well..." Gabriel was starting to feel cornered, but the question seemed innocent and he answered "there was the knight, the footman, and the martial artist... the peasant, I think, and... the healer, the holy man, and the ruffian. That's seven."

"Gabriel," Joan looked pointedly at him, trying to catch his attention, while Tamara was almost jumping on her seat with expectation, "Gabriel, there were eight types."

"Eight?"

"You chose to play a wizard, Gabriel."

"But... but..." he seemed lost "that can't be!"

"Even if it was only a game, people generally choose for first character one that they feel close to." Kevin also looked at him seriously. "You chose to play a wizard, Gabriel. And you chose to name him Harry."

Gabriel fainted.

He awoke in a start, five minutes later, as Tamara was passing a wet cloth on his face. He was in his bed again, and the curtains were closed, casting an eerie darkness in the room. In the nearest room, Joan and Kevin were arguing, and Jason was there too, trying to calm the angry redhead. Gabriel didn't give attention to Tamara at first, because the remote arguing seemed to be about him.

"You knew he was having memory troubles, and you pushed him nonetheless!"

"So what if I did? Wouldn't it be better if he gets himself back?"

"What do we know about him? What does he know? There is a reason he is that way, you know, and I don't want him to break down because of what he may remember."

Gabriel tuned down the arguing, when he felt Tamara tugging to his sleeve. Looking at her, he was surprised to see a look so intent in her eyes.

"So, are you?" she asked.

"Am what?" he answered, his mind still trying to quell the memories.

"You know..." she neared him, and spoke so low that he had to strain his ears to hear her. "...a wizard?"

He looked at her, horrified. How could she utter such nonsense! "Wizards don't exist, Tam. They are only legends..."

Her eyes misted at this, and, looking over her shoulder, she extended her hand in front of her, palm upright. She knew she was breaking the old and unwritten laws again, but she was so curious about him that it didn't matter to her at that point. When he looked from her hand to her face, wondering about what she intended to do, he saw her look of intense concentration. The next thing he knew, a flame was emerging from her hand, lightening her face and his.

He jumped so suddenly that he almost knocked her over, and she lost her focus, thus putting the flame out. He was frightened of her now, and started to back away, until she whispered urgently to him. "Please, Gabriel! I know you'll find it weird, but there are people with strange talent around here. The others don't know about me yet." She looked imploringly at him. "We don't know exactly about you either. Can you really, definitely, prove to me that you aren't... weren't... a wizard before the summer?"

He stopped and looked at her strangely, before answering. "You know that I can't. I don't remember anything."

"Yes you do! The girl that you drew. How comes she was flying on a broom?"

"It could have been a movie..."

"How comes you can draw her so well and nothing else? You surely knew her better than that."

"Perhaps I knew an actress very well?"

"And perhaps not. Come on, stop making excuses! You spoke some weird words yesterday, and the table shot in the air, before catching fire!"

He looked disbelieving, then thoughtful. "Did I, really?"

"Yes! We all saw you."

"Well, if you say so..." he looked defeated, and Tamara was sure he was going to admit, until he spoke again. "...perhaps I did that yesterday, but, as I told you all, I have no memory of it, or from my past."

"Could you be an amnesic wizard?"

"I could, couldn't I? I can't disprove anything though. Although, if you utter a word of this outside us, I'll deny as strongly as I can."

"Perhaps we can work together."

"What do you mean?"

"I'd like to be one of the first to know about it if it's true."

"You know I don't remember anything, right?"

"Yes, but when you'll start to uncover it, I want to know."

"Why?"

"Well... my people..." she looked hesitant for a moment, before launching, in a quick voice "I mean, those who can wield fire like me, and other things... I really shouldn't tell you all this, they could get angry... you won't tell anyone?"

"Okay, I promise."

"Thank you. Anyway, we aren't quite 'normal,' and, even for us, wizards are a legend. I want to know if it's true."

"What do you propose?"

She looked around, visibly fearful to be heard, before turning back to him "Information and explanation about my people. But it stays between us, only the two of us. Even Kevin doesn't have a clue about it, even if I know he'd kill to know about it. Well... figuratively speaking, of course."

He looked thoughtful for a long moment, before shaking her proffered hand "Okay, then. Only the two of us."

They then got up and went to meet the others, who had calmed themselves during their dialogue.

Even if they had been more open, more interested, and generally friendlier than some people upon discovering Gabriel's eventual talent, they had been wary around him for the remaining of the day, and everyone had settled for quiet activities. They had played card games for the remaining hours of the morning, and spent the afternoon reading.

Gabriel went back to his encrypted book, and, using the code Kevin had found the previous day, tried to translate the title, which he was still unable to understand.

Osiiyanpoc u oneGnTr s.rtD, aae Sntvbh

Supposing that the text had been coded using the translation method with a 7-columns grid, like his friend had proposed, he calculated, from the 38 characters, that he was going to use 6 lines for his decryption table, and that his sixth line would contain only 3 characters. As one of the first books he had read, after waking up amnesic, was on the topic of cryptography, he was able to do so quite rapidly. Writing the letters vertically, and then reading them horizontally, he was stunned to be able to read something in proper English.

On Tran

sportat

ion Dev

ices, b

y G. Sh

aun

'On Transportation Devices, by G. Shaun.' He wondered what it was about for a short time, supposing that it was about cars and the like. Still, why encode a book about cars? He began to translate the book, before quickly discovering that it was going to take a very long time. He even wondered about using the school library's computers to help in this work, before deciding that, should the book content be dangerous, the less people knew about it, the better it would be. So, he focused on finding, and translating, the fifth chapter.

Working on it, he quickly found that, once he had the proper decrypting method, the translation went smoothly. Just when he finished deciphering the chapter, the afternoon was drawing to a close, and a car could be heard in the courtyard's gravel. He had been so focused on translating the chapter that he didn't even try to read it at the same time. His sketchpad was full of grids of characters, and he didn't have place to work for more anyway. They all packed their stuff, and went to the car after having closed the house.

On the trip back, Gabriel browsed through the pages he had translated. For convenience's sake, he had written his translation under the book's lines of text. The text wasn't connected to any of his knowledge, so he rapidly found himself lost and unable to understand it.

Chapter V – Activation by the Word

Unless its effect is going to be permanent (cf. chapter VIII), the charmed item must be activated by one way or another. In this chapter, we are going to see how to link a given word and the item...

What was a 'charmed item', anyway? Sighing, he closed the book, and looked gloomily through the window, reflecting about it. If he understood correctly, the entire book was about transportation devices that could be activated one way or another, and the chapter was about voice commands. 'Like the new computers that could be directed by voice,' he thought. But he didn't remember anything about including a microphone to the device, and found it strange.

The car dropped them at their respective houses, and they hugged each leaving person in turn, having decided that, despite the circumstances, they would do such a trip again in some time. Once safely arrived, Gabriel greeted Grace, and they ate dinner together quietly. Once in his small-but-cosy bedroom, he arranged his stuff for the following day, and lied on his bed, trying to sleep.

One hour afterwards, he still wasn't sleeping, as something was tugging to his mind, as usual. This time, though, he felt that the memory wasn't hidden, and that it was quite recent. Closing his eye to meditate on this, he found that whatever was eluding his mind was already in his notes, so he stood up, and gathered his sketchpad and the many sheets that he had used. Browsing through them, though, he didn't find anything related to his feeling. Until he found the paper where he wrote his ring's inside text.

Pb:WBk:59237 – 7Transpose;Ch:5 – Act.W: p178,w248

So far, he had found the book, discovered the cipher used, and translated the chapter 5, on activation word.

Activation word...

His only eye suddenly opened wide upon his understanding. 'Act.W' meant ACTivation Word! If there would be an activation word for anything, he reflected, where was he going to find it? It was perhaps a word in the book itself after all... a given word... in a given page...

His eye lit up again. A word reference! He suddenly Got It. What else would be 'p178,w248' anyway?

Haphazardly throwing his notes on the floor, he got the book, and browsed it feverishly until he reached the indicated page number. As organization, or sheer luck, would have it, the page belonged to the fifth chapter, and he had already translated it. He counted 248 words, and arrived in the middle of a list of examples of 'usable' activation words. The activation word for a given item had to be chosen carefully because, when spoken, the effect was immediate, and thus, the list included weird and seldom-used words or even invented ones, like 'ambliotrophia,' 'nastly bernicles,' 'clankster duffins,' and... 'safehaven', which was the 248th word in the page. Gabriel counted twice, to be sure.

His heart beating at his discovery, he braced himself, and, still holding the book, spoke aloud.

"Safehaven."

To be continued in next chapter: Room Service...

That was one straight thread, for sure.
It had to have a closure.
Another cliffie... too bad.
Come on, review, don't be sad.