"I don't know what I was expecting from your investigation methods, Wright," Miles sniped, his fingers tracing out air quotes. "I'd say trapped in the likely perpetrator's office is right on par for the course."
"Hey, hey. It's not all that bad!" Wright held up his hands, seemingly completely unperturbed.
Likely he wasn't, Miles mused. He briefly wondered if escaping Professor Dan Spielman's locked office had even crossed Wright's mind, or any of the legal ramifications of blatant trespassing without a warrant. "You haven't the faintest impression what falls under the purview of the job title Defense Attorney," he said incredulously. "What on earth are you smiling about?"
"Look!" Wright pointed at the wall. "It's Spielman's safe! The missing code specifications must be inside!"
"Wait! We don't know if—" Miles trailed off as Wright bounded across the room, only to skid to a stop before the safe.
"Huh," he said, puzzled.
Sighing, Miles crossed the room to stand next to him. Together, they stared at the safe.
Tiny black squares covered every inch of the surface, a veritable grid of them, forty squares across and thirteen squares tall. A tiny keypad jutted out from the bottom.
"I've heard of this," Wright breathed. "It's a locktordle."
"Beg pardon?"
"Instead of memorizing the code, you open the lock by solving a word puzzle," Wright explained. "After each guess, if you got the right letter, it lights up in yellow. And if it's the right letter in the right position, it lights up in green."
"Is this in English? There can't be many forty-letter words!" Miles protested.
"No, see, one word is five letters. There are eight words here, and every guess goes to all eight at once."
"Oh. That seems simple enough." Miles inspected the safe carefully, noting three rows of squares in foreboding black. "What about these three rows at the bottom? These appear deactivated."
"Ah, those are for the difficulty of the lock. A normal locktordle gives you thirteen tries before it incinerates whatever's inside, but. . . Spielman must be very confident. Yeah. Ten tries." A shadow of concern flashed across Wright's face.
"Very well." Smoothly, Miles typed in BEARD, and the safe lit up in yellows and greens.
"That's good," mumbled Wright. "Maybe that one is CARDS. . . Hey! Wait!"
Miles jumped as Wright grabbed his hand. "What?" he snapped.
"Why are you using all different letters? You had some right!" Wright demanded, pointing at Miles's SHOUT waiting on the keypad.
"Honestly, Wright. Try thinking ahead. If CARDS isn't one of the words, then we have no more chances to get any wrong. That means no more exploration. This is our last chance to find out about letters we haven't tried yet."
Wright stared at him, his captive hand seemingly forgotten. Irritably, Miles tugged it back, and Wright let go with a startled yelp. Miles punched in SHOUT, nodding in satisfaction as more squares lit up in yellows and greens.
"See, we have four letters in green on this one," Miles mumbled almost to himself. Slowly, meticulously, he filled in word after word, triple-checking each while Wright held his breath and fidgeted.
With each correct word, the locktordle emitted a small click. "We're almost there. One left. . . let me think," Miles muttered under his breath. He scanned the remaining letters. On the grid, the letters O, N, and E were lit up in yellow, the surrounding squares all dark.
"That's not a lot to go by. We don't know any of the five letters for sure," Wright said nervously. He held up his hands clasped together, as if in prayer, staring intently at the machine, and Miles thought he could make out a faint green glow.
"Stop that, Wright. It's a machine, it's not going to have psycholocks. Don't worry, it's given us more than it seems at first glance." Miles traced over the keypad. "All these letters are out of play. Only Q, X, Z, J, and Y remain. Yes. . . I can solve this! I will connect my thoughts with Logic!"
The room disappeared from his vision as Miles pressed a fingertip to his forehead, focusing all his attention on the grid before him. The space in the middle caught his eye: It must be one of the remaining letters. He considered the letters one by one, fitting them into the space, until a single word crystalized in his mind.
"Eureka!" He cried out. Carefully, he typed ENJOY into the keypad.
With a soft click, the safe swung open. Wright released a long breath he'd been holding.
Inside was a folder with single loose sheet on top: a crumpled lined page torn messily from a notebook, with Professor Spielman's handwriting scrawled loosely over it. "To whom it may concern, if this entry was authorized, you know what to do." Miles read aloud. "If not, you have ten minutes to disarm the room before it detonates. . . taking you with it."
"Um, Edgeworth?" Phoenix was watching the computer which had just flared to life, its keypad a mirror image of the one on the safe. Unlike the neat grid on the safe, the computer screen showed a blank, seemingly-endless list stretching off the bottom of the screen.
There were no instructions. The answer box waited blithely, almost mockingly while Miles gaped at it. Where to begin? Frowning, he typed in his usual beard and shout. "Cold", the machine responded to both.
"That's cold," Wright said over his shoulder, grinning. Miles shot him a glare.
"I get it though," Wright continued. "It tells you how close your guess is to the password."
"How close according to what?" Miles snapped.
"How. . . close," Wright said, emphasizing the word with a handwave that clarified nothing. "Hey, don't give me that look. It's hard to explain, but it's based on the word's meaning."
"So you mean synonyms?"
"Not exactly," Wright said. "Synonyms could be close, but also words that are related, like cat and fur. Sometimes even opposites. But not always."
Miles rubbed his temple, trying to stave off the impending headache. Minutes passed as he flew through a broad range of common words, starting with person, place, and thing, with the computer cheerfully rejecting each one. "I'm in despair," Miles sighed, typing despair into the screen.
"You're getting warmer!" The machine chirped.
Miles froze. Hesitantly, he tried terrible, horrible, misery, and hate, which all came out cold, and coincidentally did nothing to improve his mood.
Next to him, Wright sighed heavily. "You have to turn your thinking around," he said. "Watch this."
To Miles's horror and fascination, Wright typed love into the keypad.
"Getting hot!" the machine reported.
Miles stared at that most loaded word, speechless and faintly delighted, displayed unfeelingly at the top of the list. He slowly turned to look at Wright.
Wright patted his arm sympathetically. "Don't think about it too much. We still have to get out of here."
"Ah. . . of course." Miles turned back to the screen. His fingers felt like lead as he slowly tried lover, romance, relationship, and marriage, each word dragged reluctantly out of the depths of him. The heartless screen remained unmoved.
"Stop thinking of things that are about love," Wright chided. "Here, fill in the blank: I blank you."
"You?" Miles spluttered.
"Or him," Wright added.
"Him?"
"Or her."
"I get the point!" Miles tore his gaze away from his infuriating co-conspirator and glared at the screen. I respect you. I admire you. I am indebted to you.
"That's good!" Wright exclaimed, pointing to respect and admire high up on the list. "But try grateful instead of indebted."
The machine happily accepted grateful. "How could you tell?" Miles asked, watching it climb the list.
Wright waved at the words clustered at the top. "It just felt like happy words were doing better," he answered vaguely. "Now try other forms of grateful."
Miles seethed in outrage: As if poorly-defined sentiments such as just felt and happy could make any logical sense! He begrudgingly tried gratitude.
"You are on fire!" The machine yelled excitedly.
"Oh!" Wright gasped, staring at love again, of all unfortunate words. "It's a noun! It's not I love you, it's I feel love towards you!"
"Gaaack?" Miles gasped, choking on air.
"I feel blank towards him or her," Wright hastily corrected.
"One minute remaining!" The machine cheerily reminded them.
Frantically, Miles spun back around to the keypad, trying guesses in increasing desperation: lust, obsession, impassioned desire. His face burned furiously all the while. Just his luck that Wright would witness the most Regency-era theatrical of his thoughts. Maybe they could both simply never mention it again, he thought, a hope as ridiculous as it was impossible. The man had made an entire career out of pressing his hapless victims on their most unfortunate thoughts—
Wright coughed, his own face faintly flushed. "These aren't close at all, Miles. You're stuck on. . . love. You've got to turn your thinking around."
"What do you mean, Wright?" Miles growled, on the edge of despair. Thirty seconds remained and counting.
"Look, the guesses that have been closest—gratitude is far more platonic than love. It needs something mild. Concepts that are close in context can defy logic."
They stared at each other until the machine began beeping with ten seconds left.
It needs something mild.
For no conceivable reason, Miles's heart froze in his chest.
Earnestly, Wright met his gaze, his eyes brimming with utmost sincerity. "I feel appreciation towards you," he said carefully.
Crestfallen and absolutely refusing to examine why, Miles typed in appreciation.
"Congratulations," the machine intoned, and the office door sprang open.
Miles gritted his teeth. How had Wright done that? This was just like the paper cranes, all over again, only this time he refused to cry. He would go home and practice that stupid guessing game until he was good at it, and then he'd come back and show Wright, and Wright would—
"Hey, don't do that," Wright interrupted gently, tapping Miles's clenched fingers on his elbow. "You, ah. You don't have to have all the answers. I couldn't have opened the safe without you, you know? I really, truly do appreciate you."
"I appreciate and admire and. . . ." His courage failed him. "I feel gratitude towards you too," Miles finished with a grimace.
Wright smiled a little sadly at that. "We're like two halves of the evidence list."
Miles looked sharply at Wright, with his warm fingers and soft voice, wearing that endearingly-hapless expression. An involuntary impulse stirred within him: the urge to offer, to promise, to relinquish—what? His wariness? His responsibility?
The towering thorns guarding his fragile. . . self-reliance?
Yes, that must be it.
Miles quashed the unruly impulse. "I don't know what you're implying, Wright."
Author's notes: Wheee an anecdote from my real life thinly veiled as a fic!
"Appreciation" was the actual Semantle solution on Feb 25, 2022 (I believe?) and these guesses are all my own, in roughly the same order, and it took me 701 tries lol. The locktordle is based on Octordle, the 8-word version of Wordle.
With apologies and highest regards to Professor Spielman.
