Sponge: Welcome back! Thanks to those who reviewed! While guesses for last week's chapter title was a valiant effort, I was thinking of the song by Simple Plan, who of course very famously performed the theme song for What's New Scooby Doo! Enjoy chapter 11! It's another long one, so strap yourselves in. Warnings: language, kissing, and light amorous touching. Disclaimer: I don't own any of the Scooby Doo characters. They belong to Cartoon Network, Warner Brothers, and Hanna Barbera. Thank you to Google Maps and my sister-in-law for answering my Nebraska geography questions. Information on ciphers come from Wikipedia.

Chapter 11: Who Are You?

When Fred opened his eyes in the morning, he became aware of several things all at once.

First, Daphne was still sleeping peacefully in his arms, her head on his chest and her hair cascading around her shoulders.

Second, it was still extremely early. The gray light of morning peeked through the drapes, faintly illuminating the motel room.

Third, he really had to pee.

Reaching for his phone, he groaned when he saw that it was barely seven o'clock. Though he supposed he should be grateful – the sooner they could get back on the road, the sooner they'd get to California. Especially considering Shaggy's and Scooby's bottomless stomachs – they'd probably be at that continental breakfast for a while. Reluctantly, he removed his arms from around Daphne so he could get out of bed. He shifted carefully, so as not to wake her, but her eyes fluttered open anyway.

"Good morning," she murmured sleepily.

Fred couldn't help but smile. She was so beautiful, even first thing in the morning. Especially first thing in the morning. "Hey," he replied, his voice quiet.

"What time is it?" asked Daphne in a whisper.

"It's early," Fred told her. "Go back to sleep, babe – I just have to use the bathroom."

"We should probably start to get up anyway," she muttered, beginning to rise from the bed. "Shaggy and Scooby are going to want that continental breakfast, and who knows how long that'll take before we get back on the road."

Their minds really were one in the same. He grinned at her and leaned down to plant a soft kiss on her temple. "I'll be right back," he promised, getting out of bed fully. As he walked to the bathroom, he noticed Scooby and Nova curled up near each other on the floor by the second bed (when had that happened?), where Velma and Shaggy were sound asleep entwined in each other's arms.

Good for them, Fred thought. After the conversation he'd had with Velma the other night, some closeness with Shaggy was probably just what she'd needed.

Once he had taken care of business, he disrobed and stepped into the steamy shower, sliding the curtain closed behind him. As he stood there letting the hot water run over him, he finally let his mind travel back to the past twenty-four hours. What a jam-packed twenty-four hours they'd been. He hadn't known what to expect from Brad and Judy, but they had actually seemed okay. At any rate, he understood why they'd left him with the mayor. It was a bit weird that they were basically mad scientists, but they were…nice mad scientists.

He wasn't sure what to think about this whole business with the ley line. He was kind of on Velma's side there – it didn't seem like such a thing could really exist. Surely there was some kind of logical explanation as to why Pericles acted the way he did. Maybe he'd been evil all along, and whatever was in the mineral had exacerbated it?

The most disturbing piece of news from the past twenty-four hours was the revelation that Leon had been the one texting them this entire time, and they didn't know why. Fred was inclined to agree with Scooby, that the texts were meant to help them identify the accomplice. But what was the point of that?

Fred hoped that Tony would get back to him soon about whether or not Red Herring was involved, even though Fred had no idea how that would even be possible. Leon had been arrested before Heavy Meddle played the prom, and the only people who had interacted with the band before that were Tony and the gang. Red and Leon had never even met, to Fred's knowledge.

Still…it couldn't hurt to ask.

He stepped out of the shower several minutes later, feeling awake and refreshed. Grabbing a towel from the bar near the sink, he quickly dried himself off and wrapped it around his waist. Back in the room, Daphne was sitting up in bed scrolling through her phone. Her hair was a little tangled and her eyes were a bit bleary, but she smiled at him all the same when he stepped out of the bathroom.

He smiled back at her, his heartbeat quickening slightly. She was truly the most beautiful girl Fred had ever known. Even first thing in the morning, before she styled her hair and did her makeup.

Everything they'd learned since that first night at the mayor's house had almost – though not quite – driven the idea of sex out of Fred's mind. But for whatever reason, right now, it was all he could think about.

Still clad only in the white hotel towel, he sat on the edge of the bed beside her, brought his lips to hers, and kissed her deeply.

"I haven't taken a shower yet," Daphne murmured when they broke apart to breathe.

"I don't give a fuck," Fred whispered back before claiming her lips with his again.

Daphne was totally taken in by the feel of Fred's kiss, his strong hands grasping the back of her purple camisole pajama top. Briefly, she gripped his damp hair with her fingers before sliding her hands down his back, still slick from the shower. Droplets of water fell from his shoulders onto her neck, but she didn't care. She moved her hands around to the front of his waist, where her delicate fingers fiddled teasingly with the precarious position of the towel.

Fred's breath hitched. "Daphne," he moaned. He ghosted one of his hands up her slender torso, coming to a halt at her breast, which he gently traced with his fingers.

Daphne gasped, pleasure coursing through her. She sighed, breathless. "Freddie…"

"REY!"

With a jolt, they withdrew from each other and sat up. Evidently, the dogs had woken up – Scooby glowered disapprovingly at them while Nova, looking rather embarrassed, averted her gaze.

Scooby's shout woke Shaggy and Velma too, who jerked upright. Velma hazily fumbled around the nightstand for her glasses while Shaggy took in the scene and frowned at his friends.

"Like dudes," he said. "Not cool."

Properly admonished, Fred and Daphne blushed.

"Sorry," Fred apologized. He'd completely forgotten about the caveat Scooby had given the previous evening. "Uh…who wants breakfast?"

Shaggy perked up. "Breakfast?" he asked.

"Ron't try to ristract me rith breakfast," Scooby said, though the light in his eyes said something different.

"I'll get dressed and then we can go get something to eat while the girls freshen up," Fred offered. "Daphne and Velma, you can meet us down there when you're ready."

Scooby and Shaggy glanced at each other. Shaggy shrugged. Scooby sighed.

"Rall right," he agreed.

Fred quickly dressed and followed Shaggy and Scooby out of the room. Together they descended the stairs, but as they entered the lobby where the breakfast was laid out, Fred felt his phone vibrating in his pocket. He pulled it out and felt his heart freeze.

It was a call from the mayor.

Fred hadn't spoken to him since they'd left Coolsville on Sunday. The mayor had texted him a few times, but Daphne had been the liaison between the parents, so Fred hadn't exchanged any words with him. He'd been unsure of what to say.

But now that he'd met Brad and Judy…perhaps he should bury the hatchet.

"Like dude?" Shaggy paused in the doorway to the lobby, glancing back at Fred. "You coming?"

"Uh," Fred stammered, looking up from his phone. "You go ahead. I'll be right behind you."

"All right," Shaggy agreed, heading into the lobby. Fred took a deep breath and ducked down a hallway, pressing the phone to his ear.

"Hello?" he said.

"Oh!" The mayor sounded surprised. "Uh…hello Fred. I was expecting to leave a voicemail. It's still early. Um…how are you?"

"Fine," Fred replied. "We stayed at a motel in Des Moines last night. I'm grabbing some breakfast with Shaggy and Scooby in the lobby while the girls freshen up."

"Ah," the mayor replied. "Well…I thought you'd like to know that Brad and Judy arrived safely last night. They're staying with me."

Fred nodded, even though the mayor couldn't see. "Did they…explain everything to you?"

"They did," the mayor said. "I know everything now. It's…nice, in a way. To understand what happened all those years ago."

"Yeah," Fred agreed.

There was another slight pause. "How are you doing?" the mayor asked, still oddly formal. "I know this was a huge revelation and I can't…imagine how you're feeling."

Fred felt his throat tighten with emotion. "I'm okay," he answered, somewhat honestly. "I understand now why they did what they did." He cleared his throat. "So…is it okay, that I sent them your way? I figured you deserved answers as much as I did."

"Of course," the mayor assured him. "Thank you for sending them here. I hadn't realized Pericles was still in the picture, but I'll make sure they stay safe from him."

Of course he will, thought Fred. It was what he was best at. Fred Jones Senior always had others' best interests at his center. It showed through in both his policies and his parenting. Fred realized that Brad was right yesterday – the mayor had forged Fred into the young man he'd become – someone honest and loyal and kind. Someone worthy to be Daphne's partner, to be Shaggy's and Velma's best friend. Someone worthy to be the leader of Mystery Incorporated. How much of his personality was nature versus nurture? Who knows how Fred would have turned out in an alternate timeline, with Brad and Judy as his parents instead of the mayor? Would his last name have been Chiles? Or Reeves? Chiles-Reeves? Would his first name have even been Fred?

He decided it wasn't worth it to dwell on the past. When he really thought about it, Fred was happy with the way his life had turned out. He was happy to be solving mysteries and building traps with his best friends in the world, and the great love of his life. More than that…he was happy to have spent the past eighteen years as the mayor's son.

On the other end of the line, the mayor took a deep breath. "You know, Brad and Judy said you handled everything…maturely. Gracefully. Like a man. They were…proud of you. And so am I."

Tears sprang to Fred's eyes before he could stop them, and he hurriedly blinked them away. But before he could reply, the mayor continued.

"They told me you're helping them collect the rest of the serum. I trust that you'll succeed but…if you need anything, for any reason…"

"I'll call you," Fred agreed, hastily swiping away a few more tears that leaked out of the corners of his eyes.

There was a short silence. "I'll let you go now," the mayor said. "Drive safely, all right?"

Fred inhaled a bit shakily. "Sure thing…Dad."

x.X.x

A couple hours later, after everyone had eaten, cleaned up, and packed, the gang found themselves back in the Mystery Machine. Before Fred started the car, all of them studied the GPS together.

"Okay," said Daphne, tracing the route. "According to this, it should take us about twenty-seven hours to drive from here to Stanford."

Velma frowned. "Well, it's not advisable to try that non-stop, unless we want to drive through the night."

Fred shrugged. "We'll play it by ear," he suggested, starting the car. "Let's hit the road, gang."

"Like any word from Tony?" asked Shaggy as Fred pulled out of the motel's parking lot.

Fred shook his head. "Not yet. Hopefully we'll hear from him soon." He hesitated. "I uh…I talked to the mayor earlier, though," he told them.

Everyone swiveled their heads towards him. "You did?" asked Daphne, her tone cautious. She knew this was the first time Fred had spoken to the mayor since they first left on their road trip.

Fred nodded. "He said Brad and Judy made it to Coolsville."

Nova let out an infinitesimal sigh of relief. She cared for Brad and Judy very deeply, and she'd never been away from them for so long before. She was happy to hear that they were safe.

Scooby understood – anytime he had to be separated from Shaggy, even for a brief period, was agony. He gave Nova's ear an affectionate nudge, and she glanced at him gratefully.

Most of the driving they did that morning was uneventful, apart from a huge pile-up on the interstate just after they entered Nebraska. They waited in stop-and-go traffic for nearly an hour until Fred finally decided to pull off onto an exit for Omaha so they could get some lunch. By then, it was a little after one p.m.

"Geez," he sighed, easing the Mystery Machine off the interstate. "At this rate, we'll be lucky to make it to California in a week."

Shaggy glanced over at Velma. "Like, any good places to eat?" he asked her.

Velma opened her laptop to click on a new tab. She listed their options, of which there were many – Omaha was the largest city in Nebraska – and eventually they decided on a simple burger joint.

They arrived soon after and ate contentedly. But just as they were finishing up, Fred's cellphone rang.

Instantly, he yanked the phone from his pocket and gazed at the screen: Incoming Facetime from Tony Moretti.

Shaggy's eyes widened. "Like, is that him?" he asked around a mouthful of burger.

Fred nodded, and everyone gathered around behind him so they could all see Tony. He was alone in the breakroom at Moretti's, wearing his waiter uniform and a solemn expression. That was a bad sign.

"Hey Jonesy," he said, gazing at the gang through the screen. "Dinks. Rogers. Blake. Scoob." He blinked, confused. "Who's the girl dog?"

Everyone glanced at Nova – they'd forgotten that Tony hadn't seen her yet. Last night's conversation hadn't been a video call. "Her name is Nova," Fred answered. "She's Brad and Judy's dog."

"Oh," Tony replied. He didn't ask for any elaboration.

Velma leaned forward. "Okay Tony," she said. "Give it to us straight. What did Red say?"

Tony sighed. "Well," he began. "I went to his place during my break, like I said I would. He asked me what I wanted. Told him I just had a question for him, and asked if he knew Leon Berger. He said no."

Daphne groaned. "I knew it," she sighed.

"But," Tony continued. "As I was leaving he called out after me, telling me to wait. 'You know,' he says. 'A little birdie told me that if someone should ever ask if I knew a guy named Leon Berger, that I should give them a message.' Then he kinda chuckled and said he always thought he'd be giving the message to you guys. I didn't tell him I was askin' for ya or anything…but I guess he knew he was a clue somehow."

"What's the message?" asked Velma.

Tony hesitated. "You're gonna want to write this down," he told them.

Everyone gazed at each other, but Daphne immediately pulled out her phone and opened her notes app.

"I'm ready," she said, thumbs poised over the keyboard.

"Okay," said Tony. He pulled a piece of paper from his pocket and read out loud. "GVRMIJJWEVVVLJPVJ."

The gang stared at him.

"…Rhat?" asked Scooby.

"That's what it says," Tony replied, showing them the scrap of paper. Indeed, all that was written there were those letters.

Velma splayed out her hands in frustration. "Well, what the hell does that mean?" she exclaimed.

Tony shrugged. "I have no idea," he replied. "I'm sorry, Dinks…"

Daphne squinted at her phone, as though that would clarify this unhelpful hint. "Are they…initials?" she wondered.

"No," Fred realized. "They're a code."

Shaggy stared at him. "Like what are you talking about?" he asked.

"Tony," said Fred, ignoring Shaggy. "What time do you finish up at the restaurant today?"

"Pretty late, honestly," Tony replied, looking a little distressed. "I'm on a split shift today – I won't get off till close to midnight."

Fred turned to Velma. "If we drive non-stop from now till midnight Coolsville time, what time will it be where we are?"

Velma pulled up the GPS and did some quick calculations. "Traffic permitting," she replied. "And taking the time change into account, we should be somewhere in the middle of Wyoming…which would make it around ten PM mountain time."

"Great," said Fred. Then he turned back to Tony on the phone. "Listen, before your next shift starts, go to my dad's house. That is, the mayor. He's at work right now, but my birth parents are there, and they have experience cracking codes like this. I'll send them this information so they can get started, but they might need you to tell them more about what Red said to you. Is that all right?"

"That's totally fine," said Tony. "I'm happy to help Jonesy, you know that."

Fred nodded. "This was huge, Tony. Thank you," he said sincerely.

Tony shrugged, looking much less anxious than he had at the beginning of the video call. "I'll call Fleachy too," he said. "They could probably use her help."

"Not a bad idea," Velma agreed. "In the meantime, we'll call Brad and Judy and tell them to expect you."

"Drive safe!" Tony exclaimed as they all hung up.

"Let's get back on the road, gang," said Fred, tossing napkins and wax paper wrappers into the garbage bin. "We have some lost time to make up for." He handed Daphne his phone. "Babe, could you call Brad and Judy? I'm gonna need you to communicate with them while I drive."

"No problem," Daphne agreed, taking Fred's phone as the rest of the gang filed back into the Mystery Machine.

She found Brad and Judy in Fred's contact list and Facetimed them. They picked up on the first ring. Daphne recognized Fred's living room in the background.

"Fred?" asked Judy, before the video had fully loaded.

"Daphne," Daphne replied. "But we're all here."

"Listen," said Fred, sliding into the driver's side of the Mystery Machine and fastening his seatbelt. "Our mystery texter contacted us again, this time via our friend Tony. He gave us a series of letters, and we think they must be a code, but we have no idea what they could mean. Do you think you could help us?"

"Of course." Brad came into view. "I've got a pen and paper here."

"Great," said Daphne, pulling up the notes app in her own phone. "Because you'll want to write it down. Are you ready?"

She read the letters aloud, and Brad diligently wrote them down, Judy peering over his shoulder.

"Well," she said after a moment or two. "At first glance, it appears to be some sort of ciphertext. Though without a key, it's impossible to crack."

"What could the key be?" Fred muttered, almost to himself.

"My guess," said Brad. "Is that you must already have it. I have to imagine that those texts have something to do with it."

Velma sighed. "Well," she began. "What sorts of codes would have a cipher like this one? Maybe if we know what kind of code we're supposed to crack, it'll make it easier for us to actually do it."

"Well, I think we can rule out a book cipher," said Judy. "Those deal with numbers, not letters."

"I wonder if we'll need to use a tabula recta or a cipher disk," Brad added thoughtfully.

"Sorry, a what?" asked Daphne.

"A tabula recta is an alphabet chart," Brad explained. "It was meant to be an alternative to the cipher disk, which is two concentric discs, attached by a common pin, labeled with mixed alphabets. It was created in the 1400s by the original Renaissance Man, Leon Battista Alberti."

Everyone froze. "What did you say his name was?" Velma breathed.

"Leon Bat –" Brad began, but broke off suddenly at the paralyzed look on Velma's face.

The gang were all sharing similar glances with each other, though since Fred was driving, he had to suffice with the rearview. But everyone was thinking the same thing.

Leon Berger. Leon Battista Alberti.

They shared the same first name.

As if they needed any more proof that he was behind this.

Velma didn't want to get into it right then, so she cleared her throat.

"What does a cipher disk look like?" she asked, trying to sound nonchalant.

Judy answered, drawing as she went. "The larger one is called Stabilis, for stationary, and the smaller one is called Mobilis, for movable," she told the gang. "The circumference of each disk is divided into twenty-four equal cells. The outer ring contains one uppercase alphabet for plaintext and the inner ring has a lowercase mixed alphabet for ciphertext." She demonstrated, pointing to her illustration. "By aligning the letters on the smaller disk with the letters on the larger one, you would get your plaintext."

Brad sighed. "Unfortunately, without knowing how many spaces to shift the ciphertext disk, we can't crack the code."

Judy pursed her lips thoughtfully. "I wonder if it has something to do with the numbers in the text messages you kids have been receiving," she mused.

"It's possible," said Fred. "We'll forward you the texts we've received so you can try to figure it out. Our friends Marcie Fleach and Tony Moretti should be coming by the house soon, and they can help too."

"Perfect," said Brad.

Judy pursed her lips at the letters on the sheet. "You know, it could also be an anagram," she said thoughtfully.

"What word has that many 'V's?" asked Daphne.

"It might be several words," Judy told her.

"I can figure it out," Velma volunteered. She didn't have much experience cracking codes, but she knew how to unscramble letters. "If you work it like a ciphertext, we'll work it like an anagram. One of us will figure it out."

"Good idea," Brad agreed. "We'll call you if we come up with anything."

"Us too," Fred promised.

After they hung up, everyone glanced at Velma.

She adjusted her glasses. "Okay," she said, reaching into her messenger bag. "I'll copy the code onto a few sheets of paper so we can try to figure out how many words we can make out of the letters. Daph, it's gonna have to be you and me working on the anagram. Fred's driving and Shaggy gets nauseous when he reads in a car."

Shaggy frowned, embarrassed.

"We can help as well," Nova offered, using a paw to indicate herself and Scooby.

"Reah," Scooby agreed. "Re know how to read."

Velma shrugged. "Okay," she said. "Let's start."

x.X.x

For the next several hours, stopping only for food, gas, and bathroom breaks, the girls and the dogs quietly worked while Fred drove and Shaggy wallowed. He couldn't help to solve the anagram without his vision swimming or his stomach lurching, and he felt useless. He'd been the dead weight in cases before, but never in a case like this.

Driving through the Great Plains, which Shaggy thought might be the most epically boring geographic location of the continental United States, did not help his mood. Especially since the sun got progressively lower in the sky as they drove, casting long, dark shadows on their barren surroundings. Though he felt slightly better as they crossed the border into Wyoming, when he glanced over at Velma. She had been using a hardcover book as a writing surface, and her paper was scribbled over with words that she had unscrambled from the letters in the code. But the thing that made Shaggy feel better was seeing that she'd fallen asleep. Her arm, which rested on one of Daphne's suitcases, was cushioning her head, causing her glasses to go slightly askew. Gently, Shaggy reached over to remove them, and placed them on top of the paper.

Scooby, who had been gazing a bit glassily at his copy of the code, noticed. He nudged Nova, who seemed as though she was on the verge of falling asleep as well. When he had her attention, he jerked his head towards Velma and whispered, "Rye'm glad."

"I'm glad too, Scooby Doo," Shaggy agreed, smoothing Velma's hair. "She told me she hadn't been sleeping much lately."

"Yeah, she told me too," Fred added.

"She's been through a lot," Daphne agreed, setting down her own paper and gazing anxiously at her friend. While Daphne had been kidnapped by the villain of the week numerous times, she'd never had to go through anything quite as harrowing as what Velma had experienced in the spring. It was good to see her sleeping peacefully.

Velma's dreams were not peaceful, though. As she'd told Shaggy the previous evening, she tended to re-live that terrifying stint in the fine arts library with Leon, while he taunted and threatened her.

In her dream-memory, she was tied to the chair, questioning Leon about his motives…

"So why even leave me notes in the first place?" Velma asked.

"I needed to get to you somehow," Leon replied. He was still holding the knife. "That's why I volunteered the band to play your prom. And then at our first meeting, when you showed us that secret admirer note, I figured that was an easy way in. Although I thought that you would meddle a little more to try to figure out who was sending the notes. I didn't expect it to take so long for you to figure out there were two people – and that I was one of them." He smirked. "I understand your need to prove how smart you are. Dottie was the same way. Would you have worked harder to solve the mystery if there had been a code you needed to crack? A Caesar shift? A Vigenère cipher?"

…A Vigenère cipher.

Velma awoke with a gasp.

Scooby jumped – her sudden movement had frightened him.

"Whoa Velm, like, you okay?" asked Shaggy, reaching to touch her shoulder.

She nodded, fumbling for her glasses. "I'm fine," she rasped, voice still half-asleep. "But I just remembered something important." She dug through the luggage, searching for something.

"What are you looking for?" asked Nova.

Velma didn't answer right away. "When Leon had me trapped in the fine arts library last month," she said to the group at large. "He wanted to know if we'd have worked harder to solve the mystery if we'd needed to crack a code."

"I remember that," said Fred, surprised at himself. "It was after we'd snuck in and were getting ready to rig up the trap."

"He mentioned two codes by name, do you remember?" asked Velma, still not looking up from her search. "A Caesar shift, and a Vigenère cipher."

Daphne furrowed her brow. "Why does the phrase 'Vigenère cipher' sound familiar to me?" she murmured.

"Brad and Judy mentioned it yesterday," Velma replied. "When we asked them what kinds of codes they usually crack. I did a little bit of research on them last night when we left their place."

Nova furrowed her brow. "So, what makes you think these letters are a Vigenère ciphertext instead of an anagram?"

"Because," said Velma, finally finding the thing she'd been searching for – the High Kings' album. "To solve a Vigenère cipher, you have to use a tabula recta."

She opened the CD case, pulled out the strange alphabet chart that had been hidden inside and held it up triumphantly.

"That's what this is!" she exclaimed. "Fred, you were right – Leon was the one who sent the mayor the CD, knowing that we would find it and use it. And he even included our means of solving his ridiculous puzzle."

Daphne sat forward. "So the fact that Leon shares a name with the guy who invented a cipher disk was just a coincidence?"

"Or a false clue," Velma replied, a glint in her eye. "A red herring, as it were."

Fred shook his head in amazement. "So…explain to me how a Vigenère cipher works?" he asked.

"Okay," said Velma, writing three words in the empty space below the table: ciphertext, keyword, and plaintext. "The ciphertext is the encoded phrase – in this case, GVRMIJJWEVVVLJPVJ. The keyword is the phrase we use to decode it. By matching the letters in the ciphertext with the letters in each column for the keyword, we'll get the plaintext – the answer to the code."

She glanced up and noticed that everyone was still gazing rather confusedly at her. "Okay," she tried again. "Let's pretend the keyword is dog. We would have to repeat that word until it matched the length of the ciphertext. Then we'd find the letter 'G' in the column for letter 'D,' and then match it with the letter of the row." She drew her finger from the "D" at the top of the column down to where the letter "G" was, then moved her finger to the left to see which row it intersected with.

Nova got it first. "I see!" she exclaimed, peering at the chart. "So, in this case, the first letter of the plaintext would be J."

Velma nodded enthusiastically. "Right," she replied. "But I don't think the keyword is dog."

"It must be seventeen letters or less," Fred pointed out. "That's how many letters are in the ciphertext."

Daphne sighed and reached for the CD case to turn it over in her hand. "I wonder if the keyword is something to do with this," she mused. "I mean why would he send us the tabula recta in the CD if it wasn't part of the clue?"

"I'll pop it in again," Fred said, sliding the CD back into the player.

"Go right to Marie's Wedding," Nova suggested. "It must be important – after all, every one of your text messages came from lyrics for that song."

Shaggy blinked as a nugget of a thought began to take shape in his brain. "Hey," he said slowly. "Guys…like what if Red's the key?"

"What do you mean?" asked Daphne.

"What if the keyword is like, 'Red Herring?'"

"It's not enough letters," Fred told him. "There are seventeen in the ciphertext, and 'Red Herring' is only ten."

"But like, the keyword repeats, doesn't it?" Shaggy pointed out. He turned to Velma. "Isn't that what you said?"

Velma nodded slowly. "That's right," she said. "If we use 'Red Herring' as our keyword to line up with the ciphertext, it'll become 'Red Herring Red Herr.'"

"Try it," Daphne suggested. "And hand me a sheet of paper – I'll write everything down."

Velma tore another sheet of paper out of her notebook and handed it to Daphne before bending back over the tabula recta.

"Dum dum dum dum dum dum dum a diggety dum…" sang the High Kings from the speakers.

"Okay," Velma murmured. "So in Column R, if I go down to where the letter G is in the chart…that's in row…P."

Daphne wrote it down.

A few moments later, everyone had gathered around Daphne's paper to stare at the seventeen letters of the code, that spelled out the name of Leon's accomplice.

And it was absolutely shocking.

Sponge: All right folks, here's where you come in! If you can solve the Vigenere cipher and figure out who the accomplice is before Chapter 12 drops next Wednesday, July 21st at 10pm EST, send me a private message with your answer. Use the keyword REDHERRING with the ciphertext GVRMIJJWEVVVLJPVJ to figure it out! You can check my Tumblr for a visual of the tabula recta, or you can find one of your own online. Good luck, and I'll see you next week! In the meantime, review if you please, and don't forget to guess where the chapter title comes from!