Edwards Air Force Base- Southern California- 0500 hours
At this point, Hiccup was having a hard time looking at the computer screen while simultaneously resisting the urge to throw it against the wall. Despite the progress that has been made, the scrawl remains to be an enigma to both him and the assembled group he was currently working with. Even though it has only been a little over a day since agreeing to help Philips, Hiccup is still reeling a little over his current circumstances. It must be a sight to see an assembly of some the most skilled programmers, linguists, and cryptographers in the nation currently being stumped by a seemingly simple set of symbols.
As the various people in room continued to ponder and discuss, some gesturing wildly to one of several whiteboards which was covered in the symbols and possible translations. While the symbols did bear some resemblance to runes, that was about as far as they got, despite Hiccup's own notes on them it became apparent than just knowing possible translations was only half the solution. When Hiccup was first introduced to Bradley and his group, they immediately brought him up to speed on their own progress, or lack thereof, the biggest breakthrough they made was that it was possible to respond to the message with a few simple keystrokes. By doing so, you can manipulate the columns and arrange the text in specific alignments, which is how they found out that whatever message they are trying to decipher needs to be entered in the middle row.
With this revelation, they have spent days entering possible combinations with the same result, the scrawl would stop for a brief second, and then continue with no change. Failure after repeated failure was starting to wear on not only the programmers, but also on Philips, Hiccup may not know much about the inner workings of the federal government, but it was pretty apparent that the agent was under even more pressure to get this figured out. Hiccup was then brought out of his stupor by the heavenly aroma of liquid caffeine in a Styrofoam cup which was being offered to him by Bradley.
"Thought you could us this." He said.
"Appreciate it." Hiccup responded, gladly taking the offered cup and, with obvious contentment, sipped the steaming contents, immediately feeling slightly rejuvenated as the ground up coffee beans did their work.
"Anything new?" Bradley asked, fully expecting the same answer.
"Not a thing." Hiccup said looking at the screen. "I swear this thing is mocking us."
"Wouldn't that be classic," Bradley began. "That after all this time and resources we manage to find out that whoever or whatever sent this was playing the world's biggest practical joke with the punchline being, 'I can't believe you fell for that!'"
"At least it would be something and then we can all move on with our lives." Hiccup retorted.
"Weirdly enough, a little part of me is excited about cracking this, regardless of what the message is." Bradley explained.
"Whatever gets you going buddy." Hiccup said.
"Come on, are you honestly not excited about finally finding out what this all means?" He asked.
Hiccup thought about that for a second and if he was being honest with himself, he was fairly excited about finding the answer after everything that has happened, although, he was more curious about what sent the signal in the first place. Being able to bypass military encryptions was no small feat and neither is targeting multiple computers without leaving any trail. Hiccup gave a slight shrug in response which seemed to satisfy Bradley as he went to deal with other matters, allow the teenager to continue to monitor the screen, silently pondering what was on the other side of this signal.
Somewhere in Utah- 0700 hours
Valka stepped out of the convenience store carrying a bag of snacks and bottled water as she made her way to the car at the same instant that Stoick came back from walking Toothless who was in much higher spirits than earlier, twenty-four hours cramped in a car is definitely not good for a German Shepherd. After driving all night, they stopped to rest and restock at a small convenience store outside of Salt Lake City. Stoick opened the back passenger door, allowing the canine to jump in while Stoick leaned against the side of the car, he did most of the driving the night before and it was evident by the dark rings under his eyes. Without a word, Valka reached into the bag, took out one of the water bottles and handed it to her husband who gave a small nod of thanks as he began drinking.
"I'm sure Hiccup would appreciate you making sure Toothless is taken care of." She said.
"I could tell he was anxious so I figured a walk would do him good." He responded.
"Just him?" She asked with a smirk.
"Alright." He said with a shrug. "Maybe we both needed it."
"I know how you feel, we've been driving all night and we're still not sure if we're heading in the right direction because the only lead we have is a vague message from Gobber's friend." Valka explained, "Speaking of which, where is Gobber?" She asked looking around.
"He went to a payphone to call his friend." Stoick said.
"Why a payphone?" She asked.
"Like he said, whatever is happening with Hiccup is being kept quiet and it's risky trying to get the information we need. He gave Gobber a number to call a secure line if ever they need to talk, but he warned him to not use his, or anyone else's, cell phone. Even though the line is secure someone can still catch wind and trace the call." Stoick explained.
Valka thought about that for a moment and almost without thinking she slumped against the side of the car which immediately concerned Stoick. "Val, you ok?" He asked.
"Honestly, I'm not sure." She said, "First our son is taken for no reason and now where driving to who knows where while trying to unravel some conspiracy. Honestly this so crazy it's almost funny."
Stoick put a reassuring hand of his wife's shoulder, "If it's too much, you can take the car back home while Gobber and I find a way to keep going." He said.
Valka looked at him in the eye, all traces of apprehension were gone, replaced with unbreakable resolve, "you're not getting rid of me that easily, I'm not stopping until our boy is back home where he belongs." She said.
Stoick could only smile at his wife's determination as he pulled her into a embrace, though momentarily surprised by his sudden action, she smiled and returned the embrace. After a few seconds the two separated in time to see Gobber briskly walking to them with a grin on his face.
"Oh, we are in luck." He said.
"Did he find out where they took Hiccup?" Valka asked.
"And then some." Gobber said as he reached into the car and pulled out a map, "Now, he had to do a lot of digging, I can't even imagine how risky this had to be, but he kept his ears open for any information regarding the plane that Hiccup left in. The best he could manage was a few air traffic logs but was able to put together a rough flight path." He explained.
"That sounds well and good Gobber, but we need a destination." Stoick said.
"Getting to that Stoick," Gobber said as he took out a pen. "Based on the flight path, the plane was heading towards Southern California. Now since it was military aircraft, odds are its going to land at an air force base, no sense landing a commercial airfield. With that in mind and if the plane is in fact heading towards California, its most likely destination is…right here." He said marking a spot on the map.
"Edwards Air Force Base?" Valka questioned, looking at the map. "This is where they took Hiccup?"
"I can't say for absolute certain, there are multiple places where they could have potentially landed at but for now that seems like the best place to look." Gobber explained.
"Regardless, this is the best lead we got." Stoick said as he placed a hand on Gobber's shoulder, "Thank you Gobber, we couldn't have done this without you."
"Think nothing of it, let's get your boy back." Gobber said with a smile as they all joined Toothless in the car and drove off towards the highway.
Ingerman's Residence- Berk- Minnesota- 1600 hours
Fishlegs Ingerman was currently working on his homework in his room as was customary for a weekday afternoon when he heard a knock on his door. "Come on in." He said without looking up from his text book, as the door opened he turned around and was utterly surprised to find Astrid Hofferson walking into his room.
"Astrid, what are you doing here?" He asked.
"Hey Fishlegs, sorry for the sudden intrusion but I'm hoping you can help me with something?" She asked in a uncharacteristically shy manner which did not go unnoticed by the young man.
'Since when is she ever shy nervous about anything?' He though to himself, aside from mutual greetings when they saw each other, the two could not really be considered close friends, barely acquaintances actually. "What's going on?" He asked.
"Well, I'm having some kind of issue with my laptop, it's really weird and I know you have some skills with computers, so maybe you could take a look at it before I have to take it in?" She asked.
Despite the initially awkwardness, Fishlegs relaxed a little bit and figured there was no harm in helping her out. "Sure, let's take a look at it."
Astrid took her laptop out of here bag, placed in on Fishlegs' desk and opened it, immediately Fishlegs was confused by the symbols on the screen. "What is this?" He asked.
"I was hoping you can tell me." Astrid said crossing her arms. Taking a closer look at the scrawling text, Fishlegs was baffled by what he was looking at.
"This is very interesting?" He said.