"Now, now!" Scolded Miriam. "Who are you yelling at?"
The girl looked around wildly. The lab was empty except for the four of them. There were high bookshelves behind her and bright white lab equipment in a corner, but apparently the person she was looking for wasn't there. "I…I don't…thought I saw…I…? I'm uh really sorry." The girl apologized, her expression changing from amazement to confusion to embarrassment rather quickly.
"This is Morgan Haylee." Introduced Miriam.
Morgan was a young teenager, with dark hair and bright eyes. She seemed vaguely familiar to Ben, but he was sure he'd never even seen her before.
"Morgan is one of our brightest students here at John Quincy Adam's Educational Institute.
"Is she now?" Asked Ben with a half smile.
"Yes, she is." Said Miriam apparently missing the humor in Ben's voice.
A woman appeared in the doorway wearing a navy blue uniform.
"Miriam!" She called urgently then gestured towards the woman, who said:
"Oh, please excuse
me!" Then she stepped out.
"So," Said Ben wasting no time at
all. "Morgan, Or do you like Miss-"
"No sir!" Morgan exclaimed cutting him off.
"Well, I am Benjamin Gates and this," He gestured "is Dr. Abigail Chase."
"Nice to meet you, Mr. Gates, Dr. I've read a book about you two."
"Have you? Well that's great. Listen we know you have an award in special types of sciences and also in endangered languages."
"Yeaaah." The girl stretched out the word furrowing her brow.
"Can you tell me what language this is in Miss Morgan?"
'The girl looked at the print out. Squinted at it, then said.
"Probably." She turned around and started grabbing books off the shelves and brought them over to a table in the exact center of the room.
"I'm surprised you saw that. I won that three years ago." Abigail elbowed Ben, but he just shrugged. Morgan began flipping through some of the books, then she took the document out of Ben's hands.
"Well, you certainly know what you're doing." Ben said and she wore a little smiled, but her smile then faltered when she looked at the page.
"Where did you get this?" She asked slowly.
"Why?" Asked Abigail urgently.
"Well," the girl scanned the index of an extremely old book glancing now and then at the document. 'It's a mixture of a few languages."
"A few?"
"Three to be exact. This is English-"
"English?" But Morgan ignored him.
"This is Tobian. And this is not a language I don't recognize." She pointed to different parts of the page as she spoke. "It alternates," she explained. "And the image is mirrored and flipped.
"Amazing." Ben looked at the page. She pulled the document over to a big piece of equipment. And inserted it into a computer tray.
"Who does your scans?" She asked while she typed.
"Huh?"
"This image. It's good, clean cut."
"That is the specialty's of or own personal computer geek." Ben turned to smile at Riley, then realized…Riley wasn't there.
"Where's-?"
"I'm sure he just went to the bathroom or something." Abigail whispered back.
"Well, your computer geek is a good imager, I haven't seen a picture like this for a long time." Morgan muttered. Then she smiled and said: "Here!"
The image on screen flipped around. The when Morgan typed a code in and pressed enter triumphantly.
Words on the screen translated to English.
"What." Said Morgan.
Abigail who couldn't see asked
"What is it Ben?"
But Ben just said:
"I thought so." He reached over Morgan's shoulder and pressed PRINT SCREEN.
"Well, thank you Miss Morgan."
Morgan snapped back to life.
"What is this?"
"Huh?" Ben grabbed the print out from the computer and rolled it up.
"It this a letter to Benedict Arnold?"
"Listen Morgan, this is important government property, you can't tell anyone-"
Abigail grabbed the paper, then stared at it: "What is it?"
"It's-"
Suddenly there was a bang and Riley fell into the room.
"You!" Morgan looked angry again. "I knew that I saw you before Riley!"
"Uh…hi Haylee."
"What are you doing?"
"I was listening at the door-"
"What was on the-"
"Will you just leave?"
"WHAT IS GOING ON!?" Ben's shout was the loudest over the commotion. Every turned to stare at him. "Can we sit down or something?" He said much more calmly.
"Okay." Ben said when they had all reluctantly pulled out chairs. "Let's clear something up.
"Yup." Morgan was glaring at Riley as she said this.
"And you know her?"
"Yeah." Riley muttered slumping in his seat.
"Good. Now I don't know what's going on or what but-"
'What did Riley beat you in a science fair or something?" Abigail asked,
"He wouldn't have won that science fair if Mrs. Loren hadn't liked him so much!"
'I won that Science Fair fair and square!"
"You made electricity out of pickles!"
"So?"
"It's been done before! But," She looked at Ben. "That's not why he should leave now."
"What then?"
Riley sighed and said:
"She's my baby sister."