Sylvester was grateful for the ride, he hadn't relished the prospect of taking the bus home after such an emotionally exhausting day. His only concern was that Toby's emotional barometer would register his growing excitement over his suspected discovery. Sylvester wasn't ready to share any details yet, not until he was sure. His worries were unfounded, however, because Shane and Erik's boundless energy and nonstop chatter about Walter's uncharacteristic outburst kept both of their parents' minds off of anything Sylvester may or may not be hiding.
Given how Walter had reacted to The Tales of Aveline, Sylvester knew it was selfish to be grateful that his brother had bolted from the house before the team had finished passing around the pages, but he was. If the evening hadn't ended on such an unfortunate note, he had no doubt that someone else, likely Walter himself, would have seen the unusual combination of letters and numbers written on the inside of the lid. If that had happened, Sylvester feared that Walter would have wanted to crack the code himself and leave Sylvester out of it.
As Toby drove toward Sylvester's apartment, Sylvester held the small box cradled gently against his chest, consciously working to keep his knee from bobbing in excitement. Happy was working to get the boys' minds off of the scene back at the house and enthusiastically quizzing them on the uses for a variety of wrenches. Meanwhile, Toby searched the local radio stations for the latest drive time updates, hoping he could find a route that would avoid the inevitable gridlock that occurred daily between the Gallo's house and Sylvester's apartment.
Despite the traffic, Toby made good time to Sylvester's apartment complex, and by the time they had arrived, Toby had joined in with the boys shouting out answers to Happy's questions. Sylvester had been caught up in the excitement of the competition as well and pushed his nerves aside to join in and make a few fairly educated guesses to Happy's queries. Both boys were delighted by Sylvester's knowledge as well as their father's and groaned with disappointment when he pulled the car into a visitor parking space in front of Sylvester's building. With a fist bump for each boy, Sylvester climbed out of the car. "The next time I come over, we'll have a night of pizza, Dr. Shaz, and a rousing game of Fantasies and Frolics. I promise."
Shane and Erik bounced on their seats excitedly. "Tomorrow? Pleeeeease!" they cried as Toby did his best to shush them. Before Sylvester shut the door, Happy had jumped out of the car as well.
Happy pulled Sylvester into a brief, but meaningful hug. "You did good, today, Sly. Going through Megan's things. I know that was hard for you, but it needed to be done, both for yours and for Walt's sake."
Suddenly unable to speak past the lump in his throat after the uncharacteristic display of emotion by his friend, Sylvester just hugged her back for another moment before releasing her, then with one last wave to Toby and the boys, he turned and hurried toward his apartment.
Once inside his apartment, Sylvester flipped on his computer and the desk light above it. Then he moved to his bedroom and opened the ordinary-looking box that he always kept on top of his dresser. The small container held one item: the digital drive meant for Megan's typewriter. Sylvester lifted the drive out of the box and returned to his desk, where he inserted it into the port on the side of his computer. He hadn't opened any of the files on the drive in years, but he still remembered the name of every file and every line of each story Megan had saved on it. When she had first given him the storage drive, he had read each story a number of times as a way to feel closer to her.
But there was one file he had never opened. At first glance, it had appeared to be a corrupted file and Sylvester had never thought too much of it. Megan wasn't particularly tech-savvy. The moment he saw the odd-looking combination of characters on the lid of the box that held The Tales of Aveline, he knew he that Megan had purposely hidden something on her digital memory drive. He had recognized immediately Megan's seemingly random characters as the key to a Twofish file encryption algorithm. Now that he was home, he opened the list of files from Megan's storage drive. Then he ran the algorithm and entered Megan's key, the 'corrupted' file opened and he saw the information it contained.
Sylvester quickly scanned the file's contents, easily committing the words to memory. It wasn't exactly state secrets, and he wondered why Megan had encrypted this file and then hidden the key so well. He recognized Walter's digital signature on the creation of the false face of Megan's hidden file. It was one of Walter's favorite tricks to hide important information: make a file look like it was corrupted, all the while it was actually encrypted. Sylvester had often wondered how Walter had thought of such a devious and un-genius-like method to hide files. He smiled to himself as he realized that it must have been Megan's idea. That was exactly how her mind worked, hiding something in plain sight. Better to keep prying eyes away from important information altogether using misdirection. It was a brilliant security hack, the user not even knowing that the desired information was staring them right in the face, in addition to the heavy layer of secure encryption.
Now that Sylvester knew what Megan had hidden, he relaxed and pulled the laptop with him onto the sofa, slowly reading each word again as he considered what to do with this knowledge. The more he read and considered Megan's words, the more confused he felt. Sylvester finally decided that he was out of his depth and decided that first thing in the morning, he would call Paige. Hopefully, they could meet tomorrow, he could show her Megan's file and she could explain what it all meant. Sylvester wanted to understand Megan and why she had hidden this file, but mostly he wanted to know the right way to show Walter the information he uncovered. Not for the first time, Sylvester was extremely grateful for his sister-in-law and her unique insights into the human mind.
Relieved to have a plan at last, Sylvester allowed himself to be lost in Megan's words one last time before falling asleep.
The summer I was thirteen was the strangest one of my young life. It was the first time that I had ever truly been ill. I spent almost the entire summer in bed, alternately burning up with fever and wondering if it were possible to die of boredom.
My only saving grace during that time was my little brother, Walter, who brought me any book he could find to try to keep me entertained…