M. Banner - Stone Age

OMG, I just saw Steve-I-Can’t-Remember-His-Name… You remember him, my knight in shining armor who saved me many summers ago. I also don’t remember him being that cute. Of course, we’ve both grown up since then.

Darla added the picture to her email.

He just boated past me in a…

She squinted at the picture, trying to remember the model. Holding her thumb on the picture, an app popped up with choices. She chose Google Googles and then Search. About a second later, a search result page appeared with an exact match, a Cigarette 39 Top Gun. Returning to her email, she pressed her forefinger to the last letter of her email and selected paste.

…Cigarette 39 Top Gun. Not sure which was hotter. Wish you were here. See you in a few days.

She pressed the Send button and a swoosh sound announced its sent status.

“Can I join you?” Her grandpa announced, still wearing his pajamas, but looking stylish in them.

“Sure. Good morning, Poppy.” She pushed up from the chair, making a smoochie-face and accepting his kiss on her cheek.

“Was that Steve Parkington who passed by in the boat?” He asked, taking the chair next to Darla.

“Parkington. I forgot his last name. I don’t remember him being that good looking. I hope we’ll get to see him while I’m here.”

“You will tonight,” Fred King grinned at granting his granddaughter’s wish. “Steve and his parents, John and Uta, will be here. They’re all coming over for tonight’s barbeque.”

“Really? Awesome. I’m glad I brought a proper swimsuit ensemble with me. I remember Steve, of course, but I don’t remember his parents,” she declared, trying to take her Poppy’s knowing looks off the subject and taking the last sip of her coffee.

“You might recall they were over two summers ago when you were here, although Steve was probably in school at UM then. He has since graduated and runs his own company full time. John & Uta live here, but work in Detroit. She is a manager at the large power plant there and John owns some sort of computer company that has something to do with sharing pictures on the Internet, I think?”

Oh yeah… Picshare. I love that app on my phone , she thought, really glad she made the trip.

“Your old friend Stacy Jenkins is coming over too.” You ought to talk to her about sharing a ride with you to O’Hare tomorrow night. I think she’s flying out around the same time as you.

“I haven’t seen Stace in a while. I don’t know if we will be able to share a ride, unless she can get one back, because Danny has to get to school when we get back after the holiday. But maybe we can at least caravan and share a beer at O’Hare. This trip is getting better and better.”

“Oh and there’s a surprise,” he said with a smile, letting the suspense build, until Dar was practically bouncing of the chair, “Tonight is Clear Lake’s fireworks show.”

“Wow. Awesome, I love fireworks,” she said gleefully, clapping her hands.

“I know.” He couldn’t wait to tell her this when he heard she was coming to visit them, knowing how much as a kid she loved oohing and ahhing the fireworks displays on the fourth.

“Speaking of fireworks,” she furrowed her brow, “did you see the funny colored lights last night? I thought maybe it was fireworks, cause my bedroom was lit by all these colors and lights, but I didn’t hear any sounds. I was half asleep and was trying to figure out what they were, when I fell back to sleep, thinking how beautiful they were.”

“I’m sure it must have been the Woo’s next door. They always have great fireworks. They were probably shooting them off last night, but it’s weird that I didn’t hear them either.”

“Prime numbers,” Steve Parkington yelled to the morning. This revelation hit him while thinking about yesterday when his little nephew delighted in the act of squishing bugs in front of his sister, attempting without much effort to generate shrieks out of her, just as Steve used to do when he was a kid during the plague of cicadas.

“Why didn’t I think of it the first time?” he chided himself. The key is all around you , the message said. He reasoned that the cicada had two known life cycles, 13 or 17 years. Both were prime numbers. The prime numbers listed on the final screen went all the way to 3301 and the cicada’s life cycle all pointed to some sequence of prime numbers.

Steve turned off the boat’s engine, and in one fluid motion, hopped onto his parent’s dock, while holding the mooring line. He pulled the boat to the dock and then tied it off, quickly and precisely. His mind and body were a buzz of excitement from both figuring out the answer to the puzzle and seeing Darla King. She looked great, sitting in the lounge chair sipping her coffee. He couldn’t wait to meet her again, tonight.

They played as kids so long ago. He was secretly in love with her then, but she was so popular and beautiful, and he was still in his nerdy phase, with glasses and unkempt hair and clothes. Then, a couple of days ago, his father told him she might be at the barbeque. He looked her up in Facebook, surprised at how the years had turned her into such a beautiful woman. But he didn’t friend her, although he couldn’t at this moment remember why. He would cross those bridges tonight, but now it was the cicada and he had to share it with his father.

He stopped his jog at the patio door and then walked briskly to his father’s study to find the man who shared not only his genes, but also his interest in puzzles. Together, since finding the clues, they tried to figure out together what it all meant and where it would lead.

Steve opened the office door, and found his father sitting behind the same desk that Steve was at two days ago, trying to crack the cicada code. The largest of the five screens had a map with a virtual pin on it. His father was grabbing what appeared to be a color printout of the same map.

He turned to the door where his son was standing. “Hi, just the man I wanted to see. We solved it, Son.”

Steve was eager to hear, but also disappointed at the same time, knowing his father just figured it out too.

“It’s GPS coordinates somewhere near Boulder, Colorado.” John said, handing the printout to his son. “It was the cicada that pointed to the prime numbers –”

“I know the life cycle of 13 and 17 years. That’s why I came in here, cause I just got it,” Steve said, while looking up from the map.

“Yes,” John picked up, “I was looking at the prime numbers and the other cyphers you figured out. They pointed to specific GPS coordinates, which when entered, gave us this location.”

“But, what’s there?” Steve asked the obvious.

“I have no idea. You want to go find out?”

“Duh. When do we leave?”

“I have a little business first,” John paused, “but then we’ll take the Cessna early tomorrow evening to Denver and then a rental car to these coordinates.” He made an exclamation point with his finger, jabbing onto to the pin of the map he had printed. “What do you think, sound like a great adventure doesn’t it?”

“Dad, that’s awesome. Great work,” he said without as much enthusiasm as John had hoped.

“Everything okay? Thought you would be more excited.” Then it occurred to him, “You’re really looking forward to seeing Darla, aren’t you?”

“Busted,” Steve said, feigning embracement. “There is a reason why most of your friends call you the smartest man they know. When can we head over there?”

“Your mother had to go back to work because of some problem at the plant. Everyone else will be at the dock ready to go at one.”