Peter Lerangis - The Colossus Rises

They looked like Lotto numbers. What did they mean? Could it be some kind of code? Maybe an alphabet-number substitution thing. Like A = 1 and B = 2.

Nope. Didn’t work. Some of the numbers were greater than twenty-six, and there were only twenty-six letters in the alphabet.

I sat back with a sigh. What was it Cass had been telling me? The banner is cool…I’d remember those words forever. He’d read it aloud. Twice.

Weird.

I wrote the banner’s message across the top of the napkin: WELCOME TO YOUR KARAI INSTITUTE HOME, JACK.

Staring at it, I wondered if he meant it was connected to the code. I started numbering each of the letters in the banner message.

The first number on Cass’s coded message was 6. That mapped to the M in the banner message.

I went one by one with each of his digits: 6, 27, 2, 8, 23, 20, 30, 15, 13, 4, 11, 21, 13, 5, 11, 30, 8, 28, 16, 2, 31, 15, 6, 1, 7, 13, 25, 20, 15, 1, 17, 10.

MEETINMARCOS

ROOMTHREE

AMWERUNAWAY.

Meet in Marco’s room. Three A.M. we run away.

I took a deep breath. Then I ripped up the napkin and flushed it into oblivion.

AS MY BEDROOM door clicked open, I snapped awake. I didn’t know what time it was. My brain had been dipping in and out of sleep for hours. The night had spooked me. I didn’t trust the smiling, squeaky-clean faces at dinner. Or Professor Bhegad.

“It’s Marco,” came a whisper. “Time to get up.”

The little glowing clock on my bed table read 2:56. My foggy brain was awakening. Three A.M. we run away.

“You’re early,” I mumbled.

Marco stepped inside. His backpack was slung across his shoulder. “Just wanted to be sure you got up. I’m kind of a control freak. But you probably figured that out. Come on before it’s too late. Aly disabled the bugs.”

I turned to face him. “The what?”

Marco gestured toward the banner with the KI symbol. “Wake up and smell the coffee, Jethro. They’ve got a recording device in that banner. And in a few other places, too. Just sound, out of respect for privacy, I guess. The cameras are on the outside of the building. Now come on. Don’t make me carry you out of here.”

I was on my feet. I hadn’t changed out of my clothes since dinner, so all I had to do was slip my feet into my Chucks.

Marco flung the door open. Conan was slumped backward in his chair, mouth open, snoring. “Aly hacked into the medical-supply security and liberated some sleeping pills,” Marco explained as we walked toward his room. “Horse strength for Conan. Not that he really needed it. Sleep is his natural state.”

Marco’s room was the second door to the right. Cass and Aly were already waiting inside, looking grim and worried. The little smiles that had always been plastered on their faces were gone.

“We owe you an explanation,” Aly said, talking very quickly. “You think we’re idiots. Children of the Corn zombies. We had to act enthusiastic. We’re under surveillance, indoors and out, twenty-four seven. I’ve been trying to hack into the system since day one. The encryption makes the US government look like amateurs, but I finally did it.”

“So…everything you’ve been telling me…about how happy you are here, how much you like this place…” I said.

“Lies,” Cass said. “At dinner I wanted to whisper the plan to you, but that chandelier is full of unidirectional mikes. Then I tried to talk to you in Backward, but you outed me. Sorry about the code. It was my only choice. If I had my way, we would all be talking in code, just for the fun of it. Naem I tahw wonk uoy fi.”

“I’m adjusting to the idea that you’re all normal. Don’t spoil it.” I smiled. “So I was right—they’re evil; they’re fooling us.”

“We’ll talk later, bro,” Marco said. “We have to move, before they notice the system is down.”

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