Cracked

"It seems that they just keep on calling my name…" Jayson muttered to himself. He sat on a make-up chair near a small table in the center of the tent.

Leaders from different schools gathered inside to read the situation and come up with a plan.

Yuri set up a computer system at the side and went to monitor the area as they stay there for reconnaissance. Mike stood beside him, checking on the maps flashed on the monitor and the reports that has been gathered around the camp. Two teens from another school help them with what they are doing.

"Who do you think are they, Jay?" Alex asked as he walked beside Jayson, pointing a finger to where Yuri is.

Jayson raised his head to take look and brushed the thought immediately. "I dunno. Maybe a friend of theirs." He kept murmuring something.

"They're pretty much in a serious conversation out there…" Alex replied and he noticed Jayson was not listening. "Jay, you kept on saying your name since you sat on that chair, you know.." Alex complained. "I've got tired of hearing it…that…is that a song you're trying to come up?"

"Well, sorry for that but that was the code I thought was given by them."

"Do you remember all of it?" Alex said. "Like the way it is said?"

"Once I heard something, and keeps bothering me, I kinda remember stuffs like that." Jayson's cheek twitched.

"But…" Alex scratch his head. "J..jay..jay..J" he shook his head. "It doesn't seem to have a meaning… could it be just your brain registering Sandra's voice calling you like that. I mean, she kept on calling your name a while ago when you were unconscious..."

"I know its something different. It's not Sandra's voice…" Jayson said. "I told you I was being called by someone I don't see but I somehow recognized his voice."

"Jayson!" Sandra called.

"There she is, calling your name.." Alex grumbled teasingly.

"Shut up…" Jayson replied and searched for the girl.

Sandra walked towards them, waving her hand. Dave walked behind her.

"Sup, Sandy.." Alex greeted.

"Don't call me Sandy, we're not close.." Sandra glared.

"Rude.." Alex muttered and stared at Dave. "Who's this?" he asked.

"My friend, Dave. They came from Deimos and guess what.."

"What?" Jayson asked.

"They played the game and got the key." Sandra said. "From that palace."

"What?!" Jayson exclaimed, he stood up and held Dave's hand. "That's great news!" He stretched his neck to see if he has other companions. "Who are you with? QATSU?"

"Ahh.. no, we came from a different school…" Dave replied hesitantly. "Nice to meet you, I'm Dave."

"I'm Jayson Smart. Nice to meet you, too."

Hearing Dave's voice somewhere near, Brent and Ken searched for him and found him on the other tent.

"Dave!" they called waving.

Dave scanned the area and found them outside the tent. "Brent, Ken! I didn't notice you are there.."

They walked towards Dave and poked him on his shoulders.

"Where have you been, dude? I thought we're going to talk with the leaders…" Brent said, putting his arms around Dave's neck. "And we have to let them see the key, right?"

"I stumble on Cassy on the way.." Dave answered. "And I gave her the key.."

"Cassy?" Ken said. They didn't notice the GSSTI people staring at them. "CASSY!" Ken exclaimed. "I didn't notice it was you.. you changed your hairstyle." He throw a hug. "I missed you."

"I miss you, too, Ken. I haven't changed that much, you know…" Sandra replied, brushing Ken away. "Anyway,…"

"You don't seem surprised that we are here, huh?" Brent asked.

"Dave mentioned he was with the two of you.."

"Ohh.."

"Hey, Sandy, who are they?" Alex asked.

"That's rude, Alex. You didn't know these people?" Jayson replied after a few seconds of staring at them. He realized they have seen them somewhere.

"Why? Do I have to know them?"

"Not really, but they have made things that we haven't…" Jayson replied.

"What are you saying, Jay?"

"They are the first AR fighters," Jayson said. "The ones who defeated the hacker at Orion and saved the city."

"What?!" Alex exclaimed. "These twerps are the first AR fighters?! That's impossible. They doesn't look like the ones in the picture."

"Including our Sandra, yes. They are the first fighters or we say Beta testers of AR-VR world. They saved our city back then by defeating the Destroyer. Now, they are gathered here with us." Jayson looked at them and said, "And they still have another member, right?" he said it casually but to them it's sounded insulting. "Where is he?"

Ken grabbed Dave's arm and stared at him, making Dave look away.

"Yeah, he's not here with us but I hope he's fine, though." Sandra replied.

"Is he here, too?" Jayson asked.

"I wonder.." Sandra said. She doesn't want to talk about it so she tried to change the topic. "Anyway, about the key…"

"Ahh, yeah. They got it, right? Can I see it?" Jayson asked.

Sandra handed the key.

"Number 5, huh.." Jayson murmured. "Did you tell Yuri about this?"

"Yeah, but we haven't shown him the key, yet. It's with this idiot friend of ours, you see…" Brent said.

"And he came late.." Ken added.

"Sorry.." Dave muttered. "I told you I was with Cassy and we did some kind of catching up."

"Well, why did you went to Yuri in the first place?" Alex asked. "We, I mean, the GSSTI have better numbers than them."

"Ahh, when we're fighting at Phobos, we met a Qatsu kid. He helped us defeat the boss so we thought of trusting these guys. When we came here, the medics and the guards said that Qatsu students manage the camp." Brent explained. "So, we ought to talk to them first about stuffs and asked for help.."

"Just because they came here first, I hate it.." Alex grumbled.

"Ma..ma…anyway, good thing we have two keys now. We still have to gather 3 more though." Jayson said.

"Yeah. And we need those guys' help to do it." Brent point to Yuri's direction.

"I hate to admit it, but, yeah.." Jayson said. "I guess we have to cooperate."

Alex looked away with a disappointed look in his eyes.

"So, how's the code going?" Sandra asked Jayson. "Have you ever made out of it?"

"What code?" Ken asked.

"A code I heard a while ago when I lost the game and come into an abyss," Jayson replied. "I thought it was something, a message from someone."

"What kind of code?"

"I dunno.. I just kept on remembering the rhythm and..." Jayson answered.

"Rhythm?" Ken asked.

"Yeah, it's calling my name in a weird way."

"Like how?" Ken asked again.

"Like, J..Jay..Jay..J, Jayson, Jay, Jay…" Jayson replied.

"And he kept on repeating that for a time now.." Alex complained. "Like he was making a rap song."

"It sounds familiar…." Brent whispered.

"Can you keep going?" Ken asked again, now he listened carefully.

"Sure, but I still don't get it."

He muttered the rhythm like it was a song composed of his name as lyrics.

"That was it!" Ken exclaimed. "I found what is it!"

"Really? You got it just like that?"

"I see…" Brent whispered again.

"We kept on exchanging messages using that trick when were in middle school. Markus thought us how to use it in the class, when we ask for answers…or during an arcade game to send tactics without the enemies knowing…" Ken said. "Or if we decide to meet in a place for us to ditch class." He added.

"You ditch class?!" Sandra exclaimed with a glaring eyes.

"Whoooo.." Jayson was so amused. Besides from being a top student, he's the heir to their business. He felt a slightly envious on Ken's story because he haven't done things against his father's will.

"When the subject is boring, yeah…" Ken continued. "It was Mark—" he was stopped by Sandra's palm in his mouth. He looked at her eyes and decided not to continue what he's trying to say.

Alex stared at them. He's confused of hearing the "Mark—" term there.

"Amazing. So what is it then?" Jayson urged. The air changed.

"It's a CW." Ken continued. He knew he needs to keep on talking to erase the previous talk Sandra's trying to cover up.

"CW?"

"Yeah, in most cases it's called Morse code…"

"Why didn't I thought of that?!" Jayson exclaimed.

"It's hard when you're the one singing the rhythm, unless you're the sender. But when you decode it.." Ken grabbed a pen and a paper. "It used your name to hide the message. You said you heard it somewhere, right?"

"Yeah, when we're defeated in the chess game, we got into a dark space. A glitch perhaps." Jayson replied. "And I kept on hearing these sounds in my head like 4 times or something.."

"It was a signal from the outside, probably from Mr. Louige," Ken said confidently. "I'm pretty sure it is. They don't want the GM to notice it so it used you name as a signal. If it were not you, they'll use another code to encrypt a message."

"How did you know that?"

"A message was sent before the game started. I know who sent it and I trust them."

"Are you referring to.."

"Anyway," Ken said. "This is what the message looks like. It used your name as the sound of the code. J- for the short sound and Jay or Jayson for the long sound." Ken wrote it on the paper. "When we write it all down, it will look like this."

.--. --- .-. - -- .- .--- . --. -.- .. - -.-. …. - .-. ..- … - - … . --. ..- -.--

"It just looked like dots and dashes to me.." Alex muttered.

"It's what Morse code is. It's composed of dots and dashes." Ken explained.

"If we had a software, we could have deciphered it right away, right?" Alex complained again. "Unless one of us here knew how to decode morse codes?"

"But we don't have access to any soft wares here. So, we have to do it the hard way." Ken answered.

"Do you know the alphabet?" Jayson asked. "We are too reliant to technology that we didn't care memorizing these trivial stuffs anymore…"

"I don't want to boast, but yeah. I, no, we know it." Ken replied, looking at his friends. "Someone said that we need to harness our brain by doing mind maps and games. And this is part of it. He didn't want us to be reliant on technologies so he insisted that we memorize these stuffs. We can't keep on deciphering sounds using soft wares that appears on the monitor during a match, right?" He laughed under his breath. "Later did we notice that it has become part of what and who we are. It's just difficult in the beginning, I kept on forgetting letters most of the time. It happened one time that these sounds became my lullaby….haha, but when you got used to it, it will come like breathing." He added. "You don't need to think about it."

"I see. He must be a good friend." Jayson replied.

"He's great. Well…"

"So, what does it mean?"

"Wait, it says, PORTMAKEGLITCHTRUSTTHEGUY." Ken read the paper and got surprised. He tried to meet his friends' eyes covered in confusion and was also surprised of what he had just read.

"Port make glitch trust the guy?" Jayson said with his brows crossed.

...…

"It is well said, but.." Michiyo stared at them with confused eyes. "How do we get there? Do we have to walk? Run? Fly?" she sighed. "We can see the tower from here but I know it's still a few miles away."

"We still have our skills and the Nike shoes, so…" Kath said. "I guess we can run."

"But, that's time consuming. We need to get there fast, right?" Michiyo argued.

"Yeah, but.." Kath muttered.

"I told you I'll handle that stuff." Hachiro said. "We have the spoils, right?"

"Then, what about it?"

"This game sure has trades in the store."

"Store…" Drake repeated.

"By that, we can trade our goods and build something useful or find something useful." Hachiro went to the corner of the street, near the police box and a holographic dark-skinned merchant appeared in a hologram projection. He wore a big red turban like how Aladdin wore his own and a red vest with big dangling necklaces. His fingers were covered with jeweled ring but he doesn't wear shoes. Once of the most eye-catching thing happened is his flying carpet dancing behind him.

"Whoa.." they exclaimed.

"That's like a djinn." Kath whispered.

"I told ya!" he eyed them confidently as if he had won a bet.

They watched him from their post as he made a trade with the merchant. He offered him all their spoils and he got an exquisite find in return. He immediately went back to his friends.

"Okay then, let's go!" Hachiro throw the sheet of cloth and everyone was surprised.

"The magic carpet?! For real?!" Kath exclaimed.

"Yeah. It took me a long talk before he gave this." Hachiro scratched his hair. "Anyway, get aboard. We'll fly to Deimos."

Everyone set foot on the carpet and Hachiro made it fly.

"I never thought it could lift us all.." Drake said. "There's nine of us. Ten, if you include your dog."

"Oh, he's not here.." Michiyo said.

"I'm here!" Shichiro replied. He changed into a hawk and flew beside their carpet.

"Cool.." Drake muttered. "You can change forms, huh?"

"I know right." Shichiro replied confidently.

"But, annoying." Drake snubbed. "Humf…" crossing his arms.

They fly under the dark night sky with furies underneath them. Flickering lights and smoke from everywhere caught their eyes.

"If I didn't know that the city was under attack, I would praise the beauty I am seeing now—the night lights of Luna.." Kath muttered.

"I know, but that's all a fraud. We are in a fraud.." Drake replied. "And I can't help but worry."

"You sure knows how to negate things, huh?" Michiyo commented.

"I'm just saying what I'm seeing.." Drake replied.

"Well, I just hope we can get out here soon… I'm starting to get worried by all these stuffs." Kath said.

"We'll do it fast. I promise we'll get out from here." Hachiro whispered.

Everyone stared at him, awed that he can say those things with much conviction. He's eyes are full of confidence and no doubt.

Michiyo walked near and sat beside him. "Please do.." she replied.

Everyone fell silent and a moment later, they found themselves hovering above Deimos.

"We just have to follow the plan, huh.." Hachiro said.

"Yeah…" everyone replied.

"Then, let's go!"