CHAPTER 3

"Caleb, so good that you've arrived already," his mother greeted him.

"Hi, mom. Sorry for being late, I had an emergency meeting."

"It's okay, honey, you know I trust you. It's just that there's a friend of yours here; she's been waiting for you for a while. Why don't you go see her? She's in your bedroom."

"Say what now?"

Caleb could already imagine who this "friend" was, but as the saying goes: he had to see it to believe it.

"Your room is shockingly tidy," Ariadne, still in her school uniform, greeted him as she fetched a book from one of his shelves.

"I'm a perfectionist, I hate clutter," he replied, not so shocked already to find her there. "Just as I hate surprise visits."

He took the book from Ariadne's hand and brought it back to its place.

"So, I guess you once again have figured everything out. Otherwise, I can't imagine why you're at my house."

"You're right. Radcliffe gave you information, didn't she?"

Caleb was hesitant to confirm Ariadne's suspicions, but he concluded that trying to deny them would be futile at that point.

"Yes, she did."

"So… what did she say?"

"Ariadne, why are you doing this? The search for this man could be considered an act of rebellion. Do you realize that by helping me you'd be going against your father?"

She was silent for a whole minute, which seemed like an hour.

"Hello?" insisted Caleb.

"I didn't mean what I said the other day in class, ok? My dad believes that, but your rude comments have made me reconsider my opinion. I know how bad it is everywhere, and my father is not doing anything to change it. Maybe it's because he doesn't know how…"

"Or doesn't want to."

"Whatever. I don't know if this stranger can do anything about it, but he's supposedly an engineer, so he can't do anything worse."

Caleb stared at his classmate and his breath lined up with his heartbeat as his mind silently assessed his next step. Was she being honest? Should he reveal to her what he had learned? Radcliffe had told him not to, but–God forgive him–he trusted Ariadne.

"If we do this, you'll have to swear you won't tell your dad."

"Yes. It'll be our secret, and if you're right, we will save the world in the end."

"Let's not talk too soon. So, do we have a deal?" Caleb extended his hand to Ariadne.

"Yes, we do," she replied, shaking his hand.

"Well, let me start."

He briefed her on everything Councilwoman Radcliffe had told him about Icarus Abbott, a.k.a. The Engineer, and at the end of the conversation, Caleb showed Ariadne the voyager.

"Have you seen these symbols before?" she asked him.

"I recognize some of them, but I'm pretty sure they don't mean what I think they do. If we want to find Icarus, we have to decipher them."

"But, what exactly do we have to do?"

The voyager had four rows of squares with black characters around its diameter.

Below each row, there was a laterally rotating line with a black arrow that pointing to one of the symbols. In the middle, there was another spinning section, but it went up and down. Caleb presumed it was used to move the arrow vertically.

"Look," called Ariadne, "there is a black button on one of the poles."

True, the button contained no markings, and it was above the direction in which the symbols appeared to point.

Caleb looked at Ariadne and wondered what to do.

"What are you waiting for? Push it," she encouraged him.

He obeyed, and the orb made some kind of mechanical sound followed by movements of the little black arrow.

First, the pointer moved to the seventh place of the second row. After that, it went back to the first place of the same row. Then, it went again to the right to the fourth location.

"It's a message," Caleb said.

The arrow returned to the left and stopped in front of the first symbol. There, the vertical axis carried the mark up to the first row, where it advanced to the last figure. Back again and down to the fourth row. Once there, it chose the first symbol. Finally, it returned one last time, ascended to the second row, and picked out the fourth character again before stopping.

"What was all of that?" Ariadne asked, perplexed.

"As I said, it was a kind of message that we have to break through to find Icarus. Did you have a chance to write down the selected symbols?"

"No, I was too concentrated to even think about it."

Caleb rolled his eyes.

"Then grab a notebook and a pen and do it. I'll press this button again; that should restart the sequence."

Ariadne complied without complaining, and Caleb set the arrow in motion again.

This time, she took on the task perfectly, and they began to look for a solution.

Six figures in total, six out of twenty-six. Caleb examined the cycle three more times just to make sure it was always the same, and it was.

"Caleb, instead of re-examining that, why don't you come and help me find out what does it mean?" Ariadne called him.

"There are a total of twenty-six digits in the voyager, just like in the alphabet, so one can assume that each character represents a letter of the latter."

"That's a very reasonable conclusion."

"The question now is which symbol stands for which letter?"

"Why do you think they're not in the same order?"

"Because that would be too obvious."

"Well, I guess that makes sense. What should we do once we decipher the message?"

"It seems like the puzzle is structured as a question. We have to find the answer and introduce it by choosing the right symbols. Now, all these strange letters seem familiar to me, but I don't know why."

Ariadne approached and, like Caleb, stared meticulously at the ball and its inscriptions.

There was no noise in the room–or perhaps there was, but the children did not notice it. It was as if the rest of the world had stopped for them until they found a solution. It is only then, when the outside world is silent, that the mind raises its voice.

"Caleb, Caleb," Ariadne called him after a few minutes, "I think I got it."

"What? Are you sure?"

"Eighty-five percent. Take any sign and cover half of it with your hand. What does it look like now?"

He did what Ariadne said, and the answer to the question appeared before his eyes: he could see a letter. He tried with the others, and slowly all the letters of the alphabet were visible. The characters composed of the merger of a letter and its mirrored form.

"That's it!" exclaimed Caleb in victory. "You've done it, Ariadne, you've solved the first piece of the puzzle."

"So, no thank you, then."

"Ok, thank you, Ariadne. Happy?"

"It would have been better if you had said it as if you meant it, but I'm satisfied. What now?"

"Let's see what it says."

After Ariadne's discovery, Caleb wrote down the word that spawned the voyager.

GO SINS

"Go sins? I'm sure it's not literally a celebration of sins," Ariadne observed incredulously.

"This could be the second part of the puzzle: finding an answer to… that."

"But it doesn't make sense at all."

"Everything makes sense in life, you just have to find it."

"Well, let me know if you find it in this case."

They unsuccessfully stayed at least another hour trying to understand the meaning behind the phrase. Finally, Ariadne retreated to her own house because it was getting late, but not before promising again that she would not reveal anything to her father.

Caleb could not imagine how Mayor Carmichael would react to all this; he would probably lose his strings and send him to prison for the double crime of treason and corruption of his daughter. For the sake of his family, he decided not to tell his parents; too many people already knew.

For the rest of the week, Caleb and Ariadne stayed in touch through messages, phone calls, and after-class meetings to see if anyone had come up with a logical explanation, but they didn't. Unwittingly, Caleb found himself spending most of his time with Ariadne, and that didn't bother him. It was only a matter of time before someone became suspicious.

On Friday, Caleb noticed that Mayor Carmichael was staring at him more than usual during the history lesson. He had always had a rare interest in him because he was the smartest in the class, but now he couldn't help but feel that the mayor had discovered their secret.

The ringing bell announced that the class was over and the school was closed for that day and that week; the students could go home. Just as Caleb was getting up with his backpack and determined to go to the door, Carmichael called him from behind.

"Calm down, calm down," Caleb muttered to himself, trying not to look too nervous before turning to him. "Yes, sir?"

"Could I have a word with you please?"

He swallowed heavily and almost drowned with his tongue. Ariadne looked anxiously at him from the door before she resumed her way.

"Sure."

The mayor ordered him to sit across from him and waited for the other students to leave the room to enter into conversation.

"Caleb, I noticed that you have been spending quite a lot of time with Ariadne lately."

How bad his luck was. The mayor was a clever man, they should have been more careful with the time they devoted to the voyager.

"Yes, I think we saw each other a lot last week," he replied, struggling not to shake. Caleb could be very intelligent, but under great stress, he did not perform well.

"Why? Based on what I see in class, you two don't seem to get along, do you?"

"Well, we realized that we have a lot more in common than we knew."

"Is that true?"

There it was again, that cold smile that the mayor always put on his face, it was as if he tried so hard to smile but he just couldn't.

"Yes, sir."

"Wonderful!" Carmichael seemed to relax a little. "I'm so happy that my daughter has a friend like you, especially now."

"What do you mean?"

"Caleb, I never tell you this, but I admire you. I even see you like another child of mine, and I want you to know that you can always trust me. I think trust is the glue that holds society together, trust in each other, and in the government. Without it, we would find ourselves in total chaos and anarchy. It is imperative that we never go back there."

Where was this conversation going? What was Carmichael trying to tell him?

"I've been terribly worried lately, you know?" the mayor said. "The council is urging me to find a wanted criminal. Although he hasn't been seen in years, they think he could still be here. His presence could potentially undo any achievement we've made as a society."

"What exactly are these achievements?" thought Caleb thought.

"Caleb," the man insisted, "I need to know that you are on my side, on the side of Genesis. I know how much you want to solve the climatic situation out there, help outsiders, and bring back the greenery and animals, but it's impossible, I've already tried.

He was lying, Caleb knew he was. He was even sure the council had never tried. The sole existence of the voyager meant that The Engineer was still alive and that change was possible.

"Are you, boy? Are you on our side?"

"Yes, sir. Of course, I am."

"Good, because I'd really hate to be your enemy. You can go now. Take care of yourself and have an excellent weekend."

Caleb thanked him, grabbed his backpack, and quickly left the room. The tension he was building up threatened to make him vomit, a drop of sweat sliding down his forehead.

He accelerated his pace and was still processing the latest conversation.

'I'd really hate to be your enemy."

Carmichael's message was very clear to him.