Decryption

-"Good morning! breakfast is ready, downstairs" said Mrs Erinson to her son, waking him up, gently stroking his forehead, and as expected from someone who could only get three hours of sleep, he found it agonizing, nevertheless, it was surprising that he could get some sleep at all, regarding what happened the night before, it was such a diabolical situation that he started convincing himself that it was only a nightmare as soon as he woke up, and believing so made him feel better, in fact it filled him with joy that he jumped out of his bed excited for his day at school although he knew well that he barely slept and therefore wouldn't focus in class, and that excitement never occured beforehand whenever his mother attempted to wake him up, in a way that made her more confused than worried, unfortunately, that happiness quickly faded, as soon as his mother brought up Rocky, saying that she couldn't find him anywere near the doghouse, or anywhere near the house for that matter, she asked him if he could look for him to feed him instead of her doing so, which made him turn his head towards his window so fast that he hurt his neck, but he couldn't even feel it as soon as he saw the former crime scene as it was the night before, with Rocky out of sight and nowhere to be spotted, and that piece of the backyard's ground that he stirred up to conceal both Rocky's blood and his own, right there he realized it was never the lucid dream he thought he had, it was real, all of it.

Marcus immediately changed the subject, hiding his slightly visible stress over it, and his disbelieve mixed with a light expression of grieve, he did his best so that his beloved mother wouldn't doubt a thing, "I will make sure he gets his food when I find him, right now I have to take a shower and get ready for class, mom" he said, smiling awkwardly at her which looked unnerving at some point and artificial to some extent but Emma completely bought it, because regardless of her extreme beauty that often made him wonder why would she pick someone like his father, Paul; his mother was somehow shallow and ignorant, maybe that's how she ended up with Paul anyways, her hazel eyes, her dark long silky hair and her angelic clear skin will never compensate for her 'lack of critical thinking', that's how Marcus always liked to describe stupidity when it came to his mother, so he wouldn't disrespect her as much as he does with stupid people.

He arrived at class, looking all exhausted and depressed, for some reason he seemed off today, even in the eyes of people who didn't really get to know him at all, those who kept asking him whether he has had enough sleep last night, the best he could do was shrug them off and sit at his desk thinking about what he had to witness and why, and how he could possibly alter the whole situation to his advantage, the only thing that cheered him up even though he knew it was never an option even if it was possible -for him at least- was that the possibility of time travel could probably grant him better grades, just enough to get the best of his rival, the top of the class, but he always thought he would never resort to cheating, even using supernatural privileges, because that wasn't winning to him, and he still has that strong sense of justice that he's too afraid to lose even more than his own life, "focus now, I have to know what's on this" he said to himself holding the small voice recorder he obtained when he searched his future corpse, for some reason the record wasn't erased but it was nearly impossible to get any of the data on it, due to the high level of encryption it took his future self to hide what's on it, "what's that, Marcus?" someone in the back couldn't fight their curiosity enough to let them mind their own business, that was Henry Jin Nakamura, but everyone called him Jin, he was always that kind, cheerful student who often got to be so serious when he wanted to, even though that wasn't how everyone used to think when they heared his name, as they always refered to him as the asian kid, he was originally from Japan but born and raised in the states, and he was the top of Marcus' class.

"It's nothing", Marcus replied while attempting to hide the voice recorder and tightening his grip on it.

"I have already seen it" said Jin, while grinning at Marcus in a way that pushed his buttons, and compelled him to punch the asian kid in the face and stomping on it after having him on the ground, luckily for him, Marcus was so calm even at times like these when he was on the verge of insanity, even at his worst, he managed to preserve what's left of his persona, a mask that he wears in public to protect his ego, as he detests being looked at with contempt from people he believes are somehow inferior to him, he also believed that once that mask slips, his reputation was gone, that's why he has been trying to glue that mask to his face containing his obnoxious self inside, at times like these, mere glue was never enough, he must resort to steel nails, merging with the mask further.

"Listen, Jin, why don't you mind your own business?" Said Marcus unwillingly to the asian kid, for the sake of his reputation, his tone was perfect at that moment, he seemed to be so calm and more disgusted than bothered by his nosey classmate, and that made Jin feel embarassed and ashamed of his behavior, he quickly apologized to Marcus and told him that he meant no harm, and that he had good intentions, and that he only meant to help Marcus out, however, it felt a little bit odd, why would someone act that way over an object? there's only two options: either that little thing means so much to them for its sentimental value but that's not the case here, from what Jin saw, it wasn't something that could belong to a relative or a loved one, he clearly saw what it was minutes before Marcus' failed attempt to put it away, which leaves us with the second option; he's hiding something, that was what Jin was thinking of while looking straight in Marcus' eyes, staring whithin the deep of his soul, he knew he faked that tone.

"I'll tell you after class" these words made Jin so excited to what Marcus would reveal to him after all that controversy around a voice recorder, he couldn't wait for the class to be over. They walked home together for the first time, and as expected from Marcus, he wouldn't tell him everything in detail because as smart as he might be, Jin wasn't ready to know about something like that, matter of fact, he will never be ready to know about something like that, however, Marcus thought he could use his help decrypting the files, as he always had different skill set that average teenagers aren't supposed to have. and Jin was always the first one to finish writing code in the programming class, so it's fair to assume that he knows a thing or two about cryptography;

"How did you know it was encrypted? did you examine it?"

"I actually tried to do what i'm asking for your help for by myself, but i didn't think it could work without the decryption key and i can't take any chances of it being wiped" what made Marcus say that; was that he knew himself good enough to assume that his future self would set a command to wipe everything after a failed attempt of decryption.

"And what is it for you? i never asked where did you get this recorder? and why is the data so important that you can't risk it being deleted? i assumed that you probably had some recordings that hold memories that are important to you, but if that was the case you wouldn't need to encrypt it, well unless you feel embarassed about them but that's not something that could make you go that far, i have to admit that i felt so stupid making that assumption because if you did encrypt them yourself you should have the decryption key somewhere and you would be looking for it instead of seeking help, well unless you're too lazy for that but that's also not the case because i saw how consistent you are in class, besides asking for help takes a lot more effort than looking for the key and... "

"You talk too much" Marcus interrupted Jin, even though deep down he couldn't deny that he was astounished by the way he made conclusions, and how accurate they were and that he thought of every possibility, but he didn't want to have to listen to all that because sooner or later he knew that Jin would figure it out.

"What i'm trying to say is; i'm sure this little device over here isn't yours, and we probably shouldn't look into someone else's stuff, we're violating their privacy and even though that's not what bugs me the most.."

"Okay what are you so worried about?"

"I'm afraid it belongs to the law enforcements, or a memeber of a dangerous group of convicts or maybe a russian spy or..."

"Wouldn't that be more interesting?" 

"Well you already know i'm driven by curiousity most of the time" 

"Then let's get this over with" Marcus said, ending this conversation that was far too overwhelming for him, not only because he felt like he was deceiving Jin to do something for him, but because he knew he wouldn't think that way if it were him.

They finally arrived at Marcus' house, they went straight upstairs, rejecting Emma's offer of snacks before they work on their little 'school project', they spent a lot of time trying to decrypt the files that Jin had to sleep over that night, and apparently they lost sense of time in the process, and after six hours of work and six cans of soda, they finally made it, there were around 203 recordings, the duration of each one of them was no lower than one hour, the dates of their recording were organized but seemed too strange for Jin to wrap his head over;

"Look at the dates, that's so weird"

"What do you mean?" Marcus responded as he tried to cover the computer's screen

"Some of these dates aren't happening until four years of now, with the latest one being ten years from now!"

"Maybe the recorder wasn't set on the right date to begin with, it's hard to set the time for these devices anyway, i'm guessing that the owner used it ten years back with the date set ten years later and had to go with it without knowing" Marcus tried desperately to give his classmate an answer that is good enough to satisfy his curiousity but that was never an easy job.

"Ten years back? you mean 2006? but these things weren't around until 2012, which means they never existed back then, and even considering that the owner had a model that was exlusive to privileged people only, six years before its release, these dates still don't make any sense"

"That's a good point, but have you ever thought that it could be messed with? we don't always have to trust a device's capability to detect time, maybe the owner messed with the dates on purpose, we already know how much he's obsessed with secrecy, we're talking about someone who uses ransomware level of encryption to protect his voice recordings" Marcus genuinely believed that this would convince Jin that it's just him overthinking everything, but even with that type of effort, he was still wrong;

"No, they're sequential" Jin replied, he stroked his chin, waited for a while then suggested: "Maybe we should check them out? that would give us a clue" 

"It's already dawn and we have school later, and you've seen the duration of each one of them, we should stop for now, backup the files and we'll listen to them later", of course, Marcus was lying, he was never going to allow his new friend to listen to his future self talking about things even he can't predict, but he felt the need to give him a false hope, that toned down his suspicions and bought Marcus time to forge a lie and think this through, after all even Jin who might've just helped him reveal a lot about his death, doesn't have to know anything about it.