“Jeez!” she said with another laugh. “You’d better learn to have some patience if you’re gonna be a dad, Wayne.”
“Go get the Bible, kid.”
“I don’t need it,” she said, lifting her pencil.
“And always number the lines,” he told her. “That will make it easier for you to reference them as you’re deciphering.”
“Got it.” She wrote out the Psalm from memory.
1. The Lord is my Shepherd I shall not want.
2. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.
3. He restoreth my souclass="underline" he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.
4. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no eviclass="underline" for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
5. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies; thou annointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
6. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of The Lord forever.
“Okay, so now what?” she said, showing him the paper.
Ulrich took the paper and wrote a quick string of code at the bottom of the page:
1-10 / 2-2 / 3-16 / 1-9 / 6-1 / 6-1 / 4-3 __ 1-9 / 6-1 __ 4-3 __ 5-5 / 4-3 / 1-9 / 6-11
“Now decipher that,” he said. “And keep in mind, the blank spaces are arbitrary. They hold no value of their own. I could just as easily have written it without the spaces, but I’m making it ridiculously easy for you.”
It was immediately apparent to Melissa that he had used the line number for the first value of each letter and then just counted spaces for the second value, coming up with:
M/E/L/I/S/S/A_I/S_A_P/A/I/N.
“Ha ha,” she said. “I’m telling Erin.”
“You probably will,” he said with a chuckle. “Look, kid, the point I’m making is they don’t have to use a simple alphabetic cipher. They could use anything. Any agreed-upon text just like this one here. And the letters in the code they’re using don’t have to be limited to double-digit values. They could apply to page number, paragraph number, line number, word number, and finally letter number if they wanted to—which would give each single letter in the message a value of five digits. So… do you see how many possibilities exist just within that single string of code you keep going over? There could be as many as thirty-two letters in it or as few as sixteen—just from that one example.”
“But that would take time to translate, and you said they’re talking fast.”
“That’s true,” he admitted. “But if they’re only using a few pages of the text—which would be logical—they could easily have it memorized by now. So, while I do believe it’s a simple code in terms of numerical values, it could still be impossible for a person to crack without a computer program.”
“But not necessarily…”
“No, not necessarily, but the trouble is we have no way of knowing. So why waste thousands of hours trying to crack a code only to find out that it’s impossible? Especially when we already know that it probably is impossible.”
“But what if these people might be able to help us?”
“Honey, whoever they are, they are in no more of a position to help us than we are to help them. Believe me. And there’s a very good chance of them being hostile, so we couldn’t risk breaking radio silence before we at least knew what the hell they’ve been talking about all these months.”
Melissa had not been even slightly deterred by Ulrich’s discouraging opinion of her chances. In fact, she only grew that much more determined. She saw a definite pattern within the code, even if only in her mind’s eye. She just couldn’t quantify it yet, and she continued to be very frustrated with herself, knowing that with a little more mathematical skill she could crack the damn thing and maybe—just maybe—find them some help before they were forced to eat rat meat in order stay alive… or worse, starve.
Forrest stepped around the open blast door and crouched beside her, petting Laddie, who came instantly awake. “I’d feel better if you two were in the common area with the others. The kids are asleep now.”
“I can’t concentrate with everyone around,” she said, her eyes fixed on the screen. “I’m close, Dad. I can feel it.”
Melissa had taken to calling him Dad a bit more often now, and it pulled at his heart every time. Veronica had remarked in private that she thought Melissa might have used the moniker to manipulate him in certain instances, which spawned their first genuine argument. She had only meant to imply that all girls manipulated their fathers to a certain degree, but Forrest accused her of being jealous.
“How dare you accuse me of being jealous of a sixteen-year-old girl!”
“She’s never made a single unreasonable request, Veronica. There isn’t even anything down here unreasonable to ask for, for Christ’s sake.”
“Never mind,” she had said. “You’re obviously too sensitive where Melissa’s concerned. I won’t bring her up again.”
After that they hadn’t spoken for an entire day.
“I’d like you to move into the common area anyway,” he said to Melissa now. “This tunnel’s supposed to be sealed in case there’s an emergency.”
“Can’t I—”
“What did I say?” he said, speaking crossly with her for the first time.
She looked up from her work, a hurt expression in her eyes, and closed the computer, gathering her papers together. He offered her his hand and helped her to her feet. Laddie got up with her and stretched.
Forrest sealed the door and they moved into the common area, allowing Laddie to trot deftly ahead of them through the sleeping children. On his way to Melissa’s bedroll near the wall, the dog stopped to sniff a couple of the kids, then curled up on his own bed made from folded blankets. Melissa put the computer into its box, unzipped her bag, and sat down to untie her shoes.
“You don’t have to go to bed,” he said quietly.
“I’m tired,” she said, without looking up at him, pulling the flap of the bag over her legs. “Good night.”
“Good night,” he said, and turned to walk away.
“Jack?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m sorry for making you mad.”
“You didn’t make me mad. I love you.”
“Love you too,” she said, and turned over to go to sleep.
Laddie got back up and followed Forrest into in the cafeteria, where Veronica was sitting up with Erin and the infant, whom thus far didn’t seem to have a name. Erin had just brought the babe from her feeding in Medical, and now the child was sound asleep, swaddled in Erin’s arms. Laddie sniffed at the infant and sat wagging his tail.
“No, she’s not yours yet,” Erin said with a smile. “You’ll have to wait a couple of years.”
There was no one sleeping in the cafeteria because the complex was on a war footing. All civilians were to remain in one of the two conjoined common areas at all times except for while preparing food in the kitchen to be served in the common areas.
“So, E, are you an official mom now or what?” Forrest asked, taking a seat beside Veronica.
“Shannon says so.”
“You don’t seem exactly thrilled.”
“Oh, I am,” she said. “It just doesn’t feel real yet, you know? With Shannon nursing her every couple of hours and those maniacs trying to get in. I feel more like a nanny, I guess.”
“Give her to Karen, then,” he said. “I know she’d love to have her.”