Apparently, his honor guards had decided they were no longer necessary because they were gone when he exited the room.
Anxious to find out if Caleb had made any progress, Ash made his way back to the comm trailer. As he entered, Mya and Devin looked over from the terminals they were using.
“For God’s sake, shut it,” Devin said, shivering.
Ash stepped inside and closed the door.
“Oh, sorry, Captain. I didn’t realize it was you.”
“Yeah, he’s a dick to most other people,” Mya said to Ash.
“How’s it going?” Ash asked, walking over to them.
“We’ve recorded forty-seven video conversations and nearly three times as many audio,” Mya said.
“Anything of interest?”
“You’ll have to ask Crystal. She’s set up some people to go through them all. It’s taking all our effort just to keep up with the volume. No time to listen in.”
“I’ll check with her, then.”
“That’s not the best part, though,” Mya said.
“Is that right? Then what is?”
She looked at Devin. “It’s your thing.”
Devin grinned but said nothing.
“You’re not getting a drumroll, if that’s what you’re waiting for,” Mya said. “Just tell him.”
Devin shot her a quick, dirty look before saying to Ash, “I’ve been able to tap into their computer system.”
Ash stared at him. “Are you serious?”
Before Devin could answer, Mya said, “Not to take all the wind out of his sails, but some of the credit goes to Arjun and Prabal.”
“They only did what I told them,” Devin argued.
“And if they didn’t, you wouldn’t have gotten in.”
“True. I’ll admit that. They do deserve some credit for helping.”
“Look,” Ash said sharply.
Mya and Devin turned to him, startled.
“No one’s handing out medals at the moment, so for now it doesn’t matter who gets credit. What I want to know is what kind of access we’re talking about. Just basic or can you dig through everything?”
Devin looked a bit uncomfortable. “I’m still in the middle of mapping the system, but given what I’ve seen so far, I’m confident we’ll have access to whatever we want.”
This was more than Ash could have hoped for. Being able to peruse the Project Eden database would be a huge game changer.
“You’re sure they don’t know we’re inside?”
“Positive. It’s not the first system I’ve hacked.”
A sound from beyond the racks at the other end of the trailer reminded Ash why he was there. “Is that Caleb back there?”
“No,” Mya said. “Jesse. Caleb’s inside the base.”
“Communications?”
Mya shrugged. “He’s been working on that code of yours all morning.” She nodded at a counter space covered with sheets of crumpled paper. “Chloe came in a while ago. They talked for a few minutes, then all of a sudden Caleb jumped up and the two of them ran out.”
“Do you know what they were talking about?”
She shrugged. “No clue.”
Devin shook his head.
Ash spotted a handheld radio and snapped it up.
After tuning in to the band Chloe would be on, he pushed the talk button and said, “Ash for Chloe. Come in.”
Static.
“Chloe, where the hell are you?”
Still no reply.
He switched to the comm room’s band.
“Comm, this is Ash,” he said. “I’m looking for Chloe White. Have any of you seen her?”
A pause, then—
“Leon here. I saw Chloe about thirty minutes ago, heading toward residential section A.”
“Was she with Caleb?”
“Didn’t see him.”
“Okay. Thanks, Leon.”
Ash thought for a moment. Chloe could have only been passing through that area on the way to engineering or medical or one of the storerooms. But he had a pretty good feeling none of those was her destination.
He set the radio down. “Get ahold of me the moment you’ve finished your assessment,” he told Devin as he headed for the door.
Residential section A was beyond the weapons training room in the northeastern portion of the base.
As he headed down the hallway toward it, a voice called out behind him, “What are you doing up?”
Josie.
Turning, he said, “It’s okay. Only woke up a few minutes ago.”
She stared at him as if wondering whether to believe him or not.
“You were right. I needed it. I feel better now. Thanks for making me do that.”
“You shouldn’t be running around.”
“Honey, I have work to do. You know that.”
A quiet second. “Have you eaten lunch?”
“Not yet.”
“I’ll get you something. Where are you going?”
“Um, I’m looking for Chloe. I’ll, uh, stop by the cafeteria in a bit.”
“Dad…”
“I promise.” Before she could say anything else, he said, “I’ll see you later,” and continued on his way.
When he reached Matt’s room, he stopped and listened at the door. Voices inside, Chloe’s and Caleb’s. As soon as he knocked, they went quiet.
“Chloe, it’s Ash. Let me in,” he said after knocking again.
The door jerked open.
“Finally,” Chloe said. “Do you have them?”
“Have what?”
“The journals. I sent Brandon to tell you we needed them ten minutes ago.”
“I must have missed him. I went out looking for you guys.”
“Then how did…never mind.” She grabbed Ash’s arm and pulled him inside.
Caleb was sitting on Matt’s never-used bed, several of the journals spread out around him, open. Among them were a laptop, several wadded up pieces of paper, and a small stack of paperback books.
As Chloe shut the door, she whispered, “He’s cracked it.”
“Augustine?” Ash asked.
“Uh-huh.”
“So does that mean we also know what dream sky means?”
Without looking up from the pad of paper in his lap, Caleb said, “Dream sky means Dream Sky.”
Ash said, “But I thought the key word translated the message.”
“It does,” Caleb said. “But Dream Sky wasn’t the message it was intended to be used on.”
“Then what message does it translate? And what the hell is dream sky?”
“Okay, question two, I’m almost positive Dream Sky is a place,” Caleb said. “And, question one, that’s why I need those other journals.”
“So you don’t know for sure the code works?” Ash asked.
“When did I say that? I never said that.”
“You just said you need the other journals to see what it translates.”
“What I need the other journals for is to get the full picture of the message.”
“It’s spread out,” Chloe said. “It appears to be an ongoing conversation.”
“We both read the journals,” Ash said. “We didn’t see any kind of conversation.”
Chloe picked up one of Matt’s notebooks. “The numbers at the end of the entries,” she said, opening the book and pointing at a page. “That’s the conversation.”
Ash took the book from her and stared at the number. After a moment he said, “So Augustine translates all of these?”
“Not Augustine per se,” she told him. “It’s kind of—”
“A mind blower if you really think about it,” Caleb said, unable to contain his excitement. “They used a combination of methods. I have no idea how Matt received the numbers, but at some point he would also receive a key word of nine letters.” He flipped through some pages on his pad, found what he wanted, and turned it so Ash could see. It was a table with the letters of the alphabet across the top, and below, the numbers 0–9 repeated until each slot was filled. “With the key word they used a modified Vigenère cipher.”