The LibriVox NaNoWriMo Novel 2006 (part 1)
Part 2: http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dt724vw_42p6bfpf

Audio files of the chapters: http://librivox.org/the-librivox-nanowrimo-novel-2006/
The XML for your podcaster to get audio files: http://librivoxpodcast.googlepages.com/nanowrimo_podcast.xml
LibriVox forum thread: http://librivox.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3892

The Mystery (part 1)

A novel written by LibriVox volunteers in the month of November 2006.
The chapter text and their accompanying audio recordings are in the public domain.
Listen to the chapters read by the writers: http://librivox.org/the-librivox-nanowrimo-novel-2006/

Table of Contents

(Click on hyperlinks to jump to chapter)

Chapter 01 - written by Juho Fröjd
Chapter 02 - written by Anita Roy Dobbs
Chapter 03 - written by David Barnes
Chapter 04 - written by Heather Barnett
Chapter 05 - written by Michael Sirois
Chapter 06 - written by Gesine
Chapter 07 - written by Hugh McGuire
Chapter 08 - written by Susan Denney
Chapter 09 - written by Alan Drake
Chapter 10 - written by TBOL3
Chapter 11 - written by Maria Morabe
Chapter 12 - written by Michael Sirois
Chapter 13 - written by Miette E.
Chapter 14 - written by Chris Goringe
Chapter 15 - written by Hugh McGuire
Chapter 16 - written by Kirsten Ferreri

Chapters 17-30

Chapter 01 (written by Juho Fröjd)

    It rained.
    It always seems to rain at funerals, as if nature feared that people might not feel sad enough without it. The rattle of raindrops against my umbrella felt almost soothing as I watched the coffin disappear into the grave.
    I knew most of the people gathered around the grave, but some were unfamiliar. Very distant relatives probably. The ceremony was quickly over, and so my uncle was laid to rest under six feet of dirt. I guess I should’ve been sad, but it was hard to feel sorry for a man that I never much knew. Sure, I’d seen him in family reunions and such, but other than that, he was a total stranger.
    The only memory of him that I had was from childhood. I was playing hide-and-seek with my sister when suddenly his car pulled up to our house. We watched in awe as this long-coated gentleman emerged from his black BMW and made his way towards us.
    For a moment, he just stood there watching us. Then he knelt down before me and asked, “And who might you be, my young lad?”
    ”Trevor,” I answered, proud of the fact that I was able to answer this obviously exciting man.
    “Ah, a fine name you’ve got there.” He spoke in a warm tone.
    “I was named after my grandfather,” I continued, still very proud and excited.
    “Indeed you were. And I bet you will be just like him when you grow up: traveling around the world, visiting all the exciting places this globe has to offer.” He then gave me a last pat on the shoulder and continued his way inside our house. His vision of me had sounded very exciting at the time, but as I grew older I realized that I would never become like that. I would never see all those exciting places, because of one simple reason: I hated traveling. I was always the one asking, “Are we there yet?” on family trips and the first to run back to the safety and comfort of our house upon returning from one of these trips.
    I was awakened from my thoughts by a man approaching me with swift, firm steps. The man wore a black business suit, polished leather shoes, and the kind of hat that you would have expected from a 1940’s detective. His face didn’t ring any bells, but I figured he was just another friend of a relative wanting to express his condolences. As he reached me, I put out my hand, and he shook it firmly.
    “Might you be Trevor Aimes?” he inquired in a very businesslike manner.
    “That is my name, yes,” I answered, likewise serious. “And what of it?”
    “I am the executive manager at WorldCon Airlines, and I--”
    “If this is a sales pitch, you have selected the most inappropriate place for it,” I quickly cut in.
    “No no no no no, nothing like that, Mr. Aimes,” he said hastily. “I was asked by Mr. Geoffrey Aimes--your uncle I believe--to relate to you the following message.” He then reached into his pocket and drew out an envelope. He opened the envelope briskly, took out the letter that was inside, and started to read it in a dry voice.
“Dear Trevor,
    "As you might already know, I am dead. It is customary for the person that has died to make certain arrangements prior to death, concerning his wealth and property. As I am a slave to custom, I have made these arrangements. I once recall saying to you that you would become like your grandfather and that you would travel to many exciting places. To my great disappointment, no such thing has happened. Therefore I have to take certain steps to make that happen. The person standing before you is Gerhardt Grayson, with whom I have made the following agreement: In return for all my years as a customer of their airline and my generous donation to their company, he has agreed to grant you a lifetime of free flights with their airline. I sincerely hope that you will take full advantage of this arrangement and become the man that I once expected you to become.
    Best Regards,
    Your Uncle Geoffrey Aimes.”
    He then folded the paper, placed it back into the envelope, and handed it to me. For a moment, I just stood there staring at the man until I realized that he probably expected an answer of some kind.
    “ Umm… thanks,” I finally was able to utter.
    ”You are welcome, Mr. Aimes. We look forward to your first flight.”
    “You're gonna have to wait for a loooong time,” I uttered under my breath.
    “What was that, Mr. Aimes?” he asked coolly.
    “Krhm... nothing, nothing at all.”
    “Very well, Mr. Aimes. I must be off. Goodbye, Mr. Aimes.”
    He turned around and walked away as swiftly as he had approached me, got into his car, and drove away. As I stood there, alone in the rain, all I could think of was, why? Why had he given me this “inheritance?" Sure, he had said that he wished me to become a traveler like my grandfather, but he must have known I hated traveling, especially flying. Well, it was a bit too late to argue now, him being dead and all. So all I could do was to forget about it and go home. I turned to face the still open grave one last time, tipped my hat and walked away.

 
    I drove through my quiet neighborhood, the rain patting the roof of my car. By the time I pulled into my driveway, I had all but forgotten about Reinhardt and his free flights. I had better things to occupy my thoughts.
    Once inside, I carelessly threw my jacket on the sofa, kicked my shoes from my feet, and rushed to the computer. I had left it on, so it didn’t take me long to find my way to the wonderful world of LibriVox.  I quickly logged in and was once again ready to give my contribution to public domain audio books. I worked my way through the forums, checking every new post to see what interesting things had happened while I was away. New projects had emerged, both solos and collaborations, the heartwarming discussions were still going strong, and I even managed to find new tips on recording.
    After replying to the most interesting discussions, I proceeded to check the new projects. Most of them were works unknown to me, but one of them really got my attention. I didn’t know that one either, but something in the title tickled my imagination. It read The Mystery. The title itself wasn’t very informative, but that was just the thing that got me interested.
    I loved mystery stories, and this title left me wondering what the mystery was about. You would have expected it to be The Mystery of the Lake, or The Mystery at the Vicarage, but no, this was just The Mystery. The project didn’t seem to have any recordings as of yet, only the introduction and a link to a Project Gutenberg text. I decided not to read the Gutenberg text yet, since it would be much more fun to listen to it being read by the soloist.
    I made a mental note to check back on this project later on, and after replying to the project thread about my great anticipation, I proceeded to check the status of the projects I was involved in. As I did this, I completely lost track of time. The hours just seemed to fly away, and before I even knew it, it was dark outside. I probably would have just sat there till morning, if my stomach hadn't made its presence known by loud rumbling.
    As I stood up, I noticed that my cell phone was flashing. I had turned it silent during my LibriVoxing, so it wouldn’t make unnecessary background noise to my recordings. I picked it up and answered.
    “Oh hi, Trevor,” came the sound of my sister from the speaker. “I’ve been trying to call you all night. How was the funeral?”
    “Hi, sis. Well, the funeral was what you would expect from a funeral. Grim, dull, and of course it was raining. Though one strange thing happened.”
    “Ooh, tell me more!”  she said in exaggerated excitement.
    “Well, I was approached by this airline executive, who informed me that Geoffrey’s last wish had been that I could fly with them for free,” I explained. She was silent for a moment, and then she burst out laughing.
    “What’s so funny?” I asked, almost annoyed.
    “Well, don’t you appreciate the irony, since you aren’t exactly the traveling man are you?”
    “Well, I most certainly am not, you got that right. But I still can’t see the funny side of this.”
    “Don’t be so serious, Trevor! At least he left you something. I didn’t get as much as a postcard.”
    “I would have been happy with just that, a postcard. By the way how are the kids?” My subject-changing plan worked perfectly, as she started to fill me in on all the things kids at that age normally do. I listened, and answered with the required "Mmmhm," when appropriate, and finally, as we hung up, I had again forgotten about my encounter with the airline executive.
    The rumbling of my stomach had reached such proportions that it might cause miniature earthquakes soon. I walked to the kitchen and made some bread, my mind back at LibriVox again.
    Somehow I just couldn’t get The Mystery out of my mind. I kept thinking what it would be about, and then it hit me that I hadn’t checked the name of the reader for the project. If it were someone I knew, I could maybe ask for a hint about the nature of this “Mystery.” I decided to check it first thing in the morning.
    Now, however, I would go to bed. Some other night, I might have even checked it right away, but the funeral had left me tired. I made my way to my bedroom, turned off the lights and fell into the warmth of my bed.


[1,701 words]

Chapter 02 (written by Anita Roy Dobbs)

    It poured.
    Rivulets tugged at funeral ribbons until the bows were undone. I remember wondering if the grave would overflow when the casket was lowered -- surely it was too heavy to float. I might suggest reeds at the corners to channel the water out. It fit, didn't it? Hadn't Uncle Geoffrey written an academic paper on papyrus -- I mean, about papyrus? Papyrus isn't hollow is it? But papyrus grows in water, and reeds grow in water. The rivulets ran to ponds. Reeds sprouted up among the mourners. Those would do.
    I looked into the faces, the dearly beloved -- no, no, what do they say at funerals? Suddenly my wedding veil slipped, streaming, into my eyes. I couldn't see through the black lace, but the bouquet, the wreath, was so heavy with water that if I let go with one hand to push the veil back . . . I shifted it to my left hip, freeing my right hand almost in time to lift the veil before Natalie pulled the whole thing off, releasing every pin in my hair. The waterlogged bouquet-wreath was now Natalie's sopping wet diaper. Stephen saw her slipping and reached for her. I glimpsed him tucking her into the new crib we were going to order. Bed time.
    I turned back just as Trevor handed me his umbrella so that he could take the suitcase someone was holding out to him -- the pilot -- who asked, "Where's your up?" Was he asking me, or Trevor? The umbrella closed as I took it, and the rain stopped. A shaft of sunlight fell on the pilot's hat, spotlighting an emblem, thunderbird wings on a mint green globe, and I filled with envy.
    "Do you have another pair of wings?" I tried to ask him, but my voice was too faint; he didn't hear. I reached for the wings, but the umbrella hooked my wrist, and I couldn't lift my hand to the thunderbird.
    Thunder rolled and a voice rumbled, "As you might . . ." Turning from Trevor and the pilot, I saw a final wreath tossed onto the fresh mound. The reeds were swaying, and the ponds were rippling and sinking into the earth.
    ". . . already know, . . ." Heaped flowers trembled and slid as the dearly gathered turned for home, leaving me alone at the booming graveside. ". . . I am dead."
    Uncle Geoffrey clutched my shoulders, pressing me into the giving earth. "I am dead." I could feel his words vibrating the earth, choking in my throat. No! I thought, shutting my eyes to banish the shadow. Wait at least until--
    "Tracey!" I struggled to open my eyes to the new voice.
    --Natalie grows up.
    "Tracey!" Stephen's voice pulled me from the earth. Stephen! His eyes alarmed me.
    "What is it?" I managed to whisper.
    "What about Natalie?"
    "Till she grows up. Oh, Stephen!" I reached for him, but my shoulders were pinned -- my uncle held me still! Terror stricken, I twisted to see how deep I would go, and to see the hands that pulled me under. Mounds of-- I was confused by the bedclothes, but I recognized Stephen's hands, clear though dim in the gray of morning that slipped past our heavy curtains. He pulled me up and let me cling for a minute before he loosened my grip.
    "What were you dreaming?"
    "You just pulled me out of an early--" the expression on his face made the word stick in my throat, "--grave."
    "A what?"
    "You look so grave! You pulled me out of an early morning nightmare. Did I wake you up? I'm sorry." A low whistle from the tea kettle sent Stephen leaping from the bed and out the door. In a minute he returned with two cups.
    "Better? Sorry about that. I had to stop that whistle before the kids--"
    "You're a wizard of speed and time," I crooned, gratefully.
    He smiled, but only a little. "I was going to make our tea, and I came in for your cup -- yeah, I know, draining board. Anyway, I tried not to wake you, but your eyes were open when I came in. Maybe the light disturbed you. I asked you where your cup was, and you said something about wings and then looked away. I said that you might be dreaming, but I was only joking, until I heard what you were saying -- or, trying to say. It didn't sound like a good dream, so I kind of shook you to wake you up, but it only made you close your eyes."
    "It was so strange!" I could still picture all of it, vividly. A big chunk of my mind had the dream rolling on "replay."
    "You said you were dead. And then you said Natalie has to grow up."
    "No, that was Uncle Geoffrey. He said, 'I am dead.' I dreamt I was at the funeral."
    "I told you that you should go." I glared at him. "I don't mean should go, I mean could go." But my glare shut that off. Dazed as I was, no "I-told-you-so" was going to slip past my sentinels. Stephen had managed to stay this side of meddling about my decision to miss the funeral. Perspective is my mantra: we have an infant and a 4-year-old; we have a finite travel budget; and for all my dutiful esteem of my distant Uncle Geoffrey, that's just what he was to me -- distant, far off. We were not close. I could live with myself if I missed the funeral, and Stephen's concern for my -- what? moral fiber? spiritual well-being? -- his concern was misplaced.
    We sipped our tea in silence for a few minutes and then put down our cups to take advantage of the fact that, astonishingly, both of the children were still asleep. Lord, I love these lullaby rains.

    Images from the dream haunted me through the morning. My first realization was that the dream hadn't been scary until Stephen had started shaking me. Up to that point, it had been just bizarre and even fun. It put the fun in funeral. Hmm, I needed to get out more.
    Once it was clear to me that the terror was not some supernatural warning about imminent danger to me or my family, just a simple, reasonable response to being shaken in my sleep, I was over that bit. I was pretty sure I was over that bit.    
    But other bits buzzed like fat flies begging me to swat them. Where did that idea come from about an academic paper on, I mean about, papyrus? Okay, stupid question. I mean, if I let the bouquet that became Natalie pass without a blink, why get stuck on papyrus?
    The whole morning long, whenever my mind could wander, it wondered about one or another of the dream elements, puzzling with the eagerness of an underfed mystery fan. Through the feedings and the readings and the errands and the caring, little revelation followed after little revelation. And then I was left with a handful that refused resolution but persisted in whining for attention. Tough. If the pests couldn't make do with my spare moments, they'd have to wait till the children napped.
    Finally, my four-year-old gave the signal.
    "'Teen time, Mama." His intonation is just like Stephen's "Tea time, honey."
    Michael has an uncanny sense for when Natalie needs her rest. So I fetched Natalie's bottled water (Michael's joke, not mine) and Michael's tippy-cup juice, and I switched on the "story sayer" (again, Michael's term).
    Michael and I have always enjoyed stories together, from our earliest pantomimes to our latest impromptu musicals -- he's a great stand-up lyricist, and I'm . . . improving; give me time. In addition to our own masterpieces, we're voracious fans of free resources, from the library to the Internet. We're fondest of audiobooks, which eventually meant that I discovered the expanding LibriVox catalog of absolutely free audio files. Michael's favorite for the past month: The Velveteen Rabbit. And now it was 'Teen time.
    "Which reading today, children?" We had downloaded the solo and the duet versions from LibriVox.
    Michael called for the duet, the usual choice. We all adored the young girl's voice for the rabbit. Whenever Michael called for the solo (the reader has a particularly soothing voice), it was often my first cue that Natalie's high energy was about to turn fussy and that I should check her temperature -- or Michael's.
    For nap time, they always wanted the story-sayer reading, and in the second week, Michael held the book himself and pointed the pictures out to Natalie. After he'd heard the story dozens of times, he and Natalie initiated their own story tradition. Every few days or so, at a non-nap time, Michael would pull the book from its shelf, and Natalie would curl up beside him on the couch or the nap mattress and suck her thumb, and he would turn the pages to her favorite illustrations and quote snippets of narration that went with them. From memory. Michael speaks Natalese, by the way: if she lifts her hand towards him, he repeats the passage -- six times appears to be his limit, not hers. If she turns away for an instant, he moves to the next favorite illustration.
    The first time I saw this happen, I sat as still as I possibly could, not even moving to wipe my tears until Michael sprang up, refreshed, and wandered to new play. Stephen understood -- he's so beautiful. But try explaining such a treasured moment to your single brother. Mr. T-for-Teaser was merciless -- just because I cried a little over the phone when I was telling him about it; I'm not an over-sentimental cry-baby, I was just exhausted from Natalie's ear infection the night before. Finally, in self-defense, I changed the subject, asking the brat why he hadn't posted a new chapter of Adam Bede for the past 6 weeks. That hit a nerve, apparently, because he finished the last 200 pages by the end of that month.
    T-for-Time-on-his-hands can do that. Wish I could. Michael and I had recorded one Aesop's fable together -- he was the voice of the baby elephant. And we had great, grandiose plans for more projects, but one day chased the next away before we could catch our breath, and the projects were still plans.
    That's all I ever have time for, spinning great plans. Current favorite: Michael and I -- and Natalie, soon -- make illustrations of his favorite Aesop's fables. Upload the pictures into the public domain so that folks just like Michael can share pictures with folks just like Natalie while listening to their favorite fables. They're doing it with those gorgeous CD covers -- why not these select-your-own storybooks for fables? Natural outcome: world becomes inspired, and suddenly Michael can select from a hundred public domain illustrations. Soon, everyone in the world illustrates or reads or listens or looks. Peace prevails. Michael and I accept the Nobel on his 14th birthday -- that's enough time, isn't it?

    I'd been drifting off. The children were in their angel repose. Though I've tried a hundred times, I've only succeeded twice in nearly capturing their sleeping beauty in sketches. The urge to pull out the sketchpads came over me, but I resisted it, for the thousandth time. Something else was on my mind.
    A quiet puzzle spoke up for the first time. Side-swiped me as I was admiring Michael's profile. Why did Uncle Geoffrey want Trevor to be like our Grandpa Trevor? I'd grown up knowing that he wanted it, and I'd accepted it the way kids accept most things: it's the way things are. But giving it one moment of adult scrutiny, I realized it was about as bizarre as a bouquet turning into Natalie. No -- more bizarre. If the bouquet symbolized marrying Stephen, then Natalie came out of our marriage, so I was comfortable with the dream logic.
    It wouldn't puzzle me if he wanted Trevor to be like his own father, our Dad's father, G.T. Aimes. But Grandpa Trevor was my Mom's father, Trevor Myssous. That was strange, right? I should get Stephen's opinion. I hadn't discussed any of the latest news with Stephen yet -- none of the details from my conversation with Trevor last night, including the "inheritance" and Uncle Geoffrey's long fixation on Grandpa Trevor. I vowed to get Stephen's opinion on everything. Good. I could file this one away and tackle it later.
    I took inventory of the other nagging discoveries or puzzles stirred up in the dream.  First, I realized that this uncle, whose thrall had evaporated for me in my adolescence, was now possibly even more enthralling and mysterious than when Trevor and I were kids spinning tall tales about him. Who was he? Did I know a single, practical thing about him? I knew a few useless things -- his long coats, his black cars, his rumbling voice and unexplained fixation on travel. Wouldn't it be wild if he had written about papyrus? Or hey, on papyrus, why not? Okay, overnight fascination with mysterious uncle. Re-fascination. Check.
    Puzzle -- or discovery? -- number two: something felt wrong. Something in my dream-prodded mind was stuck on my uncle's letter. Specifically, stuck on that phrase, "I am dead." I'd laughed when T. read it. Had I misunderstood him? I must have. No one writes a letter, "Dear Trevor, I am dead." Right? Unless they're hiding some meaning in it. You might write, "I'm as good as dead," if you know someone's going to kill you. If you know you're dying you say, "I am dying." Or -- or! They could be hiding some meaning by it, like a magic trick -- watch this hand, watch this hand, don't watch that hand. "I am dead. Why would you think I'm alive? Nope, nope, I am dead." Okay, enough. I was beginning to tire of my spin-out speculation on a phrase that my reasonable streak said was simply my own misunderstanding. I would ask Trevor to read it again.
    And third, fourth, and fifth, if not more, I was royally ticked off that there hadn't been two sets of wings in the inheritance. It surprised me how ticked off I was. I wasn't mean-spirited ticked off, I was cosmically ticked off, wail-pointlessly-to-the-universe ticked off. If there had to be only one set of wings, how fiercely unfair was it that Mr. Trevor Homebody Aimes would get wings instead of me? My wanderlust had been legendary (hadn't it?) till motherhood anchored me. And lately, that wanderlust had been less and less mollified by the virtual travel of my Internet activities.
    Great. Thanks for all the revelations, dream. Been nice chatting with you.

    In a mild funk, I flipped open the laptop and slipped into the forums. I was impatient for The Reluctant Dragon. Whoa! I was surprised to discover it had been completed two weeks earlier! My elation at being able to download it was nearly offset by my dismay over the speed of time, racing through my fingers. Elation began to win as I anticipated Michael's enjoyment. When he woke from his nap in about 40 minutes, maybe we'd play with blocks and listen to it while Natalie finished her nap. Blocks, or maybe it was time to start a series of dragon drawings! 56 minutes long. I was so curious to see what he'd think. He wouldn't understand everything, but he'd love it, I was sure. Natalie would never settle for the book's little line drawings. We'd have to illustrate it for her. But wait -- dragons for an infant? I should go post again in the chorus of folks chanting for more recordings of public domain picture books.
    After 20 too-short minutes of reading and posting on the forum, and especially after listening to the homey, hilarious Community podcast, my funk was forgotten. Typically, I would now bustle about quietly in the last half of Michael's nap, but today I was uncharacteristically sedentary. Aftermath of the lullaby rains? Anyway, I continued wandering through the forums till I laughed at one of Trevor's posts and decided to check out the Trevor trail. What had the boy been up to recently at LibriVox? I clicked his profile button and then the "View all posts by T" link.
    Good heavens! His first post after the funeral had been at 4:30 pm his time, and his last that night was 11:20. 29 posts, 7 hours online, the longest interval between posts was 40 minutes. Ah, that's when we'd been talking. Didn't he even eat dinner? And he was back in the forums at 7 the next morning.
    Despite my grandiose ideas, my time on the forums was finite. Trevor's was infinite. T had joined the forums two months after I told him about LibriVox, and when he'd been there two months to my six months, he'd written nearly 1000 posts to my 300 -- he wrote ten posts to my one, and that was after a slow start. It had taken at least two weeks for addiction to set in. My twin, the audiobook addict. No, not audiobooks exactly -- they were at the heart of everything there, but it was the assortment of people drawn to those books that had addicted him. If it were audiobook addiction, he'd spend those 7-hour stints making his recordings instead of upping his post count. Or he'd record an hour or two a night and lead a normal life. Or he'd travel the world with his blessed free airfare.
    When he hit 1500 posts the next month, they rushed to make him a moderator. They asked us both on the same day, but I'm sure that asking me was some kind of, you know, protocol of politeness; special consideration for T's twin. It was sweet. Of course I said no. Of course he said yes. We made the right choices. If he would stop taunting me with talk about the "bat cave" where the MCs, the meta-cool-ordinators, oversee and overhaul it all, I could live with my right decision.
    What was up with me, I wondered? "Where's my up?" I said aloud, and Michael stirred. I love Stephen and Michael and Natalie more than I know how, and I would never trade places with Trevor. God, no. I guess I just wish I could have both lives.
    "Okay, what has the T-for-Twin been up to?" Yes, I would definitely call him that evening, when the children were asleep. I had questions for the boy.
    I looked at the list of his morning posts. A new title caught my eye: The Mystery.
    "I'll have to investigate that!"


[3,152 words]

Chapter 03 (written by David Barnes)

    Trevor settles in front of his computer, a bowl of breakfast cereal in one hand, and a cup of coffee on the desk in front of him, hoping the latter will help open his eyes and brain.  The word WorldCon is still rattling in his head from the day before, unblunted by sleep, signifying nothing, insinuating much.  Like a long-forgotten name, or the snippet of a song that refuses to be recognized, it sits across from him, elbows on knees, and stares intently at him.  It waits for him to meet its gaze.  It knows he will. 

    He runs his hand across his face, rubs his palm across his eyes in a circular motion, animal-like, shakes his head and peers at the screen. He does worry sometimes about the hours he spends staring at the computer, but over recent weeks, this has become his usual way of starting the day.  A quick trawl through the LibriVox forums, looking out for progress on any of the projects he’s working on; it can easily become a two-hour breakfast, depending on what’s happened in the time he’s been asleep. 

    Today, though, he has a specific aim in mind. He goes straight to the forum, and to the project thread for The Mystery.  An audio file has been uploaded overnight.  Just what he was hoping for.  He clicks the link to download the file, and waits.

    As he watches the progress bar in the download window, his thoughts slow, and inevitably descend.  It’s a well worn path, but he stops short before reaching the bottom.  Before reaching Rebecca.  Cambridge, Rebecca, and the flight that did not land.

    Something is scratching at the very edge of his brain, and he can’t grasp what it is.  There’s a connection somewhere, a cause, a logical pattern, just waiting to be noticed.  It’s small enough to hide; vague, fuzzy, but undeniably there. A small, furry animal.  A chinchilla.  The chinchilla of suspicion.

    Good word, he thinks.  A scintilla of a chinchilla of suspicion.  Or is it curiosity?  Oh, what the heck.  He has named it, and that’s what counts.  Now it stops worrying him, for the time being at least.  He can un-crease his forehead, un-slit his eyes, and, armed with his chinchilla, can once again face the world.

    Download complete.

    His music application opens, and the Mystery file begins to play.

    It’s not a reader he’s heard before.  It’s a male voice, quite deep and rich, heavily accented, certainly not a native English speaker, but he can’t place it exactly. Possibly Middle Eastern, or some variety of Mediterranean. There are so many languages and accents he’s never heard, and he’s far from being a linguist anyway, that he knows it’s hopeless to try and pinpoint it.  But he listens intently so as to fix it in his memory for future reference. 

    After the usual LibriVox disclaimer, dedicating the recording to the public domain, the reader gives the title of the piece: “The Mystery: Inspired by the Exploits of T.M.”  And that’s it.  No author.  No date.  No reader name. 

    Does Trevor notice the initials in the subtitle, and that they match his grandfather’s?  If so, he makes no outward sign.  He is still, his eyes closed, his head tilted slightly forward.  The casual observer would think he was either completely absorbed in the recording, or fast asleep.
    The recording lasts ten minutes.  As it ends, Trevor raises his head, opens his eyes, takes off his earphones, and wipes a tear from his cheek.


    Pulling the door closed behind him, he turns up the street towards the park, the railway station and the bustle of the main street.

    He needs air.  He needs to feel the ground beneath his feet, to steady his legs.  To know he is still whole and solid.  To see a live human face, to crowd out the memories of the dead.  To calm his mind and still the cacophony of questions, the hum of answers vying for his attention. 

    There’s no better place than a busy city street at midday to clear the mind of elevated thoughts.


    He’d seen the travel agent’s before, but not paid it any attention.  Little of the real world penetrated the thick carapace of his thoughts, and that little was certainly not the local discount travel shop.  He couldn’t imagine what sort of business a place like that could do.  A window full of posters for cheap weekend breaks in the Mediterranean or Eastern Europe, but little sign of activity inside. 

    His hand was on the door even before he noticed, and it gave little enough resistance to his unconscious push.  His palm felt the ridges on the aluminium push-plate as they pressed lines into his flesh, and his face the warm air that greeted him.  In his mind, the two were conflated; Trevor walked through the open door, and a mini-Trevor squeezed through the metal itself to take refuge inside the handle, unseen, unchallenged, unexpected. 

    The door closes, and suddenly there is perfect quiet, as if the street noise has been sucked out of the air itself.  In its place, piped birdsong and the lapping of waves.  Then hula music on a steel guitar.  “You are joking”, he sighs inwardly, and his shoulders slump another inch floorwards.  

    “Good afternoon, sir.” 

    Vapid.  Chirpy.  The sort of voice that clicks the tip of its tongue against its teeth, as if there isn’t enough sibilance there already.

    “Hmm? Oh, I…. I didn’t….”

    Slow to act but never slow to judge, he’s already decided that she lacks gravitas and authority.  Her uniform, hairstyle and makeup could have been supplied free with the desk, so well do they match the office décor.  Not a hint of personality is evident.  Her smile is supported more by lip-gloss than humour.  She appears to have been in the process of filing her nails when he came in, and brandishes the metal file in the air above the desk, as if it were somehow still pertinent to the conversation.

    “I’m thinking of taking a holiday.  Something cultural. A bit of history.  Perhaps somewhere with literary significance.  You know the sort of thing.”

    “With a beach at all, sir?”

    “No no, definitely no beach.  Well, there could be a beach, but I don’t, you know….  Internet connection would be useful, though.”

    “Is it a family holiday at all, sir?”

    “No, not a family holiday.  No.”

    “On your own then, sir?”

    “Well…”

    “Our LibriTours range is very popular with holidaymakers of a certain age, sir?”

    “Your what?” He’s too taken aback by the word LibriTours to react to the slur on his age.  Surely there can’t be a connection to LibriVox.  That’d be too bizarre for words.  And commercial to boot.  Plus, surely he’d have been offered an administrator’s discount, at least!

    “LibriTours, sir?  Here’s a brochure.  Guided cultural tours, all over the world.  Let’s see…. There’s ‘Paris Perambulations,’ one of our best-sellers, where you can see the Arc of Triomphe as featured in Joan of Arc the film.  There’s the Eiffel Tower, but I don’t know what book that one’s from.  Unless they made a book out of Towering Inferno… The River Seine as featured in Seines and Sensibility by Jane Austen Powers.  And that church from the Da Vinci Code, that’s there too. We combine Paris with London in our ‘A Trail of Two Cities’ package, but I think you need more than one day if you’re thinking of that one at all, sir?”

    “Right.  I’ll bear that in mind.”

    “And, let’s see…. You can do ‘The Great Walk of China’, that starts on page 8 and goes through to page 47, look, but that’s a bit more, you know, for the dedicated traveller.”

    The nail file describes a circle in the air above the brochure, possibly intending to indicate that you’d be walking round China rather than through it.

    “This is a new one: ‘The Marmalade March.’  That’s in Darkest Peru, apparently.  I wonder why…”

    “Paddington, maybe?”

    “Oooh I don’t know… Let’s see… No, it says Heathrow.  Wednesday and Saturday departures.”

    “How about the ancient seats of civilisation?  What do you have there?”

    A blank look is what you have there.

    “Hmm?”

    “Greece.  Rome.  Egypt.  Mesopotamia.”

    “Well, there’s ‘Papyrus Perigrinations’, also called ‘Nearly Niley,’ which I think might be in Egypt?”

    “Yes, I think it probably is.  I’d be quite interested in that one.  I have my own plane ticket, though, so I could join the group in Cairo, if that’s alright.

    “And one other thing.  Could I take my chinchilla?”

    The door closes behind Trevor, leaving him alone on the pavement outside, bewildered by the sudden noise of traffic on the high street.  Inside, in the relative silence of a Hawaiian beach, the lip-gloss is at last assisted by a smile.  But it is a smile of satisfaction rather than humour.  Lacquered nails tap on the desktop, then sweep the ridiculous brochure into the waste paper basket.  The nail file is again raised into the air above the desk, but now turned, and its plastic handle pulled apart to reveal a USB plug.   As that is inserted into the port of the desktop computer, a message on the screen shows that an audio file is being transferred from the device.  Trevor’s voice then issues from the computer’s speaker: “Could I take my chinchilla?”. 

    “Got him!”


[1,562 words]

Chapter 04 (written by Heather Barnett)

“You’re going where?” Tracey shrieked into the phone.

“Egypt, sis.”  The dry tone of Trevor’s voice came clearly through the phone connection.

Tracey dropped Natalie’s special naptime teddy bear onto the couch.  “I know where Egypt is, T,” she said sarcastically.  “I’m just reeling at the idea of you actually wanting to go there.”

Egypt.  Papyrus.  The two connected thoughts flitted into her head and she almost dropped the phone.

“Tracey?  Tracey, are you there?”

Tracey shook her head, trying to clear the fog away.  “Um… I’m here.  Natalie, honey, I’ll put you down in a minute.”  The baby’s chubby hands were grabbing for her teddy bear. 

“Trevor, I’m sorry, I’m not able to process this right now.  Can I call you back?”

She didn’t listen for her brother’s reply. She hung up the phone and put Natalie down for her nap, slowly letting the idea of Trevor’s trip settle onto her.  Trevor was going to Egypt.

* * *

The woman stepped off the shuttle bus and onto the busy streets of London.  It was good to be back, she thought, taking a moment to look around at the city panorama.  People were everywhere: natives and tourists alike moving as one massive, bustling cog work.  To the woman, the sight was like a single taste of a favorite sweet: it filled her with sensations of pleasure and left her wanting more.

Not that living in the U.S. was bad.  Actually, she loved everything about living there, just as much as she loved her work.  But, London?  London was home.

She frowned.  She was not back here for good.  She had a job; something that needed to be done.  She pulled out a paper from her suit coat pocket and looked at it for a moment, then slipped it back into her pocket.

She put up a hand to hail a taxi.  When the taxi arrived, she gave the driver directions and sat back into her seat.  Her posture was relaxed, but her right hand twitched a little with nervous energy.  Was she sure she could do this?

I have to do this, she commanded herself sternly.

She took in a few deep breaths and looked out the window, this time not seeing any of the crowds of people.

She pulled out a package of biscuits that they’d given her on the plane and slowly chewed on one, thinking about several of the women she knew in the U.S. and their obsession with diets, currently “low carb, low protein, and/or low saturated fat.”  “Low everything,” she muttered to herself. She, herself, was currently on a low sugar regimen, but that was due to her recently diagnosed diabetes.  “Do you have a family history of diabetes?” her doctor had asked.  “This type of diabetes often runs in families.” 

Lots of things run in families, she thought, swallowing hard at the notion.

“Here you are, then,” announced the taxi driver, parking the vehicle on the left side of the street.

She paid her fare and then entered the building, a high-rise hotel, unlike the one- or two-story hotels and motels in the small U.S. town where she’d been living for the last two years.

The interior of the hotel was run-down: red wallpaper was peeling on one of the walls, revealing the white paint of previous years.  She walked across the threadbare carpet to the check-in desk.  The heavy-set woman there was talking on the telephone and shot her new customer an annoyed look.  She lowered her voice and said something about seeing someone tonight in honeyed tones that could only mean she was talking to a significant other.

“How can I help you?”  She finally asked, tone still annoyed, as she set down the telephone.

The woman gave her name and informed her she was checking in.  The hotel clerk nodded curtly and handed her a check-in sheet.

Her room was small and smelled of cigarette smoke.  She frowned and settled her suitcase onto the rickety luggage rack.

She set her laptop onto the room’s small desk, turned the computer on, and checked for email messages.  Nothing.  She turned on her mobile phone and made a similar check.  Still nothing.  Her hands twitched nervously. She flicked on the television, then flicked it back off. She considered reading a book or magazine.  No.  She couldn’t concentrate on reading anything.

A long soak in the bath?  Blissful thought!

Not enough time, she thought reluctantly.  With a sigh, she decided on a shower.

Forty minutes later, she was clean and refreshed.  At least, as refreshed as possible.  The shower had been calming, though, she decided.  Her hands were able to stay still now.

She turned her laptop back on and almost immediately an instant message popped up.

Shanna232: You’re online!  I’ve been looking for you frantically! 

UCgirl: Sorry, I had an emergency come up. 

Shanna232: A family emergency? 

UCgirl: Something like that. 

Shanna232: Is everything okay?  Did someone die? 

UCgirl: No, nothing like that.  I... just had to come home for a few days to take care of something. 

Shanna232: Home?  So you’re in England? 

UCgirl: Yes, England. 

Shanna232: Are you going to tell me what’s happened?  Dr. Grant told me that he had something come up and needed you to fill in for him.  He says he told you, but you didn’t show.  So, I’d assume your emergency was pretty major. 

[No reply.] 

Shanna232: Are you there?  I’m sorry if I asked something you don’t want to answer.  I just want you to know I’m here for you.  Friends need to be there for each other. 

UCgirl: It’s okay, Shanna.  I just… can’t talk about it at the moment.  Did everything work out with Dr. Grant? 

Shanna232: Yeah, Gary covered for you.  You owe him big time. :) 

UCgirl: I’ll have to send him a thank-you card. 

Shanna232: Ha, ha.  You should actually say “yes” to him next time he asks you out.  The guy worships you, you know. 

UCgirl: Shanna… 

Shanna232: He’s a great guy!  I know you like him, so why won’t you date him? 

UCgirl: I… Shanna, I… 

Shanna232: I know, I know: you’re not ready to date anyone, or to even get close to someone. 

UCgirl: There are… things… I haven’t told you.  I wouldn’t want Gary to get hurt. 

Shanna232: I’m here for you when you need to talk. 

UCgirl: I know that. 

Shanna232: Good. 

UCgirl: I… Shanna, I need to go now. 

Shanna232: Stay in touch, okay? 

UCgirl: I’ll try. 

UCgirl has logged off. 

She stared at the computer screen for a minute; something felt lodged in her throat.

She stood up briskly.  She had to be doing something.  She closed her laptop.  After putting it into her briefcase, she ensured that nothing of importance was left in her luggage and then left her room.

The dining room was characteristically small.  It was late afternoon, so only one other diner was in the room.  Though the windows were miniscule, bright afternoon sunlight filled the room.

She sat in a shadowed corner and ordered a late lunch.  It was hours since she’d eaten the airplane breakfast and her stomach was begging for food.

A turkey sandwich, bowl of fruit, and glass of tap water were served to her by a skinny Indian girl with crooked teeth, who chattered non-stop.  The woman looked away, wishing the girl would leave.  She finally did, her face showing disappointment, evidently deciding that this unresponsive patron would not tip big.

She set up her laptop and opened up the file she was working on.  She had been trying to think of something for her research for the last few days, but she just couldn’t put her finger on it.  What was it?

A flash of memory hit her: she was huddled in a closet and her mother was screaming at her father outside.  The child she had been covered her ears, but she couldn’t drown out the sound.

Not that!  She shivered.  She didn’t want to remember that.

She tried to steady her breathing, letting the memory dissipate.

A minute later, the crooked-teeth waitress came over to her table.  She seemed reluctant to talk now, but finally she said, “There’s a gentleman that wants to know if he can join you?”

She straightened in her seat, looking at the entryway to the dining room.  A tall man was there, his back facing her.  He was dressed in a grey suit, his brown hair cut short.

She nodded.  “Tell him to come right over,” she said.  The waitress picked up her empty fruit bowl, then walked over to the man.  They conversed for a moment and then the man turned and came toward her.  He was clean-shaven, perhaps in his late thirties.  He looked average in every way, except that as he approached, she saw that his dark brown eyes were sharp and that they were gauging her.

“Ms. Brown?” he queried.  His accent was slight, but she thought it was either American or Canadian.

“Yes,” she answered quietly, not wanting her voice to carry.

“I’m Mr. Grey.  I believe we have friends in common?”

She hesitated, then nodded.  “You have something for me?”

He sat down.  “In a minute,” he said, waving a hand dismissively.

Her jaw clenched.  “I’m here to get the packet,” she reminded him tersely.  “Nothing more, nothing less.”

A dark eyebrow lifted.  “Marks didn’t say you were so… feisty.”

Her eyes narrowed.  “I don’t work for you, or Mr. Marks,” she pronounced crisply, “and I’d ask you to kindly remember that.”

“Ah, but you do work for us,” he said, his eyes darkening.  “Need I remind you of the agreement you, ahem, came to with Mr. Marks eleven months ago?”

Her breath caught and she stared at his impassive face.  The corners of his mouth lifted in a mocking smile.  Her heart was racing.  Finally, she managed to say, “Fine, then. How can I help you?”

He pushed a full manila envelope toward her.  “There now, was it so hard to ask nicely?”

She gave him a dirty look and then opened the envelope with shaking hands.  Inside were the papers she expected: pages and pages of typewritten information.  She breathed hard.  This was what she wanted.  This was what she had come for.

“Is it all there?” she asked.

“All except one little page,” Mr. Grey answered lightly.

“What?”  Her head snapped up.

“You’ll get the page, I promise,” he said.  The mocking smile was back.  “All you have to do is one painless job for us.”

“What job?”

He pulled out a small envelope from his inside jacket pocket and handed the envelope to her.  Their hands touched and she recoiled.  A hint of a smile was on his face.  She ignored that and opened the envelope.  Several items fell out.  She picked up one of them and stared.  It was a first-class ticket to Egypt.

 

 

[1,821 words]

Chapter 05 (written by Michael Sirois)

Gerhardt Grayson watched the stunningly attractive woman as she walked away from the table, back to her room to pack for the trip to Cairo. 

“Interesting”, he said to the microphone hidden in his lapel pin.  “Ms. Brown is a blonde.  Her first name is Hazel and she has blue eyes.  I have brown hair, but she knows me as Mr. Grey.  If someone were to put that in a book it would be completely unbelievable.”  He straightened suddenly, listening to the voice in his ear, then added, “Yes, sir.  Uh, I’ll make sure she does.”    

The skinny waitress returned and flashed him a smile that made him wonder if she knew just how wretched her teeth really were.  Well, you can’t have everything, he thought.  He smiled back and ordered a drink.  He needed to be here so he could tail Ms. Brown when she left for the airport in an hour.  His goose would be cooked if she didn’t arrive in Cairo before Trevor Aimes.

* * *

Hazel Brown returned to her room and set her already-packed suitcase by the door.  She sat on the bed and waited, knowing she had to make it appear as if she packed hurriedly in order to make the deadline.  She said to herself, sotto voce, “This is going so much better than I thought it would.”  She hoped she hadn’t put Gary in too much of a bind by leaving so suddenly.  He was such a sweet man.  She didn’t want to hurt him, but in her line of work appropriate cover was the most important element for success.

She pondered the items that Mr. Grey had given her.  Her ticket to Cairo, the photograph of Trevor Aimes, and the sealed envelope.  Trevor was a handsome man – dark curly hair, tall, obviously athletic when he was younger.  Of course, unbeknownst to Mr. Grey and Mr. Marks, she had seen her first photograph of Trevor months ago.  This was long before Mr. Marks – or Grouchy Marks, as he was known in the agency – thought he had blackmailed her into working for him. 

The envelope.  Her task was to deliver it to Trevor as if it had arrived for him in care of the LibriTours group, and then keep him occupied until she could convince him to visit the Egyptian Museum.  Trevor’s name was on the envelope, printed on a standard mailing label.  It had a slightly smeared but official-looking postmark on it.  Where was it from?  Did that say Paddington?  Hard to tell, something long, beginning with “Pa”.  The flap was glued down, and a large piece of tape was sealing the edge of the flap.  It shouldn’t be too difficult to get it open and reseal it.  But there’s not enough time now, she thought.  Maybe on the plane.

* * *

Trevor stepped off the WorldCon plane into surprisingly mild afternoon temperatures at the Cairo International Airport.  He removed his tweed sports coat and draped it over his arm as he walked toward Terminal 2’s baggage claim area.  The four-and-a half hour flight from London was not as terrible as he had expected.  The WorldCon airplanes were spacious, and the seats were comfortable, not at all like the short flights he sometimes had to take back and forth between England and Ireland or the Continent.  He could get used to this traveling thing. 

He hoped he had prepared for everything, but ran through a mental list just to be sure, mumbling aloud as he walked. “World-wide Foreign Travel Converter Kit.  Check.  Laptop.  Of course.  Bluetooth-enabled mobile phone.  Yes.  Enough clothes for a week or so.  Right.  Toiletries.  Extra underwear.  Extra socks.  Baseball cap.  Yes, yes, yes and yes.  Sunglasses.  Yes.”  The list went on and on.  The final item was the Chinchilla, which he had brought with him even if he wasn’t sure what it was yet.

He thought back to the moment in the travel agency when he had asked that insipid woman – cute though she might have been – if he could bring his chinchilla with him.  She actually took him seriously and began to list all sorts of rules and regulations for traveling with pets.  He tried to explain to her that the chinchilla was just a mental exercise, a thought process that he would have to endure until the truth that had been niggling at him had surfaced completely.   

At some point in his reverie he realized he had arrived at Baggage Claim and was staring at his suitcase passing by on the belt.  He grabbed for it.  Too late.  Hurrying ahead, he caught up to it and retrieved it.  Moments later, his suit bag arrived and he recovered it as well.  Looking around, he saw a sign pointing to the ground transportation.  He could catch a shuttle bus to the Cairo Marriot Palace hotel where the other tour members were staying.  He was supposed to contact someone named Hazel Brown there, and join the tour the next day.

* * *

Hazel spotted Trevor as soon as he arrived at the Baggage Claim, but kept her sign down until passengers started leaving the area.  Ah, he’s coming towards me now, she thought.  Look up, look up.  See the sign.  He walked right past her.  She skirted around some of the crowd and rushed forward, planting herself directly in his path.  When he was ten feet away, she held up the sign that read

LibriTours
Mr. Aimes

and spoke in a loud voice, looking left and right as if she didn’t know what he looked like, “Trevor Aimes?  Trevor Aimes?”

 

Trevor found himself face to face with a beautiful blonde woman, and was speechless for a second, lost in the deep blue of her eyes.  Finally he found his voice, “Uh, I’m Trevor Aimes.”

Dropping her sign from view, Hazel reached forward to shake his hand, and felt a slight tingle at the touch.  Recovering, she said, “Oh, hello, Mr. Aimes.  I’m so pleased to see you.  I’m Hazel Brown.  Welcome to Cairo.”

“Oh,” he said, smiling inwardly.  “Aren’t you supposed to be with the tour?”

“You’re the only one on the tour,” she replied, batting her eyelashes unconsciously.

“I am?  How can you afford that?”

“Well, we’re a young company, and we aim to please.  Can I give you a lift to the hotel?”

“Please.  Thank you.”

Hazel led Trevor to a black SUV waiting outside.  The windows were tinted so darkly that it was impossible to see inside, and the name LibriTours was stenciled on the side in a bold red, white and blue logo resembling the Union Jack.  A driver, clad in a crisp dark-blue uniform, replete with visored cap, emerged from inside the automobile and helped Trevor stow his bags before letting the two of them climb into the rear passenger compartment.

“The Cairo Marriott Palace, please,” Hazel told the driver.

Once they were underway, Hazel told Trevor that the actual tour would begin in the morning, but she would very much appreciate it if he would join her for dinner that evening.  He readily agreed, and they discussed a few of the places they would see over the next few days – she knowing full well that he would probably be gone long before the “tour” was over.  She almost regretted that she had to play the role assigned to her by Mr. Marks, but her superiors said it was necessary in order for her to maintain her cover.

Partway through the drive, Trevor asked her about the LibriTours name.  “Does it have anything to do with LibriVox, by any chance?”

“No, what’s LibriVox?” she replied, lying.

“LibriVox is a group of volunteers who create audiobooks out of works of literature, works which are in the public domain, that is.”

“Oh.  I listen to audiobooks quite a lot, when I have long distances to travel,” she said, not lying this time.  “Where do you get them?”

“On the Internet,” he answered, gladly adding the shameless plug, “available for free at librivox.org”.

“Mmmh,” she said, stretching the sound lazily.  “I’ll have to try them sometime.”

“Speaking of the Internet.  Will the hotel be able to provide me with a wireless connection?  I need to check my e-mail and some other things.”

“Of course they can.  No problem.  Oh, that reminds me.  I have a letter for you.  It arrived care of the tour company.”  And she handed the freshly resealed envelope to him.

“Thank you.  Hmm.  There’s no return address.  I wonder who could be writing me here.”  He looked at the postmark.  “It is British.  Pa . . . – Paisley?  No, that’s Scotland.  Oh, well.”  And he slipped it into his jacket pocket.

Hazel needed to get him to look at the contents of the envelope, but what could she say – “Oh, please, kind sir.  You would look so manly opening that envelope.  Please, just for me?”  She would just have to hope he opened it soon, although she really wanted to be there when he did.

* * *

At the hotel, the check-in – having been arranged through the tour company – went quite smoothly, and Trevor soon found himself in a very nice, large room, tastefully appointed in a modern design, with traditional Egyptian accents.  From his window he could see a large grassy area surrounded by shrubbery and palm trees.  Off to the left was a gigantic swimming pool, filled with crystal blue water.  It was so inviting he regretted not bringing a bathing suit, but he had several things to do before dinner.  Getting out his laptop, he made sure he had the appropriate power plugs attached, and logged onto the hotel’s wireless network. 

He opened a VPN connection and quickly checked his e-mail.  There were quite a few from LibriVox, and several from his sister, Tracey.  But first things first.  He opened his browser and clicked on the bookmark for LibriVox.  Entering the forum, he saw The Mystery was still listed among the new projects.  Opening the forum thread, he noticed that several people were asking what this was all about, and also saw that a new sound file had been posted.  He started it downloading, and noticed the file was arriving quite rapidly.  He checked his connection.

“54 Mbps.  Signal strength, Excellent.  Not bad at all.  Better than I have at home.”  Soon he was listening to the file. 

The LibriVox disclaimer titled the piece as before, “The Mystery: Inspired by the Exploits of T.M.” but this time added, “Part 2: Peregrinations”.  The same accented male voice continued with the story which had so moved Trevor the day before yesterday.  Day before yesterday?  Surely it was longer than that. 

Nearly eight minutes into the reading, the speaker came to the point of the piece, and it reminded him of the name of the tour he was on, the Papyrus Peregrinations Tour.

“The Lost Papyrus of the Knights of Malta” the reader said, in conclusion, “is probably a misnomer, since it was almost certainly written on paper instead.  The document has, however, undoubtedly been lost to the sands of time.  Only one quote, passed down from generation to generation through the network of the Maltese Knights, has survived.

Only with a Free Voice will the injustices of the Treaty of Paris be remedied.”

Trevor’s head was spinning.  “Free Voice?  LibriVox?  There’s that connection again.  The chinchilla is back on the job.  I can’t stay here; I have to follow this up.  Treaty of Paris?  Do I need to go to Paris?”

He opened Google, and did a few quick searches, finding out that the 1814 Treaty of Paris ceded Malta to the British Empire.  Apparently somebody resented that. 

At supper, Hazel, in a lovely blue dress that set off her eyes to devastating effect, began by telling Trevor how supper isn’t the biggest meal of the day in Egypt, that lunch is, and that many businesses close around 2:00 PM.  So when people go home to eat lunch, they are going home for the day.  Trevor interrupted her to tell her that – though he hated to – he would have to cancel the tour.  He needed to leave in the morning.

“Where are you going?” she asked, almost mournfully.

“To Malta, I think.  No.  Yes.  Yes, I’m sure – to Malta.”

Hazel thought about it.  She could try to keep him here, or she could follow the envelope.  If he had opened it and read it, he wouldn’t be leaving so soon.  She didn’t have time to call anyone else.  She had to make this decision on her own.

Looking Trevor straight in the eyes, she reached across the table and placed her hand on his.  “Take me with you,” she urged.

Trevor’s face became a kaleidoscope of emotions, happy then puzzled, followed by eighteen others.  Finally he said, “Uh, okay.  Why?”

[2,154 words]

Chapter 06 (written by Gesine)

She stood at a table in the café at MIA (Malta International Airport) from which both the escalators transporting travelers to Baggage Claim, and the doors which spewed them out into the Arrivals Hall, could be seen. She was sipping a double espresso and trying to alleviate the boredom with staring down the ‘undesirables’ among the men who were looking at her – couldn’t help but look at her – and flirting with the ones that were ‘passable.’ This was standard fare for her – it took less than two minutes to diminish the ‘undesirables’ to furtive looks, and another two to establish contact with the ones she’d string along for a bit.

She wondered idly how such things still tended to work along cultural, even national, divides. Maltese men, far from used to assertive women, and feeling guilty on account of their religion for looking at all, were the first to be subdued. British men were next – too hesitant, too reserved, too much in need of encouragement – though there was one executive type, obviously British, who was the most active proponent of the ‘passable’ group. A sprinkling of Italians, one was seriously cute. One American, grossly overweight but squeezed into a khaki kind of ‘Camel Adventure Tour’ outfit (all technical fibres, millions of pockets) on the very bottom end of her ‘undesirables’ but obviously not getting it. It was his fault that the first two minutes were needed.

She’d finished her espresso. The cute Italian had half-turned back to his female companion (girlfriend perhaps). Obviously some action was needed. She took up her empty cup and walked towards the counter, and around her, conversations stopped. She was very attractive – tall, slim but curvy, very curvy. Even features. But, like the Sundance Kid, she needed to move to be truly good, really to hit target. When she moved, she was magnetic, and she knew it. And knowing it made her even more so.

Her cell phone rang, and she picked it up and tapped it with a perfectly manicured finger.

“Yes?”

“Are you in place, M21?”

“Of course.”

“They’ve landed. They should be out soon. What about L344?”

“Standing by.”

“I don’t have to emphasize how important this is to us. Top itself has taken notice.”
   
She felt a surge – a surge of power – running through her, causing her briefly to tingle all over, hardening her nipples, and bringing a flush to her cheeks. She loved this sensation. Power. Sex was but a poor substitute for the purity of this experience. Sex – for her at least – had more animalistic qualities. She enjoyed it, of course, got elated by it, but it was on a different level. Power... power was at once more instinctive, and more intellectual. Feeding the human animal.

Top, the head of GLOBAL, was unknown to any but the eight Uppers. Since it could be a man or a woman (unlike other organizations, she sniffed mentally, hers was not sexist), Top was always referred to by ‘it.’

Just then, passengers were coming down the escalators.

“U3?” she said. “They are here.” She flipped her phone shut. She was ready, and she would not fail.


Trevor hauled his suitcase onto the trolley. Hazel's cell phone rang. She smiled apologetically, checked the number displayed. The agency. Why would they call her now? Something must have gone wrong.

“Hello,” she said tersely. Listened for a while. “But… yes. I see. Okay then. Bye.” She turned back to Trevor, who had just retrieved his suit bag. “I’m sorry, Trevor. The call I just got – I need to go to a meeting. I hope it won’t take long – do you think you could find your way to the hotel, and I’ll join you there when I’m done?”

“Oh… sure, I… but are you all right?” She looked so vulnerable.

“Yes. It’s…” She laughed, a quick, embarrassed laugh. “Well, it would seem that I’ve overstepped my mark. You know, by coming here. I told you, I was doing this on my own initiative. I thought if I could do a successful tour with you here and present them with a satisfied customer, they’d be impressed. But… well, they want to have a word.”

“I’m sorry. Anything I can do? I’ll call and tell them it was my idea.”

“No… no, that’s all right. Thank you, but… I need to do this myself. I’m sure it’ll be fine, but I need to talk to them.” She smiled bravely, and his heart went out to her.

“Okay. Shall I take your suitcase to the hotel?”

“Thanks, but someone’s going to meet me, with a car. I’ll just have to nip into the bathroom there. But please go ahead; there’s no point for you to wait. I’ll see you later. I have your cell phone number; I’ll call you as soon as I know more.”

Trevor nodded. “Good luck.”

He walked out into the Arrivals Hall, into the usual discomfort: faced by all the people waiting behind the barrier, all looking. He was searching for the Exit sign when his eye was caught on her. Just a glimpse; she had half-turned away and was stepping back from the barrier. There was something about her, though, and he let his gaze follow her. Not hard, as she was walking almost parallel to him. He lost sight of her behind a large family, and then she was there, at the end of the barrier. Their eyes met, and she smiled.

“You must be Trevor.”

Before he could reply, she had come forward and kissed his cheeks.

“It’s so nice to meet you. I knew it wouldn’t be hard to find you, I… oh, I am sorry. My name is Fulvia Rossi. I’m a friend of Tracey’s – she told me you were coming, and I offered to pick you up.” She smiled at him. A wide mouth, sensuous lips.

“That’s very nice of you,” he said lamely.

“Shall we? My car is just outside.”

She led the way, and he had more opportunity to observe her. Southern type – long, dark, straight hair. Italian, by the sound of her name, but fair-skinned. She was elegant – elegant, and slinky. The way she walked; the silk dress.

The car was one of the small open European sports cars. In understated dark green, and yet brimming with vivacity, it matched her perfectly. He stowed his luggage with difficulty then sank into the soft leather seat next to her. She slipped on a pair of sunglasses, and they moved off. Her skirt had hitched up in sitting down, showing long, tanned legs. When he looked up, he found her watching him with an amused expression.

“I don’t see how you can drive with your heels,” he said, shaking his head, relieved this explanation had come to him.

She laughed. “It’s a skill one develops. I don’t want to fuss with two pairs of shoes all the time.”

“So, how do you know Tracey?”

“We met a couple of years ago, when I was a guest lecturer at Cornell. I was only there for a semester, but Tracey and I became good friends, even though we’re from different fields – I’m an historian.”

This explained why Tracey hadn’t mentioned her; he was notoriously bored by all the stories of campus politics and staff maneuvering for better positions.

“What flavor of historian are you?”

She flashed him a smile. “The spicy type. European ruling houses: palace intrigues, love affairs, religious fervor, battles valiantly fought, that sort of thing. I teach at the University of Malta at the moment.”

“That sounds interesting.”

“It is. And I should be able to help you.”

“Sorry?”

“Tracey mentioned you were interested in the Knights of St John. The Knights of Malta.”

They raced through an ancient-looking stone gate that spanned the four lanes of traffic.

“Almost there. You’re staying at the Castille – it’s not as nice as the Phoenecia Hotel over there, but it has more character and is inside Valletta.”

Wheels screeched as they left a roundabout and rushed past some high bastions. Then they were out in the open, a sudden glimpse of the sea on the right, far below them. Another small roundabout, a palatial building with canons in front, and a moment later they were parked. She was already out of the car and opening the boot when he joined her, slightly dazed. He took his bags and looked around.

“This is Castille Square. The hotel is just there.” She nodded to an old, elegant corner building. “The baroque one opposite is the Auberge de Castille – one of the headquarters of the Knights, so to speak. It’s now a government ministry, like all remaining Auberges.”

She started walking off.

“Uhm, Fulvia… I think you can’t park here.”

She waved a hand. “Oh, nobody worries about that sort of thing here. Besides, I know someone on the Traffic Commission.” She waited for him to catch up. “Malta is tiny, and quite… incestuous. You can’t get anywhere here without knowing people. Everything works through connections. It’s not always pleasant, or terribly just, but it is surprisingly efficient in its own way.”

They stepped into a small reception area, under high stone arches. Fulvia gave the receptionist a dazzling smile, and they started speaking rapidly in Italian.

“Francesco -” she gestured, “- is giving you the best room in the hotel – fourth floor, corner, dual aspect.”

Trevor exchanged registration card and passport for key. “Thank you very much for bringing me here,” he said warmly.

“It was a pleasure. Listen – I’ve taken the afternoon off. Do you fancy getting a coffee? I can show you the city, and later we can go for a sail, and I can reveal the mystery of the Knights.”

The word jerked him back to his mission. The Mystery. His chinchilla was brushing its soft tail across his arm. No, it was Fulvia, her slim hand resting lightly on his arm, her expression smiling, but it seemed to be a knowing smile.

He swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry. He was on the trail again. “That would be nice.”

“Leave your things here; they will take care of them.” She smiled at Francesco.

They had walked for five minutes when the sight of some blonde girls suddenly reminded him of Hazel. He stopped guiltily – he’d completely forgotten about her, and their arrangement. “Oh, I’m sorry. I left my cell phone – do you mind if I rush back? It won’t take long.”

A couple of minutes later he stepped out of the small hotel lift into the corridor and unlocked his door.


“You’re an idiot!” Fulvia hissed. “I told you to keep your phone on! Did you at least search the bags thoroughly? You’re sure the manuscript is not there? All right. He must have it on him then. Go back to the house and wait there. I don’t want you showing your face outside, in case he did see you. I don’t care. Do it, now.”

She hung up, sipped her espresso, quickly dialed another number. “How’s Nivea Girl?” she asked. “Nivea Girl,” she repeated impatiently. “Hazel Brown. She looks like the girls in the Nivea ads – the innocent, blue-eyed blonde. – Never mind. What is she doing?” She listened, chuckled. “Excellent work, L344. I’ll need another couple of hours until we’re on the water. Keep Barbie occupied until I call.”

She smiled when she saw Trevor coming toward her. Then her smile turned to worry, and she jumped up and rushed to him. “Trevor! Are you all right? What happened?” She reached up and touched the huge, white plaster that covered half his forehead and temple. She pulled a chair out and assisted him in sitting down.

“I’m fine, I’m fine. Thank you. A little shaken, that’s all. When I got back to the hotel, someone was in my room. I couldn’t get a clear look, I was too surprised – some guy. When he heard me, he pushed me and ran out. I fell and hit my head on the edge of the bed. No, no, I’m all right, really. It’s just a scratch, and Francesco bandaged it up very professionally.”

“But why – was anything stolen? Did you check?”

“Yes – nothing. The bags seem untouched – they’re locked, and the locks are still on the numbers that I put there. I probably disturbed him before he could do anything. – Anyway, Francesco will inform the police. I might have to go and give a statement later. But let’s not talk about this any more now. The sun is shining, I’m in Valletta, and you were going to tell me all about the Knights.”

She smiled. “Yes. But I’m glad to see you’ve changed, because I’d like to take you out soon. A nice breeze has just come up; it’s perfect sailing weather. And in order to understand Malta – and the Knights – you’ll have to see it from the water.”


She walked down the pontoon. “Almost there,” she said over her shoulder, ponytail bobbing. He still hadn’t gotten over her transformation. Within five minutes, she had emerged from the marina shower rooms wearing an old pair of denim shorts, a long-sleeved microfiber t-shirt, and battered boat shoes.

“There she is!” She seemed to be looking at a large motor yacht, but stepped past it to the last berth. “It’s a trimaran,” she explained. “Do you know anything about multihulls?”

“They’re for racing, aren’t they? They have these giant ones. B&Q, was it, Ellen MacArthur’s boat? Fastest solo sailor around the world?”

“That’s it. They’re fast – faster than monohulls – that’s the traditional shape, with one hull. But they’re also much more stable; they don’t heel over like a monohull. Makes it much more pleasant for cruising, too, although I do enjoy the speed.” She grinned.

He laughed. “You could have fooled me. The boat looks just as sleek as your car. – I’m sorry, but – are you sure we can manage by ourselves? It all looks very… complicated.”

“Don’t worry, she’s set up for single-handing. I go out on my own all the time.”

Ten minutes later they were motoring out of the harbor, framed on one side by Manoel Island with its fortifications, and on the other by Valletta, rising majestically above its massive bastions. She left him to steer for a moment whilst she went on the foredeck to check something.

“We’re leaving,” she whispered into her cell phone. She busied herself with a rope and went back to the cockpit.

“Thank you. Would you like to take the fenders in? – Well done. We can raise the sails now.” She steered into the wind and within a couple of minutes had the tall sails up. She turned the engine off.

“Wow. We’re sailing,” Trevor said. The only sound was the swishing of the water as the slim hulls cut through it. “You make it look very easy.”

She laughed. “Good. Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m famished. Let me put her on autopilot. I brought some lunch, and we can talk.”

They munched happily for a while.

“You’ve read up on the history of the Knights, I assume? Then you know that they virtually disbanded after they lost Malta to Napoleon in 1798. They survived, though, and are still a thriving order today, with about 12,000 members. Headquarters in Rome. They have gone back to their charity roots – remember they were a Hospitaller Order first. The official name is Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of St. John.”

“Why Sovereign?”

“Ah. Now we come to the interesting part. The Order has never given up its claim to sovereignty, although several experts in international law dispute it. The Order has its own currency, stamps, passports, even a seat in the UN. The only thing it lacks is its own territory.”

“And part of the 1814 Paris treaty ceded Malta to Britain, rather than back to the Order.”

“That’s right. What I’m telling you now is unofficial. I wouldn’t normally talk about it, but Tracey is a good friend, and… well, I like you.” She smiled. “You’ve guessed by now that the Knights weren’t too happy about the treaty, which they considered a great injustice. There are rumors that there is a secret member of the Council – the top government of the Order, if you like. The Council is up for re-election every five years, but it is said that, due to the secretive nature of the position, the eleventh officer is elected for life – like the Grand Master himself – and, uniquely, that the position is hereditary.”

Trevor whistled softly, completely caught up in the story. He took another sandwich and looked back at Valletta, tiny by now, golden in the sun between the blues of the sea and the sky. “And the eleventh member’s job is…”

“To secure the territory. To regain Malta. I showed you St. John’s Cathedral earlier. They built all this, and they want it back.”

“What else do you know?”

“Not much. The initials of the extra Council member – T.M. He’s very old, and apparently of French descent.”

She looked at him intently.

Trevor slumped back in his seat. The chinchilla was making such a noise, it was hard to get a clear thought… Old. T.M. Of French descent. Trevor Missous. Of course, the pronunciation of the name had been Anglicized, but surely it had been French originally. His grandfather…

“What does this Council member do?” he heard himself ask.

She shrugged. “He travels a lot, trying to influence the right people. That, and… other things.”

“Travels a lot…” T.M. His grandfather had disappeared during his last journey, decades ago.

“Yes.” She opened the cockpit locker. “The Order has its own airline, didn’t you know?”

“No, I…”

“No, you really knew nothing, did you? We really got to Geoffrey before he could tell you anything.”

He looked up. Her voice had changed, it was harsher, mocking. She closed the locker, and suddenly she was holding a gun. Just then the sail shifted, and her face caught the sun, highlighting her flushed cheeks.

“It doesn’t really matter if you knew or not, Trevor. I know she’s given you the manuscript.” She cocked the gun. God, but she was beautiful. “And now you’re going to give it to me.”

[3,084 words]

Chapter 07 (written by Hugh McGuire)

The gun was silver, and it looked heavy in Fulvia's hand; or rather it looked massive in her slim hand, and she held it with a careless ease that indicated Trevor wasn't the first person she'd ever threatened with a gun. But there was something Fulvia didn't know: this wasn't the first time Trevor had ever been threatened with a gun. Though he did his best to hide that fact.

In fact, as he smiled inwardly to himself, while doing his best to affect a look of terror and confusion, Fulvia had just revealed several bits of crucial information to him. Trevor wasn't sure how valuable these little bits of information would be - but then in his business the information you have is only slightly more important than the information you know your enemies don't have. But the best kind of information is false information you know your enemies do have.

First, Fulvia didn't know who Trevor really was; otherwise she would have known that he wasn't stupid enough to carry the manuscript around with him. She thought he was caught in something he didn't understand. Was a mere messenger, a carrier of important documents beyond his comprehension.

True, he didn't understand, yet, what he was caught up in, exactly, but he was certain he knew more than Fulvia, probably more than anyone in the world, except TM, and maybe U3 at GLOBAL. In his experience, people like Fulvia got their orders from someone higher up, and they executed, but it was in no one's interest for them to know the bigger picture.

Whereas Trevor didn't work for anyone, except himself; and his business was figuring things out. Information processing. Context, nodes on the net. It was all about context. Finding needles in haystacks is easier when you know where to look, and he was among the best. If he played this right, this would be the sort of information he could retire on. Which is why he was in Malta, why he was on this boat. Fulvia wanted something from him, but he wanted something from her too: once he figured out where to look, he would have everything he needed. He'd just have to make sure he could get there first, before GLOBAL got there. Or the Agency for that matter. Or the Order even. Timing was everything.

Fulvia wanted the manuscript to decode the message TM and his agents from the Order had hidden in LibriVox audio files. Somewhere in those thousands of audio files, audio versions of public domain texts, there were errors. And as with animals, some errors were more equal than others. Some of those errors were there for a purpose, planted by agents of the Order. Others were legitimate errors. Still others were noise, as it were, false errors planted by GLOBAL and others. LibriVox, like Wikipedia, was seething with intelligence agents of all stripes. The cold war had never disappeared: the players had changed their uniforms, some had changed sides, and the chessboard was a little different. It all happened online now; and corporations were as important as nation states; independent agencies and ragtag groups could compete with national intelligence services. If they had the right information. What it was didn't matter, as long as it was valuable. And the information he was trying to get at was, if his chinchilla sense was right, about as valuable as information got. 

And Trevor was in the middle of it. If he could find the right errors, and put them together in the right order, he would have what he was looking for. He had most of it figured out already, using the audio files from The Mystery, read by Grayson, he had his first start. And he had the manuscript, but needed a little bit more.

"Why don't you sit down while you think about where that manuscript is," Fulvia said. She motioned him into the cabin and he sat on a little bench, with a working table between them. She sat across the table from him.

"Have you ever been shot?" she asked. She smiled at him, caressed the gun.

"No," he said. It was true. He'd never been shot, and he didn't intend to change that today.

"I have," she said. She inserted a finger under her collar, stretched her neck -- it was a long, and beautiful neck, adorned by a particularly charming ear. She pulled gently at the collar of her shirt to reveal her clavicle. An ugly looking scar, the shape of a scythe, sat at the halfway mark. "Give me your hand," she said. He did as he was told, and she took his fingers and pressed them into her collarbone, by her neck, and then pulled the fingers along the bone. Halfway to her shoulder joint, at that scar, the bone stopped, stepped down, and then continued along.

"It was just a nick," she said. "But it broke the bone in two. The nearest surgeon was in Ulan Bataar, 600km away. They probably would have just let it heal like this anyway. They only bother operating when the bone is totally shattered. I was lucky. But it works now. Even if it looks ugly." She made a big circle with her arm, to show how well her clavicle worked, staring at him as she did so, her green eyes displaying a look of great amusement.

"I can tell you, though," she said, "If someone had got to me then, which they didn't, but if they had, and they'd threatened to just touch that broken bone, I would have told them anything. When you break a bone like that, you realize pretty quickly why torture is so popular. All your dreams of honorable stoicism dry up pretty quickly when you start whimpering."

Trevor was watching her eyes, so he was a little surprised when the barrel of the gun touched his cheek, and then made its way slowly down his neck. The metal was cold. He shivered. Her other hand cupped him behind the neck, and he felt her strong fingers massaging the muscles at the top of his spine. He closed his eyes. She was good, he thought to himself. Better than he'd given her credit for. He winced as she pressed the tip of the barrel into his collar bone, and twisted. "Right there, for instance," she said. The pain in his collarbone made a curious contrast with the soothing feel of her strong fingers massaging his neck. "Right there is where the bullet caught me." She pushed harder, digging the barrel in, breaking the skin. Trevor pulled back, was annoyed by the yelp of pain that escaped his lips.

"Oh," she said. "I'm sorry. I get carried away. Sometimes."

She let go of Trevor's neck, and settled into her chair, and then did something unexpected: she placed the gun on the table between them, flat, with the barrel pointing not at Trevor, but at the open door. She tapped the gun twice, and then leaned back. The gun sat there, between them. Safety latch, he noted, removed.

"Maybe you'd like to reach for the gun?" she asked, mirroring his thoughts. She smiled at him, as if to say: try it.

Very smooth, he thought. Perhaps he had underestimated this one. He did a quick calculation, and decided not to reach for the gun.

Gunplay and torture techniques were not among Trevor's greater skills; but information was. She was a GLOBAL agent, that was all the information he needed to know.

And Trevor knew, he knew that Ms. Rossi had gotten him wrong. As assured as this performance was, she would have gone about it differently if she knew that Trevor was more than just a carrier of the manuscript; more than just a computer programmer; more than just a LibriVox volunteer. More than a dupe. So he thought anyway.

And that meant that GLOBAL, and U3 had gotten him wrong, which gave him a great margin to maneuver. It gave him time. It gave him the advantage.

Still, Fulvia Rossi had done a nice job of asserting herself here. He realized he was sweating profusely, and that wasn't pretend sweat. That was real fear under his sternum.

She smiled, gently licked her lips.

"So," she said. "Where is the manuscript?"

"I don't have it here," he said. He realized, with some shock, that Fulvia Rossi's nipples were erect and pointing right at him. Her cheeks were flushed. She liked this. Interesting. More information.

The gun sat there between them, menacing.

As absurd as it was, as incredible, he realized that his throbbing heart and that twisted feeling in his stomach was more than just fear. He liked this too. Sort of.
 
Fulvia reached a hand forward and inched the gun towards him.  "Come on," she said. "It's right there. Wouldn't you like to be in charge? Change the course of this conversation? No?"

She stood up, and turned her back to him, to the gun. He stared incredulously at her back, her long hair.

"Where is the manuscript?"

Without really thinking about it, he reached forward slowly, his eyes on the back of her head. What was she playing at here?

"It is loaded," she said. His hand stopped in mid air, as he realized what he was doing. "Don't worry about that. I wouldn't dangle an unloaded gun at you; that would be dishonest. Unfair. No fun. Where is the manuscript?"

Aware of what he was doing now, but sure he was making a fatal mistake, he gently touched the tips of his fingers to the handle of the gun. He was trembling. He grasped it in his hand; but before he could lift it, he felt a stunning shock in his hand. The gun clattered on the ground, and he wasn't quite sure why. One beat, a second, and then the pain hit, and he wrenched his wounded hand into his chest, bit straight through his lip.

Fulvia had turned around, and she faced him now, smiling. She held a long metal bar, like an old radio antenna, but heavy, with a brass ball at the end of it. She had struck him right in the hand. Where she produced that bar from he couldn't imagine.

"I didn't break anything," she said. "Yet. That was just a little tap. But there are many nerves in the hand. Very sensitive." Indeed. The hand throbbed, searing. Trevor had tears coming down his face, and he did his best not to whimper, clenched his jaw. Idiot, he thought. You deserved that.

"I don't have the manuscript," he said.

The rod came sailing down and hit him in the collarbone. He screamed.

"I sent it away," he said, panting. He thought he might faint. Stupid idiot! This was unnecessary. "It's gone. A few pages here, a few pages there. All over the place. Mail."

It was true. After he had read the manuscript, he realized what he had in his hands. He separated it into ten sections and sent it to ten friends around the world.

"Goddamn it," Fulvia said. "Pages 10 to 33," she said. "Don't waste my time. Where are they."

"I'm not..."

She tapped the rod on the crown of his head, not very hard, but enough that it hurt. He rubbed his head. She hit him in the ear. Again, not hard, but enough that it hurt.

"Do you love your sister Tracey?" She asked.

He looked up and processed what she had said.

"She and your niece, Natalie, are staying with some friends of mine. Where are pages 10 to 33?"

He stared at her. Nodded, understanding.

"Pages 10 to 33 are in Prague," he answered.

Fulvia smiled a beaming, excited smile. Her cheeks flushed. Trevor did his best to look defeated, terrified – and with the news that Tracey and Natalie had been dragged into this, some of it was genuine. But there was something else in his mind, that he did his best to hide: Victory. Fulvia had just done what he was hoping she would do. Revealed the last bit of information that would help him to decode the message. She had told him where the key portion of the manuscript was.

The papers really were in Prague. But in his pocket, in his mp3 player, buried in with a number of other LibriVox files, was the audio version of the manuscript. Before he'd sent it away he'd scanned the pages, used a text to speech conversion, stuck them in his iriver, and ditched the scanned files.

He had pages 10 to 33, in audio, in his pocket.

"Well," Fulvia Rossi said, letting the words roll off her red lips. "I guess we're going to Prague."


[word count: 2,129]

Chapter 08 (written by Susan Denney)

    “Do you know what time it is?”  Tracey’s voice hissed into Trevor’s cell phone.  “I’d scream but I don’t want to wake the baby up. It’s two…”

    Trevor interrupted her tirade. “Tace, this is the most important phone call you’ve ever gotten. Please listen.”

    Trevor knew that using his childhood name for Tracey would get her attention. He never called her Tace unless he was saying something very personal. He’d thought a lot about this phone call in the last few hours and knew that he had only a few minutes to complete it.  By the time he and Fulvia had sailed back to shore, they had missed the last plane for Prague and had had to wait for the morning flight.  She had put him under the care of an operative named L344 and Trevor hadn’t even been to the bathroom without the thug’s chaperonage.  Fulvia had given instructions to L344 that Trevor use no electronics and so he hadn’t so much as looked at the television news since she “invited” him to Prague.   But he had had plenty of time to ponder.  The chinchilla had been awake and active most of the night. At the moment, he was hunkered down in the last stall of the men’s bathroom in the airport at Luqa waiting for a WorldCon flight to the Czech Republic.  L344 hadn’t been able to follow Fulvia and Trevor to the gate so Trevor had seized the first opportunity to call his twin.

    “I’m listening, Trevor.”  Tracey’s voice was calm.

    “I know you’re dying to ask me questions and I’m afraid I haven’t got time to answer any, so don’t.  I have to ask you some questions and then I’m going to ask two favors. Promise me that you’ll do what I ask.”

    “This isn’t a joke?”

    “It’s no joke.”

    “Okay then, I promise.” Trevor could hear the tension in Tracey’s voice.  He hated treating her this way, but he only had a few moments to tell her what he thought would be the safest course for her family.

    “First of all, where are you?”

    Trevor knew that the question was odd but she answered simply, “I’m at home.”

    “That’s good.”  Trevor had hoped that Fulvia had been bluffing about Tracey’s staying with friends of hers.  It was so unlike Tracey to take the baby but to leave four-year-old Michael behind.

    “Secondly, do you know a woman called Fulvia Rossi?”

    “I know someone named Fulvia but her last name isn’t Rossi.”

    “That’s not as good.  This means that what I have to ask now is a question of life or death.”  Trevor realized that this sounded melodramatic, but there had to be some circumstances in life that really were that critical. Clichés are based on truth, after all.

    “First, have Stephen pack up the most essential of the children’s things while you call up a women’s shelter.  Don’t have him pack a lot.  It would look suspicious. Tell them anything about Stephen you want but make it bad enough that they will take you in immediately. If Stephen could black your eye or give you some bruises, it would be better. If you can’t manage that, talk about mental abuse and make it thick. Be sure and pack your laptop.”

    “But...”

    “No buts, Tracey. It’s the safest place for you right now.  Fulvia has threatened to hurt you and the children.”

    Trevor heard an intake of breath but Tracey didn’t reply. She was showing superhuman restraint.

    “Stephen should check into a hotel with multiple floors.  He should get off the elevator at different floors each time he goes to his room in case someone is following him.”

    “You think he’s in danger too?”

    “Yes, but not as much as you.”

    “That’s good.”

    Tracey’s love for Stephen was deep.  Most women wouldn’t find anything good in the whole situation.

    Trevor continued.  “Lastly, before you leave, take a few minutes to post on Librivox anything that you can remember about Grandpa Missous, Prague, and the Knights of Malta.  Don’t be too overt but give me any details you remember. The most trivial piece of information could be critical. Post it under the thread for The Mystery.”

    “I’ve been listening to it, Trevor. So much of it matches up with what I remember hearing about our grandfather.”

    “Keep remembering. It’s vital.  I don’t have any more time.”  He paused. “Tracey, I love you.”

    “I love you too, Trevor.”

    Before leaving the bathroom, Trevor splashed some water on his still throbbing lip. Fulvia had administered very competent first aid rather than let him call a doctor.  He had found this ironic since it was because of her that he had bit through his lip in the first place. His body ached in all the places that Fulvia had damaged the day before and in some that she hadn’t even touched.  Sympathy pains, he guessed. Trevor left the bathroom and sat down next to Fulvia.  She was attracting envious attention from all the women in the waiting area and a completely different kind of attention from most of the men.  In other circumstances, being her companion would have been blissfully exotic.  At the moment, he would have gladly exchanged her for any other woman of his acquaintance, including the toothless crone who imperfectly cleaned his apartment every Friday.  He still believed that he knew more about Fulvia than she did him, and he planned to play the slightly nerdy role she expected.

    Trevor’s thoughts were focused on those missing pages of the manuscript, pages 10-33, when Fulvia touched his arm.  Two members of airport security were talking earnestly with the WorldCon agent at the departure gate. Trevor saw the female agent protest slightly, then nod.

    “Paging passenger Rossi.  Passenger Rossi.”

    Fulvia grabbed his elbow and pulled him along with her to answer the summons.

    “I’m passenger Rossi.”  Her smile was at its most brilliant.  “And this is my companion, Trevor Aimes.  It’s a privilege to be traveling with your most special customer.”

    The WorldCon agent looked at Trevor nervously. “I’m sorry about this, Miss Rossi, Mr. Aimes.” She nodded in his direction. “Airport security has a question about a substance in your checked luggage, Miss Rossi.  They need to discuss this with you privately.”

    “I’m sure it’s nothing.  Mr. Aimes can certainly come along with me, I expect?”  Again, an urbane and relaxed smile from Fulvia.

    The security policeman spoke up.  “We need to speak with you alone, Miss Rossi.”

    “Very well. Darling, you’ll look after my carry-on bag, won’t you?”  Trevor realized that he was “darling” and tried to go along with the game. He noticed that her smile was becoming fixed like Halloween wax lips.

    “You will need to bring all your possessions with you, Miss Rossi.  Our apologies to your traveling companion.”  The security agents took her arms in theirs.  It was obviously an arrest but the agents were trying to create as little disturbance as possible.

    Fulvia looked back over her shoulder as the agents escorted her down the concourse. Her look was plain.  It said, I don’t know how you did this, but I’ll be back.

    The plane doors had to be reopened to admit a last-minute passenger who took Fulvia’s seat.  Hazel Brown sat down beside Trevor and said brightly, “What luck for me that this seat became available! I’m going to Prague on holiday, how about you?”

    Trevor had been surprised so many times in the last few days that he reacted to this new development with only a slight lift of the eyebrow.  The blue eyes were unmistakable but the personality was not.

    When he didn’t answer, she continued, “I’m sorry.  I know I’m chatty. I just love talking to strangers. But some people just can’t stand it when their seatmate talks the whole time.  I hope you’ll let me know if my yammering bothers you.”

    “No, not at all,” Trevor mumbled. Her behavior was so uncharacteristic of the quiet blonde he had first met in Egypt; he realized that Hazel had some information to impart and that her babble was going to be embedded with some important information. “I find flying tiresome. I’m sure you’ll be entertaining.”

    The flight from Malta to Prague was fairly long since it included a short layover in Frankfurt. So for five hours, Hazel and Trevor talked about seemingly inconsequential tourist information.  She began by a recital of her recent holidays but turned the topic eventually to Prague.  In the mass of information she spewed forth, Trevor began to pick up clues and details he knew she thought were important.  Starved by lack of access to the Internet and Librivox, Trevor was delighted that Hazel had done all the research he had been wishing he could do while under Fulvia’s watchful eye.

    “And my favorite place in Prague is Maltese Square. It’s quiet and it was in the movie ‘Amadeus.’ I’m a Mozart freak and Prague is so Mozartland. I got interested and Googled it. I love Google, don’t you? It’s almost as wonderful as Librivox.” She smiled at Trevor under blue mascara-ed eyelashes. “Anyway, the Knights of Malta have had a building and a church there since the twelfth century. They have an embassy there still.  It’s quaint, you know.  An embassy without a country.”

    At the end of the flight, Hazel was still talking.  “I see we’re almost there. It’s been great visiting with you.  Do you have a hotel room?  I know a quaint little place not far from Maltese Square.  We could share a taxi.”

    Trevor was exhausted by the flow of words, but thanks to her endless details about the city and the Knights he knew exactly where to start searching. “I’d like that,” he said.

    Instinct told Trevor that he should lose Hazel but common sense told him that he could not.  And he knew that Fulvia or someone just like her could not be far behind. At least by staying in the same hotel as Hazel, he could keep an eye on one potential enemy. At this point, he trusted no one except Tracey and he was most likely going to have to solve this mystery without her help. A short while later, he and Hazel were crossing the Charles Bridge on the way to Maltese Square. He was frustrated by the crowds of tourists and Praguers preventing him from getting where he wanted to go so urgently. Hazel tugged on his sleeve.

    “Look,” she said. “They call it the Golden City.”

    He turned to face the river. Trevor was stunned for an instant at the sight of gold-covered domes and the shadows of distant bridges reflected in the Vltava. Centuries disappeared as the memories of an ancient Empire rose from the blur of water and sky. Amid the strange bustle of craftspeople and souvenir hawkers selling to the tunes of a Dixieland band, Hazel reached for his hand.

    “My life is in your hand, you know.”

    “I know,” he said.

          

[1,836 words]             

           

Chapter 09 (written by Alan Davis-Drake)

    A pair of wrinkled, deeply discolored hands rested on the home keys of the keyboard. The page of writing showed boldly blue on the 30" flat panel Cinema display, glowing in the waning daylight that slid through ancient distortions in the multi-paned windows behind it. Outside, the afternoon lengthened. The faded eyes glanced over the left side of the monitor. The bases of the trees in the near distance were darkening. A pair of falcons swept over the treetops, whether looking for a night’s roost or a final day’s meal, the observer could not know.
    Though the typing resumed, the room was strangely quiet, the dark, wooded walls and hand-hewn ceiling incongruous, out of step with the plastic shapes and electronic forms. The desk itself was a murky Medieval trestle table, built from trees felled more than seven hundred years before the taming of electricity. In contrast, the chair was 20th Century ergonomic: a blue upholstered, six-wheeled marvel of chiropractic perfection that also worked well as a conveyance from one end of the room to the other.
    The wizened fingers stopped in mid-sentence, as the deep-lined face slowly tipped forward, falling into a light sleep. The cursor at the bottom of the page continued to pulse; at the top, the title was bold and clear: The Mystery: Inspired by the Exploits of T.M. Chapter 4.


    Startled awake, the typist reached towards the intercom on the table. A weak but authoritative voice projected a thin, dry: “Give me a few minutes, if you please.”
    The old body leaned back, resting itself against the comforting curve of the chair back.


    Returning to the Mac, the ancient fingers set in motion a series of saves and double saves. Clearing the throat with a series of gentle hums, gaining greater and greater depth, the aged voice settled itself… then went on to say in an oceanic rumble, “You may come in now.”
    Rising from the chair, the austere figure changed its shape, assumed a noble self-assurance and walked purposefully to the window, imperceptibly shifting the stance, straightening, appearing younger, even vigorous.
    A middle-aged man walked into the room carrying a cardboard box. He closed the door behind him with a self-conscious nudge of his elbow and proceeded to the center of the room where the large, heavy table hovered in aged beauty. The monitor screen was black. He paused for a moment and then, at the acknowledging nod of the older gentleman, put the box down on the table and walked over to sit in one of the two chairs against the wall. A small, elaborately carved end table nestled between them. As he sat, the chair dipped deeply beneath him, capturing him in an ancient embrace.
    The older one began. “Thank you for coming in to see me so late in the day, Peter."
    “Thank you, Elder.”
    “You are most welcome.” A long moment passed in several deep breaths, as if it had been struggle to speak those polite words of welcome. “I’ve asked you to come so that I might thank you for your meticulous good work, and to say that you needn’t worry. I do not doubt your discretion. As a lifelong member of this exalted order, you have many more years of good service ahead of you. I am a content… I am content. The time we have waited so patiently for is nearly here. Your part in this, though, is nearly at an end.”
    “I'm having fun.”
    Turning back to the window, the older one peered out over the forest in the distance -- as those very few who were permitted entry to this room more than once knew he was wont to do -- preoccupied, not really part of the conversation. Returning from the window and crossing to the second chair against the wall, he touched the cardboard box briefly. The pace was slow and measured, hiding an obvious weariness — or something.
    “I’m afraid our association with public domain literature has nearly come to an end.”
    “As you say, sir.”
    “There will be but two or three further readings, and of the much smaller kind. Primarily little poems. The suspicious conceit, The Mystery, will be closed down in a day or so, I feel certain. It holds no water. The LibriVox people, effusively gracious though they may be, will close it down as an unverifiable text. You will retire that particular disguise after reading Chapter 4... and maybe 5.”
    “Yes.”
    “You are excellent at what you do.”
    “Merci.”
    “You are an American, no?”
    “Yes.”
    “In today’s world, a person of a hundred voices is as valuable as a man of a thousand faces was in mine. I particularly like the way you were so... so amateurish. You decided not to use all of this excellent equipment I gave you. Very ingenious.”
    “I did it all in my kitchen. With the refrigerator humming.”
    “And an excellent impersonation of Grayson.”
    “His voice is easy.”
    “A little Spanish, a little French, a little, whatever... And those annoying little bursts of air. What do you call them?”
    “Plosives.”
    “Plosives. Distasteful word, in sound, meaning, and application. A wonderful metaphor. I shall remember this.”
    “And what about the new topic I began last week on Bisham Abbey?”
    The old head shook ever so slightly. “Everything is in place. Still, it may take some time for everything to unfurl as it should.” Once again, a long pause, as if lost in time. And then, nodding with obvious and deep appreciation. He placed a small box on the end table between them, “Thank you again, Peter. Please ask him to come in.”

    Peter Bècausé walked out of the rosewood-lined room, tucking the titanium box into his pin-striped jacket pocket. As he walked through the door, the glimmer of satisfaction in the corners of his eyes was acknowledged with a smile by the man walking past him into the room.
    “Peter.”
    “He's all yours, Gerhardt.”

    The door closed between them.
    Gerhardt moved towards the plush chair vacated by Peter, packet under his arm.
    Before he could sit, the old voice pressed him, “How is Tracey?”
    “Jet lagged. As you know, she flew back with me. Stephen is with the children. They are safe on the Hudson, beginning their vacation at the Esopus LibriDocks.”
    “You have her proofs?”
    Gerhardt placed the large envelope on the table. “The proofs she has been collecting at Cornell’s College of Human Ecology. The same ones she recently gave to Trevor.”
    “What did you tell her?”
    “She believes she’s here to meet Trevor. She brought the second set to secure her argument. There is a third set still with her husband.”
    “Her meeting with Trevor will not be for a few days. In the meantime, she and I will finally get to know one another.”
    “Yes.” Gehardt hesitated for a second before adding: “We do have something important to discuss.”
    Appearing to ignore Gerhardt, Elder said, “Trevor is handling himself just fine, as I expected; he doesn’t need a baby sitter. Trevor must do this all alone. This will not be a success if I help him. There will be no change if we do that.”
    “Do you mean, if anyone but Tracey helps him?” Gerhardt queried, a taste of puzzlement in his voice.
    “I’ve set it in motion. Finally. The time has come for the blind and thoughtless to step aside — peacefully."
    “Yes. The mystery of who they are is becoming clearer still. And I only know the half of it.”
    “You know much, much less.”
    “But I have something more important to —”
    “Trust yourself.”
    “When I can’t tell the Outer Mystery from The Inner? I can now safely say that until a week ago I hadn’t—”
    “Gerhardt!” The tone was that of a school master speaking to a young boy. “Do you remember the story of the five blind yogis and the elephant?”
    “You told it enough when I was a child.”
    “Yes. Think about it.” An inquiring pause. “Are you?” Pause. “Now?” Pause. “Can a man with as much responsibility as you take time to stop, to imagine — for everyone’s convenience — to consider the world as a young man again? Do you remember?” An interminable pause roamed the room. It rested on the book cases, on the furniture, on their clothing and hands. On their eyelids.     “How many blind yogis have you seen lately?”
    Gerhardt hesitated. His uncertainty rattled him. His head tilted to one side and then the other.
    “That is it,” Elder said encouragingly. “Count them.”
    “Only two,” Gerhardt said with full conviction.
    “Then, my dear friend, there are three more out there somewhere. And is it your responsibility to be certain that neither you nor they are confusing ears for sails, trunks for snakes, nor legs for trees.”
    “But you said—“
    “Sit with it for a while.”
    And Gerhardt did just that. They sat in silence for more than half an hour, until that signature nod, and Gerhardt got up to leave. He had opened the door and was beginning to step out, when the old voice held him again.
    “Remember. Do not fall in with the blind. Before we were anything, what were we? We were and still are Hospitallers, not imposters, not soldiers. There is something deeper in all of this. Something that speaks green, not red. Something that speaks of healing and not of harming. It has been a thousand years and we have never taken up arms.”


    When alone once again, the old one rose from the armchair and walked to the broad window. Peering over the wide expanse of forest, losing himself in the changing colors of leaves, the soft breeze touching the tall grasses and the branches and the clouds. The sky was a deep, deep blue. Gazing at the box Peter had left behind, and then sinking back against the curtains, and finally, tentatively, sitting in the window nook. The old one spoke as if through the panes of glass, out to the darkening forest...





    The frail body folded into a deep sleep in the window’s cushioned nook as the falcons lifted into the air.


[2,267 words]

Chapter 10 (written by TBOL3)

Yes, Fulvia was delayed at the airport. But as Trevor had expected, she did not give up that easily. The events that followed were thus:

After looking at her luggage, Fulvia saw a pistol in her luggage -- A PISTOL!!! Yes, she had taken weapons on planes before, but she never had it so crudely hidden. Someone had set her up!

She tried to tell the person who had stopped her that this wasn't hers, and someone else had put it in there. Fortunately for her, with her remarkable beauty, some smooth talking, and the forfeiture of the gun, she was able to get the guard to let her pass. But not in time -- just as she was past the security center, the plane took off. She had missed it!

She asked when another plane would be going to Prague. There would be another leaving the next day.

Good, she thought, I'll get on the next plane. Trevor will not leave Prague, not in one day anyway.

So now she needed to wait, but she would not just wait; she would figure out how that pistol got in the bag. But before she was able to do anything, she got a phone call. It was from him, the person. He told her that the new technology was ready. That she needed to use it at Prague. She was also told to go to a building where she would pick up this technology. So instead of determining clues that would figure out who had put that gun in her bag, she went to the building, and what she saw there was amazing.


I had to admit that Hazel was much friendlier to be with than Fulvia. Or perhaps I just felt that way because Hazel didn't attack me. But anyway, after being in the city, we checked into the hotel and found it to be very comfortable. Not much happened the rest of that day, or the next. But on our third day in Prague, a flurry of events took place.

It all started when I was talking with Hazel. She was trying to get me to tell her where the piece of the document was. I had not yet told her that I had put it on my MP3 player. But finally, she convinced me to take her there. I still didn't trust her. But she didn't appear to be hiding anything. I guess I would show her part of the document. I would show her pages 35-40, which was also with my friend.

So we set out. She tried to get a taxi, but I said that the house was in walking distance. Really it was an hour walk to the house, but I was hoping for more time to find some way out.

Hazel talked through most of the journey, or what was traversed of it anyway. She was talking less and less, but then she started talking really fast. But right behind me, I saw none other then Fulvia, that women which I dearly wished I was rid of, but knew I wasn't. Then I looked right beside me, and Hazel was gone -- HAZEL WAS GONE!

“Where are the pages of the document?” she asked.

“Well, we were just heading to it,” I said.

“OK then, take me there.”

“How about not?”

She came closer to me and hit me with a metal bar. It hurt like nuts.

“Will you tell me now?”

“Where is Hazel?”

“Here and there. She just abandoned you? Now those papers...”

“I will never give them to you.”

“Very well then, you leave me no choice.”

She pressed a button, and I was instantly surrounded by huge creatures. Tripods, and other horrible giants.

“These things look a lot like the creatures from H.G. Wells's War of the Worlds,” I said.

“Where do you think we got them from?”

 “You actually found aliens!”

“Made -- we made them. We only found their DNA on Mars.”

“And let me guess, if I don't take you to the documents, they will fire on me.”

“Yes, and their weapons are much more powerful then any gun you've seen.”

“So what makes them not fire at you?”

“We altered their DNA; we have many resources. So, how about those documents?”

This was unbelievable! How was this possible? I knew I had to stall for time. But where had Hazel gone?

“So, you got these fancy new toys. What do you plan on doing with them? World domination, or maybe you will only go for Europe?”

“You know as well as I do, these creatures will eventually die.”

“So this is all part of the LibriTours?” I was making a big mistake, but I knew of no way out of this mess.

“Yes, not very pleased are you?” She commanded one of the Martians to fire its weapon near us. It was an amazingly big blast.

“That is its weakest weapon,” she said.

“Wow, powerful.”

“Now, you have two options...”

“All right, all right, you win. I will take you to my friend.”

I had lost. I had to think of something, but what? This was all too strange! Where was Hazel? What had happened to my life?!? At this time, I wanted to go back to my computer, and record my bit of Robinson Crusoe. But I still had to do something...

Then, like a bolt of lightning, it struck me!


[909 words]

 

Chapter 11 (written by Maria Morabe)

Fulvia Rossi stared out of the window as the plane took off. She heard the roar of its engines start to diminish as it shrank out of view. So Trevor was not totally hopeless, after all. She’d been wrong to think it would be easy.
“Miss… Rossi, is it?” The man had a high-pitched voice that reminded her of children begging for sweets. “We are thoroughly sorry for this inconvenience. Were you on a business trip?”
Fulvia put on her best I’m-better-than-you-but-I’m-trying-to-be-humble-for-your-sake face. “Not entirely, sir. Mr. Aimes and I were going to get married in Prague.”
“Ah, well…” The man turned bright red. “I’m sorry to have to put it on hold, then. I-” He searched for words and ended up not finding any. Another man in the uniform of airport security entered the room. “I’ll leave you now.”
Perfect. He was playing right into her plan. Her fingers surreptitiously found their way to her handbag and she clutched it as though she were nervous. She pulled out a compact and started powdering her face nonchalantly. The man just waited for her to finish.
She put the compact away and looked at him. The other man was young, perhaps in his late twenties. He had close-cut blond hair and stone cold gray eyes. Unconsciously, she dropped her gaze. His stare made her nervous.
“Well?” she asked. She folded her arms across her chest. “What am I accused of, since this obviously isn’t a social call?”
When the man spoke, it was with barely a hint of an Eastern European accent. “We found this in your luggage.” He produced a pistol from behind him. “Would you care to explain it?”
“Certainly, Mr.-?”
“Tolstoy. Like the author.”
“Indeed.” Fulvia faked a coughing fit and rummaged in her handbag. “Excuse me.”
Mr. Tolstoy watched as she drew out a piece of paper from her bag. “What is that?”
“My papers of diplomatic immunity.” Not really, but she needed time. She handed the papers over with one hand while her other hand found the handle of her handy little rod….
A look of confusion crossed over the man’s face. “These are not papers of immunity,” he said. “This one is from a store. It says you have a pending bill–”
“Yes, yes….” While the man was preoccupied trying to figure out what she’d given him, she hit him smartly over the back of his head. Slowly, the man collapsed to the floor. It was drama worthy of Russian literature.
Smiling to herself, Fulvia walked to the door and glanced out of the room. The man with the high voice was nowhere to be seen. He had obviously assumed that a woman was not much of a challenge. Ha. Fulvia made her way out into the corridor, trying to assimilate the stance of a mere tourist. The way out of the airport was simple enough as long as she stayed out of sight of the security cameras and anybody who had already seen her. She was in fresh air faster than she expected. She made a mental note to tell someone about the terrible airport security… But that would be later. Now, however, she had to find a way to get back to Trevor, the manuscript, and that annoying girl she’d seen boarding the plane… the Nivea girl. No doubt she was off to rendezvous with Mr. Aimes and feed him tantalizing bits of information….

Trevor woke with a jolt. What a strange dream he’d had. He should definitely not have watched the (relatively) new War of the Worlds movie before going to sleep. But he’d been unable to sleep so much that he’d actually resorted to watching TV. At least it had been a movie based on a novel rather than the sort of happy-go-lucky drivel his sister would watch. Good God, if he slipped and said that in her presence… he’d never live to read another book again, much less see more book adaptations.
Trevor groaned and sat up in the darkness. Parts of him still throbbed from the beating Fulvia had given him. Note to self: Never hand a woman a stick, be it metal or otherwise. Throwing the bedclothes off, he stood up and went to the bathroom to tidy himself up a bit. Next door, he could hear Hazel doing the same thing.
A watch beeped and he saw that it was 6:30 in the morning. Rise and shine, thought processes. Today’s a new day filled with excitement and intrigue… And pain. “OW!” Trevor leapt backwards, clutching his toe. He’d walked straight into something hard. Muttering to himself, he reached for a lamp, switched it on, and found the bathroom, somehow without doing anymore damage to himself.
After completing his usual ablutions, he felt more like his normal self. He knocked on the door to Hazel’s adjoining room. There were the sounds of movement and then the door opened.
“Morning, Trevor,” Hazel said cheerily. Trevor managed a mumble in reply. “I’ve made some coffee.”
Coffee! Trevor felt himself gladden at the mere thought. Hazel laughed. Her laugh sounded like the tinkling of chimes in the breeze. Sheesh. Cliché, anyone?
He found his voice, finally. “Thanks, that’d be great. Mind if I come in?”
“Why else would I be offering you coffee?” she said. “Of course you can.”
Her hotel room was nicer than his, Trevor noticed. There was nothing to stub your toe on at all. Maybe it was just that she was more organized than he was. Her clothes were neatly put away somewhere (not that he was looking for them) and her makeup was neatly set up in front of a mirror. He found himself wondering what women did with all that makeup they usually carried. Surely they didn’t wear it all at once.
He sat down at a small table where two coffee cups sat. She sat down across from him, absentmindedly playing with her blonde hair. She took a sip of her coffee and looked at him curiously. “What’s on your mind?”
“What?” He hadn’t realized that he’d been staring into space. For some reason, the Martians (or whatever they were) from his dream kept invading his thoughts. Not to mention the disappearing Hazel scene. “Oh. Dream.”
“I see. Don’t they get on your nerves, sometimes?”
“Sometimes.” Trevor cleared his throat. “So. Do you have any plans for today?”
“Not really,” Hazel confessed. “You?”
Trevor thought for a moment. A long one. He’d told Fulvia the papers were in Prague and they were. The problem was that he himself was not sure where in Prague they were. All he knew was that he’d sent them to one of Tracey’s old professors. Professor Andel Prazak was fluent in many languages, and as a result many ciphers and codes as well. He had been Tracey’s linguistics professor (why Tracey had been taking a linguistics course, Trevor still hadn’t figured out) and in the duration of the class, Trevor had come to admire the old professor. Though by no means was Professor Prazak old by most people’s reckoning. Indeed, at 50 years, he was considered something of a prodigy in his field.
The only problem was that Professor Prazak was often called away to different universities or institutions within the city and quite possibly to other cities and countries as well. Well, one must start somewhere….
“Trevor?” Hazel tapped him gently. “A little tired, are you?”
Trevor shook his head to clear his thoughts. “I was, er, planning to go to the National Library, if that was okay with you.” The National Library would be close to Charles University, Prazak’s last known location.
“Hm. That’s an idea.” Hazel stood up. “As your official tour guide, I say we leave at 7:30.”
It was only 7:00. Trevor didn’t have the urge to spend another thirty minutes in a hotel, even if he would be spending it in the company of someone rather attractive. “Why not now? Let’s walk the distance.”
“Um. Okay. Are you ready?”
“Quite,” Trevor said. Iriver in pocket, all other materials accounted for. Something was nagging at the back of his head, but he put it off.

As they walked, Trevor thought. The chill wind woke him up more than a meager cup of coffee could. The chinchilla rubbed against him. He squinted against the morning sun and tried to force his thoughts into coherent order. Beside him, Hazel strode briskly. Trevor found his thoughts wandering until they rested on her.
“I love Google,” she’d said. “It’s almost as wonderful as Librivox.” It could have just been his paranoia… but hadn’t she known nothing about Librivox? He could remember her saying “What’s Librivox?” what seemed like years ago, but he knew it was just a few days, at the most weeks.
“Trevor, you’re awfully quiet.”
“Hm. Am I?” Trevor saw the University up ahead. He recognized it from Tracey’s postcards when she’d gone abroad. “There’s the University. The Library ought to be around here somewhere.”
Hazel pointed. “It’s over there. Now. Why are you so quiet?”
Trevor ignored her until they were inside the library. He pulled her into a secluded alcove. By now the chinchilla was running crazily in circles. He could go no longer without answering her. For some reason, he found it hard to think she was merely a tour guide.
“Who are you, really?”
Hazel looked at him, confused. “What do you mean?”
“You know too much to be just a tour guide.”
“Couldn’t I be a smart tour guide?”
Trevor rolled his eyes. “You said you knew nothing about Librivox. And then you said Google was almost as wonderful as Librivox. How would you know that?”
“Aren’t you reading into my words a bit much?”
“That’s my job. Or as much of a job as I do have.” Trevor looked at her intently. His hand was inches from hers.
“Right.” She turned away. Trevor was treated with a wonderful profile view, but he was much too preoccupied to pay attention. “You’ve found me out then.”
She turned around. Trevor was struck by the change in her appearance. She was still beautiful, but it wasn’t as evident. She was more forgettable. Which, no doubt, was the reason he hadn’t recognized her.
All the personality had left her. She was a mere puppet now. Her eyes were blank; her made up face set in some semblance of a smile. When she spoke, her voice was devoid of natural expression and filled instead with a false cheeriness. “So, did you bring your chinchilla with you, Mr. Aimes?”

[1,768 words]

Chapter 12 (written by Michael Sirois)

Trevor was astounded at the transformation he had just witnessed.  Hazel, just by shifting her bearing, flattening the expression on her face, and adjusting her voice, had become someone else.  Someone he had already met.

“The woman at the travel agency?  How is that possible?”

“Good training, among other things,” she said, her voice flattening into a standard Midwestern American accent as she continued to speak.  “You’d be surprised what can happen when you’ve trained with some of the world’s finest acting coaches.” 

Now was not the time to explain to him how difficult it was to be working for two agencies that were at cross-purposes to each other.  One minute you’re a travel agent, convincing someone to go to Cairo, and a few hours later someone else is telling you to go to Cairo and pretend to be a tour guide for a person who will think you’re the travel agent who has just booked his tour.  Practice makes perfect, though, and Hazel was one of the best agents around at adopting different personalities and making them her own, as evidenced by the astonished look on Trevor’s face. He may have been surprised by Hazel’s revelation, but he wasn’t amused in the slightest.

“I’ll ask you again, then,” he said.  “Who are you, really?”

She paused and looked at him before answering.  “I’ve wanted to tell you for quite a while now, but I’m not sure you’ll be able to accept what I have to say, and I’m really worried you won’t be able to forgive me.”

“Forgive you?  For what, for sending me to Cairo, for disappearing in Malta, or for allowing me to get beat half to death by that Fulvia woman?”

“No, Trevor.  I’m sorry about all those things.  There’s so much I want to tell you, but I just can’t right now.  I need you to trust me.”

“By trust you, you mean give you the manuscript.”

“No.  We have a copy of the manuscript, but time is running out.  We need to know where to look inside the manuscript.”

Trevor pondered this for a minute, and decided he needed to know more before making a commitment. 

“Why did you ask me about the chinchilla?” he asked.

“Because we need it to solve the mystery.”

He ignored the comment about the mystery, knowing that subject would return as quickly as a bad penny.  “You do know that there is no chinchilla, don’t you?” he said.  “I mean it isn’t a real chinchilla or even an animal at all.  Arrgh,” he screamed in frustration.  “This is a silly conversation.”

“It might not be silly, Trevor, if you knew why I mentioned the chinchilla.”

“All right.  I’ll bite.  But prove something to me first.”

She faced him and folded her arms, and the Hazel he had first met resurfaced in her personality briefly.  But there was something else there too, something familiar, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. 

“Fine.  If I can,” she said, resigning herself to a potential interrogation.  “What do you want to know?”

“Well, for starters, what do you know about the chinchilla?”

Hazel pondered the situation.  How much should she tell him now?  Certainly not everything, hopefully just enough and no more.  If she could convince him that she had some facts wrong, that would do for a start.  “All right,” she said.  “I know you first developed the chinchilla in Oxford, and . . .”

“Cambridge.  Not Oxford, Cambridge.”

“Right, sorry.  Cambridge, and it started out as a sort of prank, being able to guess answers before the question was fully asked, that type of thing.”

“What’s so unusual about that?” Trevor interjected. “It was just a parlor trick”.

“It was more than that,” Hazel said.  “The ‘parlor tricks’ – as you call them – were really lab tests for a technique you had developed.  You were one of the early pioneers in artificial intelligence, trying to develop computer programs – long before it became popular to do this – that would mimic the human brain.  You did as much work on human intelligence as on machine intelligence, and were considered to be one of the foremost young scientists of your day . . . and then you just dropped out of sight for a while.”

He knew he should ask the next question, but the mention of that time was too much for Trevor.  He gazed past Hazel, and allowed himself to think about something he had locked away for nearly twenty years.  Visions of a past era that he had tried desperately to forget were now flooding into his consciousness, overwhelming his circuitry.  There was too much information from the past, and it all was mingling with the present information for some reason.  He would have to sort it out later.  Using the chinchilla to work through this should be a viable option, but he would need a little time.  Time to retrain a mental mechanism that had lain fallow in fields of deliberate unconsciousness ever since the plane crash that had shattered his world.

Hazel was waiting for a response, and not receiving one right away, asked Trevor, “Are you all right, sweetie?”  Oh my God, she had let it slip.  He was still staring into space.  Had he noticed? 

Trevor became aware of his surroundings again.  “I’m sorry, what did you just say?”

“I asked if you were all right.  You seemed to zone out for a little while.”

“Yes, I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes,” he replied brusquely, turning away from her.  He needed to make some decisions quickly. 

***

He had originally set the trip to Prague in motion as a delaying tactic.  Thankfully, his ploy at the airport yesterday had worked.  If there’s anything that’s difficult to smuggle out of any country these days, it’s weapons, so he knew that Fulvia would be stopped by airport security if he planted something in her suitcase.  One of the techniques he had developed while he was working on the chinchilla was a form of hypnotism.  Just as a joke, he started calling the technique the sloth, because of the effect it had.  Very few people had been able to use it successfully, but Trevor had been one of the best.  For those skilled in the technique, it required minimal misdirection, and was very effective at shutting down someone else’s thought processes, but only for brief periods of time.  It allowed the user to effectively create small blank spaces in someone’s memory, and – during a time span of a couple of minutes – you could accomplish quite a lot. 

The morning that they were going to leave for Prague, Fulvia had told her henchman, the one she called L344, to keep her gun while she flew, and Trevor had seen him put it in his shoulder bag.  Guns were easily available at the next destination.  Top had GLOBAL agents everywhere, and some were specifically assigned to the task of resupplying other agents’ weaponry needs when they had to travel commercially.  When Fulvia had L344 bring Trevor to her room to explain how they were going to leave for Prague, and why it would be in Trevor’s best interests to be a good boy and behave, he used the sloth to put both of them into trances.  He used it on L344 just outside Fulvia’s door, because L344 was slower-witted and would remain under for a little while longer.  He stepped in front of L344, and put Fulvia under as soon as he entered the room, leaving L344 standing just outside.

In the forty-seven seconds that Fulvia remained in the trance and the minute and twenty-six seconds that L344 was under, Trevor had managed – without moving L344 from his position – to get the gun from his shoulder bag, and bury it under some of the clothing in Fulvia’s suitcase.  Just for fun, he also wrapped the gun in a red silk negligee, closed the suitcase again, and got back into position in front of Fulvia before she and the henchman returned to consciousness.  To them it felt as if there was a brief fog, almost like a déjà vu moment when your mind goes slack so it can wonder, “this feels familiar”.  Fulvia and L344 shook the feeling off and continued as before, not noticing the slight time lapse.

Trevor could use the sloth anytime he was clear-headed and had the attention of the person he wanted to put under.  He hadn’t used the technique for quite a while, and hadn’t even thought about it for some time – not having any deep-seated need to blank anyone’s memory, however temporarily – so he wasn’t prepared to use it when Fulvia first began questioning him, and the pain she inflicted on him during the interrogation made it too difficult for him to implement the sloth with any effectiveness then.  Throughout the night following his beating, Trevor lay awake, practicing the technique and readying himself for the first good opportunity to use it.  At first, his primary idea was simply to get away.  But the more he thought about it, the more he realized that he needed for this game to play itself out to the end, whatever that might be.  Whatever happened, he certainly didn’t want to stay in the clutches of a sadist like Fulvia, who was obviously an honors graduate of S&M University.

***

“Anyway,” he thought, “I need to worry about what to do next.”  He wasn’t sure whether he could trust anybody at this point, maybe not even his sister, Tracey.  Certainly not Fulvia.  But should he trust Hazel?  She was standing next to him with such a look of deep concern on her face that he wanted to let her in, wanted tell her his secrets.  He felt a strong connection to her – even beyond the obvious attraction he felt for her – but he wasn’t sure if that meant anything, or if the events of the past few days had just left him vulnerable to these sorts of emotions, emotions he had successfully avoided since the plane crash that had taken Rebecca from him, emotions he hadn’t felt again until his trip to Cairo and meeting Hazel Brown – if that actually was her name.

“I’m sorry,” he said aloud, facing Hazel, giving her a smile that he hoped wasn’t too false.  “The past few days have been a little too much for me, and I just need some time to process it all.”

“Trevor,” she said, “I know this has been hard on you.  It would be a lot for anyone to take, but we really need your help.”

“Who is ‘we’?”

“I can’t tell you that.”

“Why is this so important?”

“I can’t tell you that either.”  He gave her a look of frustration, which caused her to quickly add, “Sorry.”

“What can you tell me?”

“Not much.”

“Give me something to go on,” he said, his annoyance showing clearly on his face.

Hazel stepped forward, took both his hands in hers, and looked him deep in the eyes.  Sincerely and thoughtfully, she said, “I know this isn’t enough, and you have no reason to trust me, but I’m asking you to believe that there are some very bad people out there who want to misuse your talents, and I’m not one of them.  I promise you that I will tell you everything you need to know, but I just can’t right now.”

Trevor said, “Well, you’re right, it isn’t enough, but at least you’re not beating me over the head with a metal rod.  We need to go.”  He headed for the front door to the library, tugging her behind him.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“Just across the street for now, but eventually . . .” he paused.  “Tell me, this free-for-the-rest-of-my-life ticket my Uncle Geoffrey gave me – did the people you work for have anything to do with that?”

“No, we’re not WorldCon Airlines.  We’re the good guys.”

He sighed.  He would have to trust somebody eventually.  It might as well be the woman he was sure he was falling in love with.  “Come on,” he said.  “Let’s go see Professor Prazak.”

“The linguist?  He’s here?” 

“Yes, right over there,” he said, pointing to the building behind the statue of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV, founder of Charles University.  “That’s the aula, the main building of the university.  They can tell us where Professor Prazak’s office is.  He’s got the part of the manuscript you want.”

“My agency has the whole thing, Trevor.”

“Yes, I know.  You told me.  But you have a translation.  Dr. Prazak has the original, and it’s not in English.”

“What language is it in?” she asked.

“You’ll see.”

***

As they stepped into the street, Hazel pondered their situation, still not knowing how much she could or should tell Trevor.  She had a new life now, although not entirely one of her own choosing, and she was sure it would cause him pain to know she had been alive all this time and not told him.  It would have been so much simpler if the agency had never recruited her.  That was such a long time ago, when she was still a first-year student at Cambridge, still the young and impressionable Rebecca Sharp.  The agency recruited her, paid her way through college, and trained her in a wide variety of techniques that she convinced herself she would never have to use.  She was interested in the intrigue of it all, the idea of helping to create a better world and being something different than Plain Becky, as her mother used to call her. 

It was in her second year at university that she met Trevor, and they fell in love.  He was so brilliant, and just the perfect man for her.  Before long it was understood that they would marry after college, raise a whole flock of children, and settle somewhere in the countryside.  Trevor would work on his scientific experiments, and she would give up the spy business and never tell Trevor about that side of her life.  There were plenty of other professions she could enter, and with her other skills she could be very successful at almost anything.  Life would go on and they would be deliriously happy, and then the plane crash happened.

It wasn’t planned, of course.  She was just returning from a short vacation abroad, anxious to see Trevor again.  They were flying in horrid weather, and the pilot had assured everyone that they would stay above it as much as possible, but something must have been wrong with the plane’s navigation equipment because the plane descended out of a cloud and found itself fifty yards away from the peak in the Pyrenees.  The pilot tried to pull the plane up, but it was too late.  Everyone died but her, and she would have perished too if a Basque shepherd hadn’t gone up into the mountains to investigate and found her, barely alive.  Other rescuers arrived at the crash site much later and made the obvious assumption that everyone had died.  The shepherd took care of her the best he could, but sent his cousin into town to call the phone number she kept reciting in her fevered sleep. 

It was the agency’s phone number, of course, and they sent field personnel to transport her quietly back to England.  Months of physical therapy restored her body to its former self – as much as can be achieved in those kinds of serious injuries, at any rate.

The agency, having allowed everyone to believe she was dead, also saw a golden opportunity, and had their best plastic surgeons work on the minor damage that had occurred to Rebecca’s face, but had them create an entirely new look for her also.  New look, new identity, new agent, unknown to anyone on the other side.  Hazel Brown was born.  When she saw what they had done, she was furious, and refused to work for them, but – over time – they appealed to her sense of duty and convinced her that it was the right thing to do.  She grieved for Trevor.  Putting him out of her mind had been impossible.  But she convinced herself it was better for Trevor if he weren’t connected with the work she would now be doing.  She remained convinced of that until he walked through the doors of the travel agency.  She played her part convincingly, but ached inside with every word she spoke.  And now she would have to continue to play the part of Hazel until she could tell Trevor in a way that wouldn’t cause him to hate her.

***

The aula’s façade was covered with red brick, and had steel-framed windows across the entire ground floor.  The name Universitas Carolina was affixed to the front of the building.  The courtyard was comprised of sections of concrete, into which a steel fencing was installed, giving the exterior a strangely modern appearance, partly because of their opposition to the older plaster-walled side buildings, which were topped with red tile roofs.  Inside the aula, they found an admissions office, and Trevor asked, in fluent Czech, where the professor’s office was.  Not knowing that Trevor could speak Czech, Hazel was impressed.  The woman at the desk replied, and although Hazel couldn’t understand what was being said, Trevor seemed to attach great importance to it.  He grabbed her hand and pulled her quickly back outside.

“Come on,” he said.  “We have to get out of here right now.”

“What did that woman say?”

“Professor Prazak isn’t here.  He’s giving a series of lectures, and will be gone for over a week.”

“But the manuscript pages could be here, couldn’t they?”

“Doubtful.”

“Why not,” Hazel asked, tired of the lack of information.

“Because he was asked to not let the pages out of his sight, and I think he would have honored that request.  But even if he hadn’t, the pages would probably be gone if these agencies you talk about are as thorough as you say.”

“Why is that?” she asked.

“Because,” he replied, looking at his watch.  “We aren’t the first people to ask about the professor today.  A tall, slim, dark-haired woman, expensively dressed, wearing four-inch stiletto heels asked the same questions about an hour ago.  Do we dare take WorldCon Airlines this time?”

“I think so,” she replied.  “It would be the fastest way.  Besides, it would give me time to arrange for false identification and credit cards for the two of us.  We could pick them up at our destination.  So, where are we going?”

“New York,” he said, thinking the eight hour or so flight would give him plenty of time to practice the chinchilla, and possibly unravel some of the puzzles that were rattling around in his brain.

“New York State or New York City?” she asked.

“Both,” he replied.  “The city first, and maybe a drive later to Ithaca, in upstate New York.”

“What’s there?”

“Cornell University.  Can we go now?”

  [3,195 words]

Chapter 13 (written by Miette E.)

Cozied up in all thirteen plush inches of a third class seat after an unexpectedly uneventful trip down security lane, Trevor looks at the equine face to his right, curious as to her motive.  A couple books last-minute seats to New York, only to find a paucity of conjoining seats available, though the ticket gatekeeper both reassuringly and sensibly suggests that they book two seats removed by one passenger, that she didn’t know the statistics on such matters but if asked kindly, “most passengers” would kindly shift over a space for a couple traveling together.  Even an inheritance would only get him so far.

The statistics of most were against them, evidently, as she’d refused to budge (‘must be a superstitious phobic thing, her favourite lucky seat or something,’ Hazel’s stolen sidelong glance had suggested, and he’d agreed with a barely discernable nod of the head).  In fact, kindliness was seemingly misplaced for indignation in the closet of this stranger’s emotional responses, and after the lashing they’d been given at the suggestion of swapping spots from the mouth beneath her extenuated jowl, they both sat frozen in their respective seats, the occasional furtive glance the most communicative they’d allow one another. 

(‘Well, without her conversational distractions, at least I’ll be able to get some work done on the chinchilla,’ he’d thought, when he suddenly and unfortunately remembered, as he slowly began to sink into sleep, that he’d been awake an awfully long time now.)

It was classic airplane sleep, half-lucid of banging carts and artificial food smells, and half-dreamscape into which the lucid half of him hoped to ensconce himself more deeply, in hopes of rabbit-hole revelation.  The dreams themselves, fragmented further by the regular interruption of a sneeze, cough (obviously the phlegmatic hack of the recently nicotine-deprived variety), and random expectoration of she next to him, and further punctuated with a crude elbow brought sharply to his coastal cartilage, and while his was a troubled slumber, he thought himself alert enough to at least wonder if he couldn’t work on the chinchilla, at least enough to use it for purposes of immediate vindication:  was she really so resentful?  All they’d done was ask her to shove over a seat.  What kind of a ritual was the middle seat, anyhow?  But consciousness was lost, and somewhere in the hinterlands of his own consciousness, his only thoughts committed later to recall would be:

He had been planning to send a letter, or at least he had skirted around a mention of a plan to have a letter sent, as the time he’d been shown had been great time, and a letter is requisite acknowledgment of a letter.
Despite etoliatory recap, the gist was squeezed tight:  it had been a good time, and a letter was due.  But to whom?  And would it be worth sending a letter if he was going to New York anyhow?  Was he going to New York in this dream, or was he being temporarily awakened by her tarty elbow again, and did it matter when he grew this weary?

Piano-sized scale (that’s “grand,” for those not paying attention) wasn’t needed to measure the weight of the world lifted listlessly from his axial rotators, but the occasional good mal (not great, nowhere even near) would be appreciated, just a synecdochic seizure, she’d said, while satisfying a mission to indulge in three good meals a week. Hence the need for a letter.

It had later been noted that, unfortunately, she’d only been feting the esophageal although (it should be noted) through no fault of her own. A typo will always take the blame when there’s no one else at whom to unpry a finger of disgust.

But she had been speaking in long-forgotten dialects, this is again, why a letter, not a phone call or the verbal striptease of an actual meeting. Didn’t she (speak the language, that is)? After all, it had been time greatly spent, and as far as letters go, mightn’t he therefore send the fuzzy feltish sort that might be stitched onto an outergarment as a proud display of her athleticism? 

Finally, a fit, blamed for this recent lapse into unredeemable expatiation, but he might instead wonder: with everything spelled exactly so, where’s the typo to ogle?   The temperature may have dropped, but the climate is, for better or worse, controlled.

And there she stood, freedom towering over the mailbox while demanding false hopelessness, and as she waited for the sky to rain down the other shoe, he made a sandwich of himself, and then started to seize, and grandly, and at last. After all, he was planning to send a letter, and she only hoped he’d remember that her favourite letter was “I.” And that he wouldn’t forget that despite it all…

Ooooof, good morning to her too, there she is – this time he finds himself awakened to the tune of what must be a basketball-sized ball of deeplyrooted throat juice, working its   way in a volte-face up her downward tubes and a fine strand of it finding its way to the knee of his very trouser. 

His head not moving by its own accord but by the weight of weary, and his eyes only open enough to see the impressively strewn path culminating on his right leg, salivarily connecting to what must be her palace of masticatory mush,  and, out of only the more surreptitious sidelong glance, he watched in helpless horror as she, shaky hand extended, softly brushed against the cotton over his knee in hopes of cleaning the mess she’d made.  Her finger disappeared from his limited purview and just as he was about to reenter the land of organic milk and macrobiotic honey, the announcer on the in-flight microphone begged them to prepare for landing. 

He bolted straight up.  They had arrived.

[973 words]

Chapter 14 (written by Chris Goringe)

JFK had the distinctive smell of an airport washed by recent rain as Trevor and Hazel hailed a taxi and climbed – or in Trevor’s case, collapsed – into the back seat. “God, I hate travelling,” he muttered to himself as Hazel spoke to the driver. Coming through customs they’d agreed it was worth trying the New York University department of Linguistics, where Professor Prazak had delivered a lecture the previous afternoon, in case he had stayed overnight before heading to Cornell, the next stop on his speaking tour.

The energy of the city, buzzing with morning commuters, seemed to mock Trevor’s jet-lagged lethargy. Wearily, he realised he hadn’t even turned his cell-phone back on after the flight. The phone played a depressingly cheerful melody as it powered up, announcing that he had missed three calls during the flight.

Suddenly Trevor was wide awake, staring at the display. He hadn’t missed three calls during the flight, he’d missed three calls in the last twenty minutes – all from the same number, a number he knew almost as well as his own. What the hell… before he even had time to complete the thought, the phone rang.

“Hi, Tracey?”

“Where the hell are you, Trevor?” Tracey’s voice was full of not-so-well-suppressed panic. “Why haven’t you been answering your phone?”

“It’s OK, Tace, I’m just back in the country – just landed at JFK. Heading into town now, then probably out to Cornell.”

“Cornell? What’s this all about, Trevor? What’s going on?”

“Tracey – there’s not much I can't tell you right now. But I just need you to trust me – what I’m doing, it’s really important.”

“Damn you, Trevor, it’s not as important as your family – as my kids.”

“But…”

“Michael and Natalie – Trevor, I don’t know where my kids are.” Now there was no attempt to hide the panic in her voice. “I was going to take them to the shelter, but… oh hell, I don’t know how to explain it. This guy Gerhardt, he knows all about the documents, knew about your plane tickets, he seemed to know everything. He convinced me you had sent him, that you needed me, that WorldCon would look after Stephen and the kids…”

“And you went with him?”

“You don’t understand, Trevor, he knew everything. About my work at Cornell. About the documents I sent you.”

“You sent…”

“Yes, I sent. How could he know about them if you didn’t tell him? But you didn’t, did you. And now I’m God-knows-where, in some medieval monastery by the looks of things, with an old guy who’s some sort of cross between Dan Brown and Yoda and,” Tracey’s voice cracked, “Trevor, I don’t know where my kids are.”

“Tracey, Sis, I swear, I’ll find your kids, I’ll find Michael and Natalie. Where are you?”

“France, I think.” Trevor could hear his sister fighting to remain calm, to think and speak clearly “My cell phone says Goncelin. It was a long flight, and it’s early afternoon here now – morning in New York?”

“8ish”

“That makes sense. Old buildings, like I say. Cold, too, probably at altitude. French Alps?”

 “OK. Why didn’t you call me till now?”

“I only got my phone back this morning. I must have dropped it while they were bringing me here; anyway, Gerhardt returned it to me half an hour ago. I’ve been trying to call you and Stephen ever since.”

Trevor’s heart, already working overtime, stopped. Oh, shit.

“They gave you your phone back.” His voice was deathly calm. “And I told you where I was, and where I was going.”

“What are you talking ab…” There was a moment’s silence on the other end of the line. Then, in broken Czech, and a suddenly subdued voice, Tracey continued, “There’s something else, Trevor. I overheard them talking last night – couldn’t hear what they were saying, but I overheard a name I recognised. An old friend of yours. From Cambridge. Who was killed in a plane crash…”

Trevor’s Czech was fluent, but he spoke slowly and simply, unsure just how much his sister would be able to follow. “OK, Tracey, listen. I’m going to find Stephen and the kids. If you get hold of Stephen call me – no, tell him to call me. I’ll…” Something about the silence at the other end told Trevor the line had gone dead. Only as he looked up and met Hazel’s eyes did he realize that his own were full of tears, and hers of sympathy.

“I only heard some of that, but I think I can help. Or rather, I think we can help. If you tell me all you can, I can have people find your sister and her children. But you have to trust me – we have to keep going. Understanding this manuscript is more important than ever.”

“Trust you? There’s one question I need you to answer first.”

“If I can, I will.”

“What do you know about Rebecca Sharp?”

[835 words]

Chapter 15 (written by Hugh McGuire)

    The room was stuffed with books and papers, piles of them, and it had taken Prazak five full minutes to clear the little table of debris and find the envelope with the manuscript that Trevor had sent him.

 

 

    "The work," Prazak said, waving his thick hand at the pages with a kind of disgust. "The work it is … untidy. You should see the office in Prague." He shook his big, grey head, and stared at Trevor with those dark eyes as if he couldn't bear thought of the mess in Prague. He found the envelope, addressed in Trevor's writing, with Egyptian stamps.

 

    "Here," he said, handing the document over. "It's all there."

    "And the computer?" Trevor asked, indicating the laptop Prazak had offered him.

    The old man smiled. "Always with the computers," he said. "I don't even know how it works. Brand new… Always these new tools. I don't trust them." He seemed to have as much disgust for the laptop as he did for his office in Prague.

Trevor thanked Prof Prazak, told him he would get the computer back as soon as he could. Then the professor laughed, taking Trevor's hand. "Please," he said. "Keep that thing. They are evil." He smiled at his joke and then gestured towards the door. "The lady seems impatient." Hazel stood there waiting, and indeed she was impatient. She was afraid GLOBAL's agents would be arriving soon.

 

Twenty minutes later, in a far off corner of the University library, Trevor opened the computer, got out the manuscript, and his iriver, and got to work.

    He was there two hours later, and then three and finally he stood to stretch his legs.

    Hazel appeared: "Anything?"

    "Closer," Trevor said. "Can you tell me anything more?"

    "You won't believe me," she said. "Just keep plugging away, we can talk after you've done some snooping in the system."

    She left him to work, and continued her patrols, searching for GLOBAL agents, agents they both knew would be here soon, looking for Trevor.

Trevor focused on his work. He shook his head in disbelief. He was a good hacker, maybe a great hacker, but he would never have been able to get into the system without the roadmap provided by the errors in LibriVox, decoded by putting the manuscript and the audio of the Mystery together. The system was air tight, but someone had left a trap door in the security, a door that let him in.

And once in, he couldn't believe what he saw, couldn't believe what was behind this security. What was emerging from his analysis seemed too big, seemed impossible. How much did Hazel know about this, he wondered? All of it? None of it?

 

He was not completely finished, but he was finished for now. There were more hours of work to do, but he needed to think.

    "What do you know about this?" he asked Hazel.

    "What do you know?"

    "It's impossible. I can't believe what this system does."

    "And what is it that it does?"

    Trevor didn't know what to say. It seemed incredible, outlandish, bigger than anything he could have imagined. They recorded everything. Everything. Every email, every blog entry, forum post, every bookmark, every photo posted, everything done online was recorded, associated with individuals. Every online game played, every move, every instant message. It was all here. The scale of the information was bigger than he thought possible. He searched for his own information, and erased what little was there. He was a careful, skilled, long-time hacker, and he did what was necessary to keep himself invisible online, but even with his skills and caution, so much had slipped through. Most of the online stuff was gone, but not the other traces: his bank transactions, interac purchases, visa transactions. Cell phone calls. They even collected voting records from the Diebold machines in the US. And there was more, more than this frightening array of digital information. There were digitized versions of letters he had written, hand-written letters, from his youth. A thank-you letter to his aunt Ada (she'd bought him a baseball glove when he was fifteen).

    What was all of this for, he wondered? His brain was still processing what was there, he didn't have enough energy to answer that question. Yet.

    And if his own database entry in the system was relatively slim (huge as it was), the others … the rest of them … the rest of humanity … it was more than he could comprehend. The database was massive, a scale beyond anything he could have imagined. Greater than the climate modeling systems he had worked on. Greater probably, no, certainly, than any military computers his friends had worked on. He could not imagine another system that could track so much information, in real time. It was so far beyond the biggest processors he'd ever seen, ever heard of, ever even conceived of. The chinchilla was positively gnawing at him. He felt light-headed, thought he might faint.

    It was too much.

    And there was more. Behind other security that he couldn't crack. There seemed to be no trap door there.

    Hazel nodded as he explained what he had found.

    "They are recording everything," he said, incredulous.

    "That's right," she said.

    "Everything," he shook his head. "It's impossible."

    "Except it's not impossible. They are doing it."

    "What for?"

    "Control."

    He considered what she said.

    "Blackmail? … No it's too big for that. Too comprehensive."

    "Nothing to do with blackmail."

    He pondered. "Marketing data. To know what you'll buy. But bigger." He considered more. It wasn't just for marketing, it was for everything. Data like this was collected to know what you would think. What you would do.

    "What's behind the wall?" He thought he knew, but hoped he was wrong.

    "It's a modeling system."

    He wasn't wrong at all. He was right. If they could collect all this data, if they had the processing power to collect it, they could do more with it. If they collected and processed every email, every exchange, every transaction, if they could process all that information, they could make predictive models. They could say: if you got such and such message under certain circumstances, they would know how you would react. They could model the system, the whole system, they could model how groups would react, they could model individual behaviour, they could model every decision that you made, that anyone made. They had at almost complete Newtonian map of humanity here.

    "Web 2.0," Hazel said, "was invented to better collect the data to control everything."

    "So this is a predictive modeling system?"

    "More," she said. He waiter for her to go on: "What does a predictive model help you do?"

    "You know how people will react…so you can model reactions based on certain things. You can test different scenarios."

    "Right."

    "It's used to ... what? ... to make decisions?"

    "Right."

    "To decide what?" he asked.

    Her blue eyes were hard and unforgiving. "Everything. Almost."

    "Why didn't you just tell me when we met?"

    "Because you wouldn't have believed me. Without proof. And we needed someone from outside the Order to break into the system. Our organization is filled with spies. There are only a handful of us who can be trusted. There are hundreds who are not spies, but …finding those hundreds among the thousands would be impossible. GLOBAL has infiltrated the Order just as we have infiltrated GLOBAL."

    She told him the history of GLOBAL. It started as a small group of higly placed Catholic clergy and European aristocrats, technocrats, a number of Sufi scholars, Mongol lords, and the King of the Yoruba peoples. A small congress of the most powerful men in the world. They met and established GLOBAL in 1215, the year the Magna Carta was written, to discuss the future of humanity. They could see what was coming, the march of history. And decided among the group of them that there needed to be an informal (but final) means of control beyond the usual systems of diplomacy, politics, war-making, peace-making and trade. GLOBAL continued to be a small group of powerful men, and the occasional woman - this was a question of control, not politics - for a few hundred years. Deals were struck, hands shaken. Often warring parties shook hands and smiled behind the scenes: these wars were sometimes necessary for reasons everyone acknowledged. But GLOBAL grew over the years. In addition to the main assembly, the decision-making body, they created a sort of control mechanism, an advisory committee, tasked with giving direction to GLOBAL while GLOBAL continued the day-to-day decision-making. The Order was born.
GLOBAL's power and control grew over the course of the next few hundred years. They consolidated control of most universities, police forces, military. The postal systems, of course; banks, schools. They were everywhere. But with the railways, a new breed of GLOBAL delegate came: the science men, men who realized that control of world order was about more than political manoeuvering. Who realized that true control, a Newtonian kind of control, would come when they had enough information about the mass of humans, who, since the Magna Carta, had exerted more and more influence on the affairs of the world. As physics and chemistry was harnessed in the industrial age, so too the affairs of humans would be, when the experiments could be performed on a grand scale, when the data collection would be sufficient, when true classifications could be made.
    In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the Order stood behind GLOBAL and their ever-ambitious program of control. But the grandiosity of GLOBAL's experiments made some in the Order nervous. Chief among them T. Missous, who saw danger in the proposed system. That all this control might mean rigidity. Though GLOBAL argued it was all necessary, all for the best, in the name of managing humanity's place on the Earth. But the Order issued a secret warning: if GLOBAL's research teams looked forward to what they could do with telephones, telegraph, Missous saw what the end game was, where communication was going, realized that eventually the project would catch everything. And he worried about that. He issued a secret Mandate to the Order, that in the case of several events in the future, the destruction of GLOBAL and its apparatus must happen.
    All those events had now come to pass, and in the meantime, GLOBAL had extended its reach and power to levels unimagined in 1215, and still only surmised in 1923, when Missous issued his edict to the Order.

    Trevor was lying on the ground, under the table. He did this when he had to think. In any other circumstance, he would have believed none of this. But he had seen inside the system. He had seen what they were doing. If they could collect that mass of information in one place, anything was possible.

    "But why am I here doing this?" he asked. "Why me?"

    "Because you can help. You can help dismantle it. But you aren't alone. Hundreds of other hackers have been given similar tools."

    "So what, exactly, is happening now?" Trevor asked.

    "The Order wants you to get into the system. To destroy it."

    "And?"

    "Almost all of the other hackers are dead. You and a few others are still alive, but as far as I know, you're the first one who has been inside."

[1909 words]

Chapter 16 (written by Kirsten Ferreri)

Hazel lay sprawled across the bed, her blonde hair shimmering in the light through the window. She had a separate room booked at the hotel to which they finally retired, after being unceremoniously thrown out of the library sometime around midnight. But she had fallen asleep while explaining GLOBAL to Trevor for what must have seemed to her like the thousandth time. Trevor lay under the table in his suite's sitting room, scowling at the darkness. The whole thing was so complicatedly preposterous it had to be true, but his chinchilla was back, scratching at the back of his mind. Hazel was keeping something from him. He knew it, though he couldn't say how. But GLOBAL was not interested in him just for his hacking skills. There was another connection – something Hazel didn't want him to know.

For starters, it was just too huge a coincidence that, over eighty years after T. Missous had issued the edict to destroy GLOBAL, his grandson possessed the exact skills to get it done, at the exact moment when it needed to be done.

Trevor rubbed his eyes wearily and slid out from under the table. He needed a break. He retrieved his USB headset from his laptop bag and plugged it in. Hopefully there would be a new chapter of The Mystery posted on the LibriVox forums. His email program popped up, telling him he had some new messages, but he clicked past it to LibriVox.

The Going Solo forums were highlighted, meaning that someone had posted a chapter to something. He opened the folder eagerly.

The Mystery was highlighted – and marked as “LOCKED.”

The first post had been changed to include a bright red banner message:

“Due to the fact that our moderators have been unable to determine whether this piece is in the public domain, we have to temporarily close this thread down until we hear back from Gutenberg. So sorry for the inconvenience!”

Trevor scrolled down frantically. This couldn't be the end of The Mystery! After all the lies Hazel told to him – he still couldn't shake the feeling that she was holding something back – The Mystery felt like his only link to his grandfather's true history.

Oh, thank Christ – one last link had been posted.

The reader had his own server space, so none of the chapters had been deleted yet. Trevor downloaded the last one, put on his headphones, and listened.

The recordings had never been perfect. There was background noise, interference, the occasional plosive – all the hallmarks of an amateur. But this one was different. The plosives came regularly, and were much more pronounced. It also seemed like almost every other plosive was longer than usual. The longer he listened, the more his chinchilla itched. Suddenly, and for the first time he could remember, something came of it and an idea struck him. He loaded the last chapter of The Mystery into Audacity, and began to edit the file so that only the plosives remained. They fell instantly into a pattern.

Short...short...long...short...and a pause...

...Morse code?

Trevor opened NotePad and restarted the track, recording dots and dashes, then Googled “morse code” and pulled up a decoder.

F...I...N...

...Find Red.

And there goes that damn chinchilla again.

* * *

If Trevor's brain felt like it was being tickled by a chinchilla, Tracey's felt like hers was being waltzed on by a tyrannosaurus. She blinked her eyes open and tried to take in her surroundings, still unsure where she was. The walls were solid stone, rising for what looked like a hundred feet above her, and she could hear the echoes of her breathing resounding off the ceiling. She eased herself up off the floor. Every muscle in her body hurt, and her head was throbbing. She leaned over and retched. She had barely eaten in days, so she didn't vomit, but there was a sour taste of acid in the back of her throat. Tracey lay back down and began to sob.

Suddenly, she heard footsteps coming toward her. She dried her eyes and sat up, trying to ignore the pain in her forehead. A light flashed overhead, and for the first time in a long time Tracey saw exactly where she was.

It looked almost like the inside of a cathedral – a cathedral with no windows and no visible doors. The ceiling was vaulted and buttressed, and a wooden picnic table stood in the exact middle of the room. A woman was laying a meal out on the table, and humming gently to herself. The tune sounded familiar, though Tracey couldn't remember where she had heard it.

The woman was sweet-faced and plump, and no older than thirty. She had a long ponytail of curly red hair, and was dressed in a t-shirt and jeans. The t-shirt had something written on it, but Tracey couldn't quite make it out. Tracey stood and began to stumble toward the woman; her legs felt unused to walking, and she wondered how long she had been asleep, and wondered if her headache had anything to do with not remembering her surroundings. The woman looked up, and smiled. As she turned, Tracey could read the writing on her shirt:

“I record audio books for LibriVox.org.”

Tracey gasped. This was too strange to be true.

“Good morning,” the woman said. She had a slightly odd accent – yet another detail Tracey felt like she could recognize, but couldn't.

“Where am I?”

The lady hesitated, as if deciding whether to tell her. “You're in Rome,” she said at last.

Tracey felt tears well up in her eyes again. The woman seemed to notice, and moved toward Tracey sympathetically.

“You must be starving,” she said. “Please, have something to eat.”

Tracey knew better than to eat food prepared by a mysterious stranger, but she couldn't resist the smell of the hot, fresh spaghetti and fresh mozzarella and tomato salad. She collapsed into a chair and began to eat hungrily. The woman sat down across from her and watched her eat. When she had cleaned her plate, the woman opened the picnic basket again, and pulled out a photo album.

“Care to look inside?”

Tracey felt her stomach sink, but she opened the album. Inside were photos of a baby girl, with the face hidden. Tracey began to cry again.

“Is this my daughter?”

“It could be anyone's daughter.” The woman closed the album and put it back in the picnic basket. “But I want you not to jump to conclusions.”

“Is it my daughter?” Tracey demanded again.

“As it happens, it isn't your daughter. But it could be your daughter. It could be anyone's daughter.”

“I don't understand what you mean.”

“I mean that we could take your daughter at any moment. We could also take your son, or your husband, or your brother. They are safe now. They have filed a police report and said you are kidnapped. But they are safe at home.”

“Why are you telling me all this?”

“I want you to trust me. I am not keeping any secrets from you, and I need your help.”

“With what?”

“With convincing your brother to help our cause.”

Tracey could feel her headache returning. “I don't know where Trevor is right now.”

“We can put you in contact with him. We need you to tell him that he knows who we are, and that we have been trying to get in touch with him for a long time. That his life is in danger, and that he will not be safe unless he is with us. Tell him that everyone is not who they seem to be, and to trust no one who has contacted him so far.”

“And why should he trust you?”

“He has no choice. He knows everything is not right with his so-called friends. He knows they are liars. Tell him that we know that he knows.”

“Before I tell him all this I need to know who you are.” Tracey's courage was returning to her. Again, it was against all her instincts, but she did trust this strange woman.

The woman chuckled to herself, and reached into the picnic basket one last time. She handed Tracey a gold medallion. It was embossed with a cross, and an inscription in Latin.

“What does this say?”

“Translated, it claims the medallion as the property of the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of St. John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes, and of Malta.”

“You're with the Knights of Malta?”

“I am more than with the Knights. You might say that I am the knights. I am the first of the order. The first of the color guard, the first of the pilgrims, and the first daughter of the ancient Latia. I am the first and the last of my kind. Inprima sum, Rutila sum.”

“I...” Tracey bit her lip in confusion. “I don't speak Latin, I'm sorry.”

The woman smiled again – this time with a hint of impatience.

“I am in the first place. I am Red.”

[1512 words]

Chapters 17-30