Nouveau Defi

"Bon... Qu'est-ce que c'est..."

Harpalos just had the notification that he received a communication. It was from ZaneZavin, someone he always trusted and knew as a very curious person, just like him. He hadn't news of him since a long time so with pleasure he switched his monitor from his latest reading to the message.

"Hum..."

Caillech came by and saw him scratching his chin. She sat next to him, asking what was troubling him.

"Oh! Nothing, don't worry. No one is between life and death and requiring our immediate assistance. No, check this, it's from Zane."

She checked the screen, trying to figure out what was that. It looked like a puzzle, but with really few details. She pointed at the screen to a number.

"What is that? Is that the only clue we have?"

"250Ghz. I haven't heard this since a long time. Let me explain you. Radio transmissions are made using the electromagnetic waves. There are waves like that everywhere, including light itself. We don't see it, but there are billions of electrons dancing in constant oscillation everywhere. This oscillation is made at a certain speed. We call this the frequency. The higher the frequency, the faster the electrons move. The hertz is the unit of measure of frequency. 250 GigaHertz mean 109 hertz. At such an high level, we call that high frequency. Frequencies so high that they are strong enough to travel really far without having the signal lose too much of its strength. They are used in radio transmissions mostly. And that's what I think Zane wants us to check onto."

Caillech was used to Harpalos' usual lectures on various topics. She didn't understand everything despite his efforts in vulgarizing the topic, but anyway, she saw as usual in his eyes that he loved sharing knowledge.

"Well, can we set the ship to listen at this frequency then?"

"Normally, yes. As you know, the avoid the agitation that followed the start of the war between Zion and the Machines, I opted for our safety so we moved to the North Pole. We're safe here. However, radio transmissions can hardly reach here, even in high frequency. I have to explain you how it work for you to understand."

He opened a drawing program and started explaining. Caillech couldn't prevent herself from giggling, seeing how bad his drawing was. Harpalos knew well enough that he was bad with arts, so he didn't mind.


"You see, normally the radio waves sent by an antenna on high frequency will go up in the sky until they bounce in the sky, usually on the ionosphere which is the last part of the atmosphere. But you see, one day humans woke up and decided that they would add a cloud of smoke all around the Earth, blocking the sun. They thought that would kill the Machines. The rest is history. Anyway. Now thanks to that stuff, high frequencies can't travel correctly. I tried it and I could only receive a very partial signal. So well, we have two choices. Either we get closer to the source and try to pick up a clearer signal, or we stay here in safety."

"Well, some hotter air wouldn't do us any wrong!"

She knew that Harpalos would never pass on the opportunity to discover new things. A few minutes later, La Crypte took off and started moving southward.

Moving silently closer to the origin of the signal, Harpalos was cautious to not gather too much attention. It was a time of war after all and that radio system was not in the most convenient of all places. He was not in a hurry however. He didn't know that he wasn't alone to study that signal. So he didnt want to rush things, and thus making a fatal mistake. While the war was between the Machines and Zion, it just happen that forces from both sides have reasons to shoot on a Merovingian ship, even if he had always been an advocate for peace.

La Crypte moved down into a tunnel entrance, going down in the Earth. He followed it in a straight line, but he panicked when he saw that the tunnel stopped abruptly. A quick look on the map of the surroundings showed him that it was simply a very sharp elbow. He had to reduce the speed of his ship greatly if he wanted to make it without crashing in the wall.

He was preparing for the maneuver while Caillech, sitting in the co-pilot seat pointed him something on the screen. "Look! The signal is coming straight from where we are!" The source of the radio signal was indeed around. So instead of taking the curve, Harpalos shut down the propulsion engines and let the ship land in the tunnel.

"Bon, we'll go see what is this..."

Harpalos and Caillech moved near the ship door. They knew they were alone around here, but they took no precautions. They took an energy rifle each. They had never used these weapons before, and Harpalos prefered things to stay like this. The door slowly opened. Rarely did they come out of the ship. After all, they had all the confort they needed there. They got off the hovercraft and started scouting the surroundings. Caillech suddenly tug Harpalos' shirt, pointing him at a small object near the wall. "Look!"

Both advanced cautiously. They saw a metallic cylinder sporting an antenna. It was firmly stuck into rubble. A small screen was attached on it. Harpalos kneel down and looked at the small characters displayed.

"A Parable Nope No Not"

He read that line out loud. "Oh, and I can input something on this little keyboard. One, two, three... Eighteen. Eighteen characters.

"Oh, an enigma! You'll probably be able to solve that easily, it's your speciality!"

"Don't be that enthusiast, honey."

They started discussing about what this could be about. Caillech gave him various possible leads, but Harpalos was too focused. This wasn't an obvious one and he had to get it.

20 minutes later, he got a flash of insight. His third one so far. He verified his hypothesis, and it made sense after all. Obvious, but not that much. And too precise to not be it.

"Hello you..."

He typed cautiously the 18 characters, making sure he didn't make any mistake. He reached for Caillech's hand, and with his other hand, hovered his finger over the Enter key. He nodded to Caillech, showing that he was confident.

******************
--Enter

"What the hell is going on!"

Harpalos was behind cover. The man that tried to ambush them surely didn't expect to see Caillech react that quickly. Anyway, both had managed to reach for their rifles. Caillech was in the open, looking toward the cylinder. Harpalos also looked in that direction and he saw the man, sitting on the ground, holding his pistol in despair. What was this cylinder? Anyway, he had to come back to it. The last thing he saw before the man appeared was the screen of the device displaying "Entry Accepted". A small mechanism had been activated and half of the cylinder was now open. He didn't know what was inside however. And one thing is certain, he didn't cross nearly half of the globe to return empty-handed, and even worse, dead because of what was still a game to his eyes.

He got up, holding pointing his rifle toward the man. Never he intended to use it, but in case of danger, he wouldn't hesitate. He did a few caution steps and signalled Caillech that he had the situation in control.

"OK, no panic. We don't want you any harm. I won't spoil any blood here today, and Caillech will do the same. My name is Harpalos. The cylinder here next to you had a sort of puzzle which I solved. So here is the plan. I take the content, get back to my ship and no one will get hurt. Once I'm away, I can even contact you to tell you what was required to open the cylinder, and tell what was in it. Sounds good?"

"Heille! Ca faire là? Câlisse, prend moi pas pour un cave."

Harpalos was boiling in rage. The man had the arrogance to call Caillech "his girl", to offer him water which was probably his own recycled urine and worst than all, he insulted his language. Harpalos was usually a calm and diplomat man, but one thing he couldn't stand for is lack of respect. And in these extremely rare times, his temper barrier could fall down. And his language filter also. What he just shouted wasn't only French, but also very crude. Enough to make Caillech wonder if he was really alright. In more than one year of common life, she never saw him pissed off like this. And he was also surprised by himself. Usually, he kept out of the trouble, indicating why he never had much reason to lose his mind, but this time, a prone opponent was verbally spitting venom at his face. He had to keep his cool or terrible things could happen.

"Sorry sir, but this cheap Merovingian accent is my native language, French. And you should know that while that program picked that language surely just for the show and to give himself an elite image of some sort, I grew with it.

Now, you've shown how disrepectful you could be and you don't deserve my pity. Anyway, in 2 minutes I'll be out of this place. You'd better start forgetting about me and this data."

He signaled to Caillech that he was over with him. Caillech aknowledged, throwing a severe look to the man. They started moving back to the ship, pointing their rifle to the man to make sure he didn't do any false move. The finally reached the hovercraft and quickly closed the door.

"Who was this man Harp? Was he crazy?"

"I don't know, but I think it's Ballak. A former Tetragrammaton member."

Ballak wrote:

(( Technically Harpalos, you never picked up what was in the machina on the ground, but it seems you're implying you have it so I'll play along. ))

((Arg... You are right. In my first version I had picked it, but since I'm allergic to power rping, I had decided to give more lattitude to others by not taking it immediately. It looks like I didn't remember about my rewriting when I wrote today's part. I'll let you decide if you want me to put it back))

Once Harpalos entered the ship, he ran to the ship's control room and started the engines. Ballak surely didn't came here on foot. His ship had to be somewhere. And he'd rather not fall into a trap. While the energy started flowing in all the circuits, Caillech sat at her copilot chair and started to look at what they found in the cylinder. A rolled up paper sheet and a disk.

"Look! Paper!"

While at another era paper was a something humans considered for granted, the reality wasn't the same anymore. Paper, like many resources, were now artifacts. Just that was a nice discovery enough, without knowing yet what was on it. Caillech unrolled it and tried to figure out what it was. Harpalos was too busy navigating to check at it, but Caillech still tried to keep him in touch.

"It's a map. I don't get it, there are coordinates and that part down here looks like a quote of some sort"

"Interesting. We'll check that later. What's on the disk?"

Caillech pulled out the data disk. It was a generic one, the kind they had tons aboard the ship to store books, programs and such. Caillech slid it into the system and waited to see the details loaded.

"Oh, it's an audio file."

"Load it into the audio program and play it."

Caillech copied the small file to a hard drive and ran the audio reading program. They quickly recognized ZaneZavin's voice, talking in a concise  and authoritative way.

"You have come this far and should be proud of yourself.  If you are a true adventurer you will continue this journey.  This map may lead you to great things, but you will need to fill in some"

"CLICK"

Harpalos suddenly reached for the switch controlling the audio output and shut it immediately. The ship slowly came to an halt.

"I just ran a scan of the surroundings. We are not alone. I see two ships, on each side of the tunnel. Ballak's ship is on one side. And for the other, no idea. One thing is certain, the tunnel is too narrow to allow two ships at the same point. We have no choice, we must go to the opposite side from where Ballak came and face whoever is blocking the way on the other side.

And Zane, what kind of mess did you brought us into..."

The ship that was behind them stopped pursuing them. These last seconds might have been the most terrifying in Harpalos' life. La Crypte was a small ship where all the weapons systems had been replaced for some fancy communication stuff. Basically, it was totally unfit to sustain any sort of combat. Its small bulk and speed however made that it could be possible to navigate up and down, left and right to try to avoid as much gunfire as possible. He knew that the exit was close, that he didn't have much distance to reach the surface. Once there, he could fly up to the black clouds and thus be totally masked from his pursuer. However, the ship pursuing them had stopped, thus ending the dogfight. Harpalos had a breath of relief. However, the challenge wasn't over.

There was another ship, this time on the other side, nearly blocking the way. He was lucky however, the ship was taking off and slowly doing a 180, and thus, also heading outside. He had to maneuver the ship quickly. He had to transition the ship from high to low speed in a very short limit.

"Hold yourself, this might hurt!"

Inertia, even in a hovercraft, is a physic law always waiting to rear its ugly head. And well, this time they would have to experience it firsthand and suffer the discomfort of a quick transition. At least, the side-effects of inertia would be more tolerable than let's say, a full-speed collision.

Harpalos lowered the lever controlling the speed. Caillech had put her hands on the dashboard of the ship, while Harpalos firmly gripped the commands. Both absorbed the shock right, but the same couldn't be said about the gear in the ship. A cacophony of metal objects hitting the ground followed. But at least, they had made it. The ship was now following the ship in front of them, up to the surface exit. Harpalos scanned the airwaves and tried to open a communication with the other ship, to learn if it was friend or foe.

"Harpalos, captain of La Crypte. I suggest you to leave the place with haste, there's a trigger-happy machinist captain behind us. I retrieved what was hidden in this place, there's no reason to stay there."