The Lost Tribes, page 6
“Sweet!” Carlos glanced at Ben and smirked.
Ben rolled his eyes and pretended to be interested. Serise’s mother was Curator of the Sunnyslope Museum of Natural History. She was always off doing weird things — rock climbing in Arizona, studying crop circles in Iowa corn fields. She brought back expensive gifts for Serise who gave new meaning to the word “spoiled.”
“So what do you think,” asked Serise.
Ben shrugged. “What’s the big deal? It doesn’t have a timer or a stopwatch or a compass or …”
Serise yanked her arm back. “What would you know, fashion reject. Want to see something cool?”
Ben was about to say “no” when Grace elbowed him in the back.
“Yeah, sure,” he said.
“Follow me.” Serise pressed her fingers to her lips as she tiptoed towards her house on the south side of the cul-de-sac. “Shhh!”
The five of them crept down the driveway, across the street and around to the Hightower’s backyard. A domed structure sat in the corner. Covered with blankets, canvas tarps and leather, it looked like a cross between a hut and a tent. A single opening was visible on the west side.
“What’s that?” asked Carlos.
“Our new sweat lodge,” Serise said. “My father’s getting ready for a vision quest.”
“So what’s it for?” asked Ben, though he wasn’t sure he wanted to know. Serise’s dad was a meteorologist, but his hobby was mystic religions. He was always trying to conjure up the spirit of an ancient ancestor.
“A vision quest,” Serise repeated. “He’s going to cleanse himself of toxic impurities and restore his soul. He’s meditating. Been fasting for a couple of days. He wants to conduct a ceremony on Sunday and get guidance for a journey.”
“He does this every time he goes on a trip?” asked Ben.
“No. But after the big storm he said he was going to ask the Tribal Council for permission to conduct an Enemyway ceremony.”
Ben heard an odd chanting coming from inside.
“He won’t start the ritual until Sunday,” Serise said.
“Just what we need,” Ben said. “Ghosts of ancient ancestors moving into the neighborhood.”
“I don’t know,” Grace said. “A sweat lodge meditation sounds cool. We’re stuck with Mahjong on Sunday. I never win. I’d rather be doing this.”
Serise cocked her head to the side. “You have to be naked.”
Grace’s jaw dropped. “Umm. Never mind. Mahjong suddenly sounds pretty good.”
Serise crept toward the back of the lodge and showed them a walkie-talkie behind a large rock. While she covered it with ferns and leaves.
“Did you get what we need?” Ben whispered.
“I’m working on it,” Grace said. “My parents are going out of town again and they’re not happy about it. The night of that big storm they got a phone call and they’ve been on edge ever since.”
“Mine too,” Ben said. “We were shooting some hoops but Dad kept watching the clouds.”
Grace shrugged. “I don’t think it has anything to do with the weather. I think it’s because they got stuck translating Middle East peace negotiations. I’m sleeping over at Serise’s house.”
Ben patted her on the back. “The CIA classifies sleepovers with Serise as torture.”
Grace gave a weak smile. “She’s not so bad. It’s just one night. Are you playing later?”
He shook his head. “Got to work on math. Mom will ground me if I don’t get some of it done. How about tomorrow morning? About 11 o’clock? Carlos gave me a clue about the numbers. He’s going to help.”
“Deal. Three heads are better than two,” Grace said.
Serise shoved the wireless transmitter in her back pocket.
“And why do you want to do this?” asked Carlos, looking horrified.
“My father wants to hear the voice of spirits. I thought I’d help him out. One time I gave him a thrill by banging some rocks together while he was meditating.”
Ben clucked his tongue in disgust.”
“It’s not like living on this boring cul-de-sac is a thrill. What did the builders do? Build the first house and then hit cut and paste for the rest? And what’s up with all the beige? There are days when I come home and can’t remember which house I live in!” Serise said.
“Your dad’s a nice guy,” Ben said. “I don’t see what’s so funny about this.”
“Because you have no sense of humor!” Serise said, flipping her long hair out of her face.
“We do,” countered Carlos. “You just haven’t done anything that’s funny.”
“Fine!” she spat. “Just don’t snitch. Or, Ben, I’ll tell your mom what you’ve been dumping on her flowers.”
Ben froze.
“Yeah, that’s right! I saw you!” She turned on her heels, walked into the house and slammed the door shut. She returned a few minutes later. “What was I thinking? This is my yard. Get out!”
That evening, Ben sat in front of the kitchen computer under his mother’s watchful eye. He typed “hypotenuse” into a search engine and frowned when the computer returned the same answer over and over again.
This site is temporarily blocked. Please enter access code.
Foiled again by his mom’s evil filters.
His father walked into the kitchen and tossed his briefcase on the table. “Hey, Ben! Exciting news! We’ve been invited to the Hightower’s on Sunday to try out their new sweat lodge!”
Now Ben knew his forehead was painted with an invisible bullseye.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The Hologram
If you don’t know where you want to go, any road will take you there.
Traditional proverb
Armed with the mile high deli sandwich smuggled in by Carlos, Ben logged on to his computer. “Yo, Grace. I’m back online and I’ve got company.”
“Hola, Carlos. Welcome to the search for lost tribes, whoever they are.” Grace’s expression was half smile, half warning.
“What’s up, Grace? You okay?”
She flicked her hair to the rear. It flopped back in place. Ben thought he saw colors in her hair — maroon and purple streaks, beads and … a matching feather?
“You copying Serise’s hairstyle? Was that the price for getting the answers to the canopic jars? How’d you ditch her anyway?”
Grace frowned as arms appeared on each side of her shoulders.
No! It can’t be!
“Hey, Ben!”
He stifled a groan. “Oh! Hi, Serise!”
“You really are an idiot.” Carlos buried his face in a pillow, his body vibrating with laughter as he clutched his stomach.
Aris bounded into the room, jumped on the blanket and sniffed him.
“Sorry. She wouldn’t help if I didn’t let her play and we can go faster if we have more heads working on this.” Grace shrugged in defeat. “The suspense is killing me.”
Serise pushed her face close to the camera lens, puckered her lips and let loose a loud smacking sound. She winked as she pulled back. “Face it, you need me.”
Yeah. Like a hole in my head.
Serise’s bracelets clattered as she lifted her arms and flexed her fingers as if she were about to crack a safe. Grace frowned and mouthed, “Sorry!” She looked like a hostage and kept glancing to the right. Soon, Ben understood why.
Something shimmered behind her… sparkling beaded hair to be more specific. April! Grace’s room had been invaded by the cul-de-sac’s entire contingent of obnoxious girls. She WAS a hostage. Ben tried to think of ways he and Carlos could mount a rescue mission.
“Looks like it’s the girls against the boys,” April said, waving so hard Ben thought her arm would fall off. “Hi Carlos! This is going to be more fun then playing the game by myself. I was stuck on the part with the hidden door. Serise helped me figure it out.”
Serise gave April a high-five then hugged her. “Always wanted a kid sister!”
“Sold!” Ben said under his breath.
“Huh?” Still chuckling, Carlos wiped the tears from his eyes. “There’s a hidden door?”
Ben quickly brought Carlos up to speed then said, “April, I thought you were in a jungle?”
“I was lying. I couldn’t figure out the password. Plus, Aris kept stepping on the keyboard and messing up my guesses so I gave up and went to bed. After I heard you tell Grace that your password was ‘Benjamin,’ I typed my name and it worked! But I knew you wouldn’t help me with the rest, so I asked Serise.”
“Fine,” Ben said through gritted teeth. Realizing that anything he said or did would be transmitted to Grace’s monitor, he pasted on his best fake smile. “You’re right. Can’t hurt to team up.”
“Want to know what those boxes are?” asked Serise.
Ben bit his lip and was about to fire off a smart remark when Carlos punched him in the shoulder out of view of the camera and said in his nicest, syrupy sweet voice, “Yes! Amaze us with your brilliance, Serise.”
“April,” Serise continued. “Why don’t you do the honors?”
“It’s a pigpen code. At first I thought Serise was talking about Ben’s messy room but she drew me a picture and showed me how to solve it. She figured out those hanging fringe thingies too.”
Serise arched her eyebrows and grinned.
“Are you going to tell us,” sighed Grace. “Or wait ‘til we’ve died of old age?”
“I’ll give you a hint. It’s not fringe.”
“And?” Grace glared into the camera. Ben could have sworn she was going to smack Serise. That told him a lot, since Grace was a Buddhist and a completely nonviolent person.
“Second hint. They’re broken,” Serise said.
“And?” asked Ben.
“They’re codes.”
“We know that!” shouted Ben, Carlos and Grace in unison.
“Good grief!” Grace said. “Spit it out already.”
“They’re people codes!” yelled April, as if keeping Serise’s secret would cause her to explode. She hopped up and down in excitement.
“What?” asked Ben, totally lost at this point.
“They’re genetic codes,” Serise said. “If you were taking the gifted science class like I am you would have recognized them right away. The game says you have to locate eight original tribes. There are eight canopic jars. I think the fringe is DNA strands, except they’re all broken.”
Ben “zoomed” forward to take another look at the jars. They did look like DNA strands. Of course they also looked like the fringe on one of Serise’s jackets.
“I still haven’t figured out how to get the jars open, but I do know how to solve the pigpen code. May I?” Serise pointed to Grace’s chair.
Grace shrugged and stood up. Serise plopped down and typed at a fanatical pace. “Hate doing stuff manually. So I worked on a program last night that will substitute the proper letters for the box codes.” She stared into the camera with the expression of a well-fed alley cat. “Ready?”
“Uh. Sure!” Ben looked at Carlos and shrugged.
“Wait ‘til you see this!” April hugged Serise and pushed her face so close to the webcam that the lens fogged.
Within seconds a self-extracting file appeared on Ben’s desktop. There was no need to restart the computer. The file linked to the game and caused it to zoom back to the book, which opened to the medallion page. A window opened on the edge of the screen showing a game board for tic-tac-toe. The program drew a second game board but placed dots in each of the boxes. Next, the program drew two giant X’s. The first was plain. The second was punctuated by dots similar to the squares sitting above it.
“Pretty picture,” Ben said. “Now what?”
“Shut up,” Grace said. “She’s on to something.”
The program typed letters into the empty slots generated by the program.
A decoder? Serise had developed a decoder overnight?
The computer paused. “Error. Advanced code detected. Key required. Reanalyze.” The letters of the alphabet dropped to the bottom of the screen.
“Great. Stuck again,” said Ben. “We don’t have any keys yet.”
“Type password,” the computer prompted.
“What password?” Carlos asked.
“Duhhh. Same one that let Ben log on,” Serise said. “I can’t do all the thinking for you.”
Ben growled and typed “Benjamin.” He felt Carlos’s chin on his shoulder and his erratic breathing on his neck. Aris pounced on his lap, leapt to the desk and studied the monitor. The cat yawned and proceeded to groom himself as the program sprang to life, lifting the letters of Ben’s name from the alphabet list, placing them sequentially in the spaces generated by the program. The remaining letters were added to the empty boxes in alphabetical order.
“Oh my gosh! She’s a genius!” Carlos said.
“We could have figured this out eventually.” Ben bit his lip and struggled to hide his amazement and his jealousy.
“Not the code! Did you see how fast she developed that program? Whoa, Serise! You’re like … amazing!”
“Why yes, I am.” She sat still as a rock, head raised and waited.
Grace stood behind her, mouth open wide. The computer opened a second box and began crunching data. Duplicates of the codes were copied to the blank page.
Within minutes, Ben understood what had captured the girl’s attention. A new list sprang to life on his own computer and suddenly the numerical codes made sense as well:
Home
29 59N 31 09E
Guardian
29 59N 30 05E
Sunnyslope
32 44N 117 10W
Rapa Nui
27 04S 109 22W
Xiangyang
34 22N 108 42E
Stongehenge
51 17N 1 83W
Acropolis
37 57N 23 42E
Nazca
14 42S 75 06W
Petra
30 19N 35 28E
Machu Picchu
13 06S 72 35W
Bandiagara Escarpment
14 21N 3 35W ….
The codes pinpointed the latitude and longitude for locations all over the world. Ben squirmed with excitement. “Now we’re cooking!”
“You’re welcome,” Serise said. “But we still have to figure out how that translates into getting out of the room.”
“I’ve got an idea,” Carlos said. “See the dots on the medallion. Four of them are larger than the others. Could be compass points. You know North, South, East, and West.”
“Hey! You’re right!” Serise said. “Except, there’s a problem. If we eliminate the compass points then that leaves eight buttons on the floor to push. If we have to dial a number we need access to ten digits — zero through nine.”
“You’ve got a point. Maybe the remaining nodes serve a dual purpose,” Carlos said.
“Too complicated.” Serise’s face was a mask of concentration.
“Okay. So then what?” Carlos asked.
Carlos and Serise took over as if on autopilot. Ben marveled. The two biggest brains on the block had found something in common. It was like Beauty and the Beast with Carlos playing the short but handsome Beauty and Serise in the role of the hideous Beast.
Left out of the technical mumbo jumbo bouncing back and forth, Ben sat on his bed and attempted to win a staring contest with the cat. He blinked, lost the contest and returned his attention to matters at hand. He waved from across the room at Grace who was relegated to the “bleachers” as well. A miniature hand waved back at him from the monitor. Meanwhile, the two newfound computer geeks chattered away about breaking codes and deciphering the meaning of the medallion as if no one else were in the room.
“Yin and Yang,” Ben yelled to Grace while pointing to Carlos.
Grace nodded.
“What did you say?” asked Carlos.
“Yin and Yang. Like my father and uncle.”
“That’s it,” Carlos yelled. “That’s where the other two digits are!”
“I don’t get it,” Serise said. “Where?”
“Look at the border around the Eye of Ra! It’s half white and half black! Binary code. On and Off. Zero and One! That would throw anyone off.”
“Sweet!” Serise said. “I think we have a winner.” Carlos and Serise clicked furiously.
After a few minutes, Carlos stopped and turned to Ben. “Didn’t you say this thing lights up when you pass the cursor over it?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, something’s not working. It doesn’t light up anymore. Did I miss a step?”
Ben grabbed the mouse, pushed it over the medallion and clicked. The lights glowed. “Guess I’m the only person qualified to pilot this thing.” He gave Carlos a gentle nudge. “I’ll take the Captain’s chair back, thank you very much. Serise? You having any problems?”
“No. It lights up just fine for me.”
Ben stuck his tongue out at Carlos. “Okay, here’s the plan. We’ll each pick a different place and see where it goes and if it comes with more instructions.”
Grace leapt from her bed and cleared her throat. “Uh hmmm.”
Serise rose without an argument. “Sorry, Grace. Didn’t mean to hog your machine.”
April frowned. “So which one do we pick? There’s so many to choose from.”
“Don’t bother with Sunnyslope,” Ben said. “We’re trying to get out of this town, not see more of it. You guys take the Chinese code. We’ll start with Rapa Nui. Then we can decide based on what we find. That’ll make the game go faster.”
“How do we know which node is north?” asked Grace.
Ben studied the medallion for a few seconds. “Use the big one that’s closest to that giant door. What’s the worst thing that could happen? We don’t go anywhere, or we go to the wrong place. Either way, we can start over if we hit a booby trap.”
Ben clicked the code for Rapa Nui. A blinding light appeared in the center of the medallion. On the right, the strands of the canopic jar closest to the Guardian clicked into place, then fell again.
“Hey, Grace. Did the jars do anything on your end?”
