The Hidden Code

by P. J. Hoover

  “Take pictures,” he says, and we both walk around the room, taking new pictures of the light now hitting the wall because it doesn’t feel random. There’s a pattern here. I just don’t know what it is. Concern for Uncle Randall presses at my mind, but I have to do this.

  “I wish Uncle Randall was here,” I say. “We have to find a way out and bring him back here.”

  Ethan nods. “And we should probably do that soon.”

  He’s right. We’ve spent way too much time in here.

  He reaches for the center piece of the Deluge Segment and pulls it free. But the second he does, the room begins to shake.

  A horrible groaning sound echoes through the chamber, filling the darkness, like stones grinding upon each other.

  “What did you do?” I ask.

  “I just grabbed the artifact,” Ethan says. “That’s all.”

  The groaning sound deepens, and noises like giant eggshells cracking join it.

  “We need to get out of here,” Ethan says, and he grabs my arm and pulls me away just as the entire altar crumbles apart, like a giant has stepped on it. Pieces of the walls around us begin to fall. The ceiling that has been solid for thousands of years cracks above us.

  I shine my light forward and spot a small tunnel. “There. Behind the altar.”

  We don’t think twice as we hurry toward it. No sooner are we both inside the tunnel than the entire room behind us collapses, eliminating our options. If we want to get out of here, we have to move forward.

  The path ahead leads on, dark as ink, and I think it will never end. That somehow we are heading deep into the ground rather than toward any exit. But as we continue down it, from far ahead, a light begins to shine, getting bigger until we finally reach a small stone barrier with two goats nestled up against it. When I bump into the barrier, the goats start bleating like we’ve disturbed them. The least of my concerns is interrupting two goats from napping. It’s so ridiculous, that I can’t help but laugh.

  The mountain still rumbles behind us, so between the two of us, we shove all the stones out of the way until sunlight bursts through the opening.

  Once we’re out in the daylight, I look at where we’ve just come from. “It’s one of the tombs in the cliff side.”

  “And look at these markings,” Ethan says. “Have you ever seen anything—?”

  I grab his arm. “It doesn’t matter. We need to get back to Uncle Randall.”

  We run up the rocky mountainside, slipping along the loose rocks and silt. Both Ethan and I nearly fall more than once, but we finally make it back to the top. From here, outside the mountain, the ground is silent, as if the earth rumbling had never occurred. As soon as we come into view, Deniz and Sena run up to us.

  “Oh, I was so worried,” Sena says, and she throws her arms around Ethan’s neck.

  I shoot him an I-told-you-so look as he half hugs her in return.

  “What happened?” Deniz says.

  “Where is Uncle Randall?” I ask, looking toward the collapsed entryway.

  “He’s in the car,” Deniz says.

  I rush to the car, but Tobin meets me halfway.

  “How is he?” I ask.

  “He’s not good,” Tobin says. Sweat covers his face even though the air is cool. “He broke his femur. We must get him back to a major city. He’s getting a fever, and what supplies we packed are not enough.”

  “Will he be okay?”

  Tobin’s face is somber. “He should be fine as long as we get him proper medical attention. We need to get him back to Kars.”

  We pile into the vehicles and drive the hour back to Kars. I sit in the backseat with Uncle Randall, trying to keep his leg steady. He seems to slip in and out of consciousness. The small hospital in Kars doesn’t look equipped to take care of him, but Tobin assures me that it will be okay until he can get a flight back to Istanbul tomorrow. The doctor on duty gives Uncle Randall something, which makes him pass out completely. He assures us that Uncle Randall will be out for a good four hours, and that we should get some rest and come back after that.

  “Did you find anything in the tunnels?” Tobin asks, once we’re back at the Kars hotel. We gather outside, on the pool deck, because it’s the least crowded place around. The pool water is solid black with all sorts of sticks and leaves and dead insects floating in it.

  With my concern over Uncle Randall, I’ve nearly forgotten. I plug my phone in to charge it because it’s pretty much dead. Deniz squats down beside me, so close our arms are touching. I’m sure it’s completely unintentional.

  The pictures are gorgeous and amazing, and when we describe what happened with the light shooting out from the piece of artifact, Tobin and Deniz look like they want to run back there and dig out the chamber no matter what. As I look at each photo, I can almost imagine thousands of years ago, people walking down the tunnels that Ethan and I escaped from, retrieving the pieces of map, and then setting out, far across the earth to hide them. India. America. Peru. They placed the map pieces in parts of the world that they may have believed would never be civilized. They must have thought they would never be found, and thus the Code of Enoch was safe. But thousands of years passed, and slowly the pieces were uncovered. And human curiosity being what it is … the Code could never be safe. It’s hard to believe we are on that same journey, thousands of years later.

  Tobin puts a finger to his lips. “I feel like there’s more here than what we’re seeing.”

  “I felt the same way,” I say. “That’s why I took so many pictures.”

  Tobin takes the phone and zooms in and looks at each one. But at the end of an hour of studying them, we still don’t know what to do next.

  “What about your boyfriend?” Ethan says.

  Deniz raises his eyebrows. “You have a boyfriend?”

  I glare at Ethan. “No. I don’t have a boyfriend. I have a friend who’s a boy. Not a boyfriend. And that’s a great idea.”

  I create a folder and upload all the photos so I can share them with Lucas. Then I text him and ask him to look them over and let me know what he thinks.

  Lucas calls me in less than a half hour.

  “Hannah, you are not going to believe this,” Lucas says from halfway across the world.

  “You found something?” I say.

  “Did I find something?!” Lucas almost yells across the phone. Everyone can hear him, but I go ahead and put him on speakerphone. “You know those pictures you sent of the light beams. I ran them through some filters and changed the—”

  “I don’t need the technical details,” I say. If I don’t stop him, Lucas will spend the next five minutes explaining his process.

  “Yeah, okay,” he says. “Well anyway, after I did all that, they fit together like pieces of a puzzle. There was an entire picture encoded around the room. There were concentric circles that look exactly like those weird maps with mountains. And there were roads and rivers … and anyway, there was a whole new map there.”

  “To where?” I ask. I can hardly breathe.

  “This is where it gets cool,” Lucas says. “Are you ready?”

  I’ve been ready for years.

  “Yeah.”

  “Good. So I cross-referenced it across everything I could, using elimination, and I finally got it narrowed down to two possibilities.”

  “Two?” I say.

  “Hang on. I’m not done. There was one object that I hadn’t yet placed because the shape of it was totally off. But then I remembered what your uncle had said about how the Great Flood changed the way things looked. And that’s when it all clicked into place. It had to be the Black Sea.”

  My heart pounds. “That’s really close.”

  “So where do we go?” Ethan says. “Where do we start?”

  “I’ll send you a map,” Lucas says. “But if I’m right—and let’s face it, I probably am—then it looks like you need to go to a place named Krubera Cave. That’s where your journey will start.”

  Tobin sucks in a
breath. “Krubera! Deepest cave in the world. The bottom has yet to be found. It’s in a breakaway region of Georgia. In the Gagra district of Abkhazia.”

  “Then that’s where we need to go,” I say. This is the path to my parents.

  “Once your uncle is better,” Tobin says.

  No, not once my uncle is better. The thought of leaving Uncle Randall kills me, but there is no other choice. If I give up now, before I’ve even started, I may never find my parents, but someone else could. I can’t risk that.

  “We’ll go without him,” I say.

  “You won’t,” Tobin says. “That area is highly volatile. The civil unrest has been going on for decades. It wouldn’t be safe.”

  “It wouldn’t be any safer with Uncle Randall,” I say. Just the mere thought of having to wait until he’s healed makes panic begin to take over. A broken leg could take months to heal. Amino Corp could find the Code. Find my parents.

  “It would,” Tobin says. “He’s an adult.”

  “Hannah and I will be fine,” Ethan says.

  “You’re not going without him,” Tobin says.

  “I am.”

  Tobin narrows his eyes at me. “You are not, Hannah Hawkins. And that is final.”

  Is he kidding? Who is he to tell me what to do?

  “Last I heard, Uncle Randall was my guardian,” I say, knowing it makes me sound ungrateful, but I’m not going to put the search for my parents on hold because of this.

  “Yes, true.” Tobin puts a finger to his lips. “How about this? Tomorrow, when your uncle wakes up, you can talk to him about it yourself. If he’s okay with you going, then I won’t stand in your way. Otherwise, we all go back to Istanbul and come back once he’s healed.”

  Tomorrow. Uncle Randall. The words spin around in my head. The fact of the matter is that even though Uncle Randall is pretty lenient with what I’m able to do, he may actually side with Tobin on this one. It’s a risk I can’t take.

  “Fine,” I say. “Tomorrow we’ll talk to Uncle Randall.”

  Tobin nods as though it’s settled. Little does he know, it’s far from settled. As far as I’m concerned, the only thing that is settled is that my path ahead is clear. I’m going to descend the deepest cave on Earth.

  CHAPTER 19

  I SNEAK INTO ETHAN’S ROOM AS SOON AS EVERYONE’S GONE TO BED, AND there is this small moment when I actually kind of love him. His bag is already packed, and he’s lacing his work boots.

  “You knew I’d want to sneak away,” I say, relieved that I don’t have to try to convince him to see things my way.

  “Of course, I knew,” Ethan says. “I get that I don’t know you very well, Hannah, but I have picked up on a couple of things, one being that you don’t want other people telling you what you can and can’t do.”

  “Is it that obvious?” I ask.

  “Definitely.”

  “Do you think Tobin knows?” I ask, hoping that everyone else wasn’t as perceptive as Ethan.

  Ethan shakes his head. “I don’t think so.” He finishes lacing his boots and zips his bag. “So what’s your plan? I don’t think the local rental car place—if there actually happens to be one—is going to rent a car to some sixteen-year-old American girl.”

  “Or guy,” I say. It’s not like he’d fare any better.

  “Or guy.”

  “There’s a bus we can take,” I say, turning on my phone so I can show him the bus route that should get us to the Georgian border.

  “You aren’t taking a bus,” Deniz says, walking into the room with Sena.

  My muscles tense. Deniz and Sena are going to try to stop us. Tobin probably sent them to find out what we were up to.

  “We are,” I say. “Look, I know he’s your dad and all, but I’m—”

  Deniz flashes me his toothpaste commercial smile. “We’re not here to stop you, Hannah.”

  My brow furrows. “Then why are you here?”

  Sena giggles and then covers her mouth. “Because we’re going to drive you, of course. You don’t think we always listen to our papa either, do you?”

  In that moment, I think that Sena and I could actually be friends.

  “We got this from your uncle’s bag,” Deniz says, and he holds up the image of the map.

  I run over and give him the biggest hug I possibly can. “Oh my god. You guys are the best. You know that?” I hug Sena next even though Deniz holds on kind of extra long.

  “We know,” Sena says, tossing her long hair over her shoulder once I release her from the hug.

  And so it’s set. Ethan and I don’t have to take the bus to our destination because Deniz and Sena are going to drive us there instead.

  I leave a note for Tobin to give to Uncle Randall. Deniz and Sena leave one for their dad, too, telling him that they’ll only be gone for a few days. That they promise to return the family car unscathed. Never having traveled by car in these countries before, I only hope that they aren’t lying.

  We slip out of the hotel and pile into Tobin’s car. Deniz drives us out of Kars and back north, where we’ll have to pass through Georgia and into Abkhazia. The roads are deserted, and we’re able to drive nearly non-stop, only stopping for gas.

  Halfway through the first day, my phone rings. I answer it, dreading who I’m sure is on the other line.

  “Hannah?”

  “Hi, Uncle Randall.” This is the call I knew would come. The only good news is that his voice sounds lucid, so I hope he’s feeling better. “Where are you? Are you back in Istanbul?”

  “I can’t believe you went off, even after Tobin instructed you not to,” Uncle Randall says.

  “I need to find them,” I say.

  “You need to come back.”

  Ethan, Sena, and Deniz all listen to my half of the conversation, like they’re wondering if we’re going to have to turn around before we even get to Georgia.

  “I’m not coming back,” I say. “I’m continuing on the journey.”

  “I’ll cut off your credit card,” he says. “You won’t have any money.”

  “Go ahead. I’ll make it work.” If he cuts off my funds, I’ll still find a way to get to my parents.

  “Hannah …”

  “I’m not coming back, Uncle Randall. I have to do this.”

  “But it’s not safe,” Uncle Randall says. His voice is laced with worry.

  “I’ll be okay.”

  “No. We were supposed to do this together,” Uncle Randall says. “I wanted to be able to keep you safe.”

  “And you’ve kept me safe this far,” I say. “But now I have to go on. It’ll be fine. I have Ethan with me.”

  “Hannah, you know—” he starts, and I’m sure I know where he’s going with the thought. Ethan still can’t be trusted.

  “It’ll be fine. Deniz and Sena are driving us. I’ll be careful, I promise.”

  “But something could happen,” Uncle Randall says. “And the thing is that … I don’t know what I’d do if something happened to you, Hannah. I don’t think I could take it. I’ve already lost my sister. That was hard enough. I can’t lose you, too. I just can’t.” His voice cracks on the last sentence. I’ve never seen Uncle Randall cry before, but in that moment, I am sure that if we were in the same room, that is exactly what I’d see right now.

  “Nothing is going to happen,” I say, fighting tears myself. “I promise. And you know I have to do this. I have to find them.”

  Uncle Randall doesn’t say anything for a moment, only lets out a long sigh. “I know,” he finally says. “Just please be careful. You’re all I have left.”

  “I will. I promise. I’ll check in once we get there. Just get yourself better, okay? And I’ll see you soon.”

  “I hope so, Hannah,” Uncle Randall says, and we hang up. I hope this means he’s not planning on turning off my credit card. Sure, I’ll figure it out if I have to, but it would be better if I didn’t need to.

  It turns out Sena and Deniz don’t have it quite so easy. After f
ifteen solid minutes of fast Turkish that Ethan has no chance of keeping up with, they promise, in English, that they will get us to our destination, get us outfitted, and then come straight home. I don’t envy them the trouble they will be in when they get there. But I also appreciate their help. Without them, Ethan and I would be on some rickety bus in the middle of nowhere.

  Deniz communicates well enough to get us lodging while we pass through Georgia, but we’re up early each day to continue on our way. The third day we have to pass through border patrol to get into Abkhazia, which delays us nearly an hour. Deniz assures us that this must be normal because Abkhazia is a disputed territory. Georgia claims it, but Abkhazia is not happy about that and declares itself an independent state. Given the civil unrest and the fact that we are four teenagers traveling alone, we have no choice but to answer the questions.

  “We’re here to visit the cave,” is all I have to say when it’s my turn getting questioned.

  I’ve come to learn via spotty searching on the Internet as we drive that when someone says “The Cave” in this part of the world, they can only be referring to Krubera. I’ve also learned that it’s home to dozens of different species. There are fish and insects living there that have never seen light. They’ve adapted, living in the dark at temperatures of two degrees Celsius. It would be awesome to study them.

  Deniz manages to have a female border patrol officer interrogating him who must think he’s cute, probably since he is, because he not only sails through with the most minimal of questions, he even gets some recommendations for reliable and honest outfitters. And so after our delay at the border, we pass into Abkhazia and onward to Gagra where the spelunking outfitters are.

  It’s after three in the afternoon when we get there, and I would kill someone right now for a decent cup of coffee, so before hitting Deep Cave Outfitters, guaranteed to be the best for Krubera Cave exploration, we find a small-house-turned-coffee-shop that caters to tourists. They take credit, and thankfully Uncle Randall has not turned off my credit card. I treat all four of us to what may be the best cup of coffee I have ever had in my life. Then it’s on to Deep Cave Outfitters.

  There’s one guy in the place when we walk in. He doesn’t look the least bit Middle Eastern. Instead he’s got shaggy hair and a beard and looks like some Colorado transplant who came here because he couldn’t stay away from the lure of “the Cave.” He introduces himself in perfect English as Scott, as he eyes me up and down.