The Hidden Code

by P. J. Hoover

  “And which way is that?” Ethan says.

  I look on the ground for some kind of sign or carving but don’t find any. I try to be confident. I’ve always been a confident person. Always known exactly what to do. But here, this, it’s too much.

  “I don’t know.” Stupid tears of frustration form at the corners of my eyes. I wipe them away, hoping Ethan hasn’t seen them. He’s looking right at me, but if he notices, he doesn’t say anything. This is so unlike me. I have to be able to figure something out.

  “Look for signs of recent activity,” I say, squatting down so I can examine the dirt.

  “There is no recent activity,” Ethan says. “We’re the only ones here.”

  He still doesn’t believe me.

  “I didn’t lose it,” I say. “I told you that. I heard someone last night. They stole it while we were sleeping.”

  Ethan takes my shoulders. “Hannah, do you have any idea how ridiculous that sounds? We’re—oh, I don’t know—fifteen hundred meters below ground in a secret passageway, and you think someone else is here with us. No one knows about the secret tunnel. Nobody could be following us.”

  It all comes together then, so clearly. The missing map. The way Ethan kept trying to use his credit card. How he kept looking over his shoulder at the airport.

  “Don’t pretend you don’t know,” I say.

  “I don’t know,” Ethan says. “At this point, I think you’re crazy.”

  “I’m not crazy, and you know it,” I say. “And you also know exactly who’s looking for the Code of Enoch. You’re helping them.”

  Ethan raises his voice, louder than I’ve ever heard him do before now. “I’m not helping anyone, and I don’t appreciate you throwing your guilty accusations my way.”

  I study his face, looking for hints that he’s deceiving me. And though there seems to be a permanent look on his face like he’s trying to prove something, if he’s also hiding deception, then he’s a master of it because his eyes plead with me to believe him.

  “Do you swear that you don’t know what’s going on?” I say.

  “I swear it, Hannah,” Ethan says.

  “This has to be Amino Corp,” I say. “They stole the copy of my piece from Lucas, they got a copy of yours from your dad, and then they had all three pieces.”

  “My dad wouldn’t have given it to them.”

  “Are you sure?” I say.

  Ethan bites his lip and doesn’t reply. My question hangs there in the air between us. He knows his father had wanted the Code of Enoch before, to save his brother. He also knows his father had a renewed interest in it.

  “Fine,” Ethan says. “Let’s say this is Amino Corp, and they did have the map. How did they get through the secret tunnel?”

  “They figured it out, the same way we did. Maybe they know how to read Magic Eye.”

  “Okay, fine, maybe,” Ethan says. “But why steal our map then if they already have a complete map?”

  A complete map. When he says it, my thoughts click into place.

  “They stole the map because they didn’t have the center piece,” I say. “They had the other three pieces, but not that one. And we had it on ours before we laminated it.”

  Ethan shakes his head. “But why would they need it? We already used it to find Kars and the Gate.”

  “I don’t know. But they must’ve needed it. And now they’re ahead of us, and we have no map, and we’re totally out of luck.” Saying it aloud makes it that much more real. I try not to cry, but I feel like I’ve lost everything.

  Ethan puts a hand on my shoulder and looks in my eyes. “They’re ahead of us. So what we need to do is find them. They’ll leave a trail, and we’ll follow it. It’ll be okay.”

  I close my eyes and force away my tears. It will be okay. And at his words I feel like we really are allies. We were meant to be on this journey together.

  “Do you see any signs as to which way they went?” Ethan says.

  I shine a light down and study the dirt. Both paths have small markings, like animal footprints, though aside from the mammoth insects, we haven’t seen any animals. Aside from the animal trails, the dirt that covers the ground of the path on the left seems a small bit different in color.

  “It’s a little darker,” I say. “Almost like it was more recently upturned.”

  Ethan squats down next to me, so our shoulders are touching. I try to ignore this small detail.

  “I see what you mean,” he says. “So we go left?”

  I shrug because I’m not really sure. It’s not like I’m some professional tracker. “It’s as good a choice as any.”

  So we set off left. I use the spray paint to make a small arrow showing which way we came from and which way we went. We use this same logic for the next four turns, but after a couple hours, the growing, unsettling feeling inside me cannot stay contained any more.

  “Does it seem like we’re heading upward?” I say. The muscles in my legs tighten, but the twinge isn’t in my glutes and hamstrings like it was when we were walking downhill. Instead, it’s on the top of my thighs.

  “Yeah, it does,” Ethan says. “But we’ve followed the signs. The dirt has definitely been moved recently.”

  “I know,” I say. “But what if they left us a false trail?”

  “You think they did that?” he says.

  “There’s no way to know,” I say. “But I suggest we continue on this path for just a little bit longer. If they did leave a false trail, then it should disappear.”

  Sure enough, after another hour, the trail we’ve been following vanishes.

  “So now, not only are we on the wrong path, they’re even farther ahead,” I say. If my parents are at our destination, then I need to find a way to get there first. To warn them that someone else is coming. The whole thing is a mess. Instead of keeping them from danger, I’ve placed them in even more. I turn to head back.

  “Wait a second, Hannah. There’s something in here.” He’s continued on down the tunnel, but he takes a turn and his light blinks out, leaving me alone.

  “What are you doing?” I call, but he doesn’t answer.

  I hurry down the path, making sure to not trip on any loose stones, and when I reach the end of the path, there are again two choices. I’m pretty sure he turned right, so that’s what I do.

  There’s another immediate turn, then I see Ethan. Relief pours through me.

  “Don’t run off like that,” I say, smacking him in the chest. He could’ve gotten lost forever.

  “Hannah, look.”

  Ethan’s light shines out across a chamber carved into the stone. The ceiling is held aloft with large simple columns, and in the walls are alcoves, cut symmetrically, spaced every five feet or so.

  “There’s something in these alcoves,” Ethan says, walking toward the nearest one.

  “Something like dead bodies?” I say because this is reminding me way too much of the catacombs under Paris that I’d seen when I visited with Uncle Randall.

  He shakes his head. “Not dead bodies. Jars.”

  Ethan rests his flashlight on the ground and reaches out for one of the large jars that rests against the wall inside. They’re each about half my height, are the same brown as the dirt and walls around them, and are sealed with a lid.

  Ethan places both hands on the lid of the jar.

  “You don’t know what’s inside,” I say.

  “I think I do,” Ethan says, and he lifts the jar.

  For someone who’d been so freaked out by the insects earlier, Ethan shows no fear as he reaches his hand inside the clay jar all the way to his elbow.

  “We need to get back on track,” I say.

  “Hang on. Almost got it,” he says, and then he pulls his hand back out of the jar. Except his hand is no longer empty. He’s now holding a large scroll that looks like it may be made of some kind of thick cloth.

  I back up to give him room and shine my light for him as he spreads the scroll onto the floor of the
chamber.

  “How did you know what was in there?” Worry for my parents still presses on my mind, but at the same time, Tobin’s words float back to me. Sometimes events are fated to be. Us finding these scrolls, this room, is one of them.

  Ethan doesn’t look up as he answers. His eyes are locked on the scroll. “The Dead Sea Scrolls. This is exactly how they were found.”

  I know about the Dead Sea Scrolls. Uncle Randall and I even visited the caves they’d been discovered in because Uncle Randall was writing a paper on them. “Some shepherd found them after almost two thousand years.”

  Ethan nods. “That’s the story. And I’m not saying I believe this or anything, but some people question why they’d never been found before. Some of your ultra-religious people theorize that they hadn’t been there the whole time, or if they had, that somehow the caves had been cloaked from view. And that they were only found because God decided that they needed to be found. That humanity needed them.”

  “Do you believe that?” I ask. To me it sounds way too much like some religious miracle.

  “No,” Ethan says. “There were tons of caves and no electricity for lots of years, so no flashlights to go exploring. They were discovered then because that’s when everything came together perfectly.”

  “So what do these scrolls say? Can you read them?” Crazy waves of excitement run through me.

  Ethan traces his finger along the scroll, hovering it just above, like he’s afraid he’ll mess something up if he actually touches it.

  “This one is written in some sort of variant of Hebrew I think. Except there are some weird random symbols mixed in,” he says. “But I’m pretty sure it tells the story of Noah’s Ark.”

  I open the next jar and bring the scroll inside it to him, laying it down by the first. “How about this one?”

  Even I can tell that the language isn’t the same. I recognize them as the same letters Uncle Randall wrote my name in on my birthday present.

  “This one is in a cuneiform script, similar to Sumerian,” Ethan says. “It’s about Gilgamesh and his quest for immortality. He went to talk to Utnapishtim who was supposed to be immortal. If you remember from what your Uncle said, Utnapishtim was the alleged flood survivor in Sumerian myth.”

  “I remember,” I say. “He was immortal. Noah lived a really long time, too. Everyone who was mentioned in any of the stories seems to have had their lives extended.”

  “And those stories seem to be recorded here,” Ethan says.

  I know time is ticking away, but I also believe that we’ve come to this room for a reason. We pull more scrolls from the jars and study them. What Ethan can’t read, we decipher by sketches and pictographs. All the flood stories I’ve ever heard are recounted along with so many others from civilizations I’ve hardly even heard of. Africa itself has fifteen different versions of how the earth was flooded. The Americas have twelve. The Middle East has more than any, totaling twenty-two different accounts for how the flood came to be.

  “It’s hard to think that the flood never happened,” I say.

  “It’s impossible,” Ethan says. “This is unreal. If we could bring these things back and study them, do you even realize all the information that’s here?”

  I’d be lying if I said that the thought hadn’t occurred to me. This kind of knowledge could change the world. I turn on my phone and use precious battery power to take pictures of all the scrolls. I can’t wait to show these to Uncle Randall.

  “Is there anything about the Code of Enoch?” I ask as I continue taking pictures. We’ve covered about half the jars in the room, but there are still plenty.

  Ethan is one step ahead of me. He’s already spreading out the next scroll on the floor. I’ve set up every lantern we have and lit two glow sticks so we can see better.

  “This one is about Noah, too,” Ethan says. “But it’s after the flood.”

  “And? What’s it say?”

  “Give me a second to try to translate,” Ethan says because I’m basically breathing down his neck. I hold my breath and wait, looking for words that seem familiar.

  “Okay, I think it’s the same text that was written around the edges of the Deluge Segment. Maybe not word for word, but I think it’s generally the same. Noah re-created life on Earth. Then he needed to protect the Code. With the help of his sons, he found the hiding spot deep in the earth and took the Code there for safekeeping. His sons were then supposed to make a map to this secret location and hide it, just in case the Code was ever needed again. Don’t quote me word for word, but it’s something like that.”

  “So his sons placed the map in that hidden chamber under the mountain in Ani,” I say. “But maybe then someone came after it, and they realized that they didn’t hide it well enough, and that’s when the sons of Noah scattered the pieces of the map around the world.”

  “Wow,” Ethan says, sitting back and resting on his hands. “Just wow.”

  “I know,” I say, taking pictures of this latest scroll and then joining him.

  The enormity of what we’re looking for is almost overwhelming.

  “If the story from the Deluge Segment is here on this scroll, don’t you think there’s a chance that they put a copy of the map in these jars?” I ask.

  “Yeah,” Ethan says. “I think there’s a really good chance. If they didn’t intend to destroy the map in the first place, then I’m guessing that they also made a copy before they hid the pieces.”

  It’s a shining beacon of hope in the deep darkness of Krubera Cave.

  Hours go by as we search through the scrolls. We go through them again and again. But no matter how hard we look, the map doesn’t seem to be included.

  Ethan closes his eyes and presses his fingertips to them. “I can’t read these anymore, Hannah. My eyeballs are aching so bad, I’m pretty sure they’re going to fall out.”

  “If that happens, I promise to pick them up for you since you won’t be able to see. Just don’t step on them because then you’re out of luck.”

  “Thanks,” Ethan says. “It’s good to know that I can count on you.”

  “Take a break,” I say. “It’s been hours since you’ve eaten anything. Or had any water. Which is weird. Have you noticed how this room has no water at all?”

  “That’s probably why they picked it to store their writings,” Ethan says.

  Our canteens still have enough water, but even if they do run out, we passed water out in the main tunnel before we entered this place.

  I grab us each an MRE, me the vegetarian spaghetti and Ethan the BBQ beef sandwich, because even though we’re watching how much we eat, no way is an energy bar going to cut it. I inhale mine which I realize after the fact, but Ethan isn’t busy judging me. He’s too busy making sure he’s gotten every morsel he can from the inside of the meal pouch.

  “What time is it anyway?” he asks as he tucks the MRE trash back into his bag. The trash is much lighter than the MREs themselves, so our backpacks have at least gone down in weight.

  “Dark thirty,” I say, laughing at my own stupid joke. “No, it’s about seven at night.”

  “We’re not going anywhere tonight,” he says.

  I’m not about to disagree. I lie back, next to Ethan, not bothering to get inside my sleeping bag because it’s a balmy seventy degrees here in the chamber, and I close my eyes.

  “Do you really think your parents are going to be there?” Ethan asks.

  I think of the infinity symbol, written on the wall with rubbing wax, marking where they’d been. I remember Naala from the coffee shop saying my parents had been in Gagra. All signs are pointing to it.

  “I have to believe they are,” I say. “They’ve been this way.”

  “But even if they had, that was what? Eleven years ago?” Ethan says. “How would they still be alive? What would they eat?”

  These thoughts have run through my head many times, especially at night as I’m trying to fall asleep. No matter what answer I come up with, it�
��s not rational, and I know it.

  “Maybe they’ve been eating the insects and moss,” I say. “Maybe there is something they can grow in the soil.”

  “Like mushrooms,” Ethan says.

  For a second I think he’s teasing me about something that isn’t funny, but there’s no sarcasm in his voice. “Yeah, like mushrooms. Or truffles, or other things that don’t need light. There could be some kind of subterranean river with fish.”

  “There could be,” Ethan says.

  “What about you?” I say. “You still think there is some way you’re going to bring the Code of Enoch back? You still think it’s a good idea?”

  Ethan shifts so he’s on his side, and even though the lanterns are low and it’s hard to see him in the dark, I do the same.

  “I don’t know, Hannah. I mean, if I’m completely honest, that’s why I set out on this journey. I was sure if I brought the Code of Enoch back to my dad, then he’d be proud of me. But all these stories we’ve been reading about how it was hidden away because of the damage it could do … I don’t know. There are so many stories, and they can’t all be wrong.”

  “So you’re not going to try to take it,” I say.

  Ethan’s quiet, and I hear him breathing in the dark.

  “Let’s put it this way,” he finally says. “I’m not promising anything. We haven’t even found it. But when we do, I’m going to give it serious thought.”

  Unspoken are my concerns about what I’ll do if Ethan does try to take it. Or what about Amino Corp? How am I supposed to stop them? It’s not like I packed a gun for the journey.

  “You want to know something weird?” Ethan says.

  “Definitely.”

  “When I first saw you there in the lecture hall at Harvard, I thought that we would never be friends, and it made me really sad. I couldn’t understand it. And now that we’re here, together, well, I kind of feel like …” His voice trails off.

  “You kind of feel like what?” I say. My voice wavers in the dark.

  “I kind of feel like that it doesn’t really matter what happens. That maybe this journey was something we both needed to do, for ourselves. And even if we turned around today—never found the Code of Enoch—that would be okay because I’d know that I’d been wrong on that first day.”