A digital clock materialized beside the moth, as well as on our phone screens.
It was counting down.
09:16:42
Watching the clock tick instantly made me nervous.
“I cannot tell you more about it, but the answer is and has been right before your eyes,” Kiran continued. “My staff and I will be available to chat, though we won’t answer any questions related to the Game. The clock has started. Get ready…”
The crowd tensed.
“Get set …“
Kiran leaned forward, mouth directly over the microphone.
Everyone watching held their collective breath.
“Go.”
Kiran spread his arms wide as though releasing two hundred butterflies, and chaos erupted around him. Kids jumped over seats and sent backpacks flying as they raced for the exits, eyes glued to the image of the moth on their new cell phones. As the auditorium emptied, the lights flickered on. I was surprised to see a new image of the moth had appeared, this time free from the screen and fluttering in profile at the back of the stage.
As I waited for the crowd to clear out, I watched the projected moth. That’s when I noticed the moth’s wings weren’t looped. They weren’t fluttering in the same motion. They seemed to move randomly, flapping the way a real moth’s would. Looking at the moth on the cell phone Kiran had given us, it struck me: The wings of the moth on the cell phone were clearly looped, repeating the same motions every five seconds.
That was odd.
The night was cool but the rain had stopped. As I walked out of the building, I glanced back and noticed someone standing at the roof’s edge, watching me.
It was Kiran.
9.1
“Hola, Wolf.”
The voice was familiar, an honestly sweet sound after the longest flight of my life. I rounded a corner outside the auditorium to come face to face with the LODGE. Rex flashed me a smile and waved. Tunde, however, wasn’t one to shy away from more heartfelt welcomes.
“’Wolf!” he shouted, and ran to embrace me.
I was momentarily flustered by Tunde’s energy but quickly came to my senses and hugged him back. It was so good to finally meet.
“How are you? Did you see me in the lecture hall?” Tunde asked.
“Yes, of course,” I said. “I’m sorry I couldn’t come talk. How is your family?”
Tunde said, “I am so grateful to be here and so excited to do this thing with my very best friends, but … the consequences of our failure are great.”
“We won’t fail,” I assured him. “We can’t.”
Tunde kept glancing down at a satellite phone held tight in his hand. Even five thousand miles away, the general’s grip was strong. I felt really bad for Tunde. Seeing the fear and the stress in his eyes, I knew that despite the risks, I’d made the right decision by coming to the Game. He needed us. Now more than ever.
I looked at Rex. “I got your texts,” I said. “Everything okay?”
“Teo’s alive,” Rex said. “I got a message from him.”
I couldn’t help but beam. “That’s amazing!”
“Yeah,” Rex said. “But, he’s working with Terminal.…”
“Are you serious?”
Rex nodded. In person, he was taller and thinner. I don’t know if it was because I was so used to seeing him framed inside a room or lit by the flickering of computer monitors, but he was striking. There was a weight to him, a denseness to his personality that felt profound. Where Tunde was effervescent, Rex was controlled.
“But you’ll find him soon. You can ask him why. You can ask him everything.”
“So, I saw you walk in with Kiran,” Rex said. “That was a little weird, right?”
“I flew here with him,” I replied.
“No way!” Tunde gasped. “Are you serious?”
“He was in China on business. Invited me to travel with him and his entourage. It was a long flight; most of the time he was working.”
“Most of the time?” Rex said, a hint of jealousy behind the words.
Tunde stood by, flabbergasted. “That is so glorious.”
“Guys,” I said. “Really. I guess I don’t get starstruck, but—”
“I don’t get starstruck,” Rex said.
“I do.” Tunde smiled sheepishly.
“Wolf, you’re a master at reading people,” Rex said. “What’d you get?”
Rex was right, of course.
“He didn’t give any hints or clues about the Game. Nothing that could help me or any of us,” I said. “But he knows he’s a visionary. Embraces it totally. And I really want to believe that he can do the things he says he can. It’s just…”
“Just what?” Rex asked.
“He’s hiding something,” I said.
Tunde jumped in. “I do not think we should judge this man so soon. He brought us here, paid for our travels and food. Only a man of goodwill would do that, correct?”
“I’m not suggesting Kiran has bad intentions. Listen, this Game, this whole thing, is more about who is here than winning a prize. Kiran’s not looking for a champion, he’s looking for partners. This kind of sounds obviously silly, but this is about recruitment.”
Rex screwed up his face. “Recruitment for what?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. But I’ll find out.”
10. REX
02 DAYS, 09 HOURS, 10 MINUTES UNTIL ZERO HOUR
It was funny hearing Painted Wolf’s voice without all the digital distortion.
I didn’t expect her to sound sultry or anything, but the lightness and youthfulness of her voice was striking, especially in light of her edgy outfit. Funny that she looked a bit uncomfortable as she introduced herself and we exchanged awkward hugs.
I’d spent the last few years pretty much by myself, and even though I was in daily communication with Tunde and Painted Wolf, it was different having them there, walking beside me.
We were really doing this.
And together we were undefeatable.
Right? Right.
And if I wanted to hang out, I realized I should probably get to work.
“So, what do you two think, should we follow them?” Tunde asked, watching all the other contestants make their way toward the library.
“No. I can’t think cooped up in there. Besides, we have everything we need right here,” I said, waving the cell phone Kiran had given us. “In fact…”
Painted Wolf had mentioned that the moth’s wings flapped differently than the one on stage. A few random thoughts flickered through my head: The moth on our cells was doing something else. It moved to the beat of a different drum.
What could that mean?
Another thought came to me: Maybe Painted Wolf was right. Maybe the Game wasn’t about the competition. If it really was about recruitment, about finding people who’d play along with whatever Kiran was planning, then maybe that’s why I hadn’t been invited.
Maybe Kiran thought I wouldn’t play nice.
Maybe he got me confused with Teo?
My eyes glued to the moth, memorizing the wings’ short looped movement, I saw something and stopped walking, ignoring the shoulders that bumped into me.
Tunde and Painted Wolf stopped and turned around.
“What is it?” Tunde asked.
I motioned for them to get off the path and join me on the lawn beneath a towering oak tree. I showed them the moth on my cell phone screen. “It’s steganography, hiding images in computer code. Very common, but this is funky.”
As they watched, I adjusted the brightness of the image.
A second, reverse image of the moth appeared and overlapped the first one. With the wings beating over each other, it created a hazy, blurry image. When I touched the screen, the overlapped moths’ movements ceased. That was curious.
“What do you think it means?” Tunde asked.
I shrugged. Another tap and the moths moved again. We all watched the almost hypnotic blur of movements until Painted
Wolf suddenly reached over my shoulder and tapped the screen. As she did, I got a whiff of her perfume. It had hints of white jasmine and vanilla.
“Look,” Painted Wolf said, pulling my focus back to the cell.
The frozen image revealed lines of code.
“Remember, it’s two point twenty seconds into the loop,” she explained. “The moths align with each other perfectly. And when they do, they reveal the code. It’s a visual cryptographic technique. Kind of old-fashioned but it works.”
“So what is this code?” Tunde asked.
It was mostly letters, varying from caps to lowercase, and a few stray numbers. There were also slashes and plus signs.
I knew immediately what it was.
#include
#include
#include
#include
#include
long int
p,q,n,t,flag,e[100],d[100],temp[100],j,m[100],en[100],i;
char msg[100];
int checkForPrime(long int);
void findMyEncryptionKey();
long int findMyDecryptionKey(long int);
void encryptMsg();
void decryptMsg();
void main(){
clrscr();
p=7;
q=17;
printf(“nENTER YOUR MESSAGE: “);
fflush(stdin);
gets(msg);
for(i=0;msg[i]!=NULL;i++)
m[i]=msg[i];
n=p*q;
t=(p-1)*(q-1);
findMyEncryptionKey();
encryptMsg();
decryptMsg();
getch();
}
int checkForPrime(long int pr) {
int i;
j=sqrt(pr);
for(i=2;i<=j;i++) {
if(pr%i==0)
return 0;
}
return 1;
}
void findMyEncryptionKey() {
int k;
k=0;
for(i=2;i
if(t%i==0)
continue;
flag=checkForPrime(i);
if(flag==1&&i!=p&&i!=q) {
e[k]=i;
flag=findMyDecryptionKey(e[k]);
if(flag>0) {
d[k]=flag;
k++;
}
if(k==99)
break;
}
}
}
long int findMyDecryptionKey(long int x) {
long int k=1;
while(1) {
k=k+t;
if(k%x==0)
return(k/x);
}
}
void encryptMsg() {
long int pt,ct,key=e[0],k,len;
i=0;
len=strlen(msg);
while(i!=len) {
pt=m[i];
pt=pt-96;
k=1;
for(j=0;j
k=k*pt;
k=k%n;
}
temp[i]=k;
ct=k+96;
en[i]=ct;
i++;
}
en[i]=-1;
printf(“nnTHE ENCRYPTED MESSAGE ISn”);
for(i=0;en[i]!=-1;i++)
printf(“%c”,en[i]);
}
void decryptMsg() {
long int pt,ct,key=d[0],k;
i=0;
while(en[i]!=-1) {
ct=temp[i];
k=1;
for(j=0;j
k=k*ct;
k=k%n;
}
pt=k+96;
m[i]=pt;
i++;
}
m[i]=-1;
printf(“nnTHE DECRYPTED MESSAGE ISn”);
for(i=0;m[i]!=-1;i++)
printf(“%c”,m[i]);
}
“It’s an RSA cipher. Using C. It’s a cryptosystem used mostly to send secure information online. It has several algorithms: One to generate a key, one to encrypt, and one to decrypt. With RSA the encryption key is public, the decryption is secret. You need the key. This one’s quite complex but nothing we can’t easily break,” I said, trying to hide my excitement. This was the sort of coding I loved, complicated and tricky. “With this cipher, you need to know your prime numbers.”
“I do not know mine that well,” Tunde admitted.
“Good thing I do,” I said.
“So what’s it hiding?” Painted Wolf asked, peeking over my shoulder.
“Don’t know without the key, but part of it doesn’t make sense.…”
I shook my head, focused on the numbers as I scanned them. There were hundreds of lines of code embedded in the image, but as I moved my eyes past them, I noticed that a few letters were reversed. That didn’t make any sense.
Unless …
“Tunde, memorize these letters.”
As I moved through the lines of code, I read aloud each of the reversed letters. Tunde listened intently. Fifty seconds later, I finished and turned to Tunde to tell me what it meant, if anything.
“It says”—Tunde smiled—“all steps of learning should be sought for nature.”
“Okay…” I was confused.
What the heck did that mean?
“You mentioned part of the code didn’t make sense,” Painted Wolf said.
“Yes,” I replied. “There shouldn’t be reversed letters. And they certainly don’t normally spell out anything.”
“So it’s a trick,” she said.
Tunde nodded, catching on. “Yes, Kiran has fooled us already. He has assumed that when the contestants discover the RSA code, they will attempt to decrypt it. But it cannot be decrypted. It is a ruse.”
“The real message is the one you just read, Tunde.”
“‘All steps of learning should be sought for nature,’” Painted Wolf said. “We need to know what that phrase is from and who said it.”
I immediately plugged the phrase into the cell’s search engine, but it didn’t work. There was no connection. The Internet had been blocked. I tried again. Messed with the settings on the cell. No go.
“We can’t access the Web. Something with these phones.”
“Another trick,” Painted Wolf said, pulling out her personal cell phone. “He’s good.”
Tunde pointed to the library. “Let us not—”
He stopped short when a ringing sound jolted us from our moment. Tunde pulled a phone from his pocket. It was not the phone taped under our seats at Kiran’s presentation but an older-model satphone. Tunde’s hands trembled as he stared at the screen.
“Who is it?” I asked, reading Tunde’s trepidation.
He looked up at me, eyes filled with dread.
“It is the general,” he said.
11. TUNDE
02 DAYS, 08 HOURS, 52 MINUTES UNTIL ZERO HOUR
“General Iyabo, I hope you are well,” I said when I answered the satphone.
“I am,” he replied, his tone quite somber.
The general cleared his throat and then carefully measured his words.
“Did you receive my other phone calls?”
“N-n-no,” I stammered. “I just saw now that you have called. I do not know why I did not receive any earlier calls, but I suspect it was due to satellite—”
The general stopped me dead with a bark of authority.
“I want you to understand the situation you are in, Tunde. E no go beta for you. I don control you dey kpali. You cannot take a step without me allowing it. You want me to be happy and this you story get as e bee sha. But let me put on someone who can convince you better.”
There was a shuffling noise across the phone line before a familiar voice came on. A lump appeared in my throat and quickly threatened to choke me.
“Tunde?”
It was my mother.
It sounded as though she had run many miles and had not been given water.
“Mother. You okay?”
My emotions coiled around
my heart and I felt as though I might faint.
My mother said, “I am okay, Tunde. But you need to take this more seriously. When the general calls, you must answer. You cannot make this mistake again.”
My mother did not sound like herself. It was clear to me that she was being forced to say the things she was saying.
“Mother, I will do as he says,” I said, attempting to calm my voice so I would not frighten her with my fear. I had to show I could do this. “Do not worry. I will make him very proud. You tell him that. You tell him I can do it.”
There was a sound of commotion before my mother whispered:
“I dey fear. I don die, oh!”
Oh, how I wanted to cry out!
Instead, I remained calm and focused. “Don’t be afraid, Mother. I am going to build the machine for the general and I will win respect here. Tell him that I have already learned many things he will be very happy with. There are people here who can help me. I can take advantage of—”
“You will answer my calls.” General Iyabo came back on the line.
“I will, yes.”
“I am visiting your flyspeck village again in a few days. You understand this? The next time you miss one of my phone calls, your family suffers. This is clear?”
My throat had parched to a desert. I could not answer, but nodded.
“Is this clear?” General Iyabo repeated.
“Yes. Yes, sir.”
“Good. You are the pride of our homeland, Tunde.” General Iyabo’s tone had changed. He sounded like a father angry with his child but softening after he had already delivered the blows with the switch. “I do not want us to be enemies. I want you to be happy working for me. You have a future in your hands. When I make an offer, I am not one to walk away from, walahi!”
“Yes, I understand. I am very fortunate.”
“Very much. Now go back to your work. When you return, we dey go parti. You will return a hero. Is that not what you want, Tunde?”
“That is what I want.”
“Good. I will call you again at this time in two days.”
The general disconnected the line.
11.1
Na wa!
I could not hide my emotions from Rex and Painted Wolf.
The phone call had put me in a very bad state and I had to sit down for a little bit to regain my composure. They did not need to ask me about the details of the conversation. Those were clear on my face. Rex reassured me of my strengths.
Genius Page 11