Game On: Alien Space Adventure
Page 3
“Can you figure it out?” Parker asked her.
Nora paused and narrowed her eyes. “Maybe, but it’ll cost five big Bens. And I don’t mean the lame virtual cash kind.”
“What?” Jayden gulped. “Five hundred bucks?”
Parker gave Jayden a glare, and then softened his eyes when he turned to Nora. “Okay. Jayden’s dad is good for it.”
Jayden was sure his own eyes looked like freaking beach balls. So much for acting cool. He wondered.
“But I—,” he sputtered.
Nora gave them a devious grin. “You’ll need to leave your dad’s prized red possession with me.”
Parker grabbed Jayden’s arm. “Come on. Nora needs to get hackin’.”
As Parker pushed him out of the room, Nora turned and smiled. “Oh, and Jay, gracias por el cumplido.”
She looked back at her computer monitors and slapped a key on her keyboard. A techno-beat boomed from the speakers like a heartbeat as her body swayed to the rhythm.
When Nora’s bedroom door shut behind them, Jayden froze. “What’d she mean? Gracias for what?”
“She thanked you for the compliment in Spanish, dork. And, by the way, your ridiculous attempt to woo her . . . seriously gross.” Parker shook his head. “‘You think she’s very pretty?’ Are you in kindergarten?” He made a fake barf sound. “She’s my freaking sister, you idiot.”
Parker slapped Jayden on the back of his head. “Let’s go back to your house.”
Jayden rubbed his face with his hands, and mumbled, “Where am I going to get five hundred bucks?”
Chapter 4
Jayden and Parker hurried back to Jayden’s house, and then sat on the floor in his room with computers in their laps for a couple hours until Parker’s cell phone rang.
“Speak . . . You what?” Parker roared, glancing at Jayden with his eyes popping. “We’ll be right over.” He tapped his cell phone and tucked it in his pants pocket.
“Nora?” Jayden asked.
“Yep,” replied Parker. “She fixed the mini.”
“Already?” Unbelievable, Jayden thought with a grin.
Parker nodded. “She wants to show us something, but it has to be in her room where she can run her hide-the-babe bot.”
They bolted back to Parker’s house, made a beeline to Nora’s room, and thumped on her cherry wood door.
“Enter!” Nora shouted.
Jayden followed Parker into her room as if they were a couple of teenage SWAT team guys.
Nora’s jasmine-scented perfume knocked the wind out of Jayden . . . yet again.
“Hola, Jay,” Nora said with a grin.
Jayden spied his dad’s mini-tablet, powered off, near the side of her desk. He gave her a disinterested gaze, but that didn’t stop his stomach from rumbling. His face reddened. “Hey.”
Parker grabbed the tablet. “You figured it out?”
“All fixed,” she replied. “Drex the dragon-bot scorched the viruses. Nasty ones too. I’ll give you a demo.”
Nora grinned as she stared at the computer screens on her desk and tap-danced with her fingers across the keyboard.
Jayden stood behind her, peering at the computer monitors on her desk that were full of rapidly changing information. It all looked like gibberish to him.
“Watch,” she said, then typed: “vlaic://385647n77932w.”
Jayden recognized the text from the tablet when it had first gone nuts.
Nora's computer screen instantly filled with the same weird symbols as Jayden had witnessed in his room.
The same ear test tones blasted from her computer speakers as the symbols randomly changed all over her computer screen.
She tapped a new sequence of keystrokes, causing her computer to blast three low-pitched beeps. The random dance of symbols stopped, and the screen went blank. A new sequence of numbers appeared in the center of her screen:
37 14 06 115 48 40
>>
“What does it mean?” Jayden asked.
Nora glanced at him over her shoulder. “It’s a prompt—”
“For what?” Parker asked.
“Not sure. But I think the numbers you see are Global Positioning Satellite coordinates.”
“Like the navigation system in my dad’s car?” Jayden asked.
Nora nodded. “Sort of.”
“GPS coordinates to where, Nora?” Parker.
Nora typed out a quick Internet search on her desk computer. “Well . . .” Nora sighed. “The coordinates correspond to Area 51 in Nevada.”
No way. Jayden’s jaw dropped, and Parker’s eyes went wide. The super-secret military base where people think aliens are stored in freezers?
“How’d you fix it?” Jayden asked. “I thought my dad’s tablet was destroyed.”
Nora grinned. “Don’t be an idiot. It wasn’t easy. I used a distributed Internet crack. Once I found the public key, I figured out the private one. Whoever they are, they’re using asymmetric encryption, nothing too intense.
They must’ve figured I’d be a dirtball.”
Jayden tried to think of something intelligent to say. Nothing came to mind.
“Close your mouth, or you’ll catch insectos voladores,” she said to him.
Jayden eyed Parker, then shrugged.
“Insects,” Parker whispered to Jayden. “You’ll catch flying insects.”
Jayden returned his attention to Nora. “How do you know all this computer stuff?”
“Dad’s startup became her elementary school,” Parker whispered. “He hired an MIT Ph.D. student to home-school her on-site while everyone else worked on programming. Paid him a mint too.”
“I can hear you,” she said, exaggerating each word. “And Dad didn’t pay him a mint.”
Nora was not only smart, but she was also a magician. Somehow she always managed to turn the ground below Jayden’s feet to melting rubber.
“You know the numbers that were in your browser?” she asked.
Parker tapped on his cell phone and held it up. A picture of Jayden’s dad’s tablet was on the phone. He zoomed in on one line: “vlaic://385647n77932w.”
“These?” he asked.
“Those are the ones,” Nora said. “The numbers happen to be the GPS coordinates for Langley, Virginia.”
“Why’s that important?” Jayden asked Parker.
“CIA headquarters,” Parker replied before Nora could.
Jayden shook his head. In his world, the CIA stood for spies and blockbuster movies, not encrypted websites, GPS coordinates, and Area 51. It was like taking a skateboard to go surfing. It made no sense at all.
“See the letters?” Nora pointed at the screen. “‘vlaic’?”
Jayden nodded.
“Ring a bell?”
Jayden peered closer. “Nope.”
“It’s an acronym spelled out backwards,” she said. “You know, in reverse. VLAIC is really CIALV . . . for CIA Langley, Virginia.”
Dang, she's good, Jayden thought.
“Once I figured out they're using GPS coordinates, I used trial and error. It turned out the GPS coordinates for Cheyenne Mountain was the private key I needed to decrypt the encrypted data. The rest is history.”
“So what does it mean?” Jayden asked her.
“No idea,” she replied sharply.
Suddenly, the numbers changed and displayed a message:
36 06 23 112 06 23
>> Pick up 0321
“No way,” Nora said. “Updates. It looks like a pick up time to me. Maybe, three twenty-one a.m.? I’d guess it’s a way to communicate when and where.”
“Now all we need to figure out is the what,” Parker said.
The information changed again:
24 33 33 81 47 2
>> Pick up 0258
Parker leaned in for a closer look. “That’s insane. Someone is doing pick-ups and using an encrypted website to communicate?”
The display suddenly filled with fifty sets of GPS coordinates and the message changed. The
hairs on the back of Jayden’s neck tingled as he studied the last four lines of the new information:
World Corp Code Red
Space Expeditionary Combat Command
Recruit Pickup
Next 5
0400
Password Required
>>
“World Corp?” Parker asked. “The gaming company?”
“Space Expeditionary Combat Command?” Jayden asked. “What does their game have to do with
anything?”
“Still no clue,” Nora replied. “Looks like a password is needed for something.”
“Maybe World Corp is distributing a new game version to secret beta testers,” Parker said.
“Hey,” Jayden said. “I bet the CIA reference has something to do with their new game.” He watched Nora as she used one of her other computers to convert each of the new GPS coordinates to locations.
She read them out loud, “Big Bear Solar Observatory, Foothill Observatory, Griffith Observatory, Stony Ridge Observatory, Santa Cruz Observatory—”
“Santa Cruz Observatory?” Jayden asked. “That’s not far from here.”
Nora raised one eyebrow. “Santa Cruz Observatory at four a.m.”
“We have to get our hands on their new game,” Parker said.
“Tomorrow morning?” Jayden asked Nora.
“Looks like it,” Nora replied.
“You guys thinking what I’m thinking?” Parker asked them. “It’s only a two-hour bike ride. Ninety minutes up. Thirty minutes back.”
“Are you serious?” Jayden asked.
“Count me out,” Nora said, and twisted her face. “I’m not getting up at two-thirty in the morning to peddle up a mountain road. Besides, I have no clue what their password could be . . . No way, Newt.”
“Come on, sis, please?” Parker grumbled. “You’ll be able to figure it out faster than we can.” His voice climbed a notch. “I need my sister’s help.” He sounded pathetic, but it always worked when he begged.
Nora smirked. “No can do. I have a game algorithm to decrypt. I’ll be busy all night.”
“How about for another hundred?” Parker asked.
Jayden gazed at him with narrowed brows. Is he crazy? Probably, but Jayden figured getting a new World Corp game at a secret location in the middle of the night was seriously cool. It would be a major rush to be one of the first to play it.
Nora stopped laughing.
“How about three hundred?” Parker asked. He leaned toward her and rubbed his hands together, moving his head in the direction of one of the computer boxes. “You know you need more memory. And we need your help.”
Nora glanced over at her computers as though she were calculating how much it was going to cost to upgrade them. Twenty seconds had passed before she sighed. “I guess I’m in. Where you going to get that kind of cash?”
“Jayden’s dad’s good for it.” Parker winked at Jayden.
“Ah, geez.” Jayden groaned, but he wasn’t going to argue. A midnight bike ride with Nora was definitely worth the cash.
Game on!
Chapter 5
Jayden biked over to Parker’s house and glided his bike in front of their closed garage. He glanced at his watch and groaned. It read two fifteen a.m. A few seconds later, Parker and Nora walked their bicycles through the side gate.
“Let’s do this.” Nora hopped on her mountain bike, turned her bicycle light on, and took off down the driveway. Jayden and Parker followed behind her. Before long, they were peddling like mad up the curvy private road to the observatory. Lucky for them, no other vehicles or security patrol cars were on the two-lane mountain road.
When they finally arrived at the observatory ninety minutes later, Jayden was exhausted. But one faint whiff of jasmine gave him an instant second wind.
Nora led the way to an open spot behind a cluster of oak trees and tall bushes, overlooking the parking lot where they hopped off the bikes and dropped them to the ground.
Jayden peered around the large shrubs and focused on a group of about thirty teenage kids standing around an unmarked green school bus parked in front of the white dome observatory. He didn’t recognize anyone from his school in the parking lot.
Besides the bus and the group around it, the lot was empty. “Crazy place to distribute a new game,” Jayden said.
“Cold too,” Parker said, dancing in place with his teeth chattering.
“Come on.” Nora stood. “It’s ten minutes till four. It’s time for some recon. Let’s hoof it.”
“You go, we’ll wait,” Parker said.
Nora shot him a look. “You’re not serious.”
“Hey, we’re paying you, aren’t we?” Parker said, folding his arms and looking away from her.
Jayden was tempted to go with Nora, but even her jasmine perfume couldn’t get his feet to move. No way would he risk getting caught by the authorities. Who knew what they would do to teenage gamers who crashed the World Corp pre-release party? A lifetime game ban would be worse than death. “I’ll wait here too,” he mumbled under his breath.
“Whatever.” Nora huffed and shook her head. “Wimps.” She jogged around the bushes into the parking lot.
Jayden watched as she sauntered over to the group. No one on the blacktop seemed to suspect a thing. At first, Nora chatted with one small cluster of kids before moving on to another. A couple of boys gave her a long look and sucked in their guts, which caused Jayden to tighten both hands into fists. Nora gave them a glancing smile and moved on without offending them.
“She’s definitely smooth,” Jayden whispered to Parker.
“Nora has always been good at this kind of thing,” Parker said. “She says if you own it, people will buy anything. My sister is completely insane.”
“But evidentially, it’s true.” Jayden squinted. “You see any adults around the bus?”
“Nope. Just kids our age.”
Jayden pointed to a teenager sitting in the driver’s seat of the bus with the inside lights on, reading a newspaper. “He looks like he just got his drivers license.”
“Yep,” Parker said. “Seems like he’s waiting for something.”
They watched Nora talk with another boy standing outside near the front of the bus. He handed her a piece of paper. She scanned it once, and then slipped away from the kid when another girl walked up to talk with them.
The bus driver abruptly jumped out of his seat and jogged off the bus into the observatory building.
Without missing a beat, Nora dashed into the bus. She searched around the driver’s seat and in the glove compartment.
The girl is fearless, Jayden thought. “Your sister is amazing,” he blurted out to Parker without thinking.
“What’s she doing now?”
“No clue,” Parker said with a shrug.
A minute later, the driver quickly walked out of the building.
Nora saw the older kid coming towards the bus and dove to the floor.
Jayden made a face. “Oh man.” He thought for sure she was about to get caught.
Parker pointed to Nora and agreed with him. “Oh crap, she’s so busted.”
Before the driver reached the bus, the guy stopped and answered a call on his cell. Nora peeked over the seat and used the opportunity to scamper out the bus door. She ran around to the rear of the bus, and then crouched down so the driver couldn’t see her. As soon as the coast was clear, she hauled butt back to the two shivering boys.
“Wicked crazy. Wait until you see this,” Nora uttered between breaths. She tossed a document to Jayden. It was in a flimsy black cover and looked official. “I snatched it from under the driver’s seat.”
The first page read: “HIGHEST SENSITIVITY SECRET.”
Jayden glanced at the next three lines:
Zulu Echo Uniform Sierra
Space Expeditionary Combat Command
Squadron Group 717
“What is it?” Jayden asked her.
“No idea,” Nora re
plied. “But it looks important. Read the small print.”
Jayden peered closely at the bottom of the page.
Penalty for unauthorized disclosure of the contents of information contained herein is cause for immediate execution.
SECC Code 12.31.1
“Are you kidding?” Parker asked.
“Immediate execution?” Jayden scoffed. “Oh right. It’s just a game.”
Nora handed a piece of paper to Jayden. “And I took this flyer from a girl.”
“Did anyone tell you the password?” Jayden asked.
“It’s the word: ‘Dione,’” Nora said. “You need it to get a ride on their pick-up bus.”
“Put that away, I think it’s almost time,” Parker said.
Nora snatched back the flier and stuffed it into her jeans pocket.
Jayden searched around, expecting either a car or truck to roar up the small private road and into the observatory parking lot at any minute. Instead, he heard only the sound of crickets and a slight breeze whistling through the oak trees.
The kids in the parking lot continued to mingle. They began to get restless and impatient until a faint noise buzzed overhead. Jayden glanced skyward and noticed a pinpoint of light getting bigger in the night sky. A faint vibration tickled his nose.
“Uh, guys.” Jayden pointed at the light. “Look.”
The white dot kept growing. After a few seconds, he realized the light was originating from the underside of a falling black object. Unbelievable, he thought as the giant object landed smoothly in the empty parking lot.
Two girls screamed and a boy shouted, “What is that thing?”
Jayden tried to make out details. The craft was the size of a small, two-story house, but with the shape of a massive helicopter without blades or a rotor. It reminded him of the alien UFOs he had seen in a few of World Corp’s older space games.
The parking lot’s lights buzzed and went dark. A bright white spotlight, brighter than daylight, flashed from the object and lit up the entire area near the bus where the kids were standing.
Parker’s teeth chattered louder. “Is that, ah . . . um, a real freaking UFO?”