Ixeos: Book One of the Ixeos Trilogy

by Jennings Wright

  “We’re not going to cross the bridge now, are we?” Monkey asked as they walked under the trees in a riverside park. It wasn’t full dark yet.

  “No, we’ll hang out awhile. I’ll probably take a nap if you’ll take the first watch.”

  Monkey nodded.

  “What did y’all do?” Neahle asked.

  “Went up to La Defense,” Monkey said. “Scouted around, looking for ways in. We found a few, but didn’t have time to explore too much. We’ve got some places to start next time, though.”

  “Don’t most of the Firsts live there?” After her one encounter with a First, Neahle knew she would be terrified to go anywhere near a First enclave.

  “Yep. That’s why we’re a little tired…” Monkey grinned. “A couple of guards saw us and started chasing us. We did a lot of climbing and running on the roofs. We lost ‘em in five minutes. Seems like those dudes never look up unless it’s raining.”

  They passed two hours in a cluster of thick shrubs, then Vasco repeated his instructions on how to run across the bridge.

  “Dive off?” Neahle said, craning her neck to look at the river.

  “Dive off,” Vasco confirmed. “You sound like Marty. I thought you guys were from the beach.”

  “The beach, sure. We didn’t go around diving off bridges.”

  “It’s no problem. It’s only happened twice, and everyone lived to tell about it.” Vasco cinched his back pack tighter around his chest and grinned at her.

  “Great,” Neahle muttered, picking up her own pack and putting it on.

  Thirty minutes later they were in the vault; Neahle was speechless at both the computer array and the electricity.

  “Do you have hot water?” she asked hopefully.

  “A bit. Not enough for a proper shower, unfortunately,” Marissa said. “The bank had a small hot water heater for the sinks.” She stood and looked at Marty, who was still glued to his three active monitors. “Coming, Marty?”

  “Be there in a while. Let me finish up here.” He never looked up.

  Marissa laughed. “For the computer geeks among us, this is heaven. Come on, I’ll cook up some dinner. Vasco looks dead on his feet.”

  Marty left reluctantly in the wee, dark hours of the morning. Vasco had promised that he would be moving to the vault for good the next week. That made him feel only marginally less upset at leaving.

  “How’d you like the bridge?” he asked Neahle as they walked down the dark street.

  “Didn’t have to dive in,” she said.

  “That’s a plus!” Marty laughed.

  “Shh!” Monkey hissed back at them. The cousins looked at each other and covered their mouths with their hands, trying not to burst out laughing.

  “Guys…” Hannah warned, keeping an eye on Vasco’s back.

  “Sorry!” Neahle managed, then looked at Marty and started giggling again. Hannah rolled her eyes and gave up.

  No one had to dive into the Seine on this crossing, either, and soon they were riding motorcycles back to the Depot to meet Samson and Clay. The sun was just over the horizon when they arrived. They turned off the bikes and walked them silently down the alley and through the narrow door.

  “It’s us! Don’t shoot!” Vasco called out.

  “Shoot?” Neahle asked.

  “Joke,” he assured her. “Just didn’t want to freak them out.”

  Samson wandered out from the office, rubbing his eyes. “You’re early. What time is it?”

  “A little after six. Change of plans—we’ve got to move Rebel Seven. They’ve been having watchers. We’re gonna need some help.”

  “Bikes?” Samson asked.

  “No, I don’t think it’s worth it. We’d have to come all the way back here tonight to get them; it’s too far. We’ll just head up there now, I’ll take Gilles to look at a couple of places I know about, and we’ll try to shift them overnight. You done here?”

  Clay emerged, his blonde hair sticking up. “Mostly, I think.”

  Samson nodded agreement. “We got all the broken ones fixed and the routine maintenance done on all but two. Those ain’t bad, though. Should be fine until next time.”

  “Great. Let’s all have some breakfast, and then we’ll head north. It’s going to be a long day.”

  It took them most of the day to get back to Rebel Seven. Marty felt completely lost in Paris, but Neahle was relieved to realize that she recognized a few streets and intersections, and she correctly pointed out where the Royal Palace was.

  As soon as they arrived, Gilles left with Vasco to scout out safe houses. He took a moment to kiss Neahle on both cheeks as he was leaving; Hannah rolled her eyes at Neahle’s shock.

  “He likes you. Get over it.” Hannah put a kettle on the single burner and turned on the heat.

  “He doesn’t know me,” Neahle said. What she was thinking was that she liked him pretty well, too.

  “Honey, when you’re always running for your life and when everyone around you can get captured or killed at any moment… Well, people on Ixeos don’t take a lot of time getting acquainted. It’s not like you can go on a date, get pizza and a movie.” Hannah looked around and found a couple of tea bags. “We need to start packing all this up.”

  “How about you?” Neahle asked, looping the string of her tea bag around the handle of her mug.

  “Me, what?”

  “You find someone here?” Neahle set her mug next to the kettle and moved over to the little pantry, helping to remove the tins and plastic containers and set them on the table.

  “I came with someone,” Hannah said.

  “Yeah, Rod. Your ex. But he’s gone, right?”

  Picking up a cardboard box from a small utility room, Hannah set it on the table and started stacking in the canned goods. Neahle handed her more containers from the pantry while she waited for an answer. Finally, Hannah sighed.

  “Yeah, he’s gone. Truth be told, I guess he was always kind of bad news. My mom told me that, but, of course, I didn’t want to hear it.” She sat down. “We haven’t heard anything about him in over three years. I really should be over it by now… I guess I’m not, not really. I keep thinking he’ll come back, having done something super heroic, then everyone will love him and he’ll want me back. It’s stupid.”

  “It could happen, couldn’t it?” Neahle asked.

  “Not likely. Rod was all about Rod. And no, I don’t know why I can see that about him and still be hung up on him. Well, yeah, I can. He’s from home. He’s one of us, you know? From my time, my place, my people. Even the rest of you—from Earth, I mean—we didn’t come from the same places, or even the same years. Sure, we know most of the same movies and celebrities and stuff like that, but having Rod here was like having some of home here.”

  Neahle thought about it. She had to admit, she’d have been a lot more terrified if she hadn’t had Clay and Marty with her. In fact, she probably would have assumed she’d either died or gone crazy and was hallucinating in a hospital somewhere.

  “I know what you mean about having some of home. Someone to share memories with, someone who knows what your mother looks like, and your school friends. Someone you still have a few inside jokes with. Everyone here is really nice, and, except for having to try not to get killed, it’s not so bad once you get used to it. But having a piece of home… Well, that’s priceless.”

  Hannah smiled at her and stood up again. “So no, I haven’t met anybody. Now, let’s get these guys packed.”

  Clay and Marty sat in the living room which was dark due to heavy velvet draperies and shared their stories from the last couple of days.

  “Looks like we both landed on our feet,” Clay said, stretching out on a small sofa. “So let me ask you something.”

  “Shoot,�
� Marty said. His mind was with his computers, trying to mentally map his way to Simon Lockwell.

  “I think there’s a chance that the Firsts are using something like the Enigma machine to send out codes about the prison.”

  Marty sat up straight in his chair and stared at his cousin. “Enigma? You mean like the code machine from the war?”

  “Yeah. Of course, they could be using some kind of communication technology that we don’t even know about, in which case the whole thing is a wild goose chase. But what if they’re using an Enigma machine to encode messages and that’s how they’re passing them on without anyone figuring it out.”

  “How does it work exactly?” Marty asked, intrigued.

  “Well, I’d have to find a book to refresh my memory, but basically, there’s a machine that looks kind of like an old typewriter. Inside there are rotors.” He paused, thinking. “It seems to me that there were a lot of rotors to choose from, maybe eight, but you only used three at a time inside the machine.”

  “But how did they make codes someone else could decipher?” Marty asked impatiently.

  “Jeez, hang on, I’m thinking! Okay, so there were code books. Every unit that had a machine had the same code book, or at least each network did. The book was organized by date, I guess like the day of the year, and the date told them what keys and rotors to use. With every message, the starting place of the rotors changed.”

  “So if they knew the date it was created, they recreated the code?” Marty was confused.

  “Well, no. First off, mostly the codes were sent by telegram, so I guess it would get somewhere the same day. Second, to decipher it, you had to know the start position of the sender’s message, and then the message key. When you sent a coded message, you also had to know the start position…”

  “Clear as mud,” Marty grumbled.

  “I don’t remember all the mechanics of it; it’s really complicated, which is why it worked so well for so long. But listen… this is my point. First, from what I hear about the Firsts, they wouldn’t recreate an Enigma. They were here for WWII; they’d know about the machines. And there are machines on display around the world.”

  “What?” Marty exclaimed.

  “I know there are some at Bletchley Park, where the British did all the decoding. There are some in the States, and I’m sure in other museums around the world. So what if they just took some? Like, they went to Bletchley Park and took the machines. And from other places, too, until they had enough. They’d need at least twenty-seven, right? One for each location the prison goes to, and one for whoever the grand high muckity-muck is…”

  “Simon Lockwell,” Marty said.

  “Right. They could copy code books easily, once they had one, so everyone’s on the same page. So… What if we can get a machine and a code book, too?” Clay sat up on the edge of the sofa and stared intently at his cousin.

  “If we can get an Enigma machine and a code book and we can figure out how they’re sending the codes… We’ve got ‘em. And they might not need so many of the actual machines. Maybe they’d have just a few for the big guys like Lockwell, and then they use a simple code for each location that means ‘Hey, the prison’s coming next week.’” Marty grinned.

  Clay grinned back. “If that’s what they’re doing, if I’m right… Then yeah, we got ‘em.”

  Chapter Twenty

  It took the entire night to move the cell members to the new safe house. Fortunately, Gilles had agreed to the first one Vasco had shown him, largely because it was even closer to the comm center than their current house. It also had twice as much space, thanks to the former owner having purchased the townhouse next door. A large arched doorway had been knocked through the living room wall, giving the rebels a luxurious amount of space.

  The first to be moved were Élodie and Maryse, to save the child yet another exhausting night. Samson and Clay put a mattress across their shoulders and did the best they could at staying in shadow while moving it seven blocks.

  “If a motorcycle guy comes now, throw the mattress at him and run,” Samson said as they were sweating and hurrying.

  “Impressive weapon,” Clay laughed.

  “Trust me, you don’t want to worry about the ‘how.’ Whatever takes them out works.”

  The Firsts weren’t on patrol that night, however, and, with every member of the cell plus the seven from the tunnels all making four round trips to carry all the mattresses, food stores, clothing, weapons, and other various personal belongings, they got Rebel Seven into the new house.

  The McClellands collapsed on an antique sofa in the living room. Vasco was sitting with his back against the wall, his legs straight out in front of him and his head leaning back on the flocked wallpaper. Hannah, Samson and Monkey were sprawled on the floor. Gilles came in and sat in a leather club chair.

  “Thank you all,” he said wearily. “We will rest today and tonight, but tomorrow we will be back on our task.”

  Vasco smiled but didn’t lift his head. “Go slow at first; make sure the First’s aren’t patrolling the whole area. And double check the comm center before you start back at it—if they got wind of something, that might explain the motorcycle patrol. It might also lead them to put guards out.”

  “Oui, we will be slow and careful. There is not a big hurry, no?”

  “Slow is much better than dead,” Vasco agreed.

  “You will stay here and rest today?” Gilles asked, looking at Neahle.

  Vasco answered. “I’d like to get back to the tunnels but I don’t think we can move safely, as tired as everyone is. So yeah, we’ll stay today, get some sleep, have some lunch, then head out when it’s dark.”

  Neahle smiled and glanced at Gilles. Clay saw the exchanged looks and elbowed her.

  “Stop it!” she hissed.

  He looked at Gilles assessingly, smiling when the man looked away embarrassed. Neahle was his little sister, after all.

  By the time the girls got to their dorm room at the heart of the tunnels, they were too tired to do anything but drag themselves onto their bunks. They didn’t change clothes, brush their teeth, or even remove their shoes. Neither moved when the seven others got up and got ready for the day, staying sound asleep until noon. Neahle woke first, groaning as she turned onto her back.

  After five minutes she decided she needed to go to the bathroom and hauled herself up. Hannah was still sleeping, a pillow thrown over her head. Neahle pulled a light comforter over her against the underground chill and left the room. One good thing about going to bed in your clothes, it saves time, she thought.

  Lunch had been called when she emerged with a washed face, so she shuffled to the dining room. She was sore from all the walking and running and carrying, and stiff from a night spent in one position. Her eyes couldn’t get used to the dim light and she was having trouble warming up. When she sat down, however, everyone greeted her and asked how her first mission was. When she sipped her tea, she began to perk up. She noticed that her brother was halfway down the table, reading a book.

  “Hey, whatcha reading?” she called down to him.

  He looked up, surprised to see her, and moved to sit next to her.

  “I had a thought,” he said. “While I was talking to Samson in the Depot. I wanted to check out the books, make sure history ran the same way here as it did back home.”

  “What’s the thought?” she asked, spooning rice into a bowl.

  Clay explained his idea about the Enigma machine; Neahle ate thoughtfully as she listened. When he was done she said, “Makes sense. The only problem is, how would you test it? I mean, a lot of things have to come together before you’d know if you’re right—the right code book, an intercepted message, the message key…”

  “I was up all night thinking about it. If we can use the tunnels to find a machine,
you’re right, we still need a code book and then a message. But there are more code books than machines. Here, look.” He turned the book he was reading to race her. “There are both originals and copies in libraries all over the world, not to mention in almost every university department where they offer cryptology. We don’t need an original, we just need the right one.”

  “What do you mean, the right one?” Neahle asked, confused.

  “There were a lot of code books. Every German network had their own. The army had different ones than the navy, and submarine had different ones than warships.”

  “Great…” Neahle muttered. “So it’s practically impossible.”

  “Not impossible, just more work. But here’s my thought. The most common Enigma machine was the three rotor one….”

  “Wait, there was more than one kind?”

  “Well, sure. They started as toys, basically, and the Germans kept improving on them to make deciphering harder. The most common had three rotors inserted at a time, with eight rotors to choose from. So that narrows down the code book choices. The army used ones that had three rotors but no spares. When the navy adopted the machine, they made more and more rotors available until they eventually had eight. Those produced messages that were the most difficult to break because of the huge number of possible combinations. So let’s start with the navy ones, the M3.”

  “That seems easier,” Neahle commented, biting into an apple.

  “Of course, it may be the wrong machine, but there’s got to be a starting place. I think we should start with the most readily available one. There were some other models introduced later in the war, the M4, for one, but production was slow and they weren’t so widely distributed. I think the M3 is the place to start.”