by KB Shaw
• • •
HALF THE COUNTRY AWAY, Rosa and her parents were screaming. “Run, Cheese Boy, run!” shouted Rosa as she jumped up and down. The camera suddenly slammed to the ground and went black.
“Our transmission has been broken,” Sam informed the viewers abruptly. “I expect that will conclude tonight’s Bench Cam net cast.”
• • •
“I CAN’T BELIEVE we’re up at the wee hours of the morning, watching this Bench Cam,” said Gwen. “And it’s a dreadful American sport. One you don’t even understand.”
Her boss shrugged and grinned. “You just have to admire this kid.”
“No, it’s something more, isn’t it? There’s something about these two American students. You’ve taken an unusual interest in them from the very beginning, when they were the first to apply. And now I hear you’ve been personally monitoring some of their simulations. Gus, what’s going on?”
“Now is not the time, Gwen,” was his only reply.
• • •
A TECHNICIAN at a La Crosse, Wisconsin, television station was watching the Bench Cam video stream on the station’s multiCom. The local sports reporter sitting beside him asked, “Did you say this is that kid from Troy— the one who’s in the IHT academy?”
The technician nodded.
“How did you find out about it?”
“The password was posted on some hacker’s site. I first saw it about three games back. There’s something strangely compelling about it. Sorta like those old shows when we were kids. What did they call ’em? Reality shows.”
“Please tell me you recorded this thing,” said the reporter, grinning. The technician nodded again.
• • •
CAMERON FELL hard on the ball, getting the wind knocked out of him. To make things worse, he had both hands secured tightly around the ball as he went down and he couldn’t break his fall with his hands. His helmet struck the ground, violently jarring his head. He could feel the warm trickle of blood oozing from his nose and was gasping for air as he felt someone roll him onto his back. Above him towered his coaches and teammates.
“Move back,” said the team trainer. “Give him some room.”
Cameron felt silly lying there with all these people watching. When he started to get up, the trainer held him down and began to carefully remove his helmet. “Take a second to catch your breath, son,” he said. Then, with a wink, he added, “Play this for the crowd.”
“Did… did I score?”
The trainer shook his head. “Seven yards shy. But it was a helluva of a run.”
Once Cameron was breathing easily and the trainer had stopped the bloody nose, he helped Cameron to his feet. The stands erupted with applause as Cameron walked to the sideline.
“Ya got lucky, kid,” commented the coach as Cameron walked by. “Okay, offense on the field!”
Cameron’s teammates slapped him on the back and banged shoulder pads in a show of congratulations. Chet’s head butt was a little harder than it needed to be, and he snarled as he came face-to-face with Cameron. “At least ya didn’t screw up, Rush.”
“Just covering your man for you, Chet. Wasn’t it your block he slid off of?”
Chet snarled again, his helmet driving hard against Cameron’s. “Wait until…” Chet never finished his threat, for Cameron applied some basic physics. By taking one swift sidestep, he effectively removed the resistance (his helmet) from the applied force (Chet’s helmet). Newton’s laws of motion took over and Chet fell in the direction of his applied force, landing face down in the sod. As Cameron walked away, he heard the jeering laughs of his teammates. Laughs, for once, not directed at him.
That was the only play Cameron Rush made the entire game.
The defensive coach took Cameron aside in the locker room after the game. “Cameron, I want you on defense next year. You hear?” asked Coach Rausch. “That wasn’t luck at all, that was good, heads-up ball playing. And if Coach has half a brain—don’t tell him I said that—he’d take a hard look at giving you a real shot on offense.”
Cameron’s parents and Billy Parker were waiting for him in the parking lot. His father gave him a congratulatory pat on the back. Billy managed to say, “Cool.” Mary Rush was practically in tears as she clutched her son tightly. “Are you okay, hon? Are you hurt?”
Cameron appreciated his mother’s concern, but his embarrassment outweighed his appreciation. He pushed her away, grumbling, “Geez, Mom. There’s people around!” As he spoke, a small group of students came into view.
“Hey, Cameron,” called a girl in the group, “you coming to the dance?”
• • •
IT WAS LATE Saturday afternoon before Rosa heard from Cameron.
“I thought you’d call after the game.” Rosa sounded disappointed.
“I was going to,” Cameron said, feeling a twinge of guilt, “but I went to the dance afterward.”
There was an awkward silence before Rosa forced a smile. “Did you have fun?”
“I guess. I don’t dance… uh… but it was sort of neat being treated like the hero for a change.”
Rosa perked up with genuine enthusiasm. “Then you scored a touchdown?”
“You don’t know?
“The video feed went dead.”
“No. I was tackled on the 7-yard line. I got the wind knocked out of me, and I got a bloody nose.”
Rosa was puzzled. “But you were the hero?”
“Yeah. Our offense couldn’t drive the ball in from the seven, so we kicked a field goal and ended up winning 3-0. Wanna know what’s really weird?”
“¿Qué?”
“The local station watched the Bench Cam show last night and came to interview me today. That’s why I didn’t call this morning. Apparently our French-Canadian friend posted the password on his comNet site back in October. It seems I’ve been humiliating myself in front of thousands of strangers for weeks.”
Rosa doubled over in laughter. “Way to go, Cheese Boy!”
Chapter 30:
Time Tag
THE FOLLOWING SATURDAY morning was cold and crisp in Troy, with subzero temperatures and a dusting of snow on the ground. This would turn out to be a day of discovery and danger so subtle Cameron would not register it until many months later.
“Power!”
A slight hum filled Cameron’s littered bedroom as the wall-mounted display came to life with a soft glow.
“Good morning, Cameron.”
Cameron liked the sound of Sam’s voice upgrade. It was the voice he grew to recognize when he and Sam were together in a simulation. It had inflection and emotion.
“Good morning, Sam. Any messages this morning?”
“Yes, Cameron, you do, in fact, have a message.”
“Display, please.”
“It’s puzzle protected, Cameron. Here it is.”
“Rosa!”
It didn’t Cameron take long to solve the anagram.
The screen dissolved into an image of Rosa. “Happy birthday, Cheese Boy! Sweet Sixteen and never been kissed! Well, maybe once on national TV,” she said. “I guess you’re going to be my elder until February. I’ve got a birthday present for you, old man. Catch me if you can. You’re it!”
She flashed one of her mischievous grins. “You’ll need to master the clues to find me. I’m off to the doctor’s. Good-bye!” Rosa laid her hand upon the IHT pendant dangling from a gold chain about her neck, closed her eyes, and vanished.
“You’re it!” repeated Rosa’s voice before the screen went blank.
Rosa had just challenged Cameron to a game of Time Tag. He felt a surge of adrenaline as he retrieved his pocket watch IDO.
Time Tag was a popular new game Malik had created. It took at least two to play it—a Fox to go hide and one or more Hounds to search and find the Fox. The Fox could hide anywhere and in any time.
There were just three simple rules. The first was that the Fox must leave a trail of clues behind for the Hounds to f
ollow. The second said if you missed the Fox at a particular time and place, you could not jump back in time and revisit that place.
Socrates Jones had suggested the third rule. Hence, it was called the Socrates’ Rule. “I have an idea that will make the chase all the more thrilling. While you’re in the simulation, act as if you have actually gone back in time and the people about you are real,” he said. “Do not give away the future or betray from where you came. A real time traveler would have to be careful not to do anything that would change time. Any major breach of this rule and the technician monitoring the simulation will terminate the game.”
In this game, Rosa was the Fox—she had made the challenge. Cameron knew he might not be the only Hound on Rosa’s trail, but he was determined to be the first to find her.
Where to start? He sat on the edge of his bed and looked at the multiCom screen. Like his mind, it was blank. If only he could fill his mind with thoughts, like Rosa’s message had filled the screen.
Yes. That was it. Fill his mind like the screen.
“Sam, please replay the message.”
Rosa’s image came into view once again. “You’re it!” she said. “You’ll need to master the clues to find me. I’m off to the doctor’s. Good-bye!” Her hand moved to her pendant, and she began to dissolve to nothing.
Just before the message ended, Cameron said, “Freeze, please.” He wasn’t concerned with where Rosa had gone, but, rather, where she had started the chase. Where was she when she recorded the message? The picture on the screen was a blur. “Can you focus the image, Sam?”
“Certainly, Cameron. Now adjusting the picture. How is that?”
“Very good, thank you.”
Cameron rose from his bed and stepped close to the screen. He studied the still-fuzzy picture.
Rosa was in a building. It was a large room with lots of pictures and signs on the walls. Was it an art gallery, maybe? A display of some sort? Or a museum?
There were large letters high up on the wall, but they were hard to read. Cameron could barely make out that the first letter was an M. Two more letters that he couldn’t figure out followed that one. The fourth letter was tall—maybe an L or a T. Again, there were two more letters too faint to read. The last letter was an S. He looked at the word even more closely. The third letter was probably the same as the last. That meant the word was:
M - ? - S - (L or T) - ? - ? - S
Now it was only a matter of finding the missing letters.
What were the missing letters? If there was one thing that Cameron really loved, it was a puzzle. He figured the first missing letter had to be a vowel. That meant he had only six choices—a, e, i, o, u, and y. One by one, he tried each letter:
M - A - S - L - ? - ? - S
M - E - S - L - ? - ? - S
M - I - S - L - ? - ? - S
M - O - S - L - ? - ? - S
M - U - S - L - ? - ? - S
M - Y - S - L - ? - ? - S
Cameron shook his head. None of the letter combinations looked promising. He tried again with a T as the fourth letter instead of the L.
M - A - S - T - ? - ? - S
M - E - S - T - ? - ? - S
M - I - S - T - ? - ? - S
M - O - S - T - ? - ? - S
M - U - S - T - ? - ? - -S
M - Y - S - T - ? - ? - S
This presented some real possibilities. Cameron was confident that the E and U were not right, so he scratched them off his list. He now had only four variations to work with:
M - A - S - T - ? - ? - S
M - I - S - T - ? - ? - S
M - O - S - T - ? - ? - S
M - Y - S - T - ? - ? - S
When he looked at the remaining sets of question marks, the letters ER jumped into his mind for three of the words:
M - A - S - T - E - R - S
M - I - S - T - E - R - S
M - Y - S - T - E - R - S (Mystery?)
Cameron had now narrowed the possibilities down to three words. He examined them closely. MYSTERY would have been a suitable word for this challenge, but he was sure that the third and last letters were S. His list was now only two words long: ‘Masters’ and ‘Misters.’
Wait a minute! What had Rosa said just before she disappeared?
“Sam, run the message again, please.” Cameron closed his eyes and listened as the multiCom replayed Rosa’s voice. “You’re it! You’ll need to master the clues to find me.”
“Stop, please,” said Cameron. “That’s it! Master the clues! She gave me the first clue already. The word on the wall is ‘Masters.’ But what could it mean? Where was the exhibit they had talked about visiting? Chicago, wasn’t it?
“Sam, where is that museum with the show about the Masters? You know, the one Rosa wanted to see?”
“That would be the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, Illinois,” said Sam.
That’s it. Rosa was at The Masters exhibit at the Field Museum.
Cameron was proud to have solved the first of the many puzzles he knew awaited him as he tried to find Rosa somewhere in time. He put the IHT in his pocket and initiated the Field Museum simulation. Like all Academy students, Cameron had free admission to the museum, courtesy of GundTech.
The room faded and dissolved, and Cameron found himself in the museum’s main hall. Rising above him were the bones of one of the museum’s most famous permanent residents—Sue, the tyrannosaurus. He found a museum guide and asked directions to the Masters exhibit. Cameron wasn’t sure if the guide was a real person or an AI personality. No matter, it wasn’t long before he was standing on the very spot from which Rosa had issued her challenge.
The exhibit was fabulous! It occupied an entire wing of the museum. The number and variety of Masters that the exhibit explored amazed Cameron. When Mr. S first told his homeroom about the display, Cameron had thought it was an art show dedicated to the Art Masters like Rembrandt, Picasso, van Gogh, and the like. Indeed, master painters and sculptors were represented, but there was so much more: master builders, from the pyramids to the Golden Gate Bridge; masters of music from Beethoven to Scott Joplin; masters of science, philosophy, writing, and the cinema. There was even a section called “Masters of Disguise,” which showed insects and animals whose appearance made them disappear into their surroundings.
Cameron became so interested in the exhibit, he forgot why he had come to the museum. He forgot, that is, until he came to the wall with the large letters he’d seen behind Rosa when she issued her challenge. It was really an unremarkable wall, with only a few pictures and several signs on it.
Maybe the signs will give me a clue to where Rosa has gone.
Cameron stepped closer to the wall, studying the signs and pictures more closely for clues. He felt like an old-fashioned detective. Unfortunately, there was nothing to be found. The items on the wall told him where restrooms were and where the cafeteria was, but they gave no hint as to the location of Rosa Costas.
Disappointed, Cameron turned to leave.
Then he saw it.
The clue wasn’t on the wall he had seen behind Rosa—it was on the wall she would have been looking at when she recorded the message!
Before him was a large print of an old magazine illustration. It showed a tall, thin man, dressed in very old-style clothing. His coat had a sort of half-cape over the shoulders. His head was covered by a funny looking hat that seemed to have two fronts. Cameron knew the figure in the drawing was a favorite fictional character of Rosa’s. She had read almost every story written about this man, who was called the world’s first “consulting detective.”
The picture on the wall was in a display entitled “The Victorians: Masters of Their Time.”
Cameron knew who the man in the drawing was, but he was not sure what or who Victorians were. Cameron was certain of one thing: this was the clue Rosa had intended him to find.
Chapter 31:
The Doctor and the Detective
WHO BETTER to solve a mystery than the wor
ld-famous detective, Sherlock Holmes?
“Play back the audio of Rosa’s message, please,” said Cameron Rush into his pocket-sized multiCom.
The voice of Rosa rose from the small Com unit. “You’re it! You’ll need to master the clues to find me. I’m off to the doctor’s. Good-bye!”
“I’m off to the doctor’s…” that’s what she said. How clever. Wasn’t Sherlock Holmes’ friend and assistant named Dr. Watson? Cameron typed “Watson, Dr.” into his multiCom and waited for the reply.
In a flash, the display of his multiCom came to life.
Watson, Dr. John H., Friend and chronicler of Sherlock Holmes. The two shared rooms at 221B Baker Street, London. It is impossible to think of Sherlock Holmes without thinking of Dr. Watson.
Created by a young ophthalmologist, a
≠≠≠≠ more ≠≠≠≠
Cameron didn’t need to read any further. He knew where he was going—221B Baker Street, London, England. He knew who he was going to see—Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John H. Watson. What he didn’t know was when—to what exact point in time he had to go. When you begin to think about it, time is a pretty large thing to search! Even knowing that Rosa was somewhere in the time called the Victorian period, it would be almost impossible for Cameron to find her.
The multiCom told Cameron that the Victorian period extended from 1837 to 1901. That was 65 years to search. 23,725 days (not taking into account leap years!) in which Rosa could hide. 569,400 hours to be considered. More than 34 MILLION minutes, or 2 BILLION seconds when Rosa Costas could be just around the corner, down the street, or in the next room. Indeed, it was not a question of where the Hound was to look for the cunning vixen, but rather when.