WATER WORKS

WTRWKSBTMP1000:2.80,24,341,55,500. 80,24,342,54,499,1.80,24

Rebecca’s software, trawling through weeks of gamma-ray bursts, had found the next pattern, but this one made no sense at all.

All three of them stared at the characters dotted across the computer screen, trying to see order in the chaos. The early Saturday sun cast long streaks of light across the carpets of the lounge of the West Harbor house but did nothing to illuminate the puzzle.

“So you’ve checked earlier messages too?” Fatboy asked.

“Weeks of them,” Rebecca replied. “The messages start on the day we visited Dr. Barnes.”

“As if they knew you would visit him that day.”

“Exactly. That can’t be just a coincidence.”

“I still don’t understand where we’re going to get this time transmitter from.” Fatboy frowned.

“Me neither,” Rebecca said with a smile. “I’d invent one, if I had the slightest idea of where or how to start.”

“SOS means an emergency,” said Tane, whose mind was somewhere else entirely. “It means ‘help, save us,’ but from what?”

“Water Works,” said Rebecca, looking at the printout. “Like on Monopoly. You know, the Electric Company and the Water Works.”

The other two looked at her and she shrugged. “Still doesn’t make much sense, though, does it.”

“Maybe it’s a plague,” Tane said. “Maybe Dr. Green is going to accidentally create some horrible disease and wipe out half of mankind!”

Fatboy asked, “What if we just went and saw her again? Maybe she’d listen to us if we told her about the message.”

“Maybe she’d deny everything again and have us arrested,” Tane said.

“What are you up to?” It was Rebecca’s mother, drifting through the room. They hadn’t heard her come in.

“Runescape,” Tane lied quickly.

“What’s that?” she asked vaguely.

“It’s an online game where you get to be a kind of a character, called an…” He trailed off as she drifted out of the room, not listening to his answer. Tane stared at the computer screen, careful not to look at Rebecca.

“I think we have to involve the authorities,” Fatboy said. “If it is the end of the world that we are talking about, then that’s too big a problem for the three of us to deal with.”

“You’re right,” Rebecca agreed. “But first we have to prove it. So far it’s all just guesswork, and as Tane says, maybe we have misunderstood the message.”

“And what if we tell the authorities, and they don’t believe us, and they alert Vicky, and we lose our chance to do something about it?” Tane said. “Then the end of the world will be our fault!”

“Maybe that’s why the message said, ‘Don’t tell anyone,’” Fatboy considered.

Rebecca said, “We need to know more about the project. I mean, what’s it about? What are they really trying to do? I think we need to go back to the island.”

Fatboy shook his head. “She’s not going to admit anything.”

“I know,” Rebecca agreed. “That’s why we have to go when she’s not around. When nobody’s around.”

“Ooooh kaaay…” Tane drew out the words.

Rebecca continued, “We get in there at night when nobody is working, and go through her files. Find out what she’s up to, then figure out what to do about it.”

“That sounds pretty reasonable,” Tane said, “but what about her security? The barbed-wire fences and alarms.”

“Worry about that next,” Rebecca said. “Are we agreed on the basic idea?”

“Sounds pretty good to me,” Fatboy said. “And I might have an idea about the security.”

Tane just nodded. “It’s okay with me.”

Fatboy said, “Okay. We definitely do it at night, when nobody’s around. Wear masks so the security cameras can’t identify us later.” Fatboy idly doodled while he talked. Tane looked at the paper. It was a rough map of Motukiekie.

Rebecca was busy on her new computer and soon had a satellite image up on the screen, courtesy of Google Earth. The lab was clearly visible, a large cleared area amidst the dense bush of the island. Northwest of the lab, along a narrow path, was another complex of buildings, consisting of one large block and a number of smaller ones on a hill nearby.

“What are those buildings?” Tane wondered. “More labs?”

Rebecca shook her head. “Accommodation. The scientists need somewhere to live, don’t they?”

Fatboy studied the picture and added a few notes to his map.

“Okay, but how do we get to Motukiekie Island without being seen? I don’t want to get arrested.” Rebecca was suddenly quiet and Tane knew what she meant. She’d already been arrested once. Who would look after her mum if she was in prison, or reform school, or wherever it was they sent teenage criminals?

“Underwater,” he said with dawning awareness.

“The submarine!” Fatboy snapped his fingers.

“The Subeo Nautilus,” breathed Rebecca. “So that’s why we had to buy the submarine.”

“This just might work,” Fatboy said, “but there is still the problem of their security system. I think I caught the first few numbers when Professor Green pressed them on the keypad.”

“Me too!” Rebecca said cautiously.

Fatboy closed his eyes, remembering, and said, “Five, one, something, maybe four…I couldn’t see the last numbers because of the way she was holding her hands.”

“That’s right.” Rebecca nodded. “Five, one, and four. I saw them too, but they’re no good. We might as well have nothing without the last number.”

“Three,” Tane said, “like the Powerball number.”

“Are you sure?” Fatboy asked.

Tane nodded. “I’m not totally useless.”

Fatboy ignored him. “Okay, then. When? Any ideas when we should do this?”

Rebecca said quickly, “Soon. As soon as possible. Before it’s too late.”

Tane asked, “But how do we know when ‘too late’ is?”

“That’s easy,” Rebecca said, staring Tane straight in the eye. “The day after Professor Green releases the virus, or whatever it is that she is going to do…that’s a day too late.”

Fatboy said solemnly, “The sooner the better, then.”

“Okay. Moving on. We still have more message to decode,” Rebecca said slowly. “Bottom P. Bat Map. Butt Mop.”

“Butt Mop?!” Tane burst out laughing, a little too loudly. Then Rebecca got the giggles, which set Tane off again, and the combination was too much even for Fatboy, who laughed so hard his hat fell off.

Exam week came and went, and Tane was convinced that he failed every darn thing. He couldn’t concentrate, he couldn’t focus, he couldn’t even remember. Things that he had known all year suddenly seemed like distant memories. Subjects he was strong in were all of a sudden his weak points.

It was unfair, he thought. How many of the other kids sitting the exams were trying to solve cryptograms from the future and planning to break into a genetics laboratory? Well, just one other that he knew of, and she was going to breeze through her exams and probably still top the country despite everything that was going on.