The History Mystery (4 page)

‘OK, but I still don't understand how this might be a clue.'

Pedro hesitated before continuing.

‘Well … it's a only a little clue. It may be nothing, really. But this joker or hacker or whatever already mentioned Egypt and Nefertiti just as we were working on ancient Egypt. Then he went for the Hammurabi code with your sister, who's training to be a lawyer and knows all about laws and things, and then he starts talking about Marco Polo to me and Robbie. Do you remember how Marco Polo tells this story about an old man in the mountains who has all these killers at his service?'

Sonia nodded. It was coming back to her.

‘Right, so when Robbie was writing his rap song that mentions assassins and merchandise, this person starts going on about assassins and merchandise too.'

‘So?'

‘Well, whenever he strikes, this joker, he's talking
about something that is related to
us
, somehow.' Pedro paused, took a breath and went on. ‘That's why I'm thinking this must be someone who knows us, Sonia. But also someone who has read quite a few books and knows their history.'

‘Hmm. A historian?'

‘I'm starting to suspect Mr Costa, actually.'

‘
Pedro!
Anyway, he doesn't know my sister. How could he send her a message?'

‘But if she was using your computer? He could have hacked into it and he could have read the document she was writing. And he could have seen that your sister was doing research about Hammurabi, so then he writes about that.'

‘But then it could be anyone who can hack into a computer,' Sonia argued. ‘It doesn't have to be someone who knows us, as long as they can pick up on what we are working on.'

‘No,' said Pedro. ‘It's not that simple. Nobody mentioned Marco Polo, but the Brainy Joker – Brainy Hacker, whatever you want to call him or her – used that story, knowing we'd know what he was on about. That's why I suspect Mr Costa.'

‘I really don't know, Pedro.' Sonia was not convinced. ‘Why would Mr Costa do a thing like that? What's in it for him? What's his interest in helping us out and giving us such a good grade? Our team above all – the one that probably did the worst project of the lot.'

It was Pedro's turn to think. ‘Yeah … you've got a point. It makes no sense. I hadn't thought about that. And anyway, it's not like Mr Costa. He loves the moral high ground. But this hacker
is
someone who knows his history very well. As well as Mr Costa does.'

They were silent for a while. Then Sonia made a suggestion.

‘Let's go to my place so you can read the messages and take a good look at the computer. After that, I promise, I'm done exploiting you. We'll listen to this new album I just downloaded and we'll have something special to eat.'

Pedro seemed to get what she meant, because he smiled and said, ‘Special? Like the two of us. Let's go!'

They read and reread the messages that had been left on the computer in Sonia's house. But try as they might, they couldn't reach a conclusion. So they decided to skip ahead to the special snack and the new music, along with very special talks as old friends with so much in common, who slowly start noticing new charms in each other.

Very slowly – way too slowly for Sonia's taste. By now she had no doubt that she was in fact starting to like Pedro very much and she really hoped he felt the same way about her. They ended up not talking any more about the mysterious Brainy Hacker. At least, not that afternoon.

For a few days, nothing new or strange happened with the computer and they gradually began to forget about the joker or hacker or whatever it was. It wasn't until Saturday of the following week that the subject came up again – twice.

When the phone rang that morning in Sonia's house, she could barely believe what Pedro was saying.

‘Do you have anything planned for today? Can I come over in a little while? We could even go out somewhere afterwards. I have news for you. But I have to tell you in person.'

Sonia told him she had no plans for that Saturday and promised to wait for him. But in fact she did have plans. Actually, she had two plans: Faye was coming over for lunch at her place, because she wanted to talk to Andrea. A serious talk, she had said. And after lunch Andrea was going to take all the girls to the shopping centre for some shopping and a movie. But meeting Pedro took priority over all that. There was no contest.

Sonia hung up the phone, ran to the shower and called out to her two sisters, who were in the living room: ‘I can't go out with you today after all. Let's leave the shopping for another time. Or you two can go without me.'

Carol looked grumpy. Going alone with her eldest sister was no fun at all, better just call it off.

But Andrea seemed pleased. ‘Great!' she said. ‘This way, I don't have to be stuck with you girls. Since dad has lent me the car anyway, I can take care of some stuff I want to do.'

She started getting ready as well.

As she stepped out of the shower, Sonia remembered Faye. She tried to convince Andrea to stay home for lunch and talk to Faye, but the idea
wasn't met with much enthusiasm. She'd have to call Faye and cancel.

‘It's OK, Sonia,' Faye said. ‘Don't worry. We'll do it some other day. I'm not in a hurry anyway – this stuff happened a while ago and I've only just got the courage now to talk about it.'

There was obvious disappointment in Faye's voice, though. Sonia felt a bit guilty. Up until then, she hadn't given a second thought to whatever it was that Faye wanted to see Andrea about. It wasn't any of her business. But now she suddenly felt worried. After all, Faye and Andrea barely knew each other, they weren't the same age and they didn't hang around with the same crowd. What on earth could her friend want with her older sister?

‘Are you sure it's cool?' she asked.

‘Yeah,' said Faye. ‘It was just some work-related stuff. Actually, I think I might call Andrea's office soon and try to meet her there. That way we can talk better.'

Hmm. That sounded bad. It was probably serious. Andrea worked in a lawyer's office, and if Faye needed to talk to her, there must be some problem.

Sonia hesitated. She didn't want to butt in. She had to respect the fact that Faye hadn't told her what it was all about. At the same time, she didn't want to leave her friend in the lurch.

‘Listen, Faye, I said something came up and that's
true. But if you want I can cancel it and you can meet my sister right away. Or if you have a problem that I can help you with, just ask me. I'm your friend, and you can count on me for whatever you need. Don't forget that.'

‘No, no, don't worry,' said Faye, but her tone of voice wasn't all that firm. She seemed to hesitate, but then she went on. ‘I just needed to talk to her about some stuff to do with the law that I have to research. And she's the only lawyer I know. But we can do it some other time. Bye!'

And she hung up before Sonia had time to correct her and say that actually Andrea was just a law student, not a proper lawyer.

What research could Faye be talking about? She and Sonia were doing all the same subjects at school and none of the teachers had given them an essay that involved anything like that. And Faye had no intention of going to university or studying law one day. If there was anyone in Garibaldi High who had set ideas about their professional future, it was Faye-I-wanna-be-a-model. Researching stuff about the law? It didn't add up.

Sonia was just about to comment on this to her sisters when the bell rang, and Andrea looked out the window to see who was at the gate.

‘It's that friend of yours, Pedro,' she said. ‘He's just coming in.'

Carol started to tease Sonia. ‘Ah, so
that's
why you changed your mind and decided not to hang out with us this morning, huh? Because of Pedro. Lately it's been all Pedro this, Pedro that.'

‘Stop talking nonsense,' Sonia interrupted her. ‘He's just come over to help me with that computer-virus thing.'

Hearing this, Andrea was suddenly interested.

‘Ah, talking of viruses, you'll never guess what happened …' and she plunged into some story about a virus at work.

Carol was giggling away ironically, to show she didn't buy her sister's excuse for this morning's visit. Sonia meanwhile had gone to open the door to Pedro. And all the time, their oldest sister was sitting in a corner of the sofa, leafing through a magazine and at the same time babbling away, describing in detail this other virus her boyfriend had told her about, even though no one was listening.

It was only when Pedro joined them in the living room that they started to take any notice of what Andrea was saying.

‘It sounds very like that virus you have on your computer. Colin thinks it's a hacker, actually, and in a notary's office, you can imagine how serious that could be. Just think if someone was prying into all sorts of confidential documents. Colin kept saying we should talk to the notary public and call the police,
but the office clerk was afraid of being blamed, afraid they might think he had broken something.'

Sonia and Pedro exchanged glances.

‘Sorry,' Sonia said, ‘what was that you were saying, Andrea? Could you say it again?' She wanted to make sure they'd got the story right.

‘You don't listen when people talk and then you want them to repeat what they've said. I haven't got a replay button, you know,' said Andrea, looking a bit annoyed.

Pedro came to Sonia's defence. ‘No, it was my fault. I came barging in, not realising you were in the middle of a conversation, and I started talking to her. I'm sorry.'

‘All right, then,' said Andrea with a sigh. ‘What I was saying was that you really need to fix that computer fast, before this virus spreads out all over the place. I think I've already contaminated Colin and he has spread it to the office. It seems to be very contagious. We could have an epidemic on our hands.'

She made it sound as if it was actually a virus or disease, spreading from one person to another.

But Pedro was interested and he had lots of questions. Andrea told them that Colin and a client had gone to sign a deed at a public notary's office, and in the middle of the document a strange sheet of paper had appeared. It seemed to be a letter,
probably some sort of prank. The clerk had got all nervous, arguing with the people around him, thinking someone was trying to set him up.

‘And did you keep that piece of paper?' Pedro asked. ‘Or did you throw it away?'

‘Which paper? The deed? It's been kept, obviously. The client took it all with him. Colin worked it out somehow and it was all fine. He's great, you know? Competent, observant –'

‘No, not the
deed
. I mean the page of writing that seemed to be part of a prank.'

‘Oh. I think Colin did keep it. I remember he said it might be useful.'

‘And do you think he would show it to me if I asked to see it?'

Andrea was serious now. ‘Of course not! Don't be silly! Professional secrecy. It's a very important rule. It's fundamental for any lawyer. This is the client's business and no one else's – it's private. Nobody can be allowed to go looking through other people's documents.' Sonia knew how distracted her sister could get. It was clear she was already thinking of something else, talking and reading the magazine at the same time. She'd better make it very clear.

‘No, Andrea, nobody wants to look at any client's documents. Pedro just wants to see the prank letter to study the virus. It's just a technical curiosity. Maybe it will help him to fix my computer. Perhaps
you could give him Colin's number? Then they can talk directly.'

Andrea agreed and gave Pedro Colin's number.

Sonia grabbed her backpack and, within moments, Andrea was back reading her magazine as Sonia and Pedro left the room.

Pedro was very excited by what he had just heard.

‘The Brainy Hacker strikes again,' he said. ‘It's all becoming clearer. As soon as I heard, I came over to tell you.'

‘As soon as you heard? But Andrea only just told us the story, so how could you have known it already?'

‘I didn't know that part, of course. No, I mean, there's been a new attack. What I came to tell you was about what happened on Will's computer. Apparently it was a double attack this time.'

Though, actually, it was a triple attack, but at this stage they had no idea that Faye was having similar experiences.

Perhaps even quadruple. But they had even less of an inkling about Robbie's misfortunes. It would be weeks before they would hear about that.

Will was crazy about games – any games. He'd even play cards or do jigsaw puzzles, whatever was to hand. But, no question about it, his favourite kind were electronic games. If he could, he would spend twenty-four hours a day gaming – chasing, escaping, scoring, levelling up, planning gameplays, beating records. To him, a TV set or a computer were just peripherals to a gaming console.

Will didn't watch sitcoms, he didn't watch the news, he didn't care about the music videos everyone liked to keep up with, except for the occasional heavy metal band. He turned on the TV only to watch sport – any kind of sport. Football, basketball, volleyball, even chess, snooker and golf, when they got this stuff on cable. Matt swore that one day he actually caught Will watching a domino championship, though Will insisted that was just a joke.

But it was no joke that Will hardly ever spent any time on the internet or chatting with friends online. Most of the time, he was disconnected from the world, playing for hours on end. His favourite games
were the ones you could play online with friends and that go on for ever, throwing little dice, playing the role of heroes or villains, alternating between tense silences and loud yells.

The others always thought it would be hard to beat Will, with all that practice he had. He had fast reflexes. That's why his friends didn't like playing action games against him. It was no fun any more, because he always won. It didn't matter whether they were using a controller, a mouse or a keyboard. Will was just a winner.

The one exception was strategy games. Will was not all that good at games like that, especially at the more advanced stages. He didn't have a lot of patience. So he'd often get a friend to come over to his place to help him out with the planning, so that he could learn and improve his skills. Someone like Pedro, for instance, who was the kind of person that could stay silent for a long time, analysing the alternatives for a game he was imagining, a game he hadn't even started to play yet, that only existed in his head.

Pedro would sometimes interrupt the game, leave the room, make a sandwich, come back eating it, and all the time he would be thinking about his next move. And, in the end, it usually worked.

It was exciting to have a strong opponent every once in a while. So Will sometimes liked to play
against Pedro, each in his own house, on different computers. At other times, though, they would just sit down side by side, playing together against the computer. At times like that, Pedro was invaluable. He really improved the chances of winning. And it was at one of these times that the Brainy Hacker decided to strike again.

The two friends were playing a new game, full of different obstacles. It was on a CD that Will's godfather had brought back to him from a trip to London. It was set in the Middle Ages, Will's favourite era, and was full of knights, armour, castles, sieges, jousting, tournaments with flags that waved in the wind, damsels locked in towers, magic potions, dragons, Crusades, illuminated parchments, wizards, spells, dungeons. Loads of stuff. You could play for hours, always with new elements, without it ever becoming repetitive.

That's why Pedro went on playing for a while, then a little while longer, and ended up spending the whole of Friday afternoon and evening at Will's place. And that's how he happened to see a message that appeared all of a sudden on the screen, totally out of the blue.

Will was just about to delete it, but Pedro intervened to keep the message on the screen for a few minutes – long enough to read it a couple of times before it all disappeared, when the impatient
Will made a quick and unstoppable movement that brought the game back to the main screen.

‘I can't say I memorised it, but I did pay close attention and I think I can roughly repeat it,' Pedro was saying to Sonia now, as they walked to Will's house that Saturday morning.

Well, Sonia thought, he hadn't exactly called her up for a Saturday date with a movie and a bite to eat, as she had dared to imagine, full of hope. Still, it was clear that he wanted her company and valued her help in this challenge of trying to track down the hacker.

‘Do you really think it was a new attack from the virus? Or by the Brainy Hacker?'

‘Yes, I do. But Will is sure that it couldn't be, because the game was on a commercial CD and it's a closed system. You can't add stuff into it. The game doesn't have an online mode and it can't receive messages via the web.'

He paused and then said, ‘Only, when we played it, it did look as if it was able to pick up stuff from somewhere else. I'm sure the Brainy Hacker did use the monitor, but this time the message couldn't have come over the internet. It came through the game itself. It's much the same as what happened the other times, except that this time the hacker used a character.'

‘What do you mean?' asked Sonia curiously. They
had almost arrived at Will's gate by this time, and they had decided to try and repeat the experience. At least, that was the idea.

As they walked, Pedro had been explaining that there were loads of characters in this game. Depending on the situation, a player could be harmed by one of the characters, and that meant he or she would forfeit some items, for instance. But a player could also win points, of course, or get help from allies to face a challenge. These allies could be warriors, or a knight maybe, or a wizard. And the place where the mysterious message had appeared, that time when Will and Pedro were playing, was in a tower belonging to one of these wizard characters.

‘A wizard! Like, with a boiling cauldron, a pointy hat, a starry cape?' asked Sonia, surprised. ‘Will likes playing with stuff like that?'

Pedro pretended to be concentrating on opening the gate, but really he was hesitating, wondering how to answer. He wanted Sonia to take the game seriously, to see it as a grown-up thing, not some silly kids' stuff. He certainly didn't want her asking Will questions like that.

After a few seconds' thought, he answered: ‘You don't want to take much notice of those things, Sonia. These games are all like that, with wizards and magic and stuff, but it's just a set. They're actually very sophisticated and difficult. Complex as
chess, for example. They require intelligence, highly developed logical thinking –'

‘And a blue cape covered in little stars?' Sonia chipped in with a smile.

‘No, I can't say I saw a cape,' said Pedro seriously. ‘In the game, we were inside a castle. The wizard wasn't about to go outside – he was in the tower. Maybe he just wears a cape in bad weather, who knows? But yes, there was a cauldron. And a pointy hat. And a lot of glass bottles with colourful liquids bubbling in them. There was an owl perched in a corner. And a big book.'

‘Full of recipes for spells?' she went on, teasing him. ‘And was there a magic wand?'

She was really quite surprised at all this childish stuff in Will's game. He had always seemed such a dark kind of guy. He wore black and listened to punk and heavy metal bands. He always put on such grown-up airs – and now suddenly she finds out he's into fairy tales, the kind of thing that she and her girlfriends had left behind ages ago.

Pedro replied, slightly impatiently, ‘How am I supposed to know? I didn't go flicking through the book. It was on a screen, remember? But listen, suddenly the book spun around, changed position and faced us, wide open and showing the pages – and there was this message written on it. So, tell me, are you still very interested in the details of the
costumes and décor, or can I tell you what we read on that screen, on those pages?'

He sounded annoyed.

‘No, I'm sorry, go ahead. What was written on the book? Tell me!'

But just at that moment, Will's mother opened the door and invited them in, all smiles. A few minutes of polite small talk followed, so it was some time before the three friends were together at the computer, and Sonia asked again, ‘So, go on, tell me, what was this mysterious message you got?'

‘Well,' said Pedro, ‘it was in those weird fancy letters, with the first letter on the page written very big and surrounded by all these detailed illustrations in gold and red and blue.'

‘Gothic,' said Will, the medieval expert. ‘That kind of writing is called gothic script. And the way the first letter on a page is all coloured and illustrated – that's called an illuminated initial.'

‘But what did it
say
?' Sonia asked.

‘It started with two sentences that I remember exactly,' said Pedro. ‘“To you I will tell it. I am not who everyone thinks I am.”'

‘
Cool!
' said Sonia. ‘A mysterious character. But it could easily be part of the game. If nobody can hack into a CD, then the message must already have been part of it, no?'

Will spoke then. ‘I thought the same, at first, but we soon saw that it couldn't be.'

‘That was what I thought too,' Pedro went on. ‘But the very next thing in the message was an apology for butting into our game and interrupting what we were doing. The message explained that there was no other way, because they needed to communicate with us and simply using the internet wasn't working.'

‘That made us realise it couldn't be part of the game,' Will interrupted. ‘I mean, come on, like anyone would talk about the internet in a medieval game? So I wanted to close it down and get on with the game, but Pedro wouldn't let me. And then this whole stream of other letters started appearing like mad, page after page. The guy was telling this big long story, and he wouldn't let us play on.'

The boys told Sonia that the message's mysterious author introduced himself, saying that he wasn't actually the wizard they had seen in the game moments before. He was just an assistant who was still learning the secrets of alchemy. But he studied a lot, and he could read and write and knew Latin.

‘He was explaining the whole time that he could read well and quickly,' said Will. ‘He said that he was used to reading, that he had studied in some monastery, but that at that time almost everyone was illiterate.'

‘The Brainy Hacker always says stuff like that,' said Sonia, as if she were talking about an old friend. ‘And then?'

‘Then he said that a long, long time before, on a day on which the wizard was performing one of his experiments looking for the Elixir of Youth, there was a little accident.'

‘Wait a minute,' said Sonia. ‘This elixir – what's that? I thought alchemy was about the Philosopher's Stone?'

‘Yes, that's right,' said Will. ‘The Philosopher's Stone was a mysterious substance that could turn everything it touched into gold, and it was a stone, of course.'

‘Hence the name,' Sonia added with a grin.

‘Yes,' Will went on, ‘and the alchemists were always experimenting to see if they could find the powerful substance of which this stone was made. They hoped that one day someone might find the stone among some treasures in the East or something. But the other thing they were interested in finding was the Elixir of Youth, which was a liquid. The Stone and the Elixir were different things, but some scholars believed that the discovery of the Stone would be a first step towards finding the Elixir. Among the aims of alchemy were the discovery of the Stone and the Elixir, and also other things, such as the Machine of Perpetual Motion.'

Sonia was beginning to be sorry she'd asked. She hadn't really wanted a lecture on alchemy.

Alchemy was not very highly thought of any more, Will said, but in fact the alchemists of old had done a lot of important research. The search for perpetual motion had ended up helping to develop physics. The search for the Elixir of Youth and the Philosopher's Stone had contributed to findings in chemistry. So it wasn't just silly magic, like a lot of people think. Deep down, the paths of humanity …

That's enough!
thought Pedro. He really felt like screaming at Will to stop. But he didn't want to be mean to his friend. So he just said, ‘I'm sorry, but aren't we straying a bit from the subject here, Will?'

‘Oh,' said Will. ‘I didn't realise. I was just explaining how this alchemy thing worked in the Middle Ages, so Sonia could understand the message from the wizard's assistant.'

‘Yeah, OK, but now you've explained it, everybody gets it. Can we move on?'

Will nodded, slightly offended, and let Pedro carry on. So Pedro explained what the wizard's assistant had told them.

One time, while the wizard was doing some experiment, a few drops of liquid had splashed over the assistant. It was just a little accident, but those few drops had consequences, and the effects endured over time.

‘That Elixir of Youth thing?' Sonia asked. ‘So he got baby skin in a few parts of his body, where the liquid touched him, maybe?' She was trying to imagine what that would look like.

‘No,' Will said. ‘This liquid was probably not the Elixir of Youth, or of Eternal Life, as it was sometimes called. In fact, it couldn't have been, because the elixir was never found. With the passing years, even the alchemists started believing that it couldn't ever be developed. They gave up looking for it. Later, only the explorers kept looking for the Fountain of Youth in distant lands.'