1.23

The Direc­tor van­ished with a crack of light and a plume of smoke, leav­ing a sin­gle blind­ing direc­tive on the screen behind him.

East.

One per­son took a step. Next, a dozen. Then a hun­dred more after that.  A stam­pede mate­ri­al­ized in a split sec­ond, a mass exo­dus from the square, with can­di­dates clam­or­ing after each oth­er in the city streets. The cafe was like a boul­der in a riv­er; shel­ter from the riv­er of bod­ies press­ing and push­ing to a goal no one yet knew. that was pass­ing them by in the win­dows.

“Holy shit. It’s hap­pen­ing. It’s hap­pen­ing!”

“We got­ta— uh— uh-“

Even as Car­nelia and Doro leaped from their seats, stam­mer­ing and try­ing to fig­ure out what to do, two oth­er tables got up and ran out of the cafe. One, a cou­ple, went through the front, the door­bell jin­gling as the door slammed behind them. The oth­er, a woman alone,  went through the kitchen, shov­ing a wait­er and caus­ing all man­ner of clat­ter and crash­ing in the back. The rest of the tables, employ­ees and cus­tomers, were root­ed in place, half in excite­ment, half in hor­ror, as a riot mat­er­al­ized around them. A bat­tle­zone, in the mid­dle of their dai­ly lives. The group had to move now, or else---

“Calm down,” she said. “We haven’t fin­ished our con­ver­sa­tion.”

Yaeno was per­haps the only per­son in the whole cafe who had­n’t budged since the Direc­tor’s speech. Doro looked out the win­dow. Peo­ple were run­ning past at a dead sprint. He yanked his hand free.

“Now is not the time---!“

Yaeno snatched it back again.

“Now is the only time. Or is your plan to chase after the oth­er can­di­dates like head­less chick­ens?”

The bells were still ring­ing; a urgent clar­i­on call in the dis­tance. But her voice was cool---too cool giv­en the cir­cum­stances. It reached past Car­neli­a’s ani­mal excite­ment and made her heart hes­i­tat­ed, unsure whether it ought to beat faster or to calm down.

“Do you know some­thing we don’t?” she asked.

Yaeno did not respond. She kept her gaze on Doro.

“You know what I want to know, Doro, and I’ll leave if you don’t tell me. Along with what­ev­er I would bring to the table.”

Yaeno let go of both their wrists. She sat back, ignor­ing the shouts and the occa­sion­al crash­es that sound­ed in the dis­tance. Car­nelia turned to Doro expec­tant­ly, and he grit­ted his teeth, weigh­ing the urgency of their envi­ron­ment ver­sus what secrets Yaeno seemed to hold. In the back­ground, work­ers rushed from win­dow to win­dow, lock­ing them and shut­ter­ing the blinds. Those who knew who had been pay­ing atten­tion and knew what was going on were pass­ing it around, and every­one knew the Chal­lenge was not some­thing you want­ed to get caught up in by acci­dent. 

“Fine,” he growled, after a moment. “But don’t pre­tend I didn’t warn you. The rea­son I want to become a Chal­lenger is for the mon­ey.”

Doro seemed near-resigned to what­ev­er reac­tion they were going to have, but Car­nelia did­n’t under­stand. She cocked her head.

“What do you mean, mon­ey? There’s no cash prize for pass­ing the Chal­lenge.”

She was hon­est­ly con­fused, so much so that she did­n’t even know how to judge his response. Yaeno, how­ev­er, had lost what­ev­er lit­tle warmth had been in her face.

“He’s going to sell it,” she explained flat­ly. “Even if it’s use­less out­side of the hands of the own­er, a Chal­lenger license still makes quite the col­lectible.”

“Who would ever---”

“Don’t ask me. But it’s not unheard of.”

“Hey.” Doro thrust a fin­ger at Yaeno. “Don’t go explain­ing things that aren’t yours to explain.”

“It’s what you’re going to do, isn’t it?”

“No, it is most def­i­nite­ly not. That’s a stu­pid deal. I’m going to use it for col­lat­er­al; trade it in for the max­i­mum buy-in for the Cheater’s Con­test.”

That, gave Yaeno pause. Car­nelia was con­fused.

“The Con­test---?”

“Yeah,” Doro replied, star­ing Yaeno down. He held his chin high. “When I say I’m in it for the mon­ey, I’m not kid­ding. I’m aim­ing for the whole pot.”

For the first time since the three had met, a small laugh escaped Yaeno’s lips. It was supris­ing­ly bari­tone giv­en her stature. Car­nelia swiveled her head wild­ly between the two, still com­plete­ly lost.

“What’s the Con­test?” she asked again.

Doro gave her a fun­ny look.

“How have you nev­er heard of the Cheater’s Con­test, kid? Didn’t you have TV growin’ up?”

“Nope.”

“Well, don’t wor­ry,” Yaeno inter­ject­ed. “You’re not miss­ing any­thing. It’s a crass piece of enter­tain­ment that preys on the des­per­ate and stu­pid.”

“Then I sup­pose I don’t have to ask whether you approve, huh? You can kiss my broke---”

Yaeno held up a hand.

“On the con­trary---” She couldn’t help but laugh again. “The whole prizepool, you said?”

Doro blinked, uncer­tain how to take her laugh­ter.

“Yeah, that’s the idea. Got a prob­lem?”

Yaeno closed her eyes and pressed her fin­gers against her tem­ple. After a moment of what appeared to be some men­tal cal­cu­la­tion, she gave a lit­tle sigh and extend­ed a hand.

“We can work togeth­er.”

Doro stared at her hand, clear­ly filled with ques­tions. But giv­en the rapid­ly emp­ty­ing city square out­side their win­dow, he swal­lowed them. Uncom­fort­ably, though, like a bag of dimes. He gave her a hasty hand­shake.

“What­ev­er. Great. Wel­come to the team. Now how about you tell us what you know?”

Yaeno held up a hand and turned to Car­nelia to con­firm---

“Yes, Yaeno!” Car­nelia cried out impa­tient­ly. She too, had a cor­ner of her eye reserved for the win­dow and her foot was bounc­ing a mile a minute. “You’re part of the team. Now please tell us why we’re haven’t left the cafe already!”

Yaeno smiled, steady like a leaf in the eye of a hur­ri­cane.

“It’s sim­ple. That word…” She point­ed at the bright, shin­ing ‘EAST’ on the stage. “…is a lie.”

---

 

Out­side, a loud honk rang out in the dis­tance, fol­lowed by a crash and a repeat­ing alarm. There was a pause in the hub­bub, but only for a moment. It start­ed back up, loud­er and more fre­net­ic, like the acci­dent was per­mis­sion for esca­la­tion. In the cafe, Car­nelia and Doro’s toes bare­ly kept their feet in place as they wait­ed for Yaeno to explain. The woman pursed her lips.

“Per­haps ‘lie’ is not the best word---”

“God­damn it. I knew you’d pull some­thing like this.” The chair screeched as Doro yanked it back and dropped back into it. He freed his watch from his wrist and twist­ed a tiny dial on its side. He placed it on the cen­ter of the table.

“I’m giv­ing this---what­ev­er this is, fif­teen min­utes. Then we’re run­ning out that door. Under­stood?”

Yaeno nod­ded. “Fair enough.”

“Good.”

Car­nelia joined them back at the table as well, reluc­tant­ly sling­ing her back­back off her shoul­ders. She pressed her hands against her thighs, squeez­ing the thump­ing pres­sure with­in. The stam­pede con­tin­ued to rage on out­side their win­dow as Yaeno closed her eyes to think.

Five, long sec­onds dragged, like heavy stones, before she spoke.

“Let me start with a ques­tion you already know the answer to. On their offi­cial com­mu­ni­ca­tions and web­site, why does the Guild lie about where the Can­di­date’s Chal­lenge takes place?”

As mem­bers of a thread ded­i­cat­ed to find­ing out the true loca­tion of the Chal­lenge and the details of its poten­tial oper­a­tions, this was some­thing of a dumb ques­tion. They would’ve nev­er thought to find such a thread if they had­n’t already known why. Car­nelia replied as quick­ly as pos­si­ble.

“Because if they don’t, there will be too many can­di­dates to han­dle.”

“It’s a mat­ter of prac­ti­cal­i­ty,” Doro elab­o­rat­ed. “There’s no good way to per­son­al­ly test six-fig­ures worth of peo­ple in a short amount of time. They have to cut the num­bers some­how.”

“Cor­rect. Now I want you to look out the win­dow.”

Doro and Car­nelia did so. The square, while rapid­ly emp­ty­ing, was still quite full of peo­ple. Thanks to the Guild’s year­ly decep­tion, the total amount was sig­nif­i­cant­ly less than the pur­port­ed mil­lions that set out to attempt the Chal­lenge each year. But still a horde. Tens of thou­sands of prospec­tive can­di­dates run­ning around like a fren­zied mob. Yaeno spoke over the low-grade rum­ble that per­vad­ed the cafe.

“Do you real­ly believe they’ve reduced that num­ber to a rea­son­able size yet?”

When put like that, if felt like there was only one answer to that ques­tion. But Doro scowled.

“Yeah, so they’re still cut­ting things down. Okay, and? That could still mean we’re sup­posed to run east­wards, and that the slow­est nine­ty per­cent are cut from the Chal­lenge.”

Yaeno arched an eye­brow. “Do you sin­cere­ly believe the Guild would let a sim­ple footrace decide who makes the Chal­lenge?”

That was a good point, Car­nelia thought, and she could see Doro strug­gling to come up with an ade­quate coun­ter­point.

“It’s not exact­ly a footrace, is it, when peo­ple don’t know where to go,” he final­ly man­aged. “A whole half of the city is to the east of us. Is it not pos­si­ble that find­ing the right loca­tion is part of this chal­lenge?”

Yaeno shook her head. “We know from accounts from pre­vi­ous years that, unless you already have an in, the venue for the Chal­lenge is one of the most dif­fi­cult details to ascer­tain.”

Car­nelia nod­ded. “Like that one year where they took over a whole mall out of the blue, or that oth­er year when they did it in the mid­dle of a high­way a few miles out­side the city. They flew in an air­ship to set things up that year. How’re you sup­posed to guess that?”

“Exact­ly. That would make this a game of chance, which is an even poor­er method of sort­ing than a footrace. Unless, did you have some hint to the loca­tion that the rest of the thread missed?”

Over the course of the past few months, the mem­bers of the thread had end­ed up inves­ti­gat­ing the Chal­lenge so deep they they’d gone through just about every­thing oth­er than the per­son­al finan­cial records of the local pop­u­lace. But the Guild did not let leak infor­ma­tion they did not want to be known. Doro closed his mouth with a grum­ble.

Car­nelia raised her hand.

“But then what does it mean, Yaeno? The ‘East’, I mean. It can’t just be non­sense either.”

“That, I don’t know. Which is why I pro­pose we spend time assess­ing our options. Make a plan of action before we head out that door.”

The boun­ty hunter looked to her two new part­ners for their con­sen­sus. Car­nelia nod­ded first, the excit­ed spark in her eyes hav­ing been tem­pered some­what with a calmer, more wary mind­set. She thought of her fool­ish­ness in trust­ing the first prices she’d been giv­en by the for­tune-teller and turned to Doro.

“Well, I’m con­vinced,” she said, cock­ing her head. “What about you?”

Slow­ly, Doro nod­ded. He jerked his head at the streams of peo­ple mov­ing beyond their win­dow.  “Fine. Bet­ting on the lead horse nev­er pays any­way.”

By this point, most peo­ple that had been in the square had left it near­by side­streets, leav­ing a soft­ly tram­pled green and an over­ly glitzy stage for a crowd of noone. How­ev­er, as that last few strag­glers emp­tied it, it became clear­er that there were oth­ers, like the trio, who were choos­ing to think before they act­ed, some slow­ing down and split­ting off from the charg­ing mass­es, oth­ers hav­ing nev­er moved in the first place. It gave some cre­dence to their deci­sion---though it could also mean they were amongst a cohort of fel­low fools. They had only their judge­ment to fol­low.

Car­nelia checked the watch Doro had placed in the cen­ter of the table. They were already down to twelve min­utes. She clapped her hands.

“Okay. So what does this ‘East’ mean if it’s not a direc­tion? Is it an acronym of some kind? An ana­gram?”

Doro was shak­ing his head before she even fin­ished.

“You’re going about it the wrong way, kid,” he explained. “If some­one hands you a key and chal­lenges you to rob their safe, you don’t go around try­ing every lock you see. You ask your­self, where’s the paint­ing?”

“That may be a more lit­er­al anal­o­gy than you intend­ed, Doro,” Yaeno said, nod­ding, “because I sus­pect what we’re deal­ing with is a book cipher, and that word is quite lit­er­al­ly a key.”

Car­nelia nib­bled on her thumb. “…A book cipher?”

“It’s a type of code, kid. Works by hav­ing every­one buy the same book, then use a code word plus spe­cial instruc­tions to point to cer­tain let­ters and words in the book. Have the wrong book, even the wrong edi­tion, and it’s gob­blede­gook. Of course, if you don’t have the right instruc­tions too, gob­blede­gook. Gangs from back home some­times used ’em when they knew the police were try­ing to lis­ten in.”

“I think it fits out cur­rent sit­u­a­tion,” Yaeno said, affirm­ing his expla­na­tion with a nod. “We know that the Guild wants to con­trol when and where the can­di­dates fig­ure out the Chal­lenge is being held. We also know they wouldn’t want their selec­tion process to be biased due to lack of avail­abil­i­ty, chance, as much as they can help it. A sim­ple book cipher would be the way to dis­trib­ute the loca­tion of the Chal­lenge in plain sight with­out any­one ever real­iz­ing. And that word---” She point­ed at the EAST in the dis­tance. “---would be like the starter pis­tol.”

Car­nelia frowned. “But doesn’t that mean we’d have to look through a whole year’s worth of com­mu­ni­ca­tion from the Guild to find their mes­sage? And we don’t even know how we’re sup­posed to inter­pret it any­way right? I don’t think we have the time to fig­ure all that out.”

Yaeno smiled and raised a fin­ger. “Ah, but they’re not try­ing to test our cryp­to­graph­ic skills, are they? They just want to see if we have the where­with­al to stop and think in the heat of the moment. So if they’ve sent us encrypt­ed infor­ma­tion, their method of encryp­tion would have to be so sim­ple that even a child could break it. More impor­tant­ly, they’d need to be care­ful about what mate­r­i­al they chose to dessim­i­nate it through. Acces­si­ble mate­ri­als. Some­thing every­one would have had a chance to get their hands on.”

“Hmm. So, like the Guild’s code of con­duct, or some­thing like that.”

“Exact­ly.”

As Car­nelia watched Doro nod and pon­der Yaeno’s idea, the words ‘some­thing every­one would have a chance to get their hands on’ echoed in her head. She knew of some­thing that fit that exam­ple per­fect­ly. The city pam­phlet Mrs. Berros had wrapped her phone with. There had been greeters hand­ing them out all over the city---in fact, there were even a few in the square timid­ly hold­ing out what remained of their stock to those near­by, though most peo­ple seemed too busy to give them any notice. And now that she looked, Car­nelia noticed that the cafe had a stock too, stuffed in a plas­tic mag­a­zine hold­er by the com­mu­ni­ty board. She sup­pose with as many con­tracts and agree­ments that the Guild made with its host cities, it would have been ter­ri­bly easy for some­one to slip in a new design for the wel­come pam­phlet amongst the mix of things. No one would’ve blinked an eye. And most peo­ple would’ve grabbed one, pure­ly out of banal instinct.

Ten­ta­tive­ly, Car­nelia reached in and pulled out the pam­phlet her back­pack. Upon spot­ting her silent sug­ges­tion, Yaeno drew a sharp breath and quick­ly matched it with a copy from her own satchel. Like one mind, they spead them out next to eachother on the table, one front-fac­ing, one back, so they could see all the pan­els at once. Doro’s let out a light and dis­be­liev­ing laugh, drop­ping the crum­pled one he’d pulled from his back pock­et.

“Four let­ters in the word east, four pan­els on the pam­phlet. Is it real­ly that sim­ple, you think?”

The pos­si­bil­i­ty was there. The three of them knocked heads as they all leaned in at the same time. Their ran over the text, fin­gers push­ing against eachother, and they blurt­ed their results as they came.

“I’ve got noth­ing for the first words that start with E, A, S, and T’s on each page.”

“Ebberyia, any, spon­sor---no, that’s noth­ing too.”

“I tried the reverse. Noth­ing there either.”

With elec­tric urgency, the trio blitzed through the text of the pam­phlet search­ing for a secret mes­sage. And then again. And again after that. But when his third pass still failed to bring up any­thing, Doro stood up and sighed. He reached out and tapped the face of his watch. Near ten min­utes had passed with­in what felt like a blink of an eye.

“Damn, guys. I real­ly thought we had some­thing there.”

Yaeno stood up as well, frown­ing. “I did as well.”

It had been some­thing of a blind guess, of course, so the two weren’t too sur­prised that their search had turned up noth­ing. But Car­nelia… she kept look­ing. If only for a while longer. The idea felt right, like some­thing the Guild would do. They were but a sin­gle insight away. Maybe, if she flipped her pam­phlet over and lined it up with Yaeno’s, like so---

Car­neli­a’s heart skipped a beat. She was­n’t imag­in­ing the dis­crep­an­cy. She squeaked out the words.

“Guys, the maps don’t match!”

“Lemme see, kid.”

Doro rough­ly pushed her aside to take a look for him­self. Car­neli­a’s hands were total­ly pins and needs as she squeezed them too tight­ly, peek­ing over his shoul­der. After a moment, he looked up at Yaeno, breath­less, ecstac­tic, dis­be­liev­ing.

“Pin me down and call me a don­key. She’s right.”

The sim­ple geo­met­ric rep­re­sen­ta­tions of the city were indeed show­ing com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent areas of the city. Yaeno smiled sharply and pulled out a prop­er map of the city from her satchel. She spread it out on the table, cups and sil­ver­ware clat­ter­ing as she knocked them aside.

“Where?” she demand­ed.

Doro quick­ly iden­ti­fied a major thor­ough­fare on the one he was han­dling. He dragged his fin­ger along Yaeno’s map until the shapes match up. “Here!”

“And here!” Car­nelia added a beat lat­er.

Two com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent loca­tions in the city, with seem­ing­ly noth­ing spe­cial about them. Car­nelia took a sec­ond look at her pam­phlet.

“Crap on a stick!” she gasped a moment lat­er. “Look at this!”

Her fin­ger found a tiny styl­ized ‘E’ incon­spic­u­ous­ly label­ing a road­way below one par­tic­u­lar build­ing. A quick perusal of Yaeno’s map told them that build­ing was a church. Doro, too, found an ‘E’ that point­ed to a mosque. They did not need to check a third pam­phlet to fig­ure out the pat­tern.

The Direc­tor’s words rang in their ears along­side the bells that had her­ald­ed his arrival. In fact, those same bells still rang, in the dis­tance.

‘Let the bells toll a new begin­ning for your lives!’

They were out the door before their fif­teen min­utes were up.