Parto 1: La Vizitanto. 13: La Kaŝejo

The late afternoon sun painted the sky in shades of purple and orange, and the hexagonal outer wall of La Nesto, a hundred meters of cold grey concrete, cast its shadow on the main building. Behind Ĉelo Tri, the humming of the heating unit masked our conversation.

“It says in the diary that Arakil found a hidden camera while exploring,” said Gabino. “And then they went looking for them all. They’re marked with squares here. The circles are blind spots. We’re on one of them, see?”

“And what about the X’s?” I asked.

“I have no idea. I haven’t been able to read all of it,” they said, tapping the sketchbook’s cover.

Curiosity made me reach for the diary. The worn cover beneath my fingertips brought a fleeting image of Arakil to mind. After a moment, Gabino took it back, shaking their head as they tucked it away.

“Later. We have to go now,” they said, standing up. Then, with a loud voice, “Well, it seems it’s too late to keep searching. Can you help me again tomorrow, Kanako?”

“Oh, I thiiink we can search a liiittle more,” I drawled, trying to mimic Gabino’s earlier tone.

“Hahaha! No, Kanako! we can get a cut because it’s super dark!”

“Come ooon! There’s still some light, riiight? And remember,” then I declaimed, as if reciting a sacred text, “we should never put off for tomorrow what we can do today!” I winked, making sure to hold it for a long time.

Gabino raised their eyebrows, their lips pressed into a thin line.

“Expert advice! We’ll add ‘continue the search tomorrow’ to our to-do list! In fact, let’s go do that! Right. Now,” they said, giving me a look that could erase the smile of an instruisto.

Was it the wink? I pouted and followed them inside.

Medusa was waiting for us just inside La Kerno.

“I see you two talked out your differences. That’s good,” they said, but it lacked sincerity.

“I was just pranking Kanako,” said Gabino. “It was payback for my bird!”

Medusa tilted their head, evaluating the explanation.

“Don’t worry Kanako like that again, okay?” they said.

“You’re right, Medusa,” Gabino said, then looked at me. “I know you worried when I… disappeared. Like, how many minutes passed before you realized I was gone, five? I’m sorry, Kanako.”

Medusa frowned, confused. Then they shrugged and left.

I got what Gabino meant. We shouldn’t act suspicious. I made an effort to trust them and wait, but I couldn’t sleep much that night.

The next day, after a hurried breakfast, I followed Gabino back to the heating unit. We squeezed beneath the piping, the metal cold against my back as Gabino pulled out the diary.

“Arakil says on the first page we shouldn’t stay hidden for long. Let’s make this quick.” They opened the sketchbook to a page around the middle. “There are some riddles… Here, look.”

Three circles, retraced countless times, dominated the top of the page. Then, in the middle, a message:

Ĥŝĥmĉ ĝhbzf fŭmm.
Tmgĉ zj ĥŝĥmĉ.

I copied the strange symbols onto a scrap of paper. Some sort of cipher.

“We’ll solve it later, what else?” I told Gabino.

They shuffled through the pages, nervous.

“Let’s just go from the beginning,” I suggested.

Gabino nodded, but before they could turn the page, a rustling sound coming from the nearby trees startled us. We scrambled out from under the pipes, almost tripping over each other in our haste, and searched the area. But there was nothing, no one.

Having lost our chance, we went back inside for lunch. We would have to wait for another chance to look at the diary.

But the next two attempts were also unsuccessful.

First, Medusa started calling my name as soon as we got to our hideout. They needed help with a complicated knot they were trying to tie for a new project, something they insisted only I could help them with.

Then, Abrajm run into us. They were behind us, undetected, and Gabino almost faints when they saw Abrajm’s wide eyes looking at the diary from over their shoulders. We went back to La Kerno with them, thankful that they couldn’t talk.

While waiting for the next chance, I tried to solve the encoded message. It wasn’t a Caesar cipher, as I had hoped, and I was stumped. Medusa could solve it in an instant, I thought.

Then, as if I had invoked them, I heard a familiar voice behind me.

“Is that a puzzle?” Medusa asked.

I jumped off my seat and hid the piece of paper behind my back. Medusa frowned.

“You don’t have to show me if you don’t want to, okay?” they said, huffing.

I hesitated. It couldn’t hurt telling Medusa about this, could it? We could solve the whole thing together. After all, we beat Arakil on these things all the time. I looked at Medusa, who was waiting despite what they had just said.

“Yes, I have a puzzle… it was for you! I wanted it to be a surprise but nothing gets past you… so, anyway, want to try and solve it?”

Medusa sat down and wrote the alphabet next to the message. Their eyes moved to and from both sets of letters, then after a minute, they wrote something else and gave me back the paper.

Neniu povas scii.
Diru al neniu.

“Nobody can know. Don’t tell anyone.”

I panicked. Now three of us knew. And I had told someone. I took a deep breath. Medusa didn’t know yet. This was just a puzzle.

“Correct!” I told them, trying to sound enthusiastic.

I needed to pass the information to Gabino before they told someone else. I started looking around for them.

“Hey…” Medusa’s voice from below called for my attention. “I solved it pretty fast, didn’t I?”

“Yes! Wow! I was just wondering if this was too easy for you! You little genius!” I said with a big smile.

But maybe I overdid it, because Medusa didn’t even smile back. They just nodded and left.

I couldn’t find Gabino until late in the afternoon. They were with Serena and Abrajm. Or rather, Abrajm was running in circles around Gabino and Serena was chasing after them. I held back, observing the chaotic scene until Abrajm’s energy took them in another direction, Serena trailing behind.

“Hey, Kanako! Let’s go find the pieces of the bird!” they said.

I wondered if their exaggerated behavior was drawing more attention than talking about the diary in public ever would.

We slipped back behind Ĉelo Tri to our hidden spot.

“I have the message!” I cried. “It says nobody should know! We can’t tell anyone!”

“Okay, the more reason to stay hidden,” they said. “Well done. I knew you could solve it!”

“Oh, about that… it was Medusa…”

“You showed it to Medusa?! But you just said…”

“Well, I didn’t know the message said that at the time!” I excused myself. “But, don’t worry, they thought it was a puzzle… maybe…”

Gabino looked at me, incredulous.

“Well, that’s just great.”

“Anyway, where were you all day?” I tried to change the topic.

“I went to check these,” Gabino pointed to some blind spot markings on the map.

We agreed to move between them starting from the next day. I was glad, since we hadn’t been able to make any progress.

Gabino gave me the diary, and I skimmed through it.

“Do you think these drawings are…” I started, but Gabino pressed a finger to their lips and I shut up.

A scraping sound, metal against metal, echoed from the other side of the heating unit. We looked at each other, our faces white. Then we heard footsteps running away. We were not alone.

Somebody knew.