The Tomorrow Code Part 4

"What is it?" Rebecca asked, but Tane was silent.

He flattened the sheet of paper out on the coffee table and smoothed it with his hand.

"You said it would be like cracking a code," he said, and pointed to the short pattern of numbers that Rebecca had marked: 001100. 001100. "When I was a scout, I got a lot of badges. I got my New Zealand Birds badge, and I also got my Morse code badge. Now, if this was Morse code, then that would be a comma." "When I was a scout, I got a lot of badges. I got my New Zealand Birds badge, and I also got my Morse code badge. Now, if this was Morse code, then that would be a comma."

Rebecca froze and turned to him. Her eyes were wide. She didn't seem to be breathing. "Morse code?" she said in a dry voice.

"It's a method of signaling that s.h.i.+ps-"

"I know what Morse code is," she rasped.

"Well"-he hesitated-"I can't remember much of it, but I can remember a few bits. If the ones were dots and the zeroes were dashes, that would be a comma."

"Okay. So what would this be, before the comma?"

"Ummmmm..."

"Google," said Rebecca determinedly.

A few moments later, they had a printout of all the Morse code characters.

Half an hour later, they were no closer to solving the puzzle.

"It might be Morse code," Rebecca said. "But Morse code characters aren't all the same length, and that makes it really hard to decipher. Take this first bit, for example: 00011001100. That could be O, I, M, I, M, O, I, M, I, M, or it could just as easily be or it could just as easily be M, N, P, W M, N, P, W or any of a hundred other combinations, none of which make sense!" or any of a hundred other combinations, none of which make sense!"

"Yeah," Tane said slowly, poring over the printout. "But if I was right about the 001100 being a comma, then we have 00011 comma 1000010000 comma 1100011000 comma, and so on."

"Well, 00011 is eight," Rebecca said, checking the chart, "and 10000 is one, 11000 is two, so that would give us eight, eleven, twenty-two, thirty-two, thirty-nine...." She paused and looked at Tane. "Holy c.r.a.p!" she said. "I think it is is Morse code." Morse code."

They looked at each other for a long time, desperately eager to carry on and translate the code but strangely afraid to. Slowly their eyes dropped back to the paper.

"That's it," Tane said after a moment. "See, 101010; that's a period. That must be the end of it."

"No, there's still a lot to work out. But let's start with this bit," Rebecca said.

They looked intently at the sheet.

8,11,22,32,39,40,3.

Tane said, "And..."

There was silence for a few moments.

"I don't know," Rebecca admitted. "They're just numbers. The fact that we picked them out of a gamma-ray burst using Morse code is pretty significant, but as for what they mean..."

"Are you sure this isn't just more monkeys typing Hamlet Hamlet?" Tane asked after a while. "More random noise that just coincidentally happens to make Morse code characters? I mean, why use Morse at all? Why not use that ASCII stuff, or Moonbase 64 or whatever it was?"

"Base 64," corrected Rebecca. "Anyway, that's easy. Binary takes eight bits, eight ones or zeroes, to make a single letter like A. A. Morse code does it in less than half that. Morse code does it in less than half that. E E and and T, T, for example, take just one digit. for example, take just one digit. E E is dot, and is dot, and T T is dash. So they can fit many more letters into a single message. Maybe there's some kind of a limit, like on a text message." is dash. So they can fit many more letters into a single message. Maybe there's some kind of a limit, like on a text message."

"They need to change their phone company," Tane muttered.

"Eight, eleven, twenty-two...," Rebecca read out loud.

"We're going to have to think creatively on this," Tane said. "Think outside the box. How many numbers are there?"

"Seven."

"The lowest number is three, and the highest is forty."

"Yes. The numbers start at eight and go upward, until they get to forty; then it suddenly drops back down to three."

Rebecca said, "Maybe it's a series, and we have to work out the next few numbers in the series."

Tane said nothing and closed his eyes.

Rebecca said, "It can't be letters of the alphabet, because there are only twenty-six of those. Maybe if I calculated the differences between each pair of numbers or..."

"No," said Tane suddenly, "you're thinking too logically. Try to think creatively."

"What do you mean? How can you think 'creatively'? We have to approach this logically."

Tane considered that for a moment, then said, "Okay, here's an example. It's a puzzle that my dad once gave me."

He took the pen and wrote a series of letters on a clean piece of paper: O, T, T, F, F, S, S, E.

"What's the next letter in that series?" he asked.

"Do we have time for this?" Rebecca shook her head.

"Try it."

"Okay, then." She took the pen from him and made a few notes on the paper. "E would be the obvious answer, because the other ones are doubled, but the would be the obvious answer, because the other ones are doubled, but the O O is not, so that can't be right. is not, so that can't be right. O O is the fifteenth letter of the alphabet, is the fifteenth letter of the alphabet, T T is the twentieth, is the twentieth, F F is the sixth-" is the sixth-"

"See, you're already being too logical," Tane said. "It's much simpler than that."

"Simpler?" Rebecca looked confused. "How can it be? There's no numerical consistency. Ah, but working backward, S S comes after comes after T, T, and and E E comes after comes after F, F, so maybe-" so maybe-"

"N," Tane said. "The answer is Tane said. "The answer is N. N."

"No, it's not. That's not logical-"

"One, two, three, four, five," Tane read out, pointing at the letters. "It is the first letter of each word. The next one is N N for for nine. nine."

"That's stupid," Rebecca said. "Anyway, you're the creative one. You think creatively."

"Okay, then," Tane said. "Well, first of all, we need to consider that there are all kinds of numbers. Phone numbers. PIN numbers. Combination-lock numbers."

Rebecca agreed. "Dates are usually written as numbers."

"Room numbers, house numbers, decks of cards have numbers."

"Then there are serial numbers, like on money." Rebecca stopped, seeing the look on Tane's face.

"Money...," he said very slowly.

Rebecca waited, watching him closely. Tane tried to keep his face steady, but it kept wanting to break out into a huge goofy grin.

"Well, share!" she said impatiently.

"What...if..."

"What?!"

"Six seemingly random numbers from one to forty..."

"Seven numbers, and from three to forty," corrected Rebecca.

"No, six, and from one to forty. The first six numbers fall between one and forty; it just happens that the first number is an eight. Then after those six numbers there's another number between one and eight."

Rebecca looked at him blankly.

"Don't you see?!" Tane shouted. He dived off the bed and ran out of the room, leaving Rebecca sitting there stunned and not quite sure why.

He was back in a few seconds clutching a newspaper, which he flipped quickly through, then thrust in front of her face. "Don't you get it?" he cried. "The six numbers are the Lotto numbers! The last number is the Powerball number!"

Rebecca, who had stood up when Tane had started rus.h.i.+ng like a mad thing around the room, suddenly found herself sitting back down again without intending to.

"Holy c.r.a.p!" was all she could say, looking at the winning numbers from the previous week's draw, crumpled in the paper in front of her nose: 3, 22, 27, 30, 39, 40, and 7 for the Powerball.

"Somebody sent us Lotto numbers!" Tane said. "From the future!" And then repeated himself two or three times.

"But who would..." Rebecca trailed off.

"I don't know!" Tane shouted.

"But why would-"

"I don't care!" he hooted.

"But for which draw?"

There was a long pause, and Rebecca slowly took the newspaper from Tane's hand and lowered it to the desk beside the computer, mesmerized by the short sequence of digits.

"I don't know," Tane said finally.

"If we are right about this, it'll be the scientific discovery of the century," Rebecca whispered.

"If we are right about this, we're going to be rich!" Tane cried.

It took at least an hour before Tane could settle himself down enough to even look at the piece of paper again, but the numbers were still there, and they still looked a lot like Lotto numbers.

Rebecca, when she had calmed down, turned back to the computer printout with all the ones and zeroes on it.

"What about the rest of it?" she murmured thoughtfully. "We've only worked out the first bit."

"I know," Tane agreed. "Let's get started."

1100000000110001010101100000111101010110001000001111101010100000000111111001100001110111100011000101000001001000001100001010101110001111110001111010100101

Rebecca nodded. "The periods are easy to spot. They are the 101010 sequences."

Tane said, "It looks like more numbers. That first 11000 is a two."

"I think you're right," Rebecca said, "Two, zero, two, period."

She quickly translated the next few characters and printed it out in neat block letters.

202.27.216.195,

"What does it mean?" Tane asked.

"I don't know." Rebecca frowned and tapped the pencil on the paper. "And this next bit."