Installment 14

            It’s been a long time since Clara and I broke into Base 13.

            Yeah, I know that you don’t know that it was Base 13 below the library. I know I’m ruining the story. I know that I’m spilling info that you really shouldn’t hear -- stuff that I should reveal slowly. Well, okay, maybe not this info, since you’re about to hear about Base 13 anyway, but still. Honestly, right now, I’m tired of hiding everything, and I’m tired of keeping all these secrets, and I’m tired of being scared that someone’s going to hear me and I’ll get caught…again.

            By now I’m used to it, though. I know that I’m going to get caught again sometime. It might be tomorrow, next week, next month, next year, but it’s going to happen. And I always hope I’ll get out again, but it’s never a surefire thing that I’ll make it.

            That’s really why I keep writing. If something happens to me, and you’re the right person reading this at the right time, then maybe, just maybe, you can take over. Maybe you can prove what I still haven’t proven -- that I didn’t do it.

            Or maybe you can even accomplish my final goal. Maybe you can stop them once and for all.

            Or maybe I’d better get on with the story. It’s been over a month, after all. Incidentally, I’m sorry about that -- I ran into problems. Maybe that’s why I’m so paranoid at the moment. I’m afraid that I’ll suddenly disappear, and no one will ever know what happened.

            Anyway…back to Base 13.

            Clara and I had to figure out how to break in, first of all. We both decided that, under the circumstances, it was obvious where this base was. It was below the library, but the question was how to get there and what would be inside. We walked around for half an hour, searching for some hidden passageway or something. Finally, we both stopped in the D section.

            “Forget it, Clara, this isn’t working,” I complained, leaning up against the shelf.

            “It’s got to be somewhere!” she insisted. “Come on, you’re a hacker -- let’s try their computer system.”

            “I’m not a hacker!” I protested.

            Clara raised her eyebrows. “Nathan, they never would have picked you unless you had some experience in the field. They needed someone who they could say was a budding criminal. They needed people to believe that you could hack in. So you must have some skill in it.”

            I was silenced by her logic. It was true, I was good with computers, and fairly confident that I could deal with hacking pretty well. But for Clara to figure that out with the information she had…

            It was my first conscious taste of Clara’s brilliance.

            “What computer do I hack into, anyway?” I sputtered, trying to regain some measure of dignity. “We’re in a library!”

            Clara shrugged. “Use the main system.”

            “Just search? What, Operation 497? That’s not going to be a book!”

            Clara sighed a long, weary sigh. “Nathan. Hack. Into. The. System.”

            A few minutes later, I was seated at the computer with Clara keeping a lookout.

            “This is nuts,” I muttered under my breath.

            Again, I can’t describe exactly what I did without causing problems. But it wasn’t very difficult -- much easier than figuring out how to get into Travis’ system.

            Eventually, I made it into the main databanks. I glanced through the folders, looking for something that looked mildly interesting.

The words “Base 13” jumped out at me after scrolling down.

“Do we want Base 13?” I asked quietly.

“What?” Clara glanced back. “Yes!”

            I clicked on the folder. A little message box popped up:

            Password protected. Please enter password now.

     A text box appeared, waiting patiently for the password.

            “It wants a password!” I whispered as loudly as I dared.

            “Guess!” Clara said frantically. “We don’t want to get caught!”

            I reached in my brain for some phrase that might work. I typed the first thing that popped into my head.

            Operation 497.

     Immediately, another box appeared.

            Access granted.

     “Yes!” I cheered, almost forgetting to keep my voice down. “We’re in!” I continued to read the message box as Clara came to stand by me. We were hidden by bookshelves, and no librarian had passed by yet.

           

            Please enter your computer number, the message box continued.

            Clara glanced down. “Number 6,” she read off of the keyboard.

            I typed in the number. The computer bleeped in approval.

            “Please hold on,” said the computer, apparently using text to speech.

            A moment later, the floor began to drop below us.

            Clara grabbed my arm. I quickly stood up.

            Slowly, we were being lowered through the floor, computer and all, as if through a trap door. I glanced around to see if anybody -- like a librarian -- was watching us. No one had appeared.

            “I guess the Q section isn’t very popular,” I muttered, hiding my alarm and, I must admit, exuberance.

            Base 13.

            What the heck was Base 13?

            “Nathan,” Clara said, sounding terrified, “What did you do?”

            I looked down just as we were enveloped in darkness.

            “Got us in?”

            For a minute, we couldn’t see anything, but we could feel ourselves moving. I reached out and felt glass. No, not glass, just very hard plastic. Or maybe something else.

            Finally, light began to creep in, and I began to be able to see through the tube we were in.

            We were being lowered into a warehouse. Boxes were stacked all along the walls, and in the middle of the room. One wall, however, was covered in computers.

            “Base 13,” I whispered.

            “What is Base 13?” Clara whispered back.

            “I don’t know,” I murmured, taking in the large room. There was a door or two along a couple of walls, so there were other rooms. In this room, however, there were no people.

            “I think…I think Operation 497 is run from here,” Clara said quietly.

            “I think you’re right,” I agreed.

            At this point, the small cubicle touched down, and the door slid open.

            I immediately grabbed Clara and pulled her behind a box. We huddled there for a moment.

            No one appeared. We heard no sound.

            “No one’s here,” I finally admitted.

            “Yeah,” Clara said in an annoyed voice, “So you don’t have to drag me anywhere.”

            “Sorry,” I said, letting go of her. I hadn’t realized that I had been tightly gripping her arm. “Let’s check out the computers.”

            We made our way cautiously over to one of the computers on the wall.

            I knew any false move could alert someone to my presence.

            I took a seat.

            “I can’t do any hacking here,” I told Clara. “I haven’t really done it before this whole thing started, and I might do something wrong and seriously mess things up.”

            “Don’t hack,” Clara advised. “Just look around for something useful. Don’t click on anything you might need a password for.”

            I agreed. Carefully, I looked around on the computer. At first, I was too scared to click on anything at all, but as I looked through and nothing happened, I tentatively began to click through folders. I looked at some document names, but they were mostly coded -- just seemingly random strings of letters and numbers.

            “I don’t know -- ” I began.

            I never finished that sentence.

            A message had just appeared on the screen.

            “Clara,” I said slowly. “We have an instant message.”

            “From whom?” she asked, showing an incredible preciseness with grammar under pressure.

            I glanced at the screen.

            “It says it’s from...Pseudonym.”

            Clara gasped. “Pseudonym? As in the guy who emailed my dad before he died?”

            I nodded. “Maybe. It’s the same name. Do we take the message?”

            Clara hung back, hesitating, then nodded. “Yes. We have to. It’s a lead. Pretend you’re someone working here or something, so they don’t find out we’re here.”

            I complied, clicking on the message.

            Hello, Nathan.

     I frowned. “Nathan? How does he know my name?”

            A follow up message appeared.

            And Clara.

     Clara gasped. “How does he know my name?”

            I stared at the screen, too shocked to answer. Before too long, another message popped up.

            I see you made it in. Congratulations.

     Finally, I began typing, my fingers flying across the keyboard. I spoke the words out loud as I wrote.

            “Who are you?” I asked slowly as I typed out the phrase and pressed enter.

            The answer appeared almost immediately.

            Not an enemy.

     I typed a reply.

            Are you Travis Thatcher?

     There was a short hesitation before Pseudonym replied.

            No.

     I was about to repeat my original message -- “Who are you?” -- but then paused. After a moment I typed in a different reply.

            Prove it.

     Clara was breathing down my neck, staring at the screen. “Do you really think it’s Travis?” she asked in a hushed voice.

            “Don’t know,” I answered. “But I don’t know who else it would be.”

            After a bit, the answer popped up.

            You’re going to have to trust me. I’m not on Travis’ side.

     Are you on our side? I typed back.

            The reply came swiftly.  Wrong question, Nathan. The question is, are you on my side?

     I didn’t want to answer this. I didn’t know, and I had had enough of these games. At the moment, I wasn’t on anyone’s side.

            So I typed three words again, slowly, and pressed enter.

            Who are you?

     “He won’t tell us,” Clara said softly. “He’ll never tell us.”

            “I know,” I admitted, “But if he has something to say, he’ll tell us. He sent us the message first -- I’m not going to jump on board with him.”

            Clara nodded. “Good plan.”

            A longer reply came.

            If you want to know what Back Door is, you’ll head to Base 21. With the information you find on this computer, it shouldn’t be difficult. Use the Level 4 password -- “double agent”. In Base 21 you’ll find out the answers to your questions: Like why you were framed.

     I decided to test how much this guy knew.

            Framed for what? I typed.

            Nathan, I know more than you seem to give me credit for. I know that Travis Thatcher framed you for my crime.

     I didn’t turn around to look at Clara, but I knew that her eyes were wide as she stared over my shoulder at the message.

            What did I say? What could I say?

            Nothing but what I had already said.

            Who are you? I typed desperately, one final time.

            There was a short pause before the final reply came.

            According to the government, Nathan T. Dalton…I am you.

-Nathan T. Dalton