11. Jax #3
“Not completely, but yeah. They were definitely on their way to being self-sufficient before they traded up and moved into the fortress they live in now.” Jace picks up one of his old butterfly knives from his desk and flips the blade open and closed, his expression thoughtful.
“You don’t think it’s the family either,” I say to him.
He shakes his head. “His brother’s and sister’s information hasn’t been scrubbed to the same level. You have to dig to find it, but it’s all there if you know where to look. Why would they put so much effort into scrubbing one kid from the internet, but not his younger siblings?”
“Huh,” Xave says thoughtfully. “That’s a good point.”
“What are you thinking?” Jace asks me.
“I’m not sure,” I say honestly. “But I don’t think what happened back then is connected to what’s going on now.”
Jace nods in agreement. “Yeah, I was thinking the same.” He spins around and faces his computer again. “I’ll check the file and unseal it if I can.”
“So,” Xave says as the soft click of Jace’s typing fills the air. “Are we going to talk about the elephant in the room?”
I lean back on my hands. “What elephant?”
“Are we really going to play that game?” He arches his eyebrow at me.
I shrug.
He rolls his eyes theatrically. “Fine. We won’t talk about how you’re obsessed with your mark.”
“I’m not obsessed.”
“You totally are,” Jace calls, not pausing his work. “And you can keep lying to yourself if you want, but at least stop lying to us.”
I don’t say anything. They’re not wrong, but I’m not about to admit that to them.
“Fine.” Xave rolls his head to look at Jace, who still has his back to us. “Anything?”
“Yup.” He taps on one of the keys and spins around to face us again. “You were right about the file.” He shoots me a quick look. “I won’t go into the specifics?—”
“Thanks for that,” Xave interrupts. “I already feel like a dumbass around you guys on a good day. Your computer-speak makes me feel like I have the brain power of a paperclip.”
“Like I was saying.” Jace chucks a pen at Xave, who deflects it so it skitters across the floor. “You were right.” Jace flicks his gaze to me. “It was him, and it wasn’t just tracked. It’s got layers of encryption on it.”
“Can you unseal it?”
“I have a program running right now.” He uses his foot to swing his chair in a slow arc. “It’s really hard to say this, but the kid is brilliant. He didn’t just encrypt it. He incorporated a code into it.”
“Code? Like computer code?” Xave asks.
“No, like a cipher. I have to solve the code and find the key before I can even start decrypting it.”
I sit up straighter. “What kind of code?”
“That’s the thing. It’s not like any code I’ve ever seen.” He rocks back and forth in his chair. “It looks like an affine cipher, but on crack.”
“So it’s not just a simple substitution?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “I’m not looking for a single key. I need an equation to unlock the key, then it should be a simple substitution to get the real key so I can plug that into the encryption and unlock it.”
“Describe it to me.”
“Numerical code in blocks of number clusters.”
“Are the blocks ascending in value?” I ask.
“Looks like it.”
“How many number clusters?” I ask, picturing the different puzzles and items in Myles’s room.
He spins around and types on his keyboard. “Three hundred.”
“Is the first cluster a single digit?”
“Yup.”
“How many singles in a row?” I ask.
“Seven. Then it goes into doubles for five and triples for five.” He shoots me a look over his shoulder. “Do you need more than that?”
I shake my head and mull over that information for a few beats. “How many digits is the last cluster?”
He taps on his keyboard a few times. “Sixty-three.” He shoots me another look. “What are you thinking, bro?”
“Try plugging in Binet’s formula.”
“Son of a bitch.” Jace spins around and starts typing. “I can’t believe I didn’t see it.” A few beats of silence pass, then he lets out a delighted cackle.
“I take it that worked?” I ask dryly.
“Fuck yeah, it did.” His fingers fly over the keys. “Now I just need to isolate the key, which should be easy peasy.” He falls silent for a few seconds. “Ha!” he shouts at his screen. “How do you like dem apples?”
“I have no idea what the fuck just happened.” Xave looks between us. “Did you figure out the code?”
I nod.
“How.” He blinks at me. “You asked like, four questions, and you knew exactly what formula to use by name.” He shakes his head. “How the fuck did you manage that?”
“I wouldn’t have been able to get it if I didn’t already understand how his mind works,” I tell him.
“He has a print of the Fibonacci sequence on his desk, and he likes puzzles and math. The digit clusters matched up with the solved sequence numbers, and the Binet formula is a way to calculate the Fibonacci sequence.”
“You keep saying Fibonacci like it’s supposed to mean something to me.” Xave shakes his head ruefully. “Like, that was a lot of words, and I still have no idea what you said.”
“Basically, he said that Myles is a nerd who likes math, and this equation is kind of the holy grail for math nerds,” Jace explains.
“Yeah, that doesn’t really help.” Xave grins.
“But whatever. I’m used to feeling like a dumbass around you two.
As long as you know what the fuck is going on, then I’m fine sitting at the dumbass table while you figure shit out.
Tell me when you need me to fuck something up, otherwise you got this. ”
My phone vibrates, and both Jace's and Xave’s phones ping with notifications. I pull it out of my pocket and check the text from Felix.
It’s a snap of him and Killian at a bar. Felix is giving the camera a big, cheesy smile, and Killian is trying—and failing—to look exasperated.
“They’re so cute I wanna puke.” Jace puts his phone down, an affectionate smile on his lips.
“I take it they’re having fun,” I muse and tuck my phone away.
“Felix is a weird kid,” Xave says, shaking his head. “Killer tells him they can go anywhere he wants for the break, and the kid picks Whistler, Canada, because he wants to ski.” He shakes his head again. “Why not Tahoe or the Alps?”
“Bro, you ever been to Whistler?” Jace asks.
“The slopes are sick. And it’s Canada. Everyone is chill and says ‘eh’ all the time.
And poutine is the bomb dot com. Seriously, you haven’t lived until you’ve had the real stuff.
And you know Felix, that’s totally his style.
And he definitely needs a chill vacay after everything that happened. ”
“Sounds cold and awful.” Xave makes a face. “If I’m going on vacation, there better be a beach and no requirement to wear clothes.”
“How long do you think it’ll be?” I ask Jace, nodding to his computer.
He glances at his screens. “Hard to say, but it shouldn’t be too much longer.”
I lean back on my hands, my mind spinning with all the new information I just learned.
Myles’s situation keeps getting more complicated, but one thing is clear. He’s in danger, and we still don’t have the answers we need about his involvement in what happened to Felix.
I bite back the smile I feel tugging at my lips and keep my face neutral. Guess that means I’ll have to keep watching him.