“Holmes what are you thinking about?” I asked, finally getting tired of the silence.
“Hmm so 45 minutes it is,” my friend mused.
“45 minutes? What 45 minutes?”
“Nothing. I just owe Mycroft a plum pudding next time we meet,” Sherlock said, stretching out his gaunt frame.
“Why do you owe him a plum pudding?” I demanded, with a sinking feeling that it had something to do with me.
“Well I’m sure you already know why. Or at least have an idea of why.”
“Holmes I positively have no idea as to why. Please do tell me why. What did you mean by 45 minutes and why do you owe Mycroft a plum pudding?”
At that time, Player responded, “Well obviously Mr. Holmes and Mr. Holmes had a bet of some sort and Mr. Holmes just lost. I’m guessing it has to do with silence and how long you can stand it, Dr. Watson.”
“Well, well. It seems that Player has indeed learnt a thing or two from me after all. And it only took 4 months. Impressive. See Watson, once again you saw but did not observe. We had a big hearty breakfast at 10 AM. At 10:15 AM, we sat down in our respective chairs. I picked up the day’s mail, you the day’s newspaper, and Player picked up their cellphone. At 10:25 AM I put the mail down and leaned back. At 10:28 AM you put the newspaper down and after staring at me for 2 minutes and 10 seconds, you looked out the window. Hence started the waiting game. At 11:13 AM you asked me what I was thinking about and hence my comment about 45 minutes. And Player is right. Last time we went to Diogenes Club, Mycroft and I made a small bet after you didn’t even allow a 5 minute silence. Mycroft bet that under the right conditions the silence could last at least 40 minutes. I said that the only time that would happen is when we were on a case and I was deep in thought. Mycroft has won. I was not thinking about a case and yet you still managed to allow the silence to last for 45 minutes,” Sherlock explained.
Hating myself for falling for his trap and hating Player for solving the mystery, I chose to lapse into silence instead. But this time the silence would only last 5 minutes for Player exclaimed, “Oh my god Mr. Holmes! Hackers have taken over the British government’s internal servers. It’s just happened!”
“No Player. It happened 3 hours ago. I’m just waiting for the call now. Any minute my phone will ring,” Sherlock responded, looking down at his cellphone.
As if on cue it rang. “Yes Mycroft?…No I’m terribly busy…Why should I tell you?…No I cannot spare even a minute…Well I don’t really care about them…So be it…You wouldn’t dare…Oh the horror. Take that back…Fine. I’ll send Watson and Player…No I cannot come. I told you I’m terribly busy…Well it’s them or Mummy…Good. That’s what I thought.”
Sherlock hung up and said, mockingly, “Watson and Player go to the Diogenes Club. The country needs you. Oh and do tell Mycroft that if he ever tries to get the monarch to knight me again I will tell Mummy all about the Diogenes Club. Even the stuff you don’t know.”
“But Holmes you have no cases right now! And this is of national importance!” I exclaimed.
“Booooring!” Sherlock drawled. “I would rather sit in this armchair and wait for the boredom to kill me than increase my rates of dying by taking on this boring case.”
“What is the case?” Player asked.
“Oh. Yes. The hackers. They have some rather weird demands. Mycroft would work on them himself, but he is rather preoccupied. Can’t leave the Diogenes Club for even one minute. Anyways, chop chop. Go over there and solve the mystery and save the day. Take the knighthood and do get Mycroft off my back.”
Sherlock stood up and pushed us out of the room. Player and I exchanged glances and then headed off for the Diogenes Club. We were immediately escorted to the Stranger Room. Once there, Mycroft tried to look pleased, “Ah Dr. Watson and Player. Just the people I need to see right now.”
“You don’t need to act Mycroft. Sherlock made it abundantly clear that you only agreed to us because he mentioned Mummy,” I responded. “Now do you want to tell us why we are here?”
“Fine,” Mycroft sighed. He turned his laptop around to face us and said, “At 8 AM this morning, all our servers were hacked. Military, M16, finance, everything. It’s all in the hands of these hackers. And they won’t give their demands to us straight. No. They’ve sent us this puzzle with this message.”
Player and I bent down to read, “You have 24 hours and 8 steps. Solve them to get to our demands, else you will lose everything. Your time starts the moment you click on the link below.”
“And that link is the first puzzle?” Player asked.
“Of course. And no one has clicked on it. I made sure of that,” Mycroft said, ominously.
“Well let’s get started then?” I asked, unsurely.
“Of course. But are you certain that you and Player can solve these puzzles on your own?” Mycroft asked.
“What? Aren’t you going to accompany us Mr. Holmes?” Player asked.
“No Player. I have too much other business to take care of. These hackers have also set off panic amongst the general public and all branches of government. I must handle them. If Sherlock were here, he could have solved these puzzles in a second. But of course he loves being difficult in times of need. Oh well. I might be able to spare a few M16 agents for you later, but for now you two are on your own. Click on the link only when you are ready.”
With that mini speech over, Mycroft left the room. Player and I exchanged glances and then Player said, “Well looks like it’s just us Dr. Watson. Should we get started then?”
Both of us looked at the screen as the “Click Here” link pulsated.
Player took a deep breath and then clicked on the link. Immediately the screen went black and a message popped up, “Welcome Monarch. How does it feel? To be held hostage? To be helpless? To have someone presiding over you? You spent centuries ruling over others with an iron fist. Now it is your turn to be subjugated to our rules. Over the next 24 hours, you will be given 8 puzzles to solve. Fail to solve them and you will lose everything forever. Solve them all correctly and you will be able to fulfill our demands. Don’t worry. By the time you finish these 8 puzzles, our demands will be a breeze. You will get 3 hours for each puzzle. If you fail to finish on time, you will lose everything. There are no hints. There are no multiple tries. We aren’t playing a game. We are simply testing your abilities. And here’s your first puzzle.”
6 pictures popped up on screen. As Player scrolled down, he saw spaces for 5 words, each of a different length.
After staring at the screen for an hour, Player suddenly sat up and exclaimed, “I’ve got it! The dots! There are 5 colours. I bet if we write down the letters, then we can unscramble them into words.”
I got excited and said, “Alright let’s do one colour at a time.”
As Player read out the letters, I wrote them down in my trusty notebook. Once we had all the letters, we set about unscrambling the words. 20 minutes later, we had 5 words that seemed to be right. Player quickly typed them into the screen and pressed Enter. The screen became black again. As we waited, getting more and more tense, Player asked, “Did we mess up? Is it over? Are we finished?”
Then a message appeared on the screen, “Don’t worry. You haven’t failed just yet. But that was just the beginning. As these puzzles progress, we will make them more interesting and more fun. If you thought that was hard, then just wait for this puzzle. Let the fun begin.”
The message disappeared and a crossword puzzle appeared. I exclaimed, “This is absurd! How is this going to take us 3 hours? I already know 4 of the answers!”
“Yeah but there are like 40 words to fill in,” Player pointed out. “And some of these clues look hard. Let’s get started.”
Player finished typing in the last answer and then looked at me. “Good to submit?”
I examined the screen and nodded. “Yes. I think those are all right.”
Player clicked the next button and waited. The screen went blank and then a new message appeared on screen, “Well, well. You are proving yourself worthy. Congratulations. But this is not going to get any easier. In fact with each puzzle, you are bound to make mistakes and at that time we will catch you and destroy everything.”
Then the message dissolved and another appeared, “You may be asking yourself, what’s next? Well now you have to solve the patterns. You will get 25 sequences below. Simply find the next one in the sequence.”
Again the message disappeared and now 25 sequences appeared onscreen. As I examined them, I saw what the hackers had done. They had started off easy and then made the sequences progressively difficult. There would be a lot of math involved. I checked my watch and saw that 5 hours had already passed. We had only saved an hour in the unscrambling. And we were no closer to finding out what the hackers wanted or why they were doing this.
Player interrupted my thoughts excitedly, “I’ve got the first 4!”
Credit:
Tags and siggies - DreamyButterfly
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