The Unbreakable Code Read online

  “Seriously?” She imagined an enormous cave underneath San Francisco with stalactites hanging down and pirate ships parked in every nook and cranny. But James had said “buried” not abandoned in a cave, so maybe it was more like a ship graveyard.

  “Why would they bury ships?” Emily asked.

  “I’m not sure. Wiki says there’s a chunk of the Niantic on display at a museum down by Fort Mason.”

  “Do you think we could find out more about this unbreakable code there?” Emily asked.

  A window slid open in the building next door, slicing the night with its screech. Emily froze. A man bellowed, “Do you know what time it is?”

  “Sorry,” Emily and James said in unison.

  The window groaned shut, and the lingering silence was heavy with the embarrassment of being caught.

  Emily scribbled a message to James:

  ZTFV VX EKUEO XLV VKU FBTFVBE VXNXPPXZ?

  (Want to check out the Niantic tomorrow?)

  She placed the paper in the bucket and raised it up, cringing with every squeak, squeak of the pulleys. She knew James’s reply would come quickly, so she waited by the window, and sure enough, the paper was returned within minutes.

  DXL OFXZ BV!

  (You know it!)

  CHAPTER

  5

  THE PHOENIX sat in a restaurant whipping an empty sugar packet through the candle flame on his table. Back, forth, back, forth. He meditated on the flame, watching it grasp for the packet with every pass and miss.

  “Not now,” he scolded. “I control when you’ll be fed.”

  Smirking at this little joke of fire as his pet, he returned his gaze to the television screen behind the bar and mindlessly continued to swing the sugar packet through the flame. Back. Forth. Back. Forth.

  On the TV, a reporter stood at Washington Square. He couldn’t hear her words, but it was obvious she was discussing his fire. An uncomfortable feeling brewed in his stomach, and he didn’t like it. If you think you’re so smart, an imaginary voice chirped, then why are you working so hard to prove it to others?

  No connection appeared to have been made between this fire and his last. That was good. Wasn’t it? The doubt flashed across his mind before he could stop it, and he snapped his hand into a fist, balling up the sugar packet. Questioning yourself was for the weak. He had made a plan, and he was sticking to it.

  “I control you,” he whispered to the flame. He extended the packet and could almost hear the fire hiss with relief as it ate the paper. The edges curled in on themselves, brown, then black. He dropped the flaming piece into the candle cup, where it would wither and die.

  His waitress returned with his bill and gave the blackened lump of char resting in the votive holder a double take.

  “Nervous habit,” the Phoenix explained.

  The waitress cleared his plate and glass from the table. “I bite my nails. We’ve all got our quirks.”

  CHAPTER

  6

  THE NEXT MORNING, Emily and James headed out to the Maritime Museum. Emily had searched the Internet for information on the unbreakable code while she ate her cereal, but there was no way of telling if Mr. Quisling’s note referred to the McCormick cipher or the Kryptos sculpture at CIA headquarters or any of the dozens more unsolved codes that had turned up in her online search. She’d had no idea there were so many unsolved puzzles out there in the world.

  They walked from their building down the sloping streets until they reached Fisherman’s Wharf. The final hill was so steep, their steps turned into a scuttling run until they reached the bottom. In the distance, a massive ship that could’ve been straight out of a pirate movie was anchored at the end of the Hyde Street Pier. The ship had been there the entire time Emily had lived in San Francisco, but today she saw it with new eyes.

  “Do you think the Niantic was as big as that ship?” she asked James.

  “Probably,” he said.

  It was hard to imagine a ship that big buried under the city, let alone fifty of them.

  The Maritime Museum was a white stucco building with curved ends and porthole-shaped windows, making it look like a cruise ship. Inside, a large, open room was filled with display cases and a small sailboat. Floor-to-ceiling windows looked out to a slender beach. In the bay she could see Alcatraz and a larger island behind it.

  The Niantic remnant was a jagged chunk of green-tinged copper wrapped around wood beams. It was as long as both Emily and James put together if they stood side by side with their arms outstretched, and very narrow. It was barely as wide as Emily’s shoulders. She had a hard time imagining how it had been part of a large ship.

  Reading from the museum displays, Emily was surprised to learn that many Americans on the East Coast had sailed all the way around South America in order to get to the West Coast during the Gold Rush. For some reason, she had imagined people traveling only by covered wagon in the olden days. When she was seven and her family moved from New York to South Dakota, they listened to Little House on the Prairie in the car, and Emily had imagined that was what they were doing—heading west huddled together in a covered wagon. It had seemed a fitting fantasy for how long and tedious that road trip had been.

  Emily also learned that the ships that came to San Francisco not only brought gold seekers from the East Coast, they also brought people from other countries, too, like Mexico, Peru, Chile, and China.

  “How did the ships get buried?” Emily wondered aloud.

  “Landfill,” said a woman’s voice from across the room. They turned to see a docent not much taller than they were, with gray hair styled like James’s minus a Steve. The woman crossed over to them, but her right foot was in a walking cast. It took great effort for her to move it forward with every step.

  “All that used to be water,” the woman said as she approached, wagging a finger at a map hung behind them. It showed the shoreline of San Francisco Bay today overlapped with the shoreline during the Gold Rush. The docent reached the map and used her index finger to trace an oval around several miles of the outer perimeter of San Francisco.

  She tapped the map. “This area was called Yerba Buena Cove,” she said.

  “Isn’t that where downtown San Francisco is?” Emily asked.

  “Yep,” said the docent.

  Downtown San Francisco was where the skyscrapers and biggest buildings were. The idea that those buildings now stood where it had once been only water seemed so weird. Unstable somehow. Like the water might find a way to creep back where it belonged and uproot everything.

  James pointed to another area of the map. “And there’s North Beach.”

  “No wonder!” Emily said. “I couldn’t figure out why they named it a beach when there isn’t any water there. But there used to be, a hundred and fifty years ago.”

  James studied the map a minute longer. “I didn’t know this was possible,” he said. “To just fill in part of a bay like it’s a swimming pool or something. I wonder what else got buried under the city besides a bunch of whaling ships.”

  The word buried made Emily think of dead people. “What if there are bodies down there?”

  James considered this. “It’s been well over a hundred years, so they’d be long gone if there were. No threat of a zombie apocalypse. Decomposed bodies are hard to bring back from the dead.”

  The docent barked a laugh. “Zombie apocalypse. That’s good. I’m using that on my next tour.”

  “But why did the ships get buried?” Emily asked.

  “Well.” The docent clasped her hands in front of her stomach. “The first thing you have to understand is the population explosion that happened here when word got out about gold being discovered. Prior to that, this area was a small settlement, not a city. There was no infrastructure here—no homes for people to move to, no paved roads, no railroad to transport people or supplies. Most everything—people and goods—arrived via ship, and the San Francisco Bay was the main port of entry for those ships coming and going. See how crazy it g
ot?” The woman tapped a black-and-white image of the bay jammed full of ship masts. “That was Yerba Buena Cove. It’s been said a person could have crossed the water by stepping from ship to ship, that’s how crowded it was.

  “Those ships were often left abandoned. The crews were so eager to get to the gold, they hightailed it out of there and headed up to the mining country. The abandoned ships were sometimes broken down for their materials. Other times they were brought aground and converted into stores and hotels. That’s what happened to the Niantic.

  “Wharves were built for better access to these ships. The shallow water between the wharves was gradually filled in. It was the most desirable land for development because of the convenience to ships bringing in goods. The waterfront was the commercial heart of the city.”

  “Does any of this have to do with something called the unbreakable code?” James asked.

  If the docent’s eyes could have popped out of her head, they would have. She took a step back, her injured foot dragging to catch up with the other.

  “Oh, no—I’m not talking about that. Nope. Nope. Nope. Not to you kids.”

  Emily looked to James. Had they done something wrong? The woman had been so eager to tell them everything else.

  “You two don’t need to get mixed up with that old code,” the docent said.

  “Why?” Emily asked.

  “Because it’s cursed.”

  CHAPTER

  7

  “CURSED?” Emily and James repeated.

  “It causes fires. That’s what people say. It survived one that destroyed the Niantic, as a matter of fact, back in 1851. And then…” The docent waved her hand. “I’ve said too much already. It’s not even worth discussing. What you should be interested in are these Niantic artifacts.”

  She pointed to a plate of glass on the floor that covered a gaping hole filled with dirt, blackened bottles, and pickax-looking tools. “This is a simulation of the dig that happened in 1978. Those are actual items found in the buried hull.…”

  Her voice became a background hum as Emily’s mind ran away with thoughts about the unbreakable code. Being told it was cursed only made her want to know more, but she could tell the woman was done talking about it. Emily was ready to leave, but then a photo caught her eye. It was part of a series that showed the 1978 excavation: a large dirt plot surrounded by office buildings, a dozen or so people in ’70s flared pants, digging with shovels or standing in small groups talking and watching the work being done.

  It was the close-up of one person in particular that had stood out: a man—a teenager, really—with his arm thrown around a teenage girl’s shoulders. The girl was laughing, and the man had his head angled down, smiling at her. Another man in the background squinted at the camera like he wasn’t sure if he was in the shot or not.

  “James, look.”

  “Those are volunteers who came to help the Maritime Museum with the excavation,” the docent said.

  “That’s also our social studies teacher,” Emily said.

  “It is?” James leaned close. “Mr. Quisling?”

  “Read the caption.”

  The caption said Volunteers Brian Quisling and Miranda Oleanda help the Maritime Museum with their excavation project.

  “Miranda Oleanda? That is seriously someone’s name?” James said.

  “Our teacher was randomly at this historic dig, but what you’re focusing on is his old girlfriend’s name? Really?”

  “How do you know she was a girlfriend?” James asked, studying the photo.

  “They just seem … boyfriend-girlfriendish. I mean, the way he’s looking at her. Have you ever seen Mr. Quisling look at something that way, ever?”

  “Maybe a … sandwich? A really good one?”

  The docent shook her head and smiled. “You kids today.”

  * * *

  After their visit to the Maritime Museum, Emily felt stuffed up with new information, but none of it explained the unbreakable code. She added fire curse to her online search, but it still didn’t draw up anything useful. For the next two days, Emily and James continued to deliberate what the code could be.

  “At least we know it actually exists. That’s something,” Emily said. They were sitting on their front stoop, waiting for her brother to finish getting ready so they could go downtown for their first Book Scavenger advisory meeting. “Do you think Mr. Quisling has known about the unbreakable code since that Niantic dig in 1978?”

  “Maybe,” James said. “But the docent said it survived a fire on that ship in 1851, not that it was discovered during the excavation.”

  That was slightly reassuring. Even though they still didn’t know what the unbreakable code was, Emily had grown attached to her fantasy of being the one to break it. It was harder to believe that might happen if their puzzle-expert teacher had been spending the last thirty-odd years trying to crack the code with no luck.

  “We could always ask Mr. Quisling about it when we’re back in school,” James said.

  Emily snorted. “I’m sure that would go over well.” Mimicking herself in a high-pitched and hyper voice, she said, “Um, Mr. Quisling? We saw you steal something at the book party, and then you dropped it, and so we picked it up and deciphered your secret message, and now we know about something called the unbreakable code. Do you know anything about this, and if so could you please tell us?”

  James laughed. “Hey, there are no dumb questions—doesn’t he say that all the time in class?”

  “I think what he says is ‘There are no dumb questions, only poorly thought-out questions.’ This would probably fall in the poorly thought-out category.”

  The front door opened, and Matthew joined them on the stoop. “Ready to get my book nerding on,” he announced.

  Emily stood up and took in her brother’s appearance. His hair was still dyed jet-black from the book party, but instead of sticking straight up, it was slicked back in an über-preppy style. He wore thick-rimmed black glasses and a T-shirt that said I LIKE BIG BOOKS AND I CANNOT LIE.

  “Oh, brother,” Emily said.

  “You called?”

  Emily slugged Matthew’s arm in response.

  The three walked down the hill to where they would catch a bus downtown. Church bells rang as they crossed a busy street toward the large green expanse of Washington Square.

  “What happened there?” Emily asked.

  A red rope cordoned off an area under a large tree. What appeared to be shade from a distance was actually a blackened swath of grass. A bench charred at one end sat among the gaping remains of burnt shrubs. The tree overhead rustled ever so slightly, and a tiny leaf came free, fluttering down to the ground, its green neon against the black.

  “It looks like there was a fire,” James said.

  They crossed the street to their bus stop, but Emily couldn’t help looking back over her shoulder. She passed this park all the time. Sometimes it was lively and filled with crowds or an art festival. Sometimes it was tranquil, with people sitting on benches or practicing tai chi or other exercises. And now there was this scar, reminding her that anything you took for granted could change at any time.

  CHAPTER

  8

  AT BAYSIDE PRESS, the three signed in with the security guard and pushed the elevator button for the sixth floor. As they rode in silence, Emily daydreamed about what sorts of things the Book Scavenger teen advisory might do. Since Mr. Griswold had invited them a month ago to launch a teen advisory committee for Book Scavenger, she and James had been brainstorming ideas for cool Griswold-esque events they could help plan. She hoped that would be their first task.

  The elevator doors opened, and they were blasted with burgundy and silver blue. The walls and carpet of the lobby were boldly adorned in Bayside Press colors. The receptionist paged Jack, and he soon appeared wearing a wine-colored sweater with a teal collar popped out.

  “Does Mr. Griswold make you wear those colors?” Matthew asked.

  Jack laughed. “
Just a fashion trend I thought I’d follow. Promotes a team spirit, don’t you think? And the colors suit my complexion.” Jack made a fishy face and struck a model pose before leading them down the hallway.

  While this was Emily’s third visit to Mr. Griswold’s office, it was only the second time she would be seeing the man himself. She’d watched him in plenty of Book Scavenger videos and had read various articles about him and posts from Book Scavenger users who’d met Mr. Griswold at events. When she’d met Mr. Griswold for the first time, he’d been as warm and colorful as she’d imagined he would be, even though he’d just been released from the hospital.

  Jack held up a hand for them to stop just before the hallway opened into the large cubicle-filled space.

  “I should probably tell you guys…” Jack slid his fingers into his hair and squeezed, pulling the hair up so he had a momentary faux-hawk. “Mr. Griswold is doing much better than before, but there’s … a lot of recovery still ahead. His physical recovery is on track, but the incident last fall … well, it rattled him. As would be expected, of course.” Jack’s chuckle seemed forced, and he swallowed it uncomfortably. “I just don’t want you guys to be disappointed if he seems a little off today. It’s not you kids. He’s happy you’re here, trust me, and I think seeing you will be good for him. He just needs some time to get back to his old self.”

  Back to his old self? Emily wiped her hands on her sides and shoved them in her hoodie pockets, suddenly uncertain about who they would find when Jack opened Mr. Griswold’s office door. When Jack’s hand rested on the doorknob, three deep barks erupted on the other side, followed by a sharp, high-pitched one. Emily jumped.

  “Dogs?” She and James looked at each other, wide-eyed. That was about the last thing she’d expected.

  “Technically they’re service dogs.” Jack bent his fingers into air quotes when he said service. “They’re harmless.”

  He swung the door open, and two dogs came racing out: one sleek and brown, who nearly came up to Emily’s chest, and the other small, scruffy, and white.