Chapter Seven
Time Tag
The following Saturday morning was cold and crisp in Troy, with sub-zero temperatures and a dusting of snow on the ground. It would turn out to be a day of discovery and danger so subtle Cameron would not register it until many months later.
"Power!"
A slight hum filled Cameron's littered bedroom as the wall-mounted display came to life with a soft glow.
"Good morning, Cameron."
Cameron liked the sound of Sam's voice upgrade. It was the voice he grew to recognize when he and Sam were together in a simulation. It had inflection and emotion. "Good morning, Sam. Any messages this morning?"
"Yes, Cameron, you do, in fact have a message."
"Display, please."
The screen dissolved into an image of Rosa. "Happy birthday, Cheese Boy! Sweet Sixteen and never been kissed! Well, maybe one on national TV," she said. "I guess you're going to be my elder until February. I've got a birthday present for you old man. Catch me if you can. You're it!" She one of her mischievous grins. "You'll need to master the clues to find me. I'm off to the doctor's. Goodbye!" She then laid her hand upon the pendant dangling from a gold chain about her neck, closed her eyes, and vanished.
"You're it!" repeated Rosa's voice before the screen went blank.
Rosa had just challenged Cameron to a game of Time Tag. He felt a surge of adrenaline as he retrieved his pocket watch IDO.
Time Tag was a popular new game Malik created. It took at least two to play Time Tag — a Fox to go hide and one or more Hounds to search and find the Fox. The Fox could hide anywhere and in any time. There were just three simple rules. The first was the Fox must leave a trail of clues behind for the Hounds to follow. The second said if you missed the Fox at a particular time and place, you could not jump back in time and re-visit that place. Socrates Jones suggested the third rule. Hence, it was called the Socrates' Rule. "I have an idea that will make the chase all the more thrilling. While you're in the simulation, act is if you have actually gone back in time and the people about you are real," he said. "Do not give away the future or betray from where you came. A real time traveler would have to be careful not to do anything that would change time. Any major breech of this rule and the technician monitoring the simulation will terminate the game."
In this game, Rosa was the Fox — she had made the challenge. Cameron knew that he might not be the only Hound on Rosa's trail, but he was determined to be the first to find her.
Where to start? He sat on the edge of his bed and looked at the multiCom screen. Like his mind, it was blank. If only he could fill his mind with thoughts, like Rosa's message had filled the screen.
Yes. That was it. Fill his mind like the screen.
"Sam, please replay the message."
Rosa's image came into view once again. "You're it!" she said. "You'll need to master the clues to find me. I'm off to the doctor's. Goodbye!" Her hand moved to her pendant, and she began to dissolve to nothing.
Just before the message ended, Cameron said "Freeze, please." He was not concerned with where Rosa had gone, but, rather, from where she had started the chase. Where had Rosa been when she recorded the message? The picture on the screen was a blur. "Can you focus the image, Sam?"
"Certainly, Cameron. Now adjusting the picture. How is that?"
"Very good, thank you."
Cameron Rush rose from his bed and stepped close to the screen. He studied the still fuzzy picture.
Rosa was in a building. It was a large room with lots of pictures and signs on the walls. Was it an art gallery perhaps? Was it a display of some sort? Or maybe it was a museum? There were large letters high up on the wall, but they were very hard to read. Cameron could barely make out that the first letter was an 'M'. Two more letters that he could not figure out followed this one. The fourth letter was tall — maybe an 'l' or a 't'. Again there were two more letters too faint to read. The last letter was an 's'. He looked at the word even more closely. The third letter was probably the same as the last. That meant that the word was M-?-s-(l or t)-?-?-s. Now, it was only a matter of finding the missing letters.
M-?-(l or t)-?-?-s. What were the missing letters? If there was one thing that Cameron really liked, it was a puzzle. He figured that the first missing letter had to be a vowel. That meant that he had only six choices — a, e, i, o, u and y. One by one, he tried each letter:
M-a-s-l-?-?-s
M-e-s-l-?-?-s
M-i-s-l-?-?-s
M-o-s-l-?-?-s
M-e-s-l-?-?-s
M-y-s-l-?-?-s
Cameron shook his head. None of the letter combinations looked very promising. He tried it again with a 't' as the fourth letter instead of the 'l'.
M-a-s-t-?-?-s
M-e-s-t-?-?-s
M-i-s-t-?-?-s
M-o-s-t-?-?-s
M-u-s-t-?-?-s
M-y-s-t-?-?-s
This presented some real possibilities. Cameron was confident that the 'e' and 'u' were not it, so he scratched them of his list. He now had only four variations with which to work:
M-a-s-t-?-?-s
M-i-s-t-?-?-s
M-o-s-t-?-?-s
M-y-s-t-?-?-s
When he looked at the remaining sets of question marks, the letters 'er' jumped into his mind for three of the words,
M-a-s-t-e-r-s
M-i-s-t-e-r-s
M-y-s-t-e-r-s (Mystery?)
The fourth word, M-o-s-t-?-?-s, seemed to want an 'l' and a 'y.' But 'Mostlys' didn't make much sense, so Cameron crossed that off his list.
Cameron had now narrowed the possibilities of what the sign said down to three words. He examined them closely. 'Mystery' would have been a suitable word for this challenge, but he was sure that the third and last letters of the word were 's.' His list was now only two words long: 'Masters' and 'Misters'.
Wait a minute! What was it that Rosa had said before she had disappeared?
"Sam, run the message again, please." Cameron closed his eyes and listened to Rosa's voice as the multiCom played the message. "You're it! You'll need to master the clues to find me."
"Stop, please," said Cameron. "That's it! Master the clues! She gave me the first clue already. The word on the wall is 'Masters.' But what could it mean? Where was the exhibit they had talked about visiting? Chicago, wasn't it?
"Sam, where is that museum that has the show about the masters? You know, the one Rosa wanted to go see?"
"That would be the Field Museum in Chicago, Illinois," said Sam.
That's it. Rosa was at 'The Masters' exhibit at the Field Museum.
Cameron was proud to have solved the first of the many puzzles he knew awaited him as he tried to find Rosa somewhere in time. He put his IHT in his pocket and initiated the Field Museum simulation. Like all Academy students, Cameron had free admission to the museum, courtesy of GundTech.
The room faded and dissolved. Cameron found himself in the main hall of the museum. Rising above him were the bones of one of the museum's most famous fulltime residents, Sue, the tyrannosaurus. He found a museum guide and asked directions to the Master's exhibit. Cameron was not sure if the guide was a real person or an AI personality. No matter, it was not long before he was standing on the very spot from which Rosa had issued her challenge.
The exhibit was fabulous! It occupied an entire wing of the museum. The number and variety of 'Masters' that the exhibit explored amazed Cameron. When Mr. S told his homeroom about the display, Cameron had thought he meant it was an art show dedicated to the 'Art Masters' like Rembrandt, Picasso, van Gogh, and the like. Indeed, master painters and sculptors were presented, but there was so much more: master builders, from the pyramids to the Golden Gate Bridge; masters of music from Beethoven to Scott Joplin. Even masters of science, philosophy, writing, and the cinema were showcased. There was even a section called 'Masters of Disguise,' which showed many insects and animals whose appearance made them disappear into their surroundings.
Cameron had become so interested in the exhibit that he forgot why he had come to the museum. He forgot, that is, until he came to the wall with the large letters he saw behind Rosa when she issued her challenge. It was really an unremarkable wall. It had only a few pictures on it and several signs. Perhaps the signs will give me a clue to where Rosa has gone.
Cameron stepped closer to the wall. He read the signs and looked at the pictures very closely. He felt like an old fashioned detective hunting for clues. Unfortunately, there was nothing to be found. The items on the wall told him where the restrooms were and where the cafeteria was, but it gave no hint as to the location of Rosa Costas.
Disappointed, Cameron turned to leave.
It was then that he saw it.
The clue was not on the wall he had seen behind Rosa. It was on the wall at which she would have been looking when she recorded the message!
Before him was a large print of an old magazine illustration. It showed a tall, thin man, dressed in very old style clothing. His coat had a sort of half-cape over the shoulders. His head was covered by a funny looking hat that seemed to have two fronts. Cameron knew the figure in the drawing was a favorite fictional character of Rosa's. She had read almost every story written about this man, who was called the world's first 'consulting detective.'
The picture on the wall was in a display entitled "The Victorians: Masters of Their Time."
Cameron knew who the man in the drawing was, but he was not sure what or who 'Victorians' were. Of one thing Cameron was certain: this was the clue Rosa had intended him to find.
– End Chapter Seven –
