“Franklin’s hungry. Look up Lucky.” They must have said the phrase a hundred times, but still nothing seemed to be springing to mind.
‘And you’re sure about the spelling and the punctuation?’ asked Clio.
‘I’m not going to swear on it, but I think so. But maybe there was more to it? Maybe Charlie had hidden an extra clue under the stamp. Maybe there was something in the picture on the front. I didn’t give it that much of an examination.’
‘Might have helped if you had,’ drawled Clio.
‘Might have helped if you didn’t hire traitors.’
The four of them subsided into sullen silence. Julius knew Charlie’s parents lived in the States. Maybe there was a connection to Benjamin Franklin. But he was damned if he could find it.
At one point Julius glanced over at Ramin’s screen, and was mesmerised by an unfamiliar search engine that appeared to be making massive leaps across various platforms, spotting nodes all across the internet.
‘What the hell is that?’ Looking back at Google, Julius felt distinctly envious.
‘Teiresias. It’s a new search engine in Beta mode. I’d log you in, but it takes a while to learn.’
‘I’m a quick learner.’
Ramin laughed. ‘I’m sure you are, but I meant Tiresias is a slow learner. It needs about fifty search hours of your browsing behaviour before it adapts and finds what you’re looking for. It’s an intuitive engine. The more you use it, the better it understands how you think and helps make the leaps for you.’
Julius’ jaw dropped. That sounded incredible, and he hit Google for early Beta versions of it, but came up blank.
‘Is it spelt Tiresias, like the blind Greek seer?’
‘Yes, but don’t bother trying to find it. This is completely off the grid.’
Julius glared into his coffee and returned to the keyboard. As the hours past he became more engrossed in various leads, but nothing seemed to be making sense. He was aware of Neith working alongside him, but her concentration was also fixed on the screen. As well as trying to break the clue, the other three were trying to see if the egg had surfaced anywhere, or if they could track the location of Paul.
Ramin pushed back from the table to put the kettle on, and wondered if they were actually going to fail on this mission. He wouldn’t be surprised. Having a teammate go rogue was bound to put a spanner in the works. Clio was already in the kitchen eating a bowl of rice and veg, and the smell reminded him how hungry he was.
‘Any left?’ He grabbed a bowl and took a few heavenly mouthfuls, then gently waved his fork in Julius’ direction.
‘I don’t know if I trust him.’
‘Good!’
‘You don’t trust him either?’
‘No, I mean you shouldn’t just randomly trust people. Look where it’s got us so far. Your teammate has turned on us and is implicated in the murder of two shit flies so far. You trusted him, didn’t you?’
Clio was being an arse, but she wasn’t wrong. He loathed the implication that he was guilty by association, but he was, and he couldn’t blame Clio for being hyper vigilant. He liked Julius, but at this stage he no longer knew whom to trust. It was inconceivable that he was working with anyone from the Alpha planet, but maybe he was trying to grab the egg for himself?
‘Penny for them?’
‘Well, I was just thinking that it was impossible for him to be working with someone from home. But what if it’s not impossible?’
‘You think there are Alpha operatives living here on Beta?’ She could barely keep the incredulity out of her voice. ‘And they just happened to be stationed at the right time and location? Or did you think someone snuck through the stepper whilst everyone else’s backs were turned?’ She snorted. ‘There isn’t a second team here. For some reason Paul has gone rogue.’
‘Well, don’t you think “just gone rogue” is a bit too simplistic? He clearly has help. How did he arrange that?’
‘Yes, because manipulating a bunch of shit flies to do his bidding is going to be so difficult. Crocs sake, even a first year Alpha could manage that.’
Ramin was worried. Clio wasn’t wrong, but this didn’t add up.
‘Or maybe he did have help. Inside help?’ She looked at him in an accusing fashion.
‘For fucks sake Clio, trying to pin the blame on me isn’t going to help anyone. Why don’t you get back to the screens and see if you can track any unusual activity? Beyond friends stabbing each other in the back.’
‘Whatever. I’m having a bath.’
Ramin waited until his temper had calmed down, and then walked through to the dining room. Both Neith and Julius had their backs to him, both engrossed in their respective screens. As he watched, Neith absentmindedly stretched out her left hand, looking for something to write with, whilst she continued to monitor the laptop. Without moving his head from his screen, Julius picked up the pencil and passed it to her. Bizarrely, that little act of cohesion made Ramin suddenly warm to Julius. It was a gesture that he had made himself a thousand times, and yet only people who were dedicated researchers seemed to have that symbiosis. It didn’t matter that he was a Beta and may also be a baddie. He was patently one of them.
‘Any joy?’
Both stopped what they were doing and turned to look at him.
‘Not even bugger all,’ said Julius, looking defeated. He had woken this morning determined to crack the clue, but had ended up being sucked down a rabbit hole of interesting but ultimately useless bits of trivia.
‘Okay. I think I have the solution. It occurs to me that Julius needs to do Tiresias Old School.’
Julius perked up. ‘What did you have in mind, and what do you mean by “Old School”?’
‘Tiresias is an intuitive engine, but you already have the prototype intuitive engine. You just need to feed it some data. Mens sana
