The room looks like an unfinished basement. Concrete below, floor joists and wiring above, walls of concrete and wood. No windows, but there’s a metal door about 12 feet off the ground at the top of what should be stairs. The door has no visible door knob. A bare bulb hangs from a cord from a floor joist, with a string dangling down from it. It swings, casting eerie shadows. In the corner there is a framed bathroom, with toilet, faucet and sink, and a clock saying 12 o’clock, but drywall hasn’t been tacked up, so you can see into it.
A woman is asleep on the floor - Zoe, in green nurse’s scrubs. White, in her 20s, with manicured nails. A thin 20-something black woman, Alice, in t-shirt and jeans, groans, turns over, opens her eyes and looks around. She sits up sees the toilet in the corner. Then she notices Zoe. Alice groans again as she checks on Zoe, then stumbles over to the toilet and vomits. She washes out her mouth, sits on the toilet and checks her cellphone. No reception. She pockets her cellphone.
Tacked to the wooden frame of the bathroom, Alice sees several typewritten pages of what looks like randomly typed letters. She brings it underneath the lightbulb.
Zoe starts to stir. She turns over, opens her eyes and looks around. “What’s going on? Who are you?”
“I’m Alice. I just woke up a few minutes ago. I thought you were dead.”
Zoe rubs her forehead. “I’m Zoe. I feel sick.” Zoe gets up, checks her cellphone, and looks around. “I don’t have any reception, do you?”
Alice shakes her head.
“I vomited as soon as I woke up. I think I was drugged. ”
“Yeah. Do you recognize this place? Are we in someone’s house?” Alice asks.
“I don't know. Check this out” Alice hands Zoe the pages.
“Solve it? What does that mean?” Zoe asks.
“I assume it means to figure out what the coded message says.” Alice shows Zoe the pages and pages of typed ciphertext.
“Looks like gibberish. We’re going to die, aren’t we? ... Help!” Zoe yells.
“I already tried yelling. The only way out seems to be that door. Whoever’s up there isn’t responding.”
“Even if you solved the code then how would they know?”
“Maybe they’re watching us?” Alice asks.
They both look carefully at the walls and ceiling. “I don’t see a camera,” says Zoe.
“They can be disguised to look like anything. I can’t solve this without pencil and lots of paper.”
Mark, a young overweight sips a drink out of an oversized plastic cup with a straw. He sits in a comfortable chair in front of a table wearing an oversized football jersey, shorts, and socks on his feet. A partially eaten hamburger sits to the side. He’s looking at a video on a laptop. It’s showing a live feed from the basement.
The video shows Alice saying “Maybe they’re watching us?” then she starts looking at the ceiling.
Mark turns down the volume on the laptop and then rotates it so he can see it as he walks over to the basement door. There’s a cardboard box by the door. When he sees Alice is facing away from the door, in one fluid motion, he grabs the box, switches off the lights, opens the door, tosses the box into the basement, shuts and locks the door, then flips the lights back on.
He takes a deep breath and goes back to sit next to the laptop.
The lightbulb goes out. It’s pitch dark. There’s a soft creak of a door opening and a BOOM as a package hits the floor. The door clicks shut and the lights come back on.
There’s a cardboard box on the floor near the door. Alice and Zoe rush over to it. They find paper, pencils, plastic cups, a bottle of caffeine pills, and some protein bars.
"Hey! Let us out!" Zoe yells.
"Let us out! What do you want?" Alice yells at the door.
"Asshole!" Zoe yells at the door.
“I’m not sure if there’s a camera but someone’s listening to us,” Alice whispers to Zoe.
Mark turns up the volume on the laptop so he can hear the last half of Alice’s statement “I’m not sure if there’s a camera but someone’s listening to us.”
He snickers. “She’s the bright one? Oh, gawd.”
Alice takes a plastic cup, goes into the bathroom and fills it with water from the faucet and drinks. She pulls her pants down and sits on the toilet. Alice pulls out her cellphone and opens her connection settings.
The clock says 1 o’clock.
Zoe faces away from Alice to give her some privacy, goes over to the box and starts eating a protein bar. Alice picks up the laptop in her list of available connections. She connects and then opens up a remote webcam app. She sees Mark, takes a screenshot as he, obliviously eats his burger and wipes his fingers on his t-shirt. Alice finishes up, flushes, washes her hands and joins Zoe.
“Good protein bars,” Zoe says, offering Alice one.
“No thanks. Here’s the guy upstairs,” and Alice shows Zoe his picture. “I hacked his webcam.”
“That’s him?”
“Doesn’t look like much. I don’t want to keep the connection open too long, he might spot it.”
“Don’t want to piss him off. He looks like he could kill someone.”
“I’m going to take a look at this cipher,” Alice says, taking the pages and her cup of water over near the lightbulb. Alice gets out paper, pencil, and starts making notes.
“Let me know if I can help. Do you want a protein bar?”
“Can you toss the bottle of caffeine pills?”
Zoe tosses them to Alice, who catches them, takes a few and swallows with a gulp of her water,
Zoe takes a naps while Alice writes.
The clock says 2 o'clock.
She writes more. Zoe flips over and goes back to sleep.
The clock says 3 o'clock. Zoe yawns and goes back to sleep.
She writes more.
The clock says 4 o'clock. Zoe peeks at Alice out of a corner of one eye, sighs, and goes back to sleep.
Mark watches Alice write pages and pages and pages of notes and computations. He, like Zoe, dozes off.
The clock says 8 o’clock.
“I’m done,” Alice says.
Zoe stretches and walks over. “Can I see?”
Alice hands her the pile of notes and computations. “Can you read my handwriting?”
“I guess so. Where’s the message?” Zoe asks.
“The last 5 pages.”
Zoe flips to the end of the stack of pages and reads.
“Do you still think we’re going to die?” Alice asks.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, Zoe stabs Alice with a needle and plunges it into her. “I’m not. You’re another story.”
Alice collapses, unconscious. Zoe takes Alice’s cellphone and pockets it. Zoe goes over to the bathroom, opens the toilet cover, pulls out what
looks like a TV remove control, points it at the door and presses it several times.
The door opens.
“What?” Mark yells down.
“She did it,” Zoe says.
“Really? Let me see.”
“Lower the ladder, dammit. I’ll show you then.”
Mark disappears, comes back with a 6 foot ladder which he lowers down to Zoe. She climbs up with the stack of Alice’s pages to the top step and Mark helps her up the rest of the way. They take a last look at Alice, looking dead to the world. Mark turns off the lights, pulls up the ladder, and shut the door.
Zoe hands Mark the pages. He studies them at the kitchen table. “I don’t believe it. She did it. You did it Zoe, you’re brilliant.”
“I just planned a kidnapping. She's the brilliant one, or rather was,” Zoe says looking at the closed basement door.
“She decoded the Beale cipher. We’ll be rich. How much is the buried treasure worth?”
“Seventy million dollars in gold, according to today’s prices.”
“Thirty-five million each. I don't believe it. How did you know she could do it? Just because she works at NSA?” Mark asks.
“She also won the IMO in high school.”
“What’s that?” Mark asks, flipping through the ages of Alice’s calculations.
Zoe comes behind him and stabs him with a needle and plunges it into him. “Not important right now,” she says to him.
Mark collapses, unconscious. Zoe takes his car keys and Alices page’s and walks out.
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