George’s secret key to the universe

Chapter one by Maximilian

The next morning George woke up to a whirring sound. He could tell from the slight darkness outside that it was earlier than when his parents woke up. Lethargically, George got out of bed and shuffled towards the noise slowly. He noticed that it was his computer which was making the sound. As he was about to press the power button, the screen displayed some letters:

‘Pqmd Sqadsq,

U tmhq fmwqz Qduo mzp Mzzuq

U iuxx zaf tmzp ftqy ahqd gzfux kag suhq yq Oaeyae.

Sa fa ftq Rajndupsq xmnadmfadk

Pd.Dqqbqd

Shift 14’

At first George had no idea what it meant and was dumbfounded. What were these random letters? Was it some kind of message? Whatever the case George decided he was too tired to think about it and went back to bed. Later in the day, George went to Annie’s house through the back yard. When he entered no one was inside. He was relieved when he saw Cosmos and asked it if he knew where they were. Cosmos said he hadn’t seen them since yesterday which made George worry again. He suddenly realised something. He knew that the letters that he had seen on his computer was the whereabouts of Eric and Annie. He rushed back home and grabbed the computer. George asked Cosmos if he understood what it meant. Cosmos said, “Calculating possibilities loading… Finished! This is Caesar cipher telling us to shift the alphabet by 14.” George asked the super computer to translate it.

“Dear George,

I have taken Eric and Annie

I will not hand them over until you give me Cosmos.

Go to the Foxbridge laboratory

Dr Reeper”

George was shocked. Why had Dr Reeper gone so far just to obtain Cosmos? George had no choice. He HAD to go to bargain with Dr Reeper. George leaped off his bike as soon as he was at the entrance of the laboratory. He flung open the doors and went inside the members only room and in the dark he saw the malicious grin of Dr Reeper. “Where are they?” screamed George.
If it was possible, Dr Reeper’s smile got larger. “Don’t worry I’ll send you to them in a few moments. Where you will join them in a prison cell!” Dr Reeper retorted. George got a chill down his spine. “I’ll take Cosmos now.” He said. “No!” George screamed. Suddenly, a blinding light filled the room.

Taiyan:

When George woke up, he found himself  in a dark room filled with twinkling stars, star clusters and many other things he could not identify. groggily, George sat up and took a good look at his surroundings. Although he could not see anyone else in the room, George felt like somebody was watching him from a distance. Just as the though entered his mind, however, George noticed that every single star had a tiny lens that was following him around.

“I know you are watching me Reeper!” George shouted to no-one in particular. Confused and befuddled, George did however remember something Reeper mentioned in one of his lessons about nano-technology. He did not remember much about it as his old teacher aimed to make his class as boring as possible, perhaps as a form of torture to every student that passed through the school.

“Where is Annie and Eric!?” George demanded. No answer. George called again and again but to no avail and eventually gave and tried to find a way out of his imprisoned box.

Meanwhile, Annie and Eric had just gotten back from their shopping at the store to see another message at the door.

‘Pqmd Qduo mzp Mzzuq,

U tmhq fmwqz Sqadsq

U iuxx zaf tmzp ftqy ahqd gzfux kag suhq yq Oaeyae.

Sa fa ftq Rajndupsq xmnadmfadk

Pd.Dqqbqd’

This was almost the same message as the one Dr. Reeper left George except the fact that ‘Eric and Annie’ was flipped with ‘George’. Dr. Reeper had also returned Cosmos for him to translate the message but wiped his memory of everything. Reeper trapped them too in a starry void.

“Now I can do what I want!” Reeper cackled maniacally. all chaos completely broke loose the very next day.

ALL PROGRAMMES BREACHED

At 18th December, 2021, every electronic device in the world has been hacked at precisely 8 o’clock. Scientists fail to explain such tragedies occurring but according to Mr. Reeper, ‘The only scientist that I know of which has such a good computer is Eric Bellis. No further information was said.

Maximilian:

The next day the door on the Bellis’ house crashed open as police stormed the building. People swarmed through the rooms like bees, just find that no one was in the house. The police then thought that the Bellis had fled and had travelled somewhere else. One of the police found a note on the floor which had the code on it. Luckily, the unscrambled code was on the back. Instantly they started to track Dr Reeper but never found him. After searching through his files, they found that all of Reeper’s secret work was stored in an ultra-secure compound. The police built an elite team of agents to break into the compound. First there was a security key card check. After that there was an eye scanner which was then followed by 3 different number-key locks. Finally, there was a gait measuring machine. It would check how the person going through it walked and breathed. If it was not the same as the employees the person would be tasered.

It seemed like an impossible task because of the last part but there was a water reservoir where the information was held, unfortunately is was underwater. Someone would have to hold their breath for 3 minutes. Change the information before one agent went through and get back out in time. After the plan was in motion one of the agents died trying to change the information but made it just in time.

Once they downloaded the files onto a hard drive the agents gave the file back to the police. As the police opened the file what they saw inside shocked them…

Taiyan:

Inside the files, the police saw what plans Reeper had plans for in the world. There was a full-scale virtual diagram of the Earth along with governmental structures and places of operation labeled with various nukes and other destructive weapons. Dr. Reeper was watching what the police had found in the Bellis’ house and quick devised a plan to get out of the situation he was in. First of all, Reeper would claim that the note was yet another false lead and he would frame George as well, accusing him of all the craftsmanship and saying he was quite handy.

Meanwhile, in the rooms that George, Eric and Annie were trapped in, they had all figured out what Reeper had done, mostly. George had also managed to locate a few micro-cameras installed in the walls and saw this as a way to escape by somehow rerouting the cameras to send the footage to the government and hopefully send out a search. However, Eric and Annie had found out a lot more such as the fact that they were located underground and extremely close to the core of the Earth or that there were certain places which were retractable but some were not. This meant it could be transformed and the door-shaped piece might be able to get them out instead of brute-forcing from the core of the Earth since the anti-gravity repulsor probably would not reach more than a few metres.

Up on the surface of the Earth, Dr. Reeper was having no trouble lying to the press and he was even interviewed on what he was doing to try and locate the trio. No sooner than a week, the news released a copy of that very interview which read:

REEPER’S REVOLUTIONARY IDEAS

Dr. Reeper, a former elementary school teacher has now become a world sensation and first to see George Greenby, Eric Bellis and his daughter, Annie Bellis as who they truly are as he claims “as soon as those three stepped in the school, I knew something was up even though every other person saw them like father, daughter and friend.” Reeper also claims he has leads towards all there of the criminal’s whereabouts however, such information was not given. The method was given though and for the first time, the police have been abled to track down many other wrongdoers.

Jiaming:

Back in the starry prison cell, the ticked-off trio sat cross-legged, silently fuming about their vexatious and problematic situation. Sharing their cringeworthy story was NOT fun. At least it gave them something to be amused about. But even the best jokes can’t keep you entertained for sixteen hours, which was the length of time Dr Reeper had left them there with no food or water. Thoughtful man. The wall echoed loudly when they talked, giving them the infuriating impression that everything surrounding them was laughing at their stupidity.

“Sooo… what now?” George broke the silence, with the idea of starting another dull, pointless conversation to brighten up  their moods and remind them of the painful helplessness they were in, because he was smart like that.

Eric and Annie shrugged at exactly the same time.

“Ooookaaay?” George drooped his head and began scratching at the polished stone floor, trying to make a slight crevice just for fun… for about the twenty-third time that day. His anti-technology house with vegetable everything suddenly felt like a trip to a waterpark to him.

‘Space is so interesting, but who knew getting thrown into a room of stars was so boring?’ George thought as he worked furiously on breaking his fingernail against the ground.

Then, the stone underneath his finger gave in, and a chunk slowly busted up as the cracks spread, separating it from the rest. Eyes wide, Eric slowly hinged his finger underneath the slab and heaved it up, revealing fresh soil.

Snapping into their senses, George, Eric and Annie sprang into action and dug like psycho badgers.

Henry:

Sprinting along Fox bridge, Dr. ‘Grim’ (G)Reeper, closely tailed by a troop of government officials and officers, deftly tapped the right side of the glasses he wore to reveal to him his victims who he was to frame: the image wasn’t clear. Freckled with vague specks of what could only be described as an insult to Reeper’s own technological advances, the camera started to tremble, blur then flail as more brown substance was dumped upon it. Reeper tapped the left side of his hight-tech glasses, returning normal vision, so predictable he thought, knowing that most of his colleagues have been taken into custody because of his declaration to use his own methods: this chase for the framed was just buying time before he himself would be caught.

Digging through the humus surrounding their cell, George, Annie and Eric now are met with something that one would definitely not find whilst digging a hole in the ground: a safe padlock supposedly to be used to open up an exit. The trio stared at it in mouth-gaping astonishment in their luck of uncovering the secret exit to the hell in which they were enclosed in. There must be a clue to what the password was, right? The search was on.

Ignorant of the officials behind him, Reeper swore when Eric tore one of his cameras apart to find a crumpled note left bundled between its circuits: it contained all the clues that they (especially Eric) would need to figure out the doctor’s passcode to the trapdoor leading to ‘Old Cosmos’’ room. This was turning out to becoming a ticket to custody for Reeper, his captives were escaping and now even the guards behind him were whispering amongst themselves about something and it was something against him. There was no other option, his old friend must be contacted: Alioth Merak…

Maximilian:

Alioth Merak. One of the most dangerous men in the living world. Together, with Dr Reeper they could take over the whole world. After George, Annie and Eric had dug themselves out of the prison, Reeper made a swift escape and immediately contacted his menacing friend. They met up at an abandoned warehouse discussing what to do with the planet. Suddenly, Merak came up with a sinister plan that would make humanity bow down at their feet. They would create a machine that could hack EVERYTHING. Even humans. This task seemed impossible but after several months of undercover work from the police, they had finally made it. First, they hacked a car and travelled to the tallest antenna in the world, KVLY-TV Mast in North Dakota. Once they got there they hacked it with their machine and projected to the whole world what they could do.

Governments and people with power came to discuss the problems and what they could do to solve it. They never came out of the meeting alive. With the few politicians in the world they banded together to find an antidote to this machine. The greatest minds worked together but they couldn’t even understand how it worked. Out of the blue, a new announcement was made. Alioth and Reeper said they had the power to send humanity back to the dark ages and if the remaining people in power didn’t agree to their terms the world as we know it would be annihilated.

The terms were absolutely absurd including things like removing all human right acts and not paying taxes but it was either that or sending humanity back to the dark ages. George, Annie and Eric pondered what they could do. Cosmos the super compute suggested something risky but it was the only chance the planet had before absolute chaos broke out. Eric messaged Reeper that if he wanted to he could take Cosmos. Both Alioth and Reeper came with their machine. So far so good Eric thought. As they came into the room Eric quickly opened the space portal door that led into a black hole, holding on tightly to the table. Screaming Alioth and Reaper fell into the abyss.

There seemed to be some disturbance with cosmos after that and weakly he said that they were trying to hack his system and the only way to stop them from coming back out was to destroy Cosmos. Eric with George and Annie, who were hiding behind the sofa, said that there had to be another way. But the more they argued the more they realised it was the only way. With tears in there eyes they destroyed Cosmos.

Taiyan:

Every person had lost hope now. The people could not live without fearing the machine which had somehow kept on going, the politicians had completely given up on trying to find an antidote and George, Eric and Annie felt that with cosmos gone, the task of destroying the machine seemed impossible. From the previous studies, the automation seemed to produce some sort of radiation which sent the signals to the target and had a force field created by pressurising the air around to create some sort of protection that would blast things backward. this meant that low flying planes, loose balloons and other flying objects would get destroyed whilst the radiation continued. Eventually, people started to notice a pattern that only people under 65 were getting controlled and objects under 2 years. People then to tried to figure out ways to bypass this limitation by changing appearance, rewiring hard-drive but nothing worked.

Meanwhile, Alioth and Reeper were still floating in the abyss and biding their time as the black hole did not seem to have any affect. Maybe this was because of their machine still trying to protect them but that seemed unlikely and because although it was very powerful, by no means was it built for outer space communications or help so it seemed to be some other factor of this place.

It was, in fact an alien base but its signals were so similar to a black hole that Cosmos’ AI was tricked into sending where alien life was inhabited and waiting for some higher being to try and investigate a black and come across them. This was in a dark room with a one-way mirror to observe such beings that found their research lab and to run tests.

Jiaming:

If they’d had Cosmos, they could simply ask for a portal straight to the machine, but there was one obvious problem: Cosmos was gone. Forever. They had to save the world – they new that. But how were they to travel to North Dakota without getting killed in an accident of somekind? Reeper and Alioth wouldn’t be the only ones to control the machine; if they had the brains to create an everything-hacking machine, they would have the brains to leave some possesed people to continue the world domination if they were away. And more than likely there would be hundreds of guards, protecting the machine in a trance.Furthermore, how were the three friends to know whether or not THEY would get hacked? They couldn’t be the only ones to save mankind, but leaving somebody else the job wasn’t their personality, and (this might be arrogant and mean) they had no faith in anyone.

After brain-racking for ages and mouring for Cosmos’ destuction, George found out that althought Cosmos was in pieces and couldn’t be hacked, certain parts were still alive. A portal to the hanging platform on the KVLY-TV Mast? Easy-peasy. Beating up a hundred Dwayne Johnsons then trying to figure out how to hack the greatest hacker in the universe? Not so much.

Taiyan:

Off the trio went to try and devise a plan upon how to destroy this machine. First of all, they figured out that to even get close to the machine they had to find some sort of protection which proved quite difficult to do as they still did not know how the machine worked and was almost impossible to study because the force field.

Meanwhile, the aliens found Reeper extremely useful with his knowledge on neuroscience and they were working on products to use to sell to the community but only at a price. Reeper wanted to rule the Earth and with the special alien technology he could easily best the entire world’s militia but there was one problem. Alioth and Reeper’s machine was going to control the minds of every species that stepped foot on Earth and they had to rethink their ideas but within a week a plan was formed.