Chilly stared at the image on the screen. "Components?" he said. "All I see is a circle, a cross, and that wiggly thing."
"It's an infinity symbol," Naika corrected him, tapping on the keyboard quickly, making the image separate in the parts he mentioned. He shook his head while watching. "Still, what does it mean? It just looked simpler to me."
"Think about it, Chilly," Naika said as she leaned back on her chair. "A circle connotes eternity, isn't it? It seems redundant that an infinity symbol be included as well." Chilly blinked. "Forever and ever and ever?" he said, still confused.
"And a cross can mean anything," Naika continued. She frowned. "Usually it denotes Christianity, but ancient pagans used it as well. Wait up." She began typing again, accessing the internet for more clues. Chilly meanwhile stood up and began to pace. "So, this is a religious symbol then? It must be the weirdest religion to have some sort of church out in the middle of a snow country and have armed guards patrolling the damn site!"
"You might be on to something," Naika muttered. It seemed to make sense, yet bits of it were still missing, dangling in front of her like some delicious bait. She then remembered something and started typing again. This time, several windows opened showing the files they have found from the outpost.
"Hey," Chilly said, coming behind her and leaning over for a closer look, realizing what those files were. "Didn't you turn that over already? How come you have it?" Naika grinned. "Chilly, you're the weapons master. I'm intelligence – do you think I'd just hand these over to them? Of course, I need copies!" She continued looking through the files, her eyes intent in concentration.
"This seems to be encrypted," she muttered as she tried to break through it. "It looks like accounting files on the surface, but I can peek at glimpses of…" her voice trailed off. Chilly looked at her then at the monitor. He couldn't make sense of anything, in his opinion. All he saw were just a bunch of numbers and unknown abbreviations scrolling down. What did she mean she was glimpsing at?
Naika clucked her tongue, something she always did whenever she spied a challenging hack. "Come on, dammit. Give!" she said, clicking away. The numbers moved even faster, it seemed to Chilly's eyes.
Then, one row of the scrolling numbers stopped, followed by other rows in the screen. They quickly rearranged themselves and coalesced into an image file. It slowly sharpened its details, and Chilly found that he was holding his breath in anticipation. Naika, too, was quiet.
The image cleared and both of them gasped. "It's impossible," Naika whispered, her eyes wide. "There's no way that could happen."
Chilly narrowed his eyes in thought. Things were now getting more disturbing. The picture made this situation more suspicious, and only the Director has the answers to it. He stared at the image in front of them.
He stared at the image of Kira.
Originally Posted On Site: 2007-09-11 22:55:27
Last Login: 05.09.08
Visits as of 12-12-07: 42
