Page 250 - The Chronicles Ser2 (6-10)

“I thought I was good at these sorts of puzzles. This one has got
me tied in brain knots” Derek said in exhausted frustration.
And he cursed the Curator genius that had locked the control
panel this way. Sandra laughed. Just then; Lance and Ron who
had been away to fetch some refreshments, walked in on the
laughter.
“What’s so funny?” Ron asked; Lance agreeing with him.
“It’s this damnable cypher” Derek swore something in Buraxin
“It’s like nothing I’ve come across before. I swear it keeps
resetting my inputs” he added and thumped the side of the
unit. That made Sandra’s giggling even louder.
“Honestly Derek; your behaving like a spoiled child. Show me
what you were trying to do” she said and Derek explained how
the strange electronic input panel worked. She looked at the
pad and the combinations that he’d tried and rearranged them into a grid.
“Twelve by twelve in a grid… I wonder?” she said and highlighted a diagonal set of symbols. The
input panel had the same twelve symbols in a hexagonal array. She pressed the highlighted
combination. The panel flashed and a chime sounded. On one of the frosted windows a display of a
countdown appeared.
“How … What?” Derek stammered dumbfounded.
“Simple really what do you get when you multiply twelve by itself? No need to answer that it’s 144. I
looked over the attempts you’d made and arranged them in a grid. You made twelve attempts that
came up with a response other than a reset of the panel. One seemed to stand out as unusual; that
one made the power supply glitch and the lights flicker before resetting. I assumed that meant
“close but no Cigar”. I’d seen something like it before. I looked to see if there was a similar pattern
and sure enough the diagonal I chose to highlight was the inverse of your attempt” she said proudly
“you’d just been over complicating things a little. I used to crack the combination lock on my
brothers locker. He used a hieroglyph set and some of the symbols here are close to those” she
added
“Damn! Remind me never to let you in my study; my safe is an old combination model” Derek
whistled. The unit appeared to be starting a slow reanimation procedure. Derek had the unit moved
to an area they could secure and that was a safe distance from the habitation block. All they could
do now was to wait…

…T’luha and Leeson were exploring the vast garage for the farming equipment. Tuulk and
another ensign were attempting to gain access to yet another locked set of doors. This appeared to
be to an elevator. T’luha spotted something on the floor in a corner; she dusted it down. It was
another of the Crystal plaques that Midas’s team had found.
“These remind me of those that the Eloi had on the platform there might be something to go in this
slot…” she said when the young ensign with Tuulk managed to get the panel to open up.
“It’s a dummy front to whatever this is… is?” she exclaimed. Leeson and T’luha came over with the
rest of the team.
“That angled bracket and the connector look as if…” T’luha placed the connector into the slot. The
cabochon began to pulsate. She pressed it and the doors opened. It
was the entrance to a stairwell. The illumination was dim, but
afforded enough light to make out that the stairwell led down to a
lower floor. They set off down the stairs and this brought them to a
sort of staging area. There were elevators for freight and people and
rows of desks along one wall. Various mechanical weighing devices
and containers were evident. There were a large number of the
metallic tokens scattered about. Another of the second type of badge