“You . . . what?” asked Charlie’s mom, seeming to forget about Project Chimera for the moment. “Did you find out the combination?”
“Not exactly,” Charlie hedged.
“Well, I need it opened. If you think you can do it, be my guest.”
Charlie decided not to mention that she would also be destroying the safe by opening it. She figured seeing her in action was probably the best way to start explaining the device to her mom. Mrs. Wilde moved out of the way, and Charlie sat down and grabbed on to the safe handle. Her sticky gecko fingertips ensured a tight grip. “Stand back,” she said. She put her feet against the edges of the box.
Mrs. Wilde looked dubious. “I’m not so sure that’s the best way to go about it,” she said. “Don’t hurt yourself.”
Charlie didn’t reply. Feeling the warmth from the bracelet, she took a deep breath, concentrated, and pulled until her knuckles turned white. At the same time she pushed her feet hard against the frame. The door to the safe groaned and shivered. It bent at the corners. Then, with a loud THUNK, Charlie flew backward. She hit the closet wall hard, safe door in hand, and felt the drywall collapse against her back. “Oof,” she said as all the breath was forced out of her. Pulling off safe doors was one of her least favorite things to do, she decided. She sat up carefully, little bits of drywall dust slipping down the back of her sweatshirt, and peered out of the closet.
“Charlie!” Mrs. Wilde cried.
Andy stared at his sister, incredulous. “What the—?” said Andy. “How—?”
Mom hurried to Charlie’s side. “Are you okay? How in the world did you do that?”
Charlie set down the door and peered inside the safe. It was half full of papers, envelopes, and some important-looking documents. “Welp,” she said, easing gingerly out of the way so her mother could look for whatever she needed, “it’s kind of a long story.”
Mrs. Wilde recovered her wits and checked Charlie over. Then she sat down in front of the open safe while Charlie told her and Andy about the bracelet. She explained how she’d found a package among their moving boxes with her name on it. How the bracelet had gotten stuck on her arm and wouldn’t come off after the school bathroom incident, where she’d torn the sink right out of the wall. How she’d even saved a mother and child from a house fire using a variety of the five distinct animalistic powers the device had given her. “Sometimes the bracelet powers turn on when I don’t need them,” she explained, “but that can actually come in handy sometimes.”
“Wait,” Charlie’s mom said. “Go back. You’re saying you are the one who saved that woman and her baby from the fire? I worked on them in the ER.” She shook her head in disbelief. “I can hardly . . . What on earth possessed you to go inside a burning house? Didn’t you see how dangerous it was? Charlie! I—I don’t even know what to say.” She looked around the torn-apart office, utterly perplexed and bewildered by the developments.
“But I’m fine because of the healing powers,” Charlie argued. “Remember my leg after I got hurt in soccer tryouts? It healed completely—by morning. Plus, I have an obligation to help people. . . .” She trailed off, remembering her talk with Maria about that.
“You’re a maniac,” said Andy, his voice filled with awe.
Mrs. Wilde stared at Charlie for a long moment, like she still couldn’t believe what she was hearing and wasn’t sure how to respond. “This is so . . . shocking,” she murmured. “I don’t—I almost can’t fathom what you’re saying. But your leg and that fire rescue? And now the safe . . . ?” She shook her head, almost dazed, then turned to look at Charlie. “I can’t deny that those abilities seem beyond normal. I’m almost afraid to ask, but what else has happened?”
“Yeah,” said Andy, like he couldn’t believe there might be more. “What else?”
“Well,” said Charlie, “people are after the bracelet . . . and they might be the same people who kidnapped Dad.” Hesitantly Charlie trudged onward with the story, telling her mother and Andy about the three strange soldiers in full bodysuits who’d attacked her and Maria on their way home from school earlier that day. “And three different ones kidnapped Mac and brought him to an old abandoned warehouse. But he’s okay. We rescued him.”
“You did WHAT?” cried Mrs. Wilde. “By yourselves?” All semblance of the steady, even-keeled doctor had flown out the window—their mom had uncorked.
Charlie cringed but plowed forward because she knew she had to get to the most important part. “After we fought off the soldiers, we found some papers in the warehouse. They had Dad’s old work logo on them, like these.” She pointed to the paper she’d been looking at earlier. “And Dad’s name was on at least one of the papers, too.” Charlie ducked her head in preparation for her mother to explode again, but that didn’t happen.
Diana Wilde stared long and hard at her daughter. Everything was so farfetched, so inconceivable. Charlie held her breath and waited for her mother to deny that any of this was possible. The last thing she expected was for her mother to actually believe it.
“Project Chimera,” Mrs. Wilde murmured.
Charlie looked up, searching her mother’s face. “That’s what was written on the folder we found. And this bracelet is called Chimera Mark Five—it says it on one of the screens.”
Charlie’s mom put her hands up to her face, as if she were trying to pull her thoughts together. Then she expelled a deep breath, dropped her hands in her lap, and opened her eyes. She wore a new expression of resolve. “I really can’t believe this is happening,” she said.
“Do you think she’s making it up?” Andy asked. He sounded like he wanted to believe Charlie but wasn’t sure that a grown-up might.
“I’m not lying,” Charlie implored. “I promise. Look.” She held out her arm and shoved her sleeve up high, then clicked the bracelet and showed her mother the message scrolling in red letters, CHIMERA MARK FIVE . . . DEFENSE MODE INITIATED . . . KEY IN ACCESS CODE TO DEACTIVATE.
Then she showed her the screen where the animated silver elephant, green lizard, and pink starfish pulsed.
After a long moment Charlie’s mother placed a comforting hand on the girl’s wrist. “I believe you,” she said quietly. “It’s seems impossible, but because of the little bit I know about your father’s old job, I do. And since I believe you, I need to find what I was looking for now more than ever.” Quickly she began to flip through the items in the safe, shoving things aside that she didn’t need. Finally she discovered a small white envelope at the back. Charlie’s mom snatched it up and held it. Her first name was on it, written in Mr. Wilde’s familiar scrawl. “This is it,” she said. Her fingers shook as she ripped open the seal and pulled out a piece of paper.
She unfolded it, and the kids moved to look over their mother’s shoulder so they could read it too. It was a printout, dated ten years ago.
My love,
If you’re reading this, the worst has happened. I had hoped you’d never need this—hoped that my colleagues and I were being ridiculously cautious. Unfortunately our instincts must have been right.
I’m sorry I’ve had to be so secretive all these years, and that this letter is cryptic—it was necessary in case it fell into the wrong hands. In the event that something tragic has befallen me, this should help.
Andy and Charlie looked sidelong at each other with troubled expressions. What was their father talking about? It had to be about his top secret work at Talos Global—that was the only thing that made sense. But what had he been so worried about back then to make him write such a letter and have some sort of conversation with their mom about it?
Charlie pressed her lips together, wanting desperately to ask questions but knowing now wasn’t the right time. She continued reading.
Instead, I need you to contact someone who will help you—someone you can trust completely. You have the information at your fingertips. I know you can find it. And . . . apologies for the extra precautions.
“What does he mean?” asked Andy. “This letter makes no sense.”
“Shh,” said Charlie.
I love you and Charlotte and the baby with all my heart. You’re the strongest, smartest person I know, and you will get through this.
Yours qlways,
Charles
“I’m the baby, right?” whispered Andy.
“Shh,” said Charlie again, poking her brother with her elbow and nodding once sharply in their mother’s direction.
Charlie’s mom was studying the letter. “I have the information?” she muttered. She dropped her hand with the note and closed her eyes in despair. “An entire decade has passed since then, Charles. I barely remember the conversation. If something was going to happen, we expected it to be years ago.”
“You were right about the ‘safe’ clue,” said Charlie, trying to be encouraging.
“Yes. I just had the most unusual feeling when he said it like that, which is why . . .” She got to her feet and began looking around the room. “This clue is so random. I have the information? Where?”
“Didn’t he say it was at your fingertips?” asked Charlie. “Maybe that’s the clue.”
“Yeah,” said Andy. “Maybe he means it’s on your computer. Because, you know. Typing. Fingertips. Get it?”
Mrs. Wilde nodded thoughtfully, then her eyes widened. “I hope that didn’t get stolen too.” She darted out of the office and went to the living room, where she kept her laptop. The kids followed.
The laptop was gone.
“Oh no!” cried Mrs. Wilde. “All my stuff!” She looked around the living room in case she’d only misplaced it, but it wasn’t anywhere. “Now what?”
They thought for a moment, trying not to despair, but Andy struggled to hold back his tears. Charlie wondered if her brother fully understood what was happening. She doubted it. He could see how upset their mom was, and he was probably taking his cues from her.
Charlie went over all the information again in her head. “It’s weird that Dad would put a clue on your laptop when he knows you don’t carry it with you to work and stuff. But you also use your fingertips for your phone, and you never go anywhere without that.”
Mom studied Charlie thoughtfully. “Good point. You might be onto something, Charlie.” She pulled her phone from her pocket and placed the letter from Charles on the coffee table, then sat down on the couch and began looking through her apps. Andy’s tears dried up, and he and Charlie sat around her, watching and offering suggestions on which apps could hold a clue.
“Wait a minute,” said Charlie, her heart sinking. “You didn’t have this phone ten years ago when Dad wrote the note. Maybe he put a clue in the phone you had back then, and it’s gone for good.”
Mrs. Wilde’s shoulders sagged, and she closed her eyes momentarily, then opened them again. “Okay, you’re right in that I’ve upgraded phones several times since then. But I think they’ve all been smartphones for at least that long. The information transfers—contacts do, anyway. And he’s smart enough to put it somewhere that would back up to my computer, too.” She abruptly went to her contacts list and checked her husband’s information, but there was nothing unusual about the entry.
After several minutes of fruitless scrolling Mrs. Wilde set the phone in her lap and returned to the letter, muttering as she reread the key phrases.
Charlie and Andy read it over again, too. At your fingertips. Smartest person. Were any of these words supposed to be a code for something else?
“He spelled ‘always’ wrong,” Andy pointed out.
Charlie rolled her eyes. Now was not the time to criticize their father’s typing abilities. “It’s just a typo,” Charlie said. “The ‘q’ is right above the ‘a’ on the keyboard. Simple mistake.”
Mrs. Wilde paused in her search. “That’s odd, though, isn’t it? Spell-check would have picked that up.”
“Did you even have spell-check back in the old days?” asked Andy.
Mrs. Wilde almost smiled. “Yes, son. Amazingly we did, even way back then.” She studied the typo and mused, “Your father hates typos. He would never print such an important letter with a mistake like that in it.”
“Do you think he spelled it ‘qlways’ on purpose?” asked Charlie.
“Maybe.” Mom scratched her head. “But what’s the significance? Is the absence of the ‘a’ or the presence of the ‘q’ the important part?”
“I think the ‘q’ is the clue,” said Charlie. “He could have just left the ‘a’ off if he didn’t want it there.”
“You’re right,” said Mrs. Wilde. “So what does it mean?”
Andy inched closer. “Search your contacts under the letter Q!”
Mrs. Wilde was already going back to her list of contacts. “I’ve had a lot of friends and colleagues over the years, but I don’t think I know anybody whose name starts with Q,” she said. She entered the letter and hit the search button.
There was one entry—a very mysterious one, at that. First name Q, last name S. And in place of a phone number, there was a jumbled mess of numbers and letters.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” asked Charlie, staring at the string of letters and numbers. “That’s not a phone number. Who is QS?”
Charlie’s mother examined the contact entry. “I don’t know. I certainly didn’t add this.”
“So you think we found the clue?” asked Andy.
“I really hope so,” Mrs. Wilde said. She studied the strange code as a feeling of hopelessness settled over them. What were they supposed to do with this nonsensical clue? She swallowed hard and her eyes pooled.
Charlie watched her. “Are you okay?” she asked.
“Just . . . worried.” She sniffed and took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “All right, kids,” she said, shaking off the tears. “We have to be brave. Let’s figure out this clue so we can find your father. Andy, can you get me a notepad and pencil?”
Andy hopped off the couch and made his way around the mess to the kitchen near the landline phone, where they kept such things. He brought the items back to his mother.
“There are ten characters,” said Mrs. Wilde, “which is good. It means this is probably a coded phone number. I’m trying to figure out how to decipher it.”
“I’ve worked with ciphers in school,” said Charlie, eager to do something to help.
“Me too,” said Andy. “First you write the alphabet in a line.”
Their mother was already scribbling the entire alphabet on the paper in a long row. Below that she wrote a row of numbers, one through twenty-six, a number under each letter.
Then the three of them looked back at the contact information and studied the strange phone number for QS. There were five letters alternating with five numbers. The first character in the string was a letter.
“He gave you five of the numbers,” Andy pointed out.
“I don’t think those are the right ones, though,” murmured Mrs. Wilde. “That would be too easy. But we’ll get to that. Let’s start with the letters.” She matched all five letters from the code on her phone screen to the numbers they corresponded with on the paper in front of her. She wrote those numbers down, keeping them in the same order as in the code. “How am I doing so far?”
“Looks good to me,” said Charlie, and Andy nodded.
“Here’s the tricky part.” Mrs. Wilde thought for a moment, then looked at her phone again to check the code. She took all the numbers Mr. Wilde had given her and matched them up with their corresponding letters in the alphabet cipher. She wrote those letters down too and plugged them into the empty spaces. Now all the letters in the original code were numbers, and the numbers were letters.
“I don’t see how that gives you a phone number,” said Charlie, who was watching intently. “You just have the opposite of the jumbled mess you had before.”
“Just hang on,” said her mother. She hesitated, thinking hard. “Your father always knew how much I despised his little coded puzzles,” she said with a sardonic laugh. “But he adores them. What do I do now?”
The three of them stared at the code. It didn’t offer anything to let them know they were on the right track. Andy started searching common ciphers on his phone, while Charlie wondered aloud if the letters were supposed to spell something. But if they did, then what? They needed numbers. After a while she gave up and looked over Andy’s shoulder as he continued to search different options. They tried a few, but none of them seemed to be right.
“Sometimes people use numbers to mean letters,” Charlie said. “Like three for E, or one for I.”
“Yeah,” said Andy, looking hopeful.
“Wait,” said Mrs. Wilde, suddenly inspired. She opened the keypad on her phone and pointed to the numbers. “That reminds me of a code Charles used before, when he made me figure out a clue in order to open a present he’d bought me. See how each number on the keypad has three letters that go with it?”
The kids nodded.
“I’ll bet that’s our secret. For each of the letters we have here, we match them up to the number they correspond with on the keypad.” Mrs. Wilde took each letter, found the number it went with on the phone, and wrote those numbers in place of the letters in her new code.
“That’s so cool,” said Andy. “I always wondered what those letters were good for.”
“Tricky,” said Charlie. She nibbled on her thumbnail anxiously, thinking of her father. “I hope it’s right.”
By the time Mrs. Wilde was done, she had a ten-digit phone number scrawled on the paper. “Okay,” she said, cautious confidence growing in her voice. “It’s a Chicago area code, which makes me think we did something right. Here goes. Cross your fingers that we’ve got this.” Her hand shook as she dialed. After she finished entering the numbers, she pressed the speaker button.
The phone rang. Four times. Five. Six. It didn’t go to voice mail. Charlie and Andy exchanged a glance. Finally, on the seventh ring, someone picked up but didn’t say anything for several seconds. Then a woman asked guardedly, “Who are you trying to reach?”
Mrs. Wilde swallowed hard, her eyes darting to her children.
“Say something,” Charlie whispered.
Their mom leaned over the phone and spoke clearly and distinctly, “Q. S.” She paused, then added, “Please.”
“Who’s calling?”
“It’s . . . I’m Diana. Diana Wilde.”
There was silence on the other end. For a moment the three Wildes thought the person had hung up. Mrs. Wilde put a finger to her lips to ensure her children wouldn’t say anything. They remained quiet. Charlie thought she could hear a faint sound of clicking on the other end, like someone was typing.
The three looked at one another, confused. And then the woman spoke again. “Hello, Diana,” she said. “I’m very sorry to hear from you. This is Dr. Quinn Sharma. Is anyone forcing you to make this call?”