About The Scarlett Kite
Hi! I'm Scarlett Kiteway, I'm 20 years old, a journalism student in Perplex City and this is my blog all about the excitement over the search for the Cube. I'll be keeping track of what the media over there is saying about it, and maybe a little bit about my life as well!
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Friday, August 26, 2005
my investigations continue
Category: story, 02:45 PMViendenbourg. Everything keeps coming back to that name. First, a mysterious note written in pencil on the back of a dead man's file. Now, a name scribbled on a map given to me by a stranger in a museum. Things are just getting weirder and weirder.
Of course, the first thing I did was to go back to the museum, to try to find that old man again. The very next day, I went back and asked around. The lady in the military archive room said she'd seen him a couple of times before, and that he uses *paper* ID, rather than using a key. She didn't seem that surprised, said a lot of the older people prefer to use paper ID. She thought his name was Peter something - not very helpful. She wouldn't look it up for me, and she wouldn't tell me what he'd been examining. I was about to leave, frustrated. Then I had a brainwave.
I said: "I saw he was looking at a box labelled 5BC; it must be a very moving set of material." And she said: "Oh yes, he cries every time he looks at it." And then she put her hand to her mouth, as if she shouldn't have said anything. I checked on the military archive database; there are 7,968 boxes for 5BC, so that doesn't get me very far, but at least it's something.
On the way home, I stopped at a map store. I'm going on vacation soon with my friends Margot and Sanj and... my boyfriend Brede! We've only just started going out, so I'm still a bit overexcited. He's great, so kind and sweet. I worried it might be a bit weird going on vacation together now that we've started dating, but I think it'll be fine. Anyway, I'd promised the guys that I'd get maps for our trip to Tanraga, so I bought the most detailed, most close-up ones I could; downloads for my key as well as paper maps. The map the old guy had put onto that data button wasn't the most accurate in the world, just a sketch-map really, but he'd put in a few key landmarks: the Grey Towers, Veldet Lake, Iskara Peak, the Sunken Island, so I thought I could probably work out where Viendenbourg might be on an up-to-date map.
As I walked home, I thought about what all this could mean. Obviously that guy in the archives was doing historical research, so he probably knows all about old place names. Maybe he wanted to tell me where Viendenbourg was, but didn't want to get into conversation with me, or talk to the archivist. Maybe he was just being old-fashioned and charming. But I couldn't help having a prickling feeling at the back of my neck. Maybe he knew I'd be there. Maybe he'd been waiting for me, or for someone, to come round asking about Viendenbourg. How did I know the information he'd given me was accurate, anyway? Maybe he was just some mad old guy who heard me saying this weird word and made up an explanation for it. How could a whole place be forgotten anyway? If Viendenbourg was the name of a village, even an old name, why wouldn't it be in the records?
When I got home, I looked carefully at the map the man in the archive room had given me. Viendenbourg. It's in what looks like a deep mountain ravine, with a small lake to the north. North of Iskara Peak, to the west of Veldet Lake, almost surrounded by the spiky range of the Grey Towers. It's not a place you'd really go to on vacation - Veldet is beautiful and lush, Iskara is magnificent but the Grey Towers are bleak - stunning from a distance but no fun to hike - just miles and miles of shifting shale. I mean, people go there, but not *many* people. And this place is right in the middle of them. You wouldn't even get a good view! Still, it was pretty well identified on this map.
So, I brought up my up-to-date maps and overlaid them, matching peak to peak, ragged lake shore to lake shore, slowly bringing the two maps into line with each other. And I looked. And there, on my modern map, where a village called Viendenbourg should be there was... nothing. No ravine. No small lake. No village. Nothing.
Wednesday, August 24, 2005
A sad day
Category: me, 02:28 PMThe Sentinel had a service this morning to commemorate one of their reporters who died a little while ago - Pietro Salk. I didn't really know him; I met him a few times last time I was interning at the Sentinel, we had lunch together sometimes among a group of people. It was a really lovely service, held in the Sentinel building's atrium, where people just walked up to the microphone to share their memories of working with Pietro. I didn't have anything much to say - I just said a couple of words about how I remember that Pietro would make a point to pick up Julian Blooms for his wife on Fridays, when the ones he grew himself didn't meet his exacting standards. I always found that so sweet - I could tell just by the time he took choosing those flowers how in love he was with his wife.
Monday, August 22, 2005
it's getting more mysterious...
Category: story, 08:55 PMViendenbourg.
I stared at the file for a few minutes, just to convince myself that the faint pencil note was really there. Reynolds ionizers. Viendenbourg. The word meant nothing to me, but I jotted it down on a scrap of paper, and then carefully put the file back in Pietro's desk drawer, where I'd found it. I left the office, smiling at the security guard on duty downstairs, feeling like I had the biggest secret in the world burning a hole in my brain. Pietro must have done research into Reynolds ionizers, must have found out more than that they're just "military tech". This was a lead.
Of course, the first thing I did when I got home was to check my key for anything about Viendenbourg. Nothing. It's not the name of a person, it's not the name of a place, it's not the name of a company. I thought of putting out a request for information in a tech chatroom, but that seemed like it'd draw too much attention to me. I'd have to be more sneaky.
I had a long think the next day. Clearly, I was looking for something that had *some* link to military technology. So perhaps someone who knew about military technology could help me. My key hadn't brought up any matches for the name Viendenbourg, but someone out there in the city must know what it meant. Unless, of course, Pietro Salk had just made it up. But something about the simple fact that I couldn't find any information on the word Viendenbourg convinced me that wasn't the case. If it were just a random word there'd be something, somewhere. This felt like a cover-up.
So I put on my walking shoes (in fact my sister Violet's stylish black leather kneeboots :-)) and went out to visit the Museum of Perplex City where I know they keep a lot of military records. I figured maybe Viendenbourg might be the name of some old general - something that someone might tell me if I wasn't asking about Reynolds ionizers in the same breath.
I love the Museum. It's clean and white, with high ceilings and lots of light. They have a special room dedicated to the military archives and there were about 20 people each sitting quietly next to a box full of old papers, looking through documents. I was the youngest person there by probably 40 years! I guess there are a lot of older people researching their family histories. One white-haired man was looking through a box of papers dated 5BC with tears rolling down his cheeks. Military history must make moving reading.
I asked one of the research assistants if she could help me find out anything about Viendenbourg. She was around 80 or 90 years old - lots of older people volunteer as docents and advisors at the museum. She was very sweet, but completely useless. She checked the museum key system but found nothing, so we went meticulously through every record in her physical index system. I felt terrible, because we were talking pretty loudly and the room was really quiet. Everyone must have heard what we were saying.
After about an hour, we'd exhausted the physical records and it didn't look as if we'd got anywhere. So I thanked her for her time, and she started to put the records away. As she walked off, I started to gather my belongings together, so didn't notice the old man from the 5BC box until he was right next to me. Up close, he didn't look as old as I'd thought - maybe only 60. His eyes were very pale blue, translucent as if their colour had been worn away over the years.
He said: "I think you dropped this" and put a tiny data-button into my hand.
"Oh no, I didn't have one."
The elderly man looked up. The research assistant came closer. He closed my fingers over the data-button and smiled:
"Yes," he said, "I think it belongs to you."
And as I was standing there, puzzled, he walked off. Surprisingly fast for an old man.
I have to confess, I thought he must have put his contact details onto that button, or some weird key virus, so I wasn't in a hurry toit up. When I got home, I set up an "airlock" function to protect my data andd it up. But it wasn't some old man's details, but a map. Of an area near the Tanraga mountains. With what looked like a small village marked with an x, and a little, scribbled note. "Viendenbourg. Before everything changed."
Friday, August 19, 2005
Oops!
Category: print, 05:11 PMIt's been a while since I've updated! With working at the Sentinel, everything in my life has got a bit... busy. It seems like I don't have any time to myself at all anymore. But, to keep up with the Earth media, here's an article from Der Spiegel. I'm glad they've noticed that Perplex City lives!
In other news, Brede, who I work with on The Column, asked me out this week! On a proper date, not just a friends thing. I've had a bit of a crush on him for a little while now, and I didn't think he'd ever notice me... :-D. It's a bit weird, because we're going away to Tanraga with another couple of friends in a few weeks time, but I think it'll be really great! Wheeeeee! Vacation and new guy in my life!
Friday, August 12, 2005
I found something important
Category: story, 06:13 PMThe Sentinel's a weird place to work. It's Perplex City's leading newspaper, so everyone's serious and focused, but at the same time there's an "atmosphere of trust", so it's OK to take long lunches and wander off for hours at a time. Which, I have to say, I do tend to do sometimes, being an intern. It's been kind of a dull week, all things considered, only punctuated by long lunches with friends and colleagues. Except for last night, which wasn't dull at all. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Monday was pretty standard. Iona Rodie, my friend here at the Sentinel, took me round to introduce me to the staff as the new intern. We passed by Pietro Salk's desk - he was a Sentinel reporter who died a few weeks ago. It was really sad; he was young and his death was completely unexpected, just a sudden stroke, they said. His desk has a picture of him on it now, and some flowers. It's a strange empty place in the middle of a busy office. People go quiet every time they walk past his desk.
Wednesday, my sister Violet and her friend Kurt came to see me. Kurt's one of the few other people in Perplex City to have a website that can be viewed from Earth. We love to talk about the letters we get from people on Earth and compare thoughts but on Wednesday Kurt seemed sort of rattled, which was odd. Apparently last week one of his Earth correspondents had asked him to find out what a "Reynolds ionizer" was. He drew a blank, but his key (the all-purpose sort of computer we use here) detected that a military trace was being used to find out who he was. He thought he'd blocked it, but he's been finding a couple of odd things on his key since then, which makes him think that maybe something got through and he's being tracked.
I have to say, I didn't think much about it after that. Kurt's really cool, and excellent with technology - I was sure that his key couldn't have got infected with anything too damaging. Thursday, no one came to see me :-( So I spent my lunch hour checking through some of the email *I'd* received from people on Earth. Strangely, quite a few people wanted me to go and have a look at Pietro Salk's desk, to see what I could find out about him. I guess whenever someone dies unexpectedly, you always want to know what they were like, to understand what happened. Anyway, I didn't mind, but I thought I should probably wait until everyone else had left the office.
That was the hardest part, really, staying in the building long enough to do it. I often stay until 8pm or 9pm - everyone does, it's just part of the job. When the first people left, I said I was "finishing something up". Then when a few stragglers were leaving, they kept asking what I was working on that was so urgent. I said it was schoolwork, and they rolled their eyes. At 11pm, the Sentinel's editor Michiko Clark herself wandered through the office; I think she was quietly impressed to see me still working, but she didn't say anything and I felt too guilty to say hello!
But by 11.30pm the floor was silent apart from the hum of the air conditioner. I walked over to Pietro's desk. The office was eerie - the only movement was my reflection in the dark windows. I kept thinking that a security guard was going to find me, or that someone in a neighbouring office block would look over and see what I was doing. But the floor was quiet. I stood in front of the desk - there was nothing on it apart from a floral display and a big picture of Pietro, smiling. I turned the picture face down on the desk.
I sat down in his chair. That felt weird too. No one sits at this desk now. I pulledhis file drawer. It was mostly empty. A few old case files lingered at the back, for stories of his that are over and done with: Zindian Trials, Tompeka and Lode, Five of Cups. I remember that story - it's recent. A guy got murdered in his bar and they found technological equipment stashed there. I pulled the file out andd it, but there was nothing in it. I don't mean that there was nothing interesting in it - I mean that it was empty. I didn't quite understand that. If someone had taken over Pietro's files, why hadn't they taken the file folder out as well?
I put the file folder back down on Pietro's desk and stared at my reflection in the window. Nothing seemed to make sense, and I'd wasted a perfectly good evening searching through a dead man's desk. I felt ashamed of myself. I went to put the file back in the file drawer, to leave everything as I found it. Which was when I noticed something. A tiny note written in pencil but definitely in Pietro Salk's handwriting. On the back of the file folder, just by the metal hanging rod. It said this:
Reynolds ionizers. Viendenbourg.
Friday, August 12, 2005
Last night
Category: me, 03:30 PMHi. A few of you had emailed me to ask if I could look for something for you, in the Sentinel offices. And last night I did. And I didn't find what I expected. And... I don't think I can carry on blogging about this. I'll be sending an email soon.
Monday, August 8, 2005
Lunchtime
Category: me, 04:30 PMWell, here I am back in the Sentinel offices! Taking a quick lunchbreak to update you on my day. Not that I've had much to do this morning, it's been a whole lot of saying hi to people, with them smiling and saying things like: "Great! An intern! I've been wanting someone to clean out that back store cupboard." Still, everyone's really friendly and it's great to be back on the newsfloor, hearing about all the stories before they hit the paper :-D. I just love the buzz you get from sitting in a newspaper office!
One sad thing is that I'm only sitting a few desks away from Pietro Salk's old desk. They've left it mostly as it was, although they've cleaned out his old files of course. It's so sad what happened to Pietro; I think they're planning a little Sentinel memorial service sometime soon which I'll go to. I didn't know him very well at all but I remember seeing him in the office last time I was here, and I know everyone at the Sentinel misses him very much.
Friday, August 5, 2005
Back to the Sentinel!
Category: me, 10:25 AMOK, so... I know I said I'd never do this again, but... I'm going back to the Sentinel! Iona says they've been enjoying my pieces in The Column, so they've offered me another internship for a couple of weeks over the summer. I thought about saying no after those things that Michiko said to me, but I don't think I'll be seeing her that much anyway, and I had such a good time last year. And as I have time before the Tanraga trip, and I don't want to be hanging around the house... it just all makes sense! So, from Monday I'm back interning at the Sentinel - wish me luck!
Wednesday, August 3, 2005
My new article
Category: me, 06:00 PMThings have slowed down a bit at the Column, what with the summer vacation, but we're still putting out the odd edition. Here's my latest report of a jaunt around the city - my trip to Mazy Wave Court!
Amazing Wave Court
We've all been there on school trips, we've all taken pictures of the ancient frescos and spent a happy hour or two lost in one of its mazes. We've all sat through yet another lecture on "Classical Maze Design and Implementation" and, perhaps, silently cursed Mazy Wave Court for ever having been built. But is there more to Council Leader Liern's mansion than an educational day out for children and source material for historians? In the summer heat, I decided to find out.
My first impressions weren't particularly inspiring. Catering to the school holidays, Mazy Wave Court provides a range of events and puzzle trails for children - useful for parents who want to amuse their children for a few hours, not so pleasant for adults who'd like to spend an afternoon away from the hordes of children who invade the park at this time of year. The mansion itself was practically a no-go area for adults. The house was filled with children searching for those historic elements to the building we've all found in our time - the carved mark of three, the statue of Madna with his jug, the six interlinked mazes in the faces of the hexagonal chamber. These historic features are certainly worth another look, but perhaps not when 45 children are taking pictures of them.
But wandering away from the house, I found the hidden treasure of Mazy Wave Court - its gardens. As a child I remember finding the intricately-patterned gardens rather dull, and this seemed to be the opinion held by most of the young visitors to the Court last week. The main mazes were heaving with children, but the outer gardens were calm oases of tranquility. The apothecary garden, dedicated to plants, shrubs and trees which were thought to have healing properties, was wonderfully restful, even offering a discreet stall selling fresh lemonade and various old-fashioned "remedies". I don't know whether it'll achieve its original aim of "cureing the skin of all inflammations and noxious dis-eases" but the strawberry cleansing cream I purchased was certainly soothing.
The furthest garden is a particular treat - it looks out onto Founders Lake, with a small jetty allowing visitors to take out rowboats or simply relax and admire the view. Though the building itself may be awash with children,
the gardens secure Mazy Wave Court a very favourable verdict.