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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Monday, August 22, 2005
it's getting more mysterious...
Category: story, 08:55 PM
Viendenbourg.
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."