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, September 30, 2005
A chat with Margot
Category: story, 05:15 PMI'm not sending this out in email this week because I'm having some problems with my key. I'm so sorry!
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It's been a weird week. I should be just enjoying my vacation, chilling out, spending time with my boyfriend, but instead I find myself constantly thinking and wondering about this guy I've met, Allain. Even Margot and Sanj, who haven't heard any of our arguments, wonder if there's something wrong between me and Brede. Yesterday, while we were walking through Sleed Forest - it's amazing, there are vines there so huge and tall they look like trees - Margot pretended to have a stone in her shoe so the two of us would fall behind a bit. When Brede and Sanj were a little way in front of us, she said:
"Look, Scarlett, is everything OK with you and Brede?"
I said everything was fine.
She looked at me and said: "Is it about that detour you want to make? The family history thing? Sanj and I will go with you if Brede's being funny about it."
I shook my head.
"Everything's fine, Margot. Seriously."
She looked at me, tipping her head to the side.
"Sanj said that Brede thinks you're interested in that guy we met - Allain. Are you?"
I laughed, shook my head, and marched quickly to join the boys. Margot still looks at me funny, though.
So now I'm being extra careful not to seem to speak to Allain more than anyone else. Still, after what I heard last week, I felt I had to confront him and ask him who he'd been talking to in his compartment. He'd said he was travelling alone - has he brought a girlfriend with him? Someone else?
I saw him again as we were getting ready to board the train last night. He wasn't looking any different to normal - still tall, a little dishevelled, with dark hair and a slightly suspicious air. But no more suspicious than usual. When Brede went to freshen up, I grabbed Allain and pulled him into a corner of the platform. I don't know if Margot or Sanj saw what I was doing. Allain seemed pleased to see me but I realised I was angry. Had I alienated my friends, not to mention my *boyfriend* because of this man only to find out he was lying to me?
"Who are you travelling with?" I said.
He blinked at me. "No one. I'm travelling alone."
I felt sure he was lying.
"Then why were you shouting in your compartment last week? Having an argument? I heard you. You told someone they 'shouldn't have trusted her,' you were angry."
He blinked again. "You heard that?"
"Yes."
He ran his hand through his hair and looked at me. I noticed that his eyes were pale blue. He seemed so sincere.
He said: "I talk to myself sometimes. That's all it was. I don't know. I've been working on this thing by myself for so long that I think I'm going a bit crazy. I didn't know whether I should have trusted you or not, told you about Viendenbourg. I was shouting at myself."
I must still have looked pretty unconvinced.
"Look," he said, "we can't talk now, but I've decided I was wrong. I should trust you. And I have something to show you - I think there's more information on my data button than I thought, perhaps a secret hidden file. Come to my compartment when you can get away."
He told me his compartment number and squeezed my arm. Then he turned and walked away.
I know, in my heart, that I should stop this now. I know that I should forget any of this ever happened. Next time the train stops, we'll be as close to Viendenbourg as we'll ever be, but I should forget that and just carry on with our regular trip. I should ignore Allain every time I meet him. I should go back to my life. But instead of all of that I went to his compartment last night. I waited until Brede was asleep, I put on my robe and I crept out of our carriage, down the train to where Allain had told me he was. I was tired. It was late. Probably my eyes were playing tricks on me. But as I was walking down, when I was a carriage away from Allain's compartment, I was sure, completely *sure* that I saw an old man, with white hair, come out of his compartment. Not just any old man, but the old man I met in the library all those weeks ago. The old man who told me about Viendenbourg. I stood still. I couldn't quite believe what I was seeing. But I was sure. It was him. Even the very fast walk, as he sped away and out of the carriage.
In a daze, I walked down to Allain's compartment. I knocked on the door but there was no answer.
Friday, September 23, 2005
Cards competition
Category: me, 05:13 PMThanks so much, everyone, for all your email with such fun ideas for spreading puzzle cards around on Earth! The response has been so overwhelming, it was hard to pick among them. It's been so much fun reading these on my long train journeys. :-)
I've selected the best ideas and sent them on to the guys at Mind Candy. Parcels should be winging their way around the world to the winners in the next few days. Of course, if you get up to any adventures while distributing these I'd really love to hear about it - and given your crazy ideas, I'm sure there will be plenty of adventures to be had!
But remember that Mind Candy can only send packs to people who've sent me their address, so if you haven't done so yet, you'd better send your address over quickly!
Friday, September 23, 2005
Allain tells me more about Viendenbourg
Category: story, 12:16 PMI couldn't believe it. Allain was going to the same mysterious location as me!
I must have jumped in my seat when he said the word Viendenbourg, because Brede said "What's up, honey? Is everything OK?" I told him I was fine; I was longing to ask Allain what he knew about Viendenbourg, why he was going there, how he'd found out the name, but I didn't want to seem too curious. Luckily for me, Brede was interested as well.
He said: "What do you mean, you're not sure it exists?" Allain smiled and looked down at his hands.
"I know, it sounds pretty insane doesn't it? The thing is," he leaned forward, "you know I'm a student at Edyta College?" We nodded. Edyta College is fairly prestigious - it's a rival school to Marmalejo where Brede and I study. "And I guess you must be able to tell that I'm interested in a lot of different subjects, right?" We nodded again. "It's almost a problem, actually. I'm supposed to choose a subject of special interest next year, but I haven't been able to. Anyway a few months ago, among all these other projects, I got interested in studying the history of, you know, the war."
Brede and I both breathed in sharply. We knew about the war, of course. Everyone does. But it's not something you talk about. It's a dark part of our city's past - we've moved on. "I can't explain it," said Allain, "I was drawn to find out more. I even started reading through some of the material in the military archives. It was there that I first heard about Viendenbourg." Brede and I were very quiet now. "You know that material, it's mostly, well, fragments. So much knowledge has been lost from that time, even the technological developments of the final 50 years are mostly gone. And no one wants to try to retrieve them."
Brede shifted in his seat. I could tell this conversation was making him uncomfortable. What Allain said was true - everyone knows that technological advances were made during the war, but given where they led, no one wants to try to get them back. "I know that's what everyone thinks," Allain continued, "but the more I looked at those fragments the more amazed I was. From the documents, they had AIs far in advance of our own, and medical and health developments that were just... astonishing. I decided to try to piece some of that knowledge back together."
Suddenly, Brede stood up. His face was pale. He looked calm, but determined. "I'm very tired," he said, "I think I'll go to bed. Are you coming, Scarlett?" I looked at him. I knew why he was leaving. A lot of people feel like Brede does about the past - best left forgotten. You can't move forward while looking back. But I had to know about Viendenbourg.
"In a few minutes," I said. Brede looked at me. He said nothing, turned and walked toward our carriage. Allain and I looked at Brede's receding back, and then back to each other. There was a little pause, then he continued.
"I worked in the military archives for weeks, piecing together records, trying to make some sense of formulae and notes. Sometimes a hint of meaning would seem to be within my grasp, but then it dissolved again. I felt I was getting nowhere. And then, one day, an old man with white hair came up to my desk. He said: 'I see you've been working on ancient technology.' I nodded. He said: 'You'll never get anywhere with those old notes. You need the originals.' I smiled and told him that the originals had been lost centuries earlier. He looked at me, and then handed me a data button and said: 'I think you dropped this'."
He told me the rest of the story, but I felt that I'd heard it already. Allain had also received a map showing Viendenbourg, he'd also compared it to modern maps and found that there was nothing there. And now he was also travelling to Viendenbourg. There was a long silence after he finished. I had to make a decision, but I felt it had almost been made for me. Perhaps it was stupid of me, but I felt I wanted to trust him, at least as much as he'd trusted me. I said: "I also met that man in the archives. He gave me a map of Viendenbourg. And I'm going there too. And there's something else... I think I've seen that man on this train. I think he's here." And I stood up, said goodnight, and went to bed.
That was a week ago now. I've spent the past week trying to make things up with Brede. We've walked through some of the most beautiful places there are, but sometimes, as we're walking, I catch him looking at me strangely. As if he didn't know me at all. I can't explain it to him. I thought of trying to tell him the whole thing but somehow, now that it's linked to Allain, I don't feel I can. We haven't talked about it. We haven't seen Allain this whole week of walking but today we reached the train again. While Brede was getting our luggage, I sneaked a look at the passenger manifest and found out which compartment Allain is in. And about an hour ago I went along there to talk to him.
As I reached the carriage, I heard raised voices. Or, at least, one raised voice. It was Allain, shouting. It was as though he was talking to himself, although he paused occasionally. He was shouting: "You should never have told her! You should never have trusted her! Now she'll find out everything!"
Friday, September 16, 2005
How our holiday is set up
Category: story, 12:13 PMWe've been travelling for two weeks now and I realise I haven't properly explained how our holiday works, or shown you a map or anything. I can't send a map over, but I've loaded up a quick one on my website at http://www.thescarlettkite.com/hikemap.jpg for you to have a look. It's quite cunning, really - the idea is basically that you hike from one pre-designated rail stop to the next, and then take the train through to the next part of your hike. A lot of students do this sort of travelling; you take a tent with you to sleep in during the hike, and then have a couple of days on the train to rest before the next leg of the journey. The train company even take on your extra bags to your next stop for you. Our journey goes in a wide loop, so that it's not much further to come back than it was to go. We're planning to make five hiking trips with rail journeys in between. Number 4 takes us closest to Viendenbourg. It won't be easy to make it there and back in time to get the train, but I'm more curious than ever.
In any case, this has been our first week of proper hiking (Hike 1) - and my feet are sore! It's been great though. We've seen some amazing places - we took the Absent Woods path, walked through the Wentome Hills and saw the seven-tiered waterfall at Amanra. We even took a dip in the pool at the base of the waterfall. It's been a wonderful week - I'm so glad we came. There's a thing that happens when you're walking all day - your mind slows down, your thoughts become clearer, everything seems to pop into focus. So I think I was just a bit stir crazy last week, imagining that someone had been going through my stuff or trying the door. I was just trying to see conspiracies at every turn, but I'm feeling a lot sunnier now!
The other great thing about a long trip like this is the people you meet. This kind of trip is popular with students, so there have been a few people taking the same route as us. We've met up with a party of six students from the University (I didn't mention that my dad's the head of the Academy - those University people can get a bit touchy!), a honeymooning couple and a guy named Allain who's travelling by himself. Allain's pretty cool, actually. He's shy and keeps quiet a lot, but he knows a lot about botany and geography - we walked with him for a couple of days and he told us about the way this area's ecology had developed, the kind of plants you find here. When Sanj got stung by some hoare-ivy, Allain climbed a tree to get some berries for him to rub on it which took the pain away. Cool, huh? If I wasn't dating Brede I think I'd be interested in Allain. I think Margot's pretty into him ;-).
Anyway, Allain's travelling on the same train as us right now. Yesterday night, a bunch of us all had dinner together - me and Brede, Sanj, Margot, the guys from the University and Allain too. It got quite late - one by one everyone else went to bed so it was just me, Allain and Brede.
Allain seemed more comfortable talking when it was just the three of us. We discussed our itineraries. Amazingly, he's taking almost the same journey as us, with the same stops and treks. Except that, on that fourth journey, he's planning to spend longer than us. "Yeah," he said, "I've got a little private excursion I want to make. Off the beaten track." Brede said: "Why, where are you going?"
Allain ran his hand through his hair, looked down at the table and then back up at us. "I know this sounds crazy," he said, "but I'm going to a place I'm not even sure exists - Viendenbourg."
Tuesday, September 13, 2005
Cubefest report
Category: me, 07:13 PMSounds like the Cubefest was a great success! I had an email from "European Chris" to tell me all about it. He said: "The day was lovely and everyone else who is trying to find the cube are outstandingly nice people." Doesn't surprise me to hear that all the Cube-hunters are lovely people! The guys from Mind Candy also sent me over this great photo of Katie, who at 7 years old is our youngest Cube-seeker so far! Hi Katie!
Have to go now; we're about to set off on a quick wildlife-hike at dusk. So exciting :-).
Friday, September 9, 2005
I'm travelling to the mountains.
Category: story, 12:24 PMWe've been travelling for a week now, but we haven't got very far. It's all in the plan - we stopped over for three nights at Elmness, to see the artiak migrations at the waterfall. And a night at Brede's aunt in Peterfitch for berry-picking and general rustic charm. We spent all day picking - and when the juiciest berries seemed just out of reach, I sat on Brede's shoulders to get them. It's been so great just to spend time together, having fun. Still, we've had three nights on the train in the past week, and four solid days staring out of the window at the scenery passing by, getting less and less inhabited, further and further away from home. I like the feeling: a combination of desolate and cosy. Outside are miles of wooded forest, punctuated by the occasional small village or town. Inside I'm sitting in my comfy window seat with my guy next to me, feet curled under me, sometimes reading but mostly just staring out. This is now officially the furthest I've ever been from the City. It feels weird. I'm not out of key range or anything, but just... I feel like I'm out of range of myself somehow. Like all that stuff that happened in the City was just a dream.
It wasn't, though. I haven't said anything to Brede, but I think someone might be following us. The night before last, at about 2am, someone tried the handle of our door. I know it could have been a train official - although I can't think why they would - or someone mistaking their room in the dark, but I don't think so. The handle turned really slowly, as if whoever was on the other side knew we'd be asleep in there and was trying not to wake us. I was awake, looking at the stars flying by out of the window, but Brede was asleep, he didn't see. I can't stop thinking about it though, that handle turning so slowly. Luckily, we lock the door at night. When the door didn't the handle was raised again, very slowly.
And then, today, when we came back to our compartment, after spending a couple of hours sitting in the restaurant, I was sure that my belongings were out of order. It's nothing anyone else would notice, but my sweaters were less neatly arranged than I'd do myself. (My sister Violet would laugh if she saw me write that, but I like to be tidy when I travel.) I've kept everything about this Viendenbourg mission on my key, though, and I always keep my key with me, so if someone was trying to find out what I've been doing, they wouldn't have found anything. I let out a little noise when I saw the disorder. Brede said:
"Is something wrong? Are you OK?"
Because he worries about me like that.
But I couldn't tell him. He'd think I was crazy.
And even more so, I can't tell him the thing I think I saw a few moments later. The trains are arranged in compartments, with a corridor to one side running down the length of the whole train, and a window in the door at the end of each corridor. This means that if you stand in the right place you can almost see down the whole train from the corridor outside your compartment. As long as there's no one standing in the way, of course. As soon as I saw that my sweaters had been moved, I went out into the corridor to see if I could see anyone nearby. I don't know, maybe I'm just paranoid. But I'm pretty sure I saw the figure of a tallish man with white hair walking away, three or four carriages further down. He turned and walked into a compartment, seemed to be saying something to someone inside. And, I'm almost sure, as he walked inside, he turned his head slightly and saw me, seeing him.
Thursday, September 8, 2005
More cool stuff :-D
Category: me, 10:38 AMAnother cool piece of news from Mind Candy :-). They want to get more people from Earth involved in the search for the Cube (naturally!) so they have a clever idea - they're going to give away some cards to you guys who read my blog, so that you can put them in interesting locations where they might be found. You know, leave them on tables in cafes, on the train, in your school or library.... I'm sure you can come up with some better ideas than that! So, the people who email me with their addresses and the best ideas for where they're going to put the cards will receive a package, free, to distribute. Mind Candy will only send out a package to one person in each city, though, so you'd better be original! Looking forward to hearing your crazy, creative ideas! :-D
Wednesday, September 7, 2005
Cubefest!
Category: me, 07:15 PMI just had a message from the guys at Mind Candy that they'd like me to pass on. This week there is going to be the first ever Cubefest in London! It'll be at The Ha Ha Bar, Villiers Street, London on Saturday 10th September and starts at 2pm. Lots of the guys from Mind Candy are going to be there, there'll be a Mind Candy-sponsored buffet, and everyone's welcome! I think there's a website for the event on its way - I'll let you know when it's ready. Sounds like it's going to be a great time. Sigh, another party I can't go to....
Friday, September 2, 2005
Vacation time!
Category: me, 06:22 PMHey! Just want to let you all know that I'm off on vacation tonight! I'm going on a six-week train/hiking trip to the Tanraga mountain region with my friends Margot and Sanj and my boyfriend Brede :-D. It's supposed to be incredibly beautiful there - I'm just so looking forward to it!
Just before I go though, I promised my dad I'd let you all know about this puzzle. Apparently the people at Mind Candy wrote it so it's not too difficult - just a bit of fun :-).
Friday, September 2, 2005
I'm setting off for Viendenbourg
Category: story, 10:29 AMI'm setting off for Tanraga tonight. It's all happened so quickly - my friends Margot and Sanj have made the final arrangements for the accommodation, my boyfriend Brede has finalised our itinerary - when we'll be taking the train, and when we'll be walking. And tonight I'll be on that train heading out west. I love trains; there's an old-world elegance about them. The ones that accompany the Tanraga walking tours are fitted out in the original style of 300 years ago; they have sleeper compartments and dark velvet seats and tiny bathrooms fitted out in brass and chrome. Beautiful. So tonight the four of us take the midnight train. It's scary and exciting. For me more than for my friends.
I haven't told them about Viendenbourg. I'm not sure why, except maybe that it sounds so crazy that I wouldn't know where to start. I've said I might want to take a detour. I'm not sure I really want to do that either. Of course, my friends said: a detour? Is it somewhere cool? Can we come too? And I couldn't tell them. I pointed in the general area on the map, told them I had a history project that had to do with that location. They looked at me strangely. Brede said: "what history project?" And I said the first thing that came into my head: "Family history." It must have been obvious that I didn't want to talk about it anymore, because they all went quiet. Maybe they think I have some terrible family secret.
In the past week, I've been trying to find out more about Viendenbourg, or Reynolds ionizers. Viendenbourg brings up nothing, literally *nothing* on any kind of search I try. I've been to five different libraries around the city, and I've even asked my sister Violet to do a search in the Academy library where she works. Nothing. She says she's going to keep looking while I'm away, though. About 30% of the Academy's material is still in hard-copy only. Maybe she'll find some clues.
Perhaps the only other lead is Kurt's key. I haven't told him what I'm doing, but I asked him, as if it was nothing important, whether he'd managed to solve the problems he'd been having with his key. He said he had to dismantle the system to get rid of the embedded programmes of the military trace. And while he was doing that, he managed to make them spit out a location code. It's a military code, so it doesn't give much location information, but he said the general area is: Tanraga. Of course the Tanraga area covers hundreds of square miles. Still, it makes me feel like I'm going to the right place. Or maybe the wrong place.
There is one other thing. I had a farewell dinner with my dad and Violet last night. I didn't bring Brede - not after the last time when Vi and my dad had a big argument, but actually it was nice, just the three of us, like when Vi and I were children. Vi was heading out to poker afterwards, and wanted to arrange to meet Kurt for a drink, but she had to call him on his temporary key, because he's been having all these problems. She told my dad the whole story, about how Kurt had been looking for Reynolds Ionizers, and been stung by a military trace and wasn't that a disgrace? My dad just went really quiet, and after a few moments he said: "Tell Kurt to keep his mind on his job. That's my advice. Tell him to get a new key, and stop worrying about any 'military trace'."
And he gave Violet one of his "I'm serious about this" looks.
I don't know what that means. Maybe nothing. But maybe soon I'll find out. My rucksack is all packed, waiting on the floor of my bedroom. And tonight I'll be taking the train.