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, March 31, 2006
Coming home
Category: story, 05:10 PM
I'm on my way home. It feels wonderful, like the air is singing. I've put down the roof of the little car and I can taste spring in the air. I've only come 60 miles or so since I left this morning, but just the idea of home is filling me with happiness. The city! My own house! My bed! My friends! I feel like I can hardly remember the city anymore, or who I was when I was in the city. It's been a long journey.
But it'll be a shorter journey coming home. Claire Castille, who's made several forays in the surrounding area, has given me directions which should cut a lot of time off my travels. And since I won't have to keep stopping to examine strange rock formations, collect soil samples or look for clues of which way to go next, I should be home in about two weeks. Home. Every time I write it, it makes me happy.
I've mailed my friends and family to tell them that my time at the Tanraga nature reserve is coming to an end, and that I'll be back soon. They're so excited to see me, too! Even Brede sent me a note back saying that he's looking forward to seeing me. I am so looking forward to picking up with my normal life again. A part of me just wants to forget that any of this ever happened, just wants to go back to being Scarlett again.
But I know that's not going to be possible. With what I know about the city now, I won't be able to look at anything in the same way again. I've been trying to think of what I'll do when I get back, after I've seen my friends and had my favourite sundae at Whipsmart, of course. I'm not sure who I can tell about what's happened to me, or if I can tell anyone. Maybe Brede? I'm not sure. I was thinking maybe Kurt would be a good person to talk to - but after all the illegal things I've done, I don't know if he'd have any sympathy. Besides, he has a new girlfriend now (he sent me a picture - she's cute) so maybe he doesn't hang out with Violet so much anymore. And Violet? I don't know. I know I can't talk to my father, not after what I found out at Viendenbourg, so maybe I can't trust her, either. I'll have a lot to think about over my next few days of travelling.
It's going to be weird being so alone over this journey. But at the same time, I'm looking forward to it, too. It's been quite difficult to keep my suspicions about Claire to myself all this time, and to ask questions without seeming too curious. Still, this morning as we were packing up my stuff into the car, I managed to put your questions to her, at least as far as I could - she and Allain have already made it pretty clear to me that the family legends are for them alone. Like you suggested, I started off by talking about her father, asking her whether she wanted me to let him know they were safe. She smiled and said that "wouldn't be necessary," that she's found her own way to do that.
I knelt down to check the car's tyres.
"And what about 'V'?" I said. "After everything you've said, I'm worried he'll come after me."
She looked down at me, then carried on tightening the bindings on my trunk as she spoke.
"I can't deny that's a possibility," she said. "You should be careful. Don't tell anyone my name. Don't tell anyone you met me. Don't tell anyone where you've been."
"But what if he does come to find me?" I said. "What should I do? Can you tell me anything about him? What he looks like? What does 'V' stand for?"
She stood away from the car, hands on her hips and surveyed her work. She breathed out slowly.
"Yes," she said, "I suppose you need to know. At least what I know. I only met him three times. He's in his mid-30s, with dark hair. He looks like a thousand other guys you might meet. As for the name, 'V'. Once I heard someone else - someone who's dead now - call him 'Vadik'. Like the shadow-wizard in the story. It's appropriate for him. And as for what you should do if you ever meet him: run. Just run."
"And how," I tried to sound like a naive child, like I couldn't restrain my curiosity, "how did he come to be after you? What did you do?"
Her face clouded at that.
"You don't need to know. It's enough to tell you that I was involved in a robbery, that I wrote some code for him which enabled him to subvert one of the most advanced security systems in the world. But the robbery went wrong. We never got our hands on the target."
"What happened?" I said. Id my eyes very wide, raised my voice a little higher in the register.
She shook her head. "Someone else was there. I don't know who and I don't know why. But to do what they did, they must have been a better programmer than me. That's not a large group."
She thinned her lips and wouldn't say any more.
I hope that's helpful to you. To be honest, I felt chills just asking about this V, or Vadik. I know you need this information, but I'm hoping that's the end of my involvement with this end of the investigation. Right now, I'm just looking forward to getting home.