Chapter 4
The Scavenger Hunt began early on Labor Day. We all met at the train station to go over the ground rules and pick up the first clue. The teams were "handicapped" by how many times they'd hunted with us before, so that the newest teams got the longest head start. The first, second, and third teams started off with great enthusiasm. Jonathon and I were standing around with the last team, talking about a new expansion pack to one of our favorite board games, when I noticed a paper envelope stuck to one of the green metal trash bins. It looked just like the envelopes our clues were in, but I hadn't placed a clue there. And besides, my clues didn't say "YOU! TAKE ME!" on the outside.
I picked it up and opened the envelope as I walked back to Jonathon and our friends Lisa, Dave, and Karl from team 4. Wordlessly, I handed the sheet of paper to Jonathon, knowing that what looked like gibberish to me would be a fun code for him to decipher. It looked a lot like the Father's Day T-shirt from ThinkGeek.com I'd given him last summer:
01000100
01000001
01000100
If you don't read geek (a.k.a. binary) that's DAD to you. He loved the shirt and I knew he'd love this too, though it was much longer:
01000101-01000110-01010010-01000101-01000101
01000010-01001100-01001111-01000011-01001011
01010011-01010011-00110010
Karl and Jonathon sat down at a picnic table and went to work, Dave supervising. Lisa and I rolled our eyes and walked over to a different table. Since her team was distracted, I gave her the first clue for the hunt, not that it was likely to do her much good. Since the solution to the clue was easy, I'd decided to make it more difficult to decipher. Harnessing the wonderful power of the internet, I'd spelled out the clue using signal flags and the Semaphore Flag Signaling System. None of our friends were Cost Guards, so I counted on this one taking them a little while to solve. Presumably, teams 1, 2, and 3 were either at the library or the internet café just up the street.
Lisa took one look at the clue and gave me a withering look. Treasure hunts are more Dave's thing, really. She walked over and handed the clue to him. Dave smiled as he looked at the page, then walked over to the car and pulled out the "S" volume of what looked like a complete set of the Encyclopedia Britannica from his trunk, explaining why the Prius was riding a little low.
Working backwards on their puzzle, Jonathon and Karl were stuck at SS2 when Dave already had DOW in front of him.
"Hey. Lis and I are taking off. Take Karl with you and we'll meet up with you folks at the next clue, 'K?"
Just then, Jonathon's mobile, the designated help line, began to ring. I picked it up and tried to keep things copasetic with an already frustrated Team 1 while my beloved husband counted ones and zeros under his breath.
As I was hanging up, Karl let out a "Whoop!" and rubbed his shaved head as he does when he's particularly excited about something. For a liberal PhD candidate in Theoretical Physics, he looks unnervingly like a German neo-Nazi. They had the mysterious clue deciphered:
EFREE
BLOCK
SS2
By this time, I felt like I should be getting over to the location of the second clue to keep an eye on things from a safe distance; this one was tricky. I picked up Maggie from where she'd been lying on a blanket in the grass, happily munching on a favorite book, dropped her bootie into the baby sling, rounded up Karl and Jonathon, and set off for the William J. Conway, Co., a large investment broker that had a huge electronic DOW Jones counter overlooking the highway.
This was a last minute clue that I couldn't resist adding last night when I saw the sign. As was the custom on weekends, the electronic billboard flashed the Friday afternoon closing Dow Jones Industrial Average followed by a list of companies headquartered in the St. Louis area with a plus or minus signifying if the stock closed up or down. As I walked over, I got another frantic call on the help line. This one was from Team 2, frustrated that they'd found what they thought was the right place (yes) but couldn't find a clue envelope. "Not all clues are in envelopes," I reminded them. "Some clues are more . . . environmental."
This morning, the scrolling sign read, "Dow: 11,900 . . . Ralston Purina - . . . . Anheuser Busch - . . . . Edward Jones + . . . . Monsanto - . . . . Dow: 11,900 . . . " repeat until Monday (in this case, Tuesday) when things would actually change.
Edward Jones had a large corporate building at 11,900 Manchester Road in Kirkwood. I thought that the coincidence was too pretty to pass up as a clue, so I'd dropped an extra one into the mix last night. Hopefully it wouldn't be too much of a logical leap for the teams to make. Jonathon and I hung back at a hotel across the street while Karl rejoined his team. The other teams were all here too, milling about enthusiastically.
I was just getting concerned that no one was going to look up at the electronic sign when I heard a loud, "FOUND IT!" from Kevin, a team 1 rookie. He was waving a clue envelope in the air. We quickly ran across the street to try to keep the train on its tracks. "First," I reminded him and all the other teams gathered around, "If you find a hidden clue you might want to keep it quiet so that the other teams don't catch on. Second, this isn't the clue. Sorry. Keep looking, and remember that not all clues are in envelopes. Look up!"
I skedaddled back to Jonathon with the second mysterious clue tucked next to Maggie in her sling. The clue was more binary code:
01010100-01001000-01010010-01000101-01000001-01010100
01000100-01101001-01110110-00101110
Since this one was shorter, a couple of minutes with pencil and paper brought Jonathon this result:
THREAT
DIV.
We got into our car for the short drive over to Edward Jones while we talked about what the clues could mean. They didn't seem to be obviously pointing anywhere and they were a little weird. The first thing we saw when we pulled into the empty corporate parking lot was another mysterious clue envelope, taped to the main employee entrance. My clue was still undisturbed, taped to the back of the granite sign with the company logo on it.
Were we ruining someone else's scavenger hunt by picking up their clues or were we being stalked? I was beginning to suspect the latter, since it seemed like too much of a coincidence that we'd have clues at three of the same places.
Several minutes of work by Jonathon, and eventually Karl once team 4 found us, revealed the third mysterious clue:
SCARED
-DOG
EFREE
BLOCK
SS2
THREAT
DIV.
SCARED
-DOG
This was pretty clear. Someone was trying to send us a message. Why? And why were they being so secretive? I was getting the creeps and was glad that it was 9:00 in the morning.
I picked it up and opened the envelope as I walked back to Jonathon and our friends Lisa, Dave, and Karl from team 4. Wordlessly, I handed the sheet of paper to Jonathon, knowing that what looked like gibberish to me would be a fun code for him to decipher. It looked a lot like the Father's Day T-shirt from ThinkGeek.com I'd given him last summer:
01000100
01000001
01000100
If you don't read geek (a.k.a. binary) that's DAD to you. He loved the shirt and I knew he'd love this too, though it was much longer:
01000101-01000110-01010010-01000101-01000101
01000010-01001100-01001111-01000011-01001011
01010011-01010011-00110010
Karl and Jonathon sat down at a picnic table and went to work, Dave supervising. Lisa and I rolled our eyes and walked over to a different table. Since her team was distracted, I gave her the first clue for the hunt, not that it was likely to do her much good. Since the solution to the clue was easy, I'd decided to make it more difficult to decipher. Harnessing the wonderful power of the internet, I'd spelled out the clue using signal flags and the Semaphore Flag Signaling System. None of our friends were Cost Guards, so I counted on this one taking them a little while to solve. Presumably, teams 1, 2, and 3 were either at the library or the internet café just up the street.
Lisa took one look at the clue and gave me a withering look. Treasure hunts are more Dave's thing, really. She walked over and handed the clue to him. Dave smiled as he looked at the page, then walked over to the car and pulled out the "S" volume of what looked like a complete set of the Encyclopedia Britannica from his trunk, explaining why the Prius was riding a little low.
Working backwards on their puzzle, Jonathon and Karl were stuck at SS2 when Dave already had DOW in front of him.
"Hey. Lis and I are taking off. Take Karl with you and we'll meet up with you folks at the next clue, 'K?"
Just then, Jonathon's mobile, the designated help line, began to ring. I picked it up and tried to keep things copasetic with an already frustrated Team 1 while my beloved husband counted ones and zeros under his breath.
As I was hanging up, Karl let out a "Whoop!" and rubbed his shaved head as he does when he's particularly excited about something. For a liberal PhD candidate in Theoretical Physics, he looks unnervingly like a German neo-Nazi. They had the mysterious clue deciphered:
EFREE
BLOCK
SS2
By this time, I felt like I should be getting over to the location of the second clue to keep an eye on things from a safe distance; this one was tricky. I picked up Maggie from where she'd been lying on a blanket in the grass, happily munching on a favorite book, dropped her bootie into the baby sling, rounded up Karl and Jonathon, and set off for the William J. Conway, Co., a large investment broker that had a huge electronic DOW Jones counter overlooking the highway.
This was a last minute clue that I couldn't resist adding last night when I saw the sign. As was the custom on weekends, the electronic billboard flashed the Friday afternoon closing Dow Jones Industrial Average followed by a list of companies headquartered in the St. Louis area with a plus or minus signifying if the stock closed up or down. As I walked over, I got another frantic call on the help line. This one was from Team 2, frustrated that they'd found what they thought was the right place (yes) but couldn't find a clue envelope. "Not all clues are in envelopes," I reminded them. "Some clues are more . . . environmental."
This morning, the scrolling sign read, "Dow: 11,900 . . . Ralston Purina - . . . . Anheuser Busch - . . . . Edward Jones + . . . . Monsanto - . . . . Dow: 11,900 . . . " repeat until Monday (in this case, Tuesday) when things would actually change.
Edward Jones had a large corporate building at 11,900 Manchester Road in Kirkwood. I thought that the coincidence was too pretty to pass up as a clue, so I'd dropped an extra one into the mix last night. Hopefully it wouldn't be too much of a logical leap for the teams to make. Jonathon and I hung back at a hotel across the street while Karl rejoined his team. The other teams were all here too, milling about enthusiastically.
I was just getting concerned that no one was going to look up at the electronic sign when I heard a loud, "FOUND IT!" from Kevin, a team 1 rookie. He was waving a clue envelope in the air. We quickly ran across the street to try to keep the train on its tracks. "First," I reminded him and all the other teams gathered around, "If you find a hidden clue you might want to keep it quiet so that the other teams don't catch on. Second, this isn't the clue. Sorry. Keep looking, and remember that not all clues are in envelopes. Look up!"
I skedaddled back to Jonathon with the second mysterious clue tucked next to Maggie in her sling. The clue was more binary code:
01010100-01001000-01010010-01000101-01000001-01010100
01000100-01101001-01110110-00101110
Since this one was shorter, a couple of minutes with pencil and paper brought Jonathon this result:
THREAT
DIV.
We got into our car for the short drive over to Edward Jones while we talked about what the clues could mean. They didn't seem to be obviously pointing anywhere and they were a little weird. The first thing we saw when we pulled into the empty corporate parking lot was another mysterious clue envelope, taped to the main employee entrance. My clue was still undisturbed, taped to the back of the granite sign with the company logo on it.
Were we ruining someone else's scavenger hunt by picking up their clues or were we being stalked? I was beginning to suspect the latter, since it seemed like too much of a coincidence that we'd have clues at three of the same places.
Several minutes of work by Jonathon, and eventually Karl once team 4 found us, revealed the third mysterious clue:
SCARED
-DOG
EFREE
BLOCK
SS2
THREAT
DIV.
SCARED
-DOG
This was pretty clear. Someone was trying to send us a message. Why? And why were they being so secretive? I was getting the creeps and was glad that it was 9:00 in the morning.
© 2004 by Sarahlynn at 5:28 PM
<< Home