re: INITIATIVE [Detective Fiction]

[#14] Ineffable

ARDEE WINCED. Joshua might've noticed Ardee's reaction, and so he continued, "well, now that you're here, miss Ardee, I would also be grateful of your help."

Of that statement, Ardee smiled in relief.

"If the malware itself wasn't harmless, then why deny the service for the publication office's IOS?" Ardee asked.

"It's possible that the one controlling the malware just wanted attention," L answered.

"Attention-seeking hackers, huh? That's not very noble..." Joshua commented scornfully. To a (probably) hard-working and passionate hacker such as Joshua, it might've been an insult for him to hear that such skills were utilized in a pitiful manner.

"If the idea pleases you, imagine that someone wanted to send an important message. Isn't it a good idea to use the media to spread what he had to say?" L suggested. Since the publication is always at work and is always being chased by deadlines, it would only be natural for them to find a way to get around an obstacle that's hindering their progress. This could also mean that the malware was just recently planted, hence the urgent call for help.

"Or she," suggested Ardee.

Considering that they accessed the publication office of their school, it could mean that the source is from a student of Arakawa. Then again, that's only assuming that the perpetrator only targeted their school, but the message could have also been present in other schools.

"Either way, maybe it is important for us to decode this message. If it wasn't important, why was it encrypted?" Wondered L.

In the case of decoding cryptic messages, it had become a difficult feat in their generation. New types of codes have started to emerge, and while some had moved on to the more advanced, some had decided to stay traditional, further diversifying the ways of encrypting. Decoders, therefore, were prone to either underestimating a complex encryption, or over-analyzing a traditionally coded message.

L could only hope it was of old, otherwise it would've been outside his powers.

20515 100503 280919 100805 80501 20514 251325

"These can't possibly be dates, right?" Joshua suggested. Ardee took a closer look and said, "Let's see... suppose we theorize that these mostly six-digit blocks of numbers are dates, and looking at the first two digits of some blocks, the large numbers mean the first two digits can't possibly be the month, and could be either day or year. For example, some blocks start with numbers beyond 12, like the third block here which has 28."

"So, that means we only need to determine which one's the day and which one's the year, then," Joshua replied.

"Can't be dates." Axel interjected, "the first block has 15 in the last two digits, so the last two digits couldn't be the month, which brings us to the middle couple. Take a look at the last block, it has 13 in its middle two digits. It can't be dates."

"What if the Day-Month-Year sequence changes every block, and we're supposed to find some kind of cipher key to know when and how to change the sequence?" Ardee thought out loud, rubbing her chin, slowly pacing back and forth the side where the windows lit the modest clubroom.

"Cipher, that's it!" L exclaimed, and summoned the holographic main menu of his Dpad with a downward swipe. He quickly opened the notes app, and started typing.

"If we could try to convert these numbers into letters, maybe we'd be getting somewhere. Typical substitutions involve substituting A with 01, B with 02, and so on." He said while typing.

"BEO JEC 2IS JHE HEA BEN YMY" Axel finally dictated after numerous finger counting. "I got a number 2 because of the 28 here at the third block. Most number-symbol conversion include numbers, substituting 1 with 27, 2 with 28, 3 with 29, and so on."