Continued Reality: A Voltron Fanfiction

CRACKING THE CODE

"Whatever he had to say in this secret code, it must have been really serious," Pidge says. She is still sitting at Keith's laptop, hours later, attempting to decipher Shiro's code.

     "Keep trying, you're doing great," Keith tells her.

     She smiles, but when she turns to look at him he is dozing off. His elbow is on the table, and his hand is holding his head up.

     "You can go to bed if you need to," she says. "I'll be fine on my own."

     Keith yawns, but he shakes his head. "No, I want to be here if you discover anything."

     Pidge is perfectly okay with him staying here. The truth is, getting to spend so much time with him this evening has helped her not to be so nervous around him. Yes, her heart still pounds when she looks into his eyes. But right now she feels more relaxed, like the old days before she had fallen for him.

     For the next few minutes, she wracks her brain studying the code. It is a small file that was attached to the larger file of Shiro's original message to Keith. It is very detailed and incredibly complex, making her wonder how long it took Shiro to put it together.

     "Whoa, I think I might actually be making some headway with this!" She exclaims after a while. But when she doesn't get any response, she glances back over at Keith. His head still propped up against his hand, he has fallen fast asleep. He is even snoring softly.

     For reasons she can't explain, seeing him like that melts her heart. She smiles as she reaches over and gently lifts his head. She folds his arms across each other on the table in front of him, and allows his head to rest on top of them as if they were a pillow.

     "There, that should be more comfortable," she says. She then continues to work on Shiro's code.

"I've got it!"

     Keith jumps, Pidge's scream having startled him awake. "What's going on?" He asks, slightly disoriented.

     "I cracked the code!" Pidge exclaims excitedly, pointing at the screen. "Look look look!"

     Keith rubs the sleep out of his eyes, and watches the screen. At first he isn't sure exactly what he is looking at, but amidst the mess of numbers he finally sees it.

     "Are those coordinates?"

     "Yep, but I have no idea what to," Pidge replies, scratching her head.

     As the two of them stare at the coordinates, words begin to appear below them.

     "There's more to the message!" Pidge says.

     "DANGER: Mrawls are coming," Keith reads aloud.

     "What are 'Mrawls'?" Pidge wonders.

     "Universal war eminent," Keith continues to read. "Fly to coordinates, find the... kloflax? Tell no one else. STOP THE WAR."

     After waiting a few seconds, Pidge says, "It looks like that's it. It just keeps on repeating, 'STOP THE WAR.'"

     Keith puts his hand to his forehead. "This is bad," he says. "Shiro sacrificed his life to get us this information."

     "I just wish we knew what kloflax is," Pidge says. "It must be really important if finding it can stop another universal war."

     "We have to tell the others," Keith says, grabbing his laptop and rushing out of the room.

     "But the message said to tell no one else," Pidge says, chasing after him.

     Keith stops for a moment and turns back around to face her. "This is Shiro we're talking about," he says. "He'd want us to tell Hunk and Lance." He begins to run off again.

     "Wait Keith, it's four o'clock in the morning!" Pidge yells. "They're probably still asleep!"

     "Well, we'll wake them!" Keith yells back. "This is too important to wait!"

A sudden and loud pounding on his door causes Lance to scream. He jumps up and falls out of bed, hitting the back of his head against the nightstand.

     "Ow..." he moans, rubbing the sore spot that now has a small bump growing.

     "Lance, wake up and meet me and Pidge in my room!" He hears Keith's voice shout through the closed door. "And hurry!"

     "Don't tell me what to do so early!" Lance shouts back, but Keith is already gone. He sighs and stands up, glancing at the clock on the nightstand.

     "Four AM, seriously?" He says aloud. He feels exhausted. It took him forever to get to sleep with his Altean markings glowing, and then once he finally did he had the dream again... At least his markings have finally returned to normal.

     This had better be good, he thinks.

Hunk wakes up to rapid knocking on his door and Keith's voice yelling, "Hunk, come to my room ASAP!"

     Hunk yawns and stretches. "Alright man, I'll be there in a few..." For a second he feels himself nodding off again, but he shakes himself awake and hops out of bed. What could be so important that Keith would wake him up so early in the morning? He hopes that he at least has enough time to grab a bite to eat first.