They felt their phone vibrate from their pockets and their hairs stood from their napes. A cold wind blew past the tall buildings making the plants dance on their beat. Sirenes kept wailing far and near and buildings ringing their alarms fuel their anxiousness.
Then and there, Cassandra shouted as she saw a man unconsciously stood up with straight limbs and tightened jaw. He struggled on his feet and reached his hand towards the kids walking like a marionette. A moment before, he was just lying on the ground, helplessly unconscious, but now, he and four other people stood up picking a weapon they came across as they came forward to Markus' direction.
The man who first stood up who was wearing a hat picked meter-long steel, debris from a signpost bumped by a pizza delivery truck as he approached Markus with an intent to kill.
"I can see it on his eyes, Marky, we need to get out from here. He's aiming for you." Cassandra exclaimed, holding on to his sleeve.
"What, why?" Markus said confusingly.
They slowly stepped back.
"Ahh... I agree, Marky... they're trying to kill us. Whoever is controlling these people knows who we are and what we are up to. We need to move a step ahead or were dead." Dave anxiously said.
"Then, we've got to run," Markus exclaimed. "But now, we have to do it faster."
"And there's another -ER..." Dave rolled his eyes.
As soon as they started moving, the undead followed. They were like zombies controlled by someone but are moving human-like than normal zombies were. Markus took a turn on the nearest alley and stumbled on the way through. The one with a tiger beanie Hat caught them and hit Dave with his steel and caught his left foot.
"Ahh!" Dave shouted and grabbed his hurt foot.
"You bastard!" Markus picked an empty beer bottle and smashed it on the Hat that hit Dave. The bottle broke on his head causing it to bleed but he's seemed not hurt. He faced Markus and aimed for him immediately. Cassandra grabbed the two on their wrists and dragged them away.
"We need to get out of here, the others were coming!" Cassandra said trembling.
They saw on the other side of the alley, the four other people who woke with the Hat bringing weapon for themselves. The others brought a piece of iron sheet, a broken glass, a slipper, and a car wiper.
They started running and went out of the alley. They run across the street and took shelter in the bakery nearby and went inside.
"They're after us... what now?" Cassandra asked, catching her breath.
"I don't know... but we can figure things out if we have enough information about what is happening," Markus answered. "Besides, fighting them is useless. We can't brush them off"
"That's near to impossible, Marky." Dave said "..with those people after us? We can't find an easy way to get out of this. I bet there were still others aside from them who were trying to---" He took a deep breath. "--kill us."
"But why target us?" Cassandra Asked.
"It's because of Markus..." Dave answered. "And the fact that we're not down unlike the others."
"Are you insane, Dave? Why woul-" Cassandra said
"Ahh... it might be my fault. I said it a while ago, right? I have told you that I was after the Hacker. He knows what I'm up to and he's trying to slow me down if not stop me." Markus scanned the area looking for cameras and he found one at the top of the traffic light, focusing on their direction. "I'm sorry for dragging you into this situation." Markus said, "...I promise to get you out of here."
"Idiot! We're not blaming you! We chose to follow you because we are friends." Cassandra said standing strong to emphasize her point. She doesn't want to do anything for his friend. She had enough of what happened to Markus before, she wanted to be there, strong, for Marky.
"But..."
"Ahh... it's better to run from those freaks than be like them, you know? Have you seen their faces? Scary..." Dave said crossing his arms putting it on his shoulders and trembling in disgust. "I'm glad you told us not to answer the call. Thanks for saving us!" he gave his grateful smile but his hands were still shaking from fear.
"You two..." Markus said, getting teary-eyed "You're welcome... then, let's get going. We need to find a safer place. Bring something with you."
They stood up and looked around. They saw the men who were following them on the other side of the street so they hid behind a trash bin.
"They're out there.." Dave said.
"Ahh... I can see them. Let's just move ahead to reach my house."
"Ne, Dave..." Cassandra asked him "What were you holding?" she pointed to his left hand.
"Ahh, this?" he raised his right hand holding a loaf of bread and a pack of caramel cookies "...Bread and... cookies.." he said with a straight face.
"I know those were bread and cookies, BUT, why are you bringing it? You're stealing!" Cassandra's voice raised with her eyes glaring as well.
"But you see, the sky is turning Indigo and we haven't eaten yet. Besides, Markus brought the laptop with him so I guess it's not bad to take some food with us or else we're gonna die of starvation. It can't be helped, right? We need to eat!" Dave defended, covering the food under his shirt.
"But..."Cassandra said, slapping her forehead.
"Ma..ma.., calm down, calm down! We'll just pay for it when everything's done okay? Besides, Dave was right. We cannot escape from here with an empty stomach and the owner was asleep. It can't be helped." Markus defended. He grabbed a cookie and munched on it.
"Why am I strangled with guys like them." Cassandra shook her head in despair. "You two are giving me migraines."
They ran towards the back door of the bakery.
They slowly approached the street under the luminescent Indigo sky. They set foot on the dark street having most of the streetlights broken from the accidents. The only light was from the undamaged streetlights and from the fire from the buildings and vehicles. Sirens wail from afar but Markus knew they were just sounds without people acting on them.
"Take care, you two..." Markus said, "...watch your backs."
"Hai... leave it to us..." Dave said.
"I'm fine. Don't worry, I'll take care of the rear." Cassandra added.
They have flashlights with them, one with each person. Then got them from the bakery they're in a while ago. They shared the food that Dave took and held a few weapons to guard and protect themselves, somehow.
Dave took a bread roller and a knife, Cassandra got a steel pan and carried a bread knife and Markus found a bat that might be owned by the baker.
They hopped on everything they can hide as they approached the street where Markus's house was. They tried their best to do stealth to avoid direct contact with the Androids that were hunting them as they approached the house.
They took a stop at a TV store and all of the displayed screens flashed only static. A few minutes later, as they scanned the area, Dave noticed something flashed on the TV screens.
"Look.." Dave pointed on the screens
"What is it, Dave ..." Markus was shocked at what appeared on the screens. Another code that stirred up his mind. "Don't tell me... it's the same code that appeared on ORION." He took the piece of tissue where he wrote the code and compared it.
The number codes changed into letters,
C L U E
"Damn it!! He's playing with me!" Markus crumpled the paper.
"It's something like the one on the book, Marky." Cassandra noticed.
"The one on the book? You mean..." his eyes glimmered on a dark night, filled with hope. "You're right, Cass. That saves!" he exclaimed. "Find its determinant, then the minor, then the cofactor, then the adjoint and divide it with the determinant to find the inverse..." he repeatedly said to himself again and again.
Cassandra gave Markus a flyer of Orion eyeglasses that was set to be released next month that flew from somewhere and her pen. He then started calculating the numbers.
"This is the first matrix he revealed, so maybe it's the key" he copied the code from the tissue paper "...removing the filler zeros."
12 34 16 67 23
45 34 96 15 67
38 34 81 87 56
45 34 75 16 89
19 34 10 09 71
"Oh, a 5x5 matrix. So, find it's determinant... since it's a square matrix, we can just use the common method, the criss-cross or pivot algorithm." He muttered to himself "...So the determinant is,
-2.1460e+07
"... the minor is this.... And the cofactor... the transpose is the adjoint.... And the inverse is,
0.2132 -0.1551 -0.1810 0.3832 -0.2603
0.0351 0.0465 -0.0298 -0.0368 0.0143
-0.0672 0.0601 0.0560 -0.1192 0.0702
-0.0031 -0.0145 0.0160 0.0020 -0.0004
-0.0640 0.0126 0.0528 -0.0684 0.0670
"then have this vector multiplied by the inverse... and the result will be
9
19
8
15
14
"And the other one,
1
19
15
2
21
He wrote the code on the space behind the paper. The three sat around each other with the paper on the center.
"What would these numbers mean, Marky?" Cassandra asked
"I don't know..." Markus answered
"Where's the other number? Have you forgotten to include it?" Dave asked, pointing to the number between all the zeros.
"No, I just happen to not include it. Because it will make the matrix uneven. Besides, I guess that number stands for the letter "I" because it's the ninth number on the English alphabet and it doesn't have any other number on that row, so maybe, my hunch was right." Markus explained.
"Ja, maybe the other numbers represent a letter of the English alphabet, too, right Marky?" Cassandra suggested.
"You're right... that's it!, that might be it, Cassy!" Markus leaped in excitement and hugged Cassandra for that brilliant idea.
She struggled to get away from his hug because she felt her blood racing like fog.
"I was thinking the same thing, you know...." Dave added, pouting his mouth.
"Ha ha ha.." the three of them took a silent laugh.
"Now, the numbers were 9, 19, 8, 15, 14, 9, 1 19, 15, 2, and 21 which corresponds to the letters on the English alphabet as
I-S-H-O-N-I-A-S-O-B-U