Earth To Nole: Return of the Prince (13 page)

“Thanks.”, Joti replied.

Boriri then started explaining how not to provoke roco bots. He said, “Never attack a roco bot or its vehicle. They are legally bound to not harm anyone unless threatened. The easiest way to start a war would be to show aggression.”

“Then that is what Francis will have on his mind.”, Joti added.

“Yes, and Igogo is waiting impatiently to order attacks. Just that roco would not accept such an order unless they have proof of aggression.”, Boriri explained.

“How can we stop it when both Igogo and Francis want it?”, Joti said with frustration.

“Francis and Igogo both cannot openly show what they want. We need to be diplomatic in dealing with them.”, Boriri said.

“It is not a democracy here anymore, Boriri. Starting tonight, Francis has announced a state of emergency. It is not going to be easy being diplomatic with him.”, Gollow argued.

“This is not good.”, Ibu reacted before Boriri could.

Boriri turned to Holum and Ibu and said, “Don’t worry my friends. We don’t need to hold them forever, we just need to delay their plan. Kevin is certainly going to win the elections. In a couple of months all the tension between humans and hums would subside. Meanwhile, I will be visiting Nole every week, you have my full support in dealing with Francis.”

More time passed by. Kevin remained aloof from Boriri and Keele, spending his time in flying lessons and the royal library. On the other hand, unknown to Kevin, Boriri kept visiting Nole frequently and managed to help Holum and his team cope with the situation.

One day, Kevin and Karbaka walked out of the royal garage. The door closed behind them. They both looked happy and satisfied, perhaps because Kevin was turning out to be a great pilot. Karbaka saw Tomiri walk across the hall and waved at him to stop. Tomiri stopped and waited for them. He bowed at Kevin and then turned to Karbaka.

Karbaka said, “Kevin’s flying lessons are over, proctor. We should celebrate.”

“So, soon?”, Tomiri was pleasantly surprised. He had grown some appreciation for Kevin after all, it seemed.

“Yes. He is a natural at it. He can even fly neurojets now.”, Karbaka added with pride in his eyes for his student.

“But, not in the neuro mode”, Kevin added.

“Of course not. But it still is a big achievement. You should not underestimate your flying skills.”, Karbaka said like a true mentor.

Tomiri took the opportunity to suggest Kevin reconcile with Boriri. He said, “Prince, why don’t you fly to your friend’s house in a neurojet? I am sure they would be happy to see you fly it.”

“I will think about it.”, Kevin dismissed the suggestion casually as he walked away. He still seemed upset over their last conversation.

“What is it?”, Karbaka asked Tomiri once Kevin had left the hall.

“I don’t know. Some misunderstanding I guess. He has not spoken to Boriri for five months now.”, Tomiri sighed.

“Why don’t you help him?”, Karbaka asked.

“How? He needs friends. And, he has stopped talking to the only ones he had on Mone.”, Tomiri replied.

“What about that girl? The one he was with during the gala.”, Karbaka remembered Seriri.

“She tried visiting him a couple of times but Kevin acted aloof. She stopped coming after that.”, Tomiri replied with helplessness in his tone.

“Why don’t you keep him company? He is your responsibility, right?”, Karbaka said.

“He is not a kid! I am only experienced in handling kids. How can I help him?”, Tomiri tried escaping. He felt pity for Kevin but small talk was not his forte.

“I don’t know, you are the proctor. Think of something.”, Karbaka left tasking Tomiri with a difficult job.

“You are the proctor, he says.”, Tomiri murmured. He was not happy with the responsibility of entertaining the prince. After all, he was still pretending to not like him.

He walked into Kevin’s room after knocking at the door. Kevin seemed to be toying with a pen drive while lying on his bed. The pen drive was held by a black thread tied around his neck like a necklace. Tomiri had noticed it before as well but never realised that it was a pendrive up until now. He asked the question anyways to break the ice.

“What is that?”, Tomiri asked.

“Pen drive.”, Kevin answered properly but he sounded bored.

“What does it have on it?”, Tomiri tried making small talk.

“Data, I guess.”, Kevin was now being sarcastic.

“You don’t know?”, Tomiri asked in a teasing tone.

“No.”, Kevin said.

“Why don’t you connect it to a viewer?”, Tomiri asked the obvious question.

“I don’t have the password.”, Kevin replied promptly. He then asked Tomiri why was he there, “What is it?”

“I am sorry my Prince. My intention was not to disturb you. I will leave you to your thoughts.”, Tomiri turned around and began walking towards the door. This was sufficient small talk for the first day, he thought.

“No, wait.”, Kevin stopped. He pulled himself up from the bed and walked up to a chair nearby. He sat down as he said, “Don’t go. I will tell you the pen drive story.”. Kevin couldn’t think of anything else to talk about but he desperately wanted someone to talk to.

Tomiri turned around reluctantly and walked up to him. On Kevin’s indication he took the other chair next to him.

“So, the pen drive story?”, Tomiri asked.

“These are two pendrives, in fact.”, Kevin took out the other one from behind his clothes as well. They both were tied to the same thread around his neck. He said, “They were given to me by Holum, my father’s friend. While handing them over, he told me that trying to open it without the correct password might delete the contents.”

“Did he tell you what was on it?”, Tomiri asked.

“Nothing in particular, but I am sure it is something important.”, Kevin replied as he took off the thread necklace and placed the pen drives on the table in front of him.

“What kind of password do they have?”, Tomiri asked.

“I don’t know.”, Kevin answered.

“Let me see it.”, Tomiri asked for the pendrive.

Kevin handed over the pen drive to Tomiri. Tomiri inspected the pen drive and said, “Aah, this is very old technology, where did you get it from? Its called a binary encoded storage, or BES.”

“I don’t know what that is.”, Kevin wanted Tomiri to elaborate.

“The password, usually a word, is encoded as binary short and long presses of the button. For example, to enter the character ‘a’ you have to press a short and a long press. For ‘b’ you have to press one long and 3 short presses and so on.”, Tomiri replied.

“You mean Morse code?”, Kevin’s eyes lit up.

“I don’t know what that is. We call it BEW, short for binary encoded words.”, Tomiri replied.

“But I don’t know the password.”, Kevin pointed out the problem.

“Did your father’s friend tell you anything when he gave you these pen drives?”, Tomiri asked.

“Nothing about the password.”, Kevin recalled.

“That’s strange. If I was him I would have definitely given out some hint.”, Tomiri said.

“Well, he did say something strange when we last met. It was my last day on Nole.”, Kevin recalled.

“Yes, that’s it. That must be it.”, Tomiri looked excited now. Kevin had never seen him so interested in anything before.

“He said that the key is to remember their names even if their faces have faded away.”, Kevin recalled the exact words Holum said and realised that this was indeed a hint towards the key to open this pen drive.

“Whose names? It seems the names are the passwords.”, Tomiri jumped.

“My parents’ names, Kean and Julia.”, Kevin was now excited as well. He had the password all this time but he never realised it.

“Do you want to try to open it?”, Tomiri asked.

“I don’t know. What if we are wrong?”, Kevin wondered.

“Your wish.”, Tomiri handed over the pen drives to Kevin. He was clearly bluffing. He knew Kevin would not be able to “not try”.

“Try ‘juliakean’.”, Kevin said, changing his mind.

Tomiri pressed the button on the pendrive in a particular pattern. After a minute, he stopped. He looked at Kevin and said, “It says ‘unlocked’”.

Kevin quickly took the unlocked pen drive from him. Tomiri used the same password again on the second one and now both the pendrives were unlocked.

Tomiri stood up and said, “I will give you some privacy to look at the data, my prince.”

Kevin held both the pendrives in one of his palms and with the other stopped Tomiri. He said, “Please stay. I don’t know what I would see here.”

Tomiri agreed to stay. Kevin walked up to a screen kept on table and put the pen drives there. The screen showed a message, “Found two storage devices in the vicinity.”. Kevin pressed on a button on the screen which said, “display contents”. Two similar looking photographs appeared side by side on the screen. Kevin grew emotional looking at the photographs.

Both the photographs were of two men, a woman and a baby. The first man and the woman stood tightly together like a couple and the second man stood at a distance with the baby in his arms. The only difference in the photographs was the face of the second man standing at a distance with the baby. In the second photograph, the one on the right, it was Keele who was holding the baby. In the photograph on the left it was someone Kevin didn’t recognize. He seemed to recognize the couple though. He touched the screen where they stood in the photograph, trying to feel them.

“Are they your parents?”, Tomiri asked.

“Yes.”, Kevin answered.

“You look exactly like your father.”, Tomiri commented.

“I know.”, Kevin smiled with watery eyes.

“It seems the photograph was taken on Mone.”, Tomiri commented again.

“Why do you say that?”, Kevin asked still looking at the photographs.

“The background looks like a private jetpad, very common on Mone.”, Tomiri replied casually.

“Who is the third guy? I don’t recognise him”, Kevin asked.

“You don’t recognize him? He is your friend Keele, ofcourse.”, Tomiri walked closer to the screen to be sure. He didn’t understand why Kevin didn’t recognize him.

“Not the photograph on the right. The left one. Who is the third guy with the baby there.”, Kevin clarified that he knew it was Keele in the second photograph.

“They both are Keele, my prince.”, Tomiri said.

Kevin was shocked. He turned to Tomiri and said, “Look closely Tomiri, they are different men. How could they both be Keele.”

“Yes. The one on the left is Keele before the transplant and on the right is Keele after the transplant.”, Tomiri said confidently.

Kevin knew Keele had a transplant which changed his face. He had to accept what Tomiri said. This was very curious though, why would Holum give him these photographs, he thought.

“Who is the baby in the photograph?”, Tomiri asked.

“My mother was pregnant when my parents came to Mone.”, Kevin said softly, still trying to arrive at a conclusion.

“Oh, my prince. Is this you? Were you born here, on Mone? That would make you a Hum!”, Tomiri said with excitement.

“I don’t know. Holum said one of the photographs is a lie.”, Kevin said. He wondered if it could be true.

“But you are in both of them. So, you were either born here or came here as a baby.”, Tomiri concluded.

Kevin stood in silence. He was not sure what to say. Tomiri waited for him to grasp all of it. A few minutes later Kevin said, “Only Keele can help us uncover the truth now.”

Several minutes later, Keele was looking at the photographs along with Kevin and Tomiri. It seemed Kevin had finally broken his silence and called up Keele. Keele said, “There is no doubt that they both are me but I don’t remember holding a baby or posing for this photograph.”

“Which must mean that it was taken during the week which my parents visited. You don’t remember anything from that week right?”, Kevin asked.

Keele nodded.

Tomiri said, “The more I see these photographs, the more I think that I have seen these people somewhere.”

Kevin ignored what Tomiri said and asked Keele, “Do you see anything peculiar about this photograph?”

“Yes. These are not two photographs but one. The other is a copy with some editing. The one on the left is original. The background is the Mone terminal where Boriri keeps his shuttle. It seems your parents took this photograph either when they came to Mone or when they left.”, Keele said.

“But they are in the photograph, how could they have taken it.”, Kevin asked.

“My bad Kevin, it is just a figure of speech. The photograph was taken by a cambot. I can also read the timestamp on the bottom right. Converting to Earth time it says 7th May, 2755.”, Keele added.

“That is the day I was born.”, Kevin confirmed. He had been celebrating his birthday on 7th May every year. He also knew that he was born in that year.

“Then it seems you were born on Mone.”, Keele said. “That would make you a Hum!”

“What else can you see in the photograph. Please use all your skills to find out more details.”, Kevin insisted.

Keele started investigating the photographs and spoke out loud, “Umm… the background looks fine, the baby looks fine, your parents look fine...wait a minute. What is that in your father’s hands. See, behind your mother’s shoulders.”, Keele paused.

“What is it?”, Kevin leaned in to take a closer look.

“Is that what I think it is?”, Keele seemed to have recognised it.

“Are you gonna tell us?”, Kevin asked restlessly.

Keele took off his shirt and took out a similar looking object from his chest. It looked like a bottle cap which covered a button on Keele’s chest.

“You know what this button does, Kevin?”, Keele asked.

“Resets you?”, Kevin made an honest guess.

“Yes!”, Keele nodded.

Kevin took a moment to understand what this meant. He knew that all the questions were destined to get an answer tonight.

Keele continued, “Which means it was your father who reset me.”

“But, why would he do that? And how would he know how to do that?”, Kevin asked.

“Seeing that he posed for a photograph with the protective cap in hand, I would say he wanted to tell you that he did it. I am also standing happily in the photograph with him holding my cap, this could only mean that I wanted him to reset me. It must have been me who taught him how to do it.”, Keele explained.