come_sailaway | JUNE EVENT: CAMP

JUNE EVENT: CAMP

early on June 10th, Friday's morning announcements end with a request for everyone going on the latest excursion to meet her in the atrium. she seems in noticeably better spirits than she had been last time, and she leads them cheerfully to the tender. once they are all aboard, and the door is securely shut, the interior fills with gas, and, perhaps, their last thought before they slip into unconsciousness is "oh shit, not again."

passengers wake up on a rickety old school bus, driving down a dirt road surrounded by woods. what is it that they notice first? that, no matter what they were wearing before, they are now wearing a camp t-shirt and legitimately horrifyingly short shorts? the overstuffed backpack between their knees? the words "take one down and pass it around" dying on their lips? the fact that Friday is absolutely driving the bus?

or, maybe the fact that it's already slowing down, pulling up in front of a massive wooden sign, saying:

CAMP AION

when they get out of the bus, Friday is the one to divide them up into their cabin groups, and she is the one to give the counselors their very official-looking clipboards and whistles. she explains that they are in charge, and that she will be back to pick them up in a week, and... very little else. she responds to nothing outside of whatever is on her unseen little script, and she gets back on the bus shortly after, leaving them there.

welcome to camp. let's make some summer memories!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The note is a very interesting thing. It only takes Malcolm a second to recognize it as the code of the Zodiac killer. A cold chill runs down his spine. Could that possibly be what this is leading up to? Zodiac never attacked a camp. Not that anything here has to make sense. The only thing that gives him some pause is the fact that the note is written with a gold glitter pen. Then again, the Captain does think that he has a sense of humor.

As someone who has studied the Zodiac cypher and cyphers in general, it only takes him a few hours to crack it. He thinks back to what he remembers around the original Zodiac cypher and tries to apply that here. Malcolm looks for symbols that are used multiple times, as those must obviously represent commonly used letters. If he can get one word, he might be able to get another.

Unfortunately the cypher doesn't appear to be read from left to right. That's frustrating. Equally frustrating is that some letters have more than one symbol attached to them. Figuring out that both the backwards and forward version of a symbol usually corresponds to the same letter is a help. When Malcolm thinks he has the key, he translates the block of symbols and stares at it for a moment. Seeing Ava's name at the bottom makes him smile - and sigh in relief. At least this isn't some kind of sick joke. Probably.

A few words start to pop out in the diagonal, like a word search. 'thank you'. Now he knows how to solve it. Malcolm copies the words out on the paper below the block of translated code and stares at it, confused. 'Dear Max'? This letter isn't even for him.

He reads it, of course, then folds the original and goes in search of the person called Max. Malcolm knows that he and Ava are friends. Max is an interesting... person? They don't spend time chatting though. Apparently Max got the letter that was supposed to be delivered to him. Malcolm offers to share the code that he cracked, then gets to work on translating the letter addressed to him. It's easier now that he knows how to do it. A half hour later, he reads the translated letter.

I wish I knew how to express how much I adore you. Yours, Ava ♥ ♥

Malcolm is stunned, but there's a flourish of hope in his stomach. Is it possible that she actually feels the same way about him that he's been starting to feel about her?

He doesn't know what to do. For a moment, he almost grabs a pen and writes a coded note back. That would take too long though, and he's not sure if it would express what he really feels anyway. He grabs the letter and goes running off to Aquarius cabin.

Malcolm raps on the door and stands there nervously, holding his breath. She might not even be in. When she opens the door, he freezes, staring at her. Oh God. Now he has to use words.

Malcolm holds up the letter. "You... You know the Zodiac killer's cypher?"

Now, his question can mean a couple of different things. That Malcolm received the letter, and has been unable to solve it, so he's coming to her to ask about her expert spy skills to help him decode it. She has stated before she likes puzzles. And that's why he's nervous, because he thinks it's a note from a real killer ready to strike the camp.

Or. That he's actually solved it, read the signature who it's from, and is now confronting her. Not about the contents of the letter, and oh god did she really write how she adored him, but the fact that she's familiar with the killer's infamous coded messages enough to emulate the style. And maybe he thinks that means something is Wrong with her.

Ava isn't quite sure which to guess, so takes the neutral approach. "Yes," she nervously twirls a braided strand of beads and feathers that she did with Ed. "It's fairly well known, isn't it?" You know, in certain types of circles.

"Yeah. I mean. Sort of." For people interested in that type of thing, which Malcolm thought was only freaks like him. "Anyway, um.. I figured it out..." His fingers tremble as he unfolds the letter. "Actually, you left me the letter for Max instead, so I found him and got the letter for me and then I decoded it..."

Malcolm looks up at her, his big blue eyes filled with something akin to hope. "D-Do you mean it?"

It's not like the note was long. And yet Ava suddenly can't even recall a single word she wrote to Malcolm. She's embarrassed enough by the implications of mixing the letters up, that if Max read it too...

Meaning he'd very well now know who she'd been talking about.

Ava shuffles slightly, reminding herself not to be a feeb. If a preteen in a stupid kid's book could do this, so can she.

"Yeah, I mean... if you like it. Yes. And if you don't. No."

There's silence for a moment and then Malcolm can't help but let out a giggle. "So if I hated it, you'd say you lied?" Somehow her nervousness is helping to decrease his. "That's a lot of work to put into a lie."

Malcolm glances down at the letter again. "I don't think anyone's ever told me that they adore me before, at least not anyone that I happened to adore too." A crooked smile. "I um.. guess that's a good thing?"

"Yes, of course. I figured I'd save you the guilt over breaking my heart," Ava claims, and it does sound rather ridiculous saying it aloud. But it was more about deniability than believability.

But she can't help the hopeful little smile of him admitting the same. "Could be a good thing. Or a rather foolish one, given the circumstances."

"Right. Of course." He smiles slyly. "That's very generous of you." They both know she's lying, but he can play along.

Ava is right. This could be good, or it could be foolish. Malcolm shifts nervously from one foot to the other. "Look, um.. I could have written a note back, but it would have taken me too long to do and I was impatient to just say what I wanted to say." He looks up at her. "I like you. You intrigue me and I want to keep getting to know you. I want to know everything about you."

He's already aware that there will probably be some things he learns that he won't like, but he knows that nobody is perfect. His own life isn't perfect. Maybe they can be flawed together.

"I'm very generous," Ava claims, putting her elbow up to try covering that 'NO BOYS ALLOWED' sign she's standing next to.

It's foolish, falling for anyone, getting attached in a place where it's surely going to be used against them both. Where their chances of survival are so low. But she's never allowed herself the opportunity, even back home. Has never dared opened up to somebody. All out of fear. And Ava is tired of allowing fear to control her decisions.

"Everything is a lot," Ava tells him, "But I can start with... I've never done any of this before. So please don't expect me to be any good at it." She reaches out a hand though.

Yeah, he sees that sign, Ava. He doesn't even want to know.

Anything that develops between them could undoubtedly be used against them. Malcolm knows this, and yet... if he has a chance to actually be happy in such a miserable place, he wants to take it.

He slips his hand in hers. "We can go slowly. It's okay." The last woman he was seeing got murdered, after all. Malcolm will always protect the people that he cares about, but at least he knows that Ava is able to protect herself when it comes down to it. "You're just... one of the most fascinating people I've ever met."

It's fine, she'll be taking it down soon enough.

Fascinating is a term she's been on the receiving end of, a lot. But Malcolm's not trying to pin her to some display board like a rare butterfly to add to some exotic collection. He makes her feel like she actually matters, the sort of thing she's not all that great at believing on her own.

Ava traces her thumb over the back of Malcolm's knuckles, gaze locked on their intertwined fingers. "Okay," Ava agrees. "I think you're pretty neat too. But where do we begin?" she asks hesitantly, because if there's supposed to be some sort of step by step process to this whole thing, she has no idea.

As much as he wants to learn everything about Ava, Malcolm has no intention of studying her like a science project. She is much more important than her abilities.

It feels good just to hold her hand, as lame as that might sound. Malcolm is a touch-starved person, and being as stressed as he has been on this camping trip, a little bit of skin to skin contact is bringing him comfort.

He shrugs a little. "Uh. If we were back home I'd suggest we go out for a drink..." Not much of an option for that until they get back to the ship. "There's always the dance, I guess, if you'd like to go?"

"If you weren't going to ask, I was actually going to raid everyone's belongings while they were busy," Ava admits with not much shame at all. "So yes."

"Wow, really?" Malcolm asks, an amused smile on his face. Of course she was. As wrong as that might be... he kind of can't blame her for wanting to spy on their fellow cruisers and he'd want to know if she found anything interesting.

"I'll try to make it more fun than rifling through people's things, if that's even possible," he says.

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Ava tucks the note into his hand and vanishes without a word. Well that's odd, but he's been so out of it these past few days he doesn't really remark on it.

Though he wishes he had once he opens the letter and looks at it. Whatever this language is, he doesn't know it. But the hearts in the corners have him thinking it might be a code rather than an actual written dialect. He's not familiar with the Zodiac Killer specifically, but cyphers are definitely a thing in his world.

Well this gives him something to focus his attention on rather than attempting to run away in the forest and die. He heads over to the craft area to grab a pen and sits at one of the tables to attempt this. But only a few minutes in and he has a problem. Not counting the hearts which he assumes are meant to represent themselves, there's fifty-five characters. That rules out any language he's familiar with. Which means this translates to either a language from a different world (plausible) or that there's more than one cypher per letter (rude).

Malcolm will find him making notes on another piece of paper about which symbols are used the most (+, Φ) and starting to puzzle over some of the letters being reversed. He notices as Malcolm enters, feeling slightly awkward that having never interacted with him before he's going to have a first impression of Max puzzling over some serial killer cyphers.

Momentarily he's glad he's sitting down and that hides these horrible shorts. "Good afternoon."

Malcolm knows that Ava thinks highly of Max, and thus he's interested to learn what kind of person he is. Still, he's anxious to see whether or not Max got the letter that was addressed to him, so he won't go through a lot of formalities.

"Hey, I'm Malcolm. I'm friends with Ava..." He points to glittery code written on the paper in front of Max. "I think I got a letter that's for you, and you might have one for me."

He holds up his own glitter pen letter.

"I may have, I'll admit I haven't deciphered it yet." Which is good for Ava, he'll never know what sweet things she said to Malcolm.

"There's far too many symbols for any alphabet I'm aware of. Is it something you know?" His voice is hopeful. Maybe this is a language from his world in which case Max will feel much better about failing to decipher it. Like this is a captcha that just proved he's a robot.

"Yes, well, sort of." He sits down at the table across from Max. "It's the Zodiac Killer's cypher, something that I've studied, but haven't memorized, so unfortunately I had to decipher it myself."

Malcolm points to the paper where Max is trying to work out the code. "It's tricky because multiple symbols correspond to one letter. The more commonly used letters in the English alphabet have up to 5 symbols associated with them."

"The... Zodiac Killer?" What a bizarre name. "A serial killer I presume? A serial killer with a cypher system is appropriate for the campsite in the forest ambiance."

He didn't realize Ava was so thematic.

"Ah, that explains why I'm having such trouble with it. That's not how cyphers are supposed to work." He feels a little better in that the system itself is cheating and not that he's just failing at processing it.

He pushes his letter towards Malcom. "Is this one yours then?"

"Yes," he says with a nod, "though he didn't kill at campsites. Most of his targets were couples that were alone, either at lovers lanes or lakeside..." Malcolm had thought that maybe Ava had just done this for him, knowing his interest in serial killers and cyphers. Apparently not. He unfolds the letter that he received and puts it on the table.

"Zodiac didn't feel like he had to be fair." Malcolm glances up at Max. "He was never caught, by the way." He takes a look at the block of sparkly text that comprises Max's letter. "I guess? I'd have to start to translate it. Do you want the key?"

"I suppose since he was never caught he ultimately won. And didn't need to be fair at all." There's a grudging amount of respect for someone with the confidence to leave notes around knowing they wouldn't be solved. That is a boss move and he can relate.

He steeples his fingers as he looks at the notes. Max is not someone who admits defeat often; the few times he's been forced to had involved him being sullen and maybe even plotting some amount of revenge. But this is a different sort of situation. Or so he tells himself.

"Yes I think so, I'm not sure I'll be able to solve it myself otherwise with so many variables. Well not in a reasonable amount of time."

"Not caught yet," Malcolm clarifies, because he'd like to think it's still possible to solve the case. "If he's still alive."

Malcolm doesn't judge Max for not wanting to spend forever trying to figure out the cypher. To be honest, he had a bit of an advantage, knowing the cypher's origin before he started working on it. He unfolds the paper with the written key on it and spreads it out on the table between them.

"Let's see if this letter is for me," he says. Taking Max's letter, he starts to transcribe it.

"I'm always surprised how many murderers are never caught. It seems like they should be easy to find, though I suppose not if they're killing at random for fun rather than for a reason." There wouldn't be any clues to connect them if they just picked victims spur of the moment.

He looks over at the key, starting to copy out the letters into a block so he can start deciphering it. The 'Yours Ava' is reassuring that he's doing this right, but it takes a moment to figure out the order he needs to read the rest of the letter.

"Ah, this is clever. She went to a lot of effort for these."

"There are many reasons why people kill," Malcolm says as he works to translate the letter into a block of text. "The hardest to catch are the type that kill strangers for fun because there is no obvious connection between the killer and the victim." Those are the cases he enjoys working the most though. That requires solving a puzzle, not merely following the logical steps to get to the husband or father or daughter who did the crime.

"Yeah," he replies with a little smile. "She did. Oh, and when you have it written it, you'll need to recopy it starting in the bottom left corner and then going in diagonals from left to right. She didn't make it easy at all."

Malcolm is kind of impressed, if he's being honest.

"What causes people to leave clues? Is it because they want to be caught, or because they're confident enough that they won't be? Even in my world and my time, that's still something that's done. Taunting the authorities with their crimes and feeding them information about what they've done." He'd never be so overly confident that he'd give away anything about his crimes, and he rarely even murders anyone. It feels like that's creating unnecessary difficulties to overcome for the criminals.

He starts to recopy the letter, his handwriting extremely precise, almost like a font rather than handwriting.

"I suppose she wanted to make sure we were entertained. And since you have experience with such things, that's.. " the word he's looking for here is 'cute' but he can't think of that in the moment. "She must have spent quite a while doing this for us."

Well, for Malcolm anyway. He has a suspicion why, especially when he sees what she's written to him asking to be taught how to dance.

"In this case, I guess you're talking about clues deliberately sent by the killer, not those inadvertently left at crime scenes?" Malcolm asks. He loves getting to talk about serial killer stuff, so hopefully Max is prepared for an earful.

"Sometimes killers send letters because they do have a secret subconscious desire to get caught. That wasn't the case with the Zodiac. His letters were to prove how smart he was, smarter than anyone else. That's why they were in code. Other killers send more straightforward letters.

The BTK killer basically got himself caught by initiating correspondence with the media and police thirteen years after his last victim. Why?" Malcolm shrugs. "Mostly taunting. He thought it was a game and was upset when the police lied to him and used data on a floppy disc that he sent to catch him. He's a classic narcissist though. He loved that attention."

Malcolm makes a face. BTK reminds him too much of his father, so he has a special hatred for him.

"She did..." he agrees absently as he starts to write the block of letters out into meaningful words and sentences. There are an awful lot of hearts in this letter...

Is it possible?