Composed by Yuki Neco
By Dr. Matthews’ suggestion, L&S Detecive Agency had a temporary office at Freedstone University. Since the client Lumina Allison and the new supporter Dr. Matthews were related to the university, he suggested the detective agency should have its base in Freedstone University. He told Sakura and Li that they can use his seminar room as the temporary office.
The seminar room was rearranged into the temporary office during the weekend when there were few ordinary staffs and students. Dr. Matthews had told his assitstants in advance that the seminar room would be temporarily used for the joint research with Green Hills University.
Thanks to a subsidiary company of Taylor’s Toys Company—managed by Madison Taylor’s home—the rearrangement progressed so quickly, that the place had turned into the temporary office by the morning of Sunday. Right after the noon of the same day, L&S Detective Agency held the first meeting at the new office. The attendees were Sakura Avalon, Li Showron, Lumina Allison, Ken Matthews, and Madison Taylor. The main topics of the meeting were the SD memory card and the paranormal studies club.
Fill out the blanks to complete the number created by God.
In flilling the blank, your personal computer must be
connected to the internet.
2 9 9 7 9 _ _ _ _
“I found this page in the SD memory card,” Lumina explained. “As Madison’s presumption, this must be the password dialog to the next information.”
“Hey, is that some sort of sequence, like Fibonacci series?” Li asked.
“Created by God... Could it be related to natural phenomena, or what?” Sakura mumbled with her face down in a puzzled look.
“Number created by God... sounds like a constant number in physics,” Ken continued.
“Yes, Sakura and Dr. Matthews,” Lumina giggled and walked happily around the meeting desk, “I think the massage gives us two clues. First one is number created by God. That implies a constant number in physics as Sakura and Dr. Matthews presumed.”
“And what’s the second clue?” Li asked.
“Here,” she pinpointed place on the screen with a laser pointer. “Complete the number. Heh heh heh... this may imply that the constant is a rigid number not an approximated one written in nine digits. There’s only one that fulfill such conditions... that must be... the speed of light!”
Dr. Matthews opened his eyes wide, nodding his head with a heavy breath.
Not understanding what that meant, Sakura and Madison were impressed by Lumina’s punch of speech.
“So I want to show you what will happen when I complete the number. Uh, can I connect this computer to the internet?” Lumina asked.
“Okay, there is a cable,” Ken pointed the LAN cable at the foot of the desk.
Li picked it up and handed it to Lumina, with which she plugged in the socket. She entered the number to fill out the blanks smoothly. The completed number is 299792458. When she clicked on the Enter button, another page was displayed, which read:
Good job, Lumina.
I hope this password was resolved not by other person.
Well, please wait for my next message.
“Mutilayered password blocks,” Madison Taylor uttered with starry eyes, clasping her hands at the chest.
“What for?” Li asked.
“The next message will be sent to Lumina’s e-mail addy or phone call or you-name-it. Even if the SD memory card should be stolen and the password was resolved, the next message will not be sent to the evil. What a smart way to do it!” Madison sang the praise of the multilayered password block she just named.
There’s one more thing that Sakura found in the club. The club possessed some measuring instruments. As was heard from her big brother Tori, Sakura knew that such instrument was too expensive for a small student-managed club to buy. How could they possess such expensive instruments?
Next, Li reported his investigation. Margaret O’Reilly attended not only Ted’s club but other clubs. Those clubs she attended had something in common. Those club were led by the boys Margaret called boyfriends.
“I knew it! She has two or more boyfriends!” Lumina said aloud disgustedly.
“What kind of girl is Margaret O’Reilly?” Ken asked.
“Simply, Lumina’s rival,” Li plainly replied.
“I know that. I’m wondering what she’s up to?” Sakura said half annoyed.
“Well, Margaret’s father is the CEO of a computer software company,” Madison gave the information to the members. “She likes to show off, and drives a red sports car.”
Li continued, “According to the information I got these days, she invested some money on those clubs owned by her boyfrieds.”
“How much money does she invest each club a month?” Lumina asked.
“About 500 bucks a month,” Li answered.
“Not enough money to buy those instruments even with two- or three-year worth savings of money,” Sakura interrupted.
“About where the instruments came from, the club might have someone else behind that supplies those instruments,” Li frowned. He thought silently with his arms crossed, until he explaimed:
“We need more information! That’s right. Lumina has the opponent named Margaret. Does Dr. Allison has an opponent like his daughter does?”
Ken Matthews raised his hand before saying. “Dr. Kyle Emerson. He’s a professor at this university, majoring in cosmology, the same as Dr. Allison. They start a big dispute every time they attend the same symposium.”
Li smirked, “I bet he has an enemy or two at least. He’s where Lumina inherits from, so it’s not a tough thing to find his enemy.”
“Hey, what’s that supposed to mean?” Lumina stood up and protested, but at a glance of Ken she turned silent with a blush sitting down with her hands on the knees.
“Uh, anyway, we have to investigate the paranormal studies laboratory in the outskirts of town and Dr. Emerson at this university.”
On the other hand, Sakura asked Li to come along with her to Vicky Newman. Vicky Newman was a friend of Sakura’s big brother Tori from their high school days. She had been the leader of the drama club and now she was an actress. When Li asked why she wanted to visit Vicky, Sakura replied he would know when he sees her. Sakura and Li went to Vicky’s office leaving Lumina and two of Madison’s bodyguards at their temporary office.
Lumina and Li sat the backmost seat attending the class. Dr. Emerson is large. How come he and Dad can’t get along well, she wondered.
“Lumina, when the class is over, we’ll follow and catch him just before he enters his office. The first purpose is to enter the office together with him, so we can have a long conversation,” Li whispered to the girl sitting next to him.
“Okay, just before he enters his office. I got it,” Lumina agreed.
Even in the investigation mode, Emerson talked to them very friendly. To the question whether he is Dr. Allison’s archrival, he answered yes with a smile. In his repsonse, he took Michael Allison as his archrival because he admitted him as a skillful scientist. Because the two scientists studied almost the same subject, sometimes a big dicussion occured from slight differences in their opinions, and sometimes got mad when the other one came out with the research paper a little earlier. But he ensured that he never envied or bore a grudge against Lumina’s father.
The two students got unexpected information as well. It’s about the paranormal studies laboratory in the outskirts of town. That laboratory was owned by Emerson’s son named Dwight Emerson, 35 years old. He had a mansion, which he remodeled as his researching facilities. According to Dr. Emerson Senior’s story, the paranormal studies lab isn’t the true name of his laboratory. His main interest was in applied physics like nuclear fusion power generation, but the paranormal studies were his pastime. When they asked him about the paranormal studies club at the university, Dr. Emerson said that he had never heard of it.
“Allow me to advise you this, Li.” Emerson started.
“What could it be, Dr. Emerson?”
“You know Dr. Allison is worrier about his daughter. Hanging around with Lumina, please don’t make him sick worrying, okay?”
“Oh, What are you talking about, Dr. Emerson? This is not it,” Lumina nervously laughed.
“Hey, you two aren’t loving couple, are you?”
“No, we’re just friends. He has his own precious person other than me,” Lumina giggled.
“Ha ha ha, that must be a very relief to your father,” giant Emerson laughed.
Li and Sakura talked together at the other side of the office. First, it seemed that Li and Sakura had different opinions; they argued. Li sounded like he wanted Lumina nearby so he can protect her. In Sakura’s opinion, they have to think up of a place for Lumina to work as she wanted, but not her apartment. A few minutes later, Sakura picked up her cell phone and made a call. When she finished talking on the phone, Sakura talked to her partner.
“See, Li? There are always choices.”
“All right, Sakura,” Li calmly nodded his head, as he walked to Lumina.
“Okay, Lumina, we’re sending you to Madison Taylor’s residence. You pack everything you need for your work.”
In response to Li’s direction, Lumina tried to copying the data attached to the new e-mail to her memory stick. The copying was a simple job of drag’n’drop; however, a simple job like that could be mistaken in a hurrying situation.
“Shoot, not this one,” Lumina groaned in a frustration. By mistake, she dropped the icon of the file in the SD memory card folder. She took out the memory card out of the slot and put it in the drawer of the desk, before retrying to copy the data file into her memory stick.
“Okay, now I got all the data I need in my laptop and this memory stick for a backup.”