Death Message

Chapter Seven

"What do you mean, a map?" Maggie replied, now fully awake and sensing the excitement in her husband's voice as if a light bulb went off above his head.

"The disk has twelve evenly spaced lines of buttons radiating out from the center forming a perfect circle. There are five small buttons on each line. The scroll forms an exact template for any six consecutive lines of buttons."

"That's nice. We figured that out last night. What does that have to do with a map,"

"Since the scroll is transparent, you can place the fan over the top of the disk and line it up with any six lines on the disk."

"You already said that. We already know that" Maggie impatiently replied, wanting more than anything to trip back to dreamland.

When you finally entered the correct combination on the disk, all but one of the lights turned green leaving the one remaining blue button. The blackened button on the scroll is in the same row as the remaining blue light. By lining up the black and blue buttons, the two remaining circles on the scroll containing the black dots provide a point of reference."

"A point of reference to what?" Maggie asked.

"To the location."

"I'm confused. How did we go from a point of reference to a location?" Maggie barked, frustrated with Brad's cryptic responses.

"Look, Maggie, connecting any three dots creates a triangle. I believe if we connect the three marked circles on the scroll and then simply find the center point of the triangle; it will identify the location of our next clue," Brad paused, then for emphasis, said, "or the treasure."

"Connect the dots? Treasure?" Maggie said somewhat sarcastically. "What location? Where? We don't have a map to put under the center point of your triangle. What treasure?"

"Okay, okay. First, we do have a map and I believe the disk is the key. I'm sure of it. Second, there has to be an end to this. If you believe we've been uncovering clues, then you must believe the clues are pointing to something. What else could it be but a treasure, or a prize, maybe a reward? Oh, I don't know."

"I hope you're right Brad. Gold ingots would be nice, but you've still lost me on the map."

"I believe the disk represents a grid for half of the earth's surface."

"You mean like hemispheres, latitudes, and longitudes?" Maggie questioned.

"Exactly."

"But what half of the earth's surface?" Maggie quizzed.

"That's what we need to find out."

"I'm still not sure I follow you on this, but I'll try and keep an open mind," Maggie paused, then added, "if I don't lose it first."

●●●●

Brad convinced Maggie to go to the lab early. Before heading out, he located two different views of the earth from a PC-based encyclopedia that came packaged with his personal computer. The first circular view depicted the Northern hemisphere, and the second, the Southern hemisphere. Brad was able to enlarge the graphic output to the printer, such that one-fourth of each map fits on one sheet of letter-size paper. After printing the maps, Maggie taped the four sheets together for the Northern Hemisphere and then the four for the Southern Hemisphere. Maggie thought the maps looked like medium-sized pizzas and decided she must be hungry. When all was ready, Brad packed the maps in his briefcase, and they left for the lab.