CLUE

23. REASON BEHIND

"Oh wow." Eddy said.
"The nearest one from here is about 15 minutes walk. It's rather going to be a marathon." Brett said.
"Yep. Let's go."

The two quickly left the hotel, ran down to the nearest cyber cafe which was right next to the place where they always buy bubble tea. Both of them were drenched due to the heavy rain, when they entered the cafe.

Brett immediately went to the main desk and asked for the hotspot connection while Eddy removed the laptop in the corner of the cafe so no one could see.
After Brett came back and gave Eddy the connection password, he called Bella and attached the earphones.

"Hello? Bella?" Eddy asked.
"Eddy? What happened?" Bella asked.
"A lightning struck a network tower and dropped the network range. We're at a cyber cafe to get a network and to finish the rest of the code."
"Oh."
"How much time do we have?Are Sid and Vaishnavi there?" Brett asked.
"We have like 15 minutes left. And yes, they are here."
"Hi!" Vaishnavi said.
"Oh! Great!" Brett said in relief.

The screen flashed again with the same note as before and the 11 letters of binary.
"The first one was K." Eddy said.
"Ok. Read the second code." Sid said.
"Ok! The second code is 01001111." Brett read out.
"Its O!"
"The letter O." Brett repeated as Eddy was writing it on the page.
"01010110" Brett said.

Sid thought for while.
"Which one is it?!" He said to himself.
"What's the matter?" Bella asked.
"I don't remember if 01010110 is V or Z."

"Uh oh.... Bad news." Vaishnavi declared.
"What now?" Bella asked.
"We have to go to practice now. Vacy texted."
"Sid, which letter is it?" Brett questioned.
"Uh.. uh.....I think it may be 'V' from intuition."
"Listen, we will try not to take too much time in practice." Vaishnavi assured.
"No worries." Eddy said.
"For the mean time, I'll send you the list of all the letters I can recall through Bella." Sid said.
"Great!" Bella said.
"Good idea!" Brett exclaimed.

Brett recieved a message from Bella, which Sid had sent it contained the list of binary codes corresponding to its letter.
"Thanks!" Brett said.
"No problem." Sid said.
Then the line between Sid and Vaishnavi was dropped.
"Bella, why don't you get some rest. We will see to it." Eddy mentioned.
"No it's fine."
"Get some rest."
"Fine. If you need anything, just tell me. Bye!"
"Bye."

"This so hectic." Eddy said.
"I know. Let's take a 10 minute break." Brett said.
"Yeah sure."

●   ●   ●

"How did the code even reach Brett and Eddy?" Sid asked.
"That's the main problem! We need to find the source of this issue. And fast, Brett and Eddy don't have enough time!"
"Right. Listen, if we go together, then Vacy might suspect us." Sid said as he folded the paper and kept in his pocket.
"You're right." Vaishnavi said.
"You go, I'll give some excuse."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, now go!"

●   ●   ●

Both got themselves a cup of coffee.
"Why- why do you think Vaishnavi warned about Vacy?" Eddy questioned.
"Yeah! And about the strange reference to the Jig saw puzzle?" Brett asked.
"And the same charity organisation were we used to fund a part of the tour's earnings." Eddy said.
"It seems all strange yet somehow connected." Brett stated.
"On what basis?"
"See, this mess has started ever since we found that the merch was stolen and one single email."
"And Bella informed that Vaishnavi got the last black hoodie in the stock as a gift from Vacy which was supposed to go to India."

Brett checked the email again, this time from his phone and did everything not to touch that one document. But he found another attachment underneath it.
It was the fanart.
"It looks amazing!" Eddy exclaimed.
"I know! So awesome. Who is it by?" Brett asked.
That's when they saw the cursive 'V' and it made all sense.

Vacy was behind everything.