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Chapter 57: July Nineteenth
After an unknown amount of time, one of the men suddenly put down his cards, wearing a worried expression.
"...I still think the Boss shouldn't have listened to the Riddler."
"Hey! Watch your mouth! What the Boss does is his business. We just follow orders; the rest has nothing to do with us."
Hearing this, the faces of everyone in the room changed instantly.
The Riddler?
Darren, eavesdropping on this name, frowned.
The Riddler should still be in Arkham Asylum. Did he escape again? Why haven't I heard any rumors? And who is this 'Boss' they're talking about?
"I know. I'm not stupid enough to disobey the Boss, but don't you guys think what we're doing this time is a bit too much?" the man who spoke first continued. "If we follow the Riddler's plan, everyone on this ship might die. We might even end up buried alongside that Phantom Thief Kid."
"Probably not. Didn't we test the antidote beforehand? Besides, that person is on the ship too. He wouldn't kill himself, right?"
"That's what they say, but it's hard to be completely at ease. You know how terrifying that freak is."
"True. Compared to him, the Riddler looks downright pleasant."
Just as they were discussing this mysterious figure, the suite door suddenly opened.
"...I've distributed the pens as you ordered and told them they must carry them at all times for the next ten days. Now, can you tell me what those pens are actually for?"
Director James walked in with a dark expression, questioning the men in his room.
"I know there must be something wrong with them. Did you put micro-bombs inside? What exactly does the Penguin want to do on this ship? Are you really just trying to get revenge on Phantom Thief Kid?"
"Micro-bombs?"
One of the men was amused and waved his hand dismissively. "As expected of a film director, your imagination is a bit too rich. Those are just listening devices, used to flush out Phantom Thief Kid hiding on the ship."
"Didn't our Boss already tell you how Phantom Thief Kid tricked him before? You just invited a few friends to play on the cruise, that's all. The rest has nothing to do with you or your movie. Understand?"
James didn't fully believe their story, but he knew that no matter how much he pressed, he wouldn't get the truth. The Penguin's henchmen had never taken him, a big Hollywood director, seriously.
"If I had known, I should have risked my life to escape when Penguin's car blocked me..."
Whenever James recalled the day he was forcibly 'invited' to the Iceberg Casino, he felt a pang of regret.
I hope Phantom Thief Kid understood the signal I sent. If he's really on the ship...
"So, when will you leave?" James asked, putting away his thoughts and looking grim. "I can refrain from asking what you're doing on the ship, and I will try to cooperate with your operations, but at least let me know when this will end."
"Relax. We have no interest in following you around filming some crappy movie on the ocean. If all goes well, we can say goodbye around July 19th, Mr. Director."
July 19th. James calculated the date; that was the day after tomorrow.
It was also the day he had scheduled for principal photography to officially begin. Tomorrow's main task was to let everyone familiarize themselves with the ship's sets and test the actors' grasp of the script, especially the hundred amateur extras. After all, if they couldn't even figure out the basics, the final result would be miles away from what James wanted to present.
"Why the day after tomorrow? The pens were only distributed today. You only need one day to find Phantom Thief Kid?" James asked with a frown.
"Hey! James! That's not a question you should be asking, is it? We told you the date out of respect for the fact that the Boss likes your old movies, just so you wouldn't let your imagination run wild. But if you ask stupid questions again, I'll have to make sure your brain doesn't need to think anymore."
The Penguin's subordinate looked menacing.
Seeing this, James trembled and shut his mouth.
...
"You ask why it's July 19th?"
On the deck of the luxury liner, Tim stood alone by the railing, talking to Oracle.
A few minutes ago, shortly after Tim finished his call with Darren, Oracle had contacted him proactively to reveal the date in Kid's notice.
July 19th—exactly the same time the Penguin's henchmen had mentioned for taking down Phantom Thief Kid.
"Tim, your previous idea was correct. The key to cracking the notice is indeed the Atbash cipher," Oracle explained.
"Quartz, Flame, Ocean, Breeze,
In the twenty-six letters with head and tail reversed,
Find the nineteenth day and night,
I will board the Pride of Macragge,
And personally pluck that cruel flower of hope."
Tim had tried using the Atbash cipher to translate the four keywords—Quartz, Flame, Ocean, Breeze—and ended up with the meaningless string "jfziga, uoznv, lxvzm, yivvav".
He hadn't been able to deduce any information beyond that.
"Actually, you had already solved it back then, Tim. Phantom Thief Kid just played a little trick that stopped us from seeing through it immediately."
Hearing Oracle's words, Tim's mind suddenly clicked.
Oracle just said Kid's forecasted date was July 19th. July... J-U-L-Y... perfectly matching the four first letters of jfziga, uoznv, lxvzm, yivvav.
"An acrostic! Although that deduction seems correct, there was no hint in Kid's notice pointing to that. Why are only the first letters significant? What do the remaining letters mean?" Tim rested his chin in his hand.
"You're wrong, Tim. Phantom Thief Kid did give a hint," Oracle offered a different answer. "'Twenty-six letters with head and tail reversed' doesn't just emphasize the Atbash cipher; it's telling us to pay attention to the head and tail letters."
"Wait, you said head and tail letters? The head letters spell JULY, no problem. What about the tail letters? avmv?"
"Not avmv, but vvam."
"vvam?" Tim looked confused.
He could understand 'am' as ante meridiem, but what about 'vv'? Did it indicate a specific time?
When thinking of the letter V for counting, one would first think of Roman numerals, but Roman numerals don't have a form like 'VV'!
"I know you must be thinking of Roman numerals, but that's wrong. We should interpret it using Babylonian numerals," Oracle didn't keep him in suspense and revealed the answer directly.
Babylonian numerals used a base-60 system and employed only two cuneiform symbols: one representing 1, and the other representing 10.
English letters, of course, did not exist in the Babylonian numeral system. However, the wedge-shaped symbol for '1' looked very similar to the letter 'v'. If one viewed 'vv' as two superimposed wedge symbols, they represented the number 2.
Substituting this back into the vvam combination yielded—"2 am".
Two o'clock in the morning.
"Perhaps the reasoning that the two symbols look alike is a bit of a stretch, but consider this: the Atbash cipher originated in the Babylonian region. Even the concept of 'a.m.' can trace its roots back to the Mesopotamian era. So, it makes sense to use Babylonian numerals here."
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