Stones crunched beneath Sebastian's feet as he walked along a winding path. Stopping every so often to find his sense of direction, he looked up beneath his umbrella and found a street sign. The few names of towns scattered across the farmland of Dantooine were presented in basic, directing him to the most recent object of a series of investigations which were now widespread across the world. Bullets of rain pelted on his umbrella and ran off the edges like rivers.
Before he turned to leave, Sebastian paused again to look at the signs. He walked closer to the post and tilted his head in curiosity. Suddenly, he recognized patterns in the letters in the names of the five towns and immediately stopped to set both his briefcase and umbrella on the wet stone. Just as he slid a hand into his pocket, a unmarked speeder drove up beside him. Expecting his associate, he looked up once and raised his hand in a slight wave.
"This is as far as I'll take you." The driver said as the door to the passenger seat opened. Out stepped the agent Evelynn Mjolnsheer, whom Sebastian recognized from her profile on the intelligence network.
"Hello Miss Mjolnsheer, I'm Sebastian Thel of the Saraaisash, it is a pleasure." The analyst said quietly as the thunder drowned out his words. The rain poured down on his disheveled hair and he extended a hand for Evelynn to shake. "Ah, would you mind? My notes are going to get wet." He asked with a slight chuckle. His eyes darted from one side of the road to the other in embarrassment as he knelt down. Picking up the umbrella, he handed the end to Evelynn to hold over them both.
The speeder took off and turned around in the opposite direction from where it had come. As Evelynn held the umbrella, Sebastian procured his notebook from his pocket and flipped open the most recent page. A series of ciphers he had discovered from a newspaper article were scrawled out and disassembled in the forms of equations, which had only lead to more misleading patterns. That was, until Sebastian had seen the street sign leading him to most rural towns on Dantooine.
"These are the ciphers I found in the newspaper, I only just noticed something that they all have in common." He explained as he clicked his pen. Flipping over the next page of the notebook, he wrote down the names of the five towns and rearranged the letters. As the pen moved in his wrist, he turned to face Evelynn. "Any reports on your end?" He asked with a raised eyebrow.
Diverting his attention to the notebook, he listed the letters in the series of names which had matched those in the cipher which he had found in the newspaper. Disassembling the variables, he found the value of each letter and organized the names into integers. They formed a neat equation for him to solve, which revealed something he had not expected. The solution lead them to the site where the last victim had been abducted. Too late, unfortunately.
"I think there's a ring operating within these five towns, or at least an outside network targeting them for whatever reasons." Tapping his pen against the paper, Sebastian internally cursed himself for not seeing the pattern sooner. He slid his notebook and pen back into his pocket and gently took the umbrella from Evelynn's hand.
"These street signs contain the same cipher I found in the newspaper." He revealed as he looked back again to the signs. Picking up his briefcase, he mopped up most of the raindrops with the sleeve of his long coat. He tried not to dampen his good leather gloves. "The cipher turned out to be the location where the last victim was found." A sigh escaped his throat as he regretted he had not made the revelation sooner. He looked passed the sign post and started to walk.
"Come on, let's head there now." Shrugging, he motioned forward and began to lead Evelynn along the side of the road. The rain continued to pound the umbrella, which he held above both of them, stretching out his wrist to make sure the edges covered Evelynn's head and his own.
[member="Evelynn Mjolnsheer"]
