Thame Cliff

Picking up the laptop again, Alexander saw the recent notification that had arrived on the laptop.

He glanced at Xavier and asked, "Are you almost done?"

Xavier who had noticed Alexander's silence and fleeting gaze, relaxed and answered him, "I have time, so what's the rush?"

"Oh", Alexander said as he clicked on the notification icon.

A white page appeared in front of him, immediately it did, the time, app icons and the other things that are common to any random computer disappeared, and in the middle of the white screen was a password box.

He moved the cursor and was about to click on the box, when he paused. 'Should I really be doing this? Won't Xavier be angry? I should stop.'

Then he tried to leave the page, but then another notification came in. He had silenced the laptop the moment the first notification had entered, so he only knew about this second notification, because he was paying attention to the screen.

On seeing the name hanging above the encrypted message, his pupils constricted. He instinctively glanced at Xavier, or rather he resisted the urge to glance at Xavier, and clicked on the password box.

'A password…', he had no idea of what Xavier's password could be, because he was pretty unpredictable but then…

_Xavier what's the password?_

_328823_

'Could that be it?', Alexander doubted the authenticity of that password, but still typed it in.

Immediately he clicked on enter, it showed loading.

And he watched carefully with tension in his heart, while hoping Xavier wouldn't notice his silence and lack of activity.

He wanted to, but he just couldn't look at Xavier. And just when he thought his eyes were failing him, the password box which had turned into _loading_ stopped, and showed wrong password after two seconds.

'Damnit!' the password had been wrong, Alexander had clearly expected too much.

'Maybe I should just stop…', he had decided to give up but the name he had seen flashed in his head and he decided to try again.

He tried Xavier's birthday, his mum's birthday, random names and things, but he stopped after five tries.

'Who knows what would happen if I miss it again', with a light sigh, he tried to back out from the page, when he saw Xavier's reflection through the screen.

_I like those numbers_

'What if it were the arrangements and not the numbers? 328823. Xavier's birthday isn't there, nor is his mum's so what could these numbers mean…', Alexander played with the cursor whilst thinking when he realized it.

'8! 8 is the only double number that's together, the other numbers are just mirroring each other. Mirrors! If I rearranged it then it would be…'

"8…2…33…28", he mouthed as he typed them in, but hesitated to click enter.

'What if it's 8…32238 and not 823328?', Alexander was annoyed and angry with himself. Why did he have to waste all those trials?

Seeing there was nothing he could do, he backed out from the page and was back to the homescreen of the laptop. He was about to click on the internet browser icon when he saw the second notification.

It was still hanging there, then he remembered he had not clicked on it.

'I can't keep wasting time, I need to begin the exam before Xavier is done', He thought as he waited for the white screen to appear in front of him.

"8…2332…8", Nope this didn't work…

"832328", and this one…

"823238", or this one…

"832238", Alexander was really hoping for this one to work but… 'This one didn't work either, one more trial to go'

"…", He didn't know what to type in. He really wanted to confirm what he had seen but, it seems like it would be impossible.

Preparing to give up again, Alexander had another thought, 'What if the Double eights are still together?'

He glanced at the computer screen then the keyboard and awkwardly typed in the password, "Last time was 32… so let's try 23 this time. 23…88…32"

And the password box immediately turned into "loading" after he clicked on the enter key. This time took longer than other times and that made Alexander feel nervous.

Just as he was about to leave the white screen and begin the test, the white page disappeared and a chat room appeared in front of him.

He almost let out a sigh of relief and quickly scrolled to the top to check new messages. And there it was, "Eilsel" was boldly accentuated over the message from the second notification.

'That bastard!', it was unknown who he was cursing. Was it Xavier who was behind him or "Eilsel" who had sent Xavier an unknown message.

Alexander was about to click it when he saw the previous message below it, which, unlike Eilsel's message, was not encrypted. So he clicked on it and read its contents

_We have found some clues related to what happened at Thame cliff seven years ago. We would like you to come back, so we can continue the investigation. Just as you said, the Old Master of the Anderson family's goal is indeed the Dark nebula. We haven't given them any support because they did not request it, but it is expected that they would leave Aerorua due to the Old Master._

_The link below would take you to a virtual website where the clues are shared, and where the recent activities of the Dark Nebula can be found. Be careful, it's a one time link, and it wasn't easy to get all this information, so please give us some credit_

And below the message was a link. Alexander did not bother to click on the link, because he did not know where it would take him, and what he would meet.

But he knew that Xavier mustn't see the messages, or he would leave Arin island, and Alexander had no idea or what excuse he could use to follow him.

'What should I do? Xavier mustn't see this message or he would leave? And there's no way I could go back there, grandfather wouldn't let me leave again. Argh, what does grandfather even want with Dark nebula?'

Without a second thought, Alexander begun to type.

_Keep investigating the Thame cliff, and ignore the Dark nebula and the Anderson Family. Don't bother me again, I'm very busy on Arin island._

When he was done he deleted both messages and the link, and backed out of the chat. 'Is Eilsel's message about the Dark nebula or grandfather? I'm going to find-'

"What are you doing?", Xavier's cool and indifferent voice came from behind him.

And immediately he spoke, Alexander reflexively let go of the laptop he had slightly closed.

It turned out Xavier had stood up to check on Alexander after noticing his silence. 'The Alexander I know is never this quiet.', Xavier thought as he picked up the laptop.

"Me? I'm uh-", Alexander was wondering what to say and what excuse to give when Xavier cut him off.

"Are you having problems with the test? The questions won't be any simpler if you re-register, in fact you're just wasting your time", Xavier pointed at the laptop screen as he spoke and Alexander looked up.

'I was caught in the act!', he thought in dismay as his eyes met the homepage of Arcane High's website.

'Huh?, I'm safe?', Xavier took the laptop from him and started to fill out his information, but Alexander snatched it back from him.

"Don't type that in! Do you want them to think I'm some second generation heir?!", Alexander shouted at Xavier as he quickly started to type what he wanted.

'How is that possible? I know I was still in that chat room, did I leave by mistake? And why didn't Xavier suspect me? Why does he think I want to re-register?', Alexander was puzzled but still began the test.

The test was very difficult, and Alexander struggled to pick his options, because of the similarities between them.

He occasionally glanced at Xavier and wondered how he finished his test so quickly, 'Is he very smart?'.

Xavier didn't look stupid to Alexander but he didn't look smart. If Alexander was asked that question, he'd say Xavier was just very perceptive.

He could pick up things from people's habits, facial expressions or their actions.

Like just now, he came over to meet Alexander because Alexander was not chattering off like he used to. And he had attributed his nervousness to the difficulty of the test.

To Alexander, who was his closest friend, Xavier was not intelligent just so-so, and he was very good at what he did, he probably just uses that to his advantage.

Xavier who had noticed Alexander's stares finally asked, "Is there a problem with the test?"

"No no, it's just so-", Alexander glanced at Xavier then the screen.

"Difficult?", Xavier cut him off and asked.

"Yeah… How did you manage to finish it all?", Alexander asked curiously, eyes glued to the screen and not Xavier.

"I didn't.", Xavier replied plainly, and thought back to the test.

He really didn't finish it, the cut off mark was 85% and that was what he got. He did some questions and left some, so that he could get exactly 85%

"Oh", Alexander replied disinterestly. He was right, Xavier was just so-so in terms of intelligence.

Xavier was beside him, and had rested back on the sofa, while sorting out his thoughts.

Alexander was halfway through the test, when he noticed something turn red on the screen.

He looked up and saw a timer, 1:00:27, there was a timer?!

'Oh yeah, there was, and Xavier said it was three hours long, why was it one hour now.'

Then he remembered what Xavier had said earlier.

_Are you having problems with the test? The questions won't be any simpler if you re-register, in fact you're just wasting your time_

Does that mean the timer didn't stop? Then what about Xavier, three hours hadn't completely passed. Was he through with the test?

'No wonder he didn't doubt me. I have to hurry up, I still have about ninety questions to go.'

Then he stopped being careless and decided to be serious. Xavier noticed his change in demeanor, but did not bother making conversation with him, and instead focused on his thoughts.

'He's quiet again, is he doing something suspicious on my laptop? No, he must be busy with the test. Now how to recover a deleted message, that link must be pretty important…', Xavier thought silently.

That was how the next one hour passed, in silence.