The Decipherment

  * * *

  Isabelle looked closely into the portal before her with her thought containing the code. She was growing extremely weak by the passing of each second. She would kill for a nice hot bath and some food. All she wanted to do right was to give up this whole madness that had started God knows how and just return to her life – to her peaceful solitary life. But this was something she wanted to do. What she needed to do was to keep trying.

  She looked across her shoulder at the portal that had her thought of the seaside, in the hope that looking at the calm and serene view would relax her blaring nerves. To her surprise, the rest of the portals had all been dimmed. She was completely surrounded by the greens and blacks of codes and numbers all around her. It was because she had been only thinking and concentrating about them from a long time that her subconscious only showed that now.

  The key to end this lay solely in one thing – the code. As far as Isabelle had predicted and hoped it to be true as well, if she broke the code, surely there would appear something or some way she could find a way out of her subconscious; the code was the only thing her mind had showed her when she had thought of reality and some way to get out of here.

  She closed her tightly, took a deep and calm breath and then released all the pent up weakness that had taken place inside her. She wasn’t sure how much longer she could survive like this, especially in the bitter cold that engulfed her. Then again, in order to gain something, we must loose something. If she wanted her freedom back, she would have to bear this.

  Isabelle had realized the mistake she had made. She had forgotten the basic principle she was taught since a child, a principle that appeared repeatedly in all subjects.

  In the process of enciphering, often times more than one type of ciphers were used for the encryption of a single message. The purpose for this is not only to render the code all the more difficult to crack, but also for creating the original text more protective. If it followed one simple type of encryption method, it would be cracked quite easily, hence proving the code to be weak. On the other hand, if multiple types of techniques were used to encrypt a message, it would be hard to crack it and thus, such a code would prove to be strong. A strong code can take months or even years to be cracked; and once it is deciphered, it becomes vulnerable and can be read by anyone, thus making it a weak code again. This in turn can be enhanced in its complexity by using more sophisticated encryption methods to hide the secret message.

  As Isabelle thought more of the idea, it became clearer to her why the computers had failed to crack this code. It was because it was a combination of two different encryption ciphers. Computers are normally not programmed to de-encrypt such codes but in highly advanced institutions, they are fed with the information to detect the multiple ciphers being used in a code and hence convert it into plaintext. The computers which were given the code language the robbers had used might not have been so advanced so as to perform such a task.

  It seemed all the more clearer now. Such a basic principle of combination had been used, by people who might not even have known the value of what they had been creating, to make a code that seemed nearly uncrackable. Isabelle knew now exactly how to break the code. The enthusiasm that always rose within her, before she started to work at something new and complex, brought out the smart skills of a cryptologist that she was and suddenly she got all excited about what she might discover hidden in the code. She took the image on the code fresh in her mind and started again.

 

  XWPERLEZHGIITSIJVQWIMQWSXVISHPCVEM

  Looking at it from a whole new perspective, Isabelle knew that this code used both the transposition and substitution ciphers – better yet, she even knew which ones they were. All she had to do was think of arranging the ciphertext in her mind. Her subconscious would do the rest.

  Since the transposition cipher was more likely to appear before in this code, like it mostly did, Isabelle decided to go with the rail fence cipher, a type of transposition cipher. She mentally arranged all the letters in the code according to the rail fence and the figures before her shifted thus:

  XPREHITIVWMWXIHCE

  WELZGISJQIQSVSPVM

  If each letter was read from top to bottom, in the form of a rail fence, it would give the initial order of the letters. The use of transposition cipher was till here only. Now came the use of substitution cipher. Isabelle smiled to herself. The creators of the code had surely thought they could over-smart the people who are supposed to break codes. But if those people include a master mind such as Isabelle Aimery, they were surely mistaken.

  Isabelle had spent a long time fiddling with codes and numbers. Now, after so much training and insight into the subject, she found code-breaking as easy as a child’s play, like something you could do at the back of your hand. Some of the most puzzling and difficult codes she had cracked at first sight. She never quite understood how, but her mind seemed to work like a crazy machine over-loaded just at the sight of these mischievous little figures that leave many others dumbfounded.

  Right now, her mind was screaming the next possibility. The type of substitution cipher used here was yet again the simplest one: the Caesar cipher. And yet again, the only problem she was facing was the grid – which could be anything.

  She had tried using the grid 3, but it had not worked. She looked closely at the letters, thinking which number could be applied; a number that could possibly be the key to the door behind which lay her escape. There were infinite numbers. Which one should she use? After 3, which is an odd number, the next number is 4, an even number. Isabelle had always liked working with even numbers. They are more common than odd numbers and besides, even is the same as positive, which is good. Therefore, she decided to go with 4.

  Using the grid as 4, Isabelle shifted each letter 4 places down the letters. Since the Caesar cipher is always created by replacing each letter with a specific number of places next to it, therefore, while converting it to plaintext, the letter is replaced that same number of placed previous to it. In this way, the same letter that had been encoded would be obtained, in a reverse process. The first letter of the code was ‘X’. In the English alphabet, ‘T’ comes four places before ‘X’. Hence, the first letter of the code would be ‘T’. In this way Isabelle thought of each letter being replaced by the fourth letter previous to it. The portal changed the image it represented of the code in exactly the same way Isabelle had though about it. The new code that formed now appeared thus:

  TLNADEPERSISTEDYA

  SAHVCEOFMEMOROLRI

  If she looked closely at it, Isabelle recognized some words might form out of this. In the upper row of letters, she could clearly make out a half word ‘PERSISTE’

  Persiste…

  That could be the starting of a word. It could be persisted, or persistence, or persisted, or persistency . . .

  Just as she was thinking about it, her eyes caught a glimpse of the letters ‘N’, ‘C’ and ‘E’, placed at different positions in the codes. The ‘N’ was in the upper row at the third place. The last two letters ‘c’ and ‘e’ were in the lower row, before of.

  Isabelle had spent a lot of her childhood solving puzzles. She was pretty good at them. She could easily recognize the words at first sight in their jumbled up positions. Now, looking at this code, she easily spotted the words the, of and memory, although the word memory appeared in such a way that the first letters memor were in the lower line while the last letter y was just above it, but it was close enough to guess that it formed the word memory.

  The arrangement was not right; she was sure of it. Maybe if the letters were arranged differently, they would form meaningful words. The best way, Isabelle knew, was to first omit all the letters, leaving behind only the ones that formed proper words. She imagined the code with the few letters left and suddenly, the image before her changed as well. The code now appeared as:

  T N EPERSISTE Y

  H CEOFMEMOR

 
From the upper row, she picked T and E. From the lower row she picked H and combining these, the word the was formed. For simplicity, she omitted the from the above letters. What now remained was:

  N PERSISTE Y

  CEOFMEMOR

  From this, the word persiste, from the upper row, combined with N and CE from below formed persistence. So now there were two words: the and persistence. As before, Isabelle removed the letters that had made words and the remaining code now consisted of:

  Y

  OFMEMOR

  Finally, the words of and memory remained.

  The.

  Persistence.

  Of.

  Memory.

  The persistence of memory.

  Isabelle wondered what that could mean. Of course, It could be anything. But Isabelle had to think in terms of art. She had hypothesized that whatever was in the code, it had to be related to something with artistic background. The code itself was used by the robbers with respect to their failed heist. In her mind’s eye, Isabelle brought the image of the code again, thinking what other words could be made.

  TLNADEPERSISTEDYA

  SAHVCEOFMEMOROLRI

  Since she had already made out half of the words, she now removed the phrase the persistence of memory from the code. What remained now was:

  L ADD A

  SA V OLRI

  Isabelle concentrated hard on the image before her. And all of a sudden, the words were clear before her eyes. The answer to this whole puzzle had been in front of her all along.

  Salvador Dali.

  Arranging the letters from the above lines, the name Salvador Dali was what formed. Though the letters were on top of or below each other, putting them into the right order gave the name.

  L AD

  SA V OR

  Isabelle arranged the letters in order and she got Salvador. Thus omitting this from the code above, she simple got the remainder as Dali.

  The persistence of memory.

  Salvador Dali.

  And then she remembers the year 1931 that was written under the code in Roman numerals. So now she had deciphered the whole code.

  The persistence of memory.

  Salvador Dali.

  1931.

  She had cracked open the code. Its secret message was right before her – and yet she had no idea what it meant. She could sense every wheel of her mind working fast, recalling every bit of memory in the hope that the name Salvador Dali might come up. It seemed familiar to her. Maybe she had seen it written somewhere? Or maybe someone might have mentioned to it. However, she strongly felt like she was familiar to her.

  And then those vague sparks of realization started to dawn on her face – and she remembered.