The Crypt togglers fed off Alicia’s excitement. They wasted no time in bringing up more of T. T. LeClerc’s heinous sabotage. As the overhead projector flipped through images, Alicia listened to brief descriptions of the damage that had been inflicted upon the buildings, work orders and projects of Square Knot Complex. As Chute had pointed out, none of the images suggested simple printer-swapping tricks. Rocky shouted, “Hold that one, Chute!” A picture of treetops and clouds froze on the screen.
Rocky walked over to where Alicia was still hopping about. He placed a hand on her arm to calm her down. When he had her attention, he began to explain the image:
“The crown jewel of the Office of Word Puzzles is a hidden meanings theme called Open Your Eyes. The puzzle smith who invented it is a huge fan of your actor, Penelope Cruz. He had just seen one of her films, Abre los ojos, and dedicated the theme to her.”
Alicia had heard of the actor but had no idea what movies she was in. She kept that to herself—hoping to prolong her newfound status as a super-sleuth. She nodded at Rocky with her best mysterious smile.
Rocky continued, “This particular puzzle uses visual images to hide a message. Sometimes, that could be a quote. More often, a simple list is hidden. Once, the entire Do-Re-Mi song was embedded in a map of Austria. Solving the puzzle is just a matter of seeing past the surface.”
Alicia muttered, “What’s so special about that? Haven’t you seen I Spy and Where’s Waldo?”
Meenie harrumphed. “Comparing Where’s Waldo to Open Your Eyes is like comparing the cave paintings at Lascaux with the work of M. C. Escher.”
Alicia, though chastened by the mild rebuke, crossed her arms, rolled her eyes and returned her attention to Rocky and the slide. She stared at the screen as Rocky continued his explanation.
“The puzzle smith had hidden some Greek letters in four images. T. T. obliterated the original artwork by replacing the four images with this awful one.” Rocky shook his head sadly.
“Didn’t the office keep a backup?” Alicia really wanted to ask which Greek letter looked like those ghostly gummi worms. She had memorized the alphabet but had never bothered to study the letters themselves.
Rocky nodded, “Yes, they did. However, T. T. overwrote the backups with her abominations. The puzzle smith stored his own copies in our encrypted servers. Every time he tried to restore the files, the production server mysteriously replaced his uploads with T. T.’s. Since you were able to figure out how she had tampered with the office supplies, I was hoping you could fix this, too.”
Chute interjected, “Really, Rocky? Are you sure you don’t just want Alicia to solve this puzzle?”
The room erupted with laughter. Alicia smiled at Rocky. “I guess you’re no good at visual puzzles, then?”
Rocky blushed a deep gray. “Ah, you got me. I’m more of a cruciverbalist who can’t resist cryptic clues wherever they are. Nothing you can do about the server being hacked.” He turned pleading eyes to Chute, “But can’t we show her the originals, just for a second?”
Sizzles playfully sighed, “Awww….”
Meenie said, “Go ahead, Chute. We need a break.” Everyone agreed.
Chute whispered into the Lexibus. The current slideshow faded out. After a couple of seconds, a new image appeared:
Alicia had to come clean. “I don’t recognize Greek letters, except for that pi.” She shuffled uncomfortably, mildly annoyed that she needed a clue to the puzzle on the screen after Rocky’s vote of confidence.
Rocky waved his hand dismissively. “Never mind that. The Greek letters are pi and rho, in the sun. You see the pi in the clouds. In the lower left corner of the river is the delta. Finally, above the oar, rho is repeated three times.”
Alicia was all smiles again. “Did you hear yourself? River delta! Rowboat, pie in the sky!” She studied the first picture. Then she laughed. “Pyro! Get it? Like a pyromaniac!”
Now Rocky glared at Alicia. “Surely you don’t think we missed that. Well, then, why don’t you just tell us what T. T.’s picture means!”
Papaya interjected, “Now, mind your manners, Rocky! You did ask the girl for help.”
Rocky softened his face. “I’m sorry dear. But I did say that Open Your Eyes requires you to see past the surface. Yes, we know that wordplay gives us pyro, pie in the sky, river delta and ‘Row, Row Row Your Boat.’ What we don’t know is the meaning behind these literal translations. Can you think of anything?”
Alicia felt her face burning. Not only had Rocky called her stupid, but he had also made it difficult for her to disprove him, because she had no idea what those gummi worms were. She blinked back tears and mumbled meekly, “I don’t know what those squiggly letters are. Do they have anything to do with the originals?”
Eenie, the mathematician, answered, “Perhaps. Lexibus overwhelms us with all of the possible meanings for the lower case xi. Apparently, scientists love it. We don’t think T. T. is subtle enough to include meaning within this graffiti. But we also don’t think the letter xi was chosen at random.”
Alicia rolled the word around on her tongue. She had been taught to pronounce it with a zee sound. Eenie’s soft ess sounded so smooth. She asked Chute to switch back to the defiled image. If she was going to solve these four, she needed to figure out T. T.’s game first.
Chute bookmarked the four images, reloaded the sabotage slideshow and scrolled down to the ghostly gummies. Alicia started chanting, “Sigh, sigh, sigh, sigh…pi in the sky…sigh in the sky…sky-high sigh, pie sky sigh. One, two, three, four, five, six. Six sighs in the skies eating pies…”
The Crypt togglers, no strangers to quirky mind tricks, silently waited for Alicia to finish. They appeared to be mesmerized by her sing-song voice. When she stopped, they all looked at her as if she were the oracle.
Alicia shrugged. “I don’t know. Why xi and not alpha? Pi makes sense, even lambda, if you’re counting sheep.” She giggled. “But who counts xis? Hey…is that it? Look, y’all! Six xis!” Alicia whooped with glee. The Crypt togglers gawked.
Rocky chortled. “Well, I’ll be dipped in the Falla Sea!”
Alicia was grinning so widely that she could barely speak. “Old T. T. is a master of the switcheroo. We should be able to focus on her exploits by looking for flipping, swapping and now, palindromes. We should go back to the beginning.”
Rocky gasped, “But, what about my puzzle?”
In unison, the other Crypt togglers yelled, “Not now, Rocky!”
Chute scrolled back to the first image. Alicia rolled up imaginary sleeves and went to work.
Can you solve the puzzle smith’s original puzzle? Open your eyes!
Rowboat image courtesy of Sudhamshu on Flickr.com
Part 7: Pro Test
