(September 7 – 8:45 AM)
With a series of boat, plane and train rides behind us, Aradhay and Miyake find themselves hiking along the lush and historic Inca trail, and the duo is on the way to the mountaintop palace of Machu Picchu.
Despite the rigors of travel, the past month has been positively delightful for Aradhay. He has grown very close with Ms. Kimi, and he enjoys her companionship immensely. Aradhay believes that she cares about him too, but they haven't discussed about their feelings yet. "Perhaps one day soon I will broach the topic" Aradhay mumbles to himself…
(September 7 – 9:00 PM)
The duo reached the ruined city at night, and they were drawn like moths to a large campfire in the middle of an ancient courtyard. They stayed well back in the shadows, but they were able to identify the men huddled around the flames… The Bones had beaten them to the search. Colonel Hermann Otto (the tall man that Aradhay references throughout the entry) was fuming about their inability to decipher the writing on a knife they had found, and he was sure that it was the key that would lead to a treasure of sorts…
Aradhay finds an opportunity here, as The Bones haven't cracked the code that the knife carries, but since it is still in their hands, the duo has no choice now, but to wait for the right time. Aradhay and Miyake make their own camp at the outskirts of the city, and are waiting till morning to see if life provides them with a fortune…
(September 8 – 5:00 AM)
The duo wakes up early, and head back to the fire pit. The camp was intact, but there were no Bones agents in sight… It raised suspicion, so the duo searches around for their belongings… But they were astonished to find the treasured knife resting in plain sight, on a stone next to the campfire… This seemed too good to be true… And Aradhay ponders about why the Bones would leave one of their most prized possessions unattended out in the open… But it was an opportunity nonetheless, so Aradhay grabs the knife to inspect…
Aradhay examines the knife, and he deduced that it was Spanish made, roughly around the mid-16th century… The symbols though, at first glance, they looked gibberish… And the duo stared at the knife trying to decode the symbols. Aradhay gets a strange urge to take Miyake into his arms and kiss her. The feeling came upon him so suddenly that he hesitated, but he emboldened his emotions and leans towards her. Before Aradhay could another muscle, Miyake snatched the knife from his hands and stood facing him…
Aradhay stood stone still… Miyake took the knife's handle between her two palms and started spinning it back and forth like the kindling of a fire. Then she looked up him, grinning from ear to ear. He carefully moved forward, and he realised that the symbols etched on the knife, when they were separate, meant nothing, but when combined, indicated a set of coordinates and date.
Aradhay pulls a world map from his backpack and followed the coordinates… 13 degrees North from equator, and 58 degrees West from the Prime Meridian, which puts them just off the coast of Barbados… The date was the Equinox, which was just 3 weeks away…
Aradhay: What do you think that means?
Miyake: It means… That we know the exact location of the treasure… And we also do not have much time to get there!
Aradhay: (smiles) What a woman!