Secret Breakers: The Power of Three by H. L. Dennis Page B

ones,’ said Tusia. ‘People who worked together on MS 408.’ ‘Well, maybe it was easy for them,’ hissed Hunter. Brodie let her hand rest. She pressed the nail of her finger into two pronounced carvings of the letters AB. Alex Bray. Could they be her mother’s initials? Could she have carved them long ago as a child sitting with code-crackers at this table?
    ‘Because they didn’t have to work with you, Toots.’
    Tusia scowled and then opened her mouth to answer.
    Her words were drowned out by a bell.
    ‘You do it, B,’ said Hunter.
    Brodie coiled the rope in her hand. It was lighter than before. She glanced at the window, then opened the hatch in the vacuum system, slipped the rope inside the container and closed the door. The container thumped in the tubing like an erratic heartbeat. No one spoke.
    When Brodie opened the returned container her fingers were moist with sweat.
    There was no need to say anything.
    One solitary red ribbon fluttered on the end of the rope.
    ‘I know why we’re losing lives,’ she said. ‘And we have to stop!’ Her eyes stung with tears.
    Hunter and Tusia said nothing.
    ‘You just never let up. On and on, trying to prove which of you’s the most clever, and the point is you both are, that’s why you’re both here.’
    ‘Now hold on a minute,’ interrupted Hunter. ‘I’m always fair to you, BB. It’s just her I can’t stand.’
    ‘Well “her” has a name. And it’s not T or Toots. It’s Tusia.’
    Hunter flushed red but Tusia began to grin from ear to ear.
    ‘And you’re just as bad,’ Brodie continued, causing the smile to evaporate quickly from Tusia’s face. ‘Hunter’s OK and if you stopped for one moment trying to score points off him because he’s a boy then you’d realise that. Don’t you see?’ she said, holding the rope as the single ribbon lifted and fell in the air. ‘This must be where they worked! The code-crackers of the past. The Veritas team looking at MS 408. Working together, maybe all through the night, trying to make sense of a mystery. These are their names, look, carved here. If we join the Study Group we sort of take over from them. We sit where they sat. But it’s not going to happen, is it? With the rowing and the moaning. That’s why we’re losing lives.’ She lowered her hand once more to feel the shape of the initials on the table. She laid the rope beside it.
    There was a long silence. The initials of Study Group members of the past stared up at them. The red ribbon fluttered.
    Eventually Hunter drew a breath. ‘Sorry, Tusia,’ he said deliberately. ‘I guess laughing at you was just too much fun. We should start again.’
    ‘Yeah, well,’ Tusia said slowly. ‘We should be working together.’ She tapped the initials on the table. ‘Guess they were quite a team.’
    In places the initials linked and looped together.
    ‘Shape and space,’ Tusia said. ‘It’s my thing. And I suppose being part of a team isn’t. Or working with boys as a general rule.’
    Hunter began to raise his hands as if to argue.
    ‘But OK. I’ve got to try and see things differently. I’ll give it a go.’
    ‘Good,’ said Brodie. ‘We’re a team. In this together. And we have one life left. So let’s solve this puzzle.’
    Hunter pulled the crumpled clue out of his pocket.
    Tusia took the paper from him. She read the clue aloud for the third time.
    ‘ To take a place amongst us, line the lower stitches straight with the fire then prepare for feasting in the place where the corpse awakes at two .’
    ‘We’ve covered everything except the feasting,’ said Brodie.
    ‘Yeah and that’s the part I’m most looking forward to,’ added Hunter, although there was really no need for him to confirm this.
    ‘It says we have to prepare. Do you think we have to do some cooking?’
    ‘I seriously hope not,’ laughed Hunter. ‘My rock cakes at school were so realistic they tasted like real rocks.’
    ‘No. I’m sure we just have to get