Binary

Preface It all started the day right after the first day of school, which is better known as the second day of school. Well let me start from the beginning, I have just got myself into one of the biggest messes ever. Best friends, bffs, and best friend forever those are all not true the people that you may know could be betraying, maybe even the person right next to you. I’m not saying that I don’t trust anyone I just don’t trust the animal inside of them. Every person is the same in my opinion each person acts like they are giving and caring, the animal inside them wants for themselves. Selfishness is what overcomes people. Thinking I got my chance to be with one of the popular kids, I was way off. You may or may not know it, but I am a criminal. Let me start off by telling you who I am, Max, well all I know is that my name is Maxwell. I don’t my last name that is because my dad got married to my mom. She died at my birth, I come from a rich family don’t you know. My father’s mother was very conscious about how wealthy people were. My mother was not wealthy, my father was. My father always seemed to follow my “grandmother,” he was scared she would not let him inherit the money she had. My dad decided to send me to a boarding school, ever since I was born, I have a thirst for knowledge that cannot be quenched, a thirst that will tell me who I am.

The Stephens I am pretty good at mysteries. Months ago 15 murders occurred. I was able to solve them before the police, and that was just off the newspaper articles. It was the Stephens family. They thought they were big shots. The Stephens family consists of the father of the family, Steve Stephens, the mother, Martha Stephens, and the son who is missing. The parents both got killed after it they were caught. Let me tell you about the Stephens, they are not the typical family at all. They farthest from even loving each other. None of them had any blood relation. Steve Stephens, the head of their “family.” He was a studying to become a lawyer, when one of his friends told him to smoke just a bit of marijuana. That marijuana twisted his whole mind. That night he killed a woman. He got caught, he went to jail. Jail is an unpleasant place for anyone. With a twisted mind and knowledge Steve found jail a puzzle. A puzzle to put together and leave it. A challenge. One day at lunch he was ruminating to himself, in one of the worst places he could’ve been in. He was in Martha’s seat. It was a seat of honor to her. Everyone feared her because she had killed 90 people in a bomb she made. She had the brains just like Steven. Martha although did not start out good. Once she was born, her mother left her in the street. Many different people tried raising her with her different psychotic problems. All the people who raised her would hit her for everything she did. Her adoptive “parents,” used her as a servant. She grew a hate for people. She was standing right in front of Steven back at the jail. He was writing down an escape plan, when a shade covered his sunlight. He looked up, Martha was right there. She just stood there for five minutes, and then said, “Time has passed by and you haven’t even noticed you are in my seat?” Steve replied “You aren’t anything special,” he then slapped her. She gave him a look, the look was unpleasant, and it had a type of signature saying you’re dead. That night after Steve had dinner while walking back to his cell, he got hit on the back of his head. That was not all a knife jerked into his stomach.

When he looked up, Martha, he then fell to the ground. He drifted away and became unconscious which would soon make him dead.

The First Day of School Don’t think I just wasted your time telling you about the Stephens, that will all connect back in. It was seven am in the morning. My alarm decided to wake me up. My hand then flung up into the air and hit the snooze button. After ten minutes it went off again, I was dressed and ready. You may or may not be wondering, who hits the snooze button then gets up? Well, that’s me I keep myself to a time schedule. Order is practically my best friend. I get ready in ten minutes. Elation was filled throughout my body, the first day of school. I finally got to leave the summer school which was like a jail. I took the bus there, the bus driver was fat he was the normal guy. I knew him, and he knew me. We were kind of friends. He was the only thing closest to a friend that I have. I started a new letter of the encyclopedia. It was N, I told you before about my thirst for knowledge. When ever a teacher asks me my hobbies I write down reading. If my teacher asks me why, I say, “A book takes you into an imaginary world where you can be anyone and anywhere, it brings out your imagination.” That sounds crummy, but I’m not telling them about my dad. I told people the staff and faculty would get every book away from me. The staff and faculty knew my dad very well, they each met him, and they got paid by him monthly. Whether they did anything or not. The people here all are corrupted, bribes from my father. It feels like someone owns me, I am a person. At moments like this I get the feeling that Martha may have gotten. Let me get back to when I’m on the bus, so I exited like any normal person would. I walked to the dorms where people stayed. I got to my floor which was the 24th out of 24. The school also gave bribes, like tall buildings. I always liked that building. I got settled in to the room, all my paraphernalia was in place.

Stephen I would’ve never expected it, but a person walked through the door. I’m not exaggerating, no one ever comes. I never had a roommate, I felt kind of I don’t know. I just was pleased that I had a roommate. He seemed like a new kid, he was tall. Maybe 5’7, but not six feet. So I introduced myself, and he did not say one word. I thought maybe he is a foreign exchange student or something. Then he picked up a call and said, “Hello, Billa.” That clued me in that he spoke English. He talked he did not say one word except yes. He took out a laptop from his suitcase. He downloaded a text file. He opened it and left the room. The file read: 0100100101110100001011000010000001101001011100110010000001101 1010110010100100000010000100110100101101100011011000110000100 1011100010000001001001001000000110100001100001011101100110010 1001000000111001101100101011011100111010000100000011011110111 0101011101000010000001110111011010000110000101110100001000000 1101001011100110010000001110010011001010111000101110101011010 0101110010011001010110010000101110001000000101010001101000011 0010101111001001000000110000101110010011001010010000001101000 0110010101110011011010010111010001100001011101000110100101101 1100110011100100000011101000110111100100000011001110110100101 1101100110010100100000011101000110100001100101001000000110110 1011011110110111001100101011110010010111000100000010100110110 1000011011110111010101101100011001000010000001001001001000000 1100110011010010110111001101001011100110110100000100000011101 0001101000011001010110110100111111 I knew that it was binary, I took a flash drive out of my pocket and saved the file. He came back into the room and closed his laptop, and left. Then I took my flash drive, plugged it into my computer and converted it. Then the message read: “It is me Billa. I have sent out what is required. They are hesitating to give

the money. Should I finish them?” I ruminated what he meant by finish them. I no longer pondered over this. I closed the window and he walked in. He wrote out another message. That message read:

0100100101110100001000000110100101110011001000000101001101110 1000110010101110000011010000110010101101110001011100010000001 0001000110111101101110001001110111010000100000011101000110000 1011010110110010100100000011010000110000101110011011101000111 1001001000000110000101100011011101000110100101101111011011100 1110011001000000110000101100111011000010110100101101110011100 1101110100001000000111010001101000011001010110110100101100001 0000001001001001000000110101001110101011100110111010000100000 0110001101100001011011000110110001100101011001000010000001110 1000110100001100101011011010010111000100000010101000110100001 1001010111100100100000011100110110000101101001011001000010000 0011101000110100001100101011110010010000001110111011011110111 0101011011000110010000100000011100000110000101111001001011100 0100000010101110110000101101001011101000010000001101111011011 1001100101001000000111011101100101011001010110101100101100001 0000001101100011001010111010000100111011100110010000001100111 0110010101110100001000000111010001101000011001010010000001101 1010110111101101110011001010111100100101110001000000101010001 1010000110010101101110001000000110011101101111001000000110000 1011011100110010000100000011101000110000101101011011001010010 0000011000100110000101100011011010110010000001110111011010000 1100001011101000010000001110111011001010010000001100111011000 0101110110011001010010000001100001011011100110010000100000011 0011001101001011011100110100101110011011010000010000001110100 01101000011001010110110100101110 He sent it off before I could read it, the only part I was able to decode in my mind was: It is Stephen. Stephen was his name, not a bad name. He left his laptop unattended. I decided to get on it, it asked for a password. I decided to enter one. I entered Stephen and it opened up. I found the file almost instantly. I copied that onto my flash drive. I didn’t get time to decrypt this message. It was time for class.

Psychology Before I knew it, it was time for Psychology class. Psychology seemed dumb to have in 8th grade, but they were trying to make us smart kids. We all got partners, our partners were our roommates. So I was stuck with Stephen.

Even though Stephen was the new kid he was already popular, well I guess that is fate. We got our assignment, Stephen was acting strange. Not even a peep out of him. He hadn’t talked at all, which worried me. He then gave me a piece a paper, which said convert this after dinner. Below that, it read: .-..-..-..-..---.---.--..--..-.-..-......---..--.--..-.-.--..-.-.--.---...-......----..-.--.----.---.-.-..-......--.---.--....-.---.-...--...--.--.-....--.-..-.--.---..--..---..-......--.--.-.--..-.-..-.---...-......-..-..-..-..--.--.--.-..-......--.---..--.----.---.-....-......---..--.---.-...---.-.-.---.....--.-..-.--..-....-.--....-...... --.---..--.----.---.---..-......---..--.---.-...--.----.---......-......--.-..-.---.-....-.--....-......--.----.--..-...-......----..-.--.----.---.-.-..-......---.---.--.-..-.--.--...--.--....-......--..-...--.-..-.--..-.-..-.--...-......-.....-.--.--...---..--.--.----..-......--..-...--.----.--.---...-..---.---.-....-......---.-...--..-.-. --.--...--.--....-......--....-.--.---..----..-.--.----.--.---..--..-.-..-......--.----.---..-...-......----..-.--. ----.---.-.-..-......---.---.--.----.--.---...-..---.---.-....-......--..-.-.---.--..--..-.-.---..-...-......--.-.-.--..-.-.--..-.-.---.-....-......----..-.--.----.---.-.-.---..-...-......--..--..--....-.---.-...--.-....--..-.-. ---..-...-......--....-.--..---.--....-.--.-..-.--.---.....--.-....-.-..-...--..---..-..--.----.--.--.-..-......-...--.---.-...--..-.-.---.....--.-....--..-.-.--.---.....--.-....-.-. It looked like Morse code, but it was all one word. There was something suspicious about him. I needed to know everything about him. I was investigating, I was good at that. By the end of the day I would know everything about him.

The Laptop He luckily had biology right after psychology class and I did not. I ran to our room, I took the stairs even. I came and opened up his laptop, it asked for the password. I thought it would be a piece of cake. I was in for it. I entered Stephen and it said “Stephen” was the wrong password. Then I plugged in my other flash drive. This flash drive had a hack that could decode the person’s passwords. You read it correctly I could find out his passwords, his email and everything. As soon as I plugged it in, the computer ran the program. Not to my surprise that password, was Stephen. I thought I may have entered in a wrong key. So I entered in Stephen again, I made sure every key was intact then it said I had the wrong password again. I though this computer was broken. I decided to enter the password one more time, and it opened up. I copied each and every file from the laptop. Even the sample pictures that it comes with. I looked at all those files on my computer. Nothing was unordinary just the normal YouTube videos and stuff like that. Although I was still determined to see if there was something special in any of the files. I decided to go to his email. There was an email from Billa. That read: 0101011101100101001001110111011001100101001000000111001001100 1010110001101100101011010010111011001100101011001000010000001 1101000110100001100101001000000110110101101111011011100110010 1011110010010111000100000010010010010000001100001011011010010 0000011001110110111101101001011011100110011100100000011101000 1101111001000000110011001101001011011100110100101110011011010 0000100000011010000110100101101101001000000110111101100110011 0011000101110001000000100100001100101001000000110100101110011 0010000001100100011011110110111001100101001000000110011001101 1110111001000101110001000000100001101101000011001010110001101 1010110010000001110100011010000110010100100000011100110110010 1011101100110010101101110001000000110111100100111011000110110 1100011011110110001101101011001000000110111001100101011101110 1110011001000000111010001101111001000000111001101100101011001 0100100000011101000110100001100101001000000111001001100101011 1000001101111011100100111010000101110

I didn’t hesitate to convert this message. I decided to convert the last one while I was at it. So the message that Stephen sent said: “It is Stephen. Don't take hasty actions against them, I just called them. They said they would pay. Wait one week, let's get the money. Then go and take back what we gave and finish them.” This was like a TV show, it caught my eye and attention in a second. The only problem was that someone was going to die. I then decoded the next message which said: “We've received the money. I am going to finish him off. He is done for. Check the seven o'clock news to see the report.” Billa, whoever he was, was going to kill someone. Right then and there I knew I had to intervene. When someone’s life is at risk I can’t just sit there. Now I was ready to send an email through Stephen’s email. I wrote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hat comes out to: “Don't kill him yet. Wait a month or two, he said he is going to buy at least 5 or 6 million's worth. Don't do it. From, Stephen”

I knew it was precarious to stick my finger into someone else’s business, but death was not an answer. Stephen would probably soon know that I did it, and I was done for. I didn’t care if he did that I didn’t have anything special. I decided to take a look at the Morse code message, there was a problem. When I ran it through a converter, nothing came out. Then it occurred to me that, just maybe the dots are zeros, and dashes are ones. I converted it which came out to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t was binary. Stephen seemed to be obsessed with binary. It was a good code, but it got annoying. He knew binary by heart which was weird, because only a few people know binary. I then translated this message, which came out to: “I've seen you watching me. I'm not stupid, now stop it, or you will die. Also don't tell anyone or you won't ever meet your father again From Stephen” I was shocked, some new kid knew my father. It seemed that he knew everything about me. Now I was determined to learn about him. I hacked the

school computer, and looked at every file. Nothing related to him. Things started to become strange. He walked right into the room, and I was dumb and left the message on the computer. I exited it as soon as I could. He came right up to me. He said, “Who, touched my computer. Don’t think I’m stupid I know everything about you. Like your mother died at your birth, your father abandoned you here.” He held a knife to my neck. I was both amazed and scared. Amazed that he knew everything about me in about two hours. Scared that he was going to kill me. The clock struck ten am. I thought it was almost night. I now had P.E., for those of you not smart P.E. is Physical Education.

P.E. I needed to tell someone about all this, but I didn’t have one friend. Not even the nerds would hang out with me. I was a loner. In P.E. we ran a few laps around the track. This was the usual thing. I was the last one to finish my lap which was pretty sad. Even the obese kids were faster than me and I was skinny. I hope you get my point. I’m at the bottom of the food chain. This is how it is every year. There is a new popular kid, and he moves to another school, and then someone else comes. We played football, except I was stuck sitting on the bleachers. I was on the bleachers because no one picked me again. That was what happened every time. I was perfectly okay with this. I didn’t know how to even play football so it was no problem to me. I just sat and read. By now I was on O of the encyclopedia. This was my 897 encyclopedia ever. I wanted to make to at least one thousand. I know everyone in the state of Alabama’s name. I was going to know everyone in every state in every country. That seemed like fun. I’ve read every phone book for every city in the world. Although I can still not find who my dad is. th

In the middle of the game I decided to switch books. I went to the book Twilight. I knew it was a girl book, but I liked reading. So I read every book I was able to. Every book in the library has been read at least once by me. I get a daily allowance of one thousand dollars. Books aren’t an expense at all. So when it was the third quarter of the game. Everyone took a break at the bleachers. All the guys saw me with that book. They were telling themselves, that dork is a disgrace to men. They decided to punch me as pay back. I had it the teacher was useless and did not notice so I just left class. I ran up to the roof of my building. I saw Stephen and saw some other people with him. Stephen said, “There is someone watching us. He is not fit or strong or anything, but he should be in this group. He was able to hack into my computer without any of you noticing, and he decodes my Morse-Binary code. He is joining our group soon, his name is not going to be told till tomorrow.”

Everyone else left him. I highly doubted it that he was talking about me. Even though I fit all the requirements, but Stephen was threatening me just an hour ago. I decided to go back to my room. I took a nap it was ten thirty. I slept until twelve o’clock. I was exhausted after five hours, and I did not know why.

An Empty Lunch Room Lunch, it was my favorite time of the day, well that was until today. I decided to go vegetarian, I don’t even remember why, but something struck me over the summer. So today I got a salad, with no dressing. I was ready to pick a fight with the lunch ladies because they didn’t give me any dressing, but right then some kid threw my salad right out of my hands. This kid was fat, when I say fat I mean obese he was like 49 times my size. He looked like a bully, I didn’t want to mess with him, but my salad was all over the floor. Then I let him have it, I took my fingers and put them right next his neck, right above the shoulder. Then I took my other hand, and crunched it up like I was going to punch him. Then with my fist I took my pointer finger out in the same formation, and hit it against the middle of his spine on his back. Those were the two pressure points I knew, and they worked. Everyone took a step back, I went and just sat at a table alone. Then I went to our room, to see how the “T.V. Show” was coming. Stephen had another email. This one read: 0100100100100000011101000110111101101100011001000010000001111 0010110111101110101001000000111010001101111001000000111001101 1101000110111101110000001000000110011001101111011011000110110 0011011110111011101101001011011100110011100100000011011010110 0101001011000010000001100010011101010111010000100000011110010 1101111011101010010000001100100011010010110010001101110001001 1101110100001000000110110001101001011100110111010001100101011 0111000101110001000000010000001011001011011110111010100100000 0110000101101100011100110110111100100000011010000110100101110 1000010000001101111011011100110010100100000011011110110011000 1000000110110101111001001000000110110101100101011011100010000 0011000010111010000100000011011000111010101101110011000110110 1000001000000111100101101111011101010010000001110111011010010 1101100011011000010000001110000011000010111100100101100001000 0001001101011000010111100001110111011001010110110001101100001 0111000100000010010010010000001101011011011100110111101110111 0010000001100001011000100110111101110101011101000010000001111 0010110111101110101001000000110100001100001011000110110101101 1010010110111001100111001000000110110101111001001000000100010 1001011010110110101100001011010010110110000101100001000000111 0100011010000110100101110011001000000111011101101001011011000 1101100001000000110111001101111011101000010000001101000011000 0101110000011100000110010101101110001000000110000101101110011

1100100100000011011000110111101101110011001110110010101110010 0010110000100000011010100111010101110011011101000010000001110 1110110000101101001011101000010000001100001001000000111001101 1001010110001101101111011011100110010000101100001000000110011 0011011110111001000100000011000010010000001101011011011100110 1111011000110110101100100000011011110110111000100000011101000 1101000011001010010000001100100011011110110111101110010001000 0001100001011011100110010000100000011110010110111101110101001 0000001110111011010010110110001101100001000000110001001100101 001000000110010001100101011000010110010000101110 This message seemed the longest, meaning it was important. I decoded it as quick as I could. I was scared by the meaning of the message. This time it read: “I told you to stop following me, but you didn't listen. You also hit one of my men at lunch you will pay, Maxwell. I know about you hacking my Email, this will not happen any longer, just wait a second, for a knock on the door and you will be dead.” Then a knock arose on the room’s door, I knew it was for me. The door broke in half, and a kid walked in. I knew I had seen him before. Then I remembered the meeting Stephen had on the roof, he was right next to him. The guy said, “Billa, reporting sir. Target acquired.” I don’t know why, but I had a feeling I was that “Target”. I decided not to wait any longer I ran as far as I could, then I fell, running down the staircase. Blood started coming out of my mouth, and my head was wounded. Everything went black, I was scared I did not know what was happening.

The Past A memory just flashed through my eyes, I don’t know what it was of, but I knew it was not a dream. There was a hospital room, and the doctor said, “It is a boy.” Then I knew that it was the day I was born. I would’ve never guessed if it weren’t for that. After that all the doctors left the room, my mother was sleeping perfectly. A man walked in, he took out a gun and shot my mother. Then an old lady came right next to him. The old lady said, “He will not be your son.” My father was the person who killed my mom. I had a feeling that this was what had happened years ago, but I was never sure. Then someone slapped me, the memory just vanished. Then my head was dunked into ice cold water. It was the kid I knew as Billa. I knew this wasn’t good. So I decided to do my pressure points. It didn’t affect him at all. I was astonished that nothing happened. He punched me in the face. He gave me a flash drive. I was hoping it wasn’t another threat. I went to the room. I plugged the flash drive into my computer, and then a program ran. I could not close it, it was a virus. My computer shut off. I turned it on, and it asked for a password. I put in my normal password: puzzle. It didn’t let me into my computer. My computer was hacked by Stephen. I didn’t dare to touch Stephen’s computer. Doing that would be like asking for problems. I decided to go to sleep, and not care what was going to happen to me.

The Group

I was sleeping like a baby until Billa came into my room. He wouldn’t ever leave me, except this time he said, “The boss wants to meet you at lunch. You better be there.” He then left. In a way that I did not know of I felt threatened. I was walking in the field getting ready to write my poetry. Let me fill you in I write poetry to get things off my mind. Then a butterfly came right in front of my face. It started to fly away, somehow it caught my attention so I followed, then it sat on someone’s hand. Then I noticed it was lunchtime, and Billa was coming to get me. I went with him before she noticed me. I didn’t want someone’s first impression to be that I was in trouble, even though I probably was. I had to go and see Stephen in the lunchroom. Billa literally sat me down in the seat. I was pondering over what would be said to me. Finally Stephen spoke, “I want you to join my group.” I did not want to be stuck in his group, so I said, “No, I will not be stuck with people who murder for money.” He replied, “You will come to my group, I have the key to your computer,” he then waved another flash drive. I didn’t have to deal with them, I just got up and left. Everyday for a week I thought right before I slept, what Stephen’s “group” was. People say that curiosity killed the cat, but I was not a cat. I decided to go through all of his stuff. There was nothing except for a paper and a binary dictionary. On the other hand the paper read: 0100100100100000011010110110111001100101011101110010000001111 0010110111101110101001000000111011101101111011101010110110001 1001000010000001100011011011110110110101100101001000000110100 0011001010111001001100101001011000010000001001101011000010111 100 I used the dictionary to decode what he said, it turns out he said: “I knew you would come here, Max” I was scared, I brought myself into something that I could not get myself out of.

Joining the Group For an astronomy field trip we went climbing on a mountain. Take a guess who I was stuck with. Stephen. We climbed up the mountain. 7,000 ft, I thought climbing that big of an elevation would make Stephen say something. He did not say even one word. When I looked at the view from the top I got kind of dizzy. Then I fell, before I knew it I was hanging on a rock, not to die. I yelled to Stephen for help. He did not even take any action at all. After minutes he took out a bag of peanuts. A bag of peanuts, while I was about to die. Then it became clear to me that he was only going to save me, for the group. I then yelled out, “I will join the group!” Right then and there he lifted me out of that. I had a really good feeling about this.