The Rescue
Phil couldn't see anything except darkness. He was gagged, and his limbs were tied with ropes. He could feel being moved somewhere in a vehicle, though. After a few minutes, he was made to walk up some stairs, and then move forward. Phil started counting his steps. It wasn't until the four hundred twelfth one that the people made him stop. They opened a door and led him inside. Then they made him sit down, where they untied his ropes and took out his gag.
Finally, he saw them. There were three of them, wearing masks, balding with tattoos all over their bodies. They were tall with pointy spears in their hands and crowns made of feathers. Phil didn't need to be a genius to figure out that they were tribals. One of them said, 'You are so lucky. In four days, our holy festival will start. You will be one of the people we will be sacrificing to our great deity. Aren't you happy?' Phil was silent. Then the second one said 'Well, we'll leave you on your own now. We've got some more people to catch.'
They all left, locking the door behind them. Now, Phil was on his own. They had taken everything he had. But, just before he was captured, his phone fell into his shirt. And his shirt was tucked in. So, the tribals didn't know that he had it! He took it out and decided to message his best friend, Larry, hoping Larry would save him before it was too late.
Larry was having a regular day. He had just come back from work and was sitting down to watch TV, when he received a text from his best mate, Phil. He picked up his phone and found a weird text message from him. It said, “I needed you to help me with my work. I can't understand it. It's something about China. I am stuck on it for about four days. It's about the culture of the people there and the animals they kill to sacrifice to their God. Please come as soon as possible to my house. I also wanted to tell you that I can can help you with the work you had with the tribal and jungle thingy.
(1,5)(4,3)(3,5)(7,19)(5,15)(1,6)(4,8)(4,9)(7,21)”
Larry was very puzzled. He did not have any work related to some 'tribal and jungle thingy'. And what were the mystery numbers written below? He knew that Phil had gone to China, so he could understand his work by seeing the practices himself, why is Phil asking him? Thinking it was just a prank message, he kept his phone aside.
Larry looked at his watch and remembered he had to meet his friends. He started getting ready for going to an escape room with his friends. He soon met with all of his friends. The mystery started about ten minutes later. In the mystery, they had to prevent a bomb blast. Larry and his friends found it quite easy. After about forty minutes, they were ready to solve the case. They had found the piece of paper, needed to crack the code. After about five minutes, one of the friends cracked it. Answer was the first letter of every word which was written.
And suddenly, something clicked in Larry's mind.
He rushed to the main door and started banging on it. The staff opened it, and he said that he had to go because of a tummyache he just started and apologized. He immediately took his phone out of the locker and opened his chat with Phil. He went home and almost at once found his answer. The first number in each of the brackets was the number of the sentence and the second number was the number of the word in that particular sentence. So (1,5) would mean 'Help'. After looking at each number, he finally found all the words. They were: Help, stuck, China, tribal, sacrifice, me, four, days, jungle.
Eureka! Shouted out Larry but soon realised the gravity of the situation, Oh no! Phil was stuck in China, and tribals were going to sacrifice him in four days. At least Larry had four days to save him. He immediately booked the next flight to China, which was the next day, booked a room in a hotel near the airport and started packing his stuff. He took clothes for four days, some cash which he would need to exchange at the airport, a sword (just kidding), his laptop, some snacks and a backpack.
The next day, Larry departed for the airport. He went through all the procedures and checked all his stuff before sitting in the flight. The flight took off and landed in China about ten hours later. He had a very uncomfortable journey as he kept thinking about Phil. Only three days to go!
After landing, he picked up his baggage and checked-in into his room in hotel Larry-could-not-read-its-name. He then took out his laptop and started searching for jungles around that area, because of two reasons:
1)- Phil had told him that he would be staying in a hotel near the airport, so he mustn't have gone far and
2) Phil had also included the word 'jungle' in his coded message.
Larry could find two jungles, so Phil must be in one of the two. Larry got into action, took a cab to drop him two kilometres from the first jungle, which was closer than the other one. From here he walked inside. He was feeling very scared but tried to look brave. He walked on for hours, but there was no sign of tribals or his friend Phil. The jungle was all quiet except for the chirping of the birds. Feeling defeated, Larry came out, deciding to continue his search the next day. Phil had to be in the second jungle. He went back to his hotel, ate dinner and went to bed.
The next day, Larry continued his search in the second. He was feeling absolutely sure that Phil was in the jungle. He walked for three hours and found nothing. He decided to take a break and sat down on a rock to take a bite from his packed lunch. All of a sudden, he heard a noise. It was like a chant, and it looked like it was being said by a group of people. Larry walked towards it. It kept repeating. And then, he saw the tribals.
They all were dancing around a fire, and the language sounded very ancient. He kept hiding, waiting for their recital to get over. They were tents a little farther, so there must be where they lived. Everybody left after a few minutes and went to their tents except a few people. Larry walked out of his hiding spot purposely trying to be found out by the tribals.
They spotted him in a matter of two minutes and pointed their weapons to his neck. 'Relax! I am just here to ask for my friend's freedom!' he said 'And who might that be?', one of them asked. 'His name is Phil. He is tall, thin with glasses...' Larry replied. 'Ah, that one! Well, we can't free him. He's important for the sacrifice.'
'Please, you can always kidnap someone else', Larry pleaded.
'First of all, it's not kidnapping. Our God has planned who is worthy enough of sacrifice. And also, we can't free someone who has been called by our God. You are lucky that we are letting you go as it seems our God doesn’t want you.” There was some whispering going on between them.
Larry had no choice but to walk away. They all had weapons and outnumbered him. So he prepared to comr again the next day, with a plan to save Phil.
It was the last day to save Phil. Larry went to the spot where he had seen the tribals earlier. Now, there was a much bigger fire, and everyone was sitting in their tents, preparing for the sacrifice. When no one was looking, Larry took a path which was beside the tents. It led him to a giant cave. It had a huge gate. He swung it open, and Phil was sitting there along with a few people, the ones to be sacrificed. Larry bolted in and hugged his friend. 'Nice to see you safe!' Larry told him. 'Thank you so much for coming to save me. I knew you could do it.'
'What do we do now?'
'I don't know. Let's go or these people will kill us.'
'No. First, we should save these people too. They too are innocent and don’t deserve to be sacrificed.'
Larry turned around to grab his backpack, but the tribals were standing there, smiling. The middle one said 'Would you like to join MI-5?'
'I'm sorry, WHAT?'
'Yes, you heard it right. We are asking you to join MI-5. You have given an exceptional performance in every test we have given you.' The tribals were agents after all. And Phil, his bestie had planned it all.
'So, you mean this whole thing was a test'?
'Yes', said Phil. 'We would like you to join MI-5. You would be an outstanding agent.'
'So, when am I starting?', Larry asked. Oh, this was very exciting!
'From today, if you wish', said one of the tribals uhhuh… agent.
'What is my first case, then, and what is my code name?'
Phil grinned and answered, 'Your code name will be AN-2 and your first case will be to find out why did the chicken cross the road.'
So this was how Larry turned into ‘agent AN-2’.