It was a nice weekend morning, having breakfast in the garden, the sun shining and the birds singing. The dark slab did not make too much of a shadow and even the grass had adapted to it.
When the doorbell rang, I did not think anything suspicious.
I was just wondering who that might be?
An off-setted banker offering private banking services?
A banker advocating a new currency (e.g. based on a block chain scheme)?
A banker offering high interest rates by buying (guaranteed safe) government bonds?
A central European person (plus company) lost in a beaming experiment and wanting to have a drink?
You know one of these usual rather harmless encounters.
But guess who was there? A Man in Dark!
I was quite a bit surprised, as I had not been thinking about their presence for a very long time. Well, I thought they were busy at the nearby space port and that their artefacts were reasonably safe (like in our garden) – but from an aspiring geocacher who has put a cache under a dark object.
I must have shown my surprise as he reached out holding a paper bag under my nose saying: "Want a cookie?"
Polite as I am, I said: "Thank you, would you like to come in and have a cup of coffee in the garden?"
And guess what! He replied: "With pleasure!" I told him that he could inspect the slab to see that we have been treating it nicely (as if any material could ever even scratch it). He nodded and went to sit down facing the garden and the slab. He seemed quite satisfied. I left him to fetch another cup of coffee (dark – no sugar – no milk – obviously) and set next to him.
I was looking at his bag with cookies and expected to see one from the bakery down the street. They have been supplying us with cookies for so many geocaching excursions, so I thought that the Men in Dark would have discovered them and their cookies by now too. But the bag somehow looked different. Without much saying the Man in Dark was sipping his coffee and was still looking at the slab nodding with satisfaction. So I said: "You like the coffee?"
He replied: "It is OK, but I was happy to see the slab here doing well and in full operation."
"Full Operation? Does it drain electrical power and I have to pay for all of that?"
"You should know better by now! This here is what you would call the computing centre for our nearby science installation."
"Ah, yes, I remember: the synchrotron that we passed by at our first encounter. Or was it your kind who caused the accident in B.A.L.I.V.E.R.N? Did you high-jack Mike Big & Waldo Bang – like you did with me? You remember?" I was thinking that this might well be the reason why we have not seen any new LHC caches.
"Calm down!“ he said with a wicked smile. "No, not that old stuff – you should well know that we have far better things than that."
"Thanks for the coffee". He stood up and just left the way he had come.
Well, at least I did not need to go for a walk with him, nor did he engage me into any scientific discussions. A cup of coffee every now and then to avoid being beamed to the other end of the universe waiting for rescue seems a good deal to me. I relaxed again and enjoyed the sunny morning, wondering why on earth I would need a computer in our garden. At least it was not used for a lottery or financial arithmetic's – science is always a noble thing to support! So when I was finally cleaning the breakfast table, I noticed that he had forgotten his paper bag. Quickly I looked into it to see what cookies he had left.
Much to my disappointment I found that the bag was empty. He must have eaten all cookies while I was fetching his coffee. So I folded the bag nicely together to put it into the paper bin. When straightening the paper I realised that its printing looked like a map of the forest at the end of the street and not like any advertisement of a bakery. It also contained some extra pictures and annotations that looked very scientific and technical.
You know, that I am a rather curious person, but I have not noticed any of these things (constructions/facilities?) in the nearby forest so far. This bag is really, really strange!
I cannot make much sense out of this, but maybe you can!
Advice:
Bring at least one friend along (the more hands and the more brains the better;-)
Look at the Attributes and bring the necessary tools with you.
Print out the map, take a very good look at it and bring it with you for a walk in the forest.
It might be useful to note the various places you are going to visit on this map.
A Bar/QR-Code reader will be necessary, as well as a pencil with some basic drawing tools/skills (a better coordinate calculation tool might be handy).
The rest is up to your senses to discover! You are not allowed to and you cannot open the 'scientific' devices you might encounter.
The tags are always at an obvious/logic place.
It should be easy - isn't it?
Good luck and enjoy science ;-)