A Battle Unseen

[Doc]

Lhasa University, Theater Department, Mountainview a658, August 12, 10:30am

A young lady wearing a gray Lhasa University sweatshirt walked down the hall.  She had her hair tied back in a loose pony tail and wore dark glasses.  She walked down the hall, reading the room numbers.  A couple of students enrolled in summer classes passed by, and were staring at their phones giggling over some internet video.  They paid the young lady no mind.

As she approached the room that said "a658- Dr. T. Cooke" she knocked on the open office door.  The professor, sitting at a desk covered in books, stacks of paper, and a computer did not look up, but focused on writing grades in a ledger.

"Yes?" he said.

"Dr. Cooke?" the girl asked.

"Yes?  How can I help you, Miss..."

"Um.  Mary sent me."

"Mary?  Mary who?"

"Mary...  Mary Ananto..." the girl hesitantly answered.

The professor immediately looked up from his work.  "Mary Anan..." the professor stopped short as the word caught in his throat, as if not being willing to say the name.  He looked at the girl closely...  "Then that will make you..."

The girl nodded her head...

"Ahhhh...  Please...  uh...  please come in,  Your Highness...  Please...  Come in...  Close the door..."

The Princess entered the room and closed the door.  The man quickly cleared a stack of paper from the desk and made sure the blinds were closed.

"Your Highness.  I didn't expect that you would come here."

"Well, she said to come find you..."

"I mean, you could have called the department, I would have met you in town..."

"This is as good a place as any," Margaret said.

"So what can I do for you, Your Highness."

"My sister told me to talk with you.  She said you would be expecting me."

"Indeed," answered Dr. Cooke.  "Eveari called me last week.  But they said to expect you, they didn't tell me what for."

Princess Margaret narrowed her eyes.  "I assume there is some reason the Empress asked me to meet you.  Here in Lhasa..."

The professor looked at her.  "Your Highness, if you please.  Would you remove your glasses?"

Margaret removed her glasses.  The Professor studied her facial features.

"Madame, what do you think you are here for?"

The Princess asked, "I...  Am I in the wrong place?"

"Perhaps you are, Highness.  I am not sure.  You haven't really answered my question."

The Princess suddenly felt very awkward and out of place.  "I told the Empress I would like to be of service.  She asked me about policy analysis, and then told me I should meet with you."

"And do you know what I do, Your Highness?"

"I assume you are a... theater teacher?"  Margaret asked, thoroughly confused.

"Indeed... I am," the Professor said, as if carefully considering her words while his mind was in a different place.  He lifted a stack of paper, and pulled out a list of random letters and handed it to the Princess.  "Tell me what you think that is?"  

She studied the paper for a moment.  "Well, it's, lets see...  8, 8...  eight eights, and 32 of those.  There is something to the 8s here.  I think it must be a code of some kind..."

"Interesting," the professor said.

"What, did I get it right?"

The professor stared for a moment at the Princess but didn't say anything.

"The code, Dr. Cooke.  Is it a code?"

As if he suddenly snapped back to reality.  "Oh,  uh...  yes, it's the one time pad...  I... um...  I, uh, wonder..  Would you be willing to meet me at..."  He paused to write another address on a piece of paper...  "this address?"

The Princess took the sheet of paper and read it.  "What's this address to?"

"This, Your Highness, is a gyro shop here in Lhasa."

The Princess paused as if she hadn't heard him quite right and then said, "You guys work out of a Gyro restaurant?"

The Professor looked at the Princess.  "What, Your Highness?  No...  It's lunch time.  But we need to talk, and not here.  Can you meet me there in a half hour?  I have these grades to enter before the summer term ends, and I wasn't expecting you so soon."

The Professor laughed and shook his head, and then muttered to himself, "Do we work out of a gyro restaurant...  That's funny..."  The Princess realized that the professor had ended the meeting.  So she stood up.  "Please close the door behind you, Your Highness.  And make sure to pull your hood up again.  You're a one of those easy-to-identify types.  Head left and then go up the elevator.  You should be ok."

The Princess left.  She could guess what Dr. Cooke really did for a living.  The Bureau picked an out of the way place like Lhasa for a reason.  But right now, she was going to eat gyros with a person who taught theater to college kids.  Such is work for the Empire.