Dead Man's Switch by Sigmund Brouwer Read Free Book Online

back together. He flicked on the switch and closed the bedroom door. The posters began to glow.
    â€œBingo,” King said. “A flashlight with an ultraviolet bulb.”
    â€œYou can get them easy on the Internet,” Johnson said. “Just like I ordered the special bulbs for my bedroom.”
    King open the door again so he could look at the flashlight in the daylight. Maybe it had some other clues.
    â€œUm...” Johnson said.
    â€œUm?”
    â€œThe Room. I’m kind of remembering something.”
    King fought the impulse to sigh. Johnson could drive him nuts sometimes. But on the other hand, just yesterday Johnson had stood beside King in the classroom fight against Raimer, and for Johnson, that had taken a lot of courage. You take the good with the bad, King thought.
    â€œThe Room,” Johnson repeated. “Both words capitalized. It’s a cool game app. In the game, there’s a special light you use to shine on objects to see if there are invisible words hidden on them. Invisible words that give clues. Maybe on the iPhone…”
    King shut the bedroom door again. He could hear Johnson’s breath close beside him in the near-total dark. King pulled Blake’s iPhone out of his own pocket. He flicked on the flashlight again. The front of the iPhone was glass. There would be little chance of anything on the glass.
    King shone the ultraviolet light on the black metal backing of the iPhone.
    Four numbers glowed at them: 2855.

CHAPTER 11
    â€œWow,” Johnson said, squinting at the screen of the iPhone. “All those folders. You said over 3500 games and apps. Can you count that high?”
    They weren’t near Johnson’s house anymore. Holding Blake Watt’s iPhone felt like holding a used radioactive core. King had insisted they find some privacy before entering the password. Last thing he wanted was Johnson’s mom catching them with it.
    So despite the urgency he felt as the hours counted down until the threatened release of whatever secret Blake Watt had felt important enough to hide with a dead man’s switch, King and Johnson had strolled—yes, strolled so that anyone watching would think they were wandering around the way kids do—back to the shoreline that gave them a view across the sound. The same place where King had asked Johnson the day before about the chances of swimming off the island.
    They found shade beneath some spruce near the water, and the quiet slap of small waves on the pebbled shore concealed their whispered conversation.
    King had put in the password: 2855.
    And the screen had given them access. The home page had a grid of 20 folders. Five vertical and four horizontal. Blake had filled each folder with 16 apps.
    King had thumbed through the pages. Eleven home pages, each filled with 20 folders.
    â€œDon’t need to count,” King said. “There’s this amazing invention called math. Eleven times 20 times 16.”
    â€œHate math,” Johnson said. “Math is like from the Middle Ages. The more amazing invention is called a calculator.”
    â€œWhich the iPhone has, right?”
    King brought up a search bar. He typed “calc,” which brought up Calculator. King tapped on the app, and when it opened, he plugged in the numbers. Eleven times 20 times 16. The total was 3520. That’s how many games or apps were on the black iPhone 5. King knew that Blake had jailbroken the iPhone, but he didn’t know if that was the limit set by Apple or if Blake had tweaked it. Either way, that was a crazy amount of apps and games.
    â€œHe was a serious geek,” Johnson said.
    â€œI don’t think he did anything by accident,” King answered. “That should be obvious by now. So that means we need to ask ourselves if there is a reason for so many apps.”
    â€œDistraction?” Johnson said. “I mean, isn’t this about an email? Or emails?”
    In answer, King tapped the