Hank: Hey. I was looking to talk to you. You know, very concerned adult to somewhat troubled youth.

 

Sean: Which one am I in that equation?

 

Hank: Hey, buddy¹. What's all this?

 

Sean: Nothing.

 

Hank: That's a cryptogram², right? Looks like Morse code.

 

Sean: Mm-hm.

 

Hank: Yeah, look. One syllable³ words, dots. Two syllable words, dashes. I learned that in the Navy.

 

Sean: Okay, then. What's it say?

 

Hank: What's it for?

 

Sean: It's complicated.

 

Hank: So is the code.

 

Sean: Okay. Here's the deal. A few nights ago, a radio signal got sent out from somewhere. Could've been anywhere. It was these words on a loop.

 

Hank: "Pip, Zorn, Strux."

 

Sean: These are all characters taken from the books of Verne. The message was by a Vernian. And my equipment wasn't powerful enough to receive the whole message, so...

 

Hank: So you broke into that satellite facility to boost your signal.

 

Sean: Look, someone out there sent this message and I'm gonna be the person to solve it. This is really important to me.

 

Hank: Hey, you know what? Why don't we solve this together?

 

Sean: Fine.

 

Hank: Okay. The first part of the message reads, "The...I-S-L." Island. "Is..." R-E. "Real. The island is real."

 

Sean: You're serious? You're not messing with me?

 

Hank: No. That's what it says. "The island is real."

 

Sean: I can't believe it. I can't believe somebody actually found the island.

 

Hank: What island?

 

Sean: The Mysterious Island. Vernians have been looking for this for years. What's the rest of the codes say?

 

Hank: "Child of Steve, born...eighteen...eight-three." "Born 1883."

 

Sean: Child of Steve. Child of Steve.

 

Hank: Maybe "son of Steve"?

 

Sean: Steven's son. Stevenson. Robert Louis Stevenson.

 

Hank: The author.

 

Sean: He was born way before 1883. It’s gotta be somebody else.

 

Hank: Maybe it's not a somebody.

 

Sean: Maybe it's a something.

 

Hank: What are we looking for?

 

Sean: Come on. Aha! Treasure Island, written by Robert Louis Stevenson in 1883. What's the next part of the riddle⁴?

 

Hank: All right. "The name that's last is going fast. He hitched⁵ his tale to Lemuel's mast."

 

Sean: Okay, so his...his last name is going fast. Is he... is he a runner?

 

Hank: What if his last name is fast? Fleet or Quick. Swift.

 

Sean: Swift. Jonathan Swift.

 

Hank: Another author.

 

Sean: Writing about another island.

 

Hank: So "Lemuel" must be... Nice. Lemuel Gulliver. OK. We have three different books.

 

Sean: By three different authors. About three different islands. Maybe... Maybe all three books are about the same island. Maybe that's why nobody else has ever found the mysterious island because they haven't used the other two books.

 

Hank: Treasure Island's got a map.

 

Sean: Yeah, Swift has one too. But these are different than Verne's. I don't get it. What are you doing?

 

Hank: You know what I did in the Navy, Sean?

 

Sean: No.

 

Hank: I won the esteemed⁶...Rochefort Award...three years in a row...for code-breaking.

 

Sean: That’s incredible.

 

Hank: I think we found your Mysterious Island.

 

Sean: Uh, what are those?

 

Hank: Coordinates⁸. Longitude⁹ and latitude¹⁰. And that'll put us right about...here.

 

Sean: That's 100 miles off the coast of Palau, in the middle of the South Pacific.

 

Hank: What do you think you are doing?

 

Sean: I gotta go.

 

Hank: Go where?

 

Sean: To Mysterious Island.

 

Hank: All right, cool. Hey, can you stop by the moon and grab me a Slurpee?

 

Sean: Joke all you want.

 

Hank: Yeah, I will, and you're gonna be here to listen to it. You're not going to Palau, Sean.

 

Sean: Why not?

 

Hank: Number one, you're grounded. On top of that, you got school.

 

Sean: I'm a straight-A student. I can afford to miss a couple days. Besides, this is Mysterious Island.

 

Hank: Slow down, slow down. Okay? Do you think you gonna travel half way around the world and meet up with some lunatic who’s messing around on a ham radio?

 

Sean: It's not some lunatic. It's Alexander Anderson, my grandfather.

 

Hank: How would you know he sent that?

 

Sean: Well, it makes perfect sense. He's the original Vernian in the family. He's been looking for the Mysterious Island for like...half his life and nobody's heard from him in two years. I think he's in trouble. And I'm gonna find him.

 

Hank: Sean, stop. Sean. Stop! I'm not letting you go on a rescue mission, certainly not by yourself. Whether you like it or not, you're still a kid.

 

Sean: Look, I understand your situation, okay? You wanna make my mom happy and I appreciate that. I really do. But you need to just focus on running your construction company and paying the mortgage and asking her how her day was...because I'm okay. And like it or not, this is bigger than you.

 

***********************************

 

Hank: Apparently¹¹ the message was sent by his grandfather. Sean said he's been missing for a couple years.

 

Elizabeth: It's hard to be missing if you were never around. I wouldn't trust one word from Alexander Anderson.

 

Hank: Sean seems really convinced.

 

Elizabeth: Oh, it's always convincing from Alexander.

 

Hank: I see. So in Sean's mind, Alexander's this glamorous¹² adventurer.

 

Elizabeth: When in reality he was a man that wasn't there when his family needed him the most.

 

Hank: That's exactly why we need to let Sean go on this trip.

 

Elizabeth: Why?

 

Hank: Because Sean needs a man in his life. Somebody who’s gonna be there for him and connect with him. We were cracking that code, seriously, that was the first time that we were on the same page for more than five minutes.

 

Elizabeth: Then bond with him on some non-mysterious island, like Hawaii.

 

Hank: Ah, Hawaii. Our honeymoon¹³. Aloha oe...

 

Elizabeth: Yes, but I'm serious, babe.

 

Hank: I'm serious too. Listen, we'll fly down to Palau. When Sean realizes the island's not real, and his grandfather's not there, I'll be there to cushion the blow, and done will be done.

 

******************************

 

Hank: Good morning, buddy. 0700 hours.

 

Sean: I'm busy.

 

Hank: I don't think you're gonna be too busy for this.

 

Sean: I'm going to Palau?

 

Hank: Ha, ha. Close. We're going to Palau.

 

Sean: What?

 

 

1. cryptogram: 密文，密码电文；密码；暗号。

 

2. Morse code: 摩斯电码。

 

3. on a loop: 反复地，循环地。

 

4. Verne: Jules Gabriel Verne，19世纪法国著名小说家儒勒·凡尔纳，是现代科幻小说的重要开创者之一。代表作有《海底两万里》、《八十天环游地球》、《地心游记》等。后面说的Vernian指 是凡尔纳的追随者，相信他的科幻故事的人。

 

5. mess with me: 和我瞎搅和。

 

6. coordinate⁷: 坐标。

 

7. Palau: 帕劳群岛（位于西太平洋，也称帛琉群岛）。

 

8. Slurpee: 思乐冰，是一款由7-Eleven便利商店研制的碎冰饮品，在1967年首次推出。思乐冰与其他冰品不同之处是直接将糖浆与碳酸水混合成的汽水冷冻成冰沙状，与一般碎冰或冰沙的制作方式不同，故其口感较汽水或冰沙都要凉快。它只在7-Eleven贩售，同时也是注册商标之一。

 

9. grounded: 被禁足，被关禁闭。例如：Bill was grounded because of his report card.（比尔因为成绩不好被禁足。）

 

10. straight-A student: 全优生，也就是每门课成绩都是A的学生。

 

11. lunatic: 疯子；怪人。

 

12. mess around: 浪费时间。例如：We were just messing around playing with paint.（我们瞎混时间，玩玩油彩。）

 

13. ham radio: （业余无线电爱好者设计制造的）收发报机。

 

14. glamorous: 充满冒险性的，富有刺激性的；富有魅力的。

 

15. on the same page: 达成共识，意见一致。

 

16. cushion the blow: 缓冲这一打击。例如：

 

Officials across the region have shored up price controls and subsidies¹⁴ to cushion the blow.

 

亚洲各地的政府官员一直通过价格管制和补贴来缓解冲击。

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