The Lockdown (Part Three)

Part One:

Part Two:

I watched Duncan tear into the oddly shaped humongous present. He had saved it for the end as he knew it would take a while whatever it may be. As Duncan broke through the single layer of wrapping paper, he started to tear open the cardboard box he saw below him. I bellowed "Stop! Turn the box around". I watched Duncan maneuver too the front of the behemoth looking at his face as an old image reappeared in his life. A cardboard box, with a lock combination, stood in front of him. Duncan began by pulling the handle, randomly turning the combination, and then straining the handle again. As the door to the box shuttered back and forth, allowing for gaps of darkness to appear into the box, Duncan looked perplexed. He had already found a bunch of letters with misspelled names under the tree earlier, with me telling him not to open anything then, so he knew he needed them, but he wanted to find a hint for them before tearing them open. He did. Duncan pulled out implanted stakes from the box, each with a slightly misspelled name on it. Each time he took one out, he would match the name on the stick with the respective addressed envelope, ripping the seal to find the clue inside.

As Duncan tussled with the nine clues, he made no progress. To the point where him and I moved the safe onto a table outside of the living room so that other people could begin the Christmas morning cleanup. The clues were set up so Duncan could ask five hints, and he could gain more for drinking a gross concoction. Duncan started using his tips, but each use of one clue ended up being multiple questions. To quench this abuse of my charity, I retconned the rules so that in addition to any hints after the first five clues, any time he guessed a wrong answer, he would have to take in something awful. Another mid-game change occurred because of a gift from our Uncle. He gave us some spam covered nuts, which replaced the yet to be made concoction Duncan originally was supposed to barf on. Duncan continued to work on the clues, slowly getting through them, bypassing the rules even by pointing out a math clue had no "no calculator" ruling put on it. Duncan's wits got him only so far, and so for the last couple of hints, he ate a healthy helping of spam nuts. This amount of spam made Duncan unable to continue eating, and so, for his sake, we changed the evil food to Bernie Bot Jelly Beans.

Duncan had solved eight of the nine clues when we called our brother Robert for Christmas. He too, had a safe, with one very abstract clue on it, sent to him. Robert began trying to solve his clue, and because he had no food punishment to eat, any hints or wrong guesses of his became fifty-fifty good/bad jelly bean munches for Duncan. Duncan eventually asked Robert for help with his last clue. Robert heard it once and instantly spouted the answer. With that, Duncan had solved all nine clues. So there was Duncan, everything in his hands, and yet, he still had no idea what this miscellaneous combinations of numbers meant. Out of Christmas love, I gave him one free giant clue, separating the first six hints, Robert's phone number, away from the last three, a lock combination. However, out of Christmas breakfast too full to thinkness, Duncan still had no idea what to do. We all have moment's of complete ignorance, but when watching as the mastermind behind it all, it is quite funny. Eventually, Duncan figured out what was up. So like that, he tried the separated combination on his lock. It failed. All I could think to say was "teamwork. Duncan!"

With Duncan's final realization he told Robert the lock combination he had unveiled. I confirmed this was Robert's combo, and then proceeded to help explain how his safe's locking mechanism worked. This explanation was messy, as Robert's lock was fidgety, and parts like the handle hard to turn, causing me to have to recollect what exactly the best way to open his safe was. In the end, he just pulled the door hard enough till it broke free.

There I sat, so excited for the entire process, feeling a negligible loss for the failure of my first safe, as the second one was bigger and better. Robert took out all of the gifts, and Duncan and I told him about all the stuff in there. Duncan and I had gotten a bunch of things to give Robert together, so despite Duncan not knowing how the gift was wrapped, he did know what was in there. As Robert looked through his gifts, I told him that his first clue was no longer needed, and a new one would be inside. Through some searching, and one wrong guess, Robert found the code to Duncan's combination, the product code of a LEGO Boba Fett. Now, here I sat, with hours of work put into the box in front of my brother. Robert's safe was a prototype, so it was okay it did not go to plan, but Duncan's was the real deal. Duncan put in the code, pushed down the handle, and then nothing. Dang, I thought. He did it again. Nothing. I knew he must be doing something wrong. He did it again. No click. I went to help him, putting in the code myself. And nothing. It sucked. Not giving up hope, I opened the door the most I could, looked into the gear mechanism, and lined the gears up. Click, finally. It turned out the numbers were correct, so must have been performance anxiety. In all seriousness I had a blast making those safes. However, what made those safes fun to make was my brain imagining my brothers opening them, together. With me there. Laughing, loving, being together. They failed, but we laughed, loved, and were together. So, it was a success.