80

 A small forest road appears on your left, it is just wide enough for your dirt bike. You pull the brakes, forcing the back wheel to slide the ninety degrees required to enter the narrow road. You feel Emily grip on your sides tighten as the bike leans to one side and then lurch forward as you accelerate into the narrow path.

You hear sirens pass behind you as they continue their pursuit of the other two bikes. One vehicle, however, stops behind you, but is soon lost as the path twists and turns through the thick pine forest.

The going is extremely rough, you slow down to a crawl as you negotiate steep ridges and slippery rock. Twice you cross a gravel road, not sure of this is the road you left a while ago or not, but you press on. After an hour you bring the bike to stop. Emily takes out her cell phone and finds that she has enough signal to use the GPS. She quickly sets the destination of the port city, choosing a route that is not far from the twisting mountain road you were pursued on.

An hour later you arrive in the city and head straight for a restaurant. You are exhausted and hungry. Emily tries to contact Kate and the professor but there is no answer from either. It seems that Kate sent a message to Emily though. The message contains an email address for a Swiss university.

Emily emails the address and receives a response arrives immediately. “They need us at the university. It seems my grandfather is now working for the government, but without the key he cannot just continue his research,”

“She sounds disappointed,” You are also disappointed in the professor. You thought he would agree with Emily. But maybe he had no choice.

“Not being able to access the latest files will put him back months. And we cannot just email them the key, the memory stick must be plugged directly into their super-computer in order to decrypt the data. So we need to get to Geneva as soon as possible,” She continues.

“OK,” You check flights on your cell phone. “There are two flights available right now, or we can rest for the evening and get to Geneva after a good night’s rest and be ready for whatever is thrown our way,”

If you:

Go to Geneva right now, go to chapter 81

 

Rest for the evening and fly early in the morning, go to chapter 82