My Life Of Evasion

10. Nerd? I Prefer Intellectual Badass

Chapter 10

Nerd?  I Prefer Intellectual Badass

We made it back to Chile about an hour before the snow storm was supposed to hit in Antarctica.  It was still sunny when we landed, though the wind had picked up significantly since we left.  There wasn't supposed to be any snow where we were, just the bitter coldness that I felt was never going to leave me.  

I was thanking God for my thermal underwear now, even though it wasn't the prettiest thing in the world. 

"You okay?" Max asked as we walked toward the SUV that was waiting for us in the exact same spot we'd left it in hours ago.  He'd put an arm around me and held me close to his side. 

I nodded, smiling up at him as I moved closer toward him.  It made it a little awkward to walk, but hey.  I didn't want to move.  "I'm perfect."

"And you still won't let your dad look at the cipher, even though he's begging you?" he asked, laughing.

I shook my head.  "Nope.  I'm waiting until we're all together in the hotel.  Besides, it's not like we'd be able to figure it out on the drive back."

"We could if we wanted to, though."

"Don't even think about it."

I kept quiet on the way back to the hotel and let Sophie tell the boys mostly what was down in the office in the ice.  She seemed excited about trying to figure out the cipher when we got back, but then everyone was. 

Though we'd all gotten separate rooms at the hotel, we headed toward Dad and Brielle's once we got there.  Brielle was standing in the open doorway with Addy in her arms, who looked like she'd just woken up from a nap. 

"So did you find anything?" she asked, looking between me and Dad. 

Dad nodded as he stepped up to her and gave her a kiss on the cheek.  "Let's get inside before we start talking about anything, just in case."

He was the one to hold open the door as we all filed inside.  Before he shut it, I saw him step out for a moment, look in both directions down the hallway, and then close and lock it.  We were all stripping out of our thick clothing and down to just pants and sweaters.  Before I threw my jacket over one of the chairs, I dug the piece of paper that had the cipher printed on it.  Max was sat on the couch in the sitting area and everyone else had taken a seat in various places around the table in the center.  I sat down in front of Max and leaned back against his legs. 

"Alright, Callie," Dad said from across the table.  "You can't put this off any longer now.  Let us see it."

I rolled my eyes.  He was being so demanding.  But then again, I could understand why.  We were on a blind treasure hunt.  We didn't know what was going to happen next.  So instead of making them wait any longer, I unfolded the piece of paper and flattened it out on the table.  Everyone seemed to moved forward just to get a better look.

"Of course, it's a cipher.  But what kind, we'll have to figure that out," Sophie said before I could say anything.  I was willing to let the reigns go just a little to her. 

Dad pulled it a little towards him and Brielle.  Both of their eyes skimmed over the random letters of the cipher and I could practically see the cryptography gears turning in Brielle's mind. 

"It's one of the oldest ciphers in the book," she said, handing Addy to Dad and standing up to grab a pad of paper and a pen.  "It's a Caesar cipher."

A Caesar cipher was, just like she said, one of the oldest types of ciphers.  Julius Caesar used to use shifts of three when he was encoding military messages.  People still used it today, though now it was easier to decode that most ciphers of modern times.