POV: You just made it into the spy gang! With Benjamin Ripley and friends, you're assigned to a hard mission in which throughout it, you'll have to make hard decisions also. In choose your own adventure, you'll be able to vote for a majority decisio...
A brief debate in my mind told me that the best choice was to investigate the scene immediately, then use the clues to deduce what had most likely happened.
The first thing that caught my eye was a slip of paper that had wedged itself under my shoe. The edge was crumpled, but the rest of the sheet was still intact.
My fingers curled around the sides of the item. As I unfolded the note, glistening handwriting grabbed my attention. The ink was still wet, which meant the message wasn't written that long ago. I lifted my eyes to read the words.
The following was scribbled along the first line: BHDRH HOGHB.
"What?" I muttered under my breath as my line of sight glided across the note. "This doesn't make any sense at all."
The set of letters were bolded, all caps, and written in a thickened sharpie. They looked like variables, and trust me, I sucked at math, so it only made it even more confusing. Considering the fact that spies used code, this was probably a note from either Ben or Erica. But a message in 2 words...? That's a little suspicious.
"Letter-to-number decipher code?" an unimpressed voice came from behind my shoulder, scaring the soul out of me. "That's so typical. How could sister use such a code? She used to do those puzzles in Pre-K."
I turned around, and my nose caught the scent of freshly baked cookies along with a hint of gunpowder. A wave of raven-black hair blocked my sight for a second, and suddenly Erica's face appeared directly in front of me.
Wait-- that wasn't Erica. It looked exactly like her, but this person was younger. To be honest, they were more of my type and age. But that wasn't the point.
"Wh-who are you?" I stuttered, backing away and distancing us. "And who's this 'sister' you're talking about?"
"Who do you think I'm talking about?" the girl swept a line of hair behind her ear. "I know I look like Erica. I'm younger than her, and plus, we both have black hair. Using those factors, who do you think I'm talking about when I refer to 'sister'?"
"You're Erica's sister?!" I shouted in disbelief.
"Took you twenty seconds," she said, blowing a strand of hair away in annoyance. "Learn to think quickly, as Ben does."
"You're...Trixie," I said slowly, taking things in. "You're also in the Academy, correct? Why'd you follow us over here?"
"I wasn't following you guys," Trixie pointed over to a nearby ice cream stand. "I simply was grabbing an afternoon snack. While I was trying to fend off the guys flirting with me, I caught sight of Ben."
"So you followed us all the way over here--"
"Instinctively," Trixie interrupted. "I'm a spy. I like to poke my nose into things."
"That sounds perverted," I noted. "Anyway, why didn't you help us when the guys kidnapped Ben and Erica? If you're Erica's sister, then you should be athletic. You could've easily sprinted over here and knocked them out."
"Simple," Trixie licked her ice cream cone she had bought from the stand earlier. "I didn't want sister catching me. If she found out that I was tracking you guys down, she would've snapped my neck."
I pondered about it for a bit. "Why do I believe that statement?"
"Because my sister's demonic. Anyway, have you found out what the note meant yet?" she pointed at the slip of paper with her left hand.
"Nope," I responded. "It makes no sense. You were talking about some kind of letter-to-number decipher earlier, but I still don't really get what you mean."
Trixie stared at me for a second. "You really are stupid."
"Will you stop?!" I lolled my head back in annoyance. "I'm just trying my best here, okay? Please don't shoot me down because I have a low IQ. There's no way I'm going to solve thi..." I trailed off.
Something clicked in my head.
"They're coordinates," I said suddenly. "28.4188° N, 81.5783° W. All you had to do was convert the numbers to letters according to the consecutive sequence in the alphabet."
"Bingo," Trixie licked her orange-flavored ice cream cone again. "Correct. Again, it took you, like, 60 seconds. Anyway, I'm going to import those numbers into a converter and see where it leads." With this, she grabbed her phone from her back pocket.
After some tapping on her device, and she snapped her fingers. "Location identified. It's the Space Mountain roller coaster at Walt Disney World. Since that note was written by Erica, let's trust it." With this, she started running over to the nearest car, pulling the pin out of her hair.
I ran out behind her. "What are you doing?" I raised my eyebrows as she started toying with the lock to the front seat. "Don't tell me you're..."
"I'm piking de wock," Trixie said with a hairpin in her mouth. The other hairpin was moving around faster than my eyes could trace it. I didn't know how they learned to do things like this-- especially after a few seconds when a satisfying click opened the driver's seat door. Another 30 seconds, and the engine was ignited.
Trixie jumped into the car and tried flooring the gas with the brake held down. The car roared in response, and a sickly sweet smile spread across her lips, which were stained with ice cream.
After getting comfortable in the seat, Trixie looked at me expectantly.
"You coming or not?" she said.
"I...I'm...."
Trust Trixie or not?
Option one - Yes, trust her and follow her.
Option two - continue to ask questions. Look for more clues at the crime scene and refuse to follow Trixie.
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