42:15 remaining.
“Through here,” Exandra said.
But the dimly lit passage was more than simply narrow. It was an agility course that wound them up through the aging caves. Low ceilings, tight turns, places where they had to squeeze between the racks. The final section required climbing back down a ladder while maintaining three points of contact.
“I’ll go first,” Exandra said. She wanted to be somewhere she could catch him if he fell. She could never forgive herself if he got hurt again.
“No, I will.” Bayard moved toward the entrance.
“Bayard, with your leg?—”
“My leg is fine.”
“It’s not fine, and this requires agility?—”
“I’m not helpless, Exandra!”
“I never said you were!”
“Didn’t you?” His voice cracked. “Isn’t that what you’ve thought about me for the past eighty years? That I’m broken? Damaged? Someone who needs to be protected and left behind?”
“That’s not—” Exandra’s eyes filled with tears. “Bayard, no. That’s not what I think at all.”
“Then leave me alone and let me do this.” He stopped, breathing hard. “Please.”
They’d navigated the course together. Bayard’s limp had made certain moves difficult, and twice Exandra had braced him when his cane slipped. But he hadn’t complained or hesitated in asking for help when it was necessary. She stared at him, forcing herself to stand down. “All right, Bay. I’m right behind you.”
But she still couldn’t make herself watch while he climbed down. She closed her eyes and held her breath till she heard him shout up to her. Then she quickly climbed down after him.
At the bottom of the ladder, they found themselves in a larger chamber with a control panel on the wall. A heavy metal door marked with a lit “Exit” sign stood before them, still locked.
FINAL CHALLENGE: ENTER THE SEQUENCE TO RESTORE TEMPERATURE CONTROL AND PREVENT CONTAMINATION. USE EVERYTHING YOU’VE LEARNED.
The digital panel displayed a series of spaces waiting to be filled in. The keyboard was rife with possibilities. Numbers, letters, symbols. The “sequence” was an elaborate password of sorts. It could be anything. Exandra leaned against the cold stone wall, resisting the urge to pull her hair out.
“How will we ever figure out what numbers to choose?” she moaned.
“I think it’s all of them,” Bayard mumbled as he realized. “The years from the wheels. The cultures we selected. The cipher pattern. We have to combine them in the right order.”
3:42 remaining.
“The years were 1847, 1923, 1965, 2001,” Exandra recalled. “And the cultures?—”
“Lactococcus lactis,Leuconostoc mesenteroides,Lactobacillus rhamnosus.”
“And the cipher sequence—curdling, cutting, pressing, salting, aging, wrapping.”
They stared at the panel, trying to see the pattern.
2:15 remaining.
“Wait,” Bayard said. “The symbols—they corresponded to years. Each stage of cheesemaking has a traditional time period. If we match them?—”
His fingers flew over the panel, entering the combination: dates, culture abbreviations, symbols in sequence.
0:47 remaining.
“That’s not working,” Exandra said, her voice tight.
