East. Distance. Obscurity.
Prague. Big enough to disappear in. International enough that one more French expatriate won't raise flags. Far enoughfrom Geneva to buy breathing room while figuring out what to do with the evidence burning a hole in my pocket.
Geneva's main station is too obvious. They'll expect me to run by train. But the smaller station in Lausanne, outside the city...
I change lanes, heading away from Geneva instead of toward it. My phone sits silent in the cupholder. Messages from friends. My mother's daily check-in.
I power it off. The SIM card comes out at the next traffic light. Both pieces drop into my bag.
Everything I worked for the past several years is gone. My research. My reputation. The promise that my brilliant, precise delivery system would save lives instead of ending them.
How many people will die because I was naive enough to believe in the altruism of science?
Lausanne station materializes out of the darkness. I park in a public garage blocks away, taking my laptop bag and leaving everything else. The car will be found eventually. Another trail leading nowhere.
The station's nearly empty at this time. The departures board shows connections through Zurich. From there, routes to Munich. To Prague.
I buy the ticket with cash, pulling euros from the emergency stash kept in my laptop bag. Father's training: always have exit money. Never thought I'd actually need it.
The platform's empty. Wind off the lake cuts through my coat as I wait, watching every shadow, jumping at every sound. Other passengers gather in small clusters. Business travelers. Students. No one pays attention to the woman in designer clothes clutching a leather laptop bag.
The train arrives exactly on time. Swiss precision, even at this ungodly hour.
I board and find a seat in a half-empty car. The bag stays tucked close.
The station recedes behind me as the train picks up speed. The lights of the city I chose over my family's empire. The career I built through brilliance and determination. The life I thought was leading somewhere meaningful.
All of it vanishing into the darkness.
My hand finds the encrypted drive in my pocket. Smaller than a deck of cards. Containing evidence that could topple an international weapons conspiracy.
Or get me killed trying.
The woman reflected in the window looks like a stranger. Same chestnut hair. Same green eyes. But something's different in the set of her jaw. The way she holds herself.
Hours ago, Dr. Isabella Durand believed in the goodness of scientific progress.
That woman's gone. In her place sits someone who understands exactly how much trouble she's in. How many powerful people will want her dead. How thin the line is between whistleblower and corpse.
The train hurtles through the night toward Zurich. Toward Munich. Toward Prague and whatever comes after.
My old life stayed behind on Emil's computer screen. My innocence died in those encrypted files. Everything I thought I knew about myself burned away in a Geneva laboratory that will be locked down and sanitized before morning.
What have I done?
The question echoes with every click of the wheels on track.
But beneath the fear, my scientific mind starts working through variables. Disappearing completely will raise flags. A brilliant chemist vanishing the same night evidence goes missing points directly at me as the leak. They'll hunt harder, faster, with more resources.
Cover. Legitimacy. The kind that comes from being exactly where someone like me should be: in a laboratory.
Prague has chemical facilities. Research positions. A woman with my credentials from Zurich could find work easily. Build a new life while hiding in plain sight. Use lab access to analyze what I've stolen, understand the full scope before deciding who to trust with it.
Stay visible but anonymous. One more researcher among thousands.
The reflection in the window shifts as my spine straightens. Not running. Relocating. There's a difference.
I'll find work. Establish a presence. Figure out how to destroy what Emil and his buyers built from my research without getting myself killed in the process.
