by Tina Chan
However, in their bedraggled condition, the walk would take much longer than ten minutes. Kristi staggered to her feet and drudged after Troop. The uneven cobblestone ground didn’t make walking any easier and she almost tripped several times; Troop drew in a sharp breath every time she stumbled, but wasn’t sure if Kristi would welcome his help if he offered his arm for support.
Instead, he said, “Do you want to stop for a break?”
Kristi shook her head and motioned for him to go on. Troop slowed down his steps. Kristi looked like she was about to say something, but changed her mind.
The full moon perched in its nest of clouds, sending beams of moonlight upon the land below. The clouds scattered the light, creating a surreal effect.
Distracted by the warped lighting, Kristi didn’t notice Troop slow down even more to match her steps until she felt his arm supporting her around the waist; she stiffened her back. Troop directed her a questioning look.
Kristi returned with a neutral expression. Gradually, she relaxed her muscles and allowed Troop to bear most of her weight.
“At least twenty minutes has passed,” Kristi said a while later.
Troop checked out the street sign nearest to them and cursed. “I think we doubled back by accident.”
“Do you think we can just find someplace to crash for the night? I don’t think we’ll be able to find our way back to the Filches without getting caught by a curfew patrol.”
“I’m so stupid,” Troop said suddenly. “Why didn’t I think of using UnivMaps to find our way back to the apartment?”
He pulled out his miraculously intact electro-slate and clicked on its power button. Nothing happened. The screen didn’t even flicker the tiniest bit. The heat from the fire must’ve caused some type of malfunction in the slate; either that or the electro-slate’s power must’ve run out—but that was highly unlikely since he regularly charged his slate, and a fully charged slate didn’t need to be recharged for up to three full days.
Kristi fumbled through her pockets and found her electro-slate. The screen had a slight crack to it, but other than that, it seemed to be unharmed. She jabbed at the power button. Like Troop’s electro-slate, her slate refused to turn on as well.
“This sucks,” she mumbled.
“Let’s head over to the park across from this street,” Troop said. “We should be able to spend the night in the wooded area without being seen by the patrols.”
They trotted over to a cluster of trees and benches (a little wooden sign declared their shelter to be a Meditation Garden). Troop slumped down on a bench across from Kristi, leaning his forehead against the palms of his hand. He watched Kristi struggle to find a comfortable position on the hard stone bench.
A couple sets of footsteps stomped by outside, patrols making their rounds. But no one ever checked out their hiding place. After making sure Kristi was fast asleep, Troop gave himself the permission to close his own eyes and drifted off to dreamland.
chapter thirty-six
[ Kristi ]
It was the cold that woke Kristi up. The temperature had dropped dramatically overnight and her flesh was covered in goose bumps. She sat up, feeling stiff from sleeping on the rigid bench; she did her best to stretch out the aches that had settled into her muscles. Kristi rubbed her hands together, warming herself up. Troop wasn’t around anymore. She checked the time to confirm curfew had already ended.
Then she finger-combed her hair into a messy ponytail and left the protection of the Meditation Garden. Luckily, the park wasn’t a busy place to be at five in the morning because Kristi was pretty sure she would be getting plenty of odd stares given her current appearance; it was hard to look or feel normal after barely escaping an explosion and then having to spend the night out in the cold.
She scanned the grounds and made out Troop coming towards her.
“Oh good, you’re up,” he said upon reaching Kristi. “I just got directions to the Filches’ apartment. It’s actually not too far from this park.”
“G-g-ood,” she chattered, still feeling the nip of the morning coldness.
She only had on a black cotton t-shirt and jeans; her jacket got left behind in the sandwich shop yesterday. Kristi was sure Troop felt the cold too because he didn’t have a jacket or sweatshirt either, though he didn’t show it.
“Do you think you can run?” Troop asked. “It’ll warm you up and we’ll be able to get to the apartment faster than walking.”
She nodded and they set off at a slow jog. Kristi’s stomach complained loudly for being forced to run on empty. Thankfully, navigating the city by daylight proved to be less confusing. The welcoming view of the Filches’ residence never looked so good.
They hurried up the stairs and banged on the door. Kristi’s fist had hardly left the door when it was whipped open.
“Thank God you’re not dead!” Chelsa said, dragging her inside.
Kristi sank onto the couch and gathered herself together. Troop plopped down beside her.
“Some food would be great. And some water.”
Chelsa snatched a couple of water bottles and bagels from the kitchen and handed them to Troop and Kristi. She drained her water within a minute.
“What took you so long to get back?” Chelsa asked.
“We were worried since you didn’t reply any of the instafications we sent you.” Finn dropped onto the couch beside them.
“Our electro-slates wouldn’t work,” Kristi replied, spreading cream cheese on her cinnamon bagel.
“Did you break your slates? And what happened to your skin? It looks like you’ve been burned.” Chelsa noticed their injuries for the first time.
“That wouldn’t be surprising,” said Troop, “considering we just escaped a burning building last night.”
“Don’t tell me you were at Solomon’s Sandwich Stop last night, were you? I was scrolling through the news on my electro-slate and apparently something exploded in that place; the entire building was destroyed.”
Kristi nodded.
Nick Filch entered the living room, nursing a thermos of coffee. “As far as I know, a terrorist placed a bomb of some sort in the restaurant.”
“That makes absolutely no sense,” Finn said. “Why would someone want to destroy a sandwich shop?”
Nick made an agreeable sound. “There’s something fishy going on. The Revealers will look into this event if things don’t add up.”
“Our contact-cams,” Kristi voiced out loud. “We were in the sandwich shop when the bomb went off. Maybe something from the films can help figure out how and why it happened.”
Troop and Kristi popped out their contact-cams and Nick streamlined all the recordings onto his electro-slate. He chose the correct time frame and clicked play.
The scene was shown from Kristi’s point of view; it showed her exchange of messages with Chelsa via instafication. Next, the view shifted as Kristi glanced up and her eyes tracked the man leaving without paying for her meal.
Troop reached over Kristi’s shoulder and pressed the pause button on Nick’s electro-slate. “Can you zoom in on the man?” he asked.
“Sure can.” Nick enlarged it so that the man’s face filled the screen.
“Doesn’t he look like the guy we saw on the air-train to Klisbury?” Troop asked.
“Um, no,” Kristi said. “The man on the train was in his twenties; this guy is in his forties, if not fifties.”
“Ignore the age difference,” Troop said.
Kristi shrugged. “I still don’t see the resemblance.”
“I guess I’m being paranoid.”
“Can I resume the film clip?” Nick asked Troop.
“Yeah.”
The video played on, showing the waitress chasing after the man, then the chef coming out from the kitchen and asking Kristi where Tallia went. A bright flash filled the screen and everything went black.
“That would be the bomb exploding,” Kristi pointed out the obvious.
Nick paused the vid
eo and rewound a bit. “Look.” He used a finger to pinpoint an object on the screen. “The man left his wallet behind.”
Kristi figured out the conclusion Nick had reached in an instant. “The bomb was in his wallet, wasn’t it?”
“Yep. Let me fast forward in slow motion.”
He did so; it became clear the wallet contained the explosive when it blew apart.
“But why?” Finn asked. “It’s a freakin’ sandwich shop, not a top secret military base or whatever.”
“Do you think the man was an undercover agent?” Troop asked.
“It’s a possibility,” Nick said. “Anything’s possible.”
“Okay,” Kristi said. “Let’s pretend the guy is an undercover agent. Who do you think is he working for?”
“If I had to guess, I would say the government. I can’t think of any other group with enough funding to waste on blowing up a sandwich shop,” Finn said.
“I highly doubt he’s working for the government,” Chelsa said. “From what I know, Officer Zala wants you guys alive, so it wouldn’t make sense if she sent an agent to kill you.”
“You don’t think there’s another organization similar to the Revealers out there that would attempt a stunt like this, do you?” Kristi asked no one in particular.
“No,” Nick said.
They spent the next two hours analyzing the clips Troop and Kristi had captured with the contact-cams. While they didn’t get any closer to solving the mystery of the motive behind the man who demolished the sandwich shop, they did manage to determine that the best way to enter New Genes Lab was by going in as disguised workers.
“I’ll send Tiffany and Dr. Hanson an instafication asking them if they can rustle up some believable covers for you four,” Nick said.
“I’m going to wash all this soot and ash off me.” Kristi pulled at her filth-caked shirt. “Do you have any ointment for burned skin?”
Nick grabbed a tube of burn-gel from the medicine cabinet and handed it to her. “A little goes a long way.”
“Thanks.”
She gratefully stepped into the bathroom and washed away the thin layer of grime that covered her from head to toe. Her skin stung where the water hit it, causing Kristi to make her shower as quick as possible. Afterwards, she slathered on the burn-gel, despite Nick warning just a little bit of the gel should be enough.
She let out a sigh of relief, the cooling gel soothing her raw skin. Kristi took her time drying her hair and reflected on the events of the past few days.
Troop was waiting to use the bathroom and burn-gel after Kristi, which made her feel a bit guilty.
“Sorry,” she said, exiting the bathroom. “I didn’t mean to take such a long time.”
Troop sniffed the air.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Something smells minty.”
Kristi laughed. “That would probably be the burn-gel Nick gave me. The gel tube is on the bathroom counter if you want to use it. I strongly recommend using it.”
“Okay, doctor,” Troop said.
“I have good news,” Chelsa met Kristi in the kitchen for a snack. “Tiffany got us covers for tomorrow to enter New Genes Lab.”
“What are the covers?” Kristi squirted some peanut butter from the pouch onto her crackers.
“We’re going to be window cleaners,” Chelsa said. “New Genes Lab had hired some for a cleaning job tomorrow at ten in the morning. We have to pick up our uniforms and ID cards tomorrow morning at six.”
“Where do we have to go to pick up the disguises?”
“At the parking lot of Cleandows behind the building; Cleandows is the company which we will pretend to work for.”
“Are you filling her in on the details for tomorrow?” Finn joined them at the counter.
“Yep.”
“Are you coming with us to New Genes Lab?” Kristi asked Finn.
She worried that Finn’s crutches might give away their cover; normally, Perfects were too graceful to break, twist or sprain anything. If someone—whether it be the government or some other group—was looking for them and knew one of the Naturals used crutches, Finn was almost a dead give-away about their identities.
“Nah,” Finn said. “I might slow you down—” (Not true, Kristi thought to herself. You get around fast enough that I sometimes I have trouble following.) “—and you need someone back here to get you help if you guys are in a tight spot. Nick and Jane have some other Revealer work that will keep them occupied for most of tomorrow, so I’ll be taking their place.”
“To sum up what Finn is saying, Finn will be in the electro-room monitoring our progress and notifying other Revealer members to come to our aid if needed. We’ll be using the contact-cams,” Chelsa clarified.
“Sounds good. Where’s Ghost? I haven’t seen him around for a while,” Kristi said.
“Oh, he’s probably in the electro-room with Jane. Ghost seems to have an affinity to Jane. The electro-room is the last door down the hallway. I wouldn’t go in there if I were you though; that’s where Jane and Nick do all their work and it would be best if you don’t disturb them.”
“I need your pictures for the picture-wand,” Jane said to Kristi that late afternoon.
“What’s a picture wand?” Troop asked.
Kristi was wondering the same thing.
“Another piece of technology exclusive only to the Revealers,” Jane said. “You can scan a picture onto an ID card or just about anything with it. All you need to do is upload the pictures onto the picture-wand and wave the wand over the surface you want to print the picture onto.”
“That sounds pretty cool,” Finn said.
“Trust me, it is. Troop, Kristi and Chelsa will need the picture-wand tomorrow to replace the photo on the ID cards with their own. So, which one of you wants to have your picture taken first?”
“I guess I will,” Kristi said when no one volunteered.
Jane pulled out a wafer-thin rectangular device from her back pocket. “Smile.”
She quickly got all the pictures onto the wand and taught them how to operate it. The instructions weren’t that complicated. All one had to do was select the correct picture stored on the picture-wand and slowly wave the wand over the section of the ID card you wanted to print the photo onto and viola—the desired picture will replace whatever image was on the card before.
The picture-wand was given to Troop to hold onto until they needed it.
chapter thirty-seven
[ Troop ]
“Ugh,” Kristi said. “I didn’t think Tiffany would send someone to knock out these poor people just so we can have a cover.”
They were at the back lot of the Cleandows building. Three Cleandows employees—two guys and one woman—were lying unconscious on the ground. They had arrived at the scene to find a note pinned to the uniform of the largest guy:
Take their uniforms and ID cards. Hide the bodies in the storage shed. They won’t regain conscious for another three hours and when they do, a drug has been administered to ensure they remember nothing of the past five hours. Destroy this note.
“Everything has a price,” Chelsa said, unbuttoning the shirt of the smaller guy.
Everyone quickly stripped off the workers’ uniforms and rolled/dragged them into the storage shed. In the storage shed, Troop found some old, musty smelling coats that he used to cover up the three unconscious employees.
“Picture-wand?” Kristi asked.
He flourished the device and passed it around to everyone. When the picture-wand got passed back to him, he waved the wand over his ID card, watching the original face of the picture on the card transform into his face. Like magic, he thought. Out loud, he said, “Everything all set?”
“I think so, except for the fact the contact-cams are still bothering my eyes,” Kristi answered.
“Did you put in the eye-drops?”
“Yeah. It’s not a big problem.”
“Let’s move then.” Troop stowed away th
e picture-wand.
Chelsa unlocked the doors to the van belonging to Cleandows. They were going to “borrow” their vehicle to travel to New Genes Lab. She slid into the driver’s seat and backed out of the parking lot without a hitch.
The ride to New Genes Lab went relatively smoothly. Everyone on the road was occupied with getting to work on time and paid no attention to other commuters.
Chelsa maneuvered the van up the driveway and to the front gates of the lab. Gravel crunched beneath the tires. A little intercom box was attached to the metal gate. Someone must’ve been watching the van come up to the front gates because a voice spoke to them through the intercom, “This is New Genes Lab. Please state your business.”
Chelsa rolled down the windows and said, “We’re from Cleandows. We have an appointment at New Genes Lab today to repair and clean thirty-two windows.”
“Please hold on a moment while I verify your appointment.” The voice returned after ten seconds or so. “You may enter.”
There was a buzzing sound, then the gates swung upon on their own accord. Chelsa inched the Cleandows van up the gravel driveway and parked it beneath the shade of a Mongolia tree.
“Here, why don’t we each take some window cleaning supplies to upkeep our disguise.” Kristi handed Troop a black toolbox and Chelsa a bucket of cleaning foam.
Troop grasped the toolbox by the handles and almost dropped it; the box was heavier than it looked. Satisfied everything was going according to plan, He led everyone up to the double doors that automatically slid open when they approached them.
A secretary sitting behind a smart-glass desk greeted Troop. When she spoke, Troop recognized her as the voice from the intercom.
“I am sure that your boss has informed you what goes on in this building stays in this building, am I right?”
They all nodded.
“Good,” she continued on, completely naïve to the fact that the three of them were lying to her face. “Nevertheless, I still need all of you to sign this agreement of confidentiality.”
She pulled out a document from her smart-glass desk and motioned for everyone to sign on the line located at the bottom of a very long block of text.
