by Tina Chan
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 video 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 ]
