imperfect (12 page)

They Kristi shifted off to the sides of the
road in order to avoid getting caught up in the flow of movement
and risk being separated from each other. The sun broke through the
clouds, painting the sky a gorgeous red-gold color.

No one spoke. The only
sounds to be heard were the
crunch,
crunch, crunch
from their boots grinding
the gravel beneath their feet. Yet somehow, the silence didn’t feel
awkward or forced.

Kristi squinted; there was something long
and tall coming up ahead. The object spanned the entire road. She
slid Chelsa a quick look to see if she’d noticed it as well.

“
It’s a tollbooth,” Chelsa
said. “I want both of you to keep your heads down and let me do the
talking when we reach it.”

Both ends of the tollbooth were submerged in
a large, rushing river. There was no way to avoid passing through
it, unless one wanted to risk crossing the rapid-filled water.
Kristi estimated the rivers to stretch the width of at least three
hundred yards; the length was immeasurable—it gushed far out of
sight off into the distance. She looked down at her feet when they
got near the booths.

“
How many people are
traveling with you?” asked the tollbooth-collector.

“
Two,” replied
Chelsa.

“
IDs, please.”

Chelsa handed him her electro-slate and two
plastic cards. He matched Chelsa’s electronic ID to her face and
grunted, “I need to see Kelly and Zach’s faces.”

Kristi looked at the tollbooth-collector for
a millisecond before ducking her head again. Jaiden did so
likewise.

“
They’re both shy,” Chelsa
said.

“
I can tell. Nine
points.”

Once Chelsa had transferred the points, they
were on their way again. Kristi turned to Chelsa and asked, “Since
when did you get Jaiden and me fake ID cards?”

“
Since you decided you
wanted to travel to West Region. How did you expect to pass through
checkpoints without an ID?” Chelsa handed them each their cards.
“You should probably keep this on you at all times. I forgot I
still had them on me; I would’ve given them to you
earlier.”

Kristi scrutinized her card. The girl in the
picture did look a little bit like her. They shared the same hair
and eye color, at any rate. Her full name was Kelly Harrison; she
was seventeen years old, born in the North Region and had an ID
number of 012935.

“
Can I see your card,
Jaiden?” Kristi asked.

“
Sure.” He palmed her the
thin piece of plastic.

Jaiden’s cover name was Zach Ware. He was
nineteen years old and lived in the East Region, according to the
ID card. Although Zach Ware didn’t resemble Jaiden, the card was
better than nothing. She returned his card and tucked hers into her
right boot.

Jaiden pointed to a patch of trees and
suggested, “Let’s break for lunch. I could use some shade from the
sun as well.”

Kristi set down her
weighty backpack, barely suppressing a groan of relief. Stretching
out her aching shoulders, she wondered how she was going to survive
the rest of the journey. They didn’t have enough points to spend on
air-train tickets and none of them owned a car. Even just thinking
about carrying her backpack again after lunch made her back
ache.
Better get used to this.
She allowed herself ten more seconds of
self-pitying then snapped herself out of her misery.

“
I’m going to refill my
water bottle from the nearby stream,” Jaiden announced.

Chelsa diverted her attention from her
lunch. “Don’t take too long.”

He extracted his water bottle from the
bottle holder of his backpack and headed towards the stream about
twenty-five yards away from the picnic area.

Ghost ambled in front of Kristi. He sat down
for a few seconds, and when he got up there was a little pile of
poo left behind. Kristi stared.

“
Ghost pooped,” she stated
the obvious.

Chelsa glanced over. “Yeah. I can tell.”

She repeated, “Ghost pooped.”

“
So?” Chelsa asked
nonchalantly.

“
Ghost just
pooped.”

Chelsa sighed. “Kristi, what goes in one end
has to go out the other.” She sounded like she was explaining why
one plus one equals two to a kindergartener.

“
I have never seen
a
droid-pet
poop
before. Doesn’t that kind of defeat the purpose of having a
droid-pet instead of real animals?”

Chelsa suddenly let out a bark of laughter.
She opened her mouth to say something, but then got overcome by a
fit of laughter.

“
What’s so funny?” Kristi
asked.

“
You thought Ghost was a
droid?” Chelsa wheezed between waves of laughter. She was laughing
pretty darn hard. “Ghost isn’t a droid! He’s an actual living,
breathing,
pooping
leopard!”

“
Oh.” Kristi didn’t know
how else to respond.

“
All those days you spent
with Ghost and me,” Chelsa said, “and you honestly thought he was a
droid-pet.”

“
Well, yeah. I’ve never
seen a live animal before.”

“
What’s so funny?” Jaiden
asked, returning from the stream.

Chelsa and Kristi looked at each other, then
both started cracking up at the same time.

“
Ghost pooped,” Kristi
managed to say to a confused looking Jaiden before breaking off
into more laughter.

This caused Jaiden to furrow his eyebrows in
bewilderment, which naturally caused the two girls to crack up even
harder.

The weather was unusually
warm
for September and the sun was blazing
hot. Sweat poured from the back of Kristi’s neck.

She trekked along the road, in front of
Jaiden but behind Chelsa. Although the first three days of travel
had left her completely exhausted by the end of each day, Kristi
was pleased to find she could now survive twelve hours of hiking
without feeling near death come dinner time.

Chelsa paused in her steps. “I see smoke.
There’s probably a campfire nearby—chances are it’s a trader’s
fire. We could use some more supplies.”

Kristi looked off to Chelsa’s gaze and
noticed the thinnest wisp of smoke escaping the treetops. “The fire
could also belong to a bandit camp.”

“
That’s unlikely. Bandits
wouldn’t make their camp so close to the road. Jaiden, how many
water purifying tablets do we have left?”

“
About two days’
worth.”

“
Couldn’t we just stop by
the next town we pass by to restock?” Kristi watched the fragile
traces of smoke diminish in the bright sunlight.

“
I still don’t want to
risk going into an urban place,” said Chelsa. “Not until at least a
week has passed since we broke Jaiden out of jail.”

“
You could always enter
the town by yourself. Jaiden and I are capable of waiting for you
outside.”

“
Hm,” said Chelsa. “All
the same, it would be better if we could replenish our provisions
with the traders rather than visiting a settlement.”

Kristi shrugged. “Your call.”

They followed the smoke and came upon an
abandoned campfire that was partially put out. Someone had
carelessly kicked some ash over the glowing embers, leaving a trail
of footprints heading away from the fire and deeper into the
woods.

Kristi regarded her surroundings and
realized that if they were ambushed, they’d be in deep trouble. The
trees blocked the view to Route 56 and there was no one around to
help them.

“
I guess the traders
left,” she said. “Let’s head out now.”

“
They still might be
around.” Chelsa knelt down by a footprint. “The fire’s not more
than a few hours old and the tracks are fresh.”

“
Something feels off.
Don’t you think so, Jaiden?” Kristi approached her brother for
support.

“
Maybe. Wouldn’t there be
more footprints if this was a trader’s campfire?” Traders were
known to travel in groups to reduce their likelihood of being
attacked by preying bandits.

“
There’s always the
possibility this belonged to a lone trader,” said
Chelsa.

Jaiden looked torn between siding with
Chelsa or Kristi.

“
How do you know that this
set of footprints isn’t from a spy member of the network?” Chelsa
challenged. “Anyways, I’ve always gotten you out of trouble,
haven’t I? Even when I didn’t cause the trouble to happen in the
first place.”

Good point,
thought Kristi.
She
didn’t have to free Jaiden. Or free me from the bandits as a matter
of fact.

Chelsa stubbornly ignored Jaiden and Kristi
and followed the footsteps. The tracks wound deeper and deeper into
the forest. The further they went, the bigger and more imposing the
trees got. Huge oaks, sycamores and pine trees towered overhead
like skyscrapers. It would’ve taken five people linked together to
surround the trunk of the ancient trees.

Despite the diversity of plants present, the
forest sounded unnaturally silent. No birds chirped from the trees
and no chipmunks chattered on the branches. Kristi’s apprehension
increased; the foliage blocked sunlight from reaching the forest
floor and the trees grew denser and denser together.

“
I really think we should
head back to Route 56,” she said.

“
Five more minutes,”
Chelsa insisted. “Give me five more minutes and if we still haven’t
found the person we’re tracking, we’ll turn around.”

“
Very well.”

Kristi could no longer see any footprints
embedded in the dirt, but Chelsa seemed to be following some sort
of invisible trail only known to her. Jaiden, in the meantime, had
moved up closer to Kristi, sensing her nervousness.

“
Don’t worry, Chelsa won’t
let anything too bad happen to us.” Jaiden didn’t sound as if he
believed his own words.

“
I heard that,” said
Chelsa. “It would be nice if you guys put a bit more faith in me,
you know.”

“
Chelsa, Ghost left us,”
Kristi said.

This fact increased her anxiety. If Ghost
detected trouble, then trouble must be coming up ahead; the
feline’s eerie knack for recognizing trouble was something that
didn’t escape Kristi’s awareness.

“
He’ll come back
eventually,” Chelsa replied, sounding distracted.

“
Three minutes are up.”
Jaiden tapped his watch.

Chelsa stopped. “That’s weird. The person’s
trail just disappeared. Let’s backtrack a bit; I think I might’ve
missed something.”

“
What’s that?” Jaiden
asked. He pointed to a low-lying building of some sort nestled in
the shadows of a huge sycamore tree.

“
Seems like some sort of
cabin,” Kristi said.

The cabin looked ramshackle and desperately
needed a paint job. No lights shone from inside the cabin and the
roof dipped inwards, hinting of the weight of snow it bore during
the winter months.

“
Shh!” Chelsa whispered
tersely. She pulled Jaiden and Kristi behind a large sassafras tree
with a trunk at least six feet across.

“
Who visited Stevey?” a
croaky voice called out from behind the cabin. “Stevey likes
visitors.”

Kristi peeked out from behind the tree
trunk. A stooped, stout man emerged from behind the cabin; he had
crazy, white hair and a long, matted beard. He wore a yellow plaid
shirt with the collar unbuttoned. The sleeves carried a grayish
stain on them and he looked like he could use a bath. Stevey’s wiry
build and his overall appearance made him seem like a genius gone
mad.

He looked around the empty area around him.
When no one appeared, he called out once more, “Stevey knows he saw
people here. Come out! Stevey likes to talk.” He paused in his
talking long enough to waggle his eyebrows up and down. “Stevey
knows many, many stuff. Stevey is smart. Stevey knows about the
Revealers.” He clapped his hand over his mouth and loudly mumbled,
“Bad Stevey. Stevey wasn’t supposed to say that.”

“
I’m going to talk to
him,” Kristi whispered and then tried to approach Stevey, but
Chelsa held her down.

“
Let me go first. Stay
behind the boulder with Jaiden. Wait—where’s Jaiden?”

While they were talking, Jaiden had slipped
away. Kristi peered around the sassafras and saw him approaching
Stevey. He was too far away to stop now. She bolted after her
brother with Chelsa hot on her heels.

Stevey’s eyes lit up when he saw three
visitors appear. He straightened up from his stance and attempted
to run his fingers through his severely tangled beard. “Stevey
hasn’t had visitors for a long time!”

“
I wonder why,” Kristi
said under her breath.

Jaiden, being ever the gentleman he was,
stuck out his hand for Stevey to shake. Stevey vigorously pumped
his arm up and down. The little, eccentric man must’ve had more
strength than Jaiden expected because he grimaced with pain.

“
Nice to meet you,
Stevey,” greeted Jaiden. Stevey reluctantly let go and grinned
toothily. “So, I heard you know a lot of stuff.”

Stevey bobbed his head up and down. “Yes,
Stevey is very smart.” He proceeded to rattle off the periodic
table of elements then started to recite the numbers of pi.