imperfect (13 page)

“
I also heard Stevey knows
some information about the Revealers,” Jaiden said.

Stevey paused his recitation and shook his
head, “Stevey doesn’t know anything about the spy group. Stevey got
in trouble for interacting with them.”

“
Stevey, we need your
help. If you do know information about the Revealers, we would
really appreciate it if you would share it with us,” Kristi
said.

Stevey’s gaze fell upon Ghost who had
reappeared. “Stevey will give you information if Stevey can have
the kitty.”

Ghost snarled at Stevey and spat at his
shoes.

“
Sorry, the leopard isn’t
up for trade,” Chelsa said. She turned as if to leave. “Come on, we
should get going.”

Stevey looked up in alarm. “Wait! Don’t go!
Stevey will share information if you give Stevey company. Stevey is
very lonely.”

“
Stay or leave?” Jaiden
asked.

“
Stay.” Kristi faced
Stevey and said, “We’ll stay for as long as you can provide us
useful information, okay?”

“
Okay. Let’s go to
Stevey’s house.” Stevey led them into the pathetic excuse of a
cabin and lit a fire in the fireplace; Kristi was mildly surprised
he didn’t burn down his cabin in the process of lighting the fire.
It seemed like something he would do.

Then Stevey patted on the worn-out couch for
them to sit on. Ghost, still looking sorely insulted by Stevey
calling him a “kitty”, had once again disappeared.

“
What do you want to
know?” Stevey asked.

“
Who are you and why are
you living in the woods by yourself?” Jaiden said.

“
Stevey was a brilliant
scientist. Stevey was the head scientist and worked for the
government. But, Stevey couldn’t stand the pressure of Stevey’s
work anymore and went coo-coo,” Stevey said, simultaneously
twirling his index finger and wiping a string of drool with his
sleeve.

“
I can tell Stevey went
coo-coo,” Chelsa muttered into Kristi’s ear.

Kristi hushed her and
listened to Stevey continue to talk. “Stevey got fired and the
government said Stevey had to disappear or else
they
would make Stevey disappear. So
Stevey left Stevey’s old home and lives here now.”

Jaiden asked some more irrelevant questions,
getting Stevey to grow comfortable with his presence.

Chelsa leaned over to Kristi, who was seated
between Jaiden and Chelsa, and said, “Tell Jaiden to cut to the
chase and ask Stevey where the Revealers are. We don’t have time to
waste.”

“
It was your idea to come
here in the first place,” said Kristi. She kept her voice low as
not to distract Jaiden from his questioning.

“
I didn’t expect finding
this whacko in the woods.”

“
Fine.”

Kristi passed on Chelsa’s request to Jaiden,
who in turn asked Stevey, “Stevey, why don’t you tell us more about
the Revealers?”

“
Stevey can’t do that.
Stevey will get in trouble if Stevey gives away top-secret
information.”

Chelsa started to speak up, wanting to get
Stevey to give her the answers she sought, but Jaiden broke in
before she could. “Why don’t you share some information that’s not
undisclosed?”

“
Stevey knows lots!
1.77245385091 is square root of pi. Some numbers are square and
others are triangular. The circle has the largest area out of a
group of shapes with the same perimeter. A jellyfish is over 95%
water. The average government official spends 137 points a day. A
lot of Revealer members visit Charleston because that is where
their headquarters is. Droid-pets were invented twenty-nine years
ago. Is that enough information?”

Chelsa, Kristi and Jaiden exchanged looks.
At last, one vital piece of information in aiding them to hunt down
the Revealers.

“
So, one of the Revealer’s
headquarter is in Charleston in the West Region, right?” Kristi
asked Stevey.

“
Stevey said too
much.”

She took that for a “yes.”

Stevey offhandedly stood up and opened the
rickety door of his cabin. “Out!” he commanded. “Stevey wants you
out!” He wagged a finger at them and said, “You guys are sneaky.
You made Stevey careless and say too much.”

They got the message and left.

chapter
thirteen

[ Troop ]

Troop sucked in a deep
breath then opened the door to his apart
ment.

A man stood in the kitchen with his back to
Troop. His father. At the sound of the door clicking shut, his
father spun on his heels to face him. Troop hid his discomfort as
the man scanned him from head to toe. In return, Troop observed his
father.

He had changed a bit. Granted, the last time
Troop saw him was ten years ago, but he had changed more than Troop
expected. His father had acquired a gaunt and haunted look. Dark
circles encircled his eyes, which flickered around in an unnerving
fashion.

“
Troop.” His father stuck
out a hand.

Troop reached out his right hand and briefly
shook his father’s. Everything felt wrong; everything felt too
formal and alien.

“
What time does your
mother come back from work?” his father asked.

“
Not for a while.” Troop
couldn’t bring himself to call this man
dad
. “How did you get in
here?”

“
Your mother picked me up
from the air-train station and dropped me off here before going
back to work.” His father lifted up a duffle bag and said, “Where
should I put my belongings?”

I used to belong to
you,
Troop thought.
I used to be your son, and where did you put me? Nowhere,
that’s where. You ditched me.
He took a
second to get his emotions under control, and then said, “This
way.”

He showed his father to the guest room and
left him in there to unpack.

Troop wanted to leave the apartment. He
wanted to get away from this relative stranger, but for some
reason, Troop didn’t trust leaving his father alone in the
apartment.

His father sat on
the
couch across from Troop in the living
room. So far, he had looked at everything but Troop. As a matter of
fact, he seemed unsure of what to do.

Good. The more
uncomfortable he is, the better.
Troop
still hadn’t taken his eyes off him yet, as if he was afraid the
man would stab him in the back the first chance he got.

The door swung open. Two pairs of eyes
trailed to the door. Troop’s mom stepped into the apartment. “Has
Troop gotten you settled in yet?” she asked.

Troop’s father stood up to give her a hug.
“Yes, Troop has already shown me my room. Thank you so much for
taking me in.”

“
Not a problem.” She
gently pushed away his attempted embrace. “Troop, don’t you have a
tutor session in fifteen minutes?”

Troop detested the idea of leaving his mom
with his father. His mother saw the concern in his eyes and shooed
him out the door with her hands, “Get out of here. I need to talk
with your father and if you don’t leave in ten seconds I will
personally skin your hide.”

He took off without another word.

chapter
fourteen

[ Kristi ]

“
That’s a bummer. We
could’ve gotten a lot more information
from Stevey if we had only posed our questions correctly,”
said Jaiden, kicking rocks down the road.

With less than one day’s supply, they
desperately needed to refill their necessities, as the next closest
civilization was at least three days’ walk. Chelsa had grudgingly
agreed to stop by the city of Alma for one night.

“
We still received a fair
amount of info,” said Kristi. “Let’s go find an inn.”

Chelsa looked at a map on
her electro-slate, deciding where and when they should call it
quits for the day. Jaiden pulled out his
electro-slate and typed something. Chelsa, absorbed with her
map, didn’t notice Jaiden using his slate.

Since when did he retrieve
his slate?
Kristi thought.

“
Jaiden, you never told me
that you had your electro-slate the whole time. How’d you get it
from jail? When did you—” Kristi stopped talking when Chelsa’s head
jerked up.

“
You brought your
electro-slate?” Chelsa said.

“
Yeah.” Jaiden brandished
his slate in front of Chelsa, but snatched it back to his chest
when she attempted to nick it out of his hands. “Is there a reason
I can’t bring
my
electro-slate, when you can bring
yours
?”

“
Duh, there’s a reason why
you shouldn’t have brought yours. I thought you knew electro-slates
have trackers in them—the government could be tracking us this
minute. I thought Perfects had their brains meddled with so they
can be
smarter
,
not
dumber
!”

Kristi, taken aback by Chelsa’s volatile
moods, didn’t know whether she should jump into the argument or
not.

“
Then why do you have
yours?” said Jaiden.

“
Because I removed my
tracker.”

Jaiden attempted to form a response and
Chelsa took this as a chance to seize the electro-slate out of
Jaiden’s hands, throw it onto the ground and stomp on it.

“
Hey! Why’d you do that?”
Jaiden demanded, eyes flitting from the broken device and
Chelsa.

“
Were you not listening to
my explanation?” Chelsa grounded the heels of her boots into the
shattered remains of the slate, causing the shards to catch the
rays of the setting sun.

They stood nose-to-nose, glaring at each
other; Kristi could almost see smoke coming out of their ears. The
way Jaiden and Chelsa were giving each other death-stares should’ve
warned Kristi to keep out of this dispute, but the attention they
were beginning to receive from passerbys convinced her
otherwise.

“
Guys, cool down a bit,
alright? We should find some place to stay for the night.” She
stepped between the staring contest, feeling Jaiden and Chelsa’s
burning glares pass right through her.

Chelsa and Jaiden scowled at each other,
neither willing to back off from the stare-down. Kristi exhaled
slowly through her pursed lips and decided to blame the hot tempers
she was witnessing on the stress created from the past few
days.

She grabbed Jaiden’s wrist in her right hand
and Chelsa’s wrist with her left hand, then pulled them apart.

“
Stop fighting,” Kristi
ordered. “Unless you haven’t noticed, you’re attracting attention
from the residents.” She awkwardly dragged them down Rhine Lane,
hoping to find a cheap inn to spend the night.

Jaiden tried to pry her fingers off his
wrist. After a moment’s hesitation, Kristi released her grip,
knowing Jaiden could easily remove her hand by force if he wanted
to. Then she uncertainly loosened her clutch on Chelsa as well, not
sure if Chelsa was going to punch Jaiden in the face or not. Chelsa
clenched her fists, but didn’t lash out.

“
Do you know where you are
going?” Jaiden asked her. His voice was calm and steady, as if
nothing had happened between him and Chelsa.

“
No.”

Dazzling red lights flashed down upon them.
A United Regions Homeland Security Helicopter hovered above them,
its blades whirling at a demonic speed. The searchlight landed on
them and an amplified voice rang out, “Stop where you are! Put your
hands behind your head and lay down. We will shoot if
necessary.”

“
Look what your stupid
slate did,” Chelsa hissed to Jaiden. “We’re lucky they hadn’t
dispatched a helicopter earlier.”

“
No time for arguing.”
Kristi craned back her neck, eyeing the chrome belly of the
chopper.

“
Split up and return to
the intersection of Rhine Lane and Route 56 once you’re sure you’ve
lost the law enforcement,” said Chelsa. She turned on her heels and
swirled away in the cityscape.

“
Want to come with me?”
Jaiden asked.

“
It’s better if we split
up,” Kristi said, waving away Jaiden. “Go now. I’ll be
fine.”

Jaiden cast a doubtful look at her but
heeded the advice when she gave him a slight push. The searchlight
brightened, tightening its focus on Kristi. She scrunched her eyes
against the beacon.

“
I repeat. Put your hands
behind your head and lay down. We will shoot if necessary,” the
speakers attached beneath the chopper blared.

Well, Kristi decided, she wasn’t about to be
caught so easily. She raced out of the beam and dodged between two
apartment buildings. The few civilians that were wandering the
streets so close to curfew scuttled into the nearest building and
locked the doors.

“
Stop running!” the
speakers crackled once more. “You will face fewer consequences if
you come with us peacefully.”

In your dreams.
She tore through the narrow streets, staying in
the shadows of buildings as often as possible. A gunshot was fired
into the air as a warning.