imperfect (36 page)

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 ]

“
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 the 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.