imperfect (37 page)

“
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.

Troop confidently signed the name Kennedy
Shief onto the smart-glass and passed the pen to Chelsa. Kristi
nudged him and shot him an “I need help” expression when he glanced
her way.

He mouthed back,
“Why?”

Kristi patted the pocket that held her
Cleandows worker ID card, and then jerked her head towards the
agreement of confidentiality she needed to sign.

“
Name?” Troop asked her in
a quiet voice.
If Kristi doesn’t know her
cover name, what is she supposed to sign her name as? If someone
notices her signature doesn’t match the name on her ID card,
they’re going to suspect something is wrong.

Kristi nodded. Chelsa finished signing the
contract and gave the pen to Kristi.

“
Do you need our ID cards
to be scanned?” Troop asked the secretary.

He flaunted his ID card dramatically,
successfully securing the secretary’s attention onto him, thus
allowing Kristi to have the chance to take a quick peek at her
card.

“
Yes, I will need to scan
your cards,” the secretary answered Troop. “Has everyone signed the
confidentiality agreement?”

“
Not me,” Kristi said. She
quickly scrawled Helen Jes onto the last signature line.

Troop took a moment to read Chelsa’s fake
name; it was Dakota Collins. He thanked his lucky stars that Dakota
was a unisex name. It would’ve been awkward if someone noticed
Kristi and him calling Chelsa by a guy’s name, like Harry, for
example.

The three of them scanned their ID cards and
the secretary pointed the group in the general direction of the
windows they were supposed to clean and/or fix.

“
Don’t be shocked by some
of the things you see,” the secretary advised them just before they
headed off. “As long as you remember to only do what you’re
supposed to do and nothing else while you’re in New Genes Lab,
you’ll be fine. Don’t go looking for trouble by entering parts of
the building you’re not supposed to be in. If you do get lost,
locate the nearest staff to direct you to the correct
place.”

“
Alright. Thanks,” Troop
said.

He walked down the hallway until the
secretary was out of sight. He studied a map depicting the layout
of the lab posted on the wall, then nonchalantly asked, “Which room
do you want to hit first?”

chapter
thirty-eight

[ Kristi ]

“
Testing Room A seems like
a good place to start,” Kristi read
the
room name off the
map.

Even though it was still early in the
morning, the building hustled with activity. Men and women rushed
from room to room; some carried stacks of electro-slate and others
pushed carts filled with tiny vials. None of the staff gave any of
them a second look; after all, what could be so interesting about
three window cleaners? Everyone was too occupied with their work to
spare even a few seconds to wonder why three teenagers were
wandering around the lab.

Testing Room A proved not to be of much
interest. The room was kept at a chilly temperature, but other than
that, nothing inside seemed relevant with helping them solve the
Disappearance Case.

“
Let’s try the next room
down the hall,” Troop said.

The next room turned out to be a storage
room full of empty containers. They made their way down the entire
hallway. Nothing appeared to be out of the ordinary; everything was
exactly what Kristi would expect to see in a lab.

“
Do you think the answer
to solving the case is actually here?” Chelsa asked fifteen rooms
later.

“
I’m positive,” Kristi
said.

“
Perhaps we’re looking at
the wrong section of the building.” Troop swiveled his head around,
searching for other rooms they might’ve missed. “This lab is a
decent size and we’ve only explored the West Wing. Let’s move onto
the North Wing of the building.”

Accessing the rooms in the North Wing proved
to be harder than accessing the rooms in the West Wing. An ID card
scan was required before entering all of the rooms in the North
Wing. However, they simply trailed behind distracted workers and
slipped into the rooms after them.

“
Let’s follow the man with
the bushy mustache,” Kristi whispered to Troop and
Chelsa.

They stuck at a distance of about
twenty-feet behind the guy until he paused to retrieve his ID card
to enter a locked room. The three of them subtly closed the
distance.

As soon as the man pushed open the door into
Lab D, Kristi stuck her foot in front of the door to prevent it
from shutting. She waited until the man was occupied with sorting
pictures on his electro-slate then pushed the door further open.
Troop and Chelsa slithered into Lab D after her and took a look
around.

Along one wall of the lab was a line of
cages. Within each cage was a rabbit, cat or mouse. The room
currently held thirty people; some people were examining slides
underneath a microscope, some recorded data and others conversed
with each other.

“
Leave or stay?” Chelsa
asked.

“
Let’s stay for another
minute,” Troop said.

Two women discussing something walked in
their general direction. Kristi scooted out of the way and
eavesdropped on their words.

The woman wearing a string of pearls in her
hair spoke to her colleague, “The results were all promising when
tested on the cats and rabbits. The specimen grew significantly
thicker hair after DNA patterns on chromosome 19 were altered to
increase the division of cells in the follicles.”

“
This sounds good,”
replied the other woman. “Have you forwarded the report to the
level three testers?”

“
Yes. In fact, I’m going
to the level three section in the East Wing right now to check on
their progress with DNA modifications for thicker hair.”

The two of them swept out of the room.

“
From the sound of it, I
think the lab is divided into levels or sections,” Kristi said. “If
the West Wing was level one and the North Wing—which is where we
are right now—is level two, chances are the East Wing is level
three.”

“
Seems logical to me.”
Chelsa nodded her head in agreement. “Want to move onto the East
Wing then?”

“
Sure.”

Kristi briefly consulted another map
conveniently framed on the hallway walls and readjusted their
course towards the East Wing. Two guards guarded the doors leading
into the East Wing. In order to even enter the East Wing itself, a
fingerprint scan to confirm one’s identity was required. Only staff
members with a high enough clearance were allowed into the East
Wing.

“
Do you think we should
bluff our way through?” Kristi asked. “We could say we’re supposed
to clean the windows in the East Wing.”

“
Nah. That’s too risky.
The guards might verify that with the front desk and our covers
will be blown,” Troop said.

They backtracked their steps, trying to come
up with a solution. Kristi spotted a scientist wheeling a cart
headed for the East Wing. On the cart were several large cages. One
cage contained a sleeping monkey. Three other cages were empty.

Troop followed her gaze and shook his
head.

“
No way. You must be crazy
if you think we can enter the East Wing by taking a ride in a
monkey cage. The guy will notice us in a heartbeat.” He grabbed
onto her arm as if afraid Kristi would bolt off any
second.

The cart-pusher passed. Troop released her
arm. Kristi rubbed her arm painfully.

“
You didn’t have to cut
off my blood supply to my arm,” she said under her
breath.

“
Sorry. Any ideas,
Chelsa—ah, Dakota?” Troop hastily remembered to use the name on
Chelsa’s Cleandows ID card.

Chelsa shook her head.

“
It might be easier for us
to individually sneak into the East Wing,” Kristi
suggested.

“
That’s true,” Chelsa
said. “But I’m worried about us splitting up in an unfamiliar
building. We’ll be running the risk of not being able to find each
other again.”

“
Well, we’re running out
of time and options. Distract this guy for me, will
you?”

“
Wait, what?”

Kristi gave Chelsa a small shove into the
path of the scientist, hissing, “Just do it.”

Another man wheeling a cart came their way.
There were two dog carriers stacked on his cart. One was empty and
the other had a blanket thrown over it, preventing Kristi from
seeing the inside of the crate.

“
Sir,” Chelsa called out
to the man. “Can you please direct me to the right direction of the
West Wing? And also, can you come over here for a minute please? I
have a problem with my electro-slate.”

The scientist walked over to Chelsa. Kristi
made sure he was engaged with a conversation with Chelsa then
scurried over to the blanket-covered dog crate and unlatched the
door. A sleeping Labrador occupied the crate. The dog must’ve been
doped up because it didn’t give the slightest hint of activity when
Kristi nudged him.

“
Can you re-cover the
blanket over the entrance of this dog carrier after I get in?” she
asked Troop.

Troop looked like he was about to argue with
her, but she was already sliding herself into the cramped space.
Kristi held the door closed and signaled for Troop to hurry up and
reposition the blanket back to its original position. She heard
Troop step away just as she felt the cart start to move.

At first, Kristi pressed
herself far away from the snoozing dog in case it suddenly awoke.
After a few minutes though, she gradually relaxed her guard around
the animal; the dog was so out of it she wouldn’t have guessed it
was alive except for the fact it was breathing shallow
breaths.
Good thing I’m not allergic to
dogs else I’m screwed.

Kristi bit her bottom lip
and tried to figure out how she was going to get out the dog crate
without being detected. Now that she thought about it, her actions
had been impulsive and rash.
You got
yourself into this,
she told
herself.
Now you have to get yourself out
of it.

The movement of the cart came to a stop and
she heard a voice demand the man pushing the cart for a fingerprint
scan and ID verification. A few seconds later, the cart jolted
forward once more.

“
What do you have there,
Kenny?” a woman’s voice asked.

“
Just subject 76,” the guy
named Kenny replied. “Marilyn requested a dog to be tested for the
hair thickener genetic tweaks. Research data suggests doubling the
amount of thymine in section F of chromosome 19 increases the rate
follicles reproduce their cells. As you know, thick hair is all the
rage right now, so this new discovery could lead to some serious
profits.”

“
Didn’t Marilyn just try
decreasing the amount of cytosine in section F of chromosome 19 a
week ago in order to produce thicker hair in subject 56?” the woman
asked.

“
Yes. However, the hair
grew too uncontrollably and took up most of the nutrients subject
56 was consuming in order to grow and maintain. As a result,
subject 56 became extremely malnourished and died three days
ago.”

“
Do you have time for me
to show you the latest results in Lab H?”

“
Yeah,” Kenny said. “I
just have to transfer subject 76 into Holding Room 3. I’ll meet you
in Lab H in a few minutes, alright?”

“
Sounds good.”

Kenny pushed the cart once more. Then the
movement eventually halted and Kristi heard Kenny walk away. She
felt her stomach unclench from tension; she had been afraid Kenny
would check on subject 76 (the dog) and discover her
hitchhiking.

Kristi listened to her surroundings. It was
deathly quiet. However, the air smelled of animals. She pushed open
the gate of the dog crate and crawled outside; then she latched the
entrance of subject 76’s carrier shut and absorbed the details of
her environment.

Holding Room 3 was filled with cages with
blankets draped over them. Aside from her and the sedated animals
snoozing in their prisons, the room was empty.

Kristi patted her pockets and located the
micro-fiber sponges stashed in there. She slunk out of Holding Room
3 and pretended to clean a tinted window in the hallway while she
waited for Chelsa and Troop to arrive. After several minutes,
Kristi tucked the micro-fiber cloth back into her pocket and set
off to explore the East Wing for a bit.