imperfect (45 page)

“
This is so weird,” Chelsa
said. “How come the water isn’t entering through
opening?”

Although they were still soaked through,
they were standing on dry grounds. If he hadn’t known better, Troop
would’ve thought they were simply inside an underground hideout
instead of beneath a pond. From the looks of his surrounding, they
were in an old subway tunnel.

“
I think it’s because of
this.” Finn pointed to a large metal cylinder with various tubes
attached to it. There was a small screen implanted in the cylinder
with blinking numbers and symbols Troop didn’t recognize. “It’s an
air pressure controller.”

“
So?” Troop said. “What
does that do?”

“
It manipulates the air
pressure so that it nullifies the water pressure from above.
Essentially, air is pressing against the membrane we passed through
and keeping the water out of here.”

Troop unzipped his (thankfully) waterproof
backpack and removed his electro-slate from it. The slate was still
set on the GN channel, but Troop’s video was being played instead
of whatever broadcast the government had planned to air.

He wondered if his film was being played a
second time, since the entire clip wasn’t much longer than twelve
minutes and he was sure it had been at least twenty minutes since
Nick and Jane first overrode the channel.

Troop tried to change the
channel, wanting to see what other news stations were making of the
GN override. But no matter which station he turned to, the results
were the same: the film he made was being played. He grinned
inwardly; Nick and Jane had really outdone themselves.

“
Hey, can I see your
slate?” Chelsa asked. “I haven’t watched the completed video
yet.”

“
Yeah.” Troop handed it
over to her.

Finn and Chelsa found a
spot on the floor a few yards away from him and turned up the
volume of the electro-slate. Troop paced beneath the trapdoor,
expecting Kristi to come crashing through any moment. He counted
the concrete tiles beneath his feet to pass time.
I shouldn’t have left Kristi on her own,
he thought.
I know she’s
prone to make hasty choices when under pressure.

He started to recount the
tiles a second time.
One, two, three,
four…

“
That’s it.” Troop turned
to Finn and Chelsa. “I’m going back up to find Kristi. She’s taking
way too long.”

“
Don’t,” said Chelsa. “We
don’t know if there are Searchers and Sniffers up
there.”

Troop paled.
What if the Searcher caught her? I should’ve
stayed behind to dispose Finn’s crutch instead of having her do
it.

“
Troop, look at me.”
Chelsa grabbed him by his dripping shirt and spun him around so
that he was facing her. “I am being dead serious right now. Don’t
risk all of our lives by going after Kristi. Our scents are all
over the Meditation Garden which means the Searchers and Sniffers
are going to be all over that place for a while. Wait until either
Nick or some other Revealer member notifies us that it’s safe to go
before leaving this hideout.”

chapter fifty

[ Kristi ]

“
Where should I hide the
crutch?” Kristi asked herself.

She willed her body to
stop shivering from the cold. The crutch felt awkward in her hands,
getting in the way of her feet when she walked. She spotted a low
hanging branch and got an idea. Slipping her forearm through the
crutch, she began to scale the tree.

“
Let’s see how the
Sniffers like barking up a tree,” she said.

Kristi hooked the crutch
onto the highest branch of the yew tree then scrambled down; she
had walked further from the pond than she would’ve liked. The
leaves and gravel crunched beneath her feet; she wished her
footsteps wouldn’t make so much noise.

A yowl seared the air. Kristi froze, not
sure which direction the sound was coming from.

“
They found a trail,” a
voice rang out.

Sniffers!
Her brain screeched.
Get
back to the koi-pond before they spot you.
She traded caution in for speed, hurtling through the
vegetation and not caring that she was trampling patches of
meticulously cared for flowers and plants.

“
Sir! I saw a movement to
the left,” a female voice called out. “Requesting permission to
investigate.”

“
Permission
granted.”

Kristi leapt over a
rotting log and skidded around a muddy patch of ground. She
backpedaled immediately. A Sniffer snapped at her ankles and let
out a bark.

“
Target located!” the
Searcher behind the Sniffer yelled.

The other Searchers
shouted back their replies, but Kristi was too distracted to make
out their words. She sprinted towards the pond. Halfway to the pond
though, she abruptly changed directions.
What am I thinking? I’ll give away the hiding place if I go
there,
Kristi thought.

Something heavy pounced
onto Kristi’s back, sending her sprawling across the ground. A
Sniffer pinned her in place.
Jeez, how
much does the droid-dog weigh? 150 pounds? 200?
The other dogs were onto her in an instant.

The Searchers came into view. A woman
officer knelt down besides Kristi and said, “Where are the other
Accidents?” She made a command for the Sniffer to get off Kristi
then wrenched her onto her feet.

“
I don’t know,” Kristi
said. “I lost sight of them.”

The Searcher snapped to
attention when the commanding officer of the Search unit arrived.
“Sir, requesting permission to search surrounding area for
trail.”

“
Permission
granted.”

“
Here,
somebody take care of this
thing.
” The woman pushed Kristi away
from her, as if she was infected with a transmittable
disease.

She stumbled into a pair
of open arms.

“
Well, we met again,
Freak,” said a familiar voice.

Kristi spun around.
“It’s
you.
”

Mason smirked. “Who else would it be?”

He released Kristi for a
moment, but it was only so that he could pull her arms behind her
back to secure them in a pair of handcuffs before she had a chance
to run away.

“
I’ll take care of her,”
said a Searcher, stepping out from the back of the
group.

“
Who are you?” Mason
asked.

“
Officer
Holnes.”

“
I don’t recognize
you.”

“
New member to this Search
unit,” Holnes said. He made an attempt to grab Kristi, but Mason
jerked her out of reach.

“
Commander Klove, when was
Holnes added to this unit?”

That was when Kristi noticed Commander Klove
was missing.

“
Imposter!” Mason yelled.
He directed the remaining Searchers, “Seize him!”

The Searchers lunged for
Holnes, but more people had melted out of the shadows. None of the
newcomers were clothed in Searcher uniforms. Nobody knew who was on
whose side. It was complete madness.

Now’s my chance to make an
escape,
Kristi thought. But she hadn’t
taken three steps before a person tackled her to the ground. She
fell on her back, her handcuffed hands digging into her lower back.
Her attacker was Officer Holnes.

“
Are you part of the
Revealers?” she asked.

“
No,” he said, then stuck
a needle into her arm.

The world turned into a
kaleidoscope of colors and patterns. The last thing Kristi thought
before she lost consciousness was,
At
least I kept Chelsa, Finn and Troop safe for now. If only I could
do the same with the Accidents in New Genes Lab.

chapter
fifty-one

[ Troop ]

The trapdoor swung open
and a body fell through the entryway.
Troop jumped to his feet.

“
Kristi?”

His heart sank immediately when he saw that
the person was a guy.

The guy stood up and shook Troop’s hand.
“I’m Pier. Nick sent me to let you know it’s safe to go back to
their apartment. The door-to-door search has been called off for
the day.” Pier ceased his talking for a moment to look about him.
“I thought there were four of you.”

“
There are,” Chelsa
said.

“
Then who’s
missing?”

“
Kristi,” Troop answered.
“You haven’t seen her by any chance, have you? The last time I saw
her was…about four hours ago.”

Pier shook his head. “Come
on, we better leave before curfew’s in place.”

“
But what if Kristi comes
back here and doesn’t know where we are?” He faced Chelsa and Finn.
“You guys go ahead with Pier. I’ll wait here for a bit and see if
Kristi comes back.”

“
I don’t think that’s a
good idea,” Pier said.

Chelsa flashed Troop an understanding
countenance. “You stay here if you really want to. Don’t get caught
on your way back to the Filches’.”

Pier didn’t protest against Chelsa. “See you
in a while,” he said to Troop. “I’ll leave you a change of clothes
behind the koi-pond plaque. You’ll attract too much attention if
you walk around the city in soaked clothes.”

With that, Pier pushed open the trapdoor and
allowed Chelsa and Finn to exit the hideout before him.

You can’t stay here
forever,
Troop’s conscience nagged
him.
It’s almost midnight. It’s time to
face the truth: Kristi got caught.
He
clenched his fist and cracked his stiff neck. It was time to
leave.

He repacked his belongings
into his backpack and zipped it shut. Then he shoved the trapdoor
upwards and jumped, breaking through the thin gel membrane acting
as a barrier between the water and underground shelter. The sudden
change of pressure shocked Troop for a second, and then he swam
towards the surface.

The full moon radiated a strong glow, making
the droplets of water suspended midair fracture the rays of
moonlight shining through. Using strong strokes, Troop made his way
to the pond’s perimeter and located the spare clothes. He exchanged
his sopping t-shirt for a dry one and left the Meditation
Garden.

chapter
fifty-two

[ Kristi ]

She was a bird again. A
dove, to be precise. Like in her previous
dream, all species of flamboyant birds flocked around her,
screeching, cawing, and squawking. The noise was not the least bit
euphonious.

She knew she was dreaming, but that didn’t
make the dream seem any less surreal.

The other birds continued
to barrage her with claws and talons and beaks. She simply spread
open her wings and took flight.
Soon, she
was coasting over the highest mountain peaks on Earth.

She kept on ascending and saw the thin
layers of the Earth’s atmosphere come into view. She was flying at
a speed faster than the speed of light. No longer was she bound to
the Earth’s gravitational pull; she was floating in space.

She gracefully flew her
way around stars, planets and moons. She circled the sun three
times and then left the Milky Way.
She
flew through stellar nebulas,
asteroid belts and black holes. She experienced vertigo when she
spiraled through dark matter. She shadowed a shooting star, flying
faster than she had ever dared. Faster. Faster. She was a mere
speck in the universe. Then she was nothing.

Her eyelids flashed open.
She sat upright, appraising her surroundings.
Where am I?
she wondered,
then,
Who am I?

chapter
fifty-three

[ Troop ]

12 days. 288 hours. 17,280
minutes. That was the amount of time
that
had elapsed since Troop had lost Kristi. The Revealers had
dispatched a search party, but came up with nothing. The search
party was cancelled three days ago. The trail had gone
cold.

Nick, Jane and Dr. Hanson
hadn’t tried to sugarcoat the situation by telling Troop that
Kristi was probably fine, and for that, Troop was glad. Then again,
he hadn’t seen a lot of the three Revealer members a lot
lately.

He lay on his back,
tracing the ceiling cracks of his new bedroom. Yeah, he had
moved
again
. His
mom insisted on it the moment he stepped over the threshold of
their old living quarter Charleston.