imperfect (42 page)

The van lurched back into motion.

“
Do you still have the
slate?”

“
No. I ditched it after
reading through her messages. I didn’t want to risk bringing her
slate with us in case it had a tracker in it.

“
Do you think the release
of the devil-dogs was Finn’s doing?” Kristi asked.

“
If it was, he has a lot
of questions to answer,” Chelsa said. “He could’ve killed us
all.”

“
But he didn’t,” Troop
pointed out. “As Machiavelli would say, ‘The end justifies the
means’.”

“
Whatever.”

Kristi didn’t say anything.

“
You feeling alright?” he
asked.

Kristi nodded, but Troop could tell she was
lying. He placed himself in Kristi’s shoes and tried to work out
what was upsetting her.

“
You couldn’t have helped
them,” he said. “You barely got out alive by yourself. If you had
tried to save an Accident, neither of you would’ve made
it.”

“
What type of
person
am
I?”
Kristi said, her words low and shaky. “How can I be so
self-centered that I didn’t even think about saving the Accidents
until after I escaped the lab?”

“
You’re a brave, smart and
honest girl. Kristi, whether you like it or not, you can’t save
everyone,” Troop said. “If this helps, think of it this way: you’re
ultimately preventing more deaths by escaping New Genes Lab
today.”

“
How?”

“
The video footage you
captured with the contact-cams is solid proof of where the
Accidents are ending up.”

“
So? How does that help?”
Kristi asked.

“
If we can broadcast the
footage to the Perfects, then they’ll know the truth about what the
government has been doing to the Accidents. Then the government
will have to stop abducting Accidents or else they’ll have to face
a rebellion from the citizens.”

“
But what if the Perfects
don’t care?” Kristi countered. “What if the Perfects felt that the
price of better genetics is worth it? You know how most of the
population is obsessed with receiving the latest surgeries in
search of perfection.”

Troop creased his forehead.

“
Sorry for raining on your
parade,” Kristi mumbled. “I know I’m being such a
downer.”

He shrugged it off. “Reality sucks.”

“
We’re here,” Chelsa
announced from the driver’s seat.

She parked the van and they jumped out.
Troop shed his Cleandows uniform and went to the storage shed where
they had hid the three Cleandows employees earlier. There was no
one inside, so he assumed they had woken up and left.

“
Ready to go?” he asked
when he returned back to the others.

“
Yep. Let’s head back to
the Filches,” Chelsa said.

The walk to the
Filches’
apartment felt like an eternity
to Troop, even though it wasn’t supposed to be very long. He
checked out the name of the street they were walking on.
We’re not even halfway there yet.

Everywhere he looked, public news-screens
bombarded the community with the news of the New Genes Lab
break-in. Citizens watched wide-eyed with horror of the footage
being shown of the devil-dogs attacking the people in the lab; some
people huddled together and gossiped while others trawled the
government news site on their electro-slate, searching for any
updates regarding the break-in.

“
Nobody cares about the
Accidents,” Kristi hissed into his ear. “None of the footages being
broadcasted show the Accidents being kept at the lab.”

Troop cast a fugitive glance over his
shoulders, afraid someone might’ve overheard her comment. “I know,
but now isn’t the best time to be talking about this.”

He made sure Chelsa, who was walking on the
opposite side of the street, was still visible ahead of him and
Kristi; Officer Zala had already made a public announcement
notifying all citizens should be on the lookout for three
teenagers: two girls and one guy, that seemed different—that seemed
imperfect.

Keeping his head down while he walked, Troop
overheard snatches of conversations.

“
I don’t understand why
the government allowed them to live.”

“
I agree with you.
Accidents are a danger to the public—”

“—
I don’t know…There must
be a reason why they would break into New Genes Lab—”

“
You don’t know what
you’re talking about, Havanah. I’m telling you, Accidents are
nothing but trouble.”

“
How do you know? You’ve
never met one yourself.”

“
Just trust me on
that.”

Troop felt a tug on his jacket. He
immediately pushed the offending hand away, thinking some stranger
had recognized his face from the public new-screen. His panic was
diminished when he realized it was just Kristi, though.

She jerked her arm back and said, “Hold on a
second. Give her some time to get into the apartment before we
do.”

“
Oh.” Troop watched Chelsa
push through the glass doors. “Okay.” He thought he heard Kristi
mumble something else, so he said, “What did you say?”

“
It was pointless, wasn’t
it? Trying to find out where the Accidents were and breaking into
the lab.”

Troop yanked Kristi off
the streets and through the doors of the closest building, which
happened to be a hardware store. “I told you not to talk
about
that
in
public,” he whispered tersely. “It’s not safe.”

Kristi looked troubled, but didn’t say
anything. They left the hardware store and arrived at the Filches’
apartment. Troop called up the elevator and jabbed the correct
button. They stood in a strained silence, waiting for the elevator
to reach the thirty-seventh floor.

He gave the door a sharp knock with his
knuckles and waited for someone to open it.

“
Coming!” someone yelled
from inside.

The doorknob jangled, and then the door was
flung open by Jane.

Finn, Nick and Chelsa were seated on the
couch in the living room. Finn seemed to be terribly excited about
something. His knees were bouncing up and down so fast Troop
wouldn’t be surprised if all of a sudden he jumped up and ran a
marathon without crutches.

Jane locked the door behind them and
motioned for everyone to take a seat. Troop popped out his
contact-cam and handed it to Jane for her to sync onto her
electro-slate; then he dropped onto the synthetic leather
couch.

He turned to Finn and asked, “Was it you who
caused the malfunctioning of the fingerprint, retina and DNA
scanners in the South Wing?”

“
Yeah. Nick helped me with
temporarily blocking the internet in the South Wing so that the
machines couldn’t access their database,” Finn said, looking
pleased with himself. “But I swear it wasn’t me who let out the
devil-dogs,” he added before Troop could ask his second question,
which was whether or not Finn freed the devil-dogs from their
cages.

“
If it wasn’t you, then
who was it? The timing of the devil-dog’s release was very
convenient. Maybe a little bit too convenient, wouldn’t you say?”
Chelsa said.

chapter
forty-six

[ Kristi ]

Kristi nodded to whatever
conversation was being held in the
Filches’ living room; she wasn’t listening, partly because
she didn’t care at that moment and partly because her mind was
reeling with thoughts.
What sort of
selfish, egocentric person am I? Did I really not even stop to
think about attempting to save those Accidents in my own
desperation to escape the lab?

“
Isn’t that so, Kristi?”
Troop asked, breaking through her reflections.

“
Huh—oh, yeah, right,” she
said.

Troop gave her a look as
if to say,
“You have no idea what you’re
saying, do you?”

She gave the barest hint of a shrug and
tuned out whatever Nick or Finn or whoever was rambling on.

But honestly, what
is
the point of solving
those two cases? I mean, yeah, so we found out where the Accidents
are ending up, but so what? There’s nothing I can do about that.
And as for the Individualism Case, maybe I’ll just turn it over to
Finn’s mom; she’ll be happy about that since she didn’t think I was
experienced enough to attempt to complete the two cases.

“
Alright,” Chelsa said.
“We’ve found out where the Accidents are ending up. Now
what?”

My thoughts
exactly,
Kristi thought.

“
We tell the world about
this conspiracy,” Troop said.

“
Uh-huh. And how are we
going to do that? And why are we going to do that? What is the
point of releasing this information?” Kristi immediately felt bad
for raining on his parade for the second time in a day.
I must be in a worse mood than I thought I
was.

Troop said nothing and she could sense the
gears in his brain clicking and turning.

Hmm, perhaps I should give
both the Individualism
and
Disappearance case to some other Revealer member
to solve.
I’m not exactly the ideal person
to be doing this job.

“
I think I have the
answer,” Troop said. “Wait for it, wait for it…”

Kristi returned to her own
thoughts.
What is the point of life? What
is the point of
my
life anyways?
She tried imagine what
Jaiden would say if he was besides her.

“
I think we have some
trouble,” Chelsa said.

Kristi looked up. Chelsa was focused on her
electro-slate, which was broadcasting the official government news
station. Chelsa angled her slate so that everyone in the room could
see it.

Kristi took a huge gulp when she saw who the
guest speaker was: Officer Zala.

“
Good afternoon, citizens.
I’m Debbie Kruz reporting from GN Headquarters. Officer Zala is
here with me today to make an important public
announcement.”

Zala made an irascible sound with the back
of her throat, as if she was barely restraining herself from
knocking Debbie out of the way and declaring her announcement.
Debbie noticed this and hurriedly wrapped up her sentences.

“
Stay tuned! I’m going to
hand it over to Officer Zala, head of the East Region Homeland
Security.”

Debbie almost tripped over her heels when
Zala pushed herself forward, right in front of the camera. Zala
flashed a quick grimace that Kristi assumed was supposed to be a
smile.

“
As many of you already
know, there has been a major break-in at a government funded lab.
Although everything is now under control, the United Regions
Homeland Security is asking all citizens to be on the lookout for
the Accidents responsible for this infringement. The East Region
Homeland Security’s forces will be doing a door-to-door search for
the Accidents. Any resistors to our search will be taken into
custody.”

Zala stopped talking while pictures captured
by the lab’s cameras flashed onto the screen, showing Chelsa, Troop
and Kristi.

“
Help keep the United
Regions safe by reporting any sightings or tips of these fugitives.
Citizens aiding the Homeland Security protect the United Regions
from these terrorists will be handsomely rewarded.” Zala gave a
brisk nod to show she was done speaking and the camera panned back
to Debbie.

“
So, fellow citizens, keep
your eyes and ears open and report any suspicious activity or
persons to the Homeland Security. You can contact your local
security branch by dialing 1600 plus your area code,” said Debbie.
“That’s all there is for now. Until next time, folks.”

A commercial for the latest electro-slate
began to play and Chelsa clicked her electro-slate off.

“
Door-to-door search?”
Finn said. He snitched his crutches off the couch and swung over to
a window and peered out, like he was looking to see if he could
spot the officers making their way down the street.

“
Is there a place where we
can stay until the search blows over?” Troop asked.

“
I can think of one or
two,” Jane answered. “But getting you four to the safe place may be
more risk than it’s worth.”

As if to emphasize Jane’s point, a Homeland
Security helicopter whirled by overhead. The sound of the
helicopter’s blade spinning shook the apartment walls.

“
But we can’t stay here,”
Chelsa said. “Sooner or later, the officials are going to search
your place and find us.”

At this point, I couldn’t
have cared less,
Kristi
thought.

A little, rebellious voice
in the back of her head spoke up.
What is
wrong with you today, Kristi? It sounds like you’re planning your
death.

Well, maybe I am. I can’t believe I haven’t
realized this for a long time: there is no point in life. It just
goes on. Why doesn’t it seem like no one else has noticed that?