imperfect (29 page)

With all his instafications completed, there
was really nothing Kristi could hold against Troop. In a way, she
felt like she’d grown closer to Troop just by listening to him make
all those calls.

“
That took a lot more
effort than I anticipated,” Troop said.

“
Not many people have the
courage to do what you just did,” she replied.

“
Thanks. A compliment from
you means a lot to me.”

“
Did I just hear Kristi
say something nice about you?” Jaiden asked.

Chelsa gave Kristi a look
that read:
Did you take my
advice?

Kristi nodded.

“
One more day until we
reach Oppidum,” Jaiden announced.

Chelsa frowned a bit, but brightened up when
Jaiden gave her a quick peck on the cheek.

“
What do you think Finn
looks like?” Kristi wondered out loud.

“
I think he’ll be tall,”
Chelsa said. “Finn sounds like a tall-person name.”

“
Really? You’re judging a
person by his name?” Jaiden shook his head slowly.

“
And Jaiden sounds like a
short and ugly-person name,” Chelsa joked.

“
Hey!” Jaiden protested
and put on a scowl.

Kristi rolled her eyes at their affection
for each other. Troop mimicked her when he saw her doing so,
earning himself a punch to the shoulders.

“
I’m worried about
Chelsa
,” Kristi told Troop later that
day.

They only had a few hours left of riding
until reaching Oppidum.

“
She seems fine to
me.”

As usual, Chelsa and Jaiden were riding side
by side ahead of them and out of earshot.

“
She’s way too quiet,”
Kristi said. “She hasn’t been talking a lot lately and Ghost seems
to be frustrated with Chelsa as well.”

As she spoke, Kristi realized Ghost was no
longer hitching a ride on Chelsa’s horse; he had mysteriously
disappeared again.

“
Maybe Chelsa isn’t a
talkative person. Granted, I haven’t known her as long as you have
though,” Troop said.

“
I guess I might be over
reacting,” she admitted. “But I still feel like something’s nagging
Chelsa more than she lets on. Hopefully she’ll be back to normal by
the time we find Finn.”

“
Have you been to Oppidum
before?”

“
I’ve never left the that
city where I grew up in until a month and half ago.”

“
I wonder what unlocking
your electro-slate will reveal.” Troop changed the
subject.

“
No clue. Whatever my
parents left me on the slate better be good.”

They tossed ideas back and forth about what
could possibly be so important that the fingerprints of all four
Naturals were required to unlock it. Their ideas ranged from a
hidden vault of gold, to the secret elixir of immortality, to a
cache of dinosaur DNA. The more they hypothesized, the more
ridiculous their ideas got. Both of them eventually concluded that
it was highly unlikely the electro-slate contained directions to
the cave of a troll, after half an hour of debating.

“
That’s
Oppidum?” Jaiden’s exclamation brought Troop and
Kristi out of their discussion. “How are we supposed to find Finn
in that architectural jungle?”

Oppidum sprawled before their sights, a
pulsing mass of fiberglass, steel and bricks. A lazy river plowed
its way through the city. The center of Oppidum could be seen a
mile away. A huge dome nestled in the heart of Oppidum, casting off
a glow under the sun’s rays.

The city was arranged in a circular pattern,
much like a bull’s eyes. On the outskirts were the less wealthy
parts of the city; the houses were smaller and crammed together.
Moving inwards, the houses started to space out and there was the
occasional patch of green from a garden to be seen; last but not
least, a mixture of mansions and skyscrapers dominated the center
of Oppidum. Arches graced the skylines and spires reached towards
the heavens.

“
This might take a while,”
Troop said.

“
Agreed.” Chelsa said the
word forcibly.

They approached the fringes of Oppidum.
Kristi drank in the sights all around her; the hustle of people
doing their errands, the hawkers calling out their wares and the
constant babble of news being updated on the public
news-screens.

“
In which part of Oppidum
do you think Finn is most likely to be found?” she asked to no one
in particular.

Not one person responded, which only made
her more aware of how clueless and unprepared they were.

Three hours later, they
had
made absolutely no progress. They had
asked people on the streets if they knew a kid named Finn. The
answers they received were all the same: “No.”

“
Do you want to call it
quits for the day?” Chelsa asked.

They were all tired, hungry and feeling
hopeless.

“
I’m not sure what curfew
time is in Oppidum, but it’s a bit past seven,” Chelsa continued
on.

“
Excuse me, sir,” Kristi
called out to a stranger passing by.

The man stopped and said, “Yes?”

“
Do you know what time is
curfew?”

“
8:30 sharp,” he replied,
then walked away after she thanked him.

“
Yeah, let’s call it
quits,” Troop said. “Does anyone have a place in mind where we
ought to stay for the night?”

“
We walked by a decent
hotel called Wayland Hotel a few blocks from here.” Kristi pointed
vaguely to the direction of the hotel. “Want to spend the night
there?”

“
Sounds good.”

They walked past shops that were preparing
to close up for the night: an empty learning center, Urban Clothes
and a droid-repair shop. Kristi led the way, as she was the person
to suggest staying at Wayland Hotel. After another ten minutes of
walking, she began to suspect she had somehow gotten lost in the
maze-like streets of Oppidum.

“
Didn’t we pass by this
restaurant already?” Jaiden asked. “I’m pretty sure I remember
seeing Moon’s Eatery at least three times already.”

“
Yeah, I think I might be
a little lost,” Kristi admitted. “I’m terrible with navigation in
general. But I could’ve sworn I was walking in the right direction
of Wayland Hotel though…” Kristi paused midsentence, noticing a kid
coming their way on crutches. He was moving surprisingly fast with
an injured leg or foot (she couldn’t tell).

Troop took a half step towards the kid while
Jaiden and Chelsa studied a map. “Hey there, do you live around
here?”

The kid was more or less Kristi’s age. He
cocked his head like a bird, observing them with mild interest.
“Yeah.”

“
Can you give us the
directions to Wayland Hotel?”

“
Sure. Continue down this
street then take a right at the first intersection you see. A few
buildings down Crescent Street you should be able to find Wayland
Hotel.”

Something about the kid on
crutches bothered Kristi—not necessarily in a bad way—but she
couldn’t place her finger on
what
about him that was throwing her off.

“
Thanks,” Troop
said.

“
No problem.”

The kid turned his neck to scratch an itch
and Kristi noticed what had been bothering her: one of his eyes was
hazel while the other was a stormy gray. This was something she had
never seen before with any Perfect, which must meant—

“
Are you Finn?” she
asked.

“
That would be
me.”

“
Who’s Finn?” Jaiden
asked, looking up from the map.

“
Him,” Kristi said,
gesturing towards Finn who had straightened up his
posture.

“
Well, finding you didn’t
take as long as I feared,” Troop said.

“
You guys were looking
for
me
?” Finn
looked perplexed.

“
Yeah,” said Kristi. “And
it took long enough.”

A patrol officer strolled down the street
and called out, “Curfew will be enforced in ten minutes!”

“
You’re a Natural,” Kristi
told Finn. “Just like us. Well, just like Troop, Chelsa and me.
Jaiden’s not one.”

“
I’m a what? Who are
Troop, Chelsa and Jaiden? And where did that leopard come
from?”

Ghost had slunk back to them in the meantime
and was checking out Finn’s crutches.

“
You’re a Natural,” Kristi
said hurriedly, not wanting to be caught on the streets past curfew
in an unfamiliar city. “A surviving Accident. I’m Kristi; this is
Troop, Chelsa and Jaiden.” She pointed out each person. “The
leopard belongs to Chelsa and is named Ghost.”

“
Alright, that makes sense
so far,” said Finn. “But why the heck are you looking for
me?”

“
We’re looking for the
four Naturals to unlock a slate that my parents left—“

“
Wait, did you say your
name was Kristi and you have a brother named Jaiden?” Finn cut her
off.

“
Yeah.”

“
Aren’t you, like, a
wanted person?”

“
I guess.”

“
She’s really not that
scary,” Troop inputted.

“
But that’s beside the
point,” Kristi said, waving off the interruption. “We’re trying to
complete this
quest
and need the fingerprints of the four Naturals to unlock the
electro-slate my parents left behind.”

“
You’ve lost me,” Finn
said. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“
Curfew in five minutes!”
the same guard barked, doubling back past them. “You kids better
get going.”

“
Why don’t you guys come
over to my house for the night?” Finn offered. “My parents are
constantly having random people stay over, so they shouldn’t mind
if you want to stay in the guest rooms tonight. You can keep your
droid-horses in our spare garage.”

They set off after Finn on his crutches,
winding deeper and deeper into Oppidum until they arrived at a
decent sized house made up of tinted glass panels.

A woman in her mid-thirties came out of the
houses and said, “Finn, why are you home so late? And who are these
people with you?”

“
I lost of track of time,”
Finn replied, taking his last minute guests up to the front door.
“And these people say I’m a Natural like them.”The word “Natural”
must’ve made sense to Finn’s mom because she jolted her head up and
looked at them.

“
Well,” she said, “do come
in. I think there is someone who is very interested in meeting you
three in the house.”

chapter thirty

[ Kristi ]

“
So, we meet again.” Dr.
Hanson strolled into the living room. “I
hope you are in better shape than before, Kristi.”

“
Yes, thank
you.”

“
And also, thanks for
making reservations at the Rex Hotel for us,” Chelsa
added.

“
I assume you found the
headquarters, correct?”

Kristi nodded. As glad as
she was to meet Dr. Hanson, she wanted to unlock the
electro-slate
now
. She was itching to know what the slate
contained.

Dr. Hanson must’ve noticed her restlessness
because he said, “Kristi, you seem eager to do something.” The tone
he spoke in implied he already knew about the electro-slate Tiffany
had given her.

“
The slate!” Chelsa
exclaimed. “I’ve been so caught up in my own problems I’ve
completely forgotten about the electro-slate your parents left for
you.”

Everyone crowded around Kristi as she
removed the slate from her pocket and powered the screen on. Words
glowed to life:

Fingerprints of the Naturals required for
Access.

“
Here it goes,” Kristi
said mostly to herself.

She pressed her thumb onto
the screen. A small
beep
emitted from the electro-slate.

Troop, Chelsa and Finn followed her example
with Dr. Hanson, Jaiden and Finn’s parents looking on with great
interest. Finn, the last Natural to scan his finger, removed his
thumb from the slate and two icons appeared on the screen.

One of the icons was a blue folder with the
words Disappearance Case labeled on it; the second icon looked
identical to the first except the words Individualism Case were
written on it.

“
Of course,” Finn’s mom
murmured. “Those are the cases Shelly and Kyle were working on for
the last five years. It only makes sense for them to want Kristi to
complete them.”

Kristi tapped on the Disappearance Case icon
and a document popped up. She shifted into a comfier position on
the sofa and started to read:

Case: The Disappearance Case

Assigned Member (s): Kyle and Shelly

Note: Kristi, if you are reading this, then
we (Maria and Don) must either be dead or as good as dead. You have
been a wonderful daughter to us and we regret we couldn’t have
spent more time together. Nevertheless, if you have gotten ahold of
this electro-slate, then you must know about the Revealers. We hope
you forgive us for keeping this part of our lives a secret from you
and Jaiden. If you have unlocked this slate (which you obviously
have if you’re reading this), then you must’ve found the other
three Naturals. Best of luck in completing the cases we have left
behind.