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 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.”