Tina Chan - imperfect

Chelsa whispered to Ghost, “Get the two cameras hanging off the rain gutters.”

Ghost flicked an ear to show he heard and scaled the building and onto the roof. He crept, belly close to the roof, then along the gutter until he was directly above the camera. As before, he knocked the camera askew so that it was pointing downwards. Then he repeated the procedure with the second camera.

“Good. Everything’s going according to plan,” Chelsa whispered. “We just have to hurry up before the people monitoring the cameras notice all they’re monitoring is a patch of dirt and the building wall.”

Ghost bunched up his hind legs and prepared to leap down. Suddenly, a beam of light from the watchtower landed on him, blinding the droid with its bright light. Ghost froze, as still as an ice sculpture.

Kristi held her breath anxiously, heart pounding like a sledgehammer beneath her ribs. Then to everyone’s relief, the searchlight swung away. Ghost leapt down, looking shaken for once.

“That was a close call,” Chelsa murmured. “They must’ve mistaken Ghost for a runaway droid-cat. Okay, the next obstacle is the laser. Think of the laser as an invisible trip wire. If you pass through it, it will trigger an alarm.”

“Where exactly is the laser?” Kristi skimmed the ground around them but nothing hinted the presence of an invisible trip wire.

“About a foot off the ground, a yard in front of the window we’re entering through.” Chelsa directed her gaze to a small, black box positioned along the wall of the building. “That’s where the laser trip wire is coming from. There’s one last camera right above the black box. The camera can’t see us though, since we’re in its blind spot. I don’t think I want to risk Ghost being spotted disabling a camera again, therefore we’ll have to be sure to stay close to the walls of the jail.”

“So all we have to do is step over the laser, open the window wide enough to get through and stay in the camera’s blind spot?”

“Yep. I’ll lead.”

Chelsa took a huge step over the laser and hugged the wall of the building. Kristi imitated her, shimmying along the wall. Once they reached the window, Chelsa tried to pry it wider. “Give me a hand, will you? It’s heavier than it looks.”

Kristi slid along the wall and grasped the metal-framed window with cold fingers. Through their combined strength, the window lifted easily and smoothly.

“After you.” She gestured to Chelsa.

Chelsa swung herself through the gap and offered Kristi a hand up. Using Chelsa’s hand as a grip, Kristi landed much less gracefully inside.

“That wasn’t too hard,” Chelsa said. “Now we need to find cell three.”

Kristi looked around the corridor they were in. It was lined with cells, all of them empty. The door closest to them had the number “ten” engraved on it. There were five cells total in this hall.

“Cell number three is in a different hall. Are there any alarms or cameras we have to watch out for?”

“I don’t see any cameras, wires, lasers or heat sensors either, but you can never be too careful,” said Chelsa.

They entered the main hall and turned right. All the overhead lights were off, which made keeping a sense of direction difficult.

“It’s this hall,” Kristi said, spotting the plaque that read: cells one through five.

She took lead and turned the corner, almost running into a guard. If she had taken one more step, she would’ve walked straight into him. Luckily, the guard was dozing in his chair, so he didn’t notice the close encounter. A large, empty bottle of booze was loosely held in his right hand. Thank you, maker of that bottle of alcohol, for putting the guard to sleep, Kristi thought. She supposed that even with the advancements made in science, science could only do so much. While Perfects were genetically perfect, they still succumbed to certain pleasures.

Chelsa feigned wiping sweat off her brow. Then she moved forward to lead the way, not trusting Kristi not to lead them into any other guards.

They skirted a wide turn and moved on past a couple more cells until they reached a door with the number three. Kristi took a peek inside through the tiny glass window on the metal door.

“He’s there,” she whispered to Chelsa. “And asleep.”

Chelsa came over and examined the lock. “Quietly wake Jaiden up so once I have this lock figured out, we can leave as quickly as possible.”

Kristi gently tapped on the window. Jaiden bolted upright, blinking in confusion. Then he saw her and furrowed his eyebrows as he processed why she was in the jailhouse at 2:17 in the morning. As soon as he came to the conclusion Kristi was trying to break him out of here, his expression turned murderous.

He came up to the window and mouthed, “What in the world do you think you are doing?”

That wasn’t quite the reaction she was hoping to get.

Click! The door swung open when Chelsa broke the lock. She hastily stashed away her lock pick into her boots, taking care to move out of the way when the steel door swung open.

Jaiden stepped into the corridor. “Kristi, what are you doing here? You’re going to be in so much trouble if you’re discovered. Do you know what you just did?”

“Run now, talk later,” Chelsa cut in.

Jaiden turned on his heels and looked at Chelsa. “Who are you?”

“Chelsa, Kristi’s friend. And like I said, we can talk more once we’re out of here.”

CLANG!

“What the heck?” yelled a man’s voice.

They jolted in surprise.

The guard was talking to himself now, loud enough for everyone to hear. “Must’ve dropped my bottle. Scared the crap out of me. Ugh, I knew I shouldn’t have accepted the dare to finish the beer.”

They waited for the guard to fall back asleep, but that didn’t happen. After a few minutes, Kristi gave Chelsa a look: “Now, what?”

She mouthed back, “We wait.”

A few more minutes passed and the guard stood up from his folding chair. He let out a belch and flipped on his flashlight. The artificial light penetrated the darkness and the guard ambled away to the general direction of the bathroom.

All sighed in relief before dashing down the hallway. The window was still open at the end of the hall. Chelsa gestured for Kristi to climb out first, reminding her to stick close to the walls. Jaiden came out next and plastered himself against the wall beside Kristi. Finally, Chelsa escaped from the building and lowered the window so that it was back in its original position.

The three teens waited in a suspenseful silence for the next patrol to come. Less than thirty seconds later, a squad of three patrollers thumped by in their heavy boots. The guards scanned their surroundings, eyes passing over the crouching teens. They marched on without breaking a stride.

Chelsa scuttled to the same trio of trash bins they had hid behind earlier and beckoned for either Jaiden or Kristi to follow.

“You go first,” Jaiden whispered.

Kristi carefully stepped over the laser and joined Chelsa behind the bins. Jaiden started to follow, but he had barely taken a step away from the wall when an alarm went off.

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

Jaiden froze, not sure what to do.

“Oh crap,” Chelsa muttered and swore under her breath. “I completely forgot to tell Jaiden about the laser trip wire. Jaiden!” she said his name as loud as she dared.

“Yeah?”

“We’re going to make a run for it.”

The droid-dogs barked at the top of their lungs. Guards shouted commands to each other and the spotlights from the watchtowers swung to and fro, searching for intruders. The whole place was launched into a frenzy.