Tina Chan - imperfect

“Sure.” He palmed her the thin piece of plastic.

Jaiden’s cover name was Zach Ware. He was nineteen years old and lived in the East Region, according to the ID card. Although Zach Ware didn’t resemble Jaiden, the card was better than nothing. She returned his card and tucked hers into her right boot.

Jaiden pointed to a patch of trees and suggested, “Let’s break for lunch. I could use some shade from the sun as well.”

Kristi set down her weighty backpack, barely suppressing a groan of relief. Stretching out her aching shoulders, she wondered how she was going to survive the rest of the journey. They didn’t have enough points to spend on air-train tickets and none of them owned a car. Even just thinking about carrying her backpack again after lunch made her back ache. Better get used to this. She allowed herself ten more seconds of self-pitying then snapped herself out of her misery.

“I’m going to refill my water bottle from the nearby stream,” Jaiden announced.

Chelsa diverted her attention from her lunch. “Don’t take too long.”

He extracted his water bottle from the bottle holder of his backpack and headed towards the stream about twenty-five yards away from the picnic area.

Ghost ambled in front of Kristi. He sat down for a few seconds, and when he got up there was a little pile of poo left behind. Kristi stared.

“Ghost pooped,” she stated the obvious.

Chelsa glanced over. “Yeah. I can tell.”

She repeated, “Ghost pooped.”

“So?” Chelsa asked nonchalantly.

“Ghost just pooped.”

Chelsa sighed. “Kristi, what goes in one end has to go out the other.” She sounded like she was explaining why one plus one equals two to a kindergartener.

“I have never seen a droid-pet poop before. Doesn’t that kind of defeat the purpose of having a droid-pet instead of real animals?”

Chelsa suddenly let out a bark of laughter. She opened her mouth to say something, but then got overcome by a fit of laughter.

“What’s so funny?” Kristi asked.

“You thought Ghost was a droid?” Chelsa wheezed between waves of laughter. She was laughing pretty darn hard. “Ghost isn’t a droid! He’s an actual living, breathing, pooping leopard!”

“Oh.” Kristi didn’t know how else to respond.

“All those days you spent with Ghost and me,” Chelsa said, “and you honestly thought he was a droid-pet.”

“Well, yeah. I’ve never seen a live animal before.”

“What’s so funny?” Jaiden asked, returning from the stream.

Chelsa and Kristi looked at each other, then both started cracking up at the same time.

“Ghost pooped,” Kristi managed to say to a confused looking Jaiden before breaking off into more laughter.

This caused Jaiden to furrow his eyebrows in bewilderment, which naturally caused the two girls to crack up even harder.

The weather was unusually warm for September and the sun was blazing hot. Sweat poured from the back of Kristi’s neck.

She trekked along the road, in front of Jaiden but behind Chelsa. Although the first three days of travel had left her completely exhausted by the end of each day, Kristi was pleased to find she could now survive twelve hours of hiking without feeling near death come dinner time.

Chelsa paused in her steps. “I see smoke. There’s probably a campfire nearby—chances are it’s a trader’s fire. We could use some more supplies.”

Kristi looked off to Chelsa’s gaze and noticed the thinnest wisp of smoke escaping the treetops. “The fire could also belong to a bandit camp.”

“That’s unlikely. Bandits wouldn’t make their camp so close to the road. Jaiden, how many water purifying tablets do we have left?”

“About two days’ worth.”

“Couldn’t we just stop by the next town we pass by to restock?” Kristi watched the fragile traces of smoke diminish in the bright sunlight.

“I still don’t want to risk going into an urban place,” said Chelsa. “Not until at least a week has passed since we broke Jaiden out of jail.”

“You could always enter the town by yourself. Jaiden and I are capable of waiting for you outside.”

“Hm,” said Chelsa. “All the same, it would be better if we could replenish our provisions with the traders rather than visiting a settlement.”

Kristi shrugged. “Your call.”

They followed the smoke and came upon an abandoned campfire that was partially put out. Someone had carelessly kicked some ash over the glowing embers, leaving a trail of footprints heading away from the fire and deeper into the woods.

Kristi regarded her surroundings and realized that if they were ambushed, they’d be in deep trouble. The trees blocked the view to Route 56 and there was no one around to help them.

“I guess the traders left,” she said. “Let’s head out now.”

“They still might be around.” Chelsa knelt down by a footprint. “The fire’s not more than a few hours old and the tracks are fresh.”

“Something feels off. Don’t you think so, Jaiden?” Kristi approached her brother for support.

“Maybe. Wouldn’t there be more footprints if this was a trader’s campfire?” Traders were known to travel in groups to reduce their likelihood of being attacked by preying bandits.

“There’s always the possibility this belonged to a lone trader,” said Chelsa.

Jaiden looked torn between siding with Chelsa or Kristi.

“How do you know that this set of footprints isn’t from a spy member of the network?” Chelsa challenged. “Anyways, I’ve always gotten you out of trouble, haven’t I? Even when I didn’t cause the trouble to happen in the first place.”

Good point, thought Kristi. She didn’t have to free Jaiden. Or free me from the bandits as a matter of fact.

Chelsa stubbornly ignored Jaiden and Kristi and followed the footsteps. The tracks wound deeper and deeper into the forest. The further they went, the bigger and more imposing the trees got. Huge oaks, sycamores and pine trees towered overhead like skyscrapers. It would’ve taken five people linked together to surround the trunk of the ancient trees.

Despite the diversity of plants present, the forest sounded unnaturally silent. No birds chirped from the trees and no chipmunks chattered on the branches. Kristi’s apprehension increased; the foliage blocked sunlight from reaching the forest floor and the trees grew denser and denser together.

“I really think we should head back to Route 56,” she said.

“Five more minutes,” Chelsa insisted. “Give me five more minutes and if we still haven’t found the person we’re tracking, we’ll turn around.”

“Very well.”

Kristi could no longer see any footprints embedded in the dirt, but Chelsa seemed to be following some sort of invisible trail only known to her. Jaiden, in the meantime, had moved up closer to Kristi, sensing her nervousness.

“Don’t worry, Chelsa won’t let anything too bad happen to us.” Jaiden didn’t sound as if he believed his own words.

“I heard that,” said Chelsa. “It would be nice if you guys put a bit more faith in me, you know.”

“Chelsa, Ghost left us,” Kristi said.

This fact increased her anxiety. If Ghost detected trouble, then trouble must be coming up ahead; the feline’s eerie knack for recognizing trouble was something that didn’t escape Kristi’s awareness.

“He’ll come back eventually,” Chelsa replied, sounding distracted.

“Three minutes are up.” Jaiden tapped his watch.

Chelsa stopped. “That’s weird. The person’s trail just disappeared. Let’s backtrack a bit; I think I might’ve missed something.”

“What’s that?” Jaiden asked. He pointed to a low-lying building of some sort nestled in the shadows of a huge sycamore tree.