Tina Chan - imperfect

“You better hope you never see us again!” the bandit hollered. “I promise you’ll regret it!”

“And I hope I never see your face again either,” Kristi dryly said to herself.

She drove her horse into a faster pace, even though the poor droid was already running close to its top speed. A sign passed by reading: Oxfield 3 miles.

Chelsa pulled her horse next to Kristi’s and said, “Slow down. We’re attracting too much attention at this break-neck speed and the circuits in the horses will burn out at this rate.”

Kristi reduced her droid-horse’s pace to a steady canter. At last, the road leading to Oxfield came into view. She dismounted, thus giving her droid-horse the chance to recover a bit. The warning light located on the shoulder of the droid-horse blinked crazily, warning Kristi that the droid was overheating.

“You guys okay?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Chelsa said.

“I managed to snag one of our bags in the chaos.” Jaiden dropped a half empty backpack and examined the remaining items. “Good news: we still have the electro-slate. Bad news: most of our supplies and food are gone. The ID cards are gone as well.”

Chelsa let out a sigh. “We should be fine as long as we have an electro-slate. We can buy everything else we need in town, including some fake IDs.”

Kristi surveyed the seven horses they stole. Three were brown, one was gray, one was black and two were dun colored. They all seemed to be in reasonably good shape, especially after a hard run at a speed that could’ve blown their fuses.

“Pick the horse you want.” Kristi patted a droid-horse on its flank. “I call dibs on the gray one.”

The gray horse was the droid she had ridden. He had the same build as Flurry and responded well to commands when Kristi rode him. She stroked his neck and scratched behind his ears, missing Flurry even more now that she was surrounded by droid-horses.

“The small dun horse is mine,” Chelsa said.

Jaiden surveyed the remaining mounts. “I’ll take the brown thoroughbred with the white stockings.”

“Ghost!” Chelsa yelped. “Where is he?”

“He’s probably just hiding nearby,” Jaiden said. “I don’t think he was left behind. He’s a smart leopard.”

“But everything was so chaotic Ghost might’ve missed us leaving on the droid-horses!” Chelsa sounded hysterical. “I can’t lose Ghost—he’s all I have left of Alex.”

“Alex?” Jaiden asked. “Who is he?”

Chelsa didn’t hear him, though, and continued rattling on. “What if the bandits got Ghost? What if Ghost thought we went to Launceston? What if a bear attacked Ghost?”

“Chelsa, get yourself together,” Kristi said, placing a firm hand on the distraught girl’s shoulder. “Ghost is fine. He’s a tough leopard. Don’t worry about him.”

She picked up the reins of three droid-horses from Chelsa’s slack hands and handed them to Jaiden, then grabbed the rest of the horses and started walking to Oxfield.

Chelsa straightened her back. “I don’t know what came over me. Sorry guys, I didn’t mean to freak out.” When neither Jaiden nor Kristi answered her, she said, “Really, I’m done freaking out. Ghost knows how to survive in the wild and I know he can locate us by following our scent.”

“I have never seen you lose your marbles the way you did today,” was all Kristi said.

“Who’s Alex?” Jaiden repeated his question later on that day. They passed underneath the stone arch proclaiming they were now officially in Oxfield.

“He was a friend of mine,” Chelsa said. “A very close friend.”

“He was your friend?” Jaiden asked.

Chelsa closed her eyes. “He died about a month ago.” A single tear leaked out from the corner of her eye. “Oh God, I’m losing it again for the second time in a day. This must be some sort of emotional breakdown record for me.”

Jaiden brushed away Chelsa’s halfhearted attempt at a joke. “It’s okay to cry once in a while. Let out your feelings if you want; don’t hold it all inside you.”

Kristi attempted to lighten up the mood, “What are you, Jaiden, a therapist?”

“You don’t understand,” Chelsa said. “I killed Alex.”

“What would you like to buy?” The bakery girl shifted her weight from her right foot to her left foot.

“I would like a loaf of carrot bread,” Troop said. He was pretty sure “carrot bread” was this week’s password. Or maybe it was chestnut muffins? Oh well, I’ll find out soon enough.

“Hold on a second.” The girl left her position and hollered into the kitchen, “Mr. Vikens, someone needs you.”

So he had remembered the correct password. Mr. Vikens, the tutor provided by the Company, emerged from the kitchen wearing a flour-dusted apron.

“Thank you, Layla. I’ll take it from here,” Mr. Vikens said to the girl. “Troop, meet me in the cellar. I’ll be down there in a few minutes.”

He nodded and headed downstairs. The bakery cellar was located directly beneath the kitchen. The carpeted stairs muffled Troop’s already quiet footsteps to a dead silence; the overhanging lights cast a welcoming glow when he flicked them on.

Troop dropped his bag on the couch and surveyed the cellar; for an unknown reason, something felt off about the room. The tall, magnolia bookshelves were still in the same position, books neatly organized on them by alphabetical order. The smart-glass desk with two wheelie chairs were still as they were from last time. Yet Troop couldn’t shake off the feeling that something was out of place…

Scanning the room once more, he finally spotted the culprit. Someone had left open a hardcover book on a black wheelie chair. Troop flipped the book over, reading the text on the opened page.

“ No one ever told her it was impossible.

So she did it.”

“ The 1000 Quotes. That’s a good book,” said Mr. Vikens in his deep voice.

“Sorry.” Troop fumbled, dropping the book onto the desk. “I didn’t mean to pry. Were you reading it?”

“No. Layla must have been, though.”

“She knows about your cache of books?”

“Don’t worry, she’s trustworthy. She works part time for the Company,” said Mr. Vikens.

“I see.”

“Your mom landed her the job with the Company.” Vikens clapped his hands together. “Alright, ready to begin today’s lesson?”

“Yeah.” Troop seated himself and waited for Vikens to introduce today’s topic.

“Good. We’ll be covering the Civil War II. First, tell me what you already know of it then we’ll move on from there.”

“Well, it was a war fought between the East and the West Region. The East wanted to make it a requirement for all citizens to be Perfected. However, the West felt that undergoing the procedure should be left up to free will.” He picked at his brain, but that was all he could come up with.

Vikens grunted. “It’s a start. Not a phenomenal one, but a start nevertheless.”

Troop bit the inside of his cheeks. It was next-to-impossible to impress Vikens.

Vikens handed him a list titled “50 Civil War II Facts and Key points” then said, “I’ll give you three minutes to memorize this, starting…now.”

Troop skimmed the list, starting from the top:

1. Started in 2075

2. Ended in 2078

3. Porter Salders led the East Army

4. Joseph Smilton led the West Army

His eyes sped over the words, devouring them like an inferno devouring a haystack. He soon reached the bottom of the list:

47) The Battle of Fox Crossing was the turning point of the Civil War II

48) Joseph Smilton was kidnapped by the East Region on July 5, 2078