Tina Chan - imperfect

“How did you get into the East Wing?” Kristi asked Chelsa.

Chelsa spread a glob of cleaning foam onto the window Kristi was wiping down.

“Some distracted bloke had too many electro-slates to carry by himself. I offered to help him carry some of the slates and the guards allowed me to pass through the door accompanying him without a question.”

“Do you want to wait for Tro—Kennedy or not?” Kristi remembered to use Troop’s Cleandows ID name at the last second.

“Sure. Want to give him five minutes then move on?”

Kristi nodded.

The tiger rumbled and bared its saber-like fangs.

“No need to get all hissy on me, twenty-three,” Jack said.

Troop gripped his black toolbox so tight his knuckles turned white. Jack’s footsteps echoed in the small, square room.

Crrkk. The cover of the crate grated open.

Troop bolted upright. Jack widened his eyes in astonishment.

“What are—” Jack began to say.

Troop slammed the heavy toolbox into Jack’s temple. Jack crumpled to the floor like a piece of paper. A thin line of blood oozed on the side of his head.

Subject twenty-three sniffed the air and let out a growl.

Troop nudged Jack with his foot. The scientist remained unconscious. Then he walked over to the single window of the room and slid up the panel. Next, he returned to the crate of chickens.

“Lucky day for you. I’m saving you guys from becoming tiger food.”

Troop caught and released each chicken out through the window. Subject twenty-three mournfully looked at its lunch escaping before its eyes.

Chicken-freeing task completed, Troop heaved Jack into the now-empty crate. The man’s lanky frame barely fit in the box; he had to bend Jack’s legs to ensure he was completely within the crate.

Jack let out a soft moan. Troop didn’t hesitate to give him another bash to the head. Then Troop opened up his toolbox and removed the bottle of window glue. He applied a thin layer of the adhesive around the rim of the crate and slid the crate’s cover back in place; someone was bound to find Jack when they came to kill the tiger. In the meantime, Jack wouldn’t be able to alert Troop’s presence to others.

Troop cracked open the door and slid into the East Wing hallway. Time to find Kristi and Chelsa.

Kristi chewed on her bottom lip. Troop still hadn’t shown up after ten minutes.

“We really ought to go,” Chelsa said.

“Two more minutes. Give him two more minutes. If he still isn’t here, then we’ll leave.”

Chelsa sighed, but complied with her wishes.

“Come on, where are you?” Kristi muttered.

“I’m here,” Troop’s voice said over her shoulders.

“Jeepers! Don’t creep up behind people like that,” Kristi said. “It’s rude to surprise people by sneaking up on them.”

“Well, that wasn’t the greeting I was hoping to get. Are you two finished checking out this room?”

“Yeah. Let’s move onto the next room.”

She finished drying the window (which was thoroughly cleaned after being cleaned a total of three times by Chelsa and her). They left Lab E and proceeded to investigate the next room down the hall, which happened to be Report Room D. Kristi wondered what the heck was a Report Room. Her question was quickly answered when they peeked inside.

Rows upon rows of smart-glass desks lined Report Room D in an orderly fashion. Staff feverishly typed away documents at their desks. Kristi silently backed out of the room, not wanting to disturb the peace.

“We’ve been here for two hours already,” she said when they returned to the main hall. “We should hurry up and finish our business here.”

“Then let’s skip the rest of the rooms in the East Wing and go straight to the South Wing,” Troop said.

“We are not splitting apart this time though,” Kristi said.

She feared being alone after seeing the woman that gave her the disturbing smile. Goosebumps still covered her arms, even though at least fifteen minutes had passed.

“We’ll probably have to split up to get into the South Wing, though,” said Chelsa. “Chances are that security is the tightest in the South Wing compared to the West, North and East Wing.”

They walked onwards, each person lost in their own thoughts. Kristi rubbed the itch on her nose. Then she stopped dead in her tracks.

Saying the security to the South Wing was strict would be the understatement of the century. Kristi watched a scientist pass through a blood test, three finger scans, two retina scans, a metal detector, an ID check, and a pat down followed by a series of security question all the while being accompanied by two armed guards. She didn’t even want to think about the security level inside the South Wing and what would happened if it was discovered that they were imposters.

“Crap,” she muttered. “Finn, if you’re watching this, we could really use some help.”

“You just stole the words from my mouth,” Troop said.

Unfortunately, Finn didn’t send them help and Kristi didn’t possess the ability to teleport the three of them past the security.

“You people cleaning the windows in the South Wing?” a guard barked out at them.

“Uh—” Kristi froze, unsure of how to reply.

“Yes, we are,” Troop cut in.

Chelsa and Kristi exchanged looks. What is Troop thinking? A simple check to the front desk of New Genes Lab and the guards will realize we aren’t supposed to be here, Kristi thought.

She resisted the urge to rub her nose again. For some reason, her nose was really starting to itch and her eyes felt raw and watery.

“I need your ID cards.” A guard sauntered over to them and ran their cards through a handheld scanner.

Next, he had each of them scan their fingerprints. However, the scanner refused to recognize any of their prints; an error message kept popping up when the guard attempted to scan their fingerprints.

“Stupid scanner,” the guard said. “I keep on filing a request for a new scanner but it keeps on getting turned down.”

“Let me try,” another guard said. “It worked just fine a minute ago.”

Once again, the scanner couldn’t read their fingerprints.

“Whatever,” said first guard. “It’s not like some window cleaners are going to be terrorists. They barely look like they’ve just graduated from college.”

The patronizing tone in his voice ticked Kristi off just the tiniest bit.

“Okay, we need to perform a retina scan and blood test on each of you,” said the second guard.

Likewise with the fingerprint scan though, none of the devices functioned properly. The retina scanner wouldn’t turn on and the blood tester kept on announcing their blood type to be unidentifiable. It was as if the three of them didn’t exist, according to the government database.

Kristi began to suspect it was Finn’s doing that everything was malfunctioning except for the metal detector, which they went through without a hitch.

“You guys can pass.” The first guard lazily motioned for them to go through the entrance to the South Wing.

The other guard fidgeted with his stun gun nervously. “I don’t think we should allow them entry into the South Wing. Technically, they didn’t pass the blood, retina and fingerprint test.”

“They didn’t fail it either,” replied the first guard. “And they’ve already signed the oath of secrecy when they entered this building, so they can’t speak of what they see in the South Wing. If it makes you feel better, we can check with the secretary to confirm that they are supposed to be here.”