Troop grinned to himself, strolling through the front doors of the building. That’s another successful task completed, he thought. So far, he had seven completed missions done without a problem under his belt. It seemed as if life was starting to get back to normal.
During the day, Troop completely threw himself into Revealer work; now that he had proved himself responsible enough to be sent on outside jobs, he was constantly wanted for both simple errands, such as buying solar cell replacements, and more important ones, like meeting up with potential recruits, alike. He was busy and he was happy.
Nighttime though, was a different story altogether. His mind had too much time to wander. Kristi would love the new 3-D printer Jane just bought. He shook his head feverishly. “Stop it,” he muttered to himself. “Stop thinking about her. It’s distracting you from your work. Save all that kind of thinking for later.”
Troop crammed all those whispers of thoughts concerning Kristi to the corner of his mind; he would keep his non-work related mulling for the evening, when his attention began to lapse.
“You feeling sick?”
Troop started, startled by Chelsa’s question. She caught up with him in the hallway.
“No. Why do you ask?” he said.
“I heard you talking to yourself. That’s the first sign of a person going crazy.”
Troop pretended to punch her in the arm. “Thanks for your self-esteem boost which I didn’t need.”
“I have good news.”
“Serious or joking?”
Chelsa stopped in her steps and took a moment to compose herself. “Serious.”
“So, what is it?”
She glanced around furtively, then said, “Let’s talk somewhere more private…like the bookroom.”
The bookroom was little more than a spacious closet with exactly three shelves of hardcover books. People rarely visited it, so privacy was almost guaranteed.
“What’s with all this secrecy?” asked Troop.
“I’m not supposed to know about this stuff. Finn was testing out his new hearing enhancer thingy because he made some modifications to it and happened to eavesdrop on an important meeting. He just passed onto me what he heard and told me to let you know as well. I would’ve told you anyways,” she added.
Troop pulled open the door to the bookroom, the lights flickering on automatically the moment they entered.
“None of the Accidents died,” Chelsa burst out.
“Huh?”
“Remember those Accidents we saw at New Genes Lab?”
He nodded.
“Well, every single one of them survived.”
Troop’s eyes lit up at this piece of information. “That’s awesome! But how is that possible? The devil-dogs were everywhere and they had no way to defend themselves.”
“Devil-dogs are attracted to sound—”
“And the Accidents were sedated,” Troop finished her sentence. “So ultimately, it was the sedatives that saved them. The devil-dogs were much more interested in the panicking scientists than some sleeping kids.” What I wouldn’t give to tell Kristi this, he thought. She was beating herself up because she didn’t try to save an Accident when escaping the lab.
