“Sorry Ghost, you can’t come with us,” said Chelsa, shooing the cat back indoors.
Ghost twitched his whiskers, displeased for not being able to come with them.
“All set?” Troop asked.
He blinked his eyes a few times to get used to the feeling of the contact-cams on them. Ghost mewed mournfully but didn’t follow them when they began to walk away. Troop patted his fake ID card. He was Zach Ware for the day. Chelsa was Kelly Harrison.
“I haven’t seen a whole lot of protests or rioting the past few days,” he commented, skirting around a bike rack.
Chelsa nodded. “I heard the law enforcers have been clamping down on rallies.”
They still saw the occasional pro/anti-Accident testing poster here and there, but for most part, all traces of rebellion had been erased. It was almost scary.
The air-train was crammed full of commuters visiting the city over the weekend. Troop and Chelsa tucked themselves into a corner, where they were ignored by the majority of the passengers. Even though the air conditioning was blasting on full power, the air was still stuffy and Troop spilled out into the train station with great relief.
“Do you need UnivMaps or do you remember how to get to the church?” Chelsa asked.
“I remember the way.” Troop stepped forward to take the lead.
The church looked the same as from last time. The synthetic wood sign bearing the words Kloston Community Church of 2075 had vines growing all over it. A few walkers passing by them gave Troop and Chelsa strange looks, probably wondering why two teens were loitering at an old church.
Troop walked forwards, taking a good look at the cameras and motion sensors. Then he walked around the perimeter of the property, zooming in on the number of windows, doorways and trapdoors with the contact-cams.
The nails used to board up the windows look new, Troop thought. He walked right up to one of the boarded windows and tapped on it. Then he tilted his head, listening for a reply. He heard nothing. Maybe this church is really just empty after all.
He pounded on the window again, this time with much more force.
Still no reply.
“Find anything interesting?” Chelsa asked, coming up to his side.
“Not really.”
Troop fingered the plywood covering the window; it didn’t feel like plywood. Instead, it had an almost foam-like quality to it. Chelsa gave a quick poke at the board as well.
“I think it’s sound-seal,” said Chelsa.
Sound-seal was a type of material used in buildings to block out sounds. Troop scraped some of the material off the board and dropped them in a small plastic baggie; he would run a quick analysis of them later to verify the stuff was indeed sound-seal. If it was, this was more evidence that supported Troop’s theory that the Accidents were being held at the Kloston Community Church.
Troop tried to pry off some of the nails securing the board with his fingers, but was unsuccessful. He wistfully stared at the blocked off entryways to the building.
