In Search Of The Neon City

10 - Lo

"Again," he said firmly, straining his eyes at me from across the table.
We sat in the shed that was set up on top of my caravan, the room that Carl shared with my big brother before Hannes got tired of the old man's temper.

"I've told you everything I know" I muttered and looked down to fiddle with the cutlery.

"So you talked to Twelve?"

"I told you so."

"Stop the bitching" he replied harshly "and it's a male, a person?"

"Yes, a man."

"And you know where he is?"

I hesitated a bit and started to create a small notch in the worn table top with my thumb nail. "I got something on the scanner, but I'm not sure," I mumbled a little uncertainly.

"Bullshit, you're way too good to miss such a thing" he leaned forward and knocked his knuckles on the table "what are you hiding from me boy?"

"I just want to be sure, okey?"

He sighed and leaned back in the worn old leather sofa, which had once been a back seat of an old car.
"I guess he made you listen to a lot of nonsense, and now you think you're friends and you do not want to lose your new friendship?"

My heart suddenly started beating faster inside my chest and I tried to look numb, so I continued my monotonous work of creating small notches in the wooden board.

"You're hardly the first little naive young man to be fooled like that Lo" he said with a hint of sadness on his face "he doesn't want to be your friend, everyone out here is just looking for one thing."

"Survival," I muttered, looking up at him.

Carl nodded before picking up the plate of porridge from the table and began to eat the gray, tasteless mud.

"I do not want to be like them," I whispered softly.

"Like who?"

"Like the Harrows."

He set the plate down so that the dented plate made a metallic sound against the table top.
"I will not torture the poor man, or eat him Lo" he laughed "hopefully he is helpful and does as I ask him."

"But if he is not?" I asked cautiously, feeling like time almost stopped while I waited for his answer.

"Then there are humane ways to extract the information from him, without harming him."

Physically, I thought and at the same time I was very well aware of what could happen to someone's personality after such information extraction.
Many went mad or completely apathetic, nothing I wished for anyone, certainly not Twelve.

Carl picked up the plate and started eating again, at the same time as he let his eyes slide over me and I started to feel uncomfortable by the fact that he looked at me so intensely.
"You've been too much indoors Lo, you need to get some color on your cheeks again."

I nodded a little and got up "And sleep" I replied tiredly "I will compile everything tomorrow, and then I will connect it to your Link."

"Good," he replied with a smile, "you've done a good job. Lo, I'm proud of you."

"Thank you" I replied and forced a smile. Not because I disliked him, on the contrary. He was like a father to me and hearing that he was proud of me was a huge boost to self-confidence. I would probably not go as far as to say I loved him, but close enough.

That's why I had to struggle with keeping the smile on my lips, because inside I was making my own plan. A plan that would make Carl and the others hate me.

I was going to leave.

I slid down the ladder as usual and my feet landed in the sand with a thump.
The plan was that I would pretend to sleep afternoon as I packed everything I needed, transferred all the information to my Link and delete all the tracks. Then I would offer to take the night shift.

When everyone was asleep, I would leave.

I did it for them, I told myself. If I managed to meet him and become better friends with Twelve, he would surely change his mind and help me.
If he didn't want to go to Vegas himself, he could teach me what to do to get in, how difficult could it be?

-- A/N -

The Link they talk about is a device similar to this, ( The image is from a Final Fantasy game.)

They use it to communicate with eachother, store information, it has maps and gps and a lot of other uses.