Rebels

Ch. 12

As nightfall came, Jack and Arin stayed in the alleyway. The alleyway had been abandoned, with multiple signs of caution. They couldn't find any reason for the alley to be closed- except for a few plagued critters running here and there, and rusty construction materials that were in the back of the alley. So, they both decided to eat the remaining food from the tavern they had previously stolen from. Jack found that Arin had managed to grab the leftovers after he had staged himself from being "dead." Jack's plan had worked after all, and he was proud of himself.

As they were finishing up the leftovers, Jack began to speak. "I've been thinking about something."

Arin shrugged his shoulders, not seeming to hear Jack. "About what?"

Jack cleared his throat. "If Luca had-"

"Why are you thinking about that drunk bastard?" Arin interrupted, shoving the remains of the food aside on the ground.

"Hear me out." Jack protested. "If he had gotten into trouble from drinking, why would pubs have alcohol?"

Arin seemed to think about this for a moment. He rolled this over repeatedly in his head. He knew Jack was on to something, so Arin knew he had no choice but to let the man speak. "Fine." The word had come out harder than he had intended, but he brushed that thought away.

Jack continued, "I think that Luca did something else. Everyone gets drunk- it's a fact."

"Not everyone." Arin muttered to himself.

"I predict that Luca did something in the past. Maybe it was theft. Whatever it was, he's still running."

Arin leaned back against the brick wall of the alley, crossing his arms in thought. He still showed faint signs of pain from the scars on his back. "Possibly so. Who cares about Luca though? Let him go. He's gone now."

"He's still in the same city." Jack protested. "Besides, it's not Luca I'm stressed about." Jack sat down on the ground, beginning to feel the coolness of the night coming upon him. "It's Lyla who is on my mind."

Arin lolled his head back, a plain expression on his face. "Lyla's an interesting one."

This struck Jack as odd, for he thought that Arin didn't care for Lyla nor Jack. "How so?"

Arin sucked in a breath. "She bothers me, that's all. To me, it's as if she's hiding something. That one, she's a little too protective of her big brother, isn't she?"

Jack knew immediately what Arin was talking about. If he had a sister, he would dislike her from the start if she was constantly on him like Lyla was on Luca. He felt as if Lyla had one too many secrets. Everyone has secrets, Jack concluded, but secrets can ruin a life, depending on what they were. He didn't stress to much about this, for he didn't have any secrets that were of much value.

Jack nodded his head, answering Arin's question. He gazed upward, noticing the sky was turning orange. The night was getting more cool by the second, and he knew if Arin and him stayed in the alley, they would most likely freeze to death. Jack stood, feeling his muscles stiffen as he did so. "We need to move to someplace warm for the night."

Arin too stood, gazing around him at his surroundings. Just then, an idea occurred to him. Arin leaned back against the wall of the alleyway, in deep thought. He remembered a friend he had had back in the war.

Jack noticed this. "What?" He questioned.

Arin crossed his arms. "I knew a guy back in my hometown. He was a computer specialist; in other words, a hacker, and he intercepted things for the army." Arin took a deep breath, gathering his thoughts. "If we can find someone like him, then all we'd have to do is sit back, and watch the hacker find out information on Luca and Lyla."

Jack took a step forward, immediately rejecting the idea. "You want to mess with the government and put us at greater risk? Man, we are already running from the captain and from the monitors. How much more do you want to run from?"

Arin smiled. "We aren't running from it; we're running with it. Besides, I don't have anything else to lose. You want to mess with it anyways with this rebellion."

Jack frowned upon this. He was trying to find a few reasons on why he should disagree with Arin and discard his whole idea, but Jack couldn't seem to come up with a single thing. He sighed, not wanting to agree with Arin. "We won't have anything to pay the guy."

Arin scoffed. "We won't need any money."

Jack shrugged at this. He began walking towards the exit of the alleyway into the night to begin the search of this hacker when he stopped dead in his tracks, causing Arin to slightly bump into Jack. Arin noticed that Jack had stopped and shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "What is it?"

Jack saw just beyond the exit of the alley what it had been missing. He found a group of construction laborers walking towards the alleyway, wearing brightly colored shirts. He began to piece the puzzle together, slowly backing away from the entrance of the alleyway. "The construction crew is here."

"What?" Arin exclaimed a little too loudly. "I thought this was abandoned!"

Jack shook his head no. "It's just a run-down alley that needs maintenance." He mumbled, turning on his heel. He scanned the space in front of him, noting there was a gate located near the opposite end, separating the back of the alley with another abandoned, shadow-filled street. Jack took no hesitation and ran to the gate, Arin following behind. Jack examined the gate and noticed there was a lock on it. He cursed under his breath, already playing his fate through his mind: Arin and Jack would get discovered as two escaped prisoners. Then, they'd be taken to a supreme being and given monitors and one chance to live as a settled citizen. Jack figured that was the best chance. The other option ended with the two of them being hanged, or Arin and Jack would be returned to the furious captain, but he didn't want to think about that.

Arin suddenly slightly shoved Jack to the side, holding a large piece of stone that he had attained from the crackling ground. He slammed the stone repeatedly against the lock until it broke, the lock itself clattering to the ground.

As Jack regrettably glanced behind his shoulder, he saw some of the crew members noticing Jack and Arin leaving. Some started to sprint towards them as they noticed Arin had broken the gate, but Jack ran through, not bothering to close it behind himself as Arin and Jack both ran into the dark streets.