District 42-Chapter 261: Drott
The people passing by the streets looked at the beautiful youth and the lad with the backpack once she shouted that phrase. The southerners were always suspicious about anything that happened around them. They needed to be, after all, it was the basis of the basic to survive on the slugs.
When someone was planning something, they could bet that it wasn’t a good thing. People who lived there just thought of two things: survive the next day or consume drugs. The last one was for the people who were already mentally ill, the first one was a general rule for every citizen. That said, when someone was reasoning on something different from those two lines of thought, they could guess that a huge mess was being plotted.
The last "plan" that spread as people started to gossip was a war between factions that made the southerners pass for hellish times.
Javir looked around, seeing that they were drawing too much attention. He brushed off his astonishment and walked hastily towards Inna, taking her by the arm and dragging the lady to the alley as well.
Once people saw that, they decided to forget about it. Probably, it was just some whore trying to bribe a poor man. Some of the passers-by knew Javir and just shook their heads in pity for the lustful life of that famous robber.
Javir went to the middle of the alley, where people wouldn’t see or hear them. He pressed Inna by her throat against the wall, using his forearm. He had serious eyes, even angry.
"If that’s a threat, then you better have your contacts because I will end with you."
Inna was quite calm, just with a hint of fear in her eyes. She raised her hands, showing that she didn’t want to cause any harm.
"You are misunderstanding my intentions here, okay? I just said that out loud because I know that you would disappear again like you always did when we were younger. I needed to draw your attention, so you would talk with m--"
Javir pressed his forearm against her throat with more strength, making her choke when talking the last part.
"And what the hell do you want from me?" He asked slowly.
"I just... want to... help." Once she finished, Javir let go of her, giving some few steps backward.
"I don’t trust in you. I can’t even imagine how you came to know about me and Drott. You should forget about it."
"Hey!" She grabbed his arm, preventing him to run away from there. "I am not asking, I am saying that I WILL help you two!"
"And why!?" He yelled. "Because we are childhood friends who kept talking about being free, go out of the walls, save our folk, and this kind of stuff? I and Drott are not playing or imagining here, Inna. We are doing a serious thing and it is very dangerous. Both of us can die tomorrow or in just some hours."
"So, in the end, you were just playing dumb, right? You remember of our desires, our interactions, and how our friendship was before, right?" 𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎
"That’s not the point!"
"It is! It is because it’s my desire as well. And I am not offering my help in something I don’t know about the risks, ok? But what do you think that it’s less risky: live in a slug just waiting to be enslaved by a criminal or try to pursue that childish and idiot dream!? Man, you two are making a fantasy become reality, how do you want me to just ignore this? Also, I am not asking it with my hands empty. If I said I will help, it’s because I have something to contribute."
Javir looked at her with a complicated expression. He walked back and forth for some seconds, viciously rubbing his hair. At these moments, he felt like snort a whole bag of Bruadar. Always when a huge discomfort reached his emotions, his brain cried for that mix of good feelings and hallucinations that the drug gave to him.
The robber’s hands started to tremble and sweat so he hid it in his pockets again. He tried to calm himself down.
"Look, that’s not a decision I can take alone. Drott is the head of the project, so he needs to know what you have to offer to us." He decided to let that choice in the hands of his partner.
Inna gave a bright smile towards him, hugging Javir afterward. At first, it was a bear hug, that nearly made him fall and he felt like his neck would be broken with such strength. Nevertheless, it became softer and softer, until it was just a tender hug.
Javir gave a soft sight, feeling his heart becoming a bit lighter. His hands stopped to tremble after he forgot slowly about Bruadar. He wrapped her in his arms, pressing her body against his even more. A sweet scent entered his nose, which seemed to make his head became somewhat dizzy.
"You didn’t change too much since your twelve years, silly. You still want to show manliness and ruthlessness, but you are just a softy." She muttered in his ear.
"You shouldn’t be involving yourself in such a thing. You shouldn’t have had come to this crap of slug just to search for me."
She giggled.
"Yes, I shouldn’t. And you as well shouldn’t have had run away and hidden in this crap of slug."
They separated. Javir noticed that Inna was emotive enough for her eyes to tear up.
"C’mon, let’s go. Drott is waiting for us. Once we get there we will see if he will afford you to stay."
Inna nodded energetically and followed him.
...
"What!?" A man sitting on an office chair shouted once he heard what his friend had to say. He was going to all sides while on top of the chair, its wheels making an unbearable noise on the wooden floor of the poor basement they were in.
Javir was in front of him with a bothered expression, the backpack hanging on his shoulder. Inna was beside him, anyone could notice the bright smile she had behind the mask.
"I don’t know you so well, but enough to know that you are not deaf, Drott."
"No, no, no. I mean, I am not deaf and all but, you know, I surely wasn’t intending to let more people enter the project. At least, not in the first half, because we have a lot of things to do with the handcuffs, the Programmation, and everything else. We don’t even know if this plan will go the way we want and..." Drott spoke in a hurried manner, which was overwhelming for both youths in front of him.
"Hey, Drott! Calm down, man! Talk a bit slower. You need to stop overthinking things. It’s just extra people to help us with a few tasks, nothing much. It won’t hurt to, at least, ask her what she wants to do, you know?" Whenever he would talk with Drott and the man was in that state, Javir would get pissed off.
Drott was hyperactive, his mind was always working on 220. Sometimes, it looked like all the words existent in their language weren’t enough for his big mouth, which spread around dozens of sentences for every minute that passed. He had blond hair just like Javir, but it was less dirty and more curly. His eyes were also blue, but its tone was far from the celestial blue of Javir’s.
"Ok, ok, ok, let’s breathe, then! Breath, breath..." He started to mutter the same word while searching for something on one of his four different desks. "Oh, I forgot! Ok, breathe, then. That’s fine. I am calmer, really. I am really calm. Now, now, let’s go to the question; what was it? Ah! Ok, what are your intentions towards our projects?" He spun on his chair while kicking the ground and moving quickly to another desk, finding the tool he wanted and using it to craft a specific part of a machine he was working on.
Inna was a bit hesitant, but she decided a long while ago that she would do almost anything to get her freedom as well.
"I know that you two are working on get rid of these... these..."
"Handcuffs." Javir completed. Rolling his eyes. He hated to talk with people who didn’t know the jargon to avoid the masks.
"Yes. I heard from a bluebird that you were working on it. Roughly, I could take a grasp on your project and I think I have something interesting to help you two to accomplish it." Her eyes were filled with hope.
Once she said it, Drott stopped to go here and there with his chair and stayed in the same place, turning to her slowly.
"I heard that you two are needing someone who can help with the code lines of the... the Handcuffs’ programming. My father was a programmer at the Castle and I could learn a lot with him. With what I discovered, I think I can help you two to hack the system of the handcuffs."
