Interaction [Dreamnotfound]

2 | Caught

Zak swallowed hard. "How?"

Darryl had only had two interactions with other people, both which could have cost him his life - but he had evaded the punishments, mostly due to his high status among the government.

One of those interactions had been with Zak.

Both those interactions had been kept private.

Up until now.

Darryl shrugged. "The microchips, I guess? I'm not really sure. But it was really strange."

Microchips. What were those again?

Zak shook off the thought and looked up, his eyes meeting Darryl's. "I've already told you how I feel about this, Darryl..."

Darryl sighed again. "I know, I know. It hasn't been too bad lately, though. Maybe this tech is just something out society needs."

Zak nodded, still disquieted, as Darryl said distractedly "Y'know, it said something strange today... That signals had been picked up from our house, or something like that, I'm not really sure. Outside of our borders during the day - or along those lines."

Zak's blood turned to ice.

Darryl looked up again and said thoughtfully, "Must be a bug... I'll work on it tomorrow, try and get it to work again. I think the microchip might be interfering with out extra sample band..."

He kept talking, but Zak couldn't hear him. Outside of borders. Outside of borders.

How were they tracking him?

"Hey, Darryl?" Zak interrupted, earning Darryl's attention. "Yeah?"
"These new bots... can they track us? Like where we're going?"
Darryl frowned, deep in thought. "No... but we're testing that new software update, remember? The one for the microchips. That must be where they got the tracking information from." He shook his head. "I still can't imagine why they tracked us wrong, though. I was sure the update was ready to go..."

Zak's heart felt like it was beating out of his chest.

They knew.

But then why hadn't he been arrested yet?
Zak knew too well he wasn't supposed to go out of borders during any part of his daily life. He knew he wasn't allowed to interact with others. Nobody was.

That didn't stop him from going out to hunt every day.

He had to do something. He couldn't just stay inside all day, not when there was a thick forest just a bit away from their residence, full of places to practice his skills with an axe.

But he hadn't known they were tracking his movement.

Maybe they didn't know it was him? Maybe they thought it was a bug? A glitch in the technology?

No, there was no way. Impossible. They knew everything.

So that brought up the real question: Why hadn't they taken him?

The penalty for disobedience was death, no matter the reason, the one exception being a high status - which Zak, unfortunately, was lacking.

It didn't make sense.

Zak was startled out of his thoughts by Darryl's voice. "Zak?"
Zak looked up. "Sorry... zoned out a bit there," he replied. "Yeah?"

Darryl narrowed his eyes slightly, but dropped it. "I'm going to finish my update onweb quickly, but I'll be back in a bit. You okay?"

The last bit was said due to the fact that Zak seemed to have tuned out again. "Sorry, yeah. That's fine - I was just going to make dinner anyways," he answered, thoughts running through his head.

Darryl turned and hurried up the stairs, leaving Zak standing in place, utterly confused and just a bit nervous.

What was going on? More importantly, how was he going to explain this to Darryl-

Crunch. Crunch.

Zak knew that sound too well. It was the sound of tires on gravel. And not just any gravel - the gravel right outside of their house.

Confusion, then fear, clouded Zak's thoughts. Clumsily, he ran to the nearest window, pulling back the opaque curtains frantically and scanning the area. His eyes found the inevitable.

There, right on their driveway, was a sleek, silver vehicle, closely resembling a car, but just a bit smaller, and elongated. A Hemibot was built in at the wheel. A sleekmobile, s-mob for short. One of the more expensive ones, too, by the looks of it.

And on the side seat?
A representative of the government, shown by his faceted crystal pinned to the right of his shirt, the same one Darryl wore every day.

He was armed.

And so were the men in the back.

Panic erupted in Zak's chest, and he stepped away from the window, tripping over himself, what to do what to do what to do-

And then one got out. And stood up. And pointed a silver gun at Zak's head.

"We are armed. You are surrounded. Show yourselves."

The metallic voice of the officer rang through the air, freezing Zak in place.

His feet felt rooted to the ground. He couldn't move.

But then an image of Darryl flashed through his mind. Darryl, with his sweet smile. Darryl, who had worked so hard for this position. He couldn't afford to give it all up. He couldn't surrender. Not like this.

Zak turned and ran.