I sprint at full speed, my brother clinging to my hand. I look behind us to see where the enemies were and gasped.
Keep running Alyssa, said the Voice. I choke back a sob and twist down a dark alleyway. We run to the wall in the back and press ourselves onto the cold brick wall.
Boom…boom…boom…
I gasp as I get a first look at the enemy. A 7ft tall humanoid, powered by solar panels the size of small dogs. Half of the body made out of pig flesh, the other out of metal and wires. The pig flesh side had wielded a sword at one time as well, but my older brother took care of that… but it cost him his life. My baby brother, Jack, whimpers. I press his 6-year-old body against mine, to hide him from this terror, he is too young. The booming stops and we hear a creaking sound, like metal rubbing against metal. Then we hear the voice…
“You can’t hide from me forever; you know it’s only a matter of time. Give up Alyssa! Why is one child worth the entire world?”
That voice sounded like the sweetest melody, coaxing me out of my hidey-hole… to give up what matters most to me. I snap back to reality and look around the alleyway for a sewer cover, a secret door, anything to help me and Jack escape.
Down the corridor, the Voice said. I looked around and sure enough, there was a corridor. I grabbed Jack and sprinted full force towards safety. We turned sharply and slammed the corridors’ door shut.
                The door slammed and we sank against the sides of the dark and musty hallway that looked like it hadn’t been used in a hundred years. I pulled out my light lamp and lit it. The new technology had been so helpful these days, and it didn’t fail me this time either. Light filled the entire corridor that looked like it had been split in two.
“Aly…” Jack looked up at me with his big doe eyes. “Did those robot people kill Charlie because of me?” I looked at him in astonishment, wondering why in the world he would think that. Yes, it's true that jack had the ability to create everything and anything. And yes, it's true that he ticked off my uncle by fixing his fishing pole before he could… but that doesn’t mean anything.
  “No, jack…” I told him. “It was that bad government lady on television… Diana Moon Lemurs or something.”
“Is Mrs. Lemurs going to kill you too?” Jack's eyes filled with tears. “Is it because you’re protecting me?”
I grit my teeth, thinking about Diana Moon. She was once a family friend, a loyal one too. Until one day the government told her that she could shape the world in her own image, the world where no one would be left out, or alone. Yes, it started out great, but soon the power went to her head. My mother went to the white house to reason with her, to get her to understand that this wasn’t right. Diana was adding “perfections” on people, and it started with the earphones. She forced my mother into them, and since they were bolted with a padlock, no one could get her out of it. Every time my mother would try to think of something, an ear-splitting scream would come through them, sometimes causing her to be unconscious. That’s where my brother comes in. he hated Diana, not only because she killed our father for trying to break our mother out, but because she betrayed us. Somehow, Jack has a “sixth sense” in a way that he understands almost everything that’s going on around him. He created a device that sends a signal to the receiver of the headphones to make them think that mom had the headphones on. It worked, for a while. My older brother Charlie worked for the government for about 4 years, and suddenly he quit for mysterious reasons. Then… he snapped and called the quarantine squad. I don’t know why, but when they got to our house, Charlie stabbed five of them with his pocketknife he gave me to allow us to escape. Mom is being tried for treason, I suspect, and Charlie…
“No.” I looked at Jack with an intense stare. “I won’t die. You will not talk about that right now… not ever. Understand?”
He looked so miserable in the lamplight, his blond hair matted with blood and mud, and a streak of black soot on his right cheek. I frowned even deeper and used my hand to wipe away some of the soot away from his face.
“Arg! Stop Ally! I look fine…” he shrunk away from my hand and sat hard on the stone floor.
BOOM!
I drew my blade and looked up at the crumbling ceiling.
“Jack! Get on your feet! We have to make a run for it!” I screamed over the falling rocks and picked him up. I ran and jumped over falling rocks, and sprinted down the right tunnel. Just as we got inside the tunnel, the rocks sealed us in, blocking out all light. The lamp…
“Darn it!” I cursed. Just then we heard footsteps coming down the corridor, I pulled Jack behind me and pointed my knife.
“Who’s there?” The footsteps asked.
“I could ask you the same thing,” I told him, from the sound of his voice. “Step into the light!”
I lit a match and held it up to the stranger. He carefully stepped into the light of the tiny fire. He was tall with broad shoulders and good muscle build.  His face looked like a Greek architect, ridged and straight, had chiseled it. His deep brown eyes got really wide when he caught sight of the cowering baby behind me. “Is that…?” he started to ask. I froze him with a stare and simply asked, “Who are you?”
And to my amazement, he asked, “Who wants to know?” God, he was annoying…
I sighed and answered, “My name is Alyssa and this is my brother Jack… your turn” I set my jaw to show that I wasn’t changing the subject.
This time, he looked exasperated. “Don’t tell me they don’t tell you about the catacomb children.”
“What?” I was getting pretty angry now.
He sighed, “My names Curt. Curt Johnson. Now, if you don’t mind me asking, is your brother making a lamp out of rocks and matches?”
I swirled around to find Jack holding a makeshift lamp that looked like it had taken a bottle of steroids, and then I saw Jack slowly light what looked like a tiny candle in the middle, the whole room lit up. This wasn’t new for me, though, because I’ve seen him make greater things.
Curt looked at him in astonishment, “How did you--?” I cut him off. “Look.” I said, “We have to get out of here, so unless you’re here to give us a map, then we’ll be on our way.”
I started to brush past him, but he caught my arm, “Do you have any handicaps?” he looked at me with those chocolate brown eyes. I glared and memories started to flood back to me, memories I had wished to forget. When I was five, my parents took me to the handicapper to be “fixed”. The handicapper said I needed to be on extra heavy weights and large headphones, even bigger than my mom’s. I struggled and fought to be free, but they sedated me and forced the handicaps down on my body. I snapped out of the flashback and stared into his face.
“Not since I was five.” I looked at him closer. He obviously had gotten handicaps before, due to the marks that scarred his arms and wrists. “Will you take us then?”  I asked politely this time.
He turned towards the dark end of the tunnel and sighed, “Fine… but first… how old is he?”
“My brother? He’s six.”
“Impressive.”
“Just lead the way.”
He led us towards the darkness of the corridor and took a left, then a right, then a left again. If I told you how many times we twisted and turned, it would take up this entire page. Finally, he led us to a large wooden door, with a knocker in the shape of a gruesome wolf. Curt knocked two times, 3 times, and six times and the door swung open.  The door opened to a small bunker the size of a small room, with bunk beds lining each wall. There were two dressers, obviously overfilling. On each bunk bed, there was a child, each one different and more unique than the rest. I stared in awe of the special children, wondering how they have survived without being caught. In the far corner, there was a large pile of handicaps; weights, headphones, masks, the works.
“Wake up!” Roared Curt, “Everyone out of bed!”
The children started to groan but moved slowly in different directions, some going to the dresser, some to the hole in the wall that I guessed was the bathroom, and some just stayed in bed.
“Percy! Get a move on!” Curt grabbed a pillow off of a bed and slammed it into Percy’s sleeping head.
“What…?” The kid named Percy had hair like flame and gray eyes, “No… please Curt?”
“Get up!”
“How is this going to help us?” I asked very loudly.
At the sound of my voice, they all turned to look at Jack and me who was busy making a toy out of old wood scraps.
“Who is she?” The children started to murmur, “What’s that boy building?”
“Relax!” Curt announced. He sure had a way with words. “They just need a way out of this cave system! Isn’t that right Alyssa?”
“Yep, and showing us your little hidey-hole of misfits isn’t helping.”
Jack piped up and said, “Wow! That boy has a green and a blue eye! Holy cow! That girl looks like she has a balloon in her tummy!”
“Jack!” I squeaked.
“Alright, I’ll get you all out of here, on one condition.” He looked really intimidating in the torch light.
“Name it,” I said. I know… it was stupid.
“We get the kid for a month.”
My mouth dropped and my face probably turned beet red.
“No! No way! There is no way in-“
“Ok,” Jack said.
“What? No Jack.”
“Aly… I don’t want you to get hurt anymore, and if I’m here for a little while, then maybe they’ll forget that I’m even alive. But I have a condition to make as well Curt. Aly gets to stay too.”
Curt considered this for a while and then nodded his head.
“You’re a fighter, I’ll give you that. So one month, then you're free to go.” Just then I heard a crash from above us.
“What’s going on?” Percy asked. Then the roof exploded and the Man-Hog stood flying overhead with the grass roof over his head.
“Alyssa Turner and Jack Turner. You have violated the 211th and 212th amendments to the constitution, you are ordered by law to come with me.”
I heard someone scream as people stream out of the room into the corridors. Me, Curt and Jack were the only people left in the room, and I could see out of the corner of my eye that Curt had a large sword drawn and aimed at the Flying Hog-Man. Jack looked from the scraps of metal to the Flying Hog-Man and winked at me.
“Curt! We need to distract Porky here so we can give Jack time! Think you can help with that?” I screamed.
“Roger!”
I dodged a blow from Porky and tried to stab his left flank, but my pocketknife pinged off the hide like it was made of metal. I cursed and yelled at Curt to toss me a weight from the handicapped pile. Curt threw me the weight and me only barely able to hold it as I threw it towards the beast. It latched onto its leg and I was suddenly suspended in midair, desperately trying to hang on.
“Anytime now Jack!” I yelled as I was swung from left to right.
“Almost finished!”
Curt jumped desperately to grab one of my legs, but I was too high.  Porky swung its sword at Curt, making him loose balance and fall. Thankfully, curt landed on his butt. Unthankfully, he bounced and hit his head on a weight, making him pass out cold.
“Done!” jack screamed.
“Toss it up!”
He threw it as hard as he could, and I was just able to catch it. “It” was what I immediately recognized as a bomb. The detonator was ready to push and all I had to do was press it. I scrambled up the weight rope and made it to his mouth.
“Hey, Bacon strips! Try this!” and I shoved the bomb own its throat.
I leaped off the monster just as it exploded, and when I came too, I saw jack bloodied and muddy, with a broken arm.
“Jack!” I screamed. I tried to move my legs but instead felt a sharp stabbing pain shoot through me.
Curt was behind a table when the explosion occurred so he was fine. He rushed over to help me, but I screamed at him, “Not me! Jack!” and he quickly switched gears. I looked around at the destruction we made and was a little amused. Nothing (except the roof and us) had been destroyed. Then I noticed a little paper floating down from the sky, the edges burnt. It landed next to me, and I picked it up. I flipped it over, and it read The 213 Amendment Is Now Active.

Two weeks Later:
    “Jack, I need you to listen to me.” I looked at him very seriously. “Your name is not jack anymore. from now on…” I choked back a sob. “From now on it's George, do you understand?”
“But Aly…” we were in a subway station that was filled with kids, kids who have yet to be handicapped.q
“ No buts. Curt’s done all he can by erasing you from the system, now it's your turn.”
I walked him to his train car, and I told him to go onto it. God, it was so hard not to cry. Don’t cry…
Just then, Jack turned and ran and hugged me as tightly as possible. I couldn’t hold it together and sobbed into his shirt.
“Its ok Aly, I’m not going anywhere.” Poor Jack. Poor, poor jack.
I pulled him away from me and looked from him to the train. At first, I didn’t see it. Then, the conductor looked at him with a pleasing smile, and not a smile that made the looker pleased, it was more of a smile that se you with unease.
“Jack, I’m coming with you.” I looked at him with my infamous; I'm not budging faces.
“Aly I wish you could, but you don’t have a ticket, and worse, you’re not erased from the system like I am!” Jack stared at me in astonishment. Was I really going to be this selfish as to sneak onto the train to save my self and perhaps my brother? My eyes drifted over to the end of the corridor where the exit lay, and my heart skipped a beat. Curt was holding a wig and dress, and was wearing what looked like a middle aged man disguise. I sprinted towards him and tackle hugged him.
“How did you find this?!” I held the disguise gingerly as if it might dissipate into thin air. This was my ticket for a good life with my brother. And perhaps even Curt.
“Well, you know. I scraped by a couple of dollars and was able to afford yours, but mine was a bit-” he was interrupted by the train whistle, and we had just enough time to put on our disguises.
“How do you know this will work?” I asked curt as we walked towards the train.
“I don’t” he responded.