Shards

chapter 26

Chapter 26:

We decided that Emme would keep an eye on the adults while the rest of us went exploring. As good a plan as any. The argument didn't look like it would be coming to an end any time soon.

I broke the echoing silence, “what about Shay, do you think he wanted to come?”

Audrey shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine. It's hard to tell what he wants. He would have come if we asked him. We didn't, so he stayed.”

“Once a robot, always a robot.” Ian shook his head in a joking way.

Julian laughed, and I felt my lips pull up into a smile; although I didn't fully get the joke. Ahead of us, the hallway ended in a door. It reminded me eerily of the one back in the hospital. It locked with a keypad on the other side, so we had no trouble getting through. To prevent problems on the way back, we used Audrey's sweater as a door jam.

The occupants of the white cells, acted like they were used to being gawked at. Some stared back at us, with hard eyes, while some of them ignored us all together. Talking in lowered voices, we all quickly agreed on our dislike for the place. It was deja vu in the worst possible way. Ian even had to talk Julian out of opening some of the doors. As he said, some of them could actually be crazy.

“Well it's good to see some things never change.” The voice took me by surprise, coming from one of the cells.

Up until then, we'd heard nothing but the occasional groan. A dark skinned man, with only a thin layer of hair on his head, leaned up against the bars of his cell. He was familiar, I knew him.

“Hey Moore!” Ian was the first to react. “Fancy seeing you here.”

Audrey cocked her head to the side. “So I see they never got around to killing you. I always wondered why they kept you around for so long.”

This man... I'd definitely seen him before. He was obviously from the Compound, but that wasn't where I knew him from. A shaved head, a light layer of stubble; I knew who he was!

“Yeah well...” He began to speak, but I cut him off.

“You're Jonathan Reynolds! You're the guy that shot Earin!”

The man gave Ian a strange look. “Is that Jaylee? What happened to her?”

“She hit her head, lost her memories.” He seemed pained by the words, as he spoke them.

“Well that explains the bandage, but I still don't get the hair. When I first saw her, I didn't know who she was.”

“You are, aren't you?” I refused to be distracted by the fact that they were talking about me like I wasn't there.”

He nodded. “What do you think landed me here? And my real name is Moore. Jonathan was my extended cover.”

“Nice to meet you Moore.” I shook his hand through the bars.

Julian snickered quietly. His name actually sounded vaguely familiar to me. Maybe I'd heard his name in passing, in one of my flashbacks.

“So.” The man's demeanor had suddenly turned serious. “What are you guys doing here? Word travels, and I heard about the facility in New York.”

Hope; his voice was filled with it. I cast my eyes over to Ian, hoping to get some sort of taste of what he was planning. His face was emotionless, hard to read. They had to be talking about the explosion I knew had taken place about a month ago. Although, I still had no recollection of the building that had been destroyed.

“It wasn't us.” Ian finally spoke, when it became evident that no one else would. “Shay did it by himself. We're here to find a kid. His name's Denis. I don't know if you'll remember him.