The Story of Angelo

Part 6

Violet and Jericho were determined to find Angelo and set things right. He left before anything could be truly explained. Since they knew the truth, they wanted Angelo to know the truth more than anything else. He had to. They looked in Violet's hangout club, but he wasn't there. They looked in the park, but he wasn't there either. They then looked in the city in places he might have gone into, but he wasn't there either. They were starting to lose hope until they stopped in front of a very significant place. The lab of astronomical research. Now old and abandoned, it looked kinda creepy. But something in their gut told them to check it out. So they entered. The big door closed behind them and left them in the dark with only the dim lights of the foggy windows. "Find a light switch will you?" Violet asked Jericho. He started to feel around the walls near the door for a light switch until he felt a lever. He pulled it up and the lights turned on row after row. They decided to keep moving forward. "Do you remeber your way around here?" Jericho asked. "Sure I do, it wasn't so long ago" Violet said. "Then I think we should split up, to cover more ground. You look to the right and I'll look to the left of the building" Jericho said. "Alright, and good luck" Violet said then headed to the right. Jericho watched her leave for a moment to make sure where she was going, then headed to the left.

Violet looked around and it all had a creepy but familiar vibe to it. As she was walking, she looked to the left and she saw the big monitors, dusty and turned off. She looked to her right and she saw big bulletin boards with old notes on them. Most of them were ripped and faded. On the floor, there were small piles of debris and many discarded papers around. Probably ripped from the boards and some were blank papers from extra supplies they had. She remembered when the lab wasn't such a mess and when everything was great. She would run around with Angelo and Jericho in the lab for fun. The scientists would yell after them to slow down or to be careful but they knew it was all in good fun. And when they wouldn't be messing around the whole building, they would be messing around Harold's station with him. They would make paper air planes and toss them to other scientists and they would all laugh. They also helped Harold when he needed it. When he needed to organize his station but had too much work to do, the three of them would organize it for him and it was always a good time. Violet looked up from the floor and saw a door. She went inside and saw it was Harold's old station, but it was empty except for furniture, shelves and an old computer. The shelves were empty and there was nothing in the drawers either. 'Looks like he got time to pack' Violet thought. She looked around the room but there was no sign of Angelo. She was about to walk out but before she closed the door, she looked back at the office one more time. She gave a sad smile then walked out of the room. Closing the door behind her.

Jericho looked around and saw a similar sight that Violet did. One side of the long hallway had big computers and on the other side, bulletin boards with old papers. On the floor, small piles of debris and scattered papers. 'Seems like forever since I've been in here' Jericho thought. He looked through every door of every station but he found nothing. 'There must have been many stations at Violet's side, let's hope she looked through them all'. He then saw a door in front of him that he hadn't seen before. He wanted to investigate so he opened the door and it was pretty heavy. He managed to get inside and he was in a place that he didn't remember seeing before. He walked deeper into the room and saw a row of pods on one side of the room and a row of little computers on the other. Each computer was aligned with a pod. Strange. Jericho looked on the side of every pod as he walked but he didn't see anything yet until he got to the last pod. This was his last chance so he took a breath then looked at the side of the pod. And there was Angelo, resting his chin on his arms that were on his raised knees. Blank staring in front of him like if he was deep in thought.

Jericho stayed quiet for a while as he looked at Angelo. He could tell that a lot was going through his mind. "Angelo" he said to get his attention. Angelo didn't respond and kept thinking. "Hey" Jericho tried again. This time, Angelo only moved his eyes to look up at him. "We've been looking for you" Jericho said. Angelo just moved his eyes to look forward again. Jericho sat next to him and they didn't speak for a minute. "Hey, uh..." Jericho began "It wasn't right of you to run off like that". Angelo didn't respond but you could tell he was listening. "You left before anything could be clearly explained-" "what is there to be explained? That she could have known all along and possibly lied and kept this whole thing a secret from me?" Angelo interrupted. "No..." Jericho said trying to be patient with him. "That she didn't mean for all of this to happen, she even said herself when you left that she didn't know who you were. She didn't recognize you. How would she be lying to you if she didn't know who you were?". Angelo didn't respond and just looked at him. Jericho raised an eyebrow as if to say well...how?. Angelo sighed and started looking forward again. "If you come back with us, everything will be resolved". "Us...?" Angelo asked. "Yes, Violet is here as well, looking for you. Your father sent us both to look for you and we thought this would be a good place to look. He went out to look for you too. We're going to have to call him". Angelo thought for a moment then said "Alright". They both stood up from the floor. "Why did you pick this exact room anyway?" Jericho asked. "This is a more secretive room in the lab and this is where she sent us off to keep me and my father safe" Angelo said. "Oh" Jericho said. "Well, thanks" Angelo said raising his arm in front of him. "No problem" Jericho said grasping Angelo's hand. They then gave one firm shake and that was when Violet walked in. She looked down at their hands and back at them. "Well I see everything is resolved then" Violet said. "Right" Angelo and Jericho said simultaneously with a smirk. "Now let's get out of here, I don't want to get more creeped out then I already am" Violet said pointing her thumb behind her.

Marly and Rachel were both looking down at the floor in worry and thinking about when they will be back when the door opened. They both were alarmed and looked straight at who was at the door. It was Harold, Violet, and Jericho as far as they could see. "Well!?" Rachel said worried. Harold smiled and moved aside and there was Angelo. Standing in between his two friends. Marly then stepped forward to face Angelo. They both had partial sad-ish expressions on their faces. Angelo spoke first "so...is it true...are you...?" "Yes Angelo..." Marly began "...I'm Marlina, Marlina Rodomnick