Hopefully this chapter clears up anything the first chapter made confusing, and I'm trying to stick to one POV only and work on writing male characters, so this story is perfect practice. Sorry about the late update. I promise I'll stick more to my schedule next time, guys.

I plan on the chapters gradually getting longer as I write them, so this should be a smidge longer than the first.

And I'm open to any chapter titles for past and upcoming chapters if you're interested in coming up with a few for me. All credit will go to you of course.

Because I am no longer injected with as many drugs (the only excuse being I'm interacting with another person, I assume), trays of cold lumps and hard piles of food are given to us. Leo is slow with eating his portion, if eating any at all. I time what I eat and when, drinking water on most days and using tiny bites of food to maintain any strength.

They are still here, monitoring us from the tiny cameras shoved into the dark corners of the room. Leo pointed them out to me my second day awake. He said they beeped and that he could hear them, once I could fully see them.

"I don't hear a thing," I told him after he said this.

He shrugged like he didn't expect me to. "Blindness has perks."

Leo opens his eyes, but closes them slow enough that I know he's aware of himself doing it, but not of how long they stay open.

I decide I like Leo. He makes for a nice, easily made alley, and despite his lack of sight is very intelligent for his age of fourteen. But in a way, a small part hates him, just a little, because of all he holds access to. All the information Leo tells me of when he will just talk and talk—the small, tiny part that hate him keeps nagging that I could've had the same kind of knowledge at my disposal, if only something had gone right. Hell if I know what that thing is ever again.

They only come three, four times a day—three for meal delivery, once or twice to collect one of us. That is another difference of having a cellmate: They take you out when you're needed in one of the interrogation rooms, nothing done in front of everyone else.

Drugs are still injected into me—of should I say, us. This, They don't mind doing with the present, because it is the same motion, not anything that needs to be categorized specially.

It's an early kind of morning when I have to ask more questions. There isn't a window for me anymore, and the only way to track time is to keep track of how many footfalls you hear and how loud and evident the whir of the ever in use machinery is. It had to be late-every kind of time, because for a while, the halls outside are still.

"How do you know everything?" I ask into the darkness. Shadows fall over each other, the cell completely dark and eerie. "Why is it you have all these secrets on Them?"

Leo takes a long time to answer. "Like I said, blindness has perks. This Faculty only cares about how drugged you are and how well their precious little experiments act under the treatment. As far as they're concerned, those drugs should keep their words safe." He takes a long pause. The pause is so long I think he may have fallen asleep, but his breathing isn't enough to be.

Leo continues, his voice low. "But some of us are immune."

I think to earlier in my memories here, stuck on that damn metal table with those metal cuffs and chain, the IVs poking out of me. How They wrote down everything that happened within the time They injected them in me. From keeping a close eye on their indifferent facial expression, They weren't too pleased with the results. And as far as I can tell, they still aren't.

"Immune to what? What do They want with us?" I ask hungry for more.

Leo shifts, his stiff cot protesting under his scrawny body, and doesn't answer me. But we both lie awake for a long time. I think he may have been awake still by the time my eyes grow tired and I drift off.

The next morning Leo is gone when I wake up. I stretch then take a sip of the lukewarm water sitting in the smudged cup on the morning stray. I must've slept longer than usual, I realize, flipping my wrist to see a fresh prick of a needle. They did it while I was asleep.

The crackers on the tray next to a puddle of gray—sauce, I want to say—are stale, but I nibble on one as I pace, awaiting Leo's return. I am more use to him being taken away in the evenings, not mornings.

It's three idly eaten crackers and a third of water later that he comes back, carefully maneuvering his way from the doorway to his cot. Leo lays there for a while. I pace and watch him, quiet. Then, with his bony left hand he waves me closer. I take my seat on the edge of his cot.

Leo's eyes are wide open. I always saw that whenever they did open his brown orbs are stuck on a glimmering moment, a moment so wistful and private I don't dare ask about it.

He looks at the empty ceiling, seeing nothing as he says, "I saw him. I saw the boss."

I suck in a breath. I knew there was a bigger power over Them, but never once has Leo ever said anything about a boss man until now.

"Is that why They took you away?" I hope not to seem too eager for him to tell me of what could possibly be a severe punishment, but I can't contain my need for more details. "Did he want to see you?"

Leo shakes his head. "If he ever wanted to interact with us personally, They wouldn't be around as much as they are," he says, "But no. They have me working with someone else now; still no better than the last."

Again, I wonder how long has he been here, and what his story could possibly be.

"We were walking down a hallway, and we passed by this door, I think." Leo's eyes close again. "I withdraw my earlier comment—blunt blind humor, I guess. I heard him, really. His voice was really mean, and he was hollering at the top of his lungs. I think it could've been his son in there with him, because a voice like ours followed. I wanted to stop and hear more, but They pushed me forward before I could hear anything else."

I adjust on the cot. "What did he say?"

"It was all really loud and smushed," Leo admits. "But I think it was something about missions."

Missions. They word set off alarms in my head. Just like the photos. My head starts to pound, my vision blurs. I hop from the cot and kneel to the ground, groaning in pain as the alarms continue to ring loud and painful in my ears.

Leo shifts and sits up suddenly—I can barely just make out his figure through the blur my eyes are seeing.

By the time the pain fades away, my body is sweaty, my fists are shaking, and I'm still on the ground.

Leo has swung himself so that his feet touch the ground. I can only right myself enough to look at the tips of his regulated boots They force us to wear with the rest of the apparel. I carefully rise to a sitting position, switching so that I am on the ground instead of my knees. I looked up to see his face grim.

I've never seen him look so serious before and it looks kind of out of place on his features, to be honest.

"You should really talk to her," Leo comments, mostly to himself.

I groan, crawling quite pathetically to drag myself onto my cot. I lay on it and stare at the rough, lumpy ceiling. "Talk to whom?" I ask tiredly, but don't receive an answer. Like I thought I would anyway.

Leo is lying back down again, facing away from me. Ha, like he could see me anyway.

"That one girl," he insists, making me freeze. Despite my building trust in Leo I haven't developed the courage to tell him about the boy or girl or man from the interrogation incident, or how heavy their affect had been on me. "She knows everything about you, you know."

I wonder how this could be, and if in return, she once told me things about her as well.

"Do you know where she is?"

Leo shifts again; I could see his face this time. "I heard Them talking about it late one night," he confesses quietly. "It was my first night here. They were talking about this girl who had escaped; was sent here with her partners under heavy arrest." If he could see, he would be looking right at me. "One of them was you."

My breath hitches, catching my throat. "How can you be sure of that?"

"Because I heard them say your name."

"You mean, my experimental code?"

Leo shakes his head, the cot creaking and chains rattling.

"No—your real name."

{~~~~~~~~}

Since we've become cellmates, Leo has learned to open up to me a lot more. He tells me things sometimes late after They have stopped with their daily duties and the machines are no longer making their regular noises.

He told of this girl he liked before he came here—her name's Janelle. He tells me his theories of his sight coming back; he knows he's hoping too much, but something was suspicious about the amount of drugs pumped into us on the hour, and I couldn't help but agree.

And Leo knows a lot about me, whether I tell him what I know or not. It seems like we've met before, in the grayness of the months I couldn't recall. I tried asking about this only once, and was promptly ignored.

But I can't find the courage to tell him of the dreams—the flashbacks I assume they are. Like Leo and his sight, I believe They are putting too much faith in the drugs and cells to keep us stuck in oblivion, never to find what they are hiding or what we did. Leo knows, bits and pieces only, but he won't tell me. When I ask why this is the answer is the same:

"Because they should tell you before I should."

I know who he means—that same boy and girl from the photos, the ones who seemed linked to everything just like me. I asked Leo about the man, too one night, and he told me in vague detail about his connection, accurately assuming he had one.

"He's a once-famous scientist; the reason we're all here really," he said drily, waving his hands above him in the air, tracing something and nothing at the same time. "No one knows where he is now though. But probably doing the same as us—rotting in a jail cell somewhere awaiting further punishment."

He sounds a twinge sad; I wonder what roll the scientist plays in this game then, for him to suffer along just as well as the rest of us.

"What about the guy?" I ask. Leo hasn't said anything about him yet, and I could feel myself itching to know why.

Leo's face darkened. Can he tell when it did that?

"He's in a different faculty," Leo says stiffly, "Not far from this one, but much worse."

What could than this, I don't know and was shuddering at the mere thought of finding out.

Leo is still tense by the time I give my attention back to him, so I drop the topic for now, but ache to find out more later.

"About the girl, when can I see her?" Leo can't be the only one with answers; she has to hold something, if not more to what happened in the space I can't remember. "Will I be able to meet her?"

He takes his time like always. "Perhaps," he tells me thoughtfully, sitting. The cot creaks; he ignores and begins to pace. Sightless, Leo is still able to stop and start before banging his body against the walls of the cell, which I find quite impressive when he makes it sound like he's been blind since he was thrown in here.

Again, I want more details to the story, but don't push him because if anything that would only get me farther away from the point I want to be at.

"But, we'd have to be real sneaky." He turns in what he assumes is my general direction. Leo's eyes are open again, sightless as they stare a couple inches away from my left shoulder. But he's close enough. "Are you up for it?"

"Risk level?"

"SWAT lockdown; possible annihilation laws or removed and switched to another Lab's faculty."

He says it so promptly I think again if this is another puzzle to that guy's story. I store in the back of my brain, nodding my agreement.

Only to realize he can't see it and still waits for me to voice my answer.

I breathe heavily through my nose, nodding again for myself. "Alright; we'll do it tomorrow at midnight—an hour after machine shut down."

Leo smirks a little, one corner of his mouth twitching as he feels his way back to his cot.

I can't help but watch as he does. His movements are so natural—the way his fingers lightly skim the wall and his other arm cutting the air on his other side to make sure no other obstacles other than the ones planted in his brain are there.

For the rest of the night we don't talk, but don't sleep. One of Them come in to give us our nightly dose. I can't even tell the plunge the needle takes into my arm, how he drains the thick fluid into my veins before marching back out.

I can't even tell anymore.

Leo is awake for a long time, and I always want to say something. Just to fill a void, but don't. With him, moments of talking are chosen at random, whether we realize we're doing it or not.

I stay awake the longest, listening to his even and steady breathing as he sleeps. While he does, I think to all his moments. Never a moment of weakness; not even a crack of his voice as Leo described Janelle to me.

She sounds beautiful. Cunning and beautiful, he said in a sigh. She was the most important thing to me.

Leo is a small and scrawny fourteen-year-old guy, supposedly in ninth grade this year, he told me, but by the way he talked so confidently and sure, I knew he meant it. It took a lot to mean something people don't think you know a lot about.

The most important thing to me.

Again, like he always does intentional or not, he gets me thinking. Leo was witty in that smart, high school nerd kind of way. He converses with me in a way that suggests he thinks the same of me. But a pull of my gut and the dull throb between my eyes tells me better—he knows how to act with me because he knows me. Or something about me. The way Leo tells me the things I want to know, but the things he doesn't push, tells me just as much.

But I still have many questions for me, but I can't push him away. He's my ally.

And, in our own guy/prison-mate/just kind of happened way, friends.

As I drift off to sleep, I think about how Leo never ceases to amaze me.

I don't know about this. This chapter is more of an informational set-up chapter than anything. But chapter three is real important and in the works as we speak.

So, who do you think this mysterious boss man is? And what's the deal with his son?

And I just love the way I set Leo for this story. He's still like the show, except more involved and mature than in the show, you know?

Please review and tell me your thoughts and questions.

And before I forget, here are the answers to some general questions in the reviews I got for the first chapter:

Bree or Adam being in this story will be revealed in the next chapter. And it was partly revealed in this one, too.

As for the bionics—all in due time.

Bye for now!