May 30, 2013 - 23:46:00 GMT-05
Hub-4 - Radial-6 - Room-12
“Ms. Slade, let us begin with the last thing you remember, following the death of the allegedly “immortal” metahuman known as Robert Joseph Marshall.”
The room was metallic. This was true not only in the literal sense, but in the figurative as well. Everything about the place was sterile, cold,… and harsh. The brushed steel finish of the riveted wall-panels, the abrasive grating of the floor, even the gleaming, mirror-polish of the ceiling, broken only by six, evenly spaced halogen lights. Each of the lights glowed from within recessed alcoves covered by a thin sheet of steel mesh. Everything about the place bespoke of a world and a design unsympathetic to warm, fleshy, living things. The mind or minds behind it all seemed to hold a great deal of hostility toward anything… non-hostile.
The table, upon which Slade rested her throbbing head was a single piece of forged steel, apparently poured into a mold and allowed to cool into its final shape. The same was true of the chair that had been numbing all sensation from her legs and lower back for the last half-hour. She idly thought that this was what a frog or salamander must feel like, when pinned down to an examination table to be poked and prodded at with sharp instruments. How such a creature must long for moss and mud and warm, soft loam. How completely alien the examiners must seem. The opposite of comfort. The antithesis of hospitality.
The voice that had spoken to her, electronically modulated to conceal the interviewer’s identity, emanated from twin speakers, recessed like the halogens, into a pair of concavities on either side of the heavy, steel door that stood locked to her, preventing escape.
“Ms. Slade,” the voice began again, “are you with us?”
“Ms. Slade?” she responded, not lifting her head from the table. “Are you kidding me?”
“Is there something else you’d like me to call you?” the voice asked.
“What I’d like,” she began, as she stood from the table and grasped at the thin, institutional-gray fabric of her coverall-lapels, “is for you to give me my clothes back so I can get dressed.”
“Your clothing is being processed, Ms. Slade.”
“Processed?” she asked. Her toes curled and uncurled, testing the snugness of the dull-grey crocs on her feet. In spite of the thickness of their soles, they hadn’t prevented the chill of the metal floor from making it’s way up into her feet and legs, penetrating it seemed, all the way to the bone. She wondered idly at how long she’d been stuck in here.
“Scanned for radioactivity, decontaminated and laundered,” the voice explained, “when they are ready, they will be returned to you.” The electronic modulation made the voice sound, at various times, deep and light,… rough and smooth. It was like holding a conversation with an amoeboid entity incapable of retaining any single form for more than a few seconds. Whatever, or whomever was sitting, standing or coiling at the other end of the microphone, it seemed constantly to shift from hearty-giant, to squeaking mouse, to shrill harpy, to jovial angel,… and all points in between. Although somehow, the extensive sound-masking technology failed to hide the bored tone coloring the response. The space-age audio-tech also fell marginally short of concealing a basic template from becoming clear to her in the span of a few moments. True, she had no idea of the identity of this mysterious presence, but ‘Bored, Mid-Level Functionary Who’d Rather be Anywhere and Doing Anything Else,” came through to her as clear as a bell. As did, “Male,” “Mid-Thirties-to-Forties,” “Caucasian,” and “Educated on the Eastern Seaboard of the United States.”
“Again, Ms. Slade,… the last thing you remember.”
She sighed.
“I remember falling,” she closed her eyes, crossing her arms over her chest. “But, it didn’t feel like falling, at first. It felt like being pushed upward by a strong wind. There was a whistling, … a kind of howling in my ears. My eyes were dry and they itched a lot. My stomach felt,… queasy. It took me a few moments to realize that I was falling.”
“And before that?” the voice asked.
She sighed again, more roughly, taking no care to hide her frustration.
“Before that,… it’s all a blur. I can’t distinguish events from one another. Near as I can tell there was some kind of battle, that I apparently played a role in. But, I can’t remember what that role was, or why.” At that, she flopped back down into the chair. “Or how,” she piped-up, “I mean, I’m an accountant for Christ’s sake! I can barely open my car-door in the winter, if it’s iced-up.”
“Give us as clear a picture of those earlier events as you can,” the voice trilled then boomed.
“It’s not that simple,” she tried not to allow her tone to become a growl, in spite of the frustration that held her jaw tightly closed. “Most of what I remember,… even the parts that are in any kind of coherent sequence,… don’t make any sense.”
“Just try,” the voice chirped.
“Fine,” her response was more relaxed. She supposed she was running out of the requisite energy for rage. “Those people who were in the news a couple weeks ago,… they were calling them the ‘Ohio-Foursome.’”
“You refer to the cadre of metahumans composed of the entities known as Gerald Waldrop, Natasha Sharpe and the aforementioned Robert Marshall, now deceased,” the voice ululated.
“Yeah,” she said. “The ones involved in that near dust-up …slash stand-off with USMRC in New York,…” she’d intentionally pronounced the initialism as an acronym, ‘You-Smirk,’ as had become the common parlance in mass media over the last several days, following a particularly scathing satirical-commentary on the organization during the Season Premiere of a certain popular and subversive animated program on Comedy Central. “USMRC Because We’re Bad Liars” had seen ratings unmatched since “Trapped in the Closet” had aired the series’ brutal indictment of The Church of Scientology, nearly a decade prior.
“Anyway, the other man in the group,… Jerry… what was it, 'The Wall-Crusher?'” she asked.
“Waldrop,” it’s not a nom-de-guerre. It’s a surname. W-A-L-D-R-O-P,” the voice purred, then sang.
“Right,” she said, “whatever,… I remember he walked out of the building,”
“Which building?” the voice interrupted.
“The church,” she answered.
“Saint Bernard’s?” the voice inquired.
“No the *other* massive, floating church in downtown Akron,” she spat. “Do you want me to fucking get through this, or not?”
“Please continue,” the voice conceded.
“Actually,… he kind of stepped-out from underneath it,” she said, “and like,… walking it back over his hands as he emerged. The impression I had was that it had been him… he’d been the one lowering it back down to the ground. It was like, whatever it was that had been keeping it,… up… hovering in the sky like it was, had stopped or fizzled-out. I remember it dropped a few hundred feet or so, before something or someone… Waldrop, I assume,… had caught it up and lowered it very carefully back to the ground. Though it looked pretty beat-up. Not surprising, I guess. Stationary buildings aren’t designed to tolerate motion.”
“Did you see anything just *before* the church began to fall?” the voice asked. “Anything happening just outside of it?”
“It was very high up,” Slade shook her head. “It was also cloudy. I saw a lot of movement around it while it was still in the air, but I can’t remember anything specif…” she trailed off. Her eyes went unfocused and distant, as an image filled her mind.
“What was that, Ms. Slade?” the voice chirped.
In her mind’s eye, she saw a flash of red… or violet… very high up, just outside the front of the church, moments before it began to fall. She cleared her throat and sat up straight.
“I have a terrific headache,” she said. “Is there any chance I could get something for that? Aleve or Tylenol, maybe?”
“Someone will be along, shortly,” the voice replied.
Why had she done that, she wondered. Mislead them, like that. She had no real reason to. Cooperation, so far as she could tell would lead to a speedier release. She was annoyed at the detainment, but she couldn’t think of any reason to resist anyone working for…
Who?
It occurred to her with startling suddenness that she had no idea with whom she was speaking, not only in the specific but the general. She’d assumed that whomever was holding her, it was someone official,… someone in government or law enforcement. But, at the end of the day, someone she could trust. Now, however… she wondered.
“Which agency are you with, again?” she asked.
“We’re with Homeland Security,” the voice replied. “Please try to think. Was there anything else, just before the church began to fall?”
“Where is this place?” she went on.
“That’s classified information,” the voice replied. “It’s a secure facility. You needn’t know any more than that.”
“And when I’m released,… what? You’ll blindfold me?” she asked.
“Something like that,” the voice replied. “Your safety is assured, Ms. Slade, so long as you cooperate fully with us in this matter.”
“I think I’d like to speak to an attorney,” she said, the newly wary disposition creeping into the corners of her eyes.
“That is neither necessary, nor possible, Ms. Slade,” the voice ululated.
“What?” she said, suspicion giving way to renewed anger. “The hell it isn’t!”
“Ms. Slade, please understand that you are a person of interest in a suspected terrorist action against the United States. This is not a traffic violation or a noise complaint. You have no right to remain silent. You have no right to an attorney. You have no protection against searches, seizures nor any guarantee of a speedy trial.”
She sat back into her chair in a huff, her jaw slack and trembling, caught somewhere between fear, anger and hopelessness. The voice went on in its alien refusal to meet expectation. “Again, the more cordial you are, the more willingly you cooperate with us, the easier this process will be on you.”
A tear welled-up and rolled down her cheek, past her quivering lips.
“What do you want to know?” she asked, shaking her head in exasperation.
“We want to know everything you know about Robert Joseph Marshall,” the voice replied.
“Today,” she said, thumping an index finger against the cold, steel table-top, “Right now,… is the first time I’ve heard that name in any type of conversation. Prior to this, I’d only heard of him on the news.”
“Your personal computer’s registry indicates that you’ve researched him quite a bit,” the voice said.
“Of course I have,” she replied. “I’ve researched every metahuman I’ve heard of since the Event. Even moreso the ones that grew-up less than ten miles from my front door. Does that really make me unique enough to be a ‘person of interest?’”
“Not on its own. No,” the voice replied. “Are you a catholic, Ms. Slade?”
“No.”
“Then what were you doing at the church?”
She paused, staring at her hands.
She did not know.
**********
