IN A WHITE COATED CELL

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Logan watched the man who entered his cell with dislike. He had never seen that one before - they had changed the interrogator once again, he mused, slightly smiling. The last five of them hadn't had much success to be proud of. They had been asking the same questions, over and over again, had tried numerous ways of torturing him - obviously they hadn't even been so sure how they could cause him pain at all. He had tried to stay silent when they used the worst and had screamed when they had done things to him that almost didn't matter at all.
But somehow, in the end, they had found a way how to strike him. And worst of all: He hadn't been able to hide that this method worked out.

In the middle of the room there was a bright red line, painted onto the floor, onto the walls, even the ceiling. No visitors beyond this line. No things beyond this line. Except the prisoner whose wrists were bound to thick metal girders coming out of the back wall. They left him barely and space to move at all.

Logan watched the new interrogator taking a seat opposite to him, 6 feet away from the red line which he wasn't allowed to cross. He didn't look like all the others who had come. He was a bit older than those young agents who had tried to earn respect of their superiors by finding new, creative ways how to get some information out of him.
This one was different. He also didn't have anything with him, no single piece of paper, nothing to write, no file to hide behind. He had only sat down in silence and now he was starring at him.

Logan swore to himself that he wouldn't be the first to talk. He could play this game forever, while that man sized him up from head to toe.

After a while, he gave up staring and instead let his view wander through the room. It was a sterile white, looking more like a hospital room than a prison cell in a highest-security holding facility. In one corner, there was a toilet and the remains of a washbowl, which had been slain into pieces. In the other corner a blanket on the floor.
No chair. No table. Not even a bed.
The walls were coated with porcelain, but the surface looked like it had been scratched away with knives in various places.
An uneasy feeling crept up his back, as he saw this room. He had been in such a room before. It was inhumane to keep somebody in a place like this… but what could he do against reality of how to keep up homeland security?

He stood up, walking through the room. They had told him that this man was a beast. He didn't exactly look like one. His features were earnest and angry, the rest of his body well built and strong, but actually just saw a prisoner in shackles.
In the corner of his eyes, he kept watching him, while he examined the red painted line. He sensed how that prisoner got nervous as he approached that line. He had been told that it wouldn't be a big deal to overstep it, but for his prisoner it was a big deal to watch that.

Jack stretched out his hand and held it into what the others called the magnetic barrier. Somehow, the beast was held back by this installation. He merely felt a little prickle as he stood there.

Logan watched his interrogator play with the barrier. He had turned his back to him, confident that the shackles were strong enough to keep him where he was. He stretched out his hand though that invisible barrier, several times, before he stepped into it, out again and finally into his half of that cell.
No other interrogator had ever done that before, upon the first meeting.

Xavier, I need you help - who is this guy? Logan prayed that the professor would hear him, wherever he was.

He did. He's a warrior, like you.

He was so glad that the professor answered his call. This voice was what had kept him sane throughout the past weeks in here. Is he here to help me?

No, he's here to question you. He has fought many wars, just like you, Logan. He knows how to hurt people, that's why they brought him here. He is different from all others.

A cold shiver ran down his spine. This man hurts people. An inquisitor.
Logan followed every one of his moves. He fought the wish to ask the guy how the barrier felt like, for an ordinary human being. To him, the strong magnetic field felt like hell.

Jack didn't feel that much of it. Outside, they had taken every smallest piece of metal from him, before letting him enter this Faraday cage. This magnetic barrier was powered by superconductive coils and had it's own high tension supply line. He turned around and his eyes met those of his prisoners. Was that envy, in this man's view? About being able to cross this invisible line so easily?

He sighed and went a step closer, standing between the prisoner and the red line. „I've never seen something like that before.", he remarked, „that field thing.", still playing with the soft tickle that it left in his skin, as he ran his hand through it.

No answer came from that guy.
The shackles were mounted so low that he could only kneel or crouch. Jack looked down on him. He didn't like this position for the interrogation that he was told to perform. That guy was a driven fighter. He would never talk to an inferior person, looking down on him.
He knew those situations, though he tried not to think back to the last time when he had been in that guy's position.

Jack went out of the barrier again and grabbed the chair to slide it closer. As he wanted to slide it over the barrier, it was held back like from an invisible force. Damn it, he cursed and tried once more, before let it be where it was, right behind the line. Ain't that a fuckin' plastic chair?, he cursed, more to himself that aloud, as he went over the red line again to sit down.

„I guess the red paint contains some iron.", Logan spoke.

Jack looked up. Their first words. At least a start was made. He slid the chair a little bit back from the red line. „If you're right… that's a really impressive thing.", he said, nodding to the red line and sat down, having turned the backrest of the chair towards the prisoner.

„How do you experience that?", Jack asked him, again playing with the tickle in his hand as he let it cross the barrier.

„It's like… an electro-magnet on the scrap yard… trying to crush one."

Jack pulled his hand back. Although he didn't feel anything but a tickle, he wasn't so sure any more what this cell could do to one's body. He leant onto the backrest of the chair. „So why do they keep here?"

„I guess they already told you.", Logan answered. „Or did you come here for fun? Own sadistic pleasure? Or trying to save money for the circus by gettin' a free freak show?"

„I just read the file they gave me.", Jack spoke. „So why are you here?"

„Doesn't it say it?" Logan was tired of the interrogation already. It could have been interesting, he had thought in the beginning, with this new interrogator. But now that man was drifting back into the old, usual scheme of asking inquisitive questions.

„You know… files contain a lot of shit.", Jack said. Once, he had tried to get a hold of his own file and read it- but he had stopped three pages into it, driven to a bottle of Whiskey because of the rage it had brought over him. Lies. Factoids.
They had given him the file of that ‚Logan'-guy over there. It said that he was an uncontrolled animal on a killing spree, a rabid wolf that had chosen to unleash his rage against military organizations and government officials.

„Really?" Logan angrily spat back. „So what kinda shit does your file say about you?"

Jack answered with a smile. „You have no idea, pal."

Logan had noticed the flicker in his interrogator's eyes. Now it was getting interesting. Even though he had given him an evasive answer, there was something behind this.
After weeks of sitting here in almost complete solitude, he chose to take. his chances in this cat and mouse game. „You really expect me to answer your questions… and you don't even tell me your name?"

„It's not important who I am.", Jack answered. He sensed that this interrogation was about to get going. A little give-and-get game. „Names don't matter in the end."

„I thought you wanted to know some names… like all the others who asked me questions?"

„No", Jack took a deep breath, „I want to know why you are here." He looked into the other's brown eyes. „I've never met anyone of your kind. Your kind kept out of our shit, we kept out of yours. But you seem to have crossed that line."

Logan eyed him closely. „Do you wanna hear a ‚yes I did'? A confession?", he laughed.

Jack shook his head slowly. „We're way past the point of a confession.", he remarked. What was included in his file made a confession unnecessary. An animal on a killing spree. That's what this file said. „Did you really kill them for no reason?"

Logan refrained from shaking his head. „Did you ever kill without a reason?", he asked back. It was a shot in the dark. But according to Xavier, this man had fought wars. There had to be blood on his hands, too.
From his position he saw the large scar on the back of his right hand. Faint marks of scars that some fights had left in his face. There was a story behind them, for sure.

Jack took a deep breath and thoughtfully stared at the ground in between them. „I hope I haven't. But I can't tell for sure.", he murmured. Too much collateral damage had happened.

Logan instinctively knew that he had spoken the truth. „That's also true for me.", he added: „does that answer your question?"

Jack nodded his head yes.
He sat there and mused about the answer for a moment. They had all the time in the world. There was no need to hurry that investigation.
As he moved his hand he felt the tickle of the magnetic field again, even though he was ten inches away. It was weaker, but still there.
Jack glanced at the earnest features of the prisoner, once more. „I never shined in physics, and out there they told me not to care too much about it…", he murmured, „don't you sense that magnetic field over there, too?"

No answer.

They had put him under constant pain, he guessed. Now he could put the pieces all together - the uncomfortable position that he was in, and the way how the shackles around his forearms strangely cut into his flesh. That was reason for the sweat pearls on his skin. His whole body was pushed to the back wall of this cell by the magnetic field.

Logan watched the interrogator stand up and leave the room. There was a little window in the only door, but the inner side was mirrored, so he couldn't see what was going on in the room outside this cell.

As suddenly the force was gone.
He almost collapsed into the shackles, after the magnetic field got deactivated. They had never done that before. In the corner of his view, he saw the door getting opened up again, voices, arguing on the outside about what to do next.

Jack slammed the door shut behind him and went back to the chair. This time he took it and slid it over the red line, effortlessly. The cage was deactivated.

He sat down right in front of Logan, looking directly into his eyes. „I am here to talk."

Logan was thrilled by the fact that this man didn't care too much about security - and that the barrier that had held him against this wall was suddenly gone. He rattled at the two shackles which were fixed to massive girders coming out of the back wall. „Aren't you afraid you're not gonna make it out of this room alive?" Slowly he released the claws of his left hand. Since the magnetic field was gone he could bare his claws for the first time without the field painfully trying to bend them.

Jack glanced at them. He had never seen something like that before. That guy's hands were mounted into strong shackles. He couldn't break them. There was nothing to fear. But still…
„I had to promise them on the outside on thing, because of the missing field", he sighed and took out a hand grenade. Carefully he removed the pin and held the latch tight. „The moment they activate the field again this thing will get pushed right towards. They said you wouldn't survive this."

Logan looked at the grenade. „I don't know. Never tried."

Jack shrugged and settled back into the seat, with his grenade. „Now we can talk."

„What do you wanna know?" For the first time at all, Logan was able to sit down in a more comfortable position. He felt like he owed him an answer for this.

„You got a hold of that weapon X file.", Jack remarked, „How far do you want to take this, I mean the duty roster as you to-kill list? Even to the garbage man? The cleaning lady?"

„I haven't decided yet.", he answered. „But at this point: it still feels like the right thing to do."

„Get it.", Jack nodded. „Two hours ago I didn't even know that our government ran such a program. But I read that you volunteered."

„Malicious deception."

„Get it.", Jack nodded again. „It's still murder. You need to fit your revenge into the laws of this country."

Logan felt his anger rising. Such a nonsense. „There is no law beyond a certain level.", he hissed. „You really said law, huh? Put me in court. Get me out of this cell. Let me have a visitor, a bed… parole. But first of all stop asking questions that have nothing to do with what I did to Stryker's men."

„Point taken.", Jack remarked and picked up the pin of the grenade from the floor. „Have I asked you such a question?", he answered it himself, „I guess not."

„Eventually you will. Isn't that why you're here?" The tension between them rose.

„Yes.", Jack hesitatingly answered. He wasn't happy with where this conversation was going. But he wanted to take this further. This guy wasn't suicidal, Jack could see it. And he wasn't uncontrollable, like his file said.
Slowly he stretched out his hand with the grenade in it, bringing it right on top of the prisoner's clenched fist. „But you're gotta have to kill us both if you don't wanna talk to me." He'd only have to release his claws and the grenade would drop as the hand holding it got stabbed, the people would activate the field in that very moment, and the blast would take them both out.

Logan wondered, what to do. For a moment he wanted to release his claws, only a little bit, but he decided not to take this any further. He took a deep breath, then another one, before saying: „What you're doing here… that's not how civilized people talk."

Xavier, this guy is good. He's strange. Would he really take us both out?

No, but he likes to takes risks. He knew you wouldn't take it further.

Xavier's judgement almost felt like an insult. He knew that he wouldn't take it further? Was he really that kind of predictable?

Jack pulled back his hand with the grenade. He even put the pin back in. „Then let's talk."