Visiting Evils

There were two guards on either side of the twelve inches of armoured glass that partitioned the room in half. The steel door locked behind him, as he took his seat, adjusting his suit jacket, conscious of appearance as he saw the movement on the other side. This place was always so gloomy, the lights dimmed. He had a preference for bright, sterile, white, illuminated so that nothing was out of place. The prisoner's chair should have been disposable, perhaps pressed cardboard, and if it genuinely had to be secured to the floor they should have had the foresight to build sterilising flame jets in the walls. Still, he was no psychiatrist, so who was he to criticise another professional's operation?

Beyond the glass, the airlock doors slid open. A mild-looking man in an orange jumpsuit shuffled out, manacled hand and foot. An escorting guard settled him in the steel chair, connecting the manacle chain to the ring bolt. It looked like a puppet-play, no sound reaching him through the thick double-layered plexi-glass between them. The prisoner stammered a soundless thank-you to his escort as the guard settled the thick bottle-bottom glasses on his face. At his nod, the man pressed the intercom button on their side before returning to stand by the airlock doors. It was as close to privacy as this place would allow, although something in him still objected to having the guards in the same room as the subject they were guarding.

He braced himself, automatically adjusting his tie and hating himself for the tic he had not managed to get rid of, and pressed the intercom.

"So, Dad, how've you been?"

"F-F-fine," the prisoner stammered. He suppressed his irritated twitch at the sound. "And you? H-h-how's y-your job with the po-po-pol-?"

"I left the police a while ago," he said, cutting off the rest of the question. "My team were disbanded. Nearly a total loss." The guards did not react, but then in this city the total loss of a police team was a regular and recurring tragedy. Maybe he should consider relocating some assets here. "I followed up with a few private sector opportunities once the dust settled."

"G-g-g-g-g-..." The man stopped, swallowed and forced the words out. "Good. Are they treating you well?" He genuinely smiled.

"Very. I'm on the board of Directors, and I believe I'll be taking another similar role very soon. I'm making a name for myself in the field." The little man smiled in delight.

"So glad. I always knew you'd go places, son. W-W-W-hen you were little..." He tuned the story out, he'd heard it before. 'I always thought you'd follow me onto the stage - a double act' and that little godawful bow-tie. He rested a hand on the windsor knot at his throat, reassuring himself he had broken free.

"Yes. Well, I have my own life, Dad," He had mistimed it, cut into the speech right before the bit about the bow-tie. He wasn't sorry. "Wasn't that what your little friend always said - 'Ya gotta do what ya gotta do, goy.'" His impression of a Chicago accent was awful and B's were always a problem, but then the one he was impersonating had never been good at them either. His father cringed, raised hands to his head, but the manacles stopped him short. "Well, I'm living that."

"I'm p-p-proud of you."

"You don't get to be. You weren't there." It was as cold as ice, cold as the truth.

"They said y-y-y-you-" Under stress the stammer got worse. The stage was stressful; perhaps, he considered, why his father had never gone anywhere as a performer. "-were g-g-gifted. I-I-I-"

"-thought you were doing the right thing?" he suggested, and his father nodded eagerly. "Thought they could give me a better childhood?" His father nodded again, this time looking down ashamed. "Well, that is the issue," he said, and he was surprised to find that it meant nothing to him, even though it was true, "a father should be there for their child, and you weren't. Someone else always came first, didn't they?"

"I c-couldn't stop him. He'd have k-k-k-killed you." His father sounded terrified, and he sighed, working out what casual cruelty would hit hardest.

"Maybe you should have stopped acting like his hand was up your ass." The older man flinched. This had been a mistake. Visiting was always a mistake, but he kept making it. He relaxed, forced himself back to their script. "Made any new friends?" He tuned out his father's rambling as the man, almost pathetically grateful, talked about some gymnastic psychiatrist he'd met. The woman was taken, but even if she wasn't, she wouldn't see much in the sad lump before him. Mechanically he went through the standard family questions: Hobbies, food, life such as his father could experience in the country's most secure asylum. A Colditz for the Criminally Insane, he thought ironically, and smiled. It was definitely the best place for the man: safely forgotten.

A buzzer sounded harshly, cutting the thought off. His father looked up as the escort stepped forward.

"Sorry, sir, but visiting hours are over." He stood up before his father could protest, tugged his jacket straight on reflex, and picked up his trench coat from the back of the chair. Two guards waited to show him out, as his most notorious family member was taken back into safe containment.

"Goodbye Dad."

"Good bye, Albert."

Author's Note: Albert Wesker and Arnold Wesker, how could I resist?