Disclaimer: Terra Nova does not belong to me.
There was no warning before her isolation came to its abrupt end. There was no sound from beyond the door to let her know that someone was coming (she would decide later that this indicated a certain level of soundproofing). She was alone - then she was not. Her eyes just happened to be gazing in the direction of the door (after shifting them away from the garish population control poster one more time) when it opened.
The man who entered through the newly opened door (that closed so swiftly again behind him that not even a glimpse of what was beyond was granted to her) did not bother to acknowledge her presence. He did not even look around the small space to determine where she was. Maddy could not see what the point of that might be. It was not as though she could reasonably be expected to believe that someone just happened to stumble through her locked door looking for a conveniently empty table upon which he could place the contents of his case. If they were trying to make her feel unimportant, they were failing. What purpose could there be to putting on such a show unless there was something they wanted from her?
She waited and watched as the man pulled out a plex with a 3D projector attachment and proceeded to scroll through a series of files so quickly that she only caught a momentary glimpse of names of members of her family. He was, obviously, not actually reviewing the files (there was no possible way that he was reading the words that were dancing through the air in blurred streaks). The brief flashes of names were for her benefit - there was no purpose for the use of the projector aside from making certain that she saw. This continued for several minutes without the man giving any indication that he was, in fact, aware of her presence. She knew that the words were scrolling too quickly for her to digest them, but she found herself trying anyway (trying and failing).
When the man did speak to her (finally), it was all barked words and sharp hand gestures with an occasional slap of his palm against the table in front of him. His eyes only found hers sporadically, but a hardened glare always met her when they did. He painted her parents' "crimes" with a series of words that were probably intended to shame her (but, in truth, just left her wondering if he had memorized an entry from a thesaurus). He made derisive comments about the Shannons' collective genetics (and the importance of stamping out such pretension). He was loud, and he was unpleasant. He also never actually asked her for anything - neither information nor activity. He did not even request that she move from her place on her cot where her head rested against the unforgiving, uncushioned wall to the metal chair across the table from him.
There were pauses, at times, as if he was waiting for her to respond in some fashion (whether to argue or break down she did not know). When she did not, his rhetoric continued onward from where it had paused. Her parents were subversive terrorists; she was a traitorous enabler who was old enough to be held responsible for her failure to report them. He talked a lot, but he essentially stated variations of the same over and over again.
She had immediate suspicions about what this was - her reading of police procedurals (fictional and non) was nearly as extensive as her background in medical reading. Further, she had a father who liked to tell stories (he had, at least, been prone to telling more details than her mother appreciated back when she and Josh had been little enough that both of their parents still thought that they were too young to understand or question the implications of some of those stories). She could have rattled off a variety of methods by which compliance or information could be coaxed from someone by a detective or an interrogator, but she had only one of them at the forefront of her mind as she listened to the statements that were echoing off the walls of her cell.
She was watching the "bad cop" session that would precede the actual conversation involving what they wanted from her. She let the words wash over her without paying too much attention to them while she waited for the shift that would confirm her hypothesis. The door opened soon enough that she wondered if her lack of response was causing them to speed up their introduction of the counterpart. The woman was wearing a spotless white lab coat that looked as if it had been freshly ironed (a stark contrast to the undefined yet undeniable sense of scruffiness that clung to her original visitor).
It set Maddy's nerves on edge to see that they had sent someone in that was so blatantly intended to make her think of her mother. This would be the "good cop." She would be quieter and calmer. She would say comforting things and try to "nice" Maddy into agreeing to give them whatever it was that they wanted while the man would badger her toward the same end.
She smiled to herself (hiding it as best she could from the now two strangers across the room from her - she would get better at masking her facial expressions more quickly than she dreamed) when the opening salvo of the woman was a soft-spoken "I'm sure none of that will be necessary. Maddy is a very bright girl - she'll do the right thing."
She had been too busy thinking about how right she had been to have paid attention to whatever it was that the man had said that the woman had referenced. (It was too bad for them that whatever implied threat and counterpoint had just occurred had been completely wasted on her.)
This was definitely good cop/bad cop. That was fine. They could try out that plan and see how far they got with it. If they asked her (which she was certain that they would not), they had picked the wrong girl. There was nothing remotely disarming about it (not for a girl who knew exactly how scripted all of it must be). She kept quiet. She let them do the talking, and she sifted through the pieces of said and unsaid as best she could.
They would get around to telling her what they were after eventually. Until then, she had nothing to say.