Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight. Stephanie Myer owns Twilight.
Chapter 2: The Coats and the Suits
The room I was standing at is narrow. It has a long table on the middle, a couple of chairs and a couple of close up photos of people's faces framed, hanging on the wall. Every face has lines pointing to the mouth, eye brows and lips. What the hell are those?
"Microexpressions." Jacob answered my thoughts. "That's the field that Dr. Swan specializes. That photo over there talks about FACS, Facial Action Coding Systems. It's how we can spot when someone is trying to be deceptive. We use 7 universal emotions; disgusts, anger, sadness, happiness, surprise and contempt coupled with idiosyncratic signals and other body language to uncover people's intentions." Mr. Black walked towards the opposite side of the wall that has a huge looking mirror. He put his hand on a box and a voice came to life. It sounded like a young woman. I walked towards the mirror and saw a woman wearing a black suit with a black skirt, standing in front of the room, directing a sea of suits to something displayed on the projector. That can't be Ms. Swan! Shit! She's hot. Not like hot, "I want to bend you over that table and smack you in the ass while I fuck you senseless" hot. Who am I kidding? She is exactly that. She has this brown hair, long brown hair that cascades on her back and white pale skin, like porcelain. And those legs, fuck, those legs! They are long and muscular, maybe a runner? What kind of doctor looks this hot?
"She is pretty hot, but you probably should try to be subtle about it." Jacob looks irritated. I see we are a little protective, aren't we Mr Black?
'I don't know what you are talking about. She looks like any other woman to me." Liar!
"Liar!" Does this guy have some sort of mind reading power? He picked up a binder and proceeded to go to walk towards the door. "I'll leave you here to observe. I'll come and get you when Dr. Swan finishes her lecture." He turned to close the door but not before he gave me a chilling warning.
"And Special Agent? Don't lie to Bella. She doesn't like that." He turned around and closed the door.
What the fuck did I get myself into? Who the hell are these people? I feel like I'm on an episode of X-Files! I put my focus back to the woman standing in front me. She looks so... beautiful. I don't think I have ever used that term before about a woman. It's always been hot, smokin', fuckable but never beautiful. I turned up the volume on the voice box to listen to the coat's lecture.
"The body tends to betray the mind's intention. That's why reading microexpressions are much more reliable than lie detectors. Lie detectors tend to rely on physiological responses. When a subject takes a polygraph test, he or she is asked to answer control questions. The polygraph machines then records the subject's physiological responses to the truth and lies. However, a polygraph test won't be able to detect the subtle changes on your facial expressions such as that of the wrinkling of your nose and the raising of your upper lip suggesting a feeling of disgust. The polygraph machine only detects if someone is being dishonest but it cannot detect what they are being dishonest about. I'm sure each one and every one of you in this room can fake a lie detector test.' She winked at her audience and everyone stifled a laugh.
She's right about that. That was one of the things that I learned in the academy.
"There are certain muscles that are responsible for a particular emotion. The same muscles that contracts when you produce a fake smile are not the same muscles that contracts when you have a genuine smile. And these expression, these microexpressions are as natural as breathing. An average human lies three times every two hours! If we pay a closer attention to the subtle movements of a person's eyes or mouth, we might just get an insight to their intentions." She turned on the lights and the projected retracted back to the ceiling.
"Acquiring the skill to read microexpressions coupled with other tools can make you very good at spotting if someone is lying. This can help you become efficient on interrogations and negotiations. Give it a try at home. But please, don't do it to your wives. The last time I made a joke about that, four agents in my office came back the next day without a ring on their finger." She laughed at the memory. "I will see you all tomorrow for the last part of your training. Please don't forget to take your METT's and SETT's tonight. Keep doing it until you are atleast 85% proficient. You will need that for our exercises tomorrow. Thank you all."
All the suits got up and gave the doctor a big round of applause and I caught a glimpse of 2 cheeks flushed in pink. Damn it! I have to control myself. I am starting to feel a little uncomfortable down below and Dr. Swan will be here in a minute! Think of something else Cullen! Uhm... Football! Me tackling Isabella and pinning her down… Shit! My sister fucking… Gross! Okay that's working. Catching my Dad and Mom on the act at our summer-house when I was sixteen… Super gross! Thank God!
My eyes focused on the photos on the wall. 7 close up faces looking almost the same but different. Each photo has a word written on the bottom in bold letters; sadness, contempt, surprise, anger, disgust, happiness and fear. I would think that if I memorize how these faces looks like that I can spot it very easily. This shouldn't be that hard! I don't think you need to be a doctor to learn these things. Below those photos lies a quote written on the wall.
You see but, you do not observe.
"Sherlock Holmes." a woman's voice interrupted my inner monologue.
'Good morning Dr. Swan. My name is…."
"Special Agent Edward Cullen. Mr. Black informed me of your preferences. It's a pleasure to meet one of the best and brightest of the FBI." She walked towards me and extended her hand. I reached out to grab it and I felt the warmest feeling in the bottom of my stomach. She looked into my eyes and I feel like she could see my inner most thoughts. What the hell man! You are starting to sound like a chick!
"It's nice to meet you, Dr. Swan. I have heard some amazing things." I retracted my hand and stuffed it in my pocket. She looked at the hand that I shoved in my pocket and for a moment, she looked really deep in thought.
"I am the expert on my field. Please call me Isabella."
That's interesting. Mr. Black called her Bella but she is asking me to call her Isabella. I wonder why that is.
"I only allow people I know and trust to call me Bella. I assumed you heard Mr. Black call me by that name?"
Fuck! I can't work this kind of people. They are finishing my sentences and reading my thoughts. Who the hell said it was okay to just answer someone's thoughts loudly? This had to be the worst violation of privacy. I saw Isabella open her mouth and as if changing her mind, closed it back and turned around.
"Why won't we discuss the reason for your visit next door, at my conference room," She started to walk towards the door and I followed her. The conference room is just a couple of steps away and walking behind Ms. Swan this close is proving to be a little difficult to my cock. She has those shoes that have high heels and have red paint on the sole. She looks so fucking sexy with black and red against her skin. And that ass, man! I have not seen an ass like the one she has. Perfectly rounded and lifted on all the right ways. She opened the door and motioned me inside. She sat behind her desk and I pulled a chair and sat in front of her. This is like an episode of the naughty young student and his horny teacher that wants to get spanked. The only thing missing is bad lighting. I snapped out my daydream just in time to hear Ms. Swan's question.
"What can I help you with Special Agent Cullen?' she asked as she leaned back to her chair. I handed her the file I was holding.
"Please call me Agent Cullen. Rosalie Hale, our new District Attorney sent me here and said you might be of some assistance to my case." Please! As if her mind reading tricks will be of any use to my case! I mean, maybe, but I know guilty when I see it and Sam Uley is guilty in a stick.
'Why do you think Rose sent you to me Agent?" She closed the file after briefly glancing at it.
'She thinks you can help us get a confession out of Sam Uley."
"Is that what Rose said?" she asked, staring at my face.
"No. But she seemed to think that you can tell if he is lying or telling the truth."
"Why do you think that he will confess if I am there?"
"I don't think he will confess but it will be nice if you can help coax it out of him."
"So, you are already handing this man a guilty verdict." it wasn't a question.
Wait; what!? "I did not say he was. We think he is, based on the piles of evidence that we collected. We just want to put an "icing on the top" as Ms. Hale likes to refer to it, by having an expert on lying tell him we know he is lying."
She got up and opened the drawer of her desk and retrieved what looked like a tablet.
"What else did Ms. Hale told you about my profession?"
"Just that you are a body language expert," She should have told me you were hot and feisty. I had Mary Poppins in my vision, not Angelina Jolie.
"I am. I also studied linguistics but I specialize on microexpression. Do you know what that is?" She tapped her tablet and a projector screen appeared from the ceiling. The room also went dark, leaving the projector screen to illuminate it. She walked towards me until she stopped, standing behind me. I can feel electricity in the room. But it wasn't coming from the lightning or the projector.
"I have heard of some from the last few minutes of your lecture." Closed up photos of the same faces appeared on the projector.
"A Microexpression is a momentary involuntary facial expression that people unconsciously display when they are hiding an emotion. It is very brief, lasting only about 1/5 of a second. Dr. Ackerman, who is one of the known pioneers in this study, shows that these expressions are product of chemical reactions that occurs in your body when we hide a certain emotion. It's almost a like a knee jerk reaction. Under trained eyes, these microexpressions are easy spot. For the average human being, it is nearly impossible since we are not trained to look for them." She tapped her table a couple of times and six closed up faces appeared on the screen.
"What you are looking at are the seven microexpressions. They are universal. It doesn't matter what country or culture the person came from, these expression always remain the same." Then, pictures of different people came into view. I recognize some of them, President Obama, Bill Clinton, Secretary Powell, and Kato Kailen; all of them showing an expression.
She started walking towards the table. She stopped right in front of me and sat on top of her desk. She crossed her legs and dropped her arms. Jesus! this woman is really asking for it. "The misconception is that we use this method to tell if someone is lying. But as a matter of fact, microexpressions only tells us people's emotions, it does not tell us that the person is lying. Just because someone says "Good job!" and flashes a microexpression of contempt on their face, it doesn't mean that the subject is not telling the truth about their emotional state. It just means that there is something about that feeling that bugs them."
"Now, Agent," She leaned a little closer to me. "Would you like to hear what I think the real reason you are here?"
I gulped. She did not wait for my response.
"I think you are here because you were forced to see me. You have no interest on trusting any of my opinions and you certainly have no respect on what I do." that was a statement.
"And furthermore, it really upsets me that you are here, clearly offended by what I do but at the same time your eyes can't stop undressing me!" Oh, she sounded mad now!
This Bitch! How dare her!
"Ms. Swan I don't know who you think you are but you have no reason to think the way you think about me, let alone make me look like some kind of a horny teenager." I stood up and started to walk towards the door.
"What if I can prove that I know exactly what you are thinking?" she said.
Then a face on the projector caught my eye. It was mine!
"There is a camera in this room that records the faces of people other than mine that comes in here. I am allowed to play it back one time for training purposes. Then it gets deleted, unless I get the client to sign a waiver for me to use it for future lectures or studies. Let me show you what you are not telling me." She started to play my video.
After a couple of seconds, she stopped the video. The frame shows me sitting down.
"Here is a perfect example of a subject who does not want to be here. Legs crossed, but more importantly, toes pointing to the door. Why don't you want to be here Agent Cullen?" she stared at me. I try to come up with a good comeback but I have none. I really just want to be out of here.
She played the video again and stopped.
"I am going to play this tape to you and slow it down frame by frame." She did and I looked at myself on the projector.
"What do you see?" she asked.
"Nothing, just me talking," I was trying to remember those faces that I saw earlier on walls of the narrow, confined observation room
She tapped at her tablet and a photo of another face closed up appeared.
"This is what disgust looks like agent." She tapped her tablet again and the face changed. Now the man's nose is wrinkled, like he smelled something bad. His upper lips are slightly raised, exposing teeth.
"Now I am going to slow it down from the normal expression, to disgust." She clicked a button. The photo started to switch from normal to disgust, normal to disgust until it was so fast it just looks like a twitch.
"Now let's go back to your footage." She put my video side by side with the close up photo of the man. She slowed both video to frame by frame and there I saw it; my nose crinkling, like there was someone breaking open a hard-boiled egg in the room. I felt the blood rushed into my head. I started feeling really hot.
"Every time you spoke about my job, this expression keeps appearing on your face. You have to understand. I am like a human lie detector. The worst thing about it is that I don't know how to turn it off. So when you sit there, putting your best FBI face and lying through your teeth, it makes me angry. No, not angry, I'm down right pissed off!"
"And to top it off," she played back my video and stop it to a very uncompromising position I am pretty embarrassed to even look at directly, "you adjusted your manhood about 5 times since you entered this room; you crossed and uncrossed your legs six times and your eyes kept travelling down my legs!" She continued to angrily tap on her tablet' my eyes suddenly coming into focus on the screen. "Your eyes are fully dilated. That's a classic sign of arousal." she flashed those pink cheeks again. She might think I'm a pervert but she sure as hell liked that she made me feel aroused.
I did not know where to go from here. Ms. Swan went back to grab the file on her desk and handed it back to me.
"As much as I would like to help, I think you and I will have a difficult time working together. You seem to have very negative perception of what I do and I will not tolerate any ridicule or undermining of my job just because you think I don't deserve the title PhD attached to my name." She turned on the lights and ordered the projector to retreat back to the ceiling. "For what it's worth, I think you are in the right track. The right track but the wrong guy."
What?! "This is what I am afraid of! You take a quick look at my file, a pile of evidence that took me 28 days; 28 long days to compile and you think you know more than I do? You haven't even seen this guy yet!" I was so furious. There will not be any reasonable doubt on my case. None!
"I have, on television when your team arrested him. That man has sadness written all over his face. No serial killer can fake that emotion. They most definetly do not symphatize with their victims. They feel disgust, contempt, anger and fear but not sadness. They are never sad about committing those crimes. Your guy, Mr. Uley, does show guilt on his face but I do not believe it is same guilt that you are accusing him of. And no offense, but you are not as observant as you believe you are. Microexpressions are not something you can fake."
She started walking away and I still have anger streaming down on my vein. Then I remembered a promise I made earlier
"Bella, I will make you a deal. I will forget my entire preconceived notion about you and your "profession" if you can tell whether or not I am lying." I smiled a bit.
She seemed intrigued. That's right doggie, here's your bone. Come and get it sucker.
"Lying about what?"
"About whether or not I like you"