Chapter 5: Beyond The Glass

At the best and worst of times, Jim Chapman liked to play director in his head .

The setting: severely bright ashen wax wall paper and tone dark tile plates. They "colored" the room in whole, brandishing bold emphasis on a sickly half-moon coating, extra courtesy of the molasses thick texture. Here, in this monochrome dimension was where menaces from infiltrators to traitors were attended to. It was here, where time moved slower and never seemed more precious than any other room.

The scene: Two figures were occupied with their eyes and therefore they were still. One sat while the other stood, his stance absorbed from what lay across. The two were separated from another side, by, in order: a large gray desk, a variety of square cut console screens and lastly a massive colorless window standing as the official border between the two quarters. In the quarter across from them, there was a man sitting bound to a chair and another one, unrestrained and facing him front on.

Action!Him and David---the observers suddenly balked. It was their lead man from behind the glass---the standing one. He had recently pulled his interrogate by the arms of his chair and emotionally blunt, rammed him to the wall, back first. An arm of the chair snapped off on impact and ricocheted in a violent abstract spiral toward the window.

BANG!

So deafening and short it would send a dog to tears. He and David were frozen in place with anything but coherent thoughts running through their heads. No doubt, this was the initial cause of their stir.

Even after the echo. Just looking at the glass...as miraculously intact the screen was, the hollow noise continued to resonate from another source.

"...Wood." Was all Jim could say. He reclined into his seat, the look of shock sinking away in his eyes, one pupil at a time. He cast a hand over his sight and wiped his face continually as if to dispel the scene from memory. "Wooden chair…" He mumbled. Breathed. "...jesus…" He failed to sit still. He shifted out of his seat against the protest of his still shaking skin. With as much concentration as half a madman, he placed one hand under the counter and the other atop for balance. Tongue bit, and his shoulders joining in rythym with fear, he fumbled underneath in search of a supposed switch.

David---the standing one---watched his comrade go on with a slow intake until at last, a tiny sound toggle was flipped. Immediately, the playback from the room across--cut out with a cough of static "thud" from all audio access points; intercom included.

David glanced from the speakers to his friend.

The Silence worked like slow magic on him. Jim stretched for his neck with a strained yip of relief. He slid his headset around until the twisted speaker foams rested below his chin and on the neckline of his rising chest. The soft cushion against his pulse did little to ease him on the inside. He swallowed and looked to David for a note but the gaze was returned wordlessly. Perhaps, words were not worth mentioning now.. They could both easily agree this was one of those places no one wanted to be in. And beyond the glass....

Beyond the glass, the prisoner had his head bowed slightly and their lead man was recomposing himself while talking aloud, caressing his right fist intimately.

The retired gambler retracted into his seat again. He would never set foot in that room no matter how fat the bribe. Rather, David responded in the opposite. He leaned body front closer to the window, crouching as far as the counter allowed him to study the scene. The thin line of his lips obscurely curled in a rafting fascination. It was no less of an indication.

As if expecting it soon, Jim felt a tapping weight on his shoulder. He didn't act on it right away. The switch could wait a few seconds for him to mentally prepare.

"You may need to turn that on."

Reluctantly, he reached under the desk, hands unfortunately in control.

"Are you going to deny it?"

He could not feel the bile rushing to his teeth as his throat gagged. His body, stiffened by confinement from the ropes and suddenly, he keeled, throwing himself forward and coughing up a mouthful of bright pink saliva. It spluttered to the floor in a mild splash, leaving no puddle but instead an imprint of some kind of sickening evidence now splotched between himself and the feet of another man.

A hand clutched the rear of his neck. He didn't feel it.

"Get a defibrillator ready, we might need it. …Something must have been kicking in before.. "

But he could think some---Drugged. He thought while panting. His shoulders shook as he tried to painfully slide back into his seat—but he staggered off-center too quick. To his slow surprise, he was guided with some assistance from the other man who reached and more or less pulled him by the hair.

I'd been drugged...how long...

The other man was watching him, even as he turned back to retake his seat from the far end of the room. The distance between them would suggest that a table once stood there. It did; it lay discarded to the side in pieces of splintered wood.

The other man cleared his throat, emitting a loud intentional tremble. He looked from the broken table to Billy.

"You're still going to deny it?"

He shrugged. A stupid move. Really, he was the one who needed answers. Having been constantly on guard with moderate fuss towards the agent---little was shared. Deniable on what was a true forewarning and what wasn't, in some facetious gratitude, wonder boy did inform him on tiny tidbits. then again, what was to be expected? What else was new in the world of the fabulous government? Everything was written in invisible ink. What he should have been thinking was "it was better than nothing" as the government was probably expecting those words in a written letter of reply, should he get out of this fucked up mess.

"Well?"

He tried to think of the agent again in a redeeming value while holding down the stare. It was wrong to say he wasn't polite for trying to ease some help and it wasn't right to mock him when he really was just doing his job, but he couldn't admit to any of those things at the moment. The poor kid had clouded his mind. The poor kid...

"WELL?"

At last, Billy Coen broke the stare.

"Wonderboy…" He mused past the stare of eyes. He sounded distant. "Maybe I should have saved some resolve for a bigger threat..."

The bigger threat, the other man, was Mark Wilkins. His muscular heavy build, esteemed coal black eyes and rash growl whenever barking orders or questions, be them all purely rhetorical, was his next obstacle.

Boy did Billy miss Wonderboy.

In the past, Wilkins name was all across the navy camps. The guy was a model of the top 500 and presently he was doing all of which had been described to meet said listed standard.

--All across the camps, this guy was one of the model soldiers that every young man aimed to be, but all Billy wanted to do was sock him upside the jaw.

There were the ropes and chair though. He could hardly feel himself from the waist up. His arms were air as was his head and stomach. He was so tired from the sedatives. There was that plus the narcotics---Some wonders those did when he was drugged for nothing. Yet there was this little thought within his conscious, and it didn't pop up until just now. With so many unanswered questions and irritating people on top of him, one right after the other, it wasn't a bad feeling to be off the swing set during all the chaos.

There was another thought, and it was the humor in it now. This Mark guy sounded like he was whispering when he was probably screaming till his lungs turned purple.

For Mark Wilkins however, there was only business in his mind. He jumped from his seat, impatience at its' max, and grappled his hands onto the top sides of the prisoners' seat. Vigoruslyquick, he twisted the bound fugitive to the floor.

The impact was all but slow and little.

David lifted his eyes up from his hands. They were scorched, bruised as if run against nails when he was only punched. He had a grim looking complexion on his face as he looked through the glass ahead of him, the kind of exposed expression of one unearthing the truth of something valuable. He nodded to himself quietly and then to his comrade sitting beside what looked like an operable desk for communication. Jims' mouth was once again slightly agape at the scene beyond the glass. Clearly, the gambler had never seen an interrogation handled by Mark before.

"Ok, turn it down for good. I think we heard enough."

Jims' response was delayed. He was obviously picturing himself in the prisoners place at some point in his rebellious past. "Yeah, but has he had enough?" was the muttered reply

"Turn it down, Jim."

"Okay…down." He gave a loud long sigh. "Man, he's ruthless." Jim breathed, his shaky breath a safe distance from the mike despite being off. Beside him, David stood half listening..

"Which one?" The plumber turned captain remarked snidely subtle. His words weren't particularly weaved with humor intent but Jim nodded wryly anyway.

"Man," The native wracked a hand over his balding head. "But seriously…"He looked to David, noticed his distant glance but went on anyway. This was David most of the time.

"Seriously what?"

"I mean….If I just had the nerve and guts…I'd give that scumbag just what he needs." He shook his head and hissed angrily as he turned back to the screens. "Seriously, this is disgraceful!"

"Yes I know.."

"Those people…those poor people…and that…..there was that girl right?" He slumped in his chair. "Just... You keep thinking of what Umbrella did....and then, you forget about all the other cruel things happening in the world. It's like a slap to your face. "

""You're right."

"A real shame…" Jim whispered.

David took the time to rest his eyes at the content cluttered before them. Most of it from a glance was all technological machinery, the majority all beyond his and Jims' comprehension of machines combined. But the newspaper clippings, profiles, and records squeezed on the side of a computer monitor, they could handle.

He fingered in the small space to retrieve a stack by the paperclip. His elbow slid against the screen causing the desktop to abruptly display. A blue screen flashed twice before a long run on sentence of white letters numbers--all bracketed---appeared stark in the middle. He looked back to the papers in his possession and flipped his attention to the front page. Technically, for lack of a better word, Jim could handle the retrieving while David utilized in the research.

His eyes caught a bold headline reading CONFIDENTIAL, just above a squared photo of a young red haired female in her teens. A brief summary of attributes that matched her profile was aligned to the far right. He wasn't particularly into the accuracy of the girls' identification. What bothered him was rather…personal. Most of the writing on the front page was crossed off in blue ink. The same blue ink that was scribbled in shorthand on many areas of the page. It was Yokos' handwriting, that was part of it, and most of it was in Japanese, but there also was another issue, and it lumped in along to his rising suspicions too perfectly. Simply, he had never seen this file before.

"Jim...did you crack this..?' He held the accounted document up, flipping the pages slowly as if to make a certain stance. Jim did not notice at first. He was busy working on one of the computers. When he did, he poked a short peak at it, quickly shaking his head at glance.

"Nope. Hadn't seen that one." He turned back to one of the sound consoles. "Why, what's up in there?" He threw out.

"…Nothing much." David thumbed the photo with his eyes.

About six years ago, when Kennedy was en route back to America, underground rumors had already been flooding on the remains of a supposed dead man being discovered in the debris of a burned out building. It was a hospital, located in a rustic and secreted part of South America. The death toll claimed almost all eight hundred of its inhabitants, both patients, and workers. One of them, was a girl defined as Rebecca Chambers.

He fingered through the pages only to see more blue scribbling. Yoko was passionate in this case on the few days he had seen her. Once connections were established between the girl and Umbrella, he remembered her mind sky rocketed into speculation land, something he should have found strange sooner. She began rounding everything on the kids' history, from schools to homeland locations, something that obviously required the attention of Alyssa Ashcroft. He skimmed down to find an American written address crossed and labeled deceased. It appeared contacts were not liable…

He pushed past a few pages. More notes, but more cross outs. He continued to scan, adding on a thorough examination as the scratch became more legible to him. The letters deformed into script on the remaining pages. Fine, bold, and looped script only a snide doctor could be conformed to.

Stabilized. Submission not subject is being taken into consideration.

Transportation. still no reach on agreement. Notify inf. stat.

"What?"

Georges' handwriting? Yoko was pulling him into her work? Why him?!

"Kid? Kid, what are you doing out here!!?"

David didn't get to finish his train of thought. Something grabbed his shoulder and spun him around, shouting off the tangent of his ear

"Where the hell were you?!!"

Blond hair, angry blue eyes but no, it was not George…He stared off at Kevin Ryman instead.

Before he could work a reply, Jim set off on his own tangent. He shoved himself from his seat, throwing his headset aside as he yelled back.

"Ryman, first things first---What the HECK are you doing here?"

"…Kevin." David finally regarded.

"David?" He mocked. He waved off Jims' opening towards an explanation. He wanted to hear it from him. The one who told him he'd be out of plain sight for a time ranging from months to years.

"David---mind telling me what the fuck is going on here?" He smiled a smugly arrogant mask. He was pissed.

"Language." Jim muttered dryly.

David seemed distant as he searched for an answer.

"…Shit happens." and found himself agreeing completely to it.

"Ugh!"

Kevin scoffed, gesturing towards the glass."----Yeah I can clearly see tha--" He stopped shouting the moment he actually turned his head to where his hands were pointed. Through the glimmer of clear wall, there was Mark and a weary looking muscular man slumped against the wall. He breathed jaggedly, the profile of his right rising up against his chest, sporting an array of elongated letters in thick black ink. They spelled the words M-O-T-H-E-R-L-O-V-E

The welling anger depleted inside of him. A wave of greater confusion took on the drive in his voice.

"Holy shit! is that….?!" He sounded out of breath.

"The one and only." Jim finished through gritted teeth. Kevin stepped back…then forward. "..Where have you been?" The gambler perked up, sounding unintentionally comic.

"T-this is way too much... Just what is he doing here?!"

"Interrogation." They said. David, replying twice. Kevin paused for a moment to recuperate himself. He grasped the left side of his hip with the right.

"What? …Interrogation?" He swallowed twice this time, the second sounding like bemused laughter. "Here...?" David glanced an inquisitive look his way. Why was the rookie, the hot headed loud mouth of all people, laughing? Then again, why not. There was such a thing as smiling out of fear.

"Here?" Kevin repeated. His entire face looked twisted between hilarity and disbelief as he clutched one side of his rib with one hand and pointed roughly to the ground with his other hand. "Here... Here where the security is malfunctioning and our private army is just a bunch of half shitted rookies!"

Jim frowned before reasoning with him. "You've obviously been trapped in that training basement for too long, Kev. We got ourselves a SWAT fleet, now, there's no trouble."

"Now? Just now? As in just five minutes ago…?" He looked from Jim to David. No answer. It was Kevin's' turn to frown. The expression faded out as he sighed. "Neither of you bothered to tell me this…"

Jim stumbled shyly rubbing the back of his head. "Well ah…" He was cut off as David tossed the file he was holding into his lap and turned to Kevin, blocking his way between them.

"What's this about a security malfunction?" He more or less demanded.

"David?"

Kevin shrugged, summoning his anger. "Yoko said something about keeping a distance from the infirmary. Low lights…no electricity, no phone wires…"

David's' eyes narrowed. "Infirmary..? Is she in there?"

"Well yeah. She needed to check up on something!" Slowly his anger faltered once more. He looked aside, his voice wandering. "...Probably patients or some other smart science shit."

Jim stepped in tiredly. "Kev, there's no patients in there. It's a nurse's office in there. Not a hospital."

At this, Ryman blinked, and for once thought before speaking. He rubbed his neck. "But that's not what… ...!"

"Kevin Ryman!"

"…Shit."

Jim sighed into his hands at the brief sight of Alyssa. The blond entered with afire, one hand resting on her hip while the other pointed madly at Kevin with intoned physical action before routing out the others. He was relieved more than ever to have something between him and her unfaltering angry eyes. Unfortunately that wouldn't apply to his hearing.

"Where the hell---What are you all doing here?!"

She strutted on her toes to them, no than less than a few feet away from a literal lashing on the men, when David snatched her wrist. Kevin all but voluntarily reacted first, rising to the balls of his feet, arms close to separating the contact between the two.

"Hey! David!" He snapped

King ignored him. "We're busy". " He said while letting his grip drop. "We have no time to explain...and neither did you."

"Like I'll tell you." She retorted.

"No I'd like to hear from George himself."

"Alyssa! Everyone!" Kevins' eyes lit up in surprise at the familiar voice.

"Yoko! Thank god..!" He said while pivoting as fast as he could to grab hold of his good time friends' shoulders. But the back of her broad white lab coat was already facing him by the time he had his full body turned. The ex cop froze in motion, his eyes trailing to the far right of him. In the short time he had snapped a glimpse of her face. He did not recognize any noticeable features.

"Hey,...you're..."

Alyssa caught on quick. She darted past the stone cast David. "Wait...!" The girl in calling ducked in an almost defensive maneuver as she rammed her shoulder aside with her head. The reporter recoiled in confusion and mild disgust. "What are you doing?" she cried.

"Please, tell us what's going on here!" Jim pleaded to her fleeting form.

"Jim...! Jim!"

The gambler twisted in his seat, quick. A distant clack of heals had echoed strongly into the interrogation room. He looked to the entrance and was, immediately, very confused.

"What!?"

Kevin snapped his head up with wide eyes along with Alyssa. They both gasped soundlessly at the fair Asian woman humbled before them.

"Yoko?!" The doctor nodded breathlessly before eying for David. At once , the ex plumber sprung to life, swearing in his head when he should have expressed it.

"Tch!" He couldn't move to grab the girl now. She had already breezed past him and the others too quick, and was now marking her way to the interrogation door at bullet speed. Forget it, he thought while dashing after her. She had already flown open the door (unlocked to her advantage) and was well close in the line of approaching Mark and the prisoner.

Just somehow, he managed to get to the door in time. Just inches behind her when luck cleanly defied him and the girl leaped ahead, the stolen lab coat she wore, flaring like the contained anxiety on her face. It burst.

" Sto-op!"

END

AN: I need to stop uploading chapters that still require some extra proofreading time. By accident, I listed the chapter title for six instead of five. Go me.

Anyway, sorry for the long wait! I hope you guys enjoyed it. This story is more or less a WIP (work in progress) fic so I apologize if there are parts where things seem fuzzy. I aim to clear the fuzz in this fic!

Feedback is always appreciated.