Glyph.(Part 6)

He had been called in.

 A few days had passed with absolute silence, Scorch’s broadcasts had stopped, but the people were still riled up. They were demanding to know why the truth wasn’t being let out, riots had begun in the streets and the silence continued. Isaac was growing increasingly agitated with every passing day, every phone call, every knock on the door, he was convinced that would be it, someone was going to be on the other side, and they were there specifically to deal with him. The more time that passed, the more he began to hate and fear the people of G.L.Y.P.H. He thought of the cold, calculating P and how she had almost killed him, how they had literally held a gun to his head and were ready to fire. He shivered at the memory, he had never been so close to death than he had at that moment, and he had little desire to be in that situation again, although some part of him told him it was inevitable.

Then he had received the call. P’s easily identifiable voice was on the other end, apparently there was a ‘situation that required his attention.’

This is it, he thought, they’re going to kill me, well… I’m not going to go down without a fight. He couldn’t stop his body from trembling though, the thought of death was so daunting he almost collapsed, which was when his mother appeared.

“Are you okay, Isaac?” she asked, “who was that on the phone?”

Isaac knew she was feeling concerned for him, he didn’t want to worry her any more than he had to, although he couldn’t think of a more justified reason for concern that his current situation.

“It was nobody mother, listen, I have to go out, okay?”

“What? Now? I-“

“Look, I just really need to meet some people.”

Isaac made for the door, but felt his body protest, he wanted to throw up, he wanted to cry, but he wasn’t going to let that happen.

“Isaac, wait!”

Dammit, why does she have to make this harder than it already is? He stopped with his hand on the doorknob.

“Isaac, listen, I wanted to just say- I know things have been hard since your dad left, and we’ve never really spoken about it since it happened- and- and that’s my fault, because I was afraid of what you might think of him- and me- I just want you to know, that what happened- it wasn’t because of you, it wasn’t-“

She cut off as Isaac embraced her.

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

Isaac felt this was a better ending for them than he could have hoped for, it felt like a natural resolution rather than a forced exit. He put his mother’s mind at ease, and made sure she would stay in the house before leaving and heading to the place he sincerely did not want to be.

***

He arrived at the alleyway far sooner than he anticipated, and it is was only mere seconds before the doors opened to welcome him. There was only Franklin in the doorway; he’d expected armed guards, or at least something other than the appearance of free will. He found his way through the mess of corridors somehow and arrived in the room where they’d first witnessed Scorch’s broadcast. The room was just as it was before, only now people seemed to be heavily engaged in work rather than staring at a blown up, disembodied head on the screen.

“I’m glad you could make it, Isaac,” said P.

Isaac jumped as her voice appeared from nowhere behind him. He turned around and glared at her.

“Listen, if you are going to kill me, just do it, don’t try and dress it up, just do it, please, I can’t deal with the anticipation anymore.”

She tilted her head slightly to one side and studied him curiously.

“Kill you? Why would I kill you?”

“You’re not going to kill me? But you told me once you were finished with Scorch you would deal with me, I can’t fight you people, there’s too many of you…”

P almost smirked, “you’ve proven yourself to be of value, Isaac, killing you would be foolish, besides… Scorch hasn’t been dealt with; not yet.” She looked around the room briefly, her dark eyes gazing over the situation, before muttering: “come, we need your assistance.”

Isaac hesitantly followed her down some more complex and uniform corridors until they arrived at a series of rooms that seemed to be heavily secured; the doors were large, circular and metal with no window to be seen, beside each of them was a digital pad with a series of numbers running across the screen.

“This way,” said P, they made their way around the corner and entered into another room, this one requiring a pass card to enter, inside was a man in a black uniform with extremely sunken eyes and a creased forehead. One side of the room was purely a window looking into the room with the circular, metal doors… These are cells.

In the cell sat Scorch, his eye patch was missing, and his regular clothes had been replaced with a dark grey overall, but his hair still stood on end as it always did, and his one eye was still blinded with the  ‘X’ that was his Glyph.

“I don’t understand,” muttered Isaac, “what do you need me to do?”

“He’s planning something, he wants to be here, I know he does, but I don’t why, and I don’t like it.”

“So what am I meant to do? He’s not going to talk to me!”

“You can get inside his head, Isaac.”

“No! No I can’t, every time I’ve tried I’ve only ended up being able to look for a few seconds before getting forced out, he’s too strong.”

“I don’t need you to look into his mind, not yet at least, just talk to him for now.”

Isaac felt his anger rising and overtake the fear he was feeling, he was fed up with this, he was fed up of feeling this way.

“I’m not going to do that,”

“What?”

“I don’t know who the good guys are, I know he isn’t,” Isaac pointed at Scorch, “but you definitely aren’t much better, and I’m just meant to follow you blindly? I know that you are not going to help me- I know that you’ve done terrible things- this whole organisation is built for the sole purpose of killing people! And while I know Scorch’s motives aren’t good, what he is doing, revealing the truth behind all these corrupt institutions, it’s hard to feel justified fighting against it, so how about you tell me exactly what is going on here? Tell me some truths, and maybe I’ll consider helping you!”

P’s facial expression did not change whilst Isaac spoke; she merely looked at him with cold, calculating eyes. Then she smiled, nothing significant, only a small grin, but on P’s face it seemed abnormally large.

“Fine,” she said, “If you don’t want to go and speak to him- I will- but do me a favour, stay a while and watch, you might learn a thing or two.”

P left the room and Isaac glanced briefly at the man with the sunken eyes. He didn’t turn his gaze from Scorch; he barely seemed to blink. Isaac followed suit and watched the scene in front of him.

She entered the cell and saw Scorch sit upright in his chair, his hands remained handcuffed to the table the way they were meant to be, his eye seemed to sparkle with excitement when she entered.

“The notorious P comes to see me finally… I’ve been in here for a few days now; I was expecting a visit sooner.”

“I’ve had a busy schedule; namely cleaning up your mess.” She said without a hint of tone to her voice. She sat down in the chair opposite to him, “So… Scorch, you know why you are here.”

“And I know why you are here.”

“Of course you do, so let’s skip past the niceties and get to the point, what are you planning? Tell me now, and I can make life a lot easier for you, or keep up your silence and life suddenly becomes a lot more difficult.”

Scorch began to chuckle, “You really expect me to believe I live after I tell you everything? Please, I know how this operation works, you drill all the information you can out of me, make sure there are no loose ends, if there are, you tie them up or cut them off, and then when all is done, I get a bullet in the back of the head if I’m lucky, or I get to be one of your gruesome little experiments if I’m not.”

“Fine,” muttered P, “let me rephrase; I can make death a lot easier for you- or not- your choice.”

“So, if I were to tell you that there is a remote device somewhere that will automatically restart the broadcasts if not attended to after a certain amount of time, would that be considered a loose end?”

“Yes.”

“Oh good, well it’s a good job that isn’t the case then, isn’t it?”

“I’m not here to play games, Scorch, what are you hiding?”

“The real question here is, what are you hiding… Penny?”

Isaac gasped.

“You expect me to be shocked because you know my real name?”

“Oh, I know so much more than your real name, I know about your father, the owner and founder of this organisation, the philanthropist on the surface, the mass murderer underneath, I know about your two sisters and their little mishaps, I know about your Glyph that stops me from reading you… I wonder how many people here actually know that you are one of us? It’s not on the G.L.Y.P.H. Records, so it certainly isn’t public information around here, but I doubt it’s entirely classified information.”

“That’s enough.” Stated P.

“But I’m not interested in any of that… what I want to know is what you are working on down there. I was unfortunate enough to be caught before I could get the information, but I can guess, aside from all the experiments to try and rid people of these powers… I think you are trying to find out where they come from, aren’t you?” He smiled deviously, “what is it? Have you found out yet?”

“So, that’s your angle is it?”

“No, my interest in the origins of our power is purely out of personal curiosity, but I will take a look at what you have found at some point, I guarantee it.”

“If you say so, until then however, I’m afraid I will have to leave you.”

“So soon, Penny?”

“Oh, don’t worry, I’ll be sending a friend in to see you very shortly.”

“I look forward to seeing him,” Scorch smiled once more before the heavy door swung shut with a dull ‘clunk.’

P returned to the surveillance room.

“You-“ Isaac stopped, clearly lost for words.

“Me,” stated P, “I intend to explain everything later, Isaac, but for now, we have to deal with him.”

“He knows I’m here!” Isaac’s eyes conveyed fear, but she could tell he was trying to supress it.

“Of course, are you ready to speak with him now?”