Silver Saint

Eleven: The Devil You Know

//Secondary Report: Blackwell, Darius 
//Saint Corp Plaza.
//Unknown floor.
//Begin log.

They’d left me alone in a room that wasn’t meant for people.

All rooms were supposedly meant for people, at some point or another, but after hours in the same space I was having a hard time believing anyone had ever tried occupying this one for very long.

The space was completely empty, devoid of any recognizable conveniences, save for a pair of plastic folding chairs. It was, at best, a white brick box, lit and lined with mirrored glass, and at worst a solitary confinement cell of blinding white.

The chairs were white, the floor was white, even the noise was white, the overhead lights emitting a din that fell somewhere between a headache and a whisper. The walls were too smooth, the air too cold, and the only sign that any care at all was afforded to my safety was the small set of emergency LEDs mounted high on the wall near the door.

In front of me stood a one-way mirror, or maybe it was just a normal mirror—it was hard to tell anymore. I could see myself in it if I wanted to look—the reflection of a man pretending he still had control.

“What the hell did you do, you idiot?” I muttered. I leaned back in my chair, trying to smooth out my hair. “You had a good thing going, then you grew a conscience.”

My reflection stared back at me impassively.

Idiot.

The same dark red shirt I’d worn in Rome clung to my ribs, torn at the collar, spattered with someone’s blood. My own, maybe, or perhaps Knight's. I hadn’t checked. The track pants were still there too, though the guards had torn the cap off my head when they'd dragged me in. 

Every few minutes, I caught a flicker of movement in the glass. A camera adjusting focus, or maybe my imagination. I tried not to give them the satisfaction of looking.

Was there more blood on my shirt than moments ago? 

They hadn’t said a word since they'd shoved me in here. No threats, no questions, no accusations—just left me to stew under the hum of the lights and think about the choices I’d made.

“Quinn,” I seethed. “You’ll see, there will be consequences for—”

“I'm sorry, I didn't understand that. Would you like to try again?”

The interjecting voice was pleasant, unassuming and almost female, a palatable near-replica of human speech only given away by its slightly flat tone. A vocal protocol, projected from hidden speakers, and a poor one at that.

“No, you daft machine,” I spat, “I said you'll, not Uriel or any—”

“I'm sorry, I didn't understand that. Would you like to—”

“Command: stop!” I exclaimed. 

I pinched the bridge of my nose and leaned back. I'd already tried everything I could to reason with the non-being that these people had named Uriel. Vocal protocols were never particularly intelligent, at best built to follow a handful of commands to imitate intellect, but part of me wondered if they'd intentionally made this one as obtuse as possible.

This was worse than torture, honestly. Silence made its own kind of noise after a while, started to fill in the blanks. Every movement I made was magnified in my mind, misconstrued into an other—a breath from behind the mirror, the hiss of a hidden camera.

How long had I been here?

“Uriel, how long have I been here?” I attempted.

“I can start a timer for one minute,” it retorted.