The Man in the Grey Suit

PART ZERO

In the subterranean internment room the prisoner site all alone. The room is huge, with one dim bulb hanging from the ceiling in a corner, and not a single other object inside it. Two huge black doors mark the entrance and the exit. Initially, the prisoner seems to squirm away from one door. Then after a few minutes, the other. This repeats for who knows how long until he finally grows afraid of both doors and sits in the centre.

He searches his own clothing multiple times, as if afraid that the guards haven't done their job well enough. In the fifth attempt, he meets with success and produces a single thick paper card from an unspeakable place. He puts his finger at the corner as something catches his eye. "Yes," he says, his eyes widened and his head nodding repeatedly. "That...me." His face lights up again and again as he repeatedly looks at the paper, and his nodding grows even faster.

"No!" He suddenly exclaims and tossed away the card. "Not me. Not me. Me!" He adds, wildly clutching his shirt. He tugs it frantically for a few seconds but suddenly quietens again. "Not me either," he says and throws himself to the ground as one door opens. Light gushes in.

A tall man enters, wearing a white mask. The prisoner crawls away from him towards the bulb. But the man simply turns towards him and follows him at a leisurely pace. Now the prisoner is cornered. The tall man stoops down, and the milky white light from the bulb reveals the gleaning grey colour of his suit. The door slams shut.

"Hello," says the man in the grey suit.
"Good day," says the prisoner, his voice barely keeping afloat.
"I got that little device of yours," says the man in the grey suit. "So you're one of us too, eh? Not a big surprise, I was very well aware of that."

The prisoner does not reply. He simply stares at the white mask, the depths of his eyes trembling with fear and uncertainty.

"The stationmaster says he is one of us as well. He was merely offering you bait, in case you were a traitor. He showed us concrete evidence of that when we went to pay him a visit. I'm personally not convinced. You could even be right about him. But it hardly matters."

The prisoner pulls his own hair and gives himself three slaps. He tries to aim a fourth one at the other man, who promptly punches him in the face.

"You asked me what you have done to me, didn't you? Well, it just so happens that I am your neighbour. I live right next to you. You must be seeing my wife quite often, right? Very beautiful, right?"

The prisoner nods slowly. He puts his hand down his pants and doubles over in pain as that hand is dealt a firm kick by the other man's boot.

"Yes, that's what I thought. Bachelor. Pervert. Getting an eyeful every day. Living right next to us. Who else would want to break us up for lack of proof and do away with the kids? And you even got that friend of yours in the station to help, didn't you? The one you tried to sell...."

The prisoner pulls down his pants and caresses his aching organs. He receives a kick in the stomach for doing so. Then a black door opens, and three well-built guards enter. They begin to walk slowly towards the prisoner.

"I could tell you all about how I sniffed you out. It was hard work. But it won't matter," says the man in the grey suit. "Not after they send you in the car, down that tunnel. I don't know what's waiting for you beyond that. But I know that you won't be able to threaten my family anymore. You can do nothing to my children now. Do you hear?"

The guards bend over to pick up the prisoner. They drag him a few feet.. until suddenly, a superhuman strength seems to possess him. He jumps up and stands straight. "The stationmaster was right," he shouts. "The stationmaster was telling the truth. Your kind won't last. The stationmaster wasn't lying!" He opens his mouth to say more but bursts into a coughing fit. The guards quickly regain their grip over him and begin to frogmarch him away, but he keeps staring intently at the man in the grey suit.

The other man pays no more attention to the prisoner as soon as he finds something near his foot. He picks up the thick paper card, holds it before himself and stares at it blankly. Even as the prisoner begins to yell and curse, the man in the grey suit does not respond. The footfalls of the guards are drowned by the prisoner's desperate screams. The man in the grey suit still stares at the paper, standing under the dim bulb. Then the black door slams shut and all noise vanishes.

"The residential sector is the same. But the patrolling sector does not match," says the man in the grey suit. He looks around as if to ensure nobody has heard him. When he realises he is alone in the room, he sighs.

"The patrolling sector does not match," he repeats after reading the paper again. He says the same thing thrice more, and then huddles together and looks around with dread before cautiously beginning to move away along the wall of the room. "I can't find it," he says aloud. "I'm not even supposed to be here. I can get out. I must."

"My kids are still in danger," he realises aloud. "The whole operation was a waste." He begins to walk faster and more nervously. He looks at the relatively illuminated corner across the room, then shakes his head with frustration. "Of course not, the arrest was legal and well deserved," he says. "The arrest was well deserved," he says again, more slowly.

Finally, he seems to have found something. He moves his hand impatiently but deftly along the wall till he feels something smooth and cold. His practised hand soon finds itself gripping the knob tightly. But he suddenly stops dead.

"Which door is this?" He wonders aloud.

There is no way to tell the entrance of this room from the exit. The door that leads back to the building and the one that leads to whatever hell that wretched man was sent to, they both look and feel the same. "One wrong move and I could join him," says the grey suit man. "That is a fundamental truth." He looks at the bulb again and tries to make out his position. A minute later, he bangs his head against the door in frustration but is still careful to do it lightly.

"I will only go mad trying to make sense of this place," he finally declares. "All I can do is take a punt." He inhales deeply and pushes the door open, wincing as the light gushes into the room. Without making a sound, he walks into the familiar well lit underground passage and sighs after shutting the door firmly behind him.

"The arrest was legal and well deserved," he murmurs as he hurriedly strides away. "What's more, I still have a day left."

There is a reason this part is the zeroth one. It is always there, no matter which man's story it is.