Perfectly Scarred

The Most Failure, The Flawed of Them All

I begin by looking at the photographs. The same two man is in all of them with different people. All formal business of handshakes. Alpha is in some, standing beside a man with a beard, and I don't know who any of the people in the photographs are. I see alpha and this man in a frame on the desk, and I guess it is her husband. Another picture was two man holding beers, one which I guess Alpha's husband but who's the other one? The more I study the people in the photos, the more I recognize them as being with world leaders. Important men and women whom I see in the news on the rare times I watch the news. And I do recognize one woman: Kim Dahee.

Alpha, her husband, Dahee, the same man which I saw in the same photographs, and another woman. They look like best of friends as all of them looking like they're in the middle of a big laugh, as though somebody had just said something funny. Again, I question Alpha's motivation. Have I allowed her to sweep me away from the whistleblowers, thinking she was helping me, and now a sitting duck?

Another wall reveals a series of frames qualifications and accolades for a Professor Arc. I saw a logo, which seems to be so familiar to me, I kept on remembering where I saw it when I hear a cough behind me and I turn around. Expecting to see a whistleblower, instead I find a man in a crumpled shirt and jeans standing yet another door that appeared from nowhere.

"Yes, yes, another secret door. She's got a quite little rat maze going on down here." He chuckles. "Arc", he says holding out his hand.

He wavers a little as he does this, loses his balance.

As I step closer, I can smell alcohol on his breath. He has great stubble on his face and looks through he's gone a few days sleeping in the same clothes.

"Are you Alpha's husband?" I say, recognizing him from the photographs.

He chuckles again. "No. She's my friend. Her husband is my bestfriend."

"Oh" I nodded.

"So you're the one. The One." He widens his eyes in mockership. "She's been talking about you a great deal."

He studies me and then goes around his desk and searched through the drawers. It takes him some time, enough for me to study him and the room he has come from. It looks like a kitchen, which no doubt has another door into the another room. Why would they have another home buried beneath? In the last drawer he checks, I hear the clink of bottles.

He looks at me in mock surprise. "Fancy that. Want a drink?"

"We are not allowed to drink" I say, firmly, noting the branding on his temple.

"Ah yes," He chuckles again, and then he whispers, "Don't worry, I won't tell if you don't"

"The whistleblowers are upstairs," I say astonished by his behavior.

"Oh yes, the scary whistlers" he whistles, imitating their sound, and chuckles. " I'm not afraid of them. Are you?" He pours the whiskey into a glass tumbler on a silver tray by the desk and sits down in the leather chair behind the desk. He sinks low.

"I'm afraid of what they'll do to my granddad" I admitted.

"Don't worry about your granddad. He's a pro. He's currently hiding in our morning parlor" He presses a button under the desk, and the framed photographs disappear to reveal a dozen screens of CCTV images.

"Fourth one down, third one in"

I move closer to the screens and find the room he's talking about.