Beyond the Ordinary

Chapter 2 – The Interrogation

The walls were too white, too sterile, the kind of white that didn’t reflect light but swallowed it whole. Gordon sat at a steel table, wrists unshackled but his freedom gone all the same.

A digital clock blinked in the corner. 2:43 a.m. He had been here for hours. No lawyer. No call. No explanation.

The door clicked open. Agent Marcus Hale walked in, trench coat dripping from the storm outside, followed by a woman Gordon didn’t recognize, sharp-featured, navy suit, eyes cold enough to freeze fire.

“This is Director Evelyn Cross, Department of National Security,” Hale said, his tone clipped. “She’ll be asking the questions.”

Cross took the seat opposite Gordon. “Dr. Anderson,” she began, voice like polished glass. “You understand why you’re here?”

“I’m guessing it’s not for a medal,” he said.

“Don’t be cute.” She leaned forward. “You performed an act tonight that defies every known medical principle. The President’s daughter was dead for six minutes. No pulse. No oxygen. No cerebral activity. And yet, she’s stable, no brain damage, no trauma. Explain that.”

“I can’t.”

“Try.”

Gordon rubbed his temples. “I didn’t plan it. I didn’t even know it would work. I just… felt something.”

“Felt?” Cross’s eyebrow arched. “You’re a man of science, Doctor. Don’t insult me with mysticism.”

“Then what do you want me to say?” Gordon shot back. “That I rewired her neurons with a thought? That I bent physics? I don’t know what happened!”

The air cracked with tension. Hale shifted behind Cross, arms folded, watching, not hostile, but studying.

Cross tapped the table. “You’ve performed other unusual recoveries, haven’t you? Unreported cases. Unexplained outcomes. Records go back seven years. Patients marked as terminal… who somehow walked out alive.”

Gordon’s stomach tightened. “You’ve been digging.”

“That’s our job,” Cross replied. “You’ve been hiding something extraordinary, Doctor Anderson. And that makes you either a threat or an asset.”

He laughed bitterly. “So those are my options? Lab rat or weapon?”

Cross didn’t blink. “If the shoe fits.”

The room hummed with the fluorescent buzz of silence. Finally, Hale stepped closer, his voice lower, steadier. “Look, Gordon. Nobody’s accusing you of a crime.

But what you did tonight can’t just disappear. People saw it, the footage’s everywhere. If this gets out of control, nations will panic.

Scientists will tear themselves apart trying to duplicate it. Governments will want to own it. We’re here to protect you from that.”

Gordon met his gaze. “Protect me? You dragged me out of an ambulance bay at gunpoint.”

“Because you lit up like a damn reactor,” Hale said flatly. “Your hands, we’ve got the thermal scans. Forty-three degrees Celsius spike. No burn residue. No external energy source.”

Cross slid a folder across the table. Inside were photos, blurry, but undeniable. His hands glowing faintly blue as they pressed against Sophia’s chest. “That,” she said, “isn’t medicine. It’s something else. Where does it come from?”

He stared at the images, haunted by what he saw, not proof, but exposure. The secret he’d buried under years of denial, now printed in ink. “I don’t know,” he whispered. “All I know is that every time I use it… I lose a little more of myself.”

Cross exchanged a glance with Hale, curiosity flickering behind her composure. “What does that mean?” she asked.

“It means it’s not free,” Gordon said. “It takes something, energy, life, I don’t know. The first time it happened, I was twenty-one. My mother was dying. I touched her hand and… she lived another year. But I couldn’t walk for three days.”

For the first time, Cross looked uncertain. “You’re saying it drains you?”

He nodded. “Every miracle has a cost.”

The door burst open. A young analyst rushed in, tablet in hand, face pale. “Director, you need to see this.”

Cross stood, annoyed. “What now?”

“Footage from the sniper incident,” the analyst stammered. “We enhanced it. The shooter wasn’t aiming at the President’s daughter. He was aiming at Dr. Anderson.”

Hale straightened. “At him?”

The analyst nodded, sliding the tablet across. Grainy footage showed the chaos outside the hospital, the muzzle flash, the bullet’s trajectory, the unmistakable adjustment mid-shot, tracking Gordon’s movement.

Cross’s face hardened. “Someone wanted him silenced.”

Gordon swallowed. “Silenced? You think this is coincidence?”

Hale leaned against the table, expression grim. “No. Someone knew what you could do before tonight. And they wanted to make sure no one else saw it.”

A chill rippled down Gordon’s spine. “Who?”

Cross turned toward the door. “That’s what we’re about to find out. But you’re not leaving this facility until we do.”

Gordon pushed to his feet. “I’m not your prisoner.”

Cross met his defiance with ice. “You’re something more valuable than that, Doctor. You’re proof.”

“Of what?” he asked.

She paused at the door, her voice low. “That God isn’t the only one who can bring back the dead.”

The door slammed shut behind her, leaving Gordon and Hale in silence. For a long moment, neither spoke. Then Hale exhaled slowly, rubbing the back of his neck. “You’ve just stepped into a storm you can’t walk out of.”

Gordon looked at his hands, still faintly trembling, the ghost of that blue light hidden beneath the skin. “I never could,” he murmured. “The storm’s been following me my whole life.”

Hale watched him, conflicted. “Get some rest, Doctor. You’ll need it. Tomorrow won’t be any quieter.”

As the door locked from the outside, Gordon stared at the mirrored wall, knowing someone was watching him through the glass, studying him like an experiment.

But behind that reflection, another figure was indeed watching, unseen by either man, her silhouette barely visible in the glow of the surveillance monitors.

She smiled faintly and whispered, “Welcome back, Gordon.”

And just like that, the conspiracy opened its eyes.