Yesterday's Gone: Season One

knew him, they’d know he’d not break that quickly. They’d see it as the ruse it was, and he’d probably be stuck waiting even longer for someone to come.
    So he went with reality and stared straight ahead, through the mirror, at whoever stood unseen on the other side.
    “I know you’re in there,” he said with a straight face and even, if somewhat tired, tone. “You caught me. Yes, I ran when the plane went down, but I had nothing to do with the crash. Shit, I thought you guys engineered it to take me out, or hell, even extract me to use as deep cover or something. So, I’ve got to ask — what do you want from me? Just tell me and it’s yours. Want me to go along with your little story, make a public plea that I’m crazy as hell, and sure, I’d shoot more people if given a chance? Get a camera and start rolling. Whatever you want, I’ll do it, say it, cop to it, whatever. Just please, let my daughter and the other two kids go.”
    He swallowed, still staring at himself. A long time had passed since he saw beyond his appearance in the mirror and was forced to contemplate the man beneath the skin — the father who’d lost so much, if not everything. He closed his eyes to keep self-pity from taking root in his mind.  
    “Do you have kids?” he asked his invisible captors.
    “I’ve gotta tell you, they can be a real pain in the ass sometimes. My wife and I weren’t planning on having any. Well, I wasn’t. And she said she wasn’t, but who knows what goes on in the deepest parts of a woman’s mind? They’re hardwired to want kids. So even when they say they don’t, there’s still some biological part deep inside that says, ‘oh yeah you do.’ Maybe men are hardwired too; I don’t know. I didn’t think I wanted a kid, but when Jade came into our lives, I changed my mind.”
    Eyes still closed, Ed continued.
    “Funny thing about kids, you have this idea about who you are. What you want in life. What you want to do, be, and all that hubris. Your plans can be cast in concrete, and you can carry an unshakable belief that you were meant to do one thing and one thing only. But the minute your child looks at you in that way, wide-eyed and full of trust and love and all the things you feel you don’t deserve... the minute they look at you like that, you question everything. You begin to think you were meant for something better. To be someone your child can look up to. To make a difference in their world. Some people go their whole lives and never get that message, that call to be something greater than themselves. They never experience that moment. But I did.”
    He opened his eyes, looking at the mirror again.
    “And I went against it. I chose the agency over what my heart was telling me. I did what you wanted me to do. I ignored that call to be a better person, father, and husband. I kept following your instructions because you all said the world would be better, safer, blah-blah-blah. Take a look outside. Tell me, for all the shit we’ve done, all the lives we’ve taken, all we’ve sacrificed, did it make us any safer? Is the world any better off? Could we prevent whatever the hell happened?”
    Ed swallowed hard, glanced at the floor, then returned his gaze to the mirror.
    “Was this worth selling your soul?” he asked not just the men behind the mirror, but also himself.
    The lights above him flicked off, casting the room into darkness — and a terrible silence.

    **

    Ed woke with a jolt to the sound of a chair scraping across the floor.
    A man in a blue dress shirt, charcoal slacks, and thin wire-frame glassed sat in front of him. He wore short cropped brown hair above the fat cheeks of a baby face, despite otherwise appearing in his mid-thirties.
    “Hello,” the man said, his voice low, face professional.
    “Who are you?” Ed asked.
    “You first,” the man said, pulling a pack of Marlboros from his pocket and offering it to Ed. “Want one?”
    “No thank you.”
    “Don’t mind if I do?”  
    “Go ahead,” Ed said.  
    The man flicked open his lighter and lit a cigarette.  
    Ed spoke again, “You don’t know who I am?”
    “Should I?” the man asked, taking a deep drag on his cigarette.
    Ed grinned, “I’d be surprised if you didn’t.”
    “Well, prepare to be surprised,” the man said, “Because we don’t.”
    “Who’s we? ” Ed asked, the man’s smoke spiraling around him. Ed hated cigarette smoke, but didn’t give the man the pleasure of seeing