Post by Dante on Jun 24, 2005 8:13:50 GMT -5
The courtroom was quite full. Dozens of 667ers had turned out to watch, for it was unusual for such a well-known member to be put on trial. They gazed down eagerly from the spectators’ box through the eye-shaped window, and watched the events below.
At the far end of the courtroom stood the high judge’s desk. The judge, dressed in robes of half-black, half-white, sat quite motionless, with black-and-white hands clasped together solemnly and eyes gazing out inquisitively from the face-mask which hid their owner’s identity. To the judge’s right were the witness box and the prosecutor’s desk, at the latter of which Dante stood, dressed in robes far more sombre than his usual attire – dark as night, with an upwards-pointing sword of flame emblazoned upon the front. Facing the judge was the spectators’ box, shaped like an eye gazing towards him, and beneath the threshold of this, the jury stand, positioned so as to conceal the identities of its occupants from a reactionary public, and fronted with tinted glass so that the accused could not identify those who decided their guilt. And on the judge’s left were the defendant’s box, shielded by reinforced glass for the protection of both its occupant and the rest of the court, and adjacent to that the advocate’s desk. At the latter, Derik stood, looking extremely uncomfortable dressed in the long white robes of an advocate, a shield woven into the front. In the box of the defendant was PJ.
PJ gazed around the courtroom. He had never taken much interest in 667’s trials before, and the layout and system were new to him. He looked interestedly at the anonymous judge, angrily at the prosecutor Dante, and resentfully at the jury who would judge his crime and the spectators who awaited the beginning of the circus – this occasion where one might watch something terrible for one’s own amusement. He also looked at his own advocate with loathing – what an irony it was, that one of his intended victims should be the one to defend him.
“Philip ‘PJ’ Jucker,” pronounced Dante from the opposite side of the room, reading from a sheet of paper, “you are accused of some four counts of murder, one count of assault with grievous bodily harm, a general count of attempted murder, a general count of conspiracy to murder, and a general count of violent disorder. How do you plead?”
PJ didn’t care anymore. He didn’t care about the court, or his trial, or justice. But he did want a soapbox. If he pleaded guilty, the trial would be instantly closed and the judge would sentence him immediately. If he did otherwise, then the trial would continue – and all sides would have a chance to tell their story. PJ wanted to tell the world exactly what was on his mind when he’d committed his crimes.
“I plead not guilty,” he declared. The spectators gasped, Derik sighed, and Dante cast a contemptuous glare in the direction of the defendant’s box.
“You plead this,” Dante added, “despite the weight of evidence which you know we have against you?”
“I do,” replied PJ, angrily. “Now let’s hurry this along. I want to talk.”
“Silence!” ordered the judge in a robotic voice – voice distortion being a feature of the face mask, that the judge might not be identified that way – and, taking up a weighty gavel, banged it once upon the desk. “This is only a preliminary hearing. We now adjourn, that the prosecution and defence might prepare their cases.”
“But, wait –” cried PJ, but he was immediately restrained by a guard who stood behind him – one of several posted throughout the courtroom, in case a brawl broke out.
“That’s quite enough trouble from you,” hissed the guard, and then PJ saw another guard advancing upon him, from the tunnels outside the courtroom, with a sharp hypodermic needle. A few moments later, PJ’s form fell limp, and the guards took him from the courtroom and into the tunnels.
---
PJ stirred. His head was heavy, and felt thick and slow. Thinking was difficult. His vision was blurred, too. He tried shaking his head. This was quite painful, so he stopped. For a few minutes, he sat in place, motionless. Then his vision began to clear, and thought came more freely. PJ looked at his surroundings.
He was in prison, or possibly a prison. Below him, above him, behind him and to his right was solid stone, but there were iron bars on his left and to his front. His cell was empty, save for a plank of wood and a ragged sheet which would serve as a bed. Looking out into the corridor that ran before his cell, his still-weary eyes stung in the bare strip lighting. Glancing right, he saw a large, bolt-studded iron door. To his left, the corridor continued to a point beyond his vision, but he could see that the left of the corridor was comprised solely of iron bars, and endless cells. Retiring to the middle of his cell, PJ looked through the bars on his left and into the adjoining cell. A youngish man who PJ didn’t know was lying on the plank-bed, breathing quietly. Occasionally he whimpered, as though having a bad dream.
“Hey,” whispered PJ, attempting to awaken the sleeping man so that he could have a conversation rather than going mad with boredom. “Hey! Wake up!”
The sleeping man murmured something inaudible in a pained voice, and rolled onto the floor.
“Wake up!” hissed PJ. “I’m bored, and I need someone to talk to.”
The sleeping man looked like he might be stirring – but then a sharp voice from his cell door distracted PJ.
“Hey, you. Jucker.”
PJ turned, and saw another armoured guard, in 667’s black and blue uniform, unlocking the door.
“You’ve got a meeting with your advocate. Let’s go.”
“Derik? I don’t want to speak to him,” replied PJ, sulkily.
“That doesn’t matter,” replied the guard. “Rules are rules. Now let’s go, and don’t make us sedate you again.”
The guard had, in another hand, a vicious looking club. PJ decided that maybe the risk of a headache wasn’t worth it, and allowed the guard to hand-cuff him and escort him through the high-security door next to his cell.
The door led into another stone corridor lit by bare strip lighting. The guard pushed PJ along a number of corridors, around corners, past other rows of cells full of sleeping prisoners, and eventually, into a small-ish lobby area. Several guards were manning a large gate marked “Exit,” and a small door on the left of the room had a sign reading “Visiting Room,” but PJ was pushed through a door on the right marked “Advocate Meetings.”
This room was fairly large, and preventing PJ from reaching the far side of the room was a large pane of reinforced glass, edged with metal fixings. A desk and a chair stood in the middle of the room, facing and touching the glass. The scene on the other side of the glass was a mirror image, with desk, chair, guarded door, and most importantly of all, Derik.
“Sit down, PJ,” said Derik, gesturing towards the chair on PJ’s side of the glass. Scowling, PJ sat, and glared at Derik.
“Well, I’ve got the official position of advocate of the accused, PJ,” Derik explained, with a sigh, “so, as you know, I’ll be defending you. You’ve chosen to plead not guilty – insanity, frankly, as there’s no way you can get off these charges. However, we might be able to reduce your sentence from death to mere life imprisonment. Do you have a plan?”
“A plan?” PJ asked, confused as he had not been paying attention.
“Yes, PJ, a plan,” said Derik, frustrated. “You chose to plead not guilty, so surely you had some sort of plan for your defence. You tell me what it is, I’ll iron out the flaws, we’ll put it before the court and if you’re lucky, you won’t die. Now – your plan?”
“I don’t have a plan,” snarled PJ.
“You don’t?” Derik asked, looking almost as though he’d been slapped in the face. “But – then why did you plead not guilty?”
“So I can tell the world why I did what I did, and not hear the lies that I’m sure have been spreading,” growled PJ. “Now get out of my sight, Derik – I don’t want to see you anymore.”
“So that’s it, is it?” asked Derik. “Your plan is merely to waste the court’s time? To fight against the inevitable?”
“I’ll fight against anything unjust to me,” replied PJ. “Now go, get out! I’ll go back to my cell, where I don’t have to look at your face.”
Derik stood up, looking affronted. He straightened his robes, and then cast a dour eye on PJ, before striding out. PJ was then pulled to his feet by the guard, and escorted back to his cell.
---
Dante was sitting at the head of a long table in a wood-panelled manor room. He had a sheaf of papers with him, and was flicking through them, occasionally scribbling notes in the margins, or crossing out sections. He looked up as a door opened at the far end of the room, and Derik walked in.
“So, what did PJ say?” asked Dante.
“It’s as you thought,” sighed Derik. “He doesn’t care about the court – it’s clear that he just wants to rant and rail and waste all our time.”
Dante nodded, and glanced at the sheet of paper in front of him. He crossed out a few words, and then scribbled something at the bottom of the page, before looking up again.
“Funny, really,” he chuckled, “that one of us should be prosecution and the other defence, when PJ tried to kill us both. The entire court is a victim of his.”
“Which is why his guilt could never be in doubt,” replied Derik.
“We can’t have him fighting against us,” said Dante. “That’s not what this court is about. We must break his will.”
Derik nodded, and then turned and left. Dante flicked through a few more pages on the table, and then collated them and put them in a folder marked “PJ.” Then, he rose from his seat, through another door and into a tall, wide room filled with filing cabinets. He walked past a few aisles, before turning up another and coming to a section signposted “P.” There, Dante deposited the file in a certain drawer, before turning and leaving through the same door he had come in by. As he shut the door, Dante noticed that the plaque had come off the door. Somebody would have to come and fix it. After making a mental note not to hire cheap decorators in future, Dante shined the plaque with his sleeve, making the words “Prosecution Records,” glow brightly in the dim light.
---
PJ, upon being returned to his cell, noticed that the sleeping man was not present. He asked his guard where this individual was.
“He’ll be at his own hearing,” replied the guard. “You’re not the only one on trial here, you know.”
The guard left, locking PJ’s cell door. PJ sat and pondered this insight for a while – of course everyone here would be awaiting trial, save for those serving prison sentences, of course, but he thought that they’d be held elsewhere. PJ yawned. The only things he’d done all day were attend his hearing and meet Derik, but they’d left him tired. Lying down on his unpleasant bed, PJ gazed at the ceiling for a few minutes, before falling asleep.
---
PJ was wandering through the darkened corridors of 667 Dark Avenue. Night was upon the establishment, and most members were asleep – precisely the reason PJ was now awake. He was gripping a book in his left hand. He looked at the cover. It was a battered copy of The 667 Murder Mystery, by Akbar Quagmire. PJ had read it many times, and it was crammed full of bookmarks marking relevant pages.
PJ stopped half-way down a corridor in the dormitories, and looked at the name on a door. It was the same one that appeared on the front of his book. PJ tried the door, and found it to be locked. He’d planned for this. He withdrew a small plastic object from one of his pockets, and activating it with a button, the oval shape atop it glowed with an eerie blue light. PJ put his lightsaber spoon to the lock on the door, and the latter, after a few seconds, melted, leaving the door unlocked. PJ opened the door, and advanced on the bed in the corner of the room, holding tightly onto the book and Dave, the spoon.
Akbar was going to eat his words.
---
A loud clanging noise roused PJ from his slumber. The man who PJ had seen earlier had just been pushed into his cell and the door slammed. The man glanced about his cell, looking miserable, but upon spying PJ, he moved towards the bars separating their cells.
“Hey,” whispered the man. “Hey! Wake up!”
PJ yawned, and sat up. He glanced at the man with a tired expression on his face.
“I said exactly the same thing to you earlier,” PJ muttered, “but you didn’t listen.”
“I’m sorry,” said the man. “I sleep rather soundly. I hope you aren’t angry.”
“Not really,” PJ said. “You’ve done nothing against me. The guard told me you were at a hearing?”
The man nodded.
“My fifth,” he said. “I’ve been here a few months now, but I think my case is reaching the closing stages.”
“That’s a long time,” PJ exclaimed. “My case is just beginning – do you know how long it will take?”
“It’s always different,” mused the man. “The girl who was in that cell before you was only here a few days, but I’ve heard rumours of a man farther down who’s been here for years now.”
“That seems stupid,” said PJ. “Shouldn’t they have some kind of set time? In all other aspects, they seem to like keeping things orderly.”
“I think they deal with the more interesting cases quicker,” said the man. “Nobody wants to deal with boring cases. Speaking of interesting cases, I hear that they’ve got an actual murderer in here at the moment! I wonder where he is…”
“He might be closer than you think,” joked PJ, unsubtly. The man didn’t catch his joke.
“Yes, I suppose you never know what a murderer will look like,” he said. “Why, it could be some muscle-bound, tattooed bulk, or it could be some circus member like yourself.”
“Circus member?” asked PJ, incredulous.
“Why yes,” said the man. “You are a circus member, aren’t you? I assumed you were from your clown-ish hairstyle, your comical, gangly figure, and your hilarious striped clothes.”
“They confiscated all my possessions!” shouted PJ, insulted. “They fished these up out of a box of spares!”
“Oh,” said the man. “Sorry.”
He looked at his feet for a minute, shuffling them embarrassedly.
“What’s your name?” asked PJ, suddenly curious.
“It’s Bill,” said Bill. “Bill McGill. And you?”
PJ opened his mouth to answer, but at that moment, a guard appeared at his door.
“Another hearing already?” asked PJ, with a sigh.
“What do you mean, already?” asked the guard. “You’ve been asleep for some fourteen hours; I was watching on the security tapes. Now get up; it’s time for your case go begin.”
Sighing, PJ allowed himself to be handcuffed, and led away.
---
“PJ!” cried Dante, who was striding about the middle of the courtroom. “I put it to you, and to the court, that one week ago, you did murder Akbar Quagmire by means of suffocation – the means of suffocation being that you choked him with pages from his own book, those pages being ones which described yourself. What is your answer to this charge?”
PJ considered this for a moment. He could almost feel the gaze of the spectators upon him – and that of Dante, Derik, the judge, jury and guards.
“I did it,” he announced.
“I see,” replied Dante. “And why did you murder somebody who was your good friend, in such a vile and unnatural manner?”
“Because he lied about me!” shouted PJ. “Just like you all lied! You mocked – you made fun of me!”
“And that is a good reason for murder?” asked Dante.
“Yes!” cried PJ, to gasps of astonishment from the spectators, who turned to each other and began to whisper excitedly.
“PJ!” hissed Derik. “Shut up and let me handle this.”
“Why did you murder Akbar in such a manner, PJ?” asked Dante.
“I will answer this question for the defendant,” said Derik. “He was in a fit of madness, and knew not what he did. He is not to be vilified – no, he is to be pitied.”
This too was greeted by gasps of shock from the spectators, who looked at Derik with scandalised expressions.
“I remind the spectators, and too the jury,” said the judge, in a monotone voice, “that the advocate chooses not the defendant, nor the defendant the advocate. Derik Teendude is merely performing his job, and his unbiased manner is a fine example of how anyone should carry out their job.”
The spectators’ expressions softened, although a few looked unconvinced.
“Is this, then, the defence of PJ?” asked Dante. “Not guilty, on grounds of insanity?”
“No it’s not!” shouted PJ. “I’m as sane as you all are! Saner than most! Saner than Dante or Derik or any of you other fiction writers, with your slander and –”
“Order!” cried the judge, the voice-distorter making his or her voice rise to a shrieking tone, and banged the gavel repeatedly. “PJ, restrain yourself!”
“Your honour,” said Dante, “I would like to call an individual to the witness box, to speak of PJ’s next foul deed.”
“Objection!” cried Derik. “Whether or not PJ’s crimes were ‘foul’ is a matter of opinion.”
“But that itself is a matter of opinion,” retorted Dante. “There are many who are quite convinced that PJ’s deeds fit the dictionary definition of ‘foul’ and thus can be legitimately described as such.”
“But those are just the views of those individuals, and a view is the same as an opinion,” answered Derik.
“Order!” shouted the judge. “Dante, call your witness.”
“Your honour,” cried Dante, “I call Minocher F.E.D. Ennui.”
PJ gulped, and started to sweat profusely. He had hoped not to face Ennui – another meeting between the two of them, after what had occurred when last they met, would be very uncomfortable indeed.
A door opened behind the witness box, and Ennui limped in. His right leg made an unnatural clunk-ing sound as it hit the floor, and some spectators, craning their heads, caught a glimpse of his wooden leg. Ennui also sported a gruesome gash across his face, cutting from the forehead, through the eye and down to the jaw-line. His left arm was in a sling. Ennui glared at PJ as he took the witness box, and PJ saw unbridled, boundless fury and hurt in his one good eye.
“Ennui,” said Dante, “please tell us about the events of three nights ago.”
Ennui grimaced, and then began to tell his story in a voice both weary and filled with restrained rage.
“Amber and I had just been to Akbar’s funeral,” he said. “Along the way back to our rooms, Amber invited me to take a drink with her before we parted ways that evening. Little did I know that there was a venomous snake lurking in her room.”
“Now that’s a lie!” cried out PJ. “I mean, objection! I put no snake in Amber’s room.”
“The snake was metaphorical!” screamed Ennui, spittle flying from his lips and hair flopping in his face. Such was the force of this shout that the spectators recoiled in their seats. After a moment, Ennui pushed his hair back over his head and continued, in a voice flat and empty of emotion.
“We reached her room, and Amber was surprised to find it unlocked. We didn’t notice that the lock itself had been melted away – we didn’t think to look; Amber merely thought she’d forgotten to lock it. But when she pushed open her door, a foul spectre flew at us, babbling Hellish curses.”
“Objection!” cried PJ, and Derik put his head in his hands.
“Over-ruled!” said the exasperated judge, and slammed down the gavel.
“That snake, that spectre, that abomination was PJ,” Ennui continued, now seeming to struggle to get his words out. “He was clutching that ridiculous spoon of his, and he slashed it at Amber and – and he -”
“You can leave that part up to the jury’s imagination, if you so wish,” Dante said, in an attempt at a kind voice. Derik considered objecting to this, but thought it rather tactful not to.
“Amber collapsed into my arms,” Ennui said, shuddering with sadness and rage, “and before I could react, PJ was upon me too, gouging his spoon into my face. I fought him, but he had the strength of a madman, and I was unarmed. He delivered many almost-fatal blows, but I managed to dislocate his arm and shatter his spoon into dust. Our cries roused the other 667ers, who rushed to our aid. At that point, when PJ rose to flee, I blacked out from blood loss, but I understand that next he –”
“We do not permit second-hand evidence,” interrupted Derik. “This is a court, not the rumour mill.”
“Very well…” Dante said. “Does the defence have any questions for Ennui?”
“One,” said Derik. “Ennui – would you class PJ’s actions that night as those of a sane man?”
“I would not,” began Ennui “but – let me finish! – if he was mad then, he still is, for I’ve watched him in that box, from here and from the spectators’ box, and he seems to me the same individual. Let me add also that his character does not seem so far removed from what he was before – a lack of inhibitions now, perhaps, but I see this as merely a revelation of his true character, and not the an affliction of madness.”
“I have no more questions,” Derik announced, and Dante nodded in agreement. Ennui, after a moment, turned and left the courtroom, but kept his head turned, and his bitter eyes on PJ.
---
As the guard escorted PJ back to his cell, they met another guard going in the opposite direction.
“Are you taking him back to his cell?” the second guard asked, pointing at PJ. When the first guard nodded, the second replied, “You can’t. It’s being cleaned at the moment.”
“You clean the cells?” asked PJ, amazed at this illumination into the hygiene of the prison.
“A poisonous cockroach got into that cell block,” the second guard informed him. “We need to spray the whole place down. We don’t like prisoners to die before their trial.”
“Where shall I put him?” asked the first guard.
“Cell block D-Beta,” replied the second guard. The first nodded, and jostled PJ back the way they’d come.
A few twists and turns of the corridors later, they arrived in a cleaner-looking cell block. The walls had been painted a soothing blue, the lights were shaded, and a glass security office stood at one end. PJ was locked into a cell nearby.
“A thorough cleaning usually takes a good few hours,” the guard said. “You’ll probably end up having lunch before we move you.”
Then the guard strode away. PJ glanced up and down the corridor through the bars. Other than the paint and shades, it looked exactly the same as the cell block he’d been in before. The cells next to him were empty. He glanced towards the security office, which wasn’t too far away, and realised that he could see right in, and hear the guards inside fairly clearly.
“Boring day, Pete?” one asked another.
“Yup,” Pete the guard replied. “Stuff don’t happen much on this block. No brawls, no escape attempts… It’s pretty boring.”
“I’m putting a trial up on the overhead TV,” another called, fiddling with a dial.
“Good idea,” replied Pete. “We need some entertainment to lighten the place up.”
A TV sat on a shelf jutting out of the wall above them sprang into life. Grainy colour footage of a courtroom scene appeared. PJ squinted, but couldn’t make out much through the poor-quality footage. The sound was better, though, so he listened to that.
“…if that is the case, then how do you explain,” a voice said, and PJ recognised it as that of Dante, “the following post, made by yourself, on the 23rd of June, at one minute past eight: ‘thats tru u think ur prety smart then’?”
“I, I, that’s not fair!” another familiar voice squealed. “I was tired, and everybody understood what I meant…”
“Is it really too much effort,” thundered Dante’s voice, “to type properly? Is it really?”
“I know I should have,” the other voice whimpered, as PJ tried to place it. “But, you know, I thought that since everyone else did it…”
“Everyone else did not do it!” Dante roared. “A despicable minority do it. And you know what happens to them…”
“Objection!” cried out Derik’s voice, as PJ wondered precisely what the defendant was in court for. “A single post is not sufficient evidence for prosecution.”
“Oh, but I have dozens of examples!” Dante shouted. “More than half of Mr. McGill’s post count of some 600 or so posts! I have the records all here!”
McGill… PJ recognised the name. It was the young man in the cell next to him, Bill. But was this his crime? Making a few n00bish posts?
Derik started saying something, but then the screen of the TV flickered and changed. The title, Doctor Who, came up on screen, and PJ realised that they had changed the channel.
“Hey, guys! Turns out you can get regular TV on this!” a guard shouted.
“What episode is it?” asked another.
His question was answered when the words “Candle of the Burning Fox” appeared, to some groans.
“Aw, I’ve seen this one a hundred times, and it was boring then!” somebody complained. “Let’s watch something else!”
“Quiet!” yelled the guard Pete. “I love this one.”
So did PJ. He was happy to sink into a stupor and watch the show, rather than think about what he had heard…
At the far end of the courtroom stood the high judge’s desk. The judge, dressed in robes of half-black, half-white, sat quite motionless, with black-and-white hands clasped together solemnly and eyes gazing out inquisitively from the face-mask which hid their owner’s identity. To the judge’s right were the witness box and the prosecutor’s desk, at the latter of which Dante stood, dressed in robes far more sombre than his usual attire – dark as night, with an upwards-pointing sword of flame emblazoned upon the front. Facing the judge was the spectators’ box, shaped like an eye gazing towards him, and beneath the threshold of this, the jury stand, positioned so as to conceal the identities of its occupants from a reactionary public, and fronted with tinted glass so that the accused could not identify those who decided their guilt. And on the judge’s left were the defendant’s box, shielded by reinforced glass for the protection of both its occupant and the rest of the court, and adjacent to that the advocate’s desk. At the latter, Derik stood, looking extremely uncomfortable dressed in the long white robes of an advocate, a shield woven into the front. In the box of the defendant was PJ.
PJ gazed around the courtroom. He had never taken much interest in 667’s trials before, and the layout and system were new to him. He looked interestedly at the anonymous judge, angrily at the prosecutor Dante, and resentfully at the jury who would judge his crime and the spectators who awaited the beginning of the circus – this occasion where one might watch something terrible for one’s own amusement. He also looked at his own advocate with loathing – what an irony it was, that one of his intended victims should be the one to defend him.
“Philip ‘PJ’ Jucker,” pronounced Dante from the opposite side of the room, reading from a sheet of paper, “you are accused of some four counts of murder, one count of assault with grievous bodily harm, a general count of attempted murder, a general count of conspiracy to murder, and a general count of violent disorder. How do you plead?”
PJ didn’t care anymore. He didn’t care about the court, or his trial, or justice. But he did want a soapbox. If he pleaded guilty, the trial would be instantly closed and the judge would sentence him immediately. If he did otherwise, then the trial would continue – and all sides would have a chance to tell their story. PJ wanted to tell the world exactly what was on his mind when he’d committed his crimes.
“I plead not guilty,” he declared. The spectators gasped, Derik sighed, and Dante cast a contemptuous glare in the direction of the defendant’s box.
“You plead this,” Dante added, “despite the weight of evidence which you know we have against you?”
“I do,” replied PJ, angrily. “Now let’s hurry this along. I want to talk.”
“Silence!” ordered the judge in a robotic voice – voice distortion being a feature of the face mask, that the judge might not be identified that way – and, taking up a weighty gavel, banged it once upon the desk. “This is only a preliminary hearing. We now adjourn, that the prosecution and defence might prepare their cases.”
“But, wait –” cried PJ, but he was immediately restrained by a guard who stood behind him – one of several posted throughout the courtroom, in case a brawl broke out.
“That’s quite enough trouble from you,” hissed the guard, and then PJ saw another guard advancing upon him, from the tunnels outside the courtroom, with a sharp hypodermic needle. A few moments later, PJ’s form fell limp, and the guards took him from the courtroom and into the tunnels.
---
PJ stirred. His head was heavy, and felt thick and slow. Thinking was difficult. His vision was blurred, too. He tried shaking his head. This was quite painful, so he stopped. For a few minutes, he sat in place, motionless. Then his vision began to clear, and thought came more freely. PJ looked at his surroundings.
He was in prison, or possibly a prison. Below him, above him, behind him and to his right was solid stone, but there were iron bars on his left and to his front. His cell was empty, save for a plank of wood and a ragged sheet which would serve as a bed. Looking out into the corridor that ran before his cell, his still-weary eyes stung in the bare strip lighting. Glancing right, he saw a large, bolt-studded iron door. To his left, the corridor continued to a point beyond his vision, but he could see that the left of the corridor was comprised solely of iron bars, and endless cells. Retiring to the middle of his cell, PJ looked through the bars on his left and into the adjoining cell. A youngish man who PJ didn’t know was lying on the plank-bed, breathing quietly. Occasionally he whimpered, as though having a bad dream.
“Hey,” whispered PJ, attempting to awaken the sleeping man so that he could have a conversation rather than going mad with boredom. “Hey! Wake up!”
The sleeping man murmured something inaudible in a pained voice, and rolled onto the floor.
“Wake up!” hissed PJ. “I’m bored, and I need someone to talk to.”
The sleeping man looked like he might be stirring – but then a sharp voice from his cell door distracted PJ.
“Hey, you. Jucker.”
PJ turned, and saw another armoured guard, in 667’s black and blue uniform, unlocking the door.
“You’ve got a meeting with your advocate. Let’s go.”
“Derik? I don’t want to speak to him,” replied PJ, sulkily.
“That doesn’t matter,” replied the guard. “Rules are rules. Now let’s go, and don’t make us sedate you again.”
The guard had, in another hand, a vicious looking club. PJ decided that maybe the risk of a headache wasn’t worth it, and allowed the guard to hand-cuff him and escort him through the high-security door next to his cell.
The door led into another stone corridor lit by bare strip lighting. The guard pushed PJ along a number of corridors, around corners, past other rows of cells full of sleeping prisoners, and eventually, into a small-ish lobby area. Several guards were manning a large gate marked “Exit,” and a small door on the left of the room had a sign reading “Visiting Room,” but PJ was pushed through a door on the right marked “Advocate Meetings.”
This room was fairly large, and preventing PJ from reaching the far side of the room was a large pane of reinforced glass, edged with metal fixings. A desk and a chair stood in the middle of the room, facing and touching the glass. The scene on the other side of the glass was a mirror image, with desk, chair, guarded door, and most importantly of all, Derik.
“Sit down, PJ,” said Derik, gesturing towards the chair on PJ’s side of the glass. Scowling, PJ sat, and glared at Derik.
“Well, I’ve got the official position of advocate of the accused, PJ,” Derik explained, with a sigh, “so, as you know, I’ll be defending you. You’ve chosen to plead not guilty – insanity, frankly, as there’s no way you can get off these charges. However, we might be able to reduce your sentence from death to mere life imprisonment. Do you have a plan?”
“A plan?” PJ asked, confused as he had not been paying attention.
“Yes, PJ, a plan,” said Derik, frustrated. “You chose to plead not guilty, so surely you had some sort of plan for your defence. You tell me what it is, I’ll iron out the flaws, we’ll put it before the court and if you’re lucky, you won’t die. Now – your plan?”
“I don’t have a plan,” snarled PJ.
“You don’t?” Derik asked, looking almost as though he’d been slapped in the face. “But – then why did you plead not guilty?”
“So I can tell the world why I did what I did, and not hear the lies that I’m sure have been spreading,” growled PJ. “Now get out of my sight, Derik – I don’t want to see you anymore.”
“So that’s it, is it?” asked Derik. “Your plan is merely to waste the court’s time? To fight against the inevitable?”
“I’ll fight against anything unjust to me,” replied PJ. “Now go, get out! I’ll go back to my cell, where I don’t have to look at your face.”
Derik stood up, looking affronted. He straightened his robes, and then cast a dour eye on PJ, before striding out. PJ was then pulled to his feet by the guard, and escorted back to his cell.
---
Dante was sitting at the head of a long table in a wood-panelled manor room. He had a sheaf of papers with him, and was flicking through them, occasionally scribbling notes in the margins, or crossing out sections. He looked up as a door opened at the far end of the room, and Derik walked in.
“So, what did PJ say?” asked Dante.
“It’s as you thought,” sighed Derik. “He doesn’t care about the court – it’s clear that he just wants to rant and rail and waste all our time.”
Dante nodded, and glanced at the sheet of paper in front of him. He crossed out a few words, and then scribbled something at the bottom of the page, before looking up again.
“Funny, really,” he chuckled, “that one of us should be prosecution and the other defence, when PJ tried to kill us both. The entire court is a victim of his.”
“Which is why his guilt could never be in doubt,” replied Derik.
“We can’t have him fighting against us,” said Dante. “That’s not what this court is about. We must break his will.”
Derik nodded, and then turned and left. Dante flicked through a few more pages on the table, and then collated them and put them in a folder marked “PJ.” Then, he rose from his seat, through another door and into a tall, wide room filled with filing cabinets. He walked past a few aisles, before turning up another and coming to a section signposted “P.” There, Dante deposited the file in a certain drawer, before turning and leaving through the same door he had come in by. As he shut the door, Dante noticed that the plaque had come off the door. Somebody would have to come and fix it. After making a mental note not to hire cheap decorators in future, Dante shined the plaque with his sleeve, making the words “Prosecution Records,” glow brightly in the dim light.
---
PJ, upon being returned to his cell, noticed that the sleeping man was not present. He asked his guard where this individual was.
“He’ll be at his own hearing,” replied the guard. “You’re not the only one on trial here, you know.”
The guard left, locking PJ’s cell door. PJ sat and pondered this insight for a while – of course everyone here would be awaiting trial, save for those serving prison sentences, of course, but he thought that they’d be held elsewhere. PJ yawned. The only things he’d done all day were attend his hearing and meet Derik, but they’d left him tired. Lying down on his unpleasant bed, PJ gazed at the ceiling for a few minutes, before falling asleep.
---
PJ was wandering through the darkened corridors of 667 Dark Avenue. Night was upon the establishment, and most members were asleep – precisely the reason PJ was now awake. He was gripping a book in his left hand. He looked at the cover. It was a battered copy of The 667 Murder Mystery, by Akbar Quagmire. PJ had read it many times, and it was crammed full of bookmarks marking relevant pages.
PJ stopped half-way down a corridor in the dormitories, and looked at the name on a door. It was the same one that appeared on the front of his book. PJ tried the door, and found it to be locked. He’d planned for this. He withdrew a small plastic object from one of his pockets, and activating it with a button, the oval shape atop it glowed with an eerie blue light. PJ put his lightsaber spoon to the lock on the door, and the latter, after a few seconds, melted, leaving the door unlocked. PJ opened the door, and advanced on the bed in the corner of the room, holding tightly onto the book and Dave, the spoon.
Akbar was going to eat his words.
---
A loud clanging noise roused PJ from his slumber. The man who PJ had seen earlier had just been pushed into his cell and the door slammed. The man glanced about his cell, looking miserable, but upon spying PJ, he moved towards the bars separating their cells.
“Hey,” whispered the man. “Hey! Wake up!”
PJ yawned, and sat up. He glanced at the man with a tired expression on his face.
“I said exactly the same thing to you earlier,” PJ muttered, “but you didn’t listen.”
“I’m sorry,” said the man. “I sleep rather soundly. I hope you aren’t angry.”
“Not really,” PJ said. “You’ve done nothing against me. The guard told me you were at a hearing?”
The man nodded.
“My fifth,” he said. “I’ve been here a few months now, but I think my case is reaching the closing stages.”
“That’s a long time,” PJ exclaimed. “My case is just beginning – do you know how long it will take?”
“It’s always different,” mused the man. “The girl who was in that cell before you was only here a few days, but I’ve heard rumours of a man farther down who’s been here for years now.”
“That seems stupid,” said PJ. “Shouldn’t they have some kind of set time? In all other aspects, they seem to like keeping things orderly.”
“I think they deal with the more interesting cases quicker,” said the man. “Nobody wants to deal with boring cases. Speaking of interesting cases, I hear that they’ve got an actual murderer in here at the moment! I wonder where he is…”
“He might be closer than you think,” joked PJ, unsubtly. The man didn’t catch his joke.
“Yes, I suppose you never know what a murderer will look like,” he said. “Why, it could be some muscle-bound, tattooed bulk, or it could be some circus member like yourself.”
“Circus member?” asked PJ, incredulous.
“Why yes,” said the man. “You are a circus member, aren’t you? I assumed you were from your clown-ish hairstyle, your comical, gangly figure, and your hilarious striped clothes.”
“They confiscated all my possessions!” shouted PJ, insulted. “They fished these up out of a box of spares!”
“Oh,” said the man. “Sorry.”
He looked at his feet for a minute, shuffling them embarrassedly.
“What’s your name?” asked PJ, suddenly curious.
“It’s Bill,” said Bill. “Bill McGill. And you?”
PJ opened his mouth to answer, but at that moment, a guard appeared at his door.
“Another hearing already?” asked PJ, with a sigh.
“What do you mean, already?” asked the guard. “You’ve been asleep for some fourteen hours; I was watching on the security tapes. Now get up; it’s time for your case go begin.”
Sighing, PJ allowed himself to be handcuffed, and led away.
---
“PJ!” cried Dante, who was striding about the middle of the courtroom. “I put it to you, and to the court, that one week ago, you did murder Akbar Quagmire by means of suffocation – the means of suffocation being that you choked him with pages from his own book, those pages being ones which described yourself. What is your answer to this charge?”
PJ considered this for a moment. He could almost feel the gaze of the spectators upon him – and that of Dante, Derik, the judge, jury and guards.
“I did it,” he announced.
“I see,” replied Dante. “And why did you murder somebody who was your good friend, in such a vile and unnatural manner?”
“Because he lied about me!” shouted PJ. “Just like you all lied! You mocked – you made fun of me!”
“And that is a good reason for murder?” asked Dante.
“Yes!” cried PJ, to gasps of astonishment from the spectators, who turned to each other and began to whisper excitedly.
“PJ!” hissed Derik. “Shut up and let me handle this.”
“Why did you murder Akbar in such a manner, PJ?” asked Dante.
“I will answer this question for the defendant,” said Derik. “He was in a fit of madness, and knew not what he did. He is not to be vilified – no, he is to be pitied.”
This too was greeted by gasps of shock from the spectators, who looked at Derik with scandalised expressions.
“I remind the spectators, and too the jury,” said the judge, in a monotone voice, “that the advocate chooses not the defendant, nor the defendant the advocate. Derik Teendude is merely performing his job, and his unbiased manner is a fine example of how anyone should carry out their job.”
The spectators’ expressions softened, although a few looked unconvinced.
“Is this, then, the defence of PJ?” asked Dante. “Not guilty, on grounds of insanity?”
“No it’s not!” shouted PJ. “I’m as sane as you all are! Saner than most! Saner than Dante or Derik or any of you other fiction writers, with your slander and –”
“Order!” cried the judge, the voice-distorter making his or her voice rise to a shrieking tone, and banged the gavel repeatedly. “PJ, restrain yourself!”
“Your honour,” said Dante, “I would like to call an individual to the witness box, to speak of PJ’s next foul deed.”
“Objection!” cried Derik. “Whether or not PJ’s crimes were ‘foul’ is a matter of opinion.”
“But that itself is a matter of opinion,” retorted Dante. “There are many who are quite convinced that PJ’s deeds fit the dictionary definition of ‘foul’ and thus can be legitimately described as such.”
“But those are just the views of those individuals, and a view is the same as an opinion,” answered Derik.
“Order!” shouted the judge. “Dante, call your witness.”
“Your honour,” cried Dante, “I call Minocher F.E.D. Ennui.”
PJ gulped, and started to sweat profusely. He had hoped not to face Ennui – another meeting between the two of them, after what had occurred when last they met, would be very uncomfortable indeed.
A door opened behind the witness box, and Ennui limped in. His right leg made an unnatural clunk-ing sound as it hit the floor, and some spectators, craning their heads, caught a glimpse of his wooden leg. Ennui also sported a gruesome gash across his face, cutting from the forehead, through the eye and down to the jaw-line. His left arm was in a sling. Ennui glared at PJ as he took the witness box, and PJ saw unbridled, boundless fury and hurt in his one good eye.
“Ennui,” said Dante, “please tell us about the events of three nights ago.”
Ennui grimaced, and then began to tell his story in a voice both weary and filled with restrained rage.
“Amber and I had just been to Akbar’s funeral,” he said. “Along the way back to our rooms, Amber invited me to take a drink with her before we parted ways that evening. Little did I know that there was a venomous snake lurking in her room.”
“Now that’s a lie!” cried out PJ. “I mean, objection! I put no snake in Amber’s room.”
“The snake was metaphorical!” screamed Ennui, spittle flying from his lips and hair flopping in his face. Such was the force of this shout that the spectators recoiled in their seats. After a moment, Ennui pushed his hair back over his head and continued, in a voice flat and empty of emotion.
“We reached her room, and Amber was surprised to find it unlocked. We didn’t notice that the lock itself had been melted away – we didn’t think to look; Amber merely thought she’d forgotten to lock it. But when she pushed open her door, a foul spectre flew at us, babbling Hellish curses.”
“Objection!” cried PJ, and Derik put his head in his hands.
“Over-ruled!” said the exasperated judge, and slammed down the gavel.
“That snake, that spectre, that abomination was PJ,” Ennui continued, now seeming to struggle to get his words out. “He was clutching that ridiculous spoon of his, and he slashed it at Amber and – and he -”
“You can leave that part up to the jury’s imagination, if you so wish,” Dante said, in an attempt at a kind voice. Derik considered objecting to this, but thought it rather tactful not to.
“Amber collapsed into my arms,” Ennui said, shuddering with sadness and rage, “and before I could react, PJ was upon me too, gouging his spoon into my face. I fought him, but he had the strength of a madman, and I was unarmed. He delivered many almost-fatal blows, but I managed to dislocate his arm and shatter his spoon into dust. Our cries roused the other 667ers, who rushed to our aid. At that point, when PJ rose to flee, I blacked out from blood loss, but I understand that next he –”
“We do not permit second-hand evidence,” interrupted Derik. “This is a court, not the rumour mill.”
“Very well…” Dante said. “Does the defence have any questions for Ennui?”
“One,” said Derik. “Ennui – would you class PJ’s actions that night as those of a sane man?”
“I would not,” began Ennui “but – let me finish! – if he was mad then, he still is, for I’ve watched him in that box, from here and from the spectators’ box, and he seems to me the same individual. Let me add also that his character does not seem so far removed from what he was before – a lack of inhibitions now, perhaps, but I see this as merely a revelation of his true character, and not the an affliction of madness.”
“I have no more questions,” Derik announced, and Dante nodded in agreement. Ennui, after a moment, turned and left the courtroom, but kept his head turned, and his bitter eyes on PJ.
---
As the guard escorted PJ back to his cell, they met another guard going in the opposite direction.
“Are you taking him back to his cell?” the second guard asked, pointing at PJ. When the first guard nodded, the second replied, “You can’t. It’s being cleaned at the moment.”
“You clean the cells?” asked PJ, amazed at this illumination into the hygiene of the prison.
“A poisonous cockroach got into that cell block,” the second guard informed him. “We need to spray the whole place down. We don’t like prisoners to die before their trial.”
“Where shall I put him?” asked the first guard.
“Cell block D-Beta,” replied the second guard. The first nodded, and jostled PJ back the way they’d come.
A few twists and turns of the corridors later, they arrived in a cleaner-looking cell block. The walls had been painted a soothing blue, the lights were shaded, and a glass security office stood at one end. PJ was locked into a cell nearby.
“A thorough cleaning usually takes a good few hours,” the guard said. “You’ll probably end up having lunch before we move you.”
Then the guard strode away. PJ glanced up and down the corridor through the bars. Other than the paint and shades, it looked exactly the same as the cell block he’d been in before. The cells next to him were empty. He glanced towards the security office, which wasn’t too far away, and realised that he could see right in, and hear the guards inside fairly clearly.
“Boring day, Pete?” one asked another.
“Yup,” Pete the guard replied. “Stuff don’t happen much on this block. No brawls, no escape attempts… It’s pretty boring.”
“I’m putting a trial up on the overhead TV,” another called, fiddling with a dial.
“Good idea,” replied Pete. “We need some entertainment to lighten the place up.”
A TV sat on a shelf jutting out of the wall above them sprang into life. Grainy colour footage of a courtroom scene appeared. PJ squinted, but couldn’t make out much through the poor-quality footage. The sound was better, though, so he listened to that.
“…if that is the case, then how do you explain,” a voice said, and PJ recognised it as that of Dante, “the following post, made by yourself, on the 23rd of June, at one minute past eight: ‘thats tru u think ur prety smart then’?”
“I, I, that’s not fair!” another familiar voice squealed. “I was tired, and everybody understood what I meant…”
“Is it really too much effort,” thundered Dante’s voice, “to type properly? Is it really?”
“I know I should have,” the other voice whimpered, as PJ tried to place it. “But, you know, I thought that since everyone else did it…”
“Everyone else did not do it!” Dante roared. “A despicable minority do it. And you know what happens to them…”
“Objection!” cried out Derik’s voice, as PJ wondered precisely what the defendant was in court for. “A single post is not sufficient evidence for prosecution.”
“Oh, but I have dozens of examples!” Dante shouted. “More than half of Mr. McGill’s post count of some 600 or so posts! I have the records all here!”
McGill… PJ recognised the name. It was the young man in the cell next to him, Bill. But was this his crime? Making a few n00bish posts?
Derik started saying something, but then the screen of the TV flickered and changed. The title, Doctor Who, came up on screen, and PJ realised that they had changed the channel.
“Hey, guys! Turns out you can get regular TV on this!” a guard shouted.
“What episode is it?” asked another.
His question was answered when the words “Candle of the Burning Fox” appeared, to some groans.
“Aw, I’ve seen this one a hundred times, and it was boring then!” somebody complained. “Let’s watch something else!”
“Quiet!” yelled the guard Pete. “I love this one.”
So did PJ. He was happy to sink into a stupor and watch the show, rather than think about what he had heard…