Page 8 of From the Noblest Motives
Shudder stared at him, wondering if his jaw had hit the table or if it just felt like it. "Because you're the advocate for the defense. They have to share whatever they're going to enter as evidence?"
"Not since the Horace Act passed three days ago. In cases of variant violent crime, no, they don't."
The Horace Act was stalled last time I checked. Too extreme. Should have read it more carefully, but I never thought… Someone set this up oh so carefully. All for little me. Flattering, in a way, but I'd rather they hadn't. Sticky, but Shudder wasn't doomed quite yet. They did need to allow him a phone call. He'd call Blaze, who knew people and could convince or coerce a real attorney to act as defense. "Has the trial been scheduled?"
"Yes." Harry couldn't quite meet his eyes. "It's in three hours."
"What?"
"The Hora—"
"The Horace Act, yes."Now I'm doomed. "I'm starting to get the idea."
After another hour of useless wrangling with probably the most incompetent advocate the authorities could find for him, the guards allowed Shudder the use of a washroom under supervision. He couldn't do anything about the dirty, torn clothes or his unbrushed mop of hair, but at least he could wash his hands and face. After that, they left him alone to overthink everything until they came to cuff him and lead him off to the courtroom.
This is it. Blazey did try to warn me, so many times, and now it's happening. I'd give anything for him to be with me now so he could say he told me so and call me an idiot. Even if he didn't feel like saying it, he could just give me that look and shake his head… This wouldn't be so scary with him here. And I fell right into this. All confident and stupid. I am an idiot.
The message had come from a regular contact, a sympathetic librarian who had helped guide runaway variant kids to Shudder several times. She hadn't seen the girl this time—too scared, too cautious—but relayed that the runaway was possibly no more than fourteen and in dire circumstances. Of course he had to play white knight and rush off to assist. Of course he hadn't done any more digging because the kid needed rescue so badly. In short, he'd been a first-class, textbook idiot.
There'd been no variant teen in trouble, of course. Just a setup, an ambush, and, apparently, a kangaroo court at the end of it.
Maybe it was a good thing Blaze wasn't there. He'd be combustion-level angry. While having someone angry on his behalf would've given Shudder extra courage, the possibility of Blaze making trouble for himself would've been too great. Damien, though… Damien in a thinking fury was three feet of ice and would've stayed calm and rational, if a little scary all on his own.
As they reached the heavy wood doors to the courtroom and one of his guards swung them open, Shudder balked. Any friendly support would've been welcome right then. The public gallery was silent, empty benches gaping at him, but the press gallery was packed, the glare from the vid lights blinding him.
"I didn't… Don't I have to consent to the press being here?" Shudder dug his heels in while the guards tried to urge him forward.
"Come on, Mr. McKenzie." The guard on his right tugged, though his tone was weary rather than mean-spirited. "Might as well get this over with."
They deposited him at the table where Harry sat waiting, attached Shudder's cuffs to a chain on the underside of a table, and waved over a court official who checked the mu-metal cap.
"Harry…"
"Please tell me you changed your mind," Harry whispered to him. "We can still plea bargain if you give me something."
"I didn't do it."
With a heavy sigh, Harry turned back to face the bench, looking far too much like a distressed pug.
Maybe if I get sick all over Harry's notes. Or faint. Shudder felt either one was a good possibility. But the guard was right. Anything like that would just delay the process. From that point, the mockery of a trial proceeded in a nightmare miasma. He was aware of standing for the judge taking the bench. Aware in a distant way that the chair towered over the presiding judge as if he were a wizened child. Aware in a nightmare fog that he stood again and pled not guilty in a voice that sounded like someone else's.
The rest? The prosecution's case drifted past him—the supposed vids showing him meeting Minister Tapper; the expert witnesses affirming that yes, data recognition was near perfect; the scrap of cloth supposedly from Shudder's coat; his apprehension near the scene; vids of some of his previous illegal activities—though the judge did rule those irrelevant, except, perhaps, from a character standpoint.
Harry's only defense was that Shudder stated he hadn't done it. Brilliant work, that.
And that was all of it. Somehow, he thought a murder trial should have been more complicated. Maybe with a talented defense team it would have been. He supposed proving that his advocate was incompetent and requesting a mistrial might be his only option. But not right that moment.
The jury took a scant ten minutes to deliberate. Guilty. The Horace Act also mandated immediate sentencing rather than a separate hearing, and the judge announced it without hesitation, as if he'd had it ready all along. Sixty years in a maximum-security, variant-specific correctional facility.
The continent only had one of those—San Judas Tadeo. The stories people told… Didn't matter. He wasn't going to be in there long. There had to be a way. Always a way to slide out of trouble. Telling himself that wasn't calming the rising panic one bit as the guards took him by the arms and lifted him from his chair.
"What are we doing now?" he asked the guard who had nearly been kind to him, trying to keep his voice light and unconcerned.
"Time to go, Mr. McKenzie."
"Right now? I'm being transported now?"
The guard nodded, expression neutral and flat, and Shudder's brain ran around in ever-tightening circles. Call back and tell Harry to let his mother know? Let Blaze know? Let the Guild know, since at least Dr. Parma didn't hate him? Maybe? But everyone he needed to would see it on the news soon or had seen it already if the travesty of a trial had aired live. He let the request die on a soft whimper and did his best to make his legs work so the guards didn't have to drag him.
