Delivered by the Defender (Kindred Tales)

71

They came to the side entrance of the courtroom and found that another trial was already in session. Magistrate Harsher was perched on his ten-foot-tall marble stool, wearing his floppy purple hat, with his feet hooked into the leather and silver stirrups. He raised his silver bugle and blew a blast, then lowered it and said,

“Special Prosecutor, state the facts of this case.”

An oily-looking Ma’shorkan male with bright green hair that was slicked back over his skull, rose from one of the marble benches near the front of the courtroom.

“Your Justness, the defendant was seen taking fruit from my client’s stall—we have the whole thing on holo-vid from the security camera. Yet she protests her innocence and has even hired a special Defender, possibly because she thought the Court Defender would not do an adequate job defending her.”

Honestly, Selena couldn’t blame the defendant for thinking that. After seeing the lazy, half-assed way the Ma’shorkan Court Defender had “defended” his clients the day before, who could blame her for wanting someone else to take her case?

“Your Justness has already handed down a sentence of ten thousand lifetimes of hard labor, but since the defendant requested her own Defender, you stated that you were willing to hear the case in more detail today,” the Special Prosecutor went on. “Which shows your Justness’ extreme clemency and kindness,” he added with an unctuous smile.

“Very well—thank you for that fine summation,” Magistrate Harsher said, nodding from his high perch. “Now, let us hear from the defendant’s special Defender.”

“Your Justness,” said another Ma’shorkan male, rising from his bench. “We have evidence to refute the charges. I have several witnesses that will testify that the defendant was with them at the time of the alleged fruit theft.”

Magistrate Harsher frowned.

“But the Prosecution just said they have holo-vid evidence that the crime was committed by the defendant. These witnesses must be lying just to keep the defendant out of prison!”

“If I may, your Justness, we also have holo-vid evidence,” the Defender said smoothly. “If we could please have a holo-viewscreen to show it?”

“Very well.” The judge made a curt gesture. “Go on, clerk—set up a screen,” he said to a Ma’shorkan male wearing a black and white scarf.

“Yes, your Justness.” The clerk wheeled a large screen to the front of the courtroom and set it up at an angle so that the judge could see it. Selena, who was peering into the courtroom from the side as she waited her turn to be tried, was able to see it, too.

“Now then, your Justness,” the Defender said. “Please observe, on the left side of the screen is the holo-vid evidence the Prosecution submitted of the theft.”

As he spoke, a 3-D image appeared—it seemed to jump right off the screen, Selena thought. It was a grainy image showing a stall filled with colorful blue and green alien fruits that looked a little bit like bananas with spiky tops like pineapples.

After a moment, someone came into the frame of the camera—however, they could only be seen from behind. The person—because it was really hard to even tell if it was a male or a female—was wearing a long dark cloak with a hood that fell all the way to their ankles.

The thief stood in front of the stall and picked up one of the strange fruits. After glancing in both directions, he or she slipped the fruit under their cloak and walked away, out of the camera’s field-of-view—all without ever showing their face.

The next moment, the shopkeeper—a Ma’shorkan man with a bushy purple beard who was sitting on the marble bench beside the Prosecutor—came into the frame and started shouting. He ran out of the camera frame—presumably chasing the thief.

At this point, the Defender froze the image. He looked up at the judge.

“And that is the crime, Magistrate Harsher. After the shopkeeper saw the theft, he ran into the crowd, chasing the thief. Eventually, he found my client and assumed she was the thief, because she was wearing a cloak similar to the one the thief is wearing.”

“Very well, we have already seen this evidence, Defender.” The judge frowned down at him. “Why do you show it again when it clearly proves your client is guilty?”

It doesn’t prove anything of the sort! Selena wanted to shout indignantly. The person on the vid could literally have been anyone and it was obvious the shopkeeper hadn’t seen their face any more than the camera had!

“Because I have new evidence to show you that refutes it,” the Defender said. “Please watch this vid on the right side of the screen. It was taken by another security camera in a shop a few doors down, at the same time that the fruit theft was taking place.”

He pointed a remote at the viewscreen and a new scene popped up on the other side, opposite the frozen image of the fruit stall.