by S A Shaffer
“All right, Walker,” Blythe said. “You have your inquiry. Let’s try and make it quick. I have a date waiting for me. What is this inquiry about?”
“I am merely making the motion, Mr. Speaker,” Walker said. “My colleague will present the case before the assembly.”
Mercy squeezed David’s arm and gave him a tight smile. He stood, his disguise castoff, and walked out of the booth and down the stairs toward the central dais with a box of evidence in his arms. Gasps and whispers followed him as he descended and passed different district booths.
“Is that Blythe’s old aide?” someone asked.
“What was his name?” another said and the man beside him replied. “Same as everyone else’s.” A few snickered at that.
Blythe’s head followed David as he walked nearer the central dais but seemed not to recognize him until he reached the glass floor at the bottom of the stairs.
“You!” Blythe snarled, and looked up at Walker. “You expect me to allow an inquiry by a criminal? This man is a murderer!”
“I beg to differ, Mr. Speaker.” David said, and he set his evidence down beside him. “I am merely a man accused of murder by a man who committed the very murders of which I am accused.”
“That is absurd!” Blythe said. “I won’t stand for this—”
“Then maybe you should sit?” David said. “After all, I am the one doing the inquiring, not you.”
Blythe looked at David, his red face burning with fury as a couple of people snorted. Blythe knew the assembly rules, of that much David was sure. Which meant, he knew he had no power during the inquiry and had to answer every question posed him from the inquirer. Rather than embarrass himself further, Blythe sat and collected his composure.
A wise choice, David thought.
“I wish to begin this inquiry by asking you what evidence you discovered which compelled you to accuse me of murder in every single tabloid in Alönia?”
“I am an eyewitness.” Blythe said confidently.
“So, you were there then... when I committed the murders?” David asked.
“No, I witnessed you admit to all three torturous murders of all three innocent women.” Blythe replied. A murmur of disgust rippled through the assembly, but David cut it off with another question.
“So what you’re saying is that the strongest evidence you possess is your word against mine?” He asked. “You have accused me of murdering women in a torturous manner, and I am accusing you of murdering women in a torturous manner. We seem to be at an impasse. Have you any other evidence?”
“I would think the word of the Speaker would be considered stronger than the word of an outcast aide?” Blythe said, regaining his casual manner.
“I have been shot at by the capital guard, and others. My face is on a security watch list with a shoot-on-sight designation. According to what you just said, you are claiming that with not but the word of the Speaker, anyone can be accused, convicted, sentenced, and shot. If I recall my house law correctly, you need a magistrate to sentence and a trial to convict? Am I not correct?”
“You are correct,” Blythe said coolly. “in most cases. However, in situations of treason and Houseland security, the speaker may issue a shoot on sight order.”
“So I’m accused of treason now?” David said, widening his eyes. “Treason and murder, my but I have been a bad boy.” That got a few chuckles and a dangerous smile from Blythe. David knew how much Blythe hated it when somebody made sport of him, and he hoped Blythe’s fury would cloud his judgment.
“In any case,” David said, “You’re incorrect in your assumptions. Even in the event of treason, Houseland citizens are still entitled to a trial. You have grossly abused your power. As speaker you are not a monarch or a tyrant. You are the voice of your district, and you serve the people.”
“Please,” Blythe said. “Spare me your boring speeches and move on with it.”
“I wish I was given boring speeches and a proceeding when I was accused of murder.” David said. “The first thing I knew of it was chain gun bullets hissing over my head.”
Blythe’s face twitched.
“But I digress,” David said. “We begin this inquiry with the simple established fact that I am no more a murder than any other man. Accusations are but words. Evidence and procedure convicts.”
“Would that the three women you slaughtered could accuse you today!” Blythe spat, leaning over the dais. “I’ve seen your work. Beaten to death, that’s what your victims endured. Beaten and beaten until their breath grew smaller and smaller and finally, mercifully stopped. That’s my evidence.”
Again, the assembly groaned with disgust.
“Poor dears.” somebody said.
“Dirty bastard.” another said.
David knew what Blythe was doing. Every time David gained the upper hand, Blythe would again remind the assembly of the horrid crime and call for justice for the atrocity. His passionate finger pointing at David and the vulgarity of which he spoke drowned out David’s logical display of evidence. It was as though Blythe dazzled the assembly with a bright light, so bright they couldn’t see the monster directly in front of them. David and the speaker were playing a very dangerous game of tug-of-war, and Blythe had the upper hand. However, David knew a thing or two about tug of war. If his opponent pulled too hard without proper footing, he’d end up on his backside.
“It just so happens that one of the three women is here today, and she does have a voice and an accusation.” David said, reading the situation and deciding to play a bit of his hand early. “I call my first witness. I had hoped to proceed in a different order, but Speaker Blythe seems intent to remind this assembly that I committed three brutal murders, Ms. Paula Carbone, Ms. Samantha Samille, and Ms. Mercedes Eleanor Alexandra Lorraine. I submit to this assembly that this assertion is not only absurd but also impossible. I call Mercedes Eleanor Alexandra Lorraine to testify as my first witness.”
The assembly gasped as Mercy stood and began walking down the stairs. She too had shed her disguise, and she descended with her auburn hair up in a bun, but for one flowing lock that curled around her shoulder. She wore a red and white gown, the color she was most known for, and it reached all the way to the floor in folds of fabric that cascaded like melting ice. The contrast accented her tall, comely form as the white and red shifted back and forth with every step. She held the hem of her skirts up with a dainty hand, her other sliding down the rail with elegant grace. Each footfall enveloped the next stair beneath her bell-shaped dress. When she reached the bottom, and stepped out onto the glass floor, she released her skirts and they swirled around her like a swath of cloud.
Blythe looked utterly dumbfounded. He gawked at her with open-mouthed astonishment.
“Ms. Lorraine, would you state your name for the assembly’s records?” David asked.
“Mercedes Eleanor Alexandra Lorraine.” Mercy said.
“What is your occupation, Ms. Lorraine?” David asked.
“Political aide and spy.” She said.
Several in the assembly gasped.
David smiled. Mercy always had a dramatic effect on people, especially men. “Ms. Lorraine,” He asked, “would you be so kind as to describe the events that led up to your supposed death.”
Mercy nodded. “I was assigned to the Blythe office specifically to investigate his financial records. While in his employment, I uncovered vast amounts of financial fraud, though what I discovered that concerned me most was evidence that he had murdered two of his staff when he suspected them of political espionage. One such employee was murdered after her dismissal from the office. The situation scared me, as I knew that leaving the office would not grant me safety if my actions were ever discovered. So I faked my death.”
Blythe swallowed and sealed off the expressions leaking onto his face. “Is this assembly honestly going to consider the stories of a murderer and a political spy? This is absurd!”
“I think every member of this assembly unde
rstands the value of political espionage,” David said. “They just prefer not to have them in their own offices. In the past, political spies have uncovered several sinister plots within this room.” David turned as he spoke observing the many representatives. “Fraud, embezzlement, treason… Murder.” He looked back at Blythe as he said murder, and his subtlety was not unnoticed.
Blythe frowned at him, and David could just see the muscles in his jaw bulging as he clenched his teeth. Then, he leaned back and said something to Eric while making a chopping motion with his hand across his throat. David pretended not to notice as he turned a page of the folder he’d pulled from the evidence box. Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw Eric stand and slink off of the dais and down the dark corridor behind it.
“Ms. Lorraine, could you describe the events that led you to believe the speaker murdered two of his employees.” David walked around the dais as he spoke, and while Mercy answered, he saw Eric in the shadows of the corridor speaking with one of the guards. If the breadth of the guard’s frame was any indication, David would guess it to be either Hans or Gerald. Not a moment later, David saw the doors surrounding the auditorium close and mysterious, broad-shouldered shadows lurking in front of them. At the same time, a few guards cleared the handful of observers in the gallery.
David swallowed. Blythe had set the course and jammed the rudder in place. There was no going back or deviating now; David had but to surge forward to victory or failure.
VETERAN SHIPYARDS
On the far side of Capital Island, a few dozen grandfathoms away, a group of six men meandered down a dingy, poorly lit sidewalk beside a massive compound. Twenty-fathom-high cement walls topped with any number of ship-killing armaments surrounded the installation, as this particular facility known as Veteran Shipyards usually housed a significant number of military craft. While on most occasions Veteran Shipyards refitted, restocked, and repaired all the military ships that entered its walls, tonight its many berths lay full to capacity with ships condemned to deconstruction. It almost seemed a betrayal, like coming home and discovering you are no longer welcome. But the six men paid no mind to the high walls or the threatening armaments along its top, nor did they seem to mind the three statue-like guards they approached. They stumbled onward appearing drunk as they moved through the light rain and smashed along in the puddles. One of them had a very peculiar bionic eye. As they got nearer the guards, one of the men whispered something to his companion, and the man barked out a rasping laugh.
“Your right!” he said. “They do look a bit stiff. Oi you!” he called to the guard nearest in a provocative manor. “Did someone put a stick up your bum so you wouldn’t slouch.”
All six of the men laughed now, far too hard for something that wasn’t actually funny. The guard, didn’t move, apparently uncaring of their banter, though if they’d been close enough—or sober enough—to notice, they might have seen him frown.
“Yeah, I think they did.” The man continued. “They tell you to stand real straight so you can pretend you’re tough in your fancy, pompous outfit.” The man flitted around in front of the guard now mocking him, and nearly tripped several times. “I’ll bet they issued it to you with ladies undergarments.”
His fellow drunks laughed harder at that, one of them falling over face first in a puddle, which caused even more laughter.
“Guardsies in lady’s undies,” one of the other drunks said as he slapped his knee. “Go on Karl. Say it again. See if the lad blushes.”
“I don’t even think that gun works,” The man called Karl said as he stepped up to the guard and leaned in close. “and if it does, you wouldn’t know because you’ve never even fired it.” He smiled as the guard winced, though if he had known any better, he would have realized it wasn’t his words but rather his foul breath that affected the guard so. He looked back at his mates and said, “Poor lad’s flinching.” He leaned forward again, and seemingly in a surge of over-confidence he reached out and pushed the guard’s shoulder.
The guard reached the end of his limited patience and lashed out at the drunk. He swung the butt if his repeater up and buried it in the drunk’s paunch. The drunk doubled over and fell into the guard, knocking them both down. It was difficult to follow what happened next as all three guards began brawling the six drunken men. The guardsman’s original confidence in besting six intoxicated men proved unfounded as all the men floundered about on the street rolling in an out of puddles. Karl even managed to steal his assailant’s repeater and fire it above his head as he danced a jig along the sidewalk and hummed a merry tune. Bullets impacted off the compound walls and hissed overhead.
“Help!” One of the guards said as he staggered back toward the gate, apparently realizing that he and his fellows were in over their heads. “You, gatesmen, help!”
He needn’t have called out, for as he spoke the gate was already rattling open. Evidently the commotion and the sound of the repeater had drawn some attention. The gate swung open, and five more guards stepped out and joined the fray. Somebody grabbed Karl and wrenched the repeater from his hands.
“Hey, that’s mine.” Karl said as he reached for the repeater, but the guard who took it responded by swinging it at Karl’s head.
A whirl of coats and hats and fists followed, but the result was inevitable. In the end, six drunks in tattle old jackets lay sprawled and drooling on the cobbles; although, they must have been a bit more than they seemed as two guards lay drooling with them.
“You two, secure this gate.” One of the guardsmen said. He had his hat slanted to the side, where a curious looking bionic eye swiveled about. “The rest of you, take these wretches to the guard room. I want them tied and gagged. We’ll let the Capital City police deal with them in the morning.”
The six remaining guards complied with military precision. All six drunks and the two guards were drug through the gate and into the guardroom on the other side, which was built into the twenty-five-foot thick wall, where they bound and gagged all eight guards and drunks alike. As they worked, a phonograph buzzed on the far end of the guardroom. The guard with the bionic eye motioned to one of the other guards who stepped up to the phonograph and flipped a switch.
“Main gate, this is Commander Lewis. What on earth was that gunfire I heard?”
“A couple of drunks got into a brawl with our guards. They have the look of former aeronauts. We subdued them and tied them up, though one of them got ahold of a repeater and fired it into the sky.”
“Aeronauts,” Commander Lewis said in an annoyed manner. “Probably some of the rabble that used to fly the worthless tubs we’ve got inside our docks. Carry on then, and make sure they feel welcome.” Lewis said the last part with a sarcastic tone.
The line switched off, and the guard looked up at the man with the bionic eye, who nodded. Francisco adjusted the ill-fitting jacket and pulled his capital guard hat down as low as it would slide without falling off. He stepped from the guardroom and looked into Veteran Shipyards. Over a thousand ships moored there divided along twenty-three rows of docks and stacked two or even three ships high. It was a significant force to be reckoned with by any apposing armada.
“The forward fleet.” Francisco muttered to himself. “We’ll see you fly again.”
He turned and opened the gate. Without a signal, sixty men ran from the opposite side of the street and rushed through the gate, each wearing a guardsman hat and coat. The group split into ten teams and ran toward different sections of the facility. One ran to an adjoining guardroom, and Francisco heard some dull thuds and saw the flash of a pulse emitter. The sight made him smile. He turned to the three guards behind him and said,
“We’re moving.”
To anyone watching, everything at Veteran Shipyards looked perfectly normal, other than the fact that there were about twice as many guards on patrol as usual. Francisco led his team of sneaks across the facility beneath a few of the massive airships and toward a fortress looking communications tower on an adjac
ent wall. Francisco chanced a glance at the top of the walls and saw the flash of a pulse emitter. He smiled at his men’s efficiency.
They passed a guard standing at his post beside a steam lift, and Francisco and the three lads behind him saluted as they marched past, though as soon as they’d passed him, the rear man in the troop turned and tazed the guard with his pulse emitter. The guard crumpled to the ground with a thump. They reached the steam lift where another guardsman stood, this one slouching at his post.
The sneaks lined up in front of the steam lift, and Francisco cleared his throat. The guard straightened up and saluted. The steam lift door opened, and the troop of sneaks marched inside. However, before the final man in the line entered, he raised his arm, tazed the guard, and pulled the limp body inside the steam lift. With a hiss, the doors slid shut and rocketed the sneaks and the unconscious guardsman to the top of the communications tower. They hid the guardsman’s body on the side of the lift so it wouldn’t be seen when the doors opened. A moment later, the four of them stepped out of the shaft into a square room surrounded by windows and filled with phonographs, steam projectors, and maps. During the ordinary operations, 20 guardsmen would occupy the room, directing air traffic in and out of the landing. However, given the docks were filled to capacity and the evening hour, only four men remained on duty, two of which were sleeping. Francisco raised his hand at one of the guards in a salute. His men did the same. Then, as one, they pointed their pulse emitters at the four guards and tazed them.
Francisco checked his watch before saying, “Shultz, two minutes.”
The sneak didn’t need telling. Shultz had already stepped up to one of the phonographs and tampered with its settings. He removed a curious looking device from his coat pocket with several wires dangling from one side. After splicing a few wires on the phonograph, he twisted them together with the wires on the device and then switched it on. A few of its lights blinked, and then Shultz looked at Francisco and nodded. The thought of all incoming and outgoing transmissions being redirected to an underground switchboard a few grandfathoms away filled with salty personalities made him smile.