The Slip: The Complete First Season

by Herschel K. Stroganoff

  Hayao looked on in disbelief - shocked, helpless.

  “I must insist that we bring forward the vote for Representative Tomas's motion immediately - the urgency and gravity of this situation should not be underestimated by any member of this Assembly.”

  “This is unprecedented,” Wynn shouted to Akash. “This is utterly—”

  “Be seated, Representative Efans, Secretary Ozu has the floor,” Akash said. “Unprecedented it may be, but it is constitutional under the United Solar Charter for the Secretary to use executive powers to forward an emergency vote.”

  Wynn slunk back into his seat, mumbling to himself.

  “Representative Tomas, would you be able to put your motion forward to the Assembly formally?” Akash asked.

  “Certainly Chair, thank you,” said Inge, puffing out her chest and smiling broadly. “I would like to put forward the motion to allow United Solar and its Affiliates to manufacture, distribute, and use projectile, ballistic and explosive weapons, and to allow our members to use lethal force in situations where the security of United Solar and its Affiliates are considered to be at risk.”

  “Mister Secretary, are you happy to second this and invoke your executive privilege to call for an immediate vote, foregoing the rights of this Chamber to hold a thorough debate?” Akash asked.

  “I can confirm that,” Takeshi said, dipping his head in assent.

  “This is a fucking stitch-up,” shouted Wynn. “The Yao would never support—”

  “Order! This will be your final warning Representative Efans, please be seated,” said Akash, banging his gavel, his face growing red. “The motion and call to immediate vote have been accepted. Members, voting will open for thirty seconds from—” Akash paused, looking at a small clock on his desk, “—now.”

  A pair of buttons lit up on each member's desk, one emblazoned with the word 'support', the other red with the word 'oppose'. Hayao clenched his fists, bristling towards Inge as she made a dramatic gesture of placing her vote.

  “You have ten seconds,” said Akash. “Five seconds.” After a moment, a loud buzz rattled throughout the Chamber as the voting lights turned dark.

  “Voting is now closed,” said Akash. “All votes cast beyond this point will not count. Any votes not cast will be counted as an abstention. In the case of a tie, I will cast the deciding vote as my position dictates.”

  Akash thumbed his remote control and looked down to read the results, the light from the screen casting garish shadows across his face. “Of the 300 members of this Assembly, 25 seats are—” he paused for a long moment, “—as yet unselected. This leaves a total of 275 members present. 137 members voted in support of the motion.” A swell of cheers echoed around the Chamber. Hayao's head dropped in relief. A majority of more than 50 percent was required for a motion to be passed by the Assembly..

  “Order! Order!” shouted Akash. He glared at the Representatives. “137 members voted in opposition to the motion. There was one abstention.”

  “Who was it?” said Wynn. “Who didn't have the guts to do the right thing?”

  Hayao saw the rage in Wynn's eyes. Akash pounded his gavel.

  “Security, please escort Representative Efans from the Chamber,” Akash said.

  A pair of bulky security officials wearing black uniforms emerged from the shadows and walked towards Wynn.

  “I'm going, I'm going,” said Wynn. “Shame on you Tomas, and shame on you Ozu,” he said, as he was manhandled away from the Chamber.

  Hayao looked at his hands, tightly clasped and pouring sweat. He realised to his horror that it was he who had not cast the deciding vote.

  Akash cleared his throat and averted his gaze from the Representatives. “In these circumstances it falls upon the Chair to cast the deciding vote.

  “It is the convention that the Chair vote in support of the tied motion, and I have no intention of breaking convention today. The motion passes. I will now close this session.”

  Wide-eyed, Hayao shook his head as Akash turned and exited the Chamber flanked by two guards.

  “You bastard,” said Hayao turning to Takeshi. “That was the most disgusting thing I have ever seen. I cannot work in your administration.” He removed his badge and placed it Takeshi's hand. “You are a man devoid of honour.”

  Without thinking, Hayao punched Takeshi hard on the jaw. The Secretary's knees gave way, and he fell unconscious onto the Chamber floor.

  Judiciary holding cells, Insularum 1, Lunar

  Hayao kissed his daughter, picking her up as she beamed. “You shouldn't have brought her here,” he told Natsuki. His tone was reproachful, his expression woeful. He gestured with his free hand around the cold, bare concrete walls of the holding cell.

  “I needed to see you, Hayao. Riko has been asking for you.”

  Hayao regarded Natsuki for a long moment, her small eyes and cropped hair, her plain dress and simple shoes.

  “What were you thinking?” Natsuki tilted her head, her eyes closing to thin lines as she considered her husband.

  “I don't know,” he said, his shoulders hunched.

  “What will happen now?”

  Hayao shuffled, lifting Riko to his opposite hip. This wasn't a question he was able to answer, nor one that he wanted to consider. He wanted to be at home - he wanted the whole mess to go away. “I don't know,” he said. “I may be charged. I just don't know.”

  He placed Riko down onto the tiled floor, a chequered blue and white pattern, scratched, faded and stained by the countless inmates that had waited to hear their fate. Hayao smiled as Riko ran to the bunk and pounced onto the mattress, her legs scrambling for traction as she climbed.

  “You look silly, Daddy. Your clothes are funny,” Riko said with a slight lisp. Her expression was triumphant as she stood on the bunk. Hayao smiled as he watched her dark grey tunic flap as she bounced up and down, causing the thin mattress to creak and shake.

  “Takeshi will drop the charges,” Natsuki said, her tone was assured, confident. “You two have been friends for too long for him to hold this over you.”

  “This is exactly the type of thing he'd hold over me.” He paused, looking down at the yellow ill-fitting coveralls that made him itch and smelled of the sweat of its previous wearers. “Takeshi's changed,” he continued. “Something's got to him - greed, power - I don't know.” Hayao shook his head.

  “I'm sure he sees me an obstacle.” He sat down on the bunk.

  “I'm hiding Daddy!”

  Hayao turned slowly to his right to see Riko curling herself up into a ball at the corner of the bunk, her bottom in the air and her hands covering her eyes.

  Hayao looked around the cell in mock astonishment - his eyes wide and mouth agape. “Where's Riko gone Mummy?” he asked, his voice filled with exaggerated wonder. “I can't see her, can you?”

  Riko giggled as she peeked through her fingers.

  “I thought she was with you, Daddy,” Natsuki said with inflection.

  Dramatically, Riko turned to reveal that she'd been there all along.

  Hayao smiled..”There she is!” Hayao called, clearing a lump in his throat. He leaned across the bed and picked Riko up beneath her shoulders, scooping her up and spinning her around in the air. For that brief moment, he was happy.

  Hayao frowned as a knock at the cell door signalled the visit was over. Looking down at Natsuki's pregnant belly, he cupped her hands. “You know I didn't mean for this - things just got a bit...”

  “I know.” Natsuki smiled, but Hayao could tell it was forced. “Come on Riko, come down from there. We need to go home and get you ready for bed.”

  “Are you coming, Daddy?” Riko asked, sliding from the bunk. She ran to her mother, pigtails bouncing.

  “Not this time. Soon, I promise.” But it wasn't a promise he could make or keep. His destiny lay with the Judiciary and the Secretary. He could be released without charge, imprisoned for assault or air-locked for treason. He would most likely be imprisoned, perhaps for a
s long as a year, forced to work on the cotton farms on the other side of Lunar, or on a mining platform along the Martian Band. Being away from his daughter for so long filled Hayao with a feeling of dread.

  “No Daddy!” Riko stomped her feet, her face a scrunched-up scowl. “I said you will come home now!” She threw herself onto her father and held onto his leg.

  Hayao trembled as Riko begged him with her tiny tear-filled eyes, her mouth arching as if pulled down by hooks. She began to wail - a heartbreaking, ear-splitting wail, that cut through him like wire through clay.

  “I'm sorry,” he whispered, shaking his head, eyes downcast.

  Helpless, Hayao looked on as Natsuki picked Riko up, his daughter thrashing and screaming in an uncontrollable rage. “I love you,” she mouthed as Hayao watched her leaving the cell, its door closing with a dull thud behind her.

  A pair of guards led Hayao from his cell along a series of corridors to the courtroom. He shuffled with short pained steps, his wrists and ankles shackled. A guard showed him to a seat in a small waiting room.

  Unable to lean back on his cuffed arms, he slumped forward, his head throbbed with exhaustion. He hadn't slept the previous night. Hayao had known tiredness before, but never like this - never so complete. He traced the lines of the grey floor tiles and wondered how long it had been since someone had cleaned them.

  He shook himself as he battled with his mind to stay awake and looked around as his consciousness emerged from a few precious seconds of micro sleep. Cold sweat seeped from his back and armpits.

  “Stay there,” said a guard as he stepped out of the wafting room. A second guard, bulkier and shorter than the first, gave a furtive glance then leaned close to Hayao.

  “Between us Mister Vice Secretary, me and the boys thought Ozu had it coming for the stunt he pulled,” he said with a confidential tone. “You really swung at him.”

  “Thank you,” said Hayao. “I resigned as Vice Secretary. I'm not sure what I am anymore.”

  “It's not really my place to say, but good luck,” the guard said through the brief flicker of a smile.

  The first guard returned to the waiting room. “Mister Kurosawa, if you could come this way.”

  Hayao wobbled to his feet, then staggered through the door and into the courtroom.

  Hayao squinted at the bright lamps the shone down from the ceiling, glowing orbs hung from chains. He glanced past the thick glass barrier between him and the rest of the courtroom to see Natsuki looking down from the window an observation area to the right of the opposite wall. A surge of shame flooded through him - so much shame.

  The courtroom was packed with rows of wooden benches facing a raised platform to Hayao's left. At least a hundred United Solar Representatives sat in rows along the benches. Hayao could not determine whether they had been summoned as witnesses or were there for the spectacle.

  “All rise,” a clerk said. She was obscured from Hayao's view behind the raised platform. A large oak door at the left of far wall creaked open. “Lunar Secretary Takeshi Ozu has requested under article seventeen of the United Solar Charter that he be installed as judge to oversee this case,” the clerk said.

  Hayao started. Takeshi had the legal right, but in all his years he had never taken the opportunity.

  Hayao stared at Takeshi as he strode into the courtroom showing no visible signs of the assault. Takeshi would not meet his gaze as he sat.

  “Be seated,” the clerk said.

  “Not you,” a guard whispered in Hayao's ear.

  “Mister Hayao Kurosawa,” Takeshi began. “You are before this court today to face judgement. You are charged with assaulting the Secretary of Lunar and leader of United Solar. The facts of this case, and therefore your guilt, is not in dispute. Under the United Solar Charter, you will be charged with treason and sentenced to death.”

  Hayao reeled as the gathered Representatives cried out. He looked up at Natsuki, her head in her hands, being comforted by a stranger.

  Takeshi rose and turned to the guards. “Please take Mister Kurosawa back to his cell.”

  “All rise,” said the clerk. She spoke with a loud and commanding tone. The Representative stood in silence, many turning to Hayao with disbelieving, shocked expressions.

  A hand grasped Hayao's shoulder. He looked down, allowing himself to be led from the courtroom - defeated, ashamed, broken.

  Judiciary Holding Cell, Insularum 1, Lunar

  With his head in his hands, Hayao sat hunched over on the edge of his bunk, sleep-deprived and sore. Trembling, he thought about how he would never see Riko again, how he would never hold Natsuki, how he would never see their unborn child.

  He blinked away a tear from his bloodshot eyes as the cell door swung open. Sitting up, he watched as two guards in black uniforms entered. They stood to attention at either side of the door as Takeshi strode in. Hayao recognised the elaborately cut dark blue suit and crisp white high-collared shirt as one of Takeshi’s regular outfits, and looked down at his ill-fitting yellow overalls, ashamed.

  Hayao rose to his feet as a third guard entered the room behind Takeshi, and gestured for his arms to be shackled.

  “That won’t be necessary,” dismissed Takeshi. “Mr Kurosawa, please sit down.”

  Hayao sat and stared darkly at Takeshi. “You can’t even call me by my name?” he asked, his voice hoarse and bitter.

  “Hayao, friend,” Takeshi said, softly. “Nobody is sorrier than I am for your imminent death.”

  “Friend?” Hayao snarled as he glared up at Takeshi, his fists and jaw clenching tightly.

  “You must understand that nobody — not even the Secretary — is above the Judiciary,” Takeshi said in a reasonable tone.

  Hayao nodded weakly as Takeshi removed his jacket and lay it over the chair. Dizzy, he heard a pulse echo in his ears as the blood rushed to his head. The thought crossed his mind to grab Takeshi around the throat — to take him down with him. Instead, he remained still and took a deep breath of air through his nose.

  “Please, remove your clothes,” Takeshi said.

  “Excuse me?”

  Takeshi loosened the clasp of his collar. “Please. Your death is imminent. Your family will not be allowed to see you again. I am your friend, and I wish to keep the tradition.”

  Hayao froze as he held his breath for a long moment. He was too tired to fight, too exhausted to feel angry. He was beaten.

  “Please, remove your clothes and I will purify you.”

  Hayao shook his head and frowned at his palms. “I will not let you do this,” he said in a low, pained voice.

  “Guards.” Taksheshi gestured towards Hayao. All at once, the three men grabbed Hayao’s wrists and ankles and pushed him back onto the bed as he struggled uselessly against their grasp.

  “No!” Hayoa growled as the guards tore away his clothing. They held him down, gripping him as Takeshi loomed over him.

  Hayao stiffened as, slowly and methodically, Takeshi washed his naked body with a wet sponge, wringing and rewetting it at regular intervals. He shivered as Takeshi washed each of his feet in turn, working his way up each leg with detached care and winced as the icy water stung his genitals.

  Trying to create separation from his mind and body, Hayao stared up at a scuff on the ceiling as Takeshi scrubbed his stomach and chest, and continued down his arms and between his fingers. Up and down. Methodically, and without pause.

  After almost an hour, Hayoa felt the last dabs of the sponge as Takeshi finished wiping his brow. Hayao turned his head and saw Takeshi soaked through with water and reeking with sweat as the guards continued to press down on his ankles and wrists.

  “Death is a natural process,” Takeshi began, almost breathlessly. “It is part of the cycle of life and one you must accept and be at peace with. You will be collected shortly before your sentence is carried out, and I would suggest that you reflect on your deeds — both good and bad — and think about your life and legacy. Reflect on how your deeds will affect you
in the next life, how they will affect your next incarnation. Only you can know if you have lived a good life.”

  Hayao gritted his teeth as Takeshi placed a hand on his forehead and muttered a quiet prayer.

  “You are a wicked man, Takeshi Ozu,” Hayao said, his voice calm and resigned. “I have nothing to fear in death.”

  “Your death, Mr Kurosawa, is a mere technicality now,” Takeshi said, picking up his jacket and folded it carefully over his arm.

  Hayao felt the guards release their grip and followed Takeshi from the cell, the door slamming closed behind him.

  Cold, damp, naked and alone, Hayao wept.

  Judiciary Airlock, Insularum 1, Lunar

  The first airlock closed behind him as Hayao awaited his fate. He closed his eyes and tried to picture Riko in his mind: her tiny eyes, her giggle, her endless wonder at all things new. He hoped it would give his mind clarity, give him something to focus on, but instead it flooded him with intense shame, guilt and sadness.

  Hayao held his breath as the airlock clicked. He pictured the final humiliating scene of his execution: that moment where his nude body evacuated its bowels as he lies lifeless in a pile of his own shit.

  Past the point of crying, his eyes were already red and burnt from a string of sleepless nights. He had passed feeling betrayed, passed feeling hopeless: he wanted it all to end.

  Panic rose through him.

  With a rush of strength, he lurched at the airlock behind him, pushing at it with his shoulder, but it was useless. “Let me out! I don't want to die,” he called, his fists pounding on the airlock. “Please!”

  He hoped above hope the guard would help him, the airlock would break or something, anything would save him. He hoped Takeshi would come to his senses and pardon him - he'd made his point. The drive to go back to his wife and daughter - to be there for his new child - was overwhelming.