The Faarian Chronicles: Exile

by Karen Harris Tully

  “Remove reporter,” Teague ordered. The reporter vanished, leaving us to watch the courtroom without commentary. I spotted Micha at the back of the room, sitting quietly with a large swath of empty space around her that the growing crowd seemed loath to enter. So that was where she’d disappeared to this morning. The other Kindred members, including Alten with her big belly, Great-Aunt Nico, Ethem, and Penthe, were a patch of beige in the sea of bright, sparkly colors making up the Glass City audience. With them, looking grim, was Sensei. I cringed. She must be so disappointed in me. Mom was nowhere to be seen yet.

  I had to get out of here. I had to think.

  “I’m going to go work out for a while before they start, clear my head,” I said.

  “No going off alone, Sunny. You can do your exercises in the hallway, but no farther without coming to get one of us,” Teague said.

  “Fine,” I huffed, though I wanted to go down to the train station to be alone. Sarosh planted herself in the doorway to watch me.

  I wrapped my ankle and focused on moves that would go easy on it, that I could land on my good foot: walkovers, flares, Pilates, yoga. But, what I really wanted to do was to sprint full-speed into my hardest, no holds barred, butt-kicking tumbling run. I'd go the full length of the hallway, then back the other way till I couldn’t think anymore, till nothing else existed but the pounding of my sneakers on the stone tiles in time to "It’s Tricky" by Run DMC blasting out of my iPhone’s tiny speakers. Old school.

  But instead, I did the right thing, the safe thing, walkovers and yoga, all the while thinking: I should be there at the trial. I saw the whole thing. Mom protected me. I should testify for her. I had to come up with something. Something. But it was less than an hour away now. How could I possibly get there in time?

  I thought of the tiger jet, but no, I’d need a pilot for that. Then my mind’s eye flashed to an image of the train station, and the “emergency pod” under the tarp that Thal told me we couldn’t touch. I didn’t know how to drive that either, but maybe Thal did. What would they do if we took one? I shook my head. It didn’t matter. They were there for emergencies and this qualified. I looked over at Sarosh, who quickly looked away. I needed an escape plan ASAP.

  A short while later, people started quietly trickling into the apartment to watch the trial coverage, and nervous chattering filled the room. More, I needed more people, faster. Thal came in and sat beside me, for which I was grateful, and the twins went over to talk with Myrihn and her friends.

  “I went by your room, but it’s empty,” Thal whispered to me. “Why are we in here?”

  “Teague and Sarosh moved me while Mom’s gone,” I whispered back. “This is so wrong, Thal. I should be there. I don’t care what anyone says, I need to go testify for her.”

  “But the trial starts in like, half an hour. How could you possibly get there in time?”

  “I don’t know for sure, but I have an idea. We can’t talk about it here. Will you go out to the hall? I’ll meet you out there in two minutes.”

  He gave a quick nod, looking curious, and got up to make his way to the door through some people still straggling in. Thankfully, finally, the room was near capacity and no one seemed to notice him.

  A minute later, I got up too. “Bathroom,” I said in explanation to a questioning look from Teague, and made my way there. I waited another interminable minute inside the bathroom before leaving, skirting my way through the now standing-room only crowd and out the door to the hall.

  “Thal? Pssst, Thal,” I hissed in the seemingly empty hallway.

  “Over here,” Thal whispered from an alcove down the hall.

  “Let’s go,” I said.

  Chapter 29: Vaeda Katje: Afflicted Killer

  I took off as fast as I could crutch and Thal jogged after me to catch up. It felt good to be doing something, even though it was probably futile.

  “But how can we possibly get there in time?” Thal asked when we reached the station. “The train doesn’t come for another hour, and besides, it’d be way too slow.”

  “We? You’re coming with me?”

  “Of course I am,” he grinned at me. “Somebody has to keep you out of trouble.”

  I grinned back and answered his question. “The emergency pods.” I hopped down the stairs to the train station and over to the brown-tarped mounds off to one side, next to the tracks.

  “Oh! Ooooooooh,” Thal moaned. “The Kindred is not going to like this.” But he helped me un-tarp a pod and slide it sideways onto the tracks. It looked like the silver nose of a bullet train, but tapered not only in front, but in back too. A single window wrapped all the way around. It seemed to hover above the track, clinging to it with four claw-like legs.

  “What happens if we come upon a train?” I asked as we jumped inside and strapped ourselves into seats with five-point harnesses.

  “Glass City Courthouse, max speed,” Thal ordered and we were immediately thrown back in our seats as the thing took off. My skin felt like it was about to peel back off my skull, my eyeballs about to explode.

  I managed to turn my head against the seatback to see Thal looking like we’d just taken off in a rocket.

  “It’ll get…,” Thal gritted out from clenched teeth, “…better,” he finished as the ride smoothed out and the pressure stabilized. “That was awesome!” he exclaimed. Me, I felt lucky I hadn’t wet my pants.

  “So? Other trains?” I asked again.

  “Um, I know there are avoidance measures, but I’m not sure how they work, to tell you the truth,” Thal replied. Swell.

  Around us, the solid band of window created a panoramic view of the desert outside.

  “Front screen,” Thal said. “Show live Vaeda Katje trial.”

  The courtroom hologram popped up in front of us with the rushing tracks and scenery as background. People were filtering into the buzzing courtroom. The trial was about to start.

  Three serious looking middle-aged people in matching periwinkle blue robes, two men and one woman, strode into the courtroom to a round of applause. They took their seats on huge high-backed chairs atop a raised dais. The justices.

  Mom entered next, to boos and insults, with her head held high and her shoulders back, looking for all the world like she was the one in charge, despite her hands being cuffed behind her back again. She was taking her seat and nodding to the three justices up front when I finally noticed the oncoming train barreling toward us behind the hologram.

  I couldn’t do anything but gasp and squeeze my eyes shut for the impending crash. When it didn’t come, I opened one eye and then the other. We were somehow flying over the train.

  “If this thing can fly, why doesn’t it just fly all the time?” I grumped, trying to lower my racing heart rate. But it didn’t feel like flying because I could still feel the vibrations of the tracks as we descended back to ground level.

  “Extendable legs,” Thal said, looking dazed. “I remember hearing them say something about extendable legs.”

  Back on the courtroom hologram, my mother gave a generous wave of her hand, her cuffs now gone, and said, “You may begin.” Quiet snorts of laughter sounded around me. As far as I could tell, there was no jury, no lawyers, only my mother and the three unamused justices.

  “That’s our General,” Thal said.

  “How much longer?” I asked.

  “Six minutes to arrival at Glass City Courthouse,” the computerized voice answered.

  I managed to stay quiet for the rest of the trip, minus some whimpering as other trains and pods started coming fast and thick as we approached the enormous, glass-domed city. Our pod bobbed and weaved crazily through traffic.

  “General Katje, how do you respond to the charge of murdering the Afflicted person known as Drazen?” one of the men asked. He was average-sized, bald and bulldog-ish. The name badge in front of him read Justice Lu’cron.

  “I am innocent,” she replied. “The Anakharu was attacking my daughter, and I protected her, end of s
tory.”

  “General, are we to understand that you have refused to submit memory testimony?” the polished woman justice asked. Her name badge said Rjen.

  “Yes, that is correct,” my mother answered.

  “That is highly irregular.” Justice Rjen wrinkled her brow. “No one has ever refused to give memory testimony while on trial for murder.”

  “I’m sure the other Faarians you’ve tried in this court believed they would be found guilty simply for failing to allow you to delve into their brains and root around. But we all know that your procedure is not harmless to Faarians or necessarily temporary as you would have people believe. I am innocent of the charges against me, and I have already told you exactly what occurred. If you don’t believe me, you will just have to look at all of the evidence.”

  “Do not assume, General,” Lu’cron replied with an icy look in his eyes, “that your military rank will provide you leeway in this case or authority in this courtroom.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it, Justice Lu’cron,” she replied dryly.

  “Are you saying, General,” the tall third justice began, bushy eyebrows shooting up his wrinkled forehead, “that you believe if you provide memory testimony to the court, you won’t be returned to the same physical and mental… condition you occupy currently?” His nose seemed to rise snootily in the air.

  “That is exactly what I’m saying, Justice McCall,” she replied. I took another look at his name badge, wondering if he was related to John.

  “Preposterous!” Lu’cron said. “There is no basis in recent history for such a belief.”

  “So you claim,” my mother retorted.

  “Are you aware, General,” Rjen, the female justice, intervened, “that we have received memory testimony not only from the red police showing what condition the body was found in, but from the victim as well? His testimony shows he was still alive after you admittedly tackled him out of a second story window. Before he died, he sent a message that clearly indicated you were trying to kill him. Additionally, your well-known policy of not allowing Afflicted persons into your Kindred does not help your case. If you fail to give memory testimony, I am afraid we will have to go with what testimony we do have and find you guilty.”

  “How is your well-known policy of not allowing Anakharu into Glass City any different from mine? My daughter was attacked. And, if that Anakharu didn’t die from hitting the ground,” my mother said with a wry expression that suggested she already knew the answer, “then what am I doing here on trial?”

  Lu’cron slapped both hands on the table and pushed himself to his feet. “You know very well, General, that you are here because you killed the victim on the ground in cold blood, after all threat to your daughter was past and he was helpless in recuperative stasis!”

  “What?” I exclaimed. “No! She nudged him and walked away! I saw it!”

  Through my focus on the trial coverage, I noticed an enormous, glass-domed city coming into view, looking like shiny soap bubbles on the horizon.

  “…no such thing,” my mother was saying. “An Anakharu climbed into my daughter’s room and attacked her. I tackled him out the window to protect her. Check the Kindred surveillance video if you don’t believe me. It’s all there. After finding him not moving, I left him to get our doctor. By the time she and I got back to him, the red police were already there, loading the body into a casket. They pronounced him dead and brought me here for questioning, and now I am undergoing this sham of a trial! I realize he sent out some kind of telepathic distress call, but the police must have been standing by to get there so quickly.”

  “I must have misunderstood you, General,” Rjen said coldly. “Are you claiming that the red police were somehow in league with the victim to set you up, and that this court is going along with some sort of conspiracy against you?”

  “You tell me, Justice. I know how it looks from where I’m sitting. How does it look from your seat? Are the police officers even here?”

  “That’s enough, General,” Lu’cron snapped, the soap bubbles outside quickly growing into a collection of giant, interconnected domes behind him. “The officers have provided their testimony already, so their attendance was not necessary today. What’s more, we have memory testimony of the deceased. And memory testimony doesn’t lie.”

  “No, but there are always two sides to a story,” Justice McCall finally stepped in. “And so far, the memory testimony we have only indicates the victim thought General Katje was going to kill him. It does not show her actually doing it.” Lu’cron and Rjen turned to glare at him.

  “The fact that the General here is refusing to submit memory testimony to the court is an admission of guilt all by itself,” Rjen said through gritted teeth, just as the rail tracks dove under the outer domes into a poorly lit tunnel, heading toward the heart of the city. Our pod leaped and weaved from side to side at breakneck speed around other pods and trains. Their occupants flashed by, looking alternately shocked or oblivious to our speeding rampage through the tunnels.

  “The General has provided a reason for refusing,” I heard McCall reply. To avoid barfing, I had my eyes squeezed shut. “General, is there another witness at your Kindred who would be able to testify in your place?” McCall asked. “Your daughter who witnessed the event, perhaps?”

  Yes, wait! I’m coming! We were almost there, but I worried that it would be over before we arrived. This trial was going even faster than we were. A moment later I heard Thal ralph on the floorboards before the pod slid to a sudden stop and I was thrown forward against my harness. I didn’t catch my mother’s response as I opened my eyes to see a bustling station. An ornate archway proclaimed COURTHOUSE in polished letters over a large set of white marble stairs.

  Thal groaned as we stumbled out of the pod. I pulled him along and ran for the stairs that lead directly up into the courthouse. Shocked pedestrians dove out of our way.

  The main floor was a bright, oasis of an atrium, circular with a crystal dome that seemed a mile above our heads. We wasted precious seconds asking directions from a bald man at an information desk.

  “Uh, uh," he stuttered with surprise. "A hundred and twenty-fourth floor.” He pointed to open-sided elevators that encircled the perimeter of the sun-filled atrium.

  I pulled Thal aboard the nearest lift. An energy field crackled around us as we sped upward. The trip must’ve only taken a minute or two, but time seemed to have slowed to a never-ending crawl.

  The lift finally stopped and let us out on the top floor, almost directly under the shining dome, and into a crowd of angry protesters holding signs written in bright, flashing colors on their stretch expanded links. I could just make out the top of a set of double doors made of expensively gleaming wood at the front of the crowd. Thal and I pushed and elbowed our way through, but two large guards were blocking the entrance.

  “No entrance while court is in session,” one of them said.

  “But I’ve got to testify!” I shouted, trying to get around her, but she side-stepped to block me again. “I’m the General’s daughter!”

  They looked undecided for a moment. “You’ll have to wait until we get the okay from inside,” the other said as the crowd of protesters pushed hopefully against us. I was about to argue some more when I heard a commotion through the doors and they were hastily pulled open from inside. Out stepped Micha.

  Let the girl pass, she growled mentally, accompanied by a roar that shook the whole place in case they didn’t understand.

  The protesters reversed their course, away from the annoyed tiger. The guards exchanged glances and quickly stepped aside.

  “Thanks Micha,” I said, bolting inside. “Wait! I’m here!” I shouted. “I’ll testify!” Anyone who wasn’t already looking to see what all the commotion was turned to gape at me. I ran up the aisle and vaulted over the horseshoe-shaped partition in front of the audience section and stopped at my mother’s side.

  “Veridian, you shouldn’t have come. It’s too dan
gerous,” my mother said.

  “Mom, you dove out a second story window for me. Let me do this for you.”

  She snorted and shook her head. “You don’t even know what you’re asking.”

  “I do,” I insisted. “Painful and invasive,” I repeated Sarosh’s words and turned to the justices who were watching the drama unfold before them. “I’m ready. Let’s do it.”

  Lu’cron flicked a hand toward one of the guards who started toward me. My mother quickly stood and put herself between us.

  “You will stay away from my daughter,” my mother growled at the guard, her eyes flashing to orange. “Veridian, go sit down,” she ordered.

  “No!” After everything it took to get here, I couldn’t fail now. “This is my decision!”

  “It is not. I am still your mother and legal guardian, and you do not have permission to do this. Now sit.” She pointed at the front row of the audience and turned back to the justices. “My daughter will not be testifying. Not under any circumstances.”

  Justice McCall sighed and nodded regretfully. He waved the guard away and suddenly Sensei and Penthe were on either side of me, dragging me back to their seats in the audience.

  “No! You can’t do this!” I cried. She couldn’t save my life and go to jail for me and not let me help. She couldn’t.

  “Sunny, be quiet!” Sensei hissed at me when they sat me down. “There isn’t any more you can do. It’s up to Micha now.”

  “As I was saying before the interruption,” my mother said to the justices, “my Ahatu partner Micha is here.” She gestured to the back of the room where Micha had returned to quietly sit on her haunches. Thal sat beside her against the wall, the small teen boy and enormous tiger incongruously alone in a moat of empty space, the only space available in the standing-room-only crowd. “She, in fact, witnessed the Anakharu still alive while in the casket. She is offering to provide your precious memory testimony, which ought to be sufficient evidence for all of you.”