by Jana Janeway
Ashamed, Craddock looked away, to the wood railing in front of him. “We shoplifted it, sir.”
Horace hummed, amused. “Relax, son. We won’t be turning you over to the authorities for a nicked pregnancy test.” Gaining seriousness once again, he asked, “Did you tell the Registry that Jessica was expecting?”
“No sir.”
Horace seemed troubled by that. He pursed his lips for a moment, his expression solemn. “Did you tell anyone that she was pregnant?”
“Not while we were at the Abdonville house, no. Later, yes. After Jessica was shot, we told our friends.”
“You’ve any idea how the Registry could have learned of it?”
Without making a conscious decision to do so, Craddock looked over at Wade. “I think they overheard us. Wade told us they bugged both houses, and the car.”
“We respectfully object.” The man sitting next to Liam was suddenly on his feet. “Hearsay.”
Regarding him for only a brief few seconds, Horace waved his hand dismissively. “I asked for his opinion, and he didn’t state it as fact. He said that Wade told them the houses and cars were bugged. Overruled.”
Confused, Craddock’s attention shifted back and forth between the two men, and then darted over to the plaintiff’s table. Marcy’s expression still gave away nothing, but Jeramey, it seemed, was fighting back a grin. Before he could reason through what that might have meant, Horace resumed his questioning.
“At any time, did you feel as if you were being monitored in that manner?”
“Jessica did. And after our last trip to the center, on the way home, she said she felt as if they knew she was pregnant.”
Out of his peripheral vision, Craddock noticed that the guy who had objected before and Liam were leaning towards one another, whispering. It seemed the man in the room he had first been called into was wrong. Unknowingly, he had just stumbled upon a real life A Few Good Men moment.
Even without a full understanding of the situation, Craddock was smart enough to realize that a window of opportunity had just presented itself. He was also smart enough to take it before it slipped away.
“Sir?”
Horace’s head had been down, jotting notes on his legal pad; he raised it when Craddock called to him. “Yes, son?”
“I don’t know if this matters, but I’ve seen the bugs. The listening and tracking devices?”
As the whispers coming from the defendant’s table grew more intense, Craddock fought hard not to look over at his friends, to try to get some kind of confirmation that he was doing the right thing.
“When? Where?” Horace asked.
“When we went back to New York, to rescue Shea and Stacy. They were sewn into their coats.”
Leaning back in his seat, Horace contemplated that for a moment. “What made you think to look in their coats for such devices?”
Reflexively, Craddock’s eyes sought Wade, since his name was on the tip of his tongue. He couldn’t be certain due to the distance between them, but it looked as if he was being given a subtle nod.
Taking that as a sign of encouragement, Craddock set his gaze back on the director. “Wade. He said the rescue was too easy. That something was wrong. He figured it out.”
The silence that followed was disconcerting. Just as Craddock was beginning to regret speaking up, Horace hummed, breaking the tension a little.
“Alright then, before I hand things over to the plaintiff, those in chairs would like to ask you a few questions. Milandrea?”
The woman to Horace’s right, Milandrea, sat a little taller. “Thank you for being here, Mr. Daniels. Could you please tell us how – in what other ways – the Registry made you and Jessica feel like prisoners?”
Nodding, Craddock took a drink of water first, setting the bottle back on the railing before answering. “We couldn’t refuse them anything. If they wanted us to go to the center, we had to. If they wanted to draw Jessica’s blood, they did it, even if she asked them not to. We weren’t allowed to go beyond the small town nearby, and trust me, there wasn’t much of the town. They would only give us a few dollars in gas at a time so that we literally couldn’t go farther than a few miles. If we tried to make friends, they would scold us for it, telling us we shouldn’t. We tried to attend a faire type thing the town threw for the fourth of July – agents showed up and followed us everywhere. They wouldn’t let us get a computer. Jessica asked, several times, to be able to visit her brother, but they always just told us that they’d consider it.
“They were… intrusive. Stifling. Jessica was going stir crazy by the end.”
Milandrea dropped her head, scribbling on her own legal pad. “Thank you, Mr. Daniels.”
The man on the far end of the table cleared his throat. “Was Jessica allowed any contact at all with her brother?”
“Only on the pay-as-you-go cell phone they gave us. And they would only give us one hundred minutes per month to use, so her time had to be rationed carefully.”
“Did you ever request that they give you more minutes, or put you on a plan instead?”
“Repeatedly. They did give us thirty extra minutes at Christmas, but after that, they dropped us back to one hundred.”
The man, whose nameplate read Sebastein Darson, gave a single, sharp nod. “Thank you. Alvaro?”
“Did the Registry ever neglect to provide you with necessities? Food, hygiene products, clothes?”
“No, they were always good about that. Especially the food. Our fridge and pantry were always stocked.”
Alvaro, without acknowledging Craddock, looked to his left. “Beatrice?”
“Was Jessica’s pregnancy accidental or intentional?”
The accusation in her tone was clear. Feeling guilty, Craddock closed his eyes for a moment. “Intentional.”
“If you felt like prisoners, as you claim, why then would you want to bring a child into that environment?”
“Respectfully, we would like to interject,” Elsa said, standing, “to remind Mr. Daniels that it is within his rights to refuse to answer any question posed.”
Startled, his eyes snapped over to Elsa’s, but hers were on Horace.
“He was explained his rights twenty minutes ago,” Beatrice retorted. “I’m sure he remembers.”
Horace raised his hands in front of him, palms out; a request for calm. “Settle down, Bee, the boy’s not on trial here.”
Beatrice scoffed, her glare returning to Craddock. After several seconds of silence, she scoffed again. “Well?” she spat.
Craddock swallowed hard, flustered. “I’m– I’m not sure if I should.” He attempted to gain an answer from his friends, but they offered nothing, only staring back at him.
He’d never given anyone an explanation for why he and Jessica had decided to try for a baby. Without them knowing the reason, they seemed reluctant to counsel him.
“Shall we move on then?” Horace suggested. “Sanjay?”
“Jessica was miserable,” Craddock blurted, avoiding Beatrice’s hard eyes, speaking to the director instead. “She’s always wanted to be a mom. I was just trying to give her something to look forward to. I admit it wasn’t the best decision under the circumstances, but I was desperate – desperate to make her happy.”
He tried to control his voice since, according to Marcy, Horace didn’t like displays of emotion, but he choked up, anyway, his memories of that time bittersweet.
The hours spent making love, sometimes to the point of exhaustion, only to wake up and start all over again…
The long talks about child rearing; her confidence in him, insisting he would be a great father…
The way he hid his concerns from her when it became obvious that she was pregnant – something that should have been joyful, except it was also obvious that the Registry had no intention of letting them go…
“Sorry.” Grabbing his water bottle, he took a long drink, to dislodge the lump in his throat and stall for time.
“Do you need a break, s
on?”
Horace’s question held more compassion than Craddock would have expected. He recapped his water and set it back on the railing. “No sir, I’m fine.”
“Alright, let’s get this wrapped up then. Sanjay?”
“You said the Registry was intrusive. Can you elaborate?”
Craddock hung his head, his shoulders slumping. “I don’t know, it was just… everything. The constant questions. Following us around. They’d show up at the house unannounced, and we couldn’t turn them away. We’re pretty sure they had a key, and let themselves in when we were out at the center.”
“Why do you think that?” Sanjay asked. “That they had a key and let themselves in?”
Looking up again, Craddock met the man’s eyes. “Jess is a bit obsessive when it comes to cleaning. Everything had a spot. Sometimes, when we’d return from the center, things would be askew.”
“Were any items missing?”
“No, it was all still there, just… moved. Jessica’s attention to detail is… keen. She could always tell.”
“Thank you. Doreen?”
The woman to Sanjay’s left smiled at Craddock, warmly. “Mr. Daniels, both in your statement and here today, you mention the center. When and how was your time at the center spent? What was a typical visit like?”
“We went twice per week, every week, on Tuesdays and Thursdays. In the beginning, they drew Jessica’s blood every week. Then it dropped down to twice per month. By the end, once per month.”
“Could that be how they learned of Jessica’s pregnancy?” she asked, interjecting.
He shook his head. “She conceived right after the last time they drew her blood. It wasn’t time yet to draw it again, at that last visit.”
“I see. Continue, please.”
“Mostly, they just asked her a lot of questions – comparison questions about how things were for her before, as a Human, and how those same things were for her now. How things looked, sounded, tasted. At first, it seemed like pretty normal stuff, but after a while, the questions became more intrusive, and repetitive. They asked for information that embarrassed her, about her monthly cycle, and our intimate times together. Those were really upsetting to her.”
“Could you give us some examples?”
He sighed, swiping his hand through his hair. “I’d rather not go into detail, if that’s alright.”
“That’s fine.” Her smile was sympathetic. “Please continue.”
“They asked her to repeat the story of her conversion at every visit. The few times she refused, they threatened to keep us there longer, until she cooperated. She got to the point where she just answered on autopilot, just to be done with it.
“Then they started running these weird tests on her.”
Her brow furrowed. “What sort of tests?”
“I forget what it was called, but they hooked her up to this machine… A brain wave test of some kind?”
“An EEG?”
The initials clicked with him immediately. “Yeah, that’s it. They asked her questions while she was hooked up to that. They had her smell things, taste things. It kind of weirded her out.”
“Did they give her the option of refusing?”
“No. But after some arguing, they did allow me to stay in the room with her, because she was nervous.”
The genial smile she wore before was gone now, replaced by a scowl. “Thank you. Barbara?”
As Doreen dropped her gaze to her notepad, Barbara lifted hers from her own. “A simple question, but I’m curious. Why do you prefer to go by Craddock Daniels?”
“I’d gone by that identity the longest, and Jessica prefers it.”
Smirking a little, Barbara then passed her turn to the next of the twelve. “Peter?”
“You said the Registry would scold you if you tried to make friends; could you elaborate on that, please?”
“In a roundabout way, they called us stupid for trying to. They said it would draw attention to us, and we should be avoiding that. But Jess was going stir crazy. She lived in New York; she’s used to having a lot of people around her. That was one of the reasons she wanted a computer. She wanted to be able to talk to others online.”
“Were you attempting friendships with Humans, or other Mengliads?”
“Mengliads. The community was predominantly Mengliad.”
“Thank you. Ebraham?”
“What were some of the other reasons she wanted a computer?”
Ebraham’s accent was thick, actually to the point where Craddock had difficulty understanding him, but he couldn’t place where it was from.
“She wanted to be able to email with her brother and sister-in-law. She wanted to do simple, silly stuff, like check recipe sites and watch YouTube videos.”
“Did you explain that to the Registry?”
“Yes, but they still refused us.”
Ebraham clucked his tongue and shook his head, in what seemed like disapproval. “Henry?”
Henry’s eyes were much like Beatrice’s, cold and hard. “You admit in your statement that you physically assaulted a Registry agent while on the subway in New York, who had done nothing more than walk toward your wife.”
Craddock just stared back at him, waiting. He wasn’t about to respond, to fuel this man’s antagonism, and it wasn’t a question, anyway.
Henry’s glare intensified when Craddock remained silent. “How do you justify this action, assaulting a man unprovoked?”
“Jessica was scared. Terrified. Feeling her fear, I just… reacted. We didn’t know what would happen if he’d gotten to her. I didn’t want him touching her.”
“So you acted without cause.”
Craddock schooled his expression, knowing a display of anger would not only be counterproductive, but unacceptable. “I respectfully disagree. I felt my wife was in danger – my wife and my unborn baby – and I will do anything, whatever necessary, to protect my family.”
“Going by that logic, you feel you have the right to attack anyone you deem a threat, evidence or not?”
“Of course not, but I felt that I did have sufficient evidence. Wade said he was an agent, and he was marching up the aisle towards my wife, glaring at her.”
“For all you knew, he might have been a fellow passenger who was just annoyed by some benign issue, and was only planning to ask your wife for the time.”
“But he wasn’t, was he?” Craddock challenged him in return, allowing just a hint of a glare to show itself. “He was a Registry agent. I trusted Wade’s word, and under the same exact circumstances, I would do the same exact thing again, in a heartbeat. I will protect my family.”
Huffing out a breath, Henry’s eyes fell to his legal pad in front of him. “Loralie?”
“Thank you for your patience, Mr. Daniels. Is it true that you and Jessica can speak to one another telepathically?”
“Yes.” Of course he knew there would be a follow up question, or several. Everyone who learned of their unique abilities through Chimie seemed to have dozens.
She grinned a little at his simple answer. “Could you elaborate?”
Appreciative of the break in hostility, he smiled back at her. “It sounds like she’s speaking, but it goes straight from her head into mine. I don’t really know how else to describe it.”
“Was the Registry aware of this?”
“We’re not sure. If they were, they never spoke to us about it, and we never mentioned it.”
“Was there a particular reason why you never mentioned it to them?”
He shrugged. “We didn’t think to. We didn’t know it was unusual.”
She smiled again, kindly. “Thank you, Mr. Daniels. Horace?”
“Alright then, let’s move this along.” Horace turned his attention to the plaintiff’s table. “The floor is yours, Ms. Craig.”
Chapter Thirty
All but a handful of the plaintiff’s questions were expected. Having been coached in the days before the hearing, Craddock also knew how bes
t to answer them. Only the ones about the listening devices were new to him.
“You said that Jessica felt you were being monitored in that manner, during your last visit to the center,” Elsa reminded him. “Were there other times that she felt that way?”
Craddock shrugged his left shoulder. “There was nothing concrete, just little things said. Questions they asked. They seemed to know stuff that they shouldn’t have known.”
“Could you give us some examples?”
Taking a moment, he sifted through his memories, trying to dredge something up. Suddenly, he raised his eyes from his lap, meeting Elsa’s expectant ones. “We had discussed going out for her birthday. There was some movie she wanted to see, that she’d seen a trailer for on TV. We talked about asking the Registry for permission to go, since there wasn’t a theater in town, but before we could even bring it up to them, they told us that if there were any movies we wanted to see, to let them know and they would buy us the DVDs. It was little things like that. We just thought it was creepy.”
“And did you ask to go to the theater for her birthday?”
“Yeah, but they just said the same thing – that they’d buy it for us when it came out on DVD.”
“Are there any other examples you could give us?”
“We respectfully object!” The representative for the defense stood, his chair scraping the floor in his haste to do so. “The point has been made.”
“We would like to show that this wasn’t an isolated incident,” Elsa said to Horace.
The director was quick to make a decision. “Overruled. We’ll allow this next example, but after that, move on, Ms. Craig.”
“Yes sir.” She turned back to Craddock. “Mr. Daniels?”
It was weird, hearing her address him so formally. Before, she had always been friendly with him, even when they were practicing for the hearing. Now, while her tone wasn’t harsh, there was a definite edge to it.
“Take your time, Mr. Daniels.”
He scowled at the railing, redirecting his wandering thoughts. “There was this one time… We had just gotten back from the center, on Tuesday, and Jess went into the kitchen to prepare some fancy dessert for after dinner. But because she was upset, she lost track of what she was doing and burned it. Ruined the pan. I tried to console her; told her not to worry about it, that we’d just ask the Registry to replace it. On Thursday when we went back in, we asked and they agreed. The next day, we get a package at our door. The pan, but there was an invoice in the box with it, dated Tuesday, the day she ruined it, before we had asked them for the new one.”