by Macronomicon
They have no idea. Jeb chuckled.
Once the audience was in, he kept his eye open for anything akin to a jury, but he didn’t even see a separate spot for one. That’s not a good sign.
Once everyone was more or less settled, the guy standing next to him shouted, “Please rise for the honorable Judge Elkor.”
Jeb really wanted to stay seated to make a statement and prove how cool he was under pressure, but that didn’t really serve any purpose other than to irritate the judge and stir shit up. Jeb didn’t need the man angry to start; he needed him calm and confident.
Gotta keep an animal calm and relaxed before you slaughter it. Spoils the meat otherwise.
So he stood along with the rest of the crowd as the judge sauntered in, preening under the gaze of hundreds of citizens of Solmnath.
Jeb idly touched the supplies in his breast pocket, to make sure they were still there. Tweedle Dee had passed the copper plate and gold earring to him when they were getting Jeb dressed.
Ron’s zombies were outside, posing as day labor and common rats. Once Jeb shook this tree, the semi-autonomous creatures would follow the audience and eavesdrop on their conversations. That should allow Ron to point Zlesk in the right direction.
Then Zlesk and Colt smash.
Thinking of Colt, Jeb was tempted to rub his eyebrows. The boy obviously had an excellent magic for crowd control, but he kept trying to 1v1 everyone. He needed to embrace the chaos.
“Thank you, my friends,” Judge Elkor said, waving as he sat down at the raised dais in front of Jeb. “You may be seated.”
Jeb put his butt to wood, along with several dozen others.
“We gather today for the trial and sentencing of the reaper responsible for the death of so many human children here in Solmnath.” The judge bowed his head in what Jeb assumed was a show of sadness.
The audience, roughly a third human, booed and hissed. A camera flash went off, and then a battery sailed down and bounced off Jeb’s wounded shoulder, drawing a hiss out of him.
Well, the crowd seems to already have their mind made up, Jeb thought, scanning them. Getting humans involved in law proceedings was a great way to integrate them as a whole, but Jeb didn’t wanna be the scapegoat to make that happen.
“Silence,” Elkor rumbled, waving his hand dismissively. A pulse of sea-green Myst hit the crowd and in a matter of seconds, they quieted down, placidity recovered.
“Let’s begin.” Elkor clacked a pair of sticks together, each bound by rich red rope with a golden tassel. Perhaps the offworld equivalent of a gavel?
“Bailiff, will you read the charges?”
The melas beside him held up a scroll and cleared his throat. “Ahem. Jebediah Trapper stands accused of Trafficking children with intent to Reap, Reaping, owning and operating—”
The bailiff was cut off when a baby in the stands went from fussy to literally bursting into flames, engulfing its mother in a pyre. Thankfully the woman had seated herself carefully, close to the exit and surrounded by melas.
No damage was done except for the smoke-smudge on the stone ceiling.
“Madam, get that baby out of my court,” Judge Elkor said, pointing to the door.
The walking pillar of fire nodded and left while the surrounding melas poked fun at the baby for throwing a tantrum.
The bailiff cleared his throat again. “Owning and operating an orphanage without a permit, failure to register no less than six slaves with the Office of Labor, and the abuse thereof.
“That is all,” the bailiff said, closing the scroll.
“Wow,” Jeb muttered. Way to make me look like an asshole, which I suppose is the point.
“Jebediah Trapper,” Elkor said, his gaze boring into Jeb’s skull. “You are scum. I wish I could punish you separately for each of your crimes, but we all know there is only one punishment for Reaping. So this court will decide the matter of Reaping and Trafficking first, then execute the penalty.”
“Yeah! Whoo! Punishment!” Ron shouted from the spectator stands, throwing another battery at Jeb, bouncing it off the arm in a splint.
Goddamnit, Ron. The necromancer’s acting was far too enthusiastic, but he was in the middle of an angry mob and inhumans. They weren’t looking for bad acting.
“Quiet,” Judge Elkor said, clacking his Important Sticks together.
“Bring out the confession.”
A nearby melas secretary ran up to the judge and whispered in his ear.
“What do you mean, there’s none?” he growled, then looked down at Jeb’s bruised and battered form. “You’re an irritating man, Jebediah Trapper.”
So I’ve been told.
Jeb bowed his head. “I apologize. I wanted to—”
“You do not have permission to speak!” Elkor shouted over him. A wave of sea-green rolled over Jeb, settling into his bones. Everything seemed to dim for a moment, every muscle in his body relaxing as he lost control over them. His jaw, on the other hand, seemed to tense up, locking into place and preventing him from speaking.
A moment later, Jeb’s Core flared and shrugged off the effects of the Myst. In this scenario, Jeb was the unruly cat, and the judge was the human. The man had a great deal more raw power than Jeb did, but the judge had budgeted the spell expecting a gerbil.
Judge Elkor stared at him with furrowed brows as Jeb shook off the magic and flexed his jaw, rubbing out the cramp. Jeb deliberately chose not to speak, respecting the conventions of the court. Gotta keep the meat calm.
He glanced at the bailiff and tugged the man’s sleeve.
“I believe the reaper would like to speak,” the bailiff said.
Judge Elkor studied Jeb for a moment, then subtly arranged a shield of sea-green energy around himself, presumably to stop Jeb from messing with his head, if that was a thing Jeb could do.
“The court recognizes Jebediah Trapper.”
Jeb carefully arranged the words in his mind to be both entirely truthful and deceitful as all hell. It was harder than it sounded.
“I apologize for the inconvenience. I understand how bad my situation is. See, back on my home planet, there were things called ‘plea bargains’. I know that without an extraordinary event, I’m definitely going to be convicted. I can see the direction this trial is going. If it would please the court, I would like to offer a Deal: I will accept the onus the empire has placed on me, thereby bringing this trial to a swift end, and in return the judge will answer a question of mine. I have many people I feel deeply responsible for and would die easier knowing their fate.”
There, none of it is a lie.
“You would barter for my time?” Judge Elkor said, leaning over his dais, looking down at Jeb with a sneer.
Jeb stayed silent. He didn’t know if his turn to speak had been revoked, so he just kept his mouth shut.
Here it is. If he agrees to the Deal, I’ve already got him by the balls.
Jeb had specifically asked for the judge to answer a question. He might have alluded to inquiring about the fate of some of his friends, but that was a red herring in his speech. A true sentence, but unrelated.
Jeb’s end of the bargain, accepting the onus the empire had placed on him, was basically just doing what he was already intending to do. Vresh Takalis represented the empire at a higher level than the judge here did, so the job she’d given him came first, before whatever bogus decision this kangaroo court came to.
Translation: “I’ll continue to look for the reaper, and in exchange, you answer one question.”
There’s a good fairy Deal, Jeb thought, hiding his white knuckles under the table. This was what he’d kept his prey calm and confident for this entire time.
The slaughter.
“Hah!” The judge chuckled, leaning back in his seat. “Very well. I accept.” He glanced to the secretary. “Let the record show that Mr. Trapper has admitted to his crimes.”
Click.
“And for my part of the Deal,” Jeb said, his trembling fingers fishin
g into his front pocket.
“I will send a messenger to your cell after the trial is over.”
“Actually, I’d like to get my answer right now,” Jeb said, dropping the Enforcer’s Mark on the table in front of him.
“My onus is to find and kill the reapers operating out of Solmnath, a task which was given to me by Imperial Enforcer Vresh Tekalis.”
The copper plate clattered to a halt in front of Jeb to the sound of utter silence from all but the humans, who whispered to their melas and keegan neighbors. The whispering spread outward, surrounding Jeb with murmurs as he tried to get his fingers to grab the earring in his pocket without hurting the nail bed.
“What is this?” Judge Elkor demanded, scowling at the plate that signified Jeb was acting on behalf of an enforcer.
“A trap, I suppose,” Jeb said, battered fingers retrieving the Truthseeker and clipping it to his ear. There was a brief prick of pain as the gold pin slid through Jeb’s ear, but he ignored it.
“My question is this,” Jeb said, pointing to his ear. “Have you, Judge Elkor, aided or abetted the trafficking or reaping of human children?”
The judge leaned back and took a breath.
There were a few possible ways Jeb saw this going:
1. The other guy does a full court press to discredit Jeb (the most likely).
2. He clams up and says nothing in order to minimize damage.
3. He straight up bolts.
4. He tries to kill Jeb.
“This man is a thief or a liar!” Elkor shouted, rising to his full seven-foot height and pointing at Jeb with the tasseled mega-chopsticks. “No human would be trusted with an Enforcer’s Mark! Confiscate it from him immediately!”
Option one, then.
The bailiff made a reachy-reach for Jeb’s copper plate, and Jeb aimed his newest invention at him from under the table. Favoring nonlethal takedowns when dealing with people, Jeb had weaponized the hopelessness lens.
The hopelessness lens looked like legal documents, past-due letters, and bright red eviction notices all crumpled into a tight wad, impossible to tease out exactly who or what they were for. It gave off incredibly soft whimpers that were only audible to those with Myst.
Fueled by Jeb’s Myst, the stubby wand shot out a red-streaked beige beam that emerged from the table and caught the bailiff full in the chest.
The melas curled into a ball next to the table and started crying.
“The question. Have you, Judge Elkor, aided or abetted the trafficking or—”
“Hidden weapons!” Elkor shouted over Jeb. “He’s an assassin sent to kill me!”
Jeb felt his ear twitch.
The judge pointed the tassel-things at Jeb again, but this time they were crackling with sea-green power. A lot more than last time.
I do believe that’s more than enough to kill me. So a combination of option one and four? Jeb thought, desperately spinning up his Myst to attempt to weather the effect of Elkor’s enervation.
The beam of sea-green Myst travelled across the room and impacted against a similar beam of neon purple directly in front of Jeb. The two rays of magic scattered into a brilliant display of Myst fireworks only visible to three of the hundreds of spectators. In the stands, Ron blew imaginary smoke off the tip of his finger like an idiot.
The kid was the only other person from the Impossible Tutorial who full-stop dedicated himself to Myst, and that meant his magic was Stronk.
Judge Elkor stared at Jeb’s companion slack-jawed. A random human’s Myst had just wiped the floor with his own presumably third-generation Myst Core. The judge’s eyes were bugging out.
Seems like a good opportunity to pose my question again.
“The question, Mr. Elkor, is have you aided or abetted the—”
“Outrageous lies and slander!” the judge shouted over Jeb again, making his ear twitch as he lied. As a tactic, talking over people was actually a pretty good way of preventing them from being heard…if crude and juvenile. Effective, though. “I’ll have none of it in my courtroom! This session is adjourned until we have a chance to search the reaper for hidden weapons and teach him some respect! This reaper is guilty of the murder of children, for Vresh’na’s sake!”
“Is anybody else wondering why he doesn’t just answer the question!?” Ron asked in the middle of the slowly heating mob, his voice pitched just nasal enough to carry through the entire room, somehow finding a chink in the judge’s armor of boisterous bellowing.
“What question?” someone asked aloud.
“Did someone ask the judge a question?”
“Why’s he yelling, anyway?”
“What’s that copper thing mean?”
God fucking damnit. Of course people were oblivious. Getting everyone on the same page was like herding cats.
Jeb stood and filled his lungs.
“MIRZOS ELKOR, HAVE YOU AIDED OR ABETTED IN THE TRAFFICKING OR REAPING OF HUMAN CHILDREN!?” Jeb bellowed, with every ounce of training and clarity he could muster. One thing the army teaches you is how to scream in such a way that people can still understand you.
It rarely came in handy, but this was one such occasion, forcing the judge to lean away and shutting him up, albeit temporarily.
“The judge did?”
“Wait, so is this a sting?”
“Chris Hanson, eat your heart out.”
“Why don’t you take a seat, haha!”
The judge scanned the crowd, turning a light shade of blue, eyes wide as the scattered voices began to unify against him.
Jeb took a deep breath and cut through the chatter.
“Don’t you think someone who kills children for personal profit would have to rank among the most cowardly, spineless, pathetic excuses for a thinking creature? Worth less than the gum on my shoe? You wouldn’t want to look like that kind of reaper in front of all these people, so just answer this one simple question for all these curious onlookers:”
Jeb motioned to the crowd.
“Did ya help kill kids? Or did ya not?”
“This slander can’t be allowed to stand!” the keegan judge said, slamming his sticks down on his dais, stalking around the stone shelf to glare directly down at Jeb, only feet apart. Less than the distance it would take for the keegan to reach out and throttle him.
“I challenge Jebediah Trapper to an Honor Duel!”
“Wait, what?” Jeb frowned.
Chapter 20: Location, Location, Location
“Are you… Are you serious?”
“Unless you wish to retract your scurrilous statement! You have insulted me, and the only way out for you now is to retract your words or face your death in combat!”
“First of all,” Jeb said, holding up a finger. “It was a scurrilous question, which you refused to answer because you’re obviously guilty, and second, duels are stupid!”
A collective gasp rippled through the stands.
“I mean, what kind of idiot thought it was a good idea to determine the truth through a fight? The person who is more correct and the person who is stronger are rarely the same person.”
Accept a duel with a guy who had dozens upon dozens of stats over Jeb? Nuh-uh, not a good idea.
“Then retract your accusation, right here and now!”
“Nuh uh.” Jeb shook his head. “That’s a false dichotomy. This isn’t some grade-school bullshit; this is organized murder we’re talking about, and I refuse to entertain either of your blatant attempts to dodge culpability. I’m not dueling you, I am hunting you. I will not retract my words, either. Every one of them is true.”
The judge’s eyes squinted in glee. “Are you a Citizen, human?”
Jeb felt a hand grab him roughly by the shoulder.
“Goddamnit.”
In the stands, several spectators slipped through the noisy crowd watching the two men in the center of the room, aiming for the exits. Some of them, Jeb was sure, were simply going to gossip to their friends about the excitement at the courthouse�
��
But at least one would lead them to the rest of their quarry.
******
Nancy and the others were killing peruha, which were inhuman tentacle-things in barrels filled with salt water. They didn’t look like people as much as rabzi did, so that made things easier, but they were a bit more dangerous to fight.
One girl had nearly been yanked into the barrel when one of the monsters grabbed her spear with its suckers and tugged.
The kids standing next to her had nearly been paralyzed by the sight of the gnashing beak aiming for Lindsey’s head.
They had managed to pull her out and kill the creature, but not before Lindsey got a fair number of bumps and scratches, especially bruised and cut skin from where the toothy suckers had latched onto her.
Nancy glanced down at her own wound. The scar test on her hand had long since faded to nothing, which had prompted the children to make a new one, right overtop where the original brand had been.
They did this by using the flame of the lamp in their room to heat some purloined silverware before burning the backs of their hands, keeping their marks looking fresh.
It wasn’t gonna work forever, but it didn’t need to; they were escaping tonight.
They’d been pushing themselves extra hard, splitting their levels between Nerve and Body, getting faster and smarter. Even the smallest of them, little Marcy Evans, was already able to cling to the ceiling with just her fingers, and she had made huge strides in her ability to understand what was going on around them since she’d raised her Nerve by five points.
Nancy had even gotten her new Class the other day, lying to Mr. Surpey and claiming she chose Spearman.
Instead, she chose one that gave her Nerve and Myst. Nancy figured that doing the opposite of what Mr. Surpey wanted was a good way to start working against him.
As soon as she chose the Mascot Class, she’d suffered from a massive headache and an inexplicable need to hug fluffy things, but once those faded, the world laid itself bare in front of her. Every thought was expanded, as though she’d been thinking inside the confines of a sippy cup, and now her ideas swam out into the ocean and came back with little baby ideas of their own. It gave her the confidence she needed to believe they could escape.