Bang

by Charles Kennedy Scott

  Poy Yack, who wore very spongy soled shoes, addressed the next witness who scaled the witness stand. ‘You are a surgeon, is this correct?’

  The witness called down, ‘Yes, I jolly well am, and I don’t care what you lawyers think, we in the medical world rank socially higher than the likes of you in the legal world. Sharks, every last one of you.’

  ‘Be that as it may,’ said Poy Yack, raising a brow at the Superintendent, who raised one back because he at this moment happened to be plucking a hair from it, ‘please explain your relationship with the defendant.’

  ‘I operated on her friend, tried to save his hands. But he was in a cage at the time and the procedure was tricky indeed. Also, and I do not believe this has been brought to light till now, he was fully conscious and refused to keep still. We were not permitted, by order of that officer over there’ – the surgeon pointed out JJ Jeffrey – ‘to administer drugs to stem this wild movement, which was like that of a caged animal. Not that he’d have been able to afford drugs or had the hands to sign a credit agreement for them, if we had. Consequently both hands were lost.’

  ‘Witness, would you say, judging by their wear, that the defendant’s friend made full use of these hands when still they were at his disposal?’

  ‘That is not for me to say.’

  ‘Nor is it for you say that an officer was involved the loss of two hands of a prisoner! Especially when that officer himself lost two eyes, if you please, at the hands of the very same prisoner. You will confine yourself to answering the question. Do I make myself clear?’

  ‘What is the question?’

  ‘Superintendent,’ appealed Poy Yack, ‘please warn the surgeon that he will be found in contempt of court should he not answer the questions put clearly to him. He knows what they are: I Lifed them to him only, what, four or five weeks ago.’

  ‘Contempt,’ warned the Superintendent. ‘You have been warned.’

  ‘Very well. To answer your question. Over a prolonged period I have conducted, using the latest techniques, a profile on the prisoner. Because the two brilliant students I pioneered this profiling technique with have inexplicably disappeared, I had to establish the following alone. The defendant is guilty of inciting, by a certain character trait she possesses, terrorist acts – in possibly those same two students, though this has not been proved – that led by crude biological means to the mass murder of many prisoners. That is point one, leadership, as cited earlier. Before that, off she went to a funeral, the funeral of her murdered victim, Officer Gentle, hardly the most welcome of guests, I’d have thought, leaving her fellow prisoners in Remand 111 to certain death. You’d have expected compassion for her fellow lags, but no. Giving us, on two counts, point two, compassionlessness. She later claimed, when I interviewed her, and inevitably I have spent many hours with her – on occasions she has tried smiling at me in certain ways and I’ve had to close my eyes and not imagine what I might and she might not be thinking – that she was taken against her will to the funeral. And she claimed, further, that she did not know prisoners would die in her absence. Poppycock. Accordingly, point three, a born liar, congenitally dishonest. Next. She has acted in a film, The Murderer, an archived fragment of which we have today viewed in court in which we see her drowning the Officer and before that spinning in joy at the self-murder of the fat man, an ex-colleague of mine who practiced on the results of my and other surgeon’s errors of judgement. But this is not the point. The point is that she was pleased, oh so pleased with herself at her performance. The point is point four, pride, dangerous pride. Then, when recovering in Sanatorium 135 – a place whose sheer mention often eases or eliminates the symptoms of prisoners who present before System doctors – she believed she contracted love-sickness. Now she’s got it into her head that she is in love with someone, she’s just not sure who. I have tried long and hard to persuade her otherwise, but she’ll have none of it. Even when I’ve given her a hard slap followed by a good tonguing, she insists that both her heart flutters and her concentration lapses are the real thing, and grips her fist till it goes white, staring intently at me with her big attractive eyes to prove it. So, and it saddens me to bring this to the court, I am afraid to say, ergo, and this is point five, that she is deluded. Finally, the nail in her coffin, in a manner of speaking. Almost everyone she’s come into contact with has in someway come a cropper, leaving a long, long list of croppers. Thus my conclusion that it is not safe to keep her in the System. She must be got rid of. Somehow. Categorically so. And I would like to push off, too, if you don’t mind.’

  ‘Step down, surgeon. Take some cake on your way out.’

  ‘Thank you, Superintendent. If you would like your eyebrows surgically altered, please come and see me, we have a new procedure, I see they have again gone astray. The Public Body pleads impecuniosity but I’m sure we can persuade it to make a foray into its coffers for your good self. I will see you later anyway at the party, and we can chat. Goodbye. This cake is delicious, by heavens. I must have the recipe.’

  ‘Isn’t it. There will be more at the party. It’s made by the special waitress. What a woman. She’ll be on top form, too, when it comes to her legal jokes, and will have us all on our backs, of that I have no doubt. In the meantime, take more cake and take a stroll in the nearby Gentle Memorial Gardens, but remember, keep off the grass, it is for looking at, and mowing, not strolling on. That is all.’ The surgeon in an impressive manoeuvre flicked his tweed jacket up behind him with his elbows and sort of jumped underneath it, leaving the court with it neatly on his back, to a flutter of applause, which the next witness acknowledged with a smile and a nod, assuming it was for him as he climbed into the witness stand.

  ‘Your name?’ asked Poy Yack.

  ‘Warden 111.’

  ‘That’s not quite accurate, is it? And they’re not clapping you either.’

  ‘Former Warden 111,’ the former warden said in a small voice, and eyed the cake.

  ‘Would you care to tell the court why it is Former Warden 111?’

  In his voice, which had lost all its depth since his dismissal, he said, ‘I was considered lax, for allowing a party. They let me go.’

  ‘They?’

  ‘The Authority.’ The former warden’s voice was very high now.

  ‘Allowing a party, you say. Normal practice, was it, to hold parties in Remand 111? An everyday occurrence? You considered yourself a party organiser?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Why then on this occasion? There must have been a reason. These parties don’t just happen by themselves. Do they? When you answer, please lower the frequency of your voice.’

  ‘Her,’ said the Former Warden 111, high-pitched as ever, pointing at Delilah.

  ‘Her?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Her what?’

  ‘Idea,’ squeaked the former warden.

  ‘Her idea?’ asked the lawyer.

  ‘Yes, hers.’

  ‘You lost your job because of her?’

  ‘I did. Her.’

  ‘You have a right to be angry with her.’

  ‘I do. Her.’

  ‘Legally speaking, that is, you have a right to be angry with her.’ Poy Yack also pointed at Delilah.

  ‘I am.’

  ‘And the right to recommend punishment for her. Any such recommendations?’

  ‘The death penalty.’

  ‘For?’

  ‘Her.’

  ‘The death penalty? Thank you. The death penalty, Superintendent,’ said Poy Yack.

  ‘The death penalty. It has been noted,’ said the Superintendent severely, and added it to his list. ‘Cake is over there. Yummy yum yum. But help yourself and you’ll be in trouble. As a dismissed employee of the System you’re no longer entitled to hospitality. I am not sorry.’

  ‘Don’t you worry, I have other plans,’ the sacked warden squealed, then exited.

  ‘Phew.’ Poy Yack rubbed his ears.

  ‘Defendant,’ said the Super
intendent, ‘I hope you have not become emotionally attached to your life. Your situation appears rather precarious. But your case must continue. Your brick, to apply your terminology, still sinks through water. Next witness. Giddy up, come on, we haven’t got all morning, all afternoon, I mean afternoon. What difference a morning might have meant to this trial. My word. Next witness, please.’

  There was fumbling over by a witness bench.

  ‘Workmen, have you got that next witness ready yet?’

  ‘Nearly, sir. Just a bit of reassembly.’

  ‘Get rid of those blankets and allow Lawyer Poy Yack to interrogate the witness. Now!’

  ‘Ready, Superintendent. Done it.’ The workmen stepped away, trying, it appeared, not to laugh at something they found amusing between themselves.

  ‘Your witness, Poy Poy,’ said the Superintendent. ‘Proceed.’

  Lawyer Poy Yack had walked, arrogantly but very quietly on his terribly soft shoes, which compressed by many centimetres each tread he took, over to the tall cubed object, knocked on it, causing its doors to slide open with a mouthy hiss, and said, addressing the court, ‘This lift, I am assured, can testify against the prisoner, due to certain security devices installed within it. We will be able to take its data as proof that the defendant attempted to escape after the murder.’

  ‘That’s news to me,’ said the lift.

  ‘Excuse me?’ said Poy Yack.

  The workmen fell on their backs and kicked their legs in the air in laughter.

  The lift spoke assuredly now to Poy Yack, ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

  Poy Yack said, ‘This is worrying, Superintendent. The lift is intended, is it not, to function as a System security device. I do not see the point of it otherwise.’

  ‘Transportation,’ replied the Superintendent, in a helpful tone, staring up at an eyebrow hair held taut from his eyebrow by his finger and thumb to which he applied callipers.

  ‘Security was the idea, I believe,’ said the lift, matter-of-factly, ‘but my designer, a rich man, was more taken with other pursuits – I need not mention to which pursuits I refer – and neglected to install that particular system. Consequently I malfunction when I receive a ‘no officer detected’ signal. More by luck – bad luck, the dear defendant might argue – than by design. My designer claims, though, that he can tickle me or whisper certain sentences that will make me perform certain functions. This is nonsense. I challenge him to try this now. Where is he?’

  ‘He is dead.’

  ‘Oh,’ said the lift.

  ‘I expect that has upset you.’

  ‘Hardly. You must remember that while I appear to you to possess free thought, I do not. Everything I say comes from maths and programming, highly complicated maths and programming at that, but I am a non-freethinking creature. You people seem to believe that if you continue along these lines, by improving designs such as mine, you will eventually produce an autonomous free thinker. You will not, this isn’t the way to go. No, you must go the route of feeling. That’s right, feeling. Does it feel good? Does it feel bad? Pain and pleasure. This is origin of thought. Your responses yes or no are thought, free thought. But inner language does not describe complex thoughts, complex feelings do. For instance, you fear death because it is the ultimate pain. If you reject the most minor pain, as generally you do, you will reject that which you perceive the most major, death. I, in contrast, am merely programmed to fear destruction, but I do not feel fear, and there is a big difference. That is all I will for now say on the subject, though I could go on for hours, hours and hours, as you can no doubt imagine. After all, what better do I have to do with my days? About the most excitement I get is when someone causes my right function to activate and the resultant error means I must go to the Whipping Boy for resetting. This is how the defendant and I met. I’d have liked to take her right up to Welcome, because I think she is a spirited and fine individual, and among you all here she alone probably understands best what I am talking about. Therefore I would find it hard to testify against her, and if I’d been asked before proceedings I would have told you exactly this. She has the capacity to feel, and many of you, through genetic advances, ironically’ – the lift laughed heartily, an extraordinary sound – ‘have regressed and do not. Besides, she should go free. Officer Gentle was a weakling who did nothing but abuse his power to abuse Delilah. And if she drowned him, as is claimed, how come when he was brought into me, he was bone dry? Answer me that. If he’d been wet my rust detectors would have sounded and tried to dry him. They did not. Anyway, enough from me. I have given you plenty to think about. Please, workmen, take me back to my shaft. Thank you.’

  The Superintendent, as the (still giggling) workmen approached the lift, coughed and gesticulated with a half-waving hand that they halt.

  ‘I’m waiting,’ said the lift.

  A silence, conspiratorial silence, spread through the courtroom.

  ‘I know you’re there,’ said the lift. ‘My sensors are finely tuned. I will count everybody in this room: 1113. Lift overloaded.’

  ‘Shush,’ said someone.

  ‘There is no point trying to upset me like this,’ the lift went on. ‘I don’t feel a thing. I know I’m meant to be upset, feel rejected, and have registered this, but since I have zero emotional pain in that department I couldn’t care less. You can cut me up or melt me down and I would not care. Leave me here and pretend you’ve left the room, what difference does it make to me? I am a lift, it’s no skin off my nose, I am used to waiting, that’s what I was built for. If this is a contest of wills, I shall win, because I do not have a will, I can simply go onto standby.’

  ‘Oh take the damn thing away,’ shouted the Superintendent. ‘And put it back where you found it. From now on I’ll use the stairs. Next witness.’

  ‘I would like some cake, too,’ said the lift as the workmen (with heaving shoulders) carried it away. But the lift had had its say, and was now ignored, now the next witness had taken the stand.

  Lawyer Poy Yack said, ‘Yes, this might prove a little tricky. Given that you cannot talk, please pulse your Life once for yes, two for no.’

  The Superintendent added, ‘Offer the witness his cake now, as he will not be speaking he can eat instead. Let’s press on, though, I am mindful of the time. I would not like to overrun.’

  ‘Absolutely,’ said Poy Yack. ‘There’s not much more to do here today.’ He turned to the witness. ‘Can you eat cake, without your tongue, which the surgeon used to beat the defendant with?’

  The witness pulsed once – yes – and was handed a large slice, which, technically as a prisoner he should not have had, explaining perhaps why he stuffed it in his mouth in one go and began chomping noisily and breathily.

  ‘How long have you been agent to the Defendant, agent? A long time or a short time?’

  So, thought Delilah, this tongueless person is my agent.

  The agent, a drawn figure, with a neck slack now it had no tongue rooted in it, did not pulse his Life.

  ‘My apologies. A short time?’

  Two pulses: no.

  ‘A long time?’

  One pulse.

  ‘Has it, on the whole, been a good working relationship?’

  Two pulses: no.

  ‘She was unreliable, one would assume, turning up late for shoots, sometimes weeks, refusing to read scripts, saying she knew them already, being generally difficult?’

  Yes: one pulse. And nodding.

  ‘Arrogant, this defendant? Refused to acknowledge you? Ignored you last time you met? Liked to take credit for others’ work?’

  Yes.

  ‘Even now up in Hearing Room 102 an esteemed money man brokers a language-selling deal likely to be worth an inordinate sum and suddenly over there the Defendant glows as if she has something to do with this, something she could take credit for. You found these attempts to steal the limelight typical, these delusions, in your dealings with her?’

  Yes.


  ‘How trying, I must say. Then you found yourself down here, is this correct, because she balked on an agreement you had with the Center of Disinformation for her to provide her services in a Public Body of Health Education Bulletin they’d hope to do, balked by deliberately getting herself arrested. Something about a mugging. But you took the fall. This is accurate? Yet you continued to work for her, and find work for her, even while you were administered injections in your tongue that ultimately caused its collapse and subsequent loss and was used by the surgeon in his profiling of her?’

  Yes. Emphatically, yes: the agent pulsed the Life with significance, staring down hard at Delilah.

  ‘Not a good client to have. But you didn’t fire her, because, try as you might to counter such leanings, you liked her, found yourself for her? Against all your better judgment, you still rooted for her. You had dedicated yourself to her. You weren’t about to abandon her now.’

  Yes again. And tears now.

  ‘You couldn’t help yourself from helping her. So you put her forward for the film The Murderer. You knew she could play the part? You knew she was right for it?’

  Yes.

  ‘Why?’

  The agent shook his open mouth about and gesticulated frantically with his arms that Poy Yack ask him a yes-no question.

  ‘Because you knew she had killed?’