by Peter Hartz
“The difficult thing about this situation is that it has just come to light in the last few hours, and on a Thursday evening. We only learned about the case sometime around 2 pm today, and started making calls within about fifteen minutes. We don’t expect to hear anything back before Monday at the earliest, but we are sending a team out to the prison to try to get an interview as soon as possible with Sanderson, to see what else there is about the story.”
Richard held up a hand for a moment, with his other hand to his earpiece, listening to what is being whispered in his ear, as Ellen watched. Then he spoke up.
“We understand another video of the incident with Craig Sanderson and his lawyer has surfaced on the Internet, and our producers are asking that we play the clip. I don’t know what is on it, but the producer is saying that it is quite incredible. Ellen, watch that monitor there, as we cut away to the video. I am now being told that it is security camera footage of the entire incident from inside the prison where Sanderson is being incarcerated. Watch.”
The feed cut away to Sanderson waiting in the interview room, with his hands and feet shackled. His lawyer is led into the room, and a conversation ensues, before the lawyer turns away, and tries to get out of the room. Sanderson never seems to be angry or upset, but the lawyer definitely seems to be getting angrier by the moment. Then the audio feed came up, and everyone could hear the lawyer say he knew his client was guilty, and that he deserved to be in prison.
Sanderson didn’t lose his temper, but continued to talk to Jameson, until Jameson turned back and almost struck the shackled inmate, instead directing his hand down on the table in a resounding thud, which didn’t startle Sanderson where he sat. Instead Sanderson continued to talk to the lawyer, and as the question was asked what Jameson got out of the deal, gasps were heard from the news room as the lawyer didn’t try to refute the allegations. Instead, he seemed almost tongue-tied, and unable to respond. The conversation continued until Sanderson suddenly bellowed out “…absolutely nothing to lose!”
The veteran news anchor and the experienced lawyer both cried out in surprise as Sanderson stood up, and abruptly, in a flash of light, changed into the lethal form of a velociraptor from the movies. Shock held them frozen in place as the huge predator clamored up onto the table, leaving it dented and damaged from the weight of the beast. Harold Jameson screamed in absolute terror as he backed away from the enraged creature, stumbling back into the wall, only to be followed as the beast hopped down from the table and pursued him.
With a bellow, the beast swung its head and bashed the lawyer from the side, throwing him across the wall and into the corner, where he fell in a heap. He looked up just in time to see the velociraptor stop in front of him. Then the lethal prehistoric predator drew back and trumpeted its cry directly in his face, the sound so loud that the microphone on the security camera distorted badly as it was overloaded. When the sound came back, Jameson could still be heard screaming, but the velociraptor disappeared and Sanderson reappeared, back in human form and in his prison jumpsuit. He reached down and pulled the lawyer to his feet, and when Jameson started to babble incoherently, Sanderson slapped him somewhat lightly, which caused him to stop. Sanderson then pulled him over to a chair at the damaged table, sat him in it, and start to speak again. The video they had seen earlier of the confession of the lawyer overlapped at this point, and the producer cut away, and back to the newsroom, where a completely stunned news anchor tried to get his mental footing back while Ellen tried to do the same.
“Wow. Wow! What did we just see? Did that really happen? How did he do that?!?” Ellen spoke up first, no longer sitting back in her chair comfortably, but leaning forward with her hands on the desk surface in front of her, her eyes intent as she stared at the video monitor in shock.
“I don’t have any answers for you, Ellen. We will have to see if we can speak with Mr. Sanderson. Certainly, it appears that, if that was a real video, and not a special effects prank on the grandest scale that even Hollywood would envy, Sanderson is not someone to be taken lightly.” Williams paused, listening to his earpiece, then spoke up again.
“I am being told that Harold Jameson, the lawyer in the video, was allowed by Sanderson to leave the interview room unharmed,” Richard told Ellen and the viewers.
“Really? If I had been found guilty of murder, sentenced to life in prison without parole, and I knew that, as my lawyer, Jameson had colluded with the prosecutor to put me behind bars for something I knew I didn’t do, I might not be so charitably inclined towards Mr. Jameson. Interesting.” Ellen looked thoughtful as she considered the unreal video they had just shown to the national audience, and possibly the world.
Richard turned to the camera and spoke up once more. “I am being told we need to take a break. We will be right back after this.”
He turned to Ellen and they started speaking as the feed dropped, and commercials started to run.
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“Welcome back. The final viral video we are going to show you is a much more light-hearted item. It appears that a mythical creature has made an appearance at a horse ranch somewhere. We say somewhere because we are not sure where this video was filmed. We also have no idea who might have filmed it. According to YouTube.com, the video was uploaded to the site by someone using the anonymizing network, TOR.
“As you may recall, TOR is used by dissidents in foreign countries that are run by oppressive regimes to have secure communications with other dissidents and the outside world. TOR is also used by people who wish to remain anonymous while on the Internet to avoid prosecution. However, in this case, it appears that the people who filmed this clip wish to stay anonymous not for protection from the law, or from an oppressive government, but from the publicity that the video might get them.
“Here is the video for you to see for yourself.”
The screen cut away to the footage a unicorn, huge, muscular, with a horn high on its forehead between its eyes, and so pure white it seemed to almost glow from within in the bright morning sun, looking at whoever was holding the video camera, and the viewers could clearly see the unicorn’s lips move as it spoke.
The clip was just a few minutes long, and ended as the unicorn turned away from the camera and proclaimed, “…appreciate my company and the refinements of life and love I have to offer.”
Once again, Richard Morrison returned to the screen, and spoke up, this time with a smile on his face. “I have seen that video several times, and it makes me laugh each time. If it is a fake, it is an incredible job. Joining us now is the actor and digital special effects specialist Jared Crane, who has appeared on the TV show One Too Many back in 2006, as well as several other notable rolls since. Before that, he also worked for Industrial Light and Magic, the special effects production company that was created to work on the Star Wars movies. Jared, thank you very much for taking the time to join us. Have you seen the video, and if so, what do you think of it? Is it fake?”
“Thank you very much for having me, Richard,” Jared replied. “I have seen it several times, the last time on a big high-definition screen and going through it frame by frame. While there are some incredible special effects artists out there, if this is a fake, I can’t see it. It is too perfect of an imperfect job.”
“What do you mean by ‘too perfect of an imperfect job?’” Richard asked.
“Well, in every special effects scene, or CGI, there is a tendency by the person creating it to make it perfect. They do that because it is easier than introducing flaws. A texture might be perfectly smooth, or to have every hair in place and going the same way, for example. But in the real world, textures are not perfectly colored and evenly smooth from one end to the other. People tend to notice this and differentiate computer generated images from the real thing subconsciously, specifically because the real world doesn’t look that way. If it is too perfect, it will stand out as not quite right in the mind of the viewer, and the illusion will fail to be believable on an instinctive l
evel. Good production houses will go back and carefully induce well-thought-out flaws in the CGI to make it more believable.”
“And you don’t see that in this clip?”
“I don’t. I am a CGI artist…”
“We should remember that Jared worked on the movie Perfect Storm,” Richard Morrison cut in, turning to the camera, before turning back to Jared once more.
“Thank you. I am a CGI artist, and I like to think a pretty good one. I know what to look for, and everything I am looking for, how the hairs on the horse, excuse me, the unicorn, lay, the different gradient textures of skin around the mouth, how the eyes are, you can see that one of them is ever so slightly larger than the other; all these things look to realistic to have come from a CGI artist’s rendering.
“While it is possible to have taken a horse, and scanned images of it sufficiently into a rendering engine to use as a basis for this scene, I don’t think that happened. Doing that would have left indications in how the unicorn moved to show that it isn’t real. It is too good of a rendering to be faked with our current level of technology.
“I think that, as impossible as it may seem, this might be real.” Crane shook his head, as if not believing what he was saying. “Of course, now we have the task of figuring out where this happened, going there, and seeing if the unicorn is still there. If he is, maybe we can ask him if he is real or not.”
Derrick and Miranda and Katie Hanson all laughed at that from their couch in front of the TV in their living room, as Llellondryn stood behind them watching over their shoulders from behind the couch.
“I think I look real. Do you think I look real?” The huge unicorn preened as he watched the clip of himself and the ensuing debate with pleasure.
“You are real to me, Llellondryn,” Derrick spoke up, looking back at the magical being standing behind them. He never thought he would ever allow a horse in the house with them, but then again, Llellondryn was not really a horse, no matter how much he looked like one. And he sure didn’t act like one, Derrick thought to himself.
Derrick, Miranda, and Katie had all learned that Llellondryn was easily as intelligent as any of them, and probably much more so. The first time he saw himself on TV during playback of the footage of the camcorder, he had nearly fallen over in surprise, only to mentally bounce back moments later and say, “Was this magical device created specifically to show off my incredibly perfect beauty, grace, and charm?” The statement could have been made in jest, but it was clear Llellondryn was mostly serious, thus cluing them in that, whatever else he was, he was also incredibly vain.
After many lengthy discussions on a huge range of topics, from trucks, to television, the Internet, government, equine birth control, and human girl child rearing, Llellondryn sudden begged Miranda to put the video of him up on YouTube. He craved the attention, he freely admitted. But, not wanting the chaos that Derrick and Miranda Hanson explained would have come with revealing where he was, he agreed that editing the video and hiding the source of the upload was an eminently good idea. It was enough for him to see that it was online, and he was stunned to see it ‘go viral’ and climb to over four million views in the first day. Now it was up on the national news, and he was over the moon to see his video on TV along with a national news anchor talking about it.
“Well, I would hope so. I mean, I am standing in your magnificent house, after all. Hey, Katie! What do you get when you cross a chicken with a donkey?”
Katie and Llellondryn had become very close friends in the few weeks since the Unicorn had taken up residence in their lives. Both parents had watched in alarm the first time Katie paraded past on the huge white creature’s back while he tore past at a dead run, but he had explained, then demonstrated to Miranda, that no one he wanted on his back ever fell off. “It is all a part of the magic that is I!” He had said with his usual panache and flair that came out when he was talking about himself.
The two had become inseparable since that moment, and Llellondryn had surreptitiously moved into the young girl’s room, becoming a bulwark against nightmares and a welcomed co-conspirator in getting the exuberant young girl into bed and asleep at night.
“If you don’t sleep, sweet Katie, I can’t stay here! It would never do to have the other unicorns know that I am the cause of you being tired all the time!” He said that first night, standing at the end of her bed on the hardwood floor, somehow looking aghast and upset.
Derrick had checked the floor for damage as the huge animal moved through the house on the flooring, but none had ever been found. When he asked Llellondryn about it, the unicorn shrugged. “I don’t leave tracks unless I really want to. No unicorn does. We are magical beings, and there are those creatures that hunt us, much to their eternal folly. We are not without the means to defend ourselves, magical and otherwise. But they still try sometimes. Your floors are safe, good Derrick. And I will not soil your house. That would be, well, quite rude, don’t you think?”
“I dunno, Yondryn, what?” Derrick’s thoughts returned to the present as Katie asked her question. Katie loved his jokes. Most were hilarious and ridiculous, and she laughed at every one of them, even the ones she didn’t understand. Derrick and Miranda usually laughed as well.
“A Pegasus!”
Derrick and Miranda roared as Katie asked, “What’s a Pegasus?”
Chapter 39
Allison had finished her morning workout and was walking back to the suite she shared with Michelle as she contemplated how much her life had changed, without any changes happening directly to her. In her mind she was still trying (and, for the most part, failing) to come to grips with the concept that Michelle was now a Goddess. She seemed to be the same person, but she didn’t eat anymore, unless something seemed interesting to her, and she didn’t seem to sleep, either. Then there were the times she seemed to glow, as if she was made of light or something. It was hard to explain, and even harder to understand. Or accept. Unless Michelle really was a Goddess. Which neatly and perfectly explained everything. And also, absolutely nothing.
Still, Michelle still talked with Allison and Delara every day, and always made time to take care of the three dogs that were ensconced with them in their exile. The Elven queen seemed to be fascinated by Michelle, who still had no idea what she was going to do with herself, especially now that she was immortal. At least, Allison assumed her sister-in-law was immortal. There were very few answers to be had about the situation. She had no idea what was going on anymore, she lamented to herself inside. Not one to be given to long fits of depressed introspection, she didn’t dwell on it very long, but once in a while, she did rail against the unfairness of how Michelle’s life had been turned upside down, tearing her away from everything she’d ever known.
Allison was also getting frustrated. She had been promised that hers and David’s infertility issues were resolved, but David was never able to spend more than a few nights here in the Palace with her so they could attempt to begin their family. The times they spent together were sweet and wonderful, but too few and far in between. They tried to time things right, but that had never been that emotionally comfortable for a couple used to a spontaneous and impulsive physical intimacy.
Allison frowned as she contemplated the enormous strain David seemed to be under. David had brought the video recordings of his ‘interview’ with Congresswoman Rose Smithson. This time there had been two camcorders on two separate people, both of whom had been hit with both an invisibility spell and a silence spell courtesy of Giltreas, as well as David’s cell phone to record the event. The spell had allowed them to follow David into the room without being seen or heard.
Giltreas had also followed him into the room, also covered by a silence spell and an invisibility spell. He had briefly reappeared behind the congresswoman when he had cast the compel truth spell and the other spell he hadn’t identified that had lowered her inhibitions while making her not remember the time he was in her office. He had remarked to Giltreas that it seemed to
have the same effect as being very drunk, which caused Giltreas to blink, and then nod his head in agreement.
David had brought several company iPads with the video loaded on it, and handed them out to anyone that wanted to see them. Delara had watched it while shaking her head in both anger and sadness at how the humans of Michelle and Allison’s plane used people for their own selfish ends. The Seneschal had watched one, and when he was finished, he had looked up at Allison, an unreadable expression on his face. Allison had to explain a lot of the terms used in the video, but he caught the message behind the words themselves. Later, when they had spoken in a more private setting, he told her he found it difficult to reconcile the two different types of humans from her plane. David, Michelle and Allison all seemed to be good people. But Rose Smithson was definitely not a good person. He said one could almost see the taint of evil in her, and certainly sense it in her words. Allison had been hard pressed to explain why someone like Smithson was in a position of power.
The telling point had been when the Seneschal had spoken up. “I don’t understand why someone so tainted by evil is not revealed by the simple casting of a spell to detect and reveal evil. Oh my goodness. I so easily forget that your plane has been kept from magic.” He had shaken his head then.
“Your people have had to struggle for thousands of years without the simple benefits of magic that we all take for granted.” He seemed to stare off into the distance, the sign of someone deep in contemplative thought. Then he sighed once more. “I don’t know how I would stand for it. It is not meant to be this way.”
She had agreed with him, but neither one knew what to do about it.