Artificial Flowers

by J. A. Hailey

  “To Marseille. A day, max.”

  “When?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “I’ll be here.”

  “Got money?” he asked.

  “Enough for now,”

  “That’s what I like about you, Diana. You’re not into money.”

  “No, Riad. I’m into independence.”

  He left, then, seen to the gate by her. A policeman was having a quiet cigarette near the entrance to the house, hidden behind the partly open gate. “Hi. Diana,” he said, in greeting. The Screenside snoops watched through Jane’s camera, as Riad got into his BMW and drove off.

  That night, watched by the Screenside couple, Diana went through her emails, including Zineb’s. Then she tossed and turned in bed, crying.

  Around midnight, BC reported. “Zineb’s on the phone to Riad, having a monster of a fight. It’s in Arabic and French combined. And, wow, oh no, oh no! She has just threatened to go to the police and report him if he does not send her back to Algeria tomorrow.”

  They both looked at each other in astonishment. “Doesn’t Zineb have any clue about the violence inside her husband?” asked Esmeralda, in wonder.

  Early the next morning, BC was woken by a tired Esmeralda, who had passed much of the night awake, fretting for Diana. “Darling, Riad has just bought a ticket to get into a train to Marseille.”

  “Riad does not know that Zineb’s sent an email to Diana,” said BC reassuringly. “No one’s said a word to him about it. This trip is nothing to sweat over. He’ll go see Zineb, maybe beat her up, give her living money, and then return to Paris to continue as usual, and be with Diana at times.”

  PMB was required to identify Riad, when viewing through the Marseille railway station CCTV cameras. He had a raincoat on, with a hood, and carried a light scarf, deploying hood and scarf seemingly absent-mindedly, but actually expertly, at strategic points. They followed him then, via his mobile signal, as he got a taxi, to go to a point near a small shopping area, and walking to Zineb’s villa from there.

  She was out, and he entered with his key. “Normal,” said BC. “He always slightly conceals his identity when out of Paris. No card usage. No clear shot of his face. He’s really good at what he does.”

  Riad sat at Zineb’s desk, the scarf still partly concealing his face.”He knows her passwords. It’s his law that she keep nothing private,” said BC. “I’m deleting the email she sent Diana. And her name and address from the address book, also. I’ll keep you posted if anything spells danger for Diana. He’s many hours away from her, so nothing really urgent is able to happen. You go and handle Noxi Norton’s court case. Better drink a few coffees, darling, for that extra boost. HC lobby service does really good ones in carry cups.”

  60

  Esmeralda went off to HC, to team up with her friends, for the defense of Noxi Norton. The POP hearing was looking like it would be well attended, though far from full. Proceedings were being broadcast live, and much of Screenside had stayed in bed, eyes glued to TV sets and ears glued to phones, viewing and discussing the shocking matter.

  Esmeralda and Candice stood to one side on the huge stage, sipping coffee and watching a small crew putting a rudimentary courtroom together, fussing over placement of the judge’s counter and witness stands.

  Jennifer rushed over to them, from the far side of the stage.

  “Danger,” she said, clearly agitated. “Betty has seen the POP group, with heads covered, executioner style. That must be them.” She pointed out three males, wearing headgear that prevented their faces being clearly seen, exiting a side storage area of the stage. A companion soon followed, pushing a large hydraulic trolley with a small room on it. Jennifer’s phone rang. It was Betty, from the far side of the huge stage. “It’s Betty,” she said. “She has information that what the POPs have brought in is the decoding chamber.”

  “Bah!” said Esmeralda. “Tell her that decoding can never be done on stage, and live, too.”

  As the ‘chamber’ was being positioned, The POP chaps looked at Goodfellow, who gave them the thumbs up, and yelled out, “Position it so everyone can see clearly.”

  Esmeralda caught Caesar, as he was passing through their area. “The POPs are here, Caesar, and they’ve got the decoding chamber into position.”

  “What on earth are you talking about, Esmeralda?” asked Caesar, irritably.

  Chang, having heard it all, said, “Those are very well-known POP devotees.”

  Esmeralda now took a call from Betty, still watching fearfully from the far side of the stage.

  “Don’t worry, Betty,” she said, reassuringly. “Decoding is always done in secret. They’ll never do it in public, on stage. Think of it logically, Betty. When did you last hear of a public decoding? Never? See what I mean?”

  Goodfellow was again communicating with the disguised ones. “As soon as the sentence is passed,” he shouted out, “No waiting. Get into it immediately, before anyone leaves.”

  “So, now we’ve become a society of brutes?” raged Esmeralda, at Caesar. “Instant public decoding, with no chance of appeal?”

  Caesar, looking trapped, said, “Esme, no one is decoding anyone, public or private. Take my word for it, please. Where’s BC?”

  “He’s busy with Humanside matters. You promise?”

  “On my life, dear. Just do a great job on the case.”

  “And ruin the POP party?” she sneered. “Noxi has been prejudged. Goodfellow’s with POP; midnight parties in HC. But he’ll have to deal with me first.”

  “Please,” pleaded Caesar, moving on. “No one’s getting decoded.”

  Things became quiet, as Goodfellow put his judge’s robes on and took his place at the bench. It was time for the trial to commence, and Esmeralda went into a side room with her legal colleagues.

  Johansson and his team entered first, and took position in front of the judge’s bench. Fully eight individuals were in that group, and six were in lawyers’ clothes! The Swedes clearly meant business.

  But loud cheering erupted in the Great Hall when Norton shuffled uncertainly in. He was accompanied by his girlfriend, Betty, in a floral dress. The cheering was for his lawyers, attired in dark knee-length skirts and matching jackets - Jennifer, Candice and Esmeralda!

  Goodfellow entered immediately after, accompanied by the seniors, minus BC, of the advisory group. He took his place at the judge’s bench, and the seniors sat together to one side, everyone in dark suits.

  “Good morning, Screenside,” said Goodfellow. “The details of this case have been posted on the bulletin board, and my court shall not waste time repeating what is public.

  “Mr. Johansson, whosoever is your appointed lawyer is to speak first. Please present your case, in brief.”

  A tall lawyer came forward. “Your honor, our case is that the defendant has willfully created conscious animals, in violation of POP, and has unleashed them to terrorize Screenside.”

  “Ah, hm, is that so?” Goodfellow looked noncommittally at the visibly trembling Noxi Norton. “Whosoever is defending you, should now present some arguments in rebuttal.”

  The spectators murmured, as Esmeralda came forward and leaned against the judge’s bench, looking hard at Johansson. “Mr. Johansson, my name is Esmeralda, and we have met, remember?”

  “Of course, of course, Miss Esmeralda, you are impossible to forget.”

  “That is good. And what did we do when we met?”

  “We played trogfer sports.”

  Esmeralda raised her mesmeric voice. “Trogfer sports, organized by you?” She was clearly on a short leash.

  “Yes, yes, that’s what our club does.”

  “It is not in our nature to cause distress, or to seek another being’s ruination,” raged Esmeralda. “But I can immediately make you change places with Mr. Noxi Norton, and put you on trial for a truly heinous crime, far greater than anything Mr. Norton is accused of. Ask me how?”

  “How, how?” blubbered Johansson.

&
nbsp; Esmeralda screamed. “By admitting that Mr. Norton is guilty, as you accuse!”

  Goodfellow intervened. “Please explain, Miss Esmeralda.”

  Esmeralda knew her courtroom tricks.

  She spoke calmly now, snorting derisively. “Well, your honor, if Mr. Noxi Norton is indeed guilty of the heinous crime of creating conscious animals, then Mr. Johansson is already guilty, by his own claim, and needing sentencing without the fuss of prosecution, of very serious, public, and possibly daily abuse of numerous conscious beings!”

  Everyone gasped. Esmeralda had done it with that one word. Any form of consciousness, in Screenside, was, by definition, a being. Only unconscious could be animal!

  “But.” Esmeralda drummed her fingers on the judge’s bench. “But, finding Mr. Johansson guilty of organizing odious and abhorrent abuse of conscious beings is not our goal.

  “Our goal is to clear Mr. Noxi Norton’s name, of the charges leveled against him. Mr. lawyer, your name, please.”

  “Ericsson, madam, Ericsson. And, your honor, I now request that the court grant us a few minutes, so that I may discuss new developments with my client.”

  “Granted. This court shall recess for half an hour,” proclaimed the judge, Algernon Goodfellow, and promptly left for the Lounge Bar.

  61

  BC watched Riad going through his wife’s computer, deleting things, as took his fancy. After fifteen minutes of vandalizing it, he lost interest, and then began scrabbling through papers in the drawers below. Finding nothing interesting there, too, he was about to move on, when a sheet of paper in the otherwise empty keyboard pull-out tray caught his eye.

  He picked it up disinterestedly, and uttered an oath, his posture going stiff. BC read it through the computer camera, from the reverse side of the paper, as Riad held it up in front of his face, first cursing, and then trembling in rage.

  Zineb had been fool enough to print out a copy of the email she had sent to Diana!

  The Screenside snoop knew it was murder time. There were so many reasons Riad would have to kill Zineb – anger, pride, disobedience, ownership, danger to him… It was mind boggling!

  Riad went into the kitchen, and, picking up a large knife, returned to the computer, testing its blade with his thumb, but then, abruptly changing his mind about the knife, he went and got a pillowcase from the bed, twisting it into a makeshift rope.

  Zineb arrived promptly thereafter, for her date with death. Riad heard her approaching the door, and concealed himself to be behind it when it swung open. She entered, and he side-footed the door shut in one well-practiced move, while expertly placing the hand-made rope over her head and around her neck. He held the choke for a minute after she stopped struggling, and then let her body drop to the floor, dragging it into position with the improvised rope, to make space for the door to open.

  Attending first to the computer, he erased everything on it, after which he unscrewed the CPU open - to physically destroy its hard drive! And he then did an incredible thing. He got hold of Zineb’s toothbrush, and, dipping it in pure antiseptic liquid, scrubbed under her fingernails.

  “She gave him a couple of almost invisible scratches on his arms,” BC would, a short while later, tell Esmeralda, when bringing her up-to-date. “Would have disappeared in a day, at most. But see how careful he is, despite the fact that forensics just has to find him in everything in that house. He’s not a secret visitor, and anyway, he’s the husband and provider, on record, I’ve checked, and there could be any number of bits of evidence to identify that he’s been there. But then, he’s also gone about burgling the place, or making it look like it’s been burgled. Cash, jewelry, smart phone. He’ll destroy them later, without trace. No problem. He runs a huge terror network. And, to doubly ensure that robbery is established as the motive for this murder, he’s surely going to fabricate a pack of lies for the police, and list a lot of additional non-existent valuables as missing.”

  Riad, murder over, made his way to the railway station, and boarded a train to Paris.

  62

  Ingrid, now in tears, came to Noxi Norton’s legal team. “I plead with you to not demand severe punishment for my poor, misguided partner.”

  “We are anti-decoding,” asserted Candice, reassuringly.

  “Decoding?” Ingrid gasped in horror. “Is that a possible punishment, something that can be done to one of us?”

  “Not officially,” said Candice. “But the POP haunting HC could do it, if he catches you if you’re stupid enough to wander its darker corridors at night.”

  “Nonsense,” said Esmeralda. “I have it on authority that it’s tremendously difficult to decode a conscious being. Like impossible.”

  “That must be why there are four POPs,” said Jennifer, knowingly. “To hold the victim down. Probably struggle hard against decoding. Wonder how the single POP that haunts HC does it alone at night.”

  “Midnight, Jen, midnight,” said Esmeralda, drawing on her vast knowledge of closely related subjects. “That’s when vampire types are at full power. If someone is fool enough to be in their range at midnight…”

  “But we are here,” said Candice, stroking Ingrid’s upper arm. “So don’t be worried, just because the POPs have already positioned their decoding chamber. Terror tactics…”

  “Is that what that room is?” sobbed Ingrid, eyeing the chamber fearfully.

  “Don’t cry, Ingrid.” said Candice, soothingly. “If your poor, misguided Johansson has to be decoded, it will be done in the usual manner - privately and secretly. We could never demand instant public decoding.”

  Ingrid began bawling.

  The hearing resumed, as scheduled. BC had given no indication to Esmeralda, of the shocking events in Marseille, thinking that Riad had still some hours left to get to Paris, by when Esmeralda would have long finished with the case. There was, in any event, no way to get involved at this stage. And, in all fairness, he did not want to seriously distress Esmeralda, thus perhaps ruining Noxi Norton’s defense.

  “Mr. Ericsson, would you kindly ask and answer for Mr. Johansson a few questions, please?” said Esmeralda, in a bossy tone. “He looks flustered.”

  In fact, Johansson had begun trembling, with a crying Ingrid clinging to him.

  Betty called out. “Esme, are we going to prosecute Mr. Johansson?”

  Esmeralda shook her head, ‘no’.

  Betty went over to Johansson and hugged him and Ingrid. “Don’t worry. It’s all been a mistake. It is not our intent to replace Noxi with Johansson in the decoding chamber.”

  Esmeralda spoke, after Betty had returned to Norton’s side. “So, Mr. Johansson, Am I right in presuming that you first saw trogfers, and maybe garbags and ligons, too, when you were living formlessly in the forests of your native Sweden. Remember me from another episode?”

  Ericsson heard the visibly trembling Johansson out, and spoke for him. “Yes, he remembers when your program caught him in this hall. And yes, trogfers were first spotted by him before that incident.”

  “Aha!” Esmeralda thumped the judge’s bench with her fist, making a startled Goodfellow jump in his seat. “So the trogfer was a pure virtual creature then? Or?”

  The very bullied Johansson answered through his lawyer. “Yes, purely virtual.”

  “It is over. There is no case.” said Esmeralda, in mock fatigue. Why? Because Noxi Norton created programs that created…” She pointed at Jennifer.

  “Virtual trogfers, and before the POP Act was enacted.” said Jennifer, also sounding bored.

  “And trogfers, garbags and ligons…” continued Esmeralda, now pointing at Candice.

  “Became biters, attackers, and even playthings,” answered Candice, in an extremely laid back manner. “When our RV and MM programs shaped our world and changed them.”

  “An example, please, Miss Candice,” said Esmeralda.

  It was already a stunning victory, but Candice spoke the icing on the cake.

  “Suppose.” she said, turnin
g to face the rapt spectators. “Suppose a virtual coconut tree is created, and then suppose a coconut falls on your head with hurtful force because you have walked under the tree and created its mass, triggered by the MM program installed in you. Do we decode the creator of the virtual tree as an antisocial who is trying to harm us?”

  “We rest our case,” said Esmeralda.

  “And,” thundered Goodfellow, “the verdict is NOT GUILTY!

  “And this POP hearing is now over, and this court is now no longer in existence!”

  BC, keeping tabs via the virtuality, moved immediately to HC, where a party had commenced.

  It was obviously preplanned, as a hundred females rushed into the erstwhile courtroom, now again merely a stage. One of the ‘POP’ group passed close to Esmeralda, as he headed into the decoding chamber on stage. She pushed him extremely violently, causing him to tumble head first into the chamber. “Decode each other, you demons,” she screamed.

  Another POP rushed to help him up. “Why, why, why?” he stammered, fearfully, as Esmeralda lifted her lawyer’s bag into position for a strike.

  “You’re part of the POP group, don’t lie.”

  “Yes, yes, yes, I am,” he stammered.

  “Admitting it too, vampire!”

  Nearby folks began crowding around, muttering angrily, when Esmeralda dropped the bag and caught hold of the fellow’s headgear, angrily tugging it off. “And why is everyone hiding their faces these days?”

  Ingrid raced in and kicked the standing POP in the butt. “Don’t you dare haunt HC at night again, decoding innocent passersby.”

  “He looks familiar,” said Esmeralda uncertainly, unraveled headgear in hand. “Like a bit famous.”

  “Count Dracula!” raged Ingrid.

  Betty now got into it, but aborted her kick, as the already-kicked fellow pleaded, “Please don’t kick us. We’re only the Pop Group.”

  And they were the Pop Group - The Screensiders, made up to look like The Beatles, of Humanside fame, and thus concealing their surprise disguise!