By My Hands

Chapter 5—Guilty Until Innocent

It was cold. Not too cold, just enough that everyone standing there was uncomfortable to some degree. The suit I was wearing itched a little, because we'd had to rent it and it hadn't been broken in yet, and I shifted from foot to foot because my feet hurt. My father gripped onto my wrist tightly, stilling me.

What did it matter if I were restless? The only person who had any right to care was my mother, and, for some reason, I don't think she did.

I had this thick feeling inside my chest, like someone had come in the middle of the night and replaced my heart with a rough stone that rubbed against my ribs every time I took a breath. When we went home, my mother wouldn't be there. There would be no more muffins, no more veggie lasagna, no more bowls of popcorn.

Had she forgotten about me again?

–

Have you ever woken up one morning to the feeling that the coming day was going to royally suck? Well, that morning was one of those.

There was nothing unusual about it in the beginning. I woke up, kicked the wall because, once again, I had no idea what I'd been dreaming about, brushed my teeth, and sat around trying to think of something to do which I hadn't done fifty million times already.

As a matter of fact, I was happier that day than I had been for a long time, because the day before I had finally finished the construction plans on the bio-fuel engine I'd been fooling around with, and I was sure it would work. Well, as sure as I could be when there was no way to test any of it out.

My breakfast guards came, like they did every morning, but they didn't just slide the food in and leave. They watched me eat it, which I can comfortably say was quite unnerving. Neither of the soldiers were ones who I'd seen before, which was odd in and of itself. As far as I could tell, the three groups who watched me had been the same since I'd gotten here.

“So, is there a reason why you guys are acting like I'm a special exhibit at the Heifong Zoo? Or is it really that entertaining to watch me eat my breakfast?” I asked, ripping off another slice of the rather tasteless bread they'd given me.

“We're under orders to take you to your trial after you've finished.”

I suppose I must have known that I would be getting tried eventually. Even the Space Forces don't have enough clout to make someone like me—such a high profile, high media arrest, I mean—disappear without a trace. They had to have a trial. But even if I had known, I hadn't really thought about it all that much. For the past few weeks, my life had centered around two things—what I was doing in my cell, and what my friends were probably doing back on the Outlaw Star.

“You could at least turn around or something. It's not like I'm going to sneak away while you're not looking.”

The each gave me their most unimpressed look, and continued to stand there. At least that explained why they'd sent these people instead of the others—if they were transporting me somewhere, it made sense that they would use some more experienced soldiers.

As the led me through the hall, my eyes continually darted back and forth, taking in the hallways that we took and where they appeared to lead off to. Step one might be mostly over, but there was never any harm in finding out more information.

To be honest, I'd never seen a real trial. The only court experiences I'd ever had had included me, Gene, bad crime dramas, and extreme boredom. And I'm pretty sure that wasn't an accurate model of what a criminal trial would be. Though, I don't think the Space Forces really follow protocol either.

The courtroom was a small room, cramped with too many chairs and too few people. Along the left side of the room sat the jury, a cookie-cutter group of high military officials. I think they used to have this idea of the jury being made up of people like the defendant, but that had been thrown out the window a long time ago. Now, it was an entirely military based situation. They said that it was because they wanted more objectivity, but it was obvious that what they really wanted was more control.

They gave me a lawyer, but I probably would have died of shock if he actually gave a shit what the verdict turned out to be. His black hair was cut short in the military style, and his suit looked like it had cost more than I would make in a year. I was pretty sure his watch was a Snolex, and only people who were willing to shell out a ridiculous amount of money could get one. From what I've heard, the Ctarl Ctarl only produced ten or so a year and charged hundred of thousands of wong for them. He kept looking at the watch, as though he had somewhere much more important to be and couldn't believe he was wasting his time here with me.

I expected there to be spectators of some sort, but no one else was there, save for the prosecuting attorney. I guess they had to have a trial, but they didn't plan on making it legitimate enough for people to witness it.

As we all sat down, the judge walked in and took a seat at his throne-like chair. To my great and un-ending surprise, it was Mister Rotund, and man who I'd been hoping never to see again. He seemed fatter than I remembered him being, with another chin and more red splotches on his skin, but perhaps I just hated him now more than I had a few weeks ago.

“I declare the trial of James Hawking officially opened. The charges against the defendant are as follows—two counts of first-degree murder, of the late Michelle and Jules Hawking, by way of intentional exposure to a deadly virus. Would the defense like to make a statement?”

Maybe it was a weird thing to notice right then, I don't know, but the moment when Mister Rotund read out my sentence, I noticed that there was a window in the courtroom.

My entire life has been about the sky, one way or another. Back when my parents were alive, the sky was so big and beautiful that it enveloped everything. I could lie in the grass and see absolutely nothing but the waving green grass and the big blue sky for hours on end. Then, I went to live with Gene, and in turn on the Star where the sky was all around us twenty four hours a day. For some reason, it never occurred to me that I couldn't see the sky from my cell, but now that I was out of it, that was the only thing I could see.

It looked like a nice day wherever it was that we were. Puffy white clouds gently moved across the brief scrap of window, and it looked like it would have smelled like a good day if I were to go outside. It was nice, thinking like that for a few minutes.

Unfortunately, I was in the middle of my criminal trial, and it wasn't a good idea to let it pass by without paying attention.

“How does the defendant plead?”

My lawyer looked at his Snolex again like he'd written the answer down on the band just in case he forgot what he was supposed to say.

“Guilty. Of both charges.”

“Woah, wait a sec!” I was all for unfair representation, subjective juries, rigged trials, whatever. But I don't recall ever, not even for a single moment, saying I was guilty. “I didn't kill my parents. I was eight years old, for Christ's sake!”

“James, calm down. There's no point pretending—everyone in this courtroom knows you did it. At least this way you have a slight chance of, oh, I don't know, getting sent to an institution or something instead of being killed.”

“Ok, first of all, my name is Jim. The only people who ever called me James were my parents and Sophia, the woman whose house you so kindly ransacked to get to me. So, to you, it's Jim. Second, what do you mean everyone here knows I'm guilty? Last time I checked, truth isn't relative. I don't care what everyone here thinks, I didn't do it.”

The judge stood, and a man I hadn't noticed before stepped out from behind the bench. He was one of those guys who obviously hadn't figured out how to exist independently from the fitness center yet, and his muscles looked like they could eat me alive if given the chance. It seemed like overkill, really. I mean, the Honorable Judge Rotund could probably take me down himself if he needed to.

“I would think you'd be more appreciative that this court is even giving you a chance, mister Hawking. It would be in your best interest not to alienate your only allies.”

“Allies my ass! Even my fucking lawyer doesn't care if I get convicted. Let's cut to the real issue here. The reality is that you all know I'm not guilty, and you're trying to get rid of me for some crazy reason. It's so ridiculous that I'd probably laugh if I weren't the butt of the joke.”

“Now, Mister Hawking, I know you've already resigned yourself to the life of a criminal, but what would your parents say?”

As far back as I can remember, I've been pretty much immune to insults. Unless it was Gene, or Melfina, maybe Suzuka, no one else was important enough for their negative opinion of me to matter. However, if you say anything against someone I love, the gloves come right off. At that point, I don't bother with words too much either.

It didn't help that I'd wanted to punch that jackass in the face since I first laid eyes on him.

“Well, I think we're done here. Jury? How do you find?”

I flew forward, right over the sad excuse for a barrier that was supposed to keep me away. I think everything that had been backing up inside me chose that exact moment to break out. The bailiff stepped forward, though, scooping me up with one hand. It would have been demoralizing if I had been any less pissed off, but as it was the only thing on my mind was getting to that fat, rude waste of space.

“Why don't you say that to my fist, you asshole!” I could almost feel the hatred I felt for him pumping through my veins in lieu of blood, the hatred that I felt for the entire damn situation. I'd always been a passive person—I'd never picked fights with anyone, save for Gene—so this sudden rush of emotion was almost like a drug to my system, and suddenly nothing mattered other than making that horrible man feel at least a little of the pain that I was feeling.

The bailiff had pinned my arms behind me, and no amount of struggle on my part was enough to pull myself away. This entire situation, I decided, could not have possibly sucked any worse.

“Jury?” The judge turned away, completely disregarding me. Like I didn't even matter enough to warrant his attention.

“The jury finds the defendant guilty.” It was as though someone had suddenly turned on the lights inside my head, and it really hit me, really hit me, that I was in prison. The Space Forces had decided that they wanted me gone, and that was as good as a death sentence for anyone.

“Wait just a fucking seco--” I started to yell out, but the bailiff must have gotten sick of me squirming around. A split second later, something solid rammed into the back of my skull, and I fainted.

When I woke up, I was back in my cell. For a moment, I thought the entire trial, from waking up that morning to being knocked unconscious, had been a horrible, surreal dream. Unfortunately, what happened next was big enough that every other thought was pushed out of my mind completely. As the back of my head throbbed with every heartbeat, it all started coming back to me.

I could remember that my mother had blue eyes and always smelled like fresh laundry hung outside to dry. I knew that my father had worked for a security company and had worn a suit and tie to work every single day, even in the intense heat of the Sentinel III summers. My mother had made the most delicious vegetarian lasagna and my father had never cooked at all. Everything came back to me with such intense clarity that I thought it might burn out my retinas.

My mother and father had died, and they'd died from a virus, but it hadn't been me who'd given it to them.

–

“Come in, James.”

I rested my hand against the cool door of my father's study, feeling the rough grain of the wood beneath my fingers. I had known he would have lodged himself in there—after all, where else had he ever been in the past month?

“Close the door. I have some things to discuss with you.”

My father was using the tone that I had long ago dubbed the 'no-nonsense' tone. Only, this time, I had no intention of not being serious. I knew when it wasn't a good time.

“Listen, James, I know that you're still a kid. You're only eight years old, for God's sake. But I need you to listen to what I'm about to tell you, and try to understand. You're a smart little guy, you can do it.”

I almost scoffed at his placating tone. A smart little guy? I wanted to point out the perfectly running tractor that stood, ready for the fields, in the barn. But, again, this wasn't the time. It wasn't as though my father really had any idea what I was capable of anyway.

“Right, Dad.”

“Well, you know that I used to work for Jodan Securities? And that a little while back, Jodan merged with the Space Forces to supplement their security department?” I nodded. “Back at Jodan, I was one of the supporting managers, so when we merged I got a good spot in the new company. Your mother and I thought it was a huge gift—we could finally expand the house, maybe try for another child because of the extra money I'd be earning.”

His voice cracked a little, because it still hurt him to talk about my mother. I didn't really understand why until a little while later, but eventually I realized that the reason why it hurt him so much was because he blamed himself entirely, one hundred percent, for her death.

“And it was great, for a little while. But a few months after the merger, I discovered that the Space Forces security branch had a man at the head, Grant Seswick, who had realized early on how easy it was to set up crooked deals and make it slide under everyone's notice. Do you understand?”

It was all things which I'd figured for myself, based off of the bits and pieces of conversation that I'd heard between my parents recently. The only difference was that now I had a name to go with the faceless man who'd done the whole thing.

“Ken—Mister Takamura—was promoted to the head of the Jodan Securities interest area of the Space Forces, and he got dragged into it easily enough. The lure of extra money, no matter how crooked it is, is a great motivator. And I understand that. It was wrong, I knew that, setting up securities and then methodically breaking them down from the inside was a bad thing, but I wasn't willing to lose my job over it.

“Then some things happened, and one of the illegal bargains went really wrong. Instead of taking a bribe to look the other way on theft, Seswick took a bribe to ignore an entire city of accidental deaths. The men he was working with needed someone out of the way, but they screwed up, and blew up an entire town, called Shiyuu. And Seswick didn't even care. That was where I decided to draw the line. I threatened to tell the head of the Space Forces, to get him fired, but there was a problem with that. Seswick's main boss, the guy that headed the Space Forces, already knew. Pretty quickly, I realized that everyone already knew, that the entire Space Forces was one giant mass of corruption in one way or another, and the security department just jumped on the bandwagon to make more side capitol.

“So, I told them I was leaving. There was no way I could work for a system as dirty as that one was. But I already knew everything. I should have known that they'd never let me get away, but I guess I wanted to pretend like it would all go away.”

He ran his fingers through his hair, turning in his leather seat to look out the window into the dreary grey night sky. In that moment I thought my father might as well be a complete stranger, with how little I knew about him. He seemed like a coward for running away from his life.

“Then your mother got sick. At first I thought it was just chance—you know, fate messing with us, really. Because wouldn't you know that the second I lose my job, we get struck with the loss of a loved one, doctors fees and funeral expenses that we can't afford to pay. Then, about a week ago, I started feeling ill. The same sort of ill that your mother felt at the beginning of her sickness. I know how far the Space Forces would go to make sure that this information didn't fall into the wrong hands. Shiyuu was a popular town with the sort of people that would love to take down the intergalactic police system.

“Your mother's illness, and now mine, were not accidental. The Space Forces have engineered it, killing her first so I know what would happen to anyone who I would tell. Now, with me, they're just cleaning up loose ends. I know how dangerous it is to tell you this, and I hope you don't blame me for it, but I think you needed to know what killed your parents. You're young, I get that, but you're old enough to understand why you need to know. And if, one day, this comes back to bite you, I hope you'll do everything in your power to make sure that this secret gets out. They need to be held responsible for what they've done. Do you understand?

Sometime during his speech, I'd found time to sit down, and my feet felt numb where they were attached to my ankles. Was my father really saying what I thought he was saying? My mother had been murdered, and now my father was dying too, and all he could tell me was that I had to get revenge? This sort of thing just didn't happen in real life. It honestly felt like I'd been picked up and dumped into some alternate reality where nothing happened yet everything mattered.

I nodded. My throat felt constricted, like someone was pinning me down and wrapping their fingers around my neck.

“Jim...you know we don't really know anyone here on Sentinel. Our relatives are all either dead or so far estranged that we'd never be able to find them in time. As for friends, your mother and I pretty much kept to ourselves. We never thought...never expected...that we would die with you still so young, but we can't do anything for you. We don't know anyone here. You probably don't know, but the orphanage” his voice cracked again, heavily “the orphanage system on Sentinel is horrible. How they treat the children there is...awful. You're better off just being by yourself. We have a little money saved away, and we own this house for you to live in. I don't know what's going to happen to you, James.”

He gestured for me to come over, still gazing out the window as though he might find what he was looking for in the night sky. Putting his hand on my chin, he tilted my head up and turned to look into my face.

“Despite everything, your mother and I have always loved you. We worried about you, because you're not like the other kids, but we love you regardless. Whatever future you have after the Space Forces are done with us will be so far from the future that we envisioned for you, but, dammit, there's nothing we can do!”

He moved his arms down, holding onto my shoulders with a vice-like grip. He wanted me to see something, but I couldn't. I was a boy—eight years old exactly six months ago—I couldn't live with the weight of life pressing down on my shoulders. I couldn't hear anything other than what he was telling me to hear.

“That's alright, Dad.”

“No, James, it's not alright. Now, go back to bed. Tomorrow isn't so very far away.”

–

I had to thank God for that beefy bailiff, really. If he hadn't knocked a few of my brain cells loose, I would probably have never remembered anything. It was so obvious now! Everything was slipping into place like I'd just finished a thousand piece puzzle. I'd been trying so hard to force the pieces where they weren't supposed to go—but now I knew exactly what was going on.

For the most part, I was a nobody. I'm not bitter about it, but I know it's true, and the Space Forces probably know it too. But Gene's not a nobody. Of all the people who I could possibly tell, Gene is the only one they would care about. Because, see, Gene knows everyone—everyone trusts him, from the ghettos to the high class office buildings. So, even though I'd slid off their radar for twelve years, suddenly they figured out that I might be a threat. They were slow as usual, but they found me and took me away from Gene, shot my credibility, and planned on either keeping me stuffed in prison for the rest of my life or killing me outright.

As a master of plans myself, I had to admit that it was pretty clever. And now that they had my sentence, the chances of me being let out to do mechanical work seemed pretty slim.

I allowed a few moments to feel horribly sorry for myself. Not only had my parents been murdered, they'd been murdered by the very people who were trying to get rid of me, and for the exact same reason. I probably should have been angry, but instead I just felt...sad. Because my life could have been so much different than it was. I could have grown up with a loving family, gone to high school, maybe even university. I could have hit twenty years old and know that I still had the freedom to find myself however I wanted.

Then again, I would have never met Gene, or Melfina, and the memories I'd made in the past twelve years would never have been created. Would I have been happy? By taking away my family, the Space Forces had consequently taken away my chance to find out.

But, I adamantly refused to let them take away the life that I do have.

The next time the guard came by to give me my meal, I asked to see his supervisor again. 'I'd like to speak to him personally,' I said. Even so, I was caught by surprise when they sent him down that very day.

“I'm Captain Roeper, Son, the head of this SF base. What can I do for you?”

He was a very severe looking man, one who'd obviously been cultured for the military since the day he was born. I had to wonder why he was bothering with the niceties—I was a prisoner, and he was the one on the other side of the bars—but it was good for me. I needed him to listen.

“Do you know why I'm here, Captain?”

“Of course. You killed your mother and father, James.”

I could tell he was lying. It's horribly obvious on some people, you know? He looked at me a little too single-mindedly, like he was daring me to tell him something different.

“No, I mean the real reason.”

“The real reason? I don't know what you're referring to.”

Suddenly it occurred to me that my escape plan might not be necessary after all. With a little bit of bluffing and some suggestive persuasion, I could get myself out of this without so much as lifting a finger. Weren't they counting on the fact that I hadn't told anyone yet?

“Come on, Roeper, you and I both know exactly what I'm talking about. I'd prefer not to say it out loud—you never know who might be listening.”

He looked down the hallway nervously, tugging on his sleeves. I guess the tough-guy attitude only extended so far.

“No, that won't be necessary.”

“Great. Now, there's something I think you should know, something you should probably go tell your superiors because it's something they might be interested in hearing. The thing is, I never told anyone about how my parents died.”

He breathed an almost inaudible sigh of relief.

“But, I did put certain...measures in place, so that if anything bad were to happen to me, that information might be carelessly leaked out. Do you get what I'm saying?”

It was good that I'd practiced my lying skills a lot back on the Star, because I was bluffing so hard that I almost wanted to laugh. Of course I hadn't taken any measures. How could I have? But they didn't need to know that.

“Are you attempting to blackmail the Space Forces, James?”

If the situation had been any different, I probably would have praised him on his cleverness. The way he spoke to me was obviously aimed to make me feel low, like I was overstepping my bounds and that I was just a child who didn't know the games he was playing or what he was getting himself into. The thing was, I hadn't been a child for an awfully long time.

“No. I am blackmailing the Space Forces. Run off to your bosses, now, and tell them what I just told you. That if they let me go, this stays quiet, and if not...well...” I shrugged, leaving it open for his imagination. It was another trick I'd learned—people can imagine things much worse than anything I could ever come up with. “Who knows what will happen?”

–

Coming up: The escape! And an unexpected visitor, bringing unexpected news. Who could it possibly be?