Disclaimer: Alex, Wes and Jen don't belong to me, they're borrowed from BVE without permission but no harm, no foul, no money made. Director Hawking (and if you get the joke congrats -- what can I say, once a physicist, always a physicist), Marissa, Time Force procedure and the legal system/court room layout DO belong to me and while you're welcome to borrow, asking me first would be nice.
With thanks to Chris, Selma, Gamine and Irina for beta'ing and putting up with me bouncing temporal theory off them at (for them) unGodly hours of the morning!
Please offer feedback -- it tells me how I'm doing.
~*~
Future Imperfect -- Rough Justice
Alex could feel a headache building. Who was it that had thought a meeting with the new director of Time Force's Temporal department was a good idea on only three hours' sleep? "What you're saying," he said, cutting Director Hawking off in full flow, "is that you're no nearer knowing one way or the other if what I've done has made any difference."
"In a nutshell, yes," said Hawking nodding enthusiastically.
Would it be unprofessional if I started banging my head against my desk? "Skipping the techno-babble, why not?"
Hawking looked amused. "I'll do my best." Alex made no comment. "Essentially, the time stream is in a state of flux."
"I understood that part," Alex commented.
"Well, that flux means that we are struggling to pinpoint anything one hundred years prior to the present, never mind one thousand," Hawking replied. "We won't know if what you've done has made any difference to matters until the timeline stabilises -- or, of course, if Destiny Force starts corrective measures this far into the future."
"Forgive me for saying so, but that's hardly comforting."
"Not comforting, certainly, but also fascinating -- do you realise..."
Alex groaned quietly as Hawking started to gush again. Get me out of here, someone, please!
Marissa appeared in the doorway as if to answer Alex's silent prayer. "Sorry to interrupt, sir," she began.
Thank you! "By all means, Marissa."
"Captains Scotts and Collins have arrived," she announced.
On second thoughts maybe Hawking isn't so bad... "Sorry to cut this short, Director," Alex began, "but I..."
"Oh, yes of course." Hawking smiled. "I'll keep you updated."
Oh good... "Thank you."
Alex watched Hawking leave; while Temporal Analysis might not be much of a topic of conversation, Hawking was not about to string him up by the short and curlies. Wes and Jen, on the other hand... He sighed as the objects of his thoughts both entered the office. Wes looked uncomfortable in the Time Force uniform, Alex noted. Both looked grim.
"Alex, what the hell is going on?" Jen asked without waiting for greetings to be exchanged.
The headache burst into unwelcome life. "Please, take a seat," he answered, "and I'll try to explain." Silently, Wes and Jen sat down. "OK. As I told you yesterday," he began, "Temporal can't get a fix on what happens to Eric in Zafar bel Abis' hands -- all they can trace is the Quantum Morpher, which falls into bel Abis' hands and which is very bad news."
"The morpher's all you care about, isn't it," Wes snapped.
Alex winced. "The morpher's just so much scrap metal without being in Eric's hands," he retorted, "unless Eric disables the voice lock -- and there are no indications that he does that at any stage. No, what bothers me is the same thing that bothers you both."
"Why?" asked Jen, flat disbelief colouring her voice.
Alex winced again. "Because, somewhere along the line, Eric Myers matters."
"In what sense?"
Alex groaned. "In every sense. Point blank: He matters." He looked at first Jen, then Wes, seeing the incredulity on their faces. "This is the situation. Somehow -- we don't know how -- Eric has become some kind of lynch pin for the time stream. Thanks to Biocon, as things stood yesterday when I left to go back in time, there is something that doesn't happen to Eric, so that when Zafar bel Abis shows up, he -- Eric -- doesn't survive. At least," Alex added, "that is what Temporal are guessing to be the case, since we can't trace Eric beyond March twenty-sixth 2002."
"As things stood yesterday?" echoed Wes.
Alex nodded. "Temporal now can't even tell that much. The time stream is in a state of flux. If I've understood Director Hawking right, at the moment, it's veering wildly between the altered version of events and the pre-Biocon time line. Until things settle down, one way or the other..." Alex sighed and spread his hands wide. "Either way, there is absolutely nothing any of us can do now. We can't," he added, "even go back to the year 2002 and force whatever it is to happen to Eric that doesn't because of Biocon's interference because we don't know what that 'something' is and have no way of now finding out."
"And you expect us to just..." Jen began.
"You don't have a choice," Alex replied, cutting her off. "You're here, he's there. I'm sorry to say, but we," and he gestured at everyone in the room, "have done all we can. This is up to Eric now."
"You really are a heartless son of a bitch," Wes observed.
"For the record," Alex retorted, rubbing his face tiredly, "I like this about as much as you do. Despite what you might think, I like Eric -- I know that he and I aren't friends, but I respect him a great deal -- I just know when there's no point in raging against fate. And don't," he added, fixing Wes with a glare, "say a word about destiny not being carved in stone. Some things are -- and this has all the hallmarks of being one of those things." Alex sighed. "Any more questions, or can we get onto the court case?"
Wes and Jen exchanged glances.
"I will," Alex added, "be keeping an eye on what's happening -- so the second anything is known, one way or the other, I will tell you."
"If you knew all this, why didn't you warn Eric?" Wes wanted to know.
Alex groaned again. "Because it's a very, very bad thing to know too much of your own destiny -- besides, what would you have me tell him? You die tomorrow?" Wes opened his mouth to say something else but Alex shook his head. "Don't even go there."
"What, mention your first trip to the twenty first century?" asked Jen.
Unprofessional or not, Alex did bang his head against the desk. It didn't help. "Look," he said, finally looking up again, "I'll make a deal with you both. At the end of the court case, I will tell you exactly why I did what I did then -- but not before. Right now, this court case is considerably more important."
There was a slightly stunned silence before Jen finally managed, "We'll hold you to that."
"I'd expect nothing less," Alex answered. He scrubbed a hand over his face, wishing he didn't feel so tired. "Court case now?"
Wes shrugged a little. "Sure."
Alex bit back a sarcastic retort, knowing it wouldn't help any more than banging his head against his desk had. "I know you don't want to talk about it," he said instead, "but the case starts in the morning."
"That soon?" said Jen, startled.
"That soon," Alex agreed. "It's a defence ploy -- they've managed to get the trial scheduled quickly to put you and the rest of the prosecution witnesses under pressure."
"Can they do that?" Wes asked.
"Can they? Yes. Should they? Moot point. Have they? Yes." Alex grimaced. "They're going to use every single trick in the book -- and probably make up a few new ones in the process -- to try and shift the attention away from Askot."
Alex watched as Jen shivered. Unobtrusively, Wes took her hand and squeezed. "Sounds like it's going to be a fun few weeks," Wes observed quietly.
Alex sighed. "Fun, is not the word."
"Who's the defending attorney?" Jen asked.
Alex grimaced again. "Carmen."
Alex could only watch as Jen paled -- which had been more or less his reaction when he'd heard the news.
"Carmen?" Wes echoed.
"You think I'm heartless," Alex replied, "wait until you meet Joshua Carmen, a man who is probably at the top of every Time Force Crime officer's shit list. He's made a fortune defending lowlifes -- and worse, getting those lowlifes off." Wes rolled his eyes. "In the ten years I've been a badged officer, I've never heard of him losing a case."
"There is a first time for everything," Wes retorted.
"How about prosecuting?" Jen asked quietly.
"The new DA," Alex answered.
"Who is...?" said Wes.
"Who is Pieter van Zyl," Alex explained.
"What's he like?" Jen asked.
Alex shrugged. "Not met him to speak to yet. There hasn't been time. Got to hand it to Carmen, he knows all the tricks."
Wes slowly shook his head. "This stinks."
Alex nodded. "I don't disagree with you, Wes, but this is the system and there isn't a hell of a lot we -- as lowly Time Force grunts -- can do about it. Certainly not in time for tomorrow."
"Guess not." Wes subsided.
Jen sighed. "Is there anything I need to know for tomorrow?"
Alex rummaged through the detritus on his desk until he found a specific datapad. "That's the trial schedule," he explained, handing it over to Jen. "You'll be sworn in as a witness tomorrow, which will allow you to sit in on the rest of the trial, both before and after you give evidence..."
"Is that legal?" Wes queried.
Alex smiled faintly. "Once Jen's been sworn in -- which doesn't mean quite what you know it to mean -- the court authorities will have a 'read' of how Jen lies and tells the truth."
"A polygraph test, you mean?"
Alex nodded. "Something like that, yeah. Perjury isn't impossible, but it's a hell of a lot more unlikely."
"I see."
"Assuming I want to hear the mud-slinging," Jen said.
Which was a good point, Alex realised. Knowing Carmen, there'll be plenty of that, he mused. "Either way," he said, "you'll still have to swear in." Jen nodded. "After that...well it'll take as long as it takes."
~*~
Wes watched as Jen paced the corridor. She was the last of the witnesses to be sworn in and as such, they'd already been sitting -- or in Jen's case pacing -- in the Supreme Court's back halls for more than an hour.
"What's taking so long?" Jen wondered.
"They had a lot of witnesses to swear in," Wes reminded her.
Most of them, Wes had noted, had been 'expert' witnesses. Experts in temporal mechanics, bio-mechanics, brain chemistry, historical experts... The vast majority of this case, he realised, was going to be fought over science rather than anything else. Just as well this isn't a jury system, he decided. Or this would be won by whichever legal team baffled the jury better. That thought just brought to mind the fiasco that was the OJ Simpson trial. Wes snickered softly at that.
"What?" asked Jen.
Wes shook his head. "Long story."
Jen opened her mouth to say something when the court official appeared in the hallway. "Captain Scotts -- this way, please."
Jen suddenly froze, looking painfully nervous. "Wes?"
Wes offered her an encouraging smile. "It'll be OK," he assured her.
"Captain Collins, you may come through as well," the court official added.
"Do you want me to?" Wes asked softly, looking up at Jen.
"Please."
Inwardly, Wes winced to see her looking so scared. The only other time she'd looked this upset had been in the immediate aftermath of the Biocon fiasco. Which is probably not too far off as a comparison, he realised, getting to his feet and following Jen into the courtroom.
Wes' first impression of the room was that it was just like the auditorium he'd had lectures in for a semester at Harvard. It was a large room with tiers of seating, arranged in a horseshoe shape. The door he and Jen had been led through was at the top of one side of the horseshoe, which was to his left. To his right was the tribunal panel -- the trio of judges who were presiding over this case. In the centre of the horseshoe was the 'dock' -- at least, that was the closest Wes could come to a term for it. It would be where Askot would stand when the actual trial began that afternoon, once the swearing in had finished -- but it looked nothing like the dock of the courtrooms he was used to. Instead, it appeared to be a spot-lit area roughly three feet square and nothing else -- although he had been told the spot light was in fact a force field. As for the witness 'box'... That was the strangest thing of the whole set-up.
It was another three-foot square spot-lit area, but where the dock was bathed in a white light, the witness 'box' was bathed in a blue light. At the 'front' -- or at least, at the edge closest to the tribunal panel -- was a four foot high panel, which Jen was being directed to stand behind and put her hands flat on. Wes guessed that was something to do with the polygraph process.
"Name?" began the tribunal chair.
"Jennifer Scotts," Jen answered.
"Rank?"
"Captain, Time Force Covert Operations."
"Thank you, Captain Scotts," said the tribunal chair. "For the purpose of this swearing in, please read what is put up on the screen before you."
Wes couldn't see the screen -- he guessed it was a part of the panel.
Jen read out, "I am a time-stationed officer, stationed in the late twentieth century."
Wes frowned for a second -- then realised that the statement was part of the polygraph test. The first part was true; the second part was false; the two together would, presumably, enable some piece of technology to judge the veracity of Jen's words when she took the stand.
"Thank you, Captain Scotts," said the tribunal chair. "This session is now at a close. We will reconvene at thirteen thirty and this trial will commence."
Wes blinked. He'd half assumed that there would be something more to the swearing in process. He was also a little puzzled by why the tribunal chair appeared to be specifically telling Jen what time they would reconvene -- then he spotted the microphone and he realised that the announcement had been made to everyone within the Supreme Court, connected to this trial.
"C'mon Wes." Jen's voice dragged him out of his thoughts. "We need to grab some lunch." She hesitated.
"You want to sit in?" he asked, not entirely surprised.
Jen chewed her lip nervously but nodded. "I have to."
Wes nodded. "OK."
"You don't mind?"
Wes offered her a smile. "No -- whatever you want." He held out his hand. "Now how about you show me where you can get a decent lunch, huh?"
TO BE CONTINUED...