Worm is owned by John C. 'Wildbow' McCrae

"You recognized the potential in Paige Mcabee, is that right?"

"Yeah."

"Saw something no one else did."

"Sure."

"Got her the first gig?"

"Yeah."

"And the second?"

"All of 'em, right up until she got the old fuck."

Clay hadn't moved since he stood up. Tony, for his part, sat sullenly in the witness chair. Now Judge Janacek glowered down from his raised perched. "The witness will moderate his language in this courtroom."

"The schmuck, then. Whatever," Tony said. "Bill, or Gill somethin'."

"William Parnell?"

"You say so."

"I did say so. I'm asking if you would say so."

"Hell if I know. Some old clown. I never asked his name."

'But you know who he is well enough that you are able to mock his name?"

"Objection, your Honor—"

Janacek raised a hand. "Sustained," he said, "However, the witness will clarify whether or not he is passingly familiar with Mr. Parnell?"

"Yeah," Tony said. "Okay, sure. I know of him. What of it?"

Janacek turned to Clay. "Will that satisfy the defense?"

"Entirely," Clay said pleasantly. "It wasn't just the gigs, though. You selected the music."

"I sure did."

"Came up with the advertising."

"Yep."

"The feathers weren't just part of a costume, the look, you gave her?"

"Since she complained I pulled them out when I was buggering her? No. The feathers are real."

If not for the restraints Paige was fairly certain she would have melted under the Defense table.

Clay nodded again. If he was at all taken aback it wasn't apparent. "And you incorporated that into the stage act, the character…"

"Damn straight."

"Is that a yes or a no."

"Yes, alright?" Tony demanded. "I fucking made Canary. All she ever had to do was get up on stage and flap her gams. Everything else? That was me! If not for me she'd still be some pissant girl living in a hole and dreaming of being a star. Turns out I made a fucking monster," Tony concluded sullenly.

Clay nodded in commiseration. "You didn't mean for her to be a Master?"

"Objection!" Hancock said as he nearly leapt from his chair.

"I'll rephrase," Clay said. "Did you mean for her to be a Master?"

"Objection, your Honor!"

"What?" Clay asked. "I rephrased it so it was clear I wasn't testifying."

"Your Honor," Hancock said slowly. "That question is beyond the scope of the direct examination. In addition, it is blatantly inflammatory, and immaterial to the facts on trial."

"I'm trying to discredit your witness," Clay said earnestly. "That makes it plenty material—"

"Mr. Clay," Janacek said warningly. "Both of you, up here."

Paige watched as both lawyers and the court stenographer moved to stand in front of Janacek's bench. I suppose that answers whether it's his first name or last name.

"Sloppy, Mr. Hancock," Quinn murmured. "Very sloppy."

All three resumed their places.

"The witness will answer the question, and then the Defense will move on," Janacek said. "Will the court stenographer read it back, please?"

"The Defense attorney asked: Did you mean for her to be a Master?"

"No," Tony said.

"You just wanted your fair share in recompense for the hard work you'd done?"

"Yeah. That's right."

"She mastered you."

"Yes."

"Did you know she could do that?"

"Fuck no!" Tony exploded.

"Objection, asked and answered."

"Your Honor, I asked the witness if he had meant for Paige to have a Master-type power," Clay said. "Now I'm asking if he knew she even had such a power?"

"Overruled."

Clay nodded. "Mr. Gagliano?"

Tony crossed his arms as he sulked in the witness seat. "You think I'd have kept my gob shut when someone could do that to people?"

"Is that a yes…or a no?"

"No," Tony said. "I didn't know. Okay? I didn't fucking know."

"Really?" Clay asked. "You told Mr. Hancock, and everyone here, that she was using her power to draw in audiences."

"Yeah, but that was after she made that Will guy front end for her."

"So for the six months from the time she left you and started work with Mr. Parnell, and the time you confronted her—"

"About six months, five months and something."

"And Paige was using her power all that time to suck in audiences?"

"That's right," Tony said. "You don't just get that popular that quick. Nobody does."

Clay smiled. "So you knew for almost six months that Paige was mastering audiences but you didn't say anything?"

"No, I told you. I didn't know until she mastered me."

"It was almost six months from when Paige signed Mr. Parnell to front-end for her until you confronted him. If he was 'some old clown,' and you didn't know about her Master power until she used it on you, to what did you ascribe her great success?"

"I—" Tony's jaw slammed shut.

"You demanded if I thought you'd have kept your mouth shut, knowing she was controlling people," Clay said.

"I know what I said.

"I could have the court reporter read it back—"

"I know what I fucking said!" Tony shouted. "I didn't know. Not until she did it to me. But it's fucking obvious, okay? She's not that good. She never was. I had to work my tail off to get her middling gigs in rundown clubs, and even then she struggled to pull in a sizeable draw. I figured the guy she ran to was salting audiences to hype her up. Six months from that to the top of the local indie scene? Of course she was using her fucking powers!"

"What did you think she was doing to draw audiences during those not-quite six months?" Clay asked.

"I told you, she was Mastering people!"

"Objection, your Honor," Clay said dryly. "Move to strike the witness as non-responsive. May it please the Court to direct Mr. Gagliano to answer the question he has been asked?"

"Sustained," Janacek said. He looked at the Jury. "The jury will disregard Mr. Gagliano's last statement. The Witness," he glowered down at Tony, "will answer the questions he is asked. And only the questions he is asked."

Clay nodded. "How did you think Paige was attaining her success for those six months, Mr. Gagliano?"

"I don't know," Tony bit out angrily.

"You sat," Clay said, "and watched her reap the fame and wealth that should have been yours?"

"Yeah."

"You just wanted a piece of it is all?"

"That's right."

"Her new manager—"

"That washed-up geezer?" Tony sneered. "He couldn't manage a platoon of boy scouts."

"Uh-huh," Clay said. He looked over his shoulder towards Paige. "Old geezer, riiiiight." He turned back to Tony. "So, unaware and unknowing of her dark and sinister power, you went to her for money because she owed you?"

"She owed me," Tony said.

"She kicked you to the curb and in six months was on the verge of breaking out into true stardom, but she wouldn't have gotten there without you?"

"Objection, asked and answered."

Clay raised a hand like a fencer acknowledging a touch, and after a nod from Janacek asked: "You walked into her office, blithely unaware of just how bad a canary Bad Canary was, demanded money, and instead she emasculated you?"

"She what?" Tony asked.

"She cut off your penis," Clay said.

"No. I told you—"

"Right, right," Clay said. "She told you to drive to a hardware store, purchase tin snips, then drive home and cut your penis off with said tin snips and to shove it into your rectum?"

"Yeah," Tony said sullenly.

"Are you a liar, Mr. Gagliano?"

"Objection, Counsel is badgering the witness."

Clay look at Hancock, then up at Janacek. "Just trying to get into the record the witness' belief in his own honesty, your Honor."

"Overruled…for now," Janacek said.

Clay nodded. "Are you a liar?"

"Now see here," Tony said. "Everything I've said is God's honest truth!"

"I'm not asking if you've perjured yourself, Mr. Gagliano," Clay said softly. "I'm asking, are…you…a liar?"

"No!"

"Then why did you give an affirmative response when I asked if she told you to go home and…do the deed?" Clay asked.

"Because she did!"

"That's not what you said in your initial report to the police," Clay said. "For that matter, it isn't what you told the court during Mr. Hancock's direct examination. You told us that she told you to, and I quote, 'go fuck yourself.'"

"And I did."

"I'm not asking what you did," Clay said reasonably. "I'm asking which of the statements you attributed to Paige is accurate."

"She told me to fuck myself, so I did."

"Then why did you give an affirmative response when I asked if she told you to drive to the hardware store, purchase tins snips, drive home and cut your penis off with said tin snips and to shove it into your rectum, if what she really told you was to, quote, 'go fuck yourself?'"

Paige watched as Tony stared back in helpless fury.

"I can wait while you come up with an answer," Clay said.

"I thought you were asking me what I did," Tony said sullenly.

Clay nodded. "Can I have the transcript of that question read back, please?"

Janacek nodded. "Certainly."

The stenographer, sitting off to one side, lifted the ribbon of paper that issued from his machine and cleared his throat. "You asked: 'She told you to drive to a hardware store, purchase tin snips, then drive home and cut your penis off with said tin snips and to shove it into your rectum?'"

"Thank you," Clay said, nodding once before turning back to Tony. "You mistook that to be me repeating the sequence of events that transpired that evening?"

"That's right."

"Ooo-kay then," Clay said. "So… She, uh, gave you that three-word command, but you didn't follow it. Did you?"

"Yes, I did."

"No you didn't," Clay said.

"I think I'd know—"

"You took your time, didn't you?" Clay asked.

"I did it as quickly as I could," Tony said. "I had to."

"If that were the case— Your Honor, I have some photos from the venue that I'd like entered into evidence," Clay said as he picked up a pair of folders from the bench in front of Paige.

Paige watched as Janacek flipped through the folder. "Mr. Hancock?"

"The State has no objection," Hancock said evenly.

Clay gestured and a bailiff distributed black binders from a box to each member of the jury as a projector was set up opposite the jury box so that everyone could see it.

"These are box-cutters present during the crime-scene investigation of the venue," Clay said. "There were seven found. Mr. Gagliano, why didn't you ask one of the venue staff for a box-cutter?"

Tony froze. "I don't know."

"This is a paper guillotine in the office that you confronted Paige and Mr. Parnell," Clay said, pulling up another picture. "There's a little warning sign about the risk to fingers if they are under the blade." A tight-in shot of the warning sticker found a place under the photo of the device. "You didn't use this even though it was in the same room?"

"I, uh, must not have noticed it," Tony said.

"For that matter, a guitar string would have worked—could I have the next slide? Right," Clay mimed looping a wire and then pulling it tight. "A G-string would have been poetic, but a high E would have probably been more comfortable, wouldn't it have?"

Tony glared sullenly.

"I asked—" Clay shook his head. "Never mind, I'll withdraw that question. Point is, you had means readily available and you didn't use them, did you?"

"No," Tony said.

"Instead you left and went to a Home Depot where you purchased a pair of tin snips, didn't you?"

"I needed a tool."

"A hacksaw would have been messy, and I can see a hatchet being awkward, but did you consider bolt-cutters?" Clay asked, gesturing as though working a pair of levers.

"Your Honor," Hancock said. "May we approach?"

Paige looked at Quinn as both lawyers moved to stand in front of the Judge's bench.

"As Brandish would remind you," Quinn murmured. "He is a victim. Clay's question could easily be construed as being insensitive. Hancock's case rests on your implanted command driving his actions. Clay is trying to defuse that by showing that Tony was able to interpret your order."

The two lawyers stepped away from the bench and Hancock took his seat again.

"You went to Home Deport and purchased a set of tin snips?"

"Yes."

"Because she made you?" Clay asked.

"That's right."

"And you didn't go to a shop that sells sex toys?" Clay asked.

"Obviously."

"Even though you could have fucked yourself with a dildo?"

"I was under her control," Tony said.

"Because she made you fuck yourself, with your own penis?"

"Yeah."

"With or without lube?"

"Objection!"

Clay raised a hand. "Withdrawn. Sorry, that was crass of me, Mr. Gagliano. One moment," he crossed back to the defense table, flashed Paige a quick grin as he picked up a pair of folders, handed one to Hancock, and then turned for the Judge's bench. "Your Honor, I have some additional photographs I would like entered into the record. These are crime scene photos from Mr. Gagliano's apartment."

Paige didn't need the photo to remember the yellowed ceiling and walls, threadbare carpet, and stacks of moldering pizza boxes of Tony's living room.

"Is this your living room, Mr. Gagliano?" Clay asked.

"Yes," Tony said.

"And that's the kitchen, right there?"

"Yes."

"Where you, ah, did the deed?"

"Yes."

"Right, next photo." As the picture on the screen changed a bailiff passed around printed copies for the jury to put in their binders. "Is this your kitchen?"

The kitchen with its piles of dirty dishes, overflowing trash bin, haphazard stacks of food boxes on the counters and on top of the refrigerator. The photo didn't do it justice. The mingled odors of rot, mildew, and stale tobacco; the yellow-brown water from the faucet; or the wheeze of the old refrigerator.

"Yes."

"Next photo, please." This photo had a set of kitchen shears. "Thank you. Mr. Gagliano?"

"Scissors, the heavy ones in the kitchen."

"And this?" Another photo, this one of a block with an array of cheap steel kitchen knives laid out before it.

"My kitchen knives," Tony said.

"Sharp?"

"Sharp enough."

"And this?"

"My Grandpa's carving set," Tony said.

Paige recalled it as about the nicest thing Tony owned.

"Sharp?"

"Always went right through anything needin' carvin' at family gatherings," Tony said.

"So," Clay said, looking deliberately at the screen with the blown-up photo of the carving knife. "You had, uh, implements at home, but you chose to go to—"

"She made me!" Tony snapped.

"Did she?"

"Yes!"

"She told you to go fuck yourself," Clay said. "So you obviously didn't just drop trou in front of her. There's that pesky go. But you didn't just go outside either. You drove to Home Depot. You made a purchase. You drove home—"

"She made me!"

"She made you?" Clay asked.

"Yes!"

"All of that?"

"Yes!"

"With just three words?" Clay asked, his tone mild, his expression almost beatific.

"She didn't need words!"

"So what, she did the vampire thing? Looook into my eeeyyyyeees," Clay said in a comically bad impression of Bela Lugosi.

"Yeah. That's it."

Clay nodded in understanding. "Did she just make you, or let you, reveal that the gag isn't stopping her from Mastering all of us?"

"What was that?" Paige asked.

"That was a witness self-destructing on the stand," Carol said as she set a submarine sandwich, fries, and a diet cola down in front of her.

Paige closed her eyes to cut out the sight of her lunch. She had learned the hard way that gorging herself after the weeks with the feeding tube was the sure way to end up in the bathroom sicking it all up. Instead she slowly worked the stiffness out of her legs and arms, feeling joints and muscles that had long gone untapped protest at being used again.

Clay, who had joined the other two since Court was in recess for lunch, nodded cheerfully as he set down his own. "You should appreciate this more," he said. "All the world's a stage, trial is just more so."

Paige blinked. "What?"

Clay picked up a fry and gesticulated with it. "Look, it's like I told the jury during opening arguments. There are no great Perry Mason or Ben Matlock moment where the Defense pulls out something the Prosecution has never seen. That's what all that pre-trial stuff was about. It was agreeing about everything including Janacek, Hancock, and I deciding the pool of pictures I could pull from to showcase Gagliano's carving set. That's the back-stage work, the stuff the audience doesn't get to see. Now it's just a couple of characters selling their versions of a story to a jury with the judge supposedly making sure both sides play fair."

"You implied Tony made me Trigger!" Paige said.

"Yep," Clay agreed cheerfully.

"You surprised Hancock with it," Paige said.

"I sure did," Clay said gleefully.

"That isn't something to joke about," Carol said harshly.

"But you said—"

"He said that nobody is going to sneak in a witness or evidence or something," Quinn intervened. "And he isn't. Not anymore than Hancock is. 'Surprise' in a trial, as rare as it is, is almost invariably what happens when someone realizes that something that they've seen the whole time isn't what they thought it is."

"Tony didn't cause me to trigger," Paige said.

"Can they prove what it is?" Clay asked.

"No," she said flatly…just as she had every other time they'd asked. "They could manufacture something."

"They could," Clay said calmly. "Just like we are out of Gagliano's insistence that he, quote, 'made' Bad Canary—"

Paige flinched at the sudden look of cold fury that flashed across Carol's face.

"—that he didn't mean for you to have a Master power, and all those internet searches on where powers come from. Not to mention all the times he watched 'Gaslighting.'"

"He was living in my apartment," Paige said. "He could say they were my searches."

"Did you know his password?" Clay asked. "Don't answer that."

Yes, Paige thought.

"I take it you didn't know about this…tactic?" Carol asked sourly.

Paige shook her head.

"I could have them disbarred, or at least reprimanded, for it if you want."

"This is a point of dramatic tension," Quinn said. "Don't look at me like that, Carol. Did you seriously not pick up any theatre courses in prelaw?"

"No," Carol said flatly.

"That explains so much," Clay said. He'd made progress on his fries and was now gesturing with one end of his sandwich while he ate at the other. "There are two types of witnesses. Lay witnesses are those who see or perceive something."

"Eyewitnesses," Paige said.

"Sure. Same thing. But people remember things differently. Have four people see the same thing, they'll remember different things. Not necessarily wrong, though that's really common, but their focus will be different. And a good lawyer can make them seem unreliable to a jury."

"And then there are expert witnesses," Quinn said. "Scientists, for example. People with professional knowledge of a subject. They might not have direct and personal knowledge of the crime, but it's a lot harder to contradict science. Your agent is another, drawing on his professional experience setting up, running, and managing musical acts."

"They also tend to be dry, stuffy, and very, very boring," Clay said. "Eyewitnesses are a bit more engaging to audiences."

"Witness prep with experts is mostly about trying to make them seem personable," Carol said.

"That and not put the jury to sleep," Clay said. "Eyewitnesses is mostly about getting them to feel comfortable on the stand, and not get baited by the other side. Speaking of, Boss. Was Hancock an idiot or a genius with Gags?"

"Neither," Quinn said. "It would have been difficult to get through without putting him on the stand. Putting him up first was getting him out of the way so that he'd be something the jury remembers as way back at the start of the trial, not that this will go on long enough for that to be a huge help."

"His witness prep was sub-pair," Clay said.

"There are some personalities that just don't prep well," Quinn said. "He's the lynchpin of the case. The star, if you will. Everything in the media has brought him the fame and money that he never got managing Canary. Honestly, I'm not sure why Hancock was surprised today if he wasn't able to train Gagliano not to use a phrase that practically begged us to imply he caused your trigger."

"Hancock could be willing to concede that Gagliano did cause it," Clay said. "Or have solid evidence that however you did get powers, Gagliano wasn't involved."

"Oh," Paige said softly. "I…no, he couldn't have that."

"Are you certain?" Quinn asked.

No, Paige wanted to say. But if she had to keep them a secret, so did Hancock, presuming he knew…didn't he? "As sure as I can be," Paige said softly.

"Okay then," Clay said. "Well go with that. But getting back to why Hancock is an idiot then, you want your witnesses well-trained that they aren't going to repeat stupid phrases that will allow the other side to turn them so they poison your case. At the very least you don't want them to fly apart emotionally the way Gagliano did." Clay picked up another fry and held it up before him while he moved his sub into the background. "Ideally you want the witness to be the center of attention during direct," the sub sandwich passed into the foreground as he pulled the fry back, "and the lawyer to be the center of attention during the cross."

"Unless you can get the witness to self-destruct," Quinn said.

The fry swung back to the foreground, and Clay nodded happily as he sprinkled salt on it. "In which case you stand their pumping as much fuel into the fire as you can." He dunked it into a pool of ketchup, "because juries love the sight of blood almost as much as a shark does." He popped the fry into his mouth and chewed blissfully.

"Cross-examination sucks," Carol said bluntly. "It's why no lawyer wants their client on the stand. Even a mediocre lawyer can lead a witness into a logical trap for which there is no good answer."

"'Are you a liar?'" Paige quoted.

"Exactly," Clay said.

"And the part about my eyes?"

"Oh, that's pure bullshit," Clay said cheerfully. "You know it. We know it. Hancock knows it. Janacek knows it. The bailiffs, PRT agents, and Protectorate detail all know it. But the jury doesn't know it. And the idiot said you didn't need words so I was able to ask him to choose between two possibilities, both of which were wrong, and he wasn't smart enough to figure out how to walk back what he said about your eyes without making himself look like a liar. Now the jury is thinking about why Hancock has you trussed up if the gag and bonds won't stop you. It's wondering about the show of force, and just how powerful you are. And Hancock either has to play into that, build up your threat potential, knowing that he's building his case on a foundation of sand that I will happily direct a high-pressure hose on. Or he has to undercut his own witness and admit Gagliano exaggerated because without actual power testing there is no way he can conclusively 'prove' what your powers are. If he tries, we'll rip apart the brute rating and leave the jury wondering about the chains."

"Or he could do nothing," Carol said.

"Worst of both worlds," Clay disagreed. "It'll make Gagliano look like an even bigger idiot than he actually is, and Hancock an idiot for putting so much of the case on him. Even better, it'll make it look like Gagliano pulled one over on Hancock and then insinuate that if he could do that to a prosecutor who's seen it all, a young, naïve artist was no match."

"So what happens now?" Paige asked. "I mean, after this."

"Now is why people like Hancock really hate prosecuting Masters, Thinkers, and Strangers," Quinn said. "Brute? Easy to see if someone picks up a car and throws it. Blaster? It is really obvious when they start flinging around freeze-rays, fire-breath, or pseudo-lasers. Master? He has to convince the jury that it was you who directed Gagliano's actions, and not someone who overheard your argument and made a meat puppet out of him. Or that Gagliano did it to himself in a bizarre effort to pin a crime on you. And that'll be harder for him, because you gave what was a simple direction and what Gagliano did was not simple.

"Of all the people-controllers, prosecutors hate those that give objectives and leave it to their victims to figure out the 'how' more than any. It's subtle. It isn't flashy. It usually takes long enough that it can be hard to show that there wasn't another Master involved. And any overtly criminal actions other than the Mastering are usually an artifact of the Mastered person's personality rather than Master's.

"You could have said you wanted a Rembrandt for your birthday. One person might have gone and bought you a poster of Storm on the Sea of Galilee. Another, commissioned a reproduction. A third, given you a ride down to Boston and tickets to the Gardner museum to see the real thing. And a fourth would have pulled a heist and tried to steal it."

"There are so many ways he could have fucked himself," Clay said. "Buying a dildo, or purchasing drugs from an undercover officer, soliciting an underage prostitute, walking into a bank and attempting to rob it… Toss in the people at Home Depot he talked to, the cashier and the person who helped him find tin snips. You didn't tell him not to tell anyone, after all. And he could have sped on his way home and attracted the attention of a cop."

"Isn't that blaming the victim?" Paige asked.

"Lawyers," Carol said. "It is, in this case, socially acceptable. A gutter tactic, but acceptable."

"Anything that makes Hancock's job harder, makes ours easier," Clay said. "Especially since we aren't arguing facts—you Mastered Gagliano—but rather degrees. If we can get the jury to apportion blame, it's less likely they'll go all in. If Janacek refuses to let them consider lesser charges, they'll be more likely to acquit entirely.

"But that's a sort of over-arching theme. What we need to push is that the PRT doesn't know the extent, or limitations, of your power. Ostensibly that's why you're still in the brute-gear. That goes both ways. If Hancock puts them on the stand and they say that Tony couldn't have done those things under your control, I can get them to say that it is also possible that he could have done those things because they…don't…know."

"And if they do have a way of knowing my limits?"

"As Clay said, the brute gear comes off and the jury gets to see that he's manipulating them," Quinn said without hesitating.

"I should point out," Clay said. "Lawyers are always manipulating juries. We spoon-feed them facts that support the narrative we like, and undermine that of the other side. That's kind of the point. But juries that realize we're manipulating remember it in the deliberation room, even if they don't deliberately weigh it as evidence."

"Hence why Clay mentioned that bit about the Birdcage in his opening remarks even though the judge had it struck from the record?" Paige asked. "He was trying to influence the jury?"

"Exactly," Clay said, saluting her with yet another fry. "Hancock was always going to object. Janacek was always going to get it struck from the record and tell the jury to disregard it. It was prejudicial. Deliberately so. But is the jury going to forget it when they're in the jury room? Probably not."

"It's stupid to bait judges like that," Carol said. But then she admitted grudgingly, "even if sometimes you have to."

Clay picked up his cup and slurped noisily, shook his cup so the ice rattled against the paper sides, gave it a disappointed look, and set it down with a dejected sigh. "On top of that, Janacek would know that he's being played. Oh, he 'knows' and is going on with it. But that's different from throwing it deliberately and blatantly in the face of a judge."

"What could he do?" Paige asked.

"Janacek? Best case for us? Charges dismissed with prejudice. Worst case for Hancock? Probably a mistrial with the case reassigned to a prosecute who declines to retry the case," Quinn said. "It amounts to much the same thing, but one is a bigger slap in his face than the other."