Chapter 24
"Empty Platitudes"
The next morning, the defendants went to breakfast the next morning still with the video that we had shown yesterday still fresh in their minds. In fact, some of the defendants had even felt like accepting what they did and admit to their crimes while others like Giovanni and his leaders continued to deny their actions and admit that what they did was for the power and glory of their respected organizations. The video had even started to get to Victor Vicious, formerly known as the Iron Masked Marauder. For someone who had kept his face behind a mask for so many years, he was now beginning to show emotion to his comrades for the first time in a long time.
"I cannot help asking," he said to himself as he sat down at a table with Giovanni. "I am beginning to wish we never help Bin Laden and his friends carry out the attacks."
"Why do you say that, Vicious?" asked Giovanni, surprisingly. "Did you like what you had done for the power and the glory of Team Rocket?"
"Giovanni," he said to Giovanni. "Do you think your mother should have stood by us and shared responsibility instead of killing herself nearly 20 years ago?"
This made Giovanni both surprised and very cross, knowing that he admired and respected his mother so much. After all, she was the one who helped inspire 9/11 for both Team Rocket and Al-Qaeda and she even helped Ramzi Yousef and his friends bomb the World Trade Center in 1993 as well as oversee their operation in attempted to bomb 12 U.S. Airliners over the Pacific Ocean in 1995.
"You would have my own mother stand in front of an American and British court and be subject to the same humiliations we must endure?" asked Giovanni quietly to Vicious. Then, all of a sudden, Giovanni had hit his breaking point and snapped.
"YOU COWARD!" he roared, rising to his feet in anger. "YOU FOOL! YOU'RE GIVING THEM WHAT THEY WANT! THEY WANT YOU TO THINK LIKE DEFENDANTS! THEY WANT YOU TO STAND UP AND SAY YOU WERE WRONG!"
This made everyone in the dining room look at Giovanni, who was now mirroring the speech Goering gave to his fellow defendants when they were on trial at Nuremberg.
"They would do anything," he cried. "Offer you anything, to hear these words." He then looked back at the other defendants with a calmer, but still stern voice.
"To save ourselves," he begged. "Are we willing to betray my own mother? Betray our cause? Betray the mission? I say to you all, that I would rather die, gladly, than say we were wrong!"
A long silence fell over the dining room as Lieutenant McGovern saw his prisoner being his old self again and admired the fact that Madam Boss would be proud of her son. However, the only ones not affected by this were Jessie and James who just stood next to the window they were at a few days ago and just looked stiff at Giovanni.
"Am I all alone?" he shouted. "Am I all that's left?"
Just then, the sounds of hands banging on the tables began to fill the dining room and with each time a defendant started to bang on the tables, the other soon followed. Feeling satisified for what he had just did, Giovanni sat down and patted Vicious on the tops of his hands in an effort to get him to join in the sounds of approval, but he didn't and just sat there silently. Unbeknownst to him however, Captain Hopkins was sitting nearby and was watching the events unfold before her eyes.
Later that day, while the other defendants were led back to their cells, she had Jessie and James come down to the library and ask them questions about the display that took place in the dining room.
"Jessie, James," she said. "Help me to understand what I witnessed today in the dining room. Dr. Sakami's ability to intimidate and brainwash not just Pokemon, but people as well seems to have had a major effect on people."
"It is," replied Jessie. "This was exactly how I was brought in. My mother was an elite officer for Team Rocket and while she was out in the Himalayas searching for the Pokemon, Mew, she died of the cold and blizzard conditions that surrounded her. Ever since then, I could not help but wonder if I was brought in this way."
"Me too," added James, staring out the window library. "I was brainwashed for the same reason. I joined Team Rocket because I was not happy with my life at home and that I wanted to make my own living. That was the only reason we joined in the first place. We wanted to earn money by stealing Pokemon, not to train them to kill people and be murders."
"Indeed," added Jessie. "In the years that James and I have been with Team Rocket, we could not help but wonder if what we were doing was a continuation of Hitler's movement that was started over 70 years ago. Team Rocket and its affiliates were built on empty platitudes."
Captain Hopkins straightened out her skirt suit and then looked back at the two remorseful agents again. This time, she wanted to know the reason why they didn't do what the other agents did in the dining room.
"You both said you wanted to tell me something," she said. "Now that we are alone, please tell me what it is."
Jessie scratched her head and stared back at Captain Hopkins as if she wanted to full tell her the full truth right then and there.
"James and I are trying to encourage some of the defendants to join us in accepting guilt and expressing remorse," explained Jessie. "We've made progress with Vicious and have high hopes for Fuji, but Giovanni means to bully them into joining him and we fear now he will succeed, unless someone stops him."
"I understand," said Captain Hopkins and knew that she was going to face Giovanni eventually, but she needed to know the right time and place to do so…