GWOT IV - The Second Interrogator
Sep. 17th, 2021 01:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
drewkittyGWOT IV - The Second Interrogator
About halfway through the justice process, all the faces and the names and the crimes started to blur together in a mosaic of pain and suffering and soon enough, death.
"All rise." They weren't standing for me, they were standing for the process. It was an act to respect justice, not the guy in the BDUs that was stuck with the gavel.
I asked questions. I explained as needed. Military court. Military justice. Neither civil nor criminal. Neither restorative justice nor the rights of the accused of special importance. The functionality and ability of the Resistance, then the California Military Department, to defend our people of overriding importance. The Uniform Code of Military Justice, because we hadn't had time to come up with anything better and most of our defendants were liable to it one way or another anyway.
Gavel bangs. Minute pleadings. The occasional need for batons and boots in court. I'd debated having the troops assigned as bailiffs in court wear white boots, but the logistics were painful and who has white shoe polish anyway?
Then came the day that someone bubbled up through the sea of face, and my mouth spoke before my brain caught up.
"Prisoner #8 in today's document is recused to another trier of fact."
The defense attorney scented blood.
"Why, your Honor?"
Calling me more than I was had never helped, but that didn't keep him from trying.
"Personal conflict of interest."
"Will the Court disclose this conflict of interest?"
I paused.
"Yes. I personally recognize Prisoner #8 as a Homeland Special Agent who was on interrogation duty on or about one year ago in the San Jose Operations Office. Due to the nature of my interactions with him, I am unable to make objective decisions with respect to his fate. Prisoner #8 is recused to another trier of fact. Bailiff remove the prisoner to holding."
He stood. Calmly. So calmly. Actually looked at me.
"Echo 18?" he asked the courtroom.
That was enough to die for, in this room. He'd acknowledged the link between us.
But it would be some other trier of fact who would connect dot 1 to dot 2 and thus the gallows pole to the noose.
###
But things don't always turn out how you'd planned. Or even wanted.
Agent Knight pulled me aside after a long day of court. Followed me into the restroom as I addressed the urinal, in fact.
I pissed anyway. Long day.
"Echo 18. You're on the schedule for all Homeland personnel. You know why. I know why."
Retaliation. Other people still had family. I never had. Maybe Rize, but she'd gone Bear and as Bears do, gotten killed shortly thereafter.
What Bears and Homeland had in common was a long, long reach. Anyone who sentenced a Homeland Agent to death would be looking over their shoulder for the rest of their dramatically shortened life.
That gave me an idea.
"You do it," I said to Agent Knight.
"I can't sit in a courtroom for more than half an hour without glazing out. I also have family. So no."
That was all true, and my look as I tucked myself in my pants admitted as much.
"You'll be seeing him again tomorrow. Come up with some good bullshit to adjudicate him. Or fucking kill him yourself in the courtroom, I don't care."
Neither of us washed our hands as we left.
###
Today the numbering was different. He was first in dock.
"Prisoner #1, after objective review of your case, the testimony against you - note, not including my own, which itself would be sufficient," I held up my ruined hand, proof of mayhem under the Court's rules and the UCMJ, "is in fact overwhelming. The question of whether or not you would have had a fair hearing in court from me is made moot by the overwhelming nature of the evidence. Torture, rape, murder most foul, your victims in chains and chairs. You are sentenced to hang by the neck until dead."
"Do I get to speak?"
"You get one minute."
"I only need ten seconds. Coward. Fuck you, fuck California, fuck your traitor state and everyone in this room who isn't in chains. I don't know why the United States of America hasn't ended your pitiful revolt with atomic fire, but it will. You didn't burn in that furnace, Echo 18, but we will make CALIFORNIA your fucking furnace. You don't burn alone, you burn with millions of other people."
"Time," I observed mildly, and they started dragging him away.
"You burn! You all burn! Harlots, fornicators, faggots, faithless ..." he shouted as he was dragged out.
I shrugged.
"Next."
###
After the second time the reaction team responded to my quarters for the screaming in the night, I saw the physician and he prescribed me sleeping pills. He counted them and saw me swallow them.
"Do I have to run a finger around your mouth, Warden?"
"No, doctor."
"Do I have to post an orderly to make sure you don't induce vomiting, Warden?"
"No, doctor."
"Good night."
###
I saw him one more time. It was my duty as Warden of Alviso Prison to watch every execution.
They dragged him up the stairs, as they often did.
He didn't say anything, as they often did not. Words on the execution ground were not recorded.
My eyes met his as the hood came down over his head, then the noose around his neck.
The crane lifted. The crowd jeered.
He didn't start kicking for nearly thirty seconds.
As brave in death as he had been in life.
He had been my friend.
And I had just, in obedience to my duty, murdered him.
I wondered if I would die as well as he had.
Probably not.
About halfway through the justice process, all the faces and the names and the crimes started to blur together in a mosaic of pain and suffering and soon enough, death.
"All rise." They weren't standing for me, they were standing for the process. It was an act to respect justice, not the guy in the BDUs that was stuck with the gavel.
I asked questions. I explained as needed. Military court. Military justice. Neither civil nor criminal. Neither restorative justice nor the rights of the accused of special importance. The functionality and ability of the Resistance, then the California Military Department, to defend our people of overriding importance. The Uniform Code of Military Justice, because we hadn't had time to come up with anything better and most of our defendants were liable to it one way or another anyway.
Gavel bangs. Minute pleadings. The occasional need for batons and boots in court. I'd debated having the troops assigned as bailiffs in court wear white boots, but the logistics were painful and who has white shoe polish anyway?
Then came the day that someone bubbled up through the sea of face, and my mouth spoke before my brain caught up.
"Prisoner #8 in today's document is recused to another trier of fact."
The defense attorney scented blood.
"Why, your Honor?"
Calling me more than I was had never helped, but that didn't keep him from trying.
"Personal conflict of interest."
"Will the Court disclose this conflict of interest?"
I paused.
"Yes. I personally recognize Prisoner #8 as a Homeland Special Agent who was on interrogation duty on or about one year ago in the San Jose Operations Office. Due to the nature of my interactions with him, I am unable to make objective decisions with respect to his fate. Prisoner #8 is recused to another trier of fact. Bailiff remove the prisoner to holding."
He stood. Calmly. So calmly. Actually looked at me.
"Echo 18?" he asked the courtroom.
That was enough to die for, in this room. He'd acknowledged the link between us.
But it would be some other trier of fact who would connect dot 1 to dot 2 and thus the gallows pole to the noose.
###
But things don't always turn out how you'd planned. Or even wanted.
Agent Knight pulled me aside after a long day of court. Followed me into the restroom as I addressed the urinal, in fact.
I pissed anyway. Long day.
"Echo 18. You're on the schedule for all Homeland personnel. You know why. I know why."
Retaliation. Other people still had family. I never had. Maybe Rize, but she'd gone Bear and as Bears do, gotten killed shortly thereafter.
What Bears and Homeland had in common was a long, long reach. Anyone who sentenced a Homeland Agent to death would be looking over their shoulder for the rest of their dramatically shortened life.
That gave me an idea.
"You do it," I said to Agent Knight.
"I can't sit in a courtroom for more than half an hour without glazing out. I also have family. So no."
That was all true, and my look as I tucked myself in my pants admitted as much.
"You'll be seeing him again tomorrow. Come up with some good bullshit to adjudicate him. Or fucking kill him yourself in the courtroom, I don't care."
Neither of us washed our hands as we left.
###
Today the numbering was different. He was first in dock.
"Prisoner #1, after objective review of your case, the testimony against you - note, not including my own, which itself would be sufficient," I held up my ruined hand, proof of mayhem under the Court's rules and the UCMJ, "is in fact overwhelming. The question of whether or not you would have had a fair hearing in court from me is made moot by the overwhelming nature of the evidence. Torture, rape, murder most foul, your victims in chains and chairs. You are sentenced to hang by the neck until dead."
"Do I get to speak?"
"You get one minute."
"I only need ten seconds. Coward. Fuck you, fuck California, fuck your traitor state and everyone in this room who isn't in chains. I don't know why the United States of America hasn't ended your pitiful revolt with atomic fire, but it will. You didn't burn in that furnace, Echo 18, but we will make CALIFORNIA your fucking furnace. You don't burn alone, you burn with millions of other people."
"Time," I observed mildly, and they started dragging him away.
"You burn! You all burn! Harlots, fornicators, faggots, faithless ..." he shouted as he was dragged out.
I shrugged.
"Next."
###
After the second time the reaction team responded to my quarters for the screaming in the night, I saw the physician and he prescribed me sleeping pills. He counted them and saw me swallow them.
"Do I have to run a finger around your mouth, Warden?"
"No, doctor."
"Do I have to post an orderly to make sure you don't induce vomiting, Warden?"
"No, doctor."
"Good night."
###
I saw him one more time. It was my duty as Warden of Alviso Prison to watch every execution.
They dragged him up the stairs, as they often did.
He didn't say anything, as they often did not. Words on the execution ground were not recorded.
My eyes met his as the hood came down over his head, then the noose around his neck.
The crane lifted. The crowd jeered.
He didn't start kicking for nearly thirty seconds.
As brave in death as he had been in life.
He had been my friend.
And I had just, in obedience to my duty, murdered him.
I wondered if I would die as well as he had.
Probably not.
