Liars by JaneLebak
[Reviews - 2] - Table of Contents - [Report This]

Printer Chapter or Story
- Text Size +
Part Seven:

"Thank you. Please remember throughout your testimony that you are under oath to tell the truth. Please identify yourself for the court."

"I am G-Force Agent G-2, with the field name Condor."

"Objection!" Everyone expected this, after the same scenario had been played out during Mark's testimony. "My client and the court have the right to know the full names of those accusing him."

"Your honor," the prosecutor said patiently, "for the same reasons that the G-Force commander couldn't give his name, Agent G-2 shouldn't be forced to reveal his either. The long-established precedent of protecting those whose identities are--"

"Objection overruled," the judge said impatiently. "You explained quite eloquently before, and we agreed then."

The defense attorney sat, and the prosecutor shot Jason a guarded smile. "Thank you, your honor. Agent G-2, please continue. What is your current status with the team?"

The attorney had felt it necessary that Jason state this without being compelled by the defense. "I'm on temporary leave of absence from the team due to illness."

Across the room, Don's eyes widened, and he sat straighter, then whispered to his attorney, who said something briefly and returned her attention to the witness stand. The prosecutor was saying, "Please state your relationship to the accused."

"He was a former teammate on G-Force, working as Agent G-4 until his disappearance."

"Please describe the circumstances under which he disappeared."

Jason gave a brief rundown, a briefer story than Mark's version, which in itself was more abbreviated than Chief Anderson's the day before. That had been scrutinized and sliced apart in such detail that Jason had left the courtroom not knowing what had happened any longer. Lawyers had that way about them. Because Jason's injuries had called off the search for Don, Jason wasn't able to remember much of it. The lawyer next asked him to describe the circumstances under which he'd found Don in the Spectran base. This he also did, trying to remember the right cues and get the events in all the right order so there would be no confusing backtracking. Every so often the lawyer made the hand motion he'd pre-arranged with Jason; it meant, "Slow down." Jason wasn't nervous, but he hated testifying in front of Aunt Mary. Don's eyes he avoided entirely.

"So to clarify," the attorney said, "you saw Mr. Wade working freely in a well-apportioned lab, under no duress, issuing orders to Spectran footsoldiers, and bearing his own side-arm."

"Yes," Jason said. "That is what I saw."

The attorney said to Jason, "And these details leave no doubt in your mind that Mr. Wade was freely and gladly working for Spectra?"

"Objection!" The defense counsel folded her arms. "Speculation."

"Did you see any signs of duress?" the prosecutor amended.

"None at all." Jason took a deep breath. "His door wasn't even locked."

"Thank you." The attorney began returning to his seat, then paused. "For the record, Agent G-2, is there anything that would make any of your teammates willingly cooperate with Spectra in this war against the Earth?"

Jason answered levelly and steadily. "No, sir."

The prosecutor sat at his table, glanced at his notes and in effect gave Jason's words time to sink in, and then looked up suddenly. "Your witness."

The defense attorney straightened her suit jacket and approached Jason, who did his best not to glare menacingly. She probably wasn't a bad person; she'd probably been assigned Don's case against her will. "Agent G-2, you have never had a good working relationship with the accused, have you?"

"No." The attorney had said yesterday that for once Jesus had the right idea: say yes when you mean yes, and no when you mean no. Anything more could get twisted.

"Why is that?"

Jason said, "Are you asking me to speculate?"

The prosecutor chuckled. The defense said, "How would you characterize your relationship with Don? And might I remind you that you are under oath."

Jason tried not to seethe inside. She'd done the same things to Mark and the Chief. "Antagonistic. Our personalities clashed."

"So would it be justifiable to wonder if you aren't painting an overly negative picture of how you found him?"

Jason said, "I might remind you that I am under oath."

In the second row, Mark choked, and the Chief had a glint in his eyes. Jason sat like a statue. The attorney said, "Answer the question, Agent G-2."

"I'm reporting the facts as I encountered them." The prosecutor was making that motion to Jason again: slow down. Shut up, was what he really meant. Jason decided not to continue.

The defense said, "Given your self-described antagonism towards Don, why were you the agent sent into the base to retrieve him?"

Jason said, "I was not in charge of assigning tasks. I carried out my orders."

"If you recall, Agent G-1 and Security Chief Raymond Anderson both testified earlier that you were sent alone into the base because they decided you needed a mission to handle on your own. Were you having personal problems at the time?"

Jason felt cold. "Somewhat."

"You are on record as requesting a personal leave of absence immediately after retrieving Don, and you have spent the past six weeks on an extended medical leave."

There had never been a harder time in Jason's life to be silent. The prosecutor had both hands on the table, fingers spread. Don't answer. That was the cue, and Jason had his jaw clamped, his stomach tense.

After he didn't reply, the defense said, "Please, Agent G-2, outline the nature of this medical leave for the court."

"Objection," the prosecutor said. "His health has no bearing on this case."

"It absolutely does, your honor." The defense attorney kept her back to the prosecutor, addressing only the head judge. "This agent's judgment was severely compromised by his personal circumstances."

The judges turned to one another, and after a momentary whispered consultation, the lead judge said, "Objection overruled. You may ask the question."

The defense counsel turned a cold smile to Jason. "What was the reason for your medical leave?"

For all that he'd spent the past six weeks immersed in it, Jason had never actually told anyone what had happened. The important people had already known by the time he arrived at the hospital. Everyone he cared to tell would simply call and say, "How are you today?" Even Aunt Mary had found out in a phone call from the Chief, not from him. He took a steadying breath, then looked again at the prosecutor. Slow down was the signal. He tried to form the words without looking calculating. "I've been undergoing repeated surgical treatment for cerebral aneurysm."

The attorney said, "That's in the brain?"

Jason said, "Where's your cerebrum?"

The prosecutor flinched. Jason tried to smile and make it better. The defense said, "For the record, cerebral aneurysms are bubbles in the blood vessels in the brain which have swollen for various reasons, putting pressure on the areas around them, causing a variety of symptoms. Would it be safe to say the presence of an aneurysm impaired your judgment?"

Jason looked her right in the eye. "No."

"No?"

"My judgment was fine." He so much wanted to add, How's yours? "Aneurysms don't have that kind of affect. They're in the brain, but they don't affect thinking."

"You were, however, in pain at the time?"

Damn. "Yes."

"How much pain?"

Jason said, "How do you quantify pain?"

"Enough pain that you wanted only to get the job finished? Enough that you would beat a former teammate for perceived infractions, someone you perceived as keeping you from lying down and resting so the pain could go away? Enough pain that you wouldn't have noticed his true predicament?"

There was total silence in the courtroom. Chief Anderson looked white, and Mark had wide eyes. Of course Mark knew what had happened in that room. There had only been three people there. And Don--what Don had seen would be the very next question. Jason said, "My powers of observation were unimpaired."

The defense counsel stepped closer to the witness stand and smiled like a snake. "Don has already testified that in a moment of panic you shot at him, and your commander opened the door into the gun fast enough to deflect the shot. Don testified that you went down on your knees in apparent agony." She held the smile. "Is his testimony true?"

"After he pulled the gun on me--"

"Yes or no?"

"Yes."

The woman said softly, "That must have been a lot of pain."

Jason leaned forward, but the prosecutor stood, sliding his chair back loudly enough that he caught Jason's attention. "Your honor, she's badgering the witness."

"I've made my point," the woman said, turning to walk halfway to her desk. "Agent G-2, before you stated that none of your teammates would ever work with Spectra for any reason. If you're on leave of absence, you currently have no teammates." Jason's eyes flared. That was enough to encourage the woman to continue. "So let me rephrase the prosecutor's question. Isn't it possible that you or any current member of the G-Force team might cooperate with Spectra, on a limited scale, if it meant saving the lives of your teammates, or possibly sparing yourselves?"

Jason's blood ran so cold he couldn't think. "I disagree with your definition of a team. Just because I'm not getting paid doesn't make us--"

"Answer the question."

"I am answering the question. I'm on leave of absence, but I'm still part of the team. I'm here in uniform. G-1 is still my commanding officer, and I've been overseeing the training of Agent G-6. I can't run missions with them, but I've been participating to the best of my abilities."

The woman opened her hands. "Are there circumstances under which you would willingly cooperate with Spectra to some extent? To save their lives? To save your family's? Or possibly to save your own?"

Why the hell hadn't she asked Mark these questions? She had, but Mark had tossed out a line about having total faith in every one of his companions, about trusting his life to them and their judgment and so on and so forth. For the moment, Jason thought Mark was telling the truth. He might lie in a hospital room, but he'd never lie in court. That meant Mark had faith Jason never would turn traitor. But Mark didn't know what had gone on inside Jason's head. He hadn't felt that pain firsthand. He didn't know Jason would have done anything at all to end it. The prosecution lawyer, who at the very least suspected, was sitting tense and utterly still.

Jason said, "A team is much more than the individual people making it up. If my commanding officer had to sacrifice my life to accomplish something, I trust he would do so without a second thought."

Mark's eyes were bulging. The defense said, "Was Don sacrificed for that reason?"

Jason said, "I dispute that Don was sacrificed. And as I said, I wasn't coherent at the time."

"What kind of a team would throw away one another's lives?"

"It's not throwing away your life to die for a cause." Jason shrugged. "It's like spending money. You save until you find the thing you want to buy, and then if it's worth it, you spend everything you have and get it. You don't have the money anymore, but that doesn't mean you threw it away."

"So G-Force consists of a good manager and five units of human currency?"

Jason laughed out loud. "No! At its best, the team is five, and soon six, people who know so well what one another would do that we can predict it, that we trust one another implicitly to know our jobs and get them done. No matter what, the others are counting on us. Everyone else is counting on the one. That's why we can split off and do our jobs in the most dangerous situations--"

"This is a nice speech, but--"

"Let me finish. That requires absolute trust."

"Don participated in this teamwork, then?"

"Somewhat, and because of that, we never thought he'd do anything other than resist. If he didn't return, he was a prisoner or else he was dead. In that situation, I don't care what's on the line--any amount of family or friends or even your own agony--a team member is going to sacrifice anything and endure anything for the benefit of the team."

It wasn't until he'd finished the sentence that Jason realized what he'd just testified to, under oath.

And more than that, realized that he'd meant every word. That what he couldn't suffer on its own, he would still suffer for them.

"Then you concede perhaps his appearance of working for Spectra wasn't an actual betrayal?"

"No." Jason saw the prosecutor indicating he slow down, and because he was breathing hard he tried to comply. The defense lawyer was goading him to continue with her body language. Jason said softly, "When you wanted my full name, you didn't need it. Don told you who I am. The judges all know. Everyone who matters in this courtroom knows who I am. Why did you push?"

"I am not the one on trial," the defense said.

"Neither am I."

"Your testimony is." The defense attorney folded her arms. "If you had faith that Don would never betray you, why were you so eager to believe he had?"

Jason met the attorney's eyes, but no signals were forthcoming. A glance at Mark and the Chief gave him no reassurance either. "The chemists and the intelligence operatives know their jobs. Someone who understands what a community is would never betray them. But I don't think Don ever understood. That was why I disliked him so much for so long. We had worked hard to build something solid and strong and nurturing, and he wanted to tear it down and rearrange it around himself."

The defense counsel's eyebrows raised. "Don't you have a reputation as an impulsive loner?"

Jason cocked his head. "Don't lawyers have reputations as liars?" She was about to tell him to answer the question when Jason added, "I don't control what people say about me. I only control what I do and don't do." He smiled firmly, tilting his head so the judges could see as well. "And in answer to your earlier question, there is nothing Spectra ever could do to make me betray anything to them."

After that, the questioning was long, annoying and tedious, but a lot easier.

Two weeks later, Susan answered the phone before heading to the ISO building. It was Jason. "Don't come here this morning. Take the C or E train to 81st street, and head across to Central Park. Be prepared to do some running."

Three quarters of an hour later, Susan found herself in Central Park unable to find Jason. She pinged him, then sent, Okay, where are you?

Abruptly she realized where he was, and turning she saw a playground with a swing set; Jason was sitting on one of the only working swings. Most of the others had been wound around the top pole so they were unusable.

She approached studying his face. He looked different than he had for the past eight weeks, a very subtle relaxation playing through his eyes and mouth. He didn't look as tired as he had yesterday. Susan took a seat on one of the other working swings. "You find the neatest places."

Jason pumped the swing harder, so he gained more momentum and height. Susan watched as it took only a few more swings to start the swing jumping out beneath him. At the apex, his head was higher than the top pole. He kept his eyes closed as he rushed forward, then opened them as he went backward. Lighter and shorter, Susan couldn't match his efforts. After a while, though, he stopped pumping and swung in slower arcs. Susan let her legs dangle and did the same.

The squeaking of the swings had turned into a rhythmic creak when he said, without looking at her, "I got the final results of the tests this morning. Everything's perfect."

Her eyes widened. "Terrific!"

"Yeah." He shrugged as he put his feet down and stopped the final motions of the swing. "I can join you today. But it's still low-impact workouts for a while."

"That's still pretty cool. Congratulations." Susan tilted back on the seat and looked up the chains to the pole. Pivoting a little, she coaxed the chains to twist around one another. Jason still wasn't moving. She said, "Why are all the other swings wrapped up like that?"

Jason shrugged. "Vandals? They're always doing that."

"Jerks." Susan stood on the swing, and when she had her balance jumped up to grasp the pole. She rocked until she had enough momentum to pull herself up and straddle the bar. Momentarily she had a good enough seat that she could begin unwinding the nearest swing. By the time she had the first one freed, Jason was also up on the bar, unwinding another one. The last one gave Susan trouble, and Jason made his way across the bar to help her. They had an audience by the time they were finished, and Jason tried to ignore when they clapped as he and Susan dropped to the ground. Laughing, Susan put her feet together and spread her hands in the air as though she had just finished an uneven bar routine. She turned to Jason. "Let's go."

They reached the road at the heart of Central Park, and Jason pulled a pair of rollerblades out of his backpack. "I got them this morning, ISO's tab," he said with a chuckle. "The Chief said I had to find something low-impact to do. This is gentler than jogging, and I wasn't about to haul my bike down here. I'd promised my friend Chris I'd learn, so I kind of owed it to him."

Susan said, "Only until you fall flat on your behind."

"I don't fall."

"What do you do? Fling yourself at the ground intentionally?"

Jason strapped them on without comment, then tucked his sneakers back into the pack. They headed toward the road, and Susan realized shortly that Jason was right. It took him a few moments to get used to the things, but once he did he had no problems with balance. After the first circuit of the park, however, he decided to sit out the second lap and let Susan go alone. He looked upset by being that out of condition, but Susan didn't urge him to keep going.

They returned to ISO at nearly lunch time. The judges had deliberated for a week on his case, and they had announced that the verdict would be delivered at two o'clock. The tension invisibly shimmered around everyone for those last hours until they put on their uniforms and filed downstairs to the courtroom.

The judges processed in exactly on time, and as soon as Don was standing to receive his sentence, they pronounced him guilty. Don gulped and sat heavily, or rather fell backward into his seat. The defense counsel didn't move toward him; Jason saw Princess flinch as she instinctively reached forward, then stopped herself. Aunt Mary sat with her face in her hands. Jason swallowed the tension as far down his throat as he could.

The judges continued with a brief recap of their reasoning. Jason didn't listen. It hardly mattered now whose testimony they thought more important and whose less so. Don's life was ruined. Aunt Mary's was ruined. And it would never make sense to anyone. Maybe not even Don. Why'd you do something so stupid?

The chief judge paused and asked the defense counsel if her client wished to address the court. She said he would, then turned to Don and spoke quietly for a moment. Don got to his feet unsteadily. He couldn't even raise his head to address the judges directly. He stood in silence a long time; Jason could tell by the tension in Don's shoulders and back how hard he was struggling just to stand there.

Well? Jason thought. You've got our attention. Now is the only chance you'll have to say whatever it is you have to say. It's the only chance you'll have to work the sentence down.

That was when Jason realized, as if for the first time, that Don might actually get the death penalty. His breath caught.

Down the row from him, Jason noticed Susan sitting forward in her seat, watching Don with an intense singularity. For a moment, Jason wondered what she was doing. Then he realized she was trying to make Don less nervous.

Abruptly Don said, "I'm sorry." His voice cracked, and he sat hurriedly. His attorney looked marginally startled. So did the judges.

The head judge proceeded with the sentencing phase. Aunt Mary sat regally, face graced by tears. Chief Anderson turned to look at her, and she met his eyes briefly. In that moment, Jason knew they'd cut a deal somehow. That was what the Chief had meant when they spoke together in his office: Uncle Scott's testimony had helped convict Don, and for that reason, the prosecution never had aimed for the death penalty. To do so would have violated every moral norm in human history.

Jason was able to relax in his seat then, and as the judge continued to outline his reasoning, it became more obvious to everyone else in the courtroom that Don would escape with his life. The final outcome had the possibility of parole in twenty years. He would be transferred to Newburgh Prison on the Hudson River, only twenty minutes from Aunt Mary and Uncle Scott's house.

The grey-suited ISO security officers approached Don to escort him back to the prison, but not before Aunt Mary approached the table to hug her son as a free man one more time. Then he was gone. Everyone he left behind kept silence for quite a while afterward.

Just after the sentencing, Chief Anderson called Jason into his office.

"You're still feeling all right?" he asked.

"I wish everyone would quit asking how I feel." Jason folded his arms and glanced out the window. "The doctors said I was fine. You didn't believe me when I said I was fine and the doctors said I was sick, did you?"

"If you're feeling up to it," the Chief said, acting for all the world as though Jason had said, "Never been better," "I thought we could put you back on active duty again." Jason's eyes bugged. "Not G-Force," the Chief said. "You're in no condition for that. But if you're interested, I'd like to reinstate you as an ISO security officer grade three."

Jason nodded rapidly, his eyes huge.

"Get out of the uniform," Anderson said. "Try this on instead."

In a few moments, Jason had discarded the t-shirt and jeans and stood before a full-length mirror seeing himself for the first time in the standard grey ISO uniform. The Chief looked over his shoulder, nodding. "It fits pretty well." He put his hands in his pockets. "That's the way I started out here. It's bizarre to see one of you wearing the same. I should get the camera."

"You better hurry. I'm only wearing this thing until I get back on the team full-time." Jason sneaked a look through his peripheral vision. "So now I get to do all the awful, boring things you used to complain about doing?"

"They'll build character," the Chief tossed out as he returned to his desk.

"I have enough character."

"I can't argue with that." The man laughed. Jason's blue-grey eyes perfectly matched the grey of the uniform, and seeing Jason standing there looking so...professional...he had to pause. His entire stance carried a maturity, conveyed a sense of himself as a whole person. Maybe it really was the uniform doing that, making Jason look older and more like a man. But maybe sometime in the past few years he'd developed a man's shoulders and a man's balance. More than that, he'd developed a man's conscience and a man's soul. At age fifteen, Jason had squeezed a trigger on himself and murdered childhood; he'd never been a child again. But maybe only after the ordeal of the past six weeks, the intimacy with mortality, had he replaced that awkward adolescence with something more. The Chief swallowed as he took a step back toward Jason, and standing right in front of him, he rested his hands on Jason's shoulders. "You grew up."

"I didn't mean to." Jason arched his eyebrows. "When do I start on the job?"

"Monday's fine. Unless you're stir-crazy. We'll be mainstreaming your workouts back into the team's over the next few weeks as well. You'll be back on G-Force by September if you don't overdo it."

Jason nodded, trying not to smile and ending up smirking instead. "I think I can handle that. Since it's Friday, can I call Safe Rides tonight? They're probably thinking another volunteer deserted."

"Can you get a car?"

"Mark still doesn't realize I have a spare set of his keys."

"Luckily, I didn't hear what you said." The Chief noticed the elvin mischief playing across Jason's eyes. "Don't repeat it, either."

The Chief stepped away, surprised to find his hands trembling. As he took a seat, Jason said, "Is that all?"

Anderson let his eyes linger on his son momentarily. "For now, yes." Jason took off down the hall, and he settled back in his chair, taking a deep breath and looking at the photos under the glass top of his desk. Yes, that's all for now.

Chapter End Notes:
When I wrote this, I had this sense of finality, like I had finished the Scavengers universe even though I knew there were other stories after this one.
~ Table of Contents ~
[Report This]
You must login (register) to review.