The Crimes of Derek Spaniel
“All rise for the Right Honourable President of the Supreme Court of Utter Gits, Lady Agatha O’Mara.” Called the court bailiff, standing atop his platform of granite at the rear of the courtroom. It was a judicial space like no other in U.K., spanning the size and dimensions of exactly three and a half Olympic swimming pools. This was easily verified, because it was set into the Avon Creek Baths 3.5 Olympic Pool, which had been judiciously drained of chlorinated water for the occasion. Instead, the vast cavity of justice was now filled with pews for public observers, a viewing pod on high for the jury, and a surprisingly traditional set of stands, lecterns and daises for those actively participating in a trial. The courtroom furniture was arranged between the prospective landing zones of the high dive boards, still looming above like skeletal herons, but otherwise they would have looked at home in any traditional courtroom.
Tall glass windows ran from ground level, around two metres above the floor of the court itself, up to the ceiling high above and allowed the early morning’s sunshine to saturate the room, rendering the bright fluorescent strip lights that hung from the ceiling on long chains redundant for the time being. Thanks to some precise orientation work, the sun shone directly into the eyes of those sitting and watching the case all morning, while leaving the defendant’s stand in permanent shadow.
A glassy walkway spanned the room overhead, grazing the ceiling and offering a bird’s eye view of proceedings from within its soundproofed confines. It led from a cafeteria at one end to the lavatories at the other, with no discernible way to get in or out of it at any point along its length, which was likely how it remained so spotlessly clean.
The unusual architecture of the Supreme Court of Utter Gits was just one more crime to add to the list of charges against the day’s defendant. It was a thought that lingered at the forefront of Lady Agatha’s mind, as she strode purposefully up the staircase to her high bench at the shallow end of the pool. Between the height of the bench and the slope of the floor, this placed her at an enormous distance above the other occupants of the courtroom, adding quite unnecessarily to the picture of authority that she already painted.
“Please, be seated.” She magnanimously declared, as she surveyed her court. In all of her years overseeing trials, from petty criminal acts all the way up to gardeners who direct their wood-chippers into the open windows of parked cars, she had never known such a packed courtroom, or such an eager crowd. It felt a lot like being up on stage, and reminded her of her stunning run as Cinderella in the previous year’s High Court Pantomime. Some days, such precious memories were all that sustained her when trying the kinds of heinous criminals brought before her. Today, she suspected, would be one such day.
While the stenographer warmed up her typing fingers, the only fingers she had, Agatha poured herself a glass of apple and lime squash from the pitcher she’d been provided. It was the greenest fruit juice she’d seen all day, and tasted sharper than expected, but it was exactly the ticket to prepare her for a day of work.
“Now, I won’t dance around the point. The trial we will see today is one of national, nay, international importance. I am sure that the events we discuss will have caused significant hurt to a lot of those present, but there will be order in my court. Any jeering, interruption, throwing of objects small or large, disrespect, or other disruptions shall not be tolerated. The process must be followed.” Agatha told her court, staring down at them from on high. There were murmurs of quiet agreement and a few cleared throats, but no-one raised any objections or complaints. Not even the defendant made a sound of defiance. He just loitered silently at his stand. His face, that everyone in the world would know by now, and waited for events to proceed with a small, smug smile.
“Sir Oswald Grim, would you please present the case for the prosecution.”
From a trestle table on the floor of the courtroom, near some redundant air jets that would normally make the water pleasantly bubbly, a middle-aged man stood. He was wearing a traditional barrister’s wig on his head, plus two more on his elbows in order to appear as professional and legal as possible. A long black gown covered the majority of his body, but a small cut-out over each knee showed that he was wearing dark blue slacks underneath, and had not elected to use knee-pads for the trial. Clearly, he did not expect to be kneeling or receiving impacts to the mid-leg.
“Your honour, I shall be presenting that case that the accused, one Derek Spaniel, ex-Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, abused not only his power of office but also his powers over the supernatural, in order to cause devastating harm to the world at large. Using these powers, all of which were stolen, I might add, he embarked on a self-serving campaign of frivolous entertainment, dangerous actions, and uncommon hijinks. Among these unjustifiable shenanigans he committed three major crimes, along with a gamut of ancillary crimes along the way. They include-”
“Objection!” Shouted the Derek, from the defendant’s stand. Oswald scowled across at him.
“It is highly unusual to object to the prosecution’s opening statement, Mr Spaniel, but then again we all know that you are an unusual gentleman. Do you need a reminder of how events are to proceed and the behaviour I expect in my courtroom?” Agatha asked, lowering her glasses to her nose so that she could appear additionally patronising in her rebuke.
“No, your honour. But I object to my crimes being listed at this stage. I would prefer for them to be presented to you afresh as Sir Oswald makes his case, so that each one may be judged on its own merit, without prejudice from the others.” Derek said, his face remaining passive.
Agatha narrowed her eyes and chewed on her tongue. It wasn’t quite what she’d expected to hear, but she didn’t hate the notion.
“Your thoughts, Sir Oswald?” She asked. “I am willing to proceed in either case.”
“I… I did spend ten minutes on writing this opening statement, your honour…”
“I feel that it would make a difference to how my case is understood, and it will make the narrative more compelling for our audience.” Derek added, taking full advantage of Sir Oswald’s hesitation. The memory feeling of boards being trod underneath her feet, and the sense of wonder she’d felt when the fairy godmother had appeared every night, was too much for Agatha to deny. A narrative mattered for her audience, possibly more than justice mattered for the nation.
“Fine. Sir Oswald, please do not list any crimes just yet. But, in respect of the fact that you have spent a long time on your statement, you may read it at the end of the trial all the same. You may also have an extra helping of biscuits with your tea during any recesses, as a show of good will.” Declared the judge. Sir Oswald nodded his head in acceptance.
“As you wish, your honour. In that case, I have no more to add.” He said, returning to his seat, and pouring out his own glass of lime and apple.
“As I understand it, you have chosen to represent yourself, Mr Spaniel. It is not the first time that I have seen this happen, but I have never seen it end well. Have you any opening statements for me, presumably without detailing any alleged crimes?”
“My only opening statement is that I am an innocent man. I broke no laws and did nothing but serve the interests of the nation at every step.” Derek Spaniel said, not even bothering to leave his stand. Discontented mutterings swept through the jury in their viewing pod.
“I see. In that case, Sir Oswald, the floor is yours.” Agatha said, leaning back in her seat and taking a drink. It was tempting to give her gavel a tap or two as well, but she restrained herself for the moment. There was no need to strip later gavel taps of their gravitas by over-using it this early.
Having sat down for less than a minute, Sir Oswald got back up to his feet and stepped onto the floor between the judge, Derek, and the jury.
“Your honour, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, Mr Spaniel, I would like to open my case by presenting a witness the first of many crimes that were committed by our ex-Prime Minister. Doctor Mallory Practice, would you please take to the stand?”
Standing up from her seat among the audience, a woman of around thirty years brushed some biscuit crumbs from her long, white lab coat and walked through the court-pool. Derek Spaniel gave her a small wave as she passed, but she didn’t look up at him, let alone acknowledge his greeting. Once she had sat down, adjusted her lab coat again, and cracked her knuckles, she smiled and nodded to signal that she was ready.
“Would you please confirm your full name to the court, doctor?”
The witness cleared her throat.
“I am Dr Mallory Practice. Mal, to my friends.”
“Hello Mallory.” Said Agatha, taking an instant dislike to the doctor without being able to put her finger on why. Despite this, looking down almost directly at the top of her head, she was impressed at the straightness the doctor’s parting. Mr Spaniel’s parting looked more like someone had gone on a rampage through a corn field with a chainsaw.
“And would you please tell the court what it is that you do, Dr Practice?” Asked Sir Oswald. A little part of Mallory’s heart sank at the insinuation that neither Sir Oswald nor Agatha considered her to be a friend, but the wound was shallow and soon healed.
“I am scientist. I perform research into meta-realism, the manipulation of the physical laws that govern our universe, and how we can imbue banal objects, not unlike Mr Spaniel himself, with these powers of manipulation.” Explained the doctor. “I perform this within the Institute of Science for Science’s Sake.”
“Thank you, doctor. And would you please explain what happened on the night of the twelfth of May last year?” Asked Sir Oswald. He was pacing up and down the courtroom, his shoes clicking against the tiled pool floor, with his hands behind his back. Whilst it was one of the formally approved courtroom fidgets, it did also make his waistline look hairy, courtesy of the extra wigs.
“There was a break-in at my lab. One of the windows that faces over the car park was broken, and one of my experiments was… I guess you could say it was appropriated by the intruder.”
“We don’t like guesswork here, Mallory.” Chastised the judge.
“Even when it’s a figure of speech?”
“Especially when it’s a figure of speech!” Agatha snapped back. “Well, actually, not especially when it’s a figure of speech, because it’s worse when guesswork is used as evidence. Strike that from the record, but keep the bit where I told her off.” She told the stenographer. A thunderstorm of typing carried out the request in almost no time at all. “Continue, Sir Oswald.”
“Thank you, your honour.” He said, although the judge had done very little for him. “As we could all readily guess, the intruder who performed this appropriation has been proven already to be none other than Derek Spaniel, who stands in defence before you.” Sir Oswald ‘s arm flicked out, pointing a bold, performative and accusative finger at the defendant.
“Yeah, I did do that.” Confirmed Mr Spaniel. Agatha looked at him, quizzically. “They have CCTV footage, and I admitted it in several interviews. No sense in denying it here.” He clarified.
“Would you please tell the court what this experiment was, and what it caused when Mr Spaniel indulged in some late-night breaking and entering?”
Mallory sighed irritably at the inefficiency of the proceedings. If the man would just let her speak then she could deliver all of this information in one go, rather than statement by statement, but instead they were bound into this judicial farce. She made a mental note not to help bring anyone else to justice in future.
“The experiment was trying to determine a way of granting a human the power to manipulate reality, in the same way that we’d recently performed under lab conditions.” She explained, leaning into the microphone.
“And in terms that anyone who’s not a massive nerd could understand?” Pressed Sir Oswald, looking weary with her science mumbo jumbo already.
Mallory frowned and looked up to Agatha for support.
“I’m going to allow it, because you are a massive nerd. Now answer the question, please.” Agatha judged.
“Alright, you cavemen. I was doing a big science to see if I could put the science I’d done earlier into a person’s body, so that they could do the same science without having to use the big, shiny, expensive science kit that we play with every day.” Mallory paraphrased, deepening her voice and slowing her speech for devastating insulting effect.
“Much clearer, thank you.” Sir Oswald declared. Mallory rolled her eyes. “So what kind of science would your big science let Derek Spaniel do, for example?”
“Anything. Basically anything he wanted. It apparently granted him the ability to render reality into the shape he wanted it to take, willing things into existence, changing how existing things work, making people accept things they wouldn’t accept before… anything.”
The audience was a sea of gasps and bad clothing choices, stunned as they were by the nature of Mallory’s ‘big science’.
“So it effectively made Derek Spaniel into a god. Not one of the really powerful ones who create the whole earth, but a lesser one that might transform someone into a mushroom, or give rhinoceroses wrinkly skin?” Asked the prosecution. “I will remind you, that you are under oath.”
“No I’m not. I didn’t swear an oath.”
“Oh. Well, consider yourself under oath for these purposes then, and answer the question.”
Agatha nodded to indicate that she agreed with Sir Oswald’s proposal.
“Fine. Yes, it would give him powers not unlike those attributed to gods.”
“So there you have it, your honour. Thanks to the incredibly negligent laboratory safety of this massive nerd, Derek Spaniel was able to break in, utilise the experiment for himself, and gain a tremendous ability that no mortal should ever possess. Mallory here is not on trial, as we know, but I almost wish that she was, so that we could prosecute her for the terrible, awful, inexcusable choice to leave such a powerful experiment where any old burglar could take hold of it. And whilst this is undoubtedly a crime on Mr Spaniel’s part, it is not one of the big three which I wished to present. This is one of the lesser, ancillary crimes that I mentioned, but it was necessary to present you with the full picture of what lies ahead.” Sir Oswald explained, still pacing back and forth as he spoke. It was as if he had to keep moving, like a shark, otherwise his voice and mind would shut down completely.
“I also think that Dr Practice should be tried for some crimes, for what it’s worth.” Added Derek.
“Mr Spaniel, I will find you in contempt of court if you keep interrupting, but I do agree. We all think that Mallory here should face some kind of criminal proceedings, not least of all for being such a massive nerd.” Said Judge O’Mara.
“You’re all the worst.” Sulked Mallory.
“Yes.” Confirmed the prosecution. “But I have no further questions for the witness.”
“Do you have any questions, Mr Spaniel?” Asked the judge. “Or shall I send her away like the negligent wretch she is?”
“Just the one question, your honour. Mal,” He started.
“Mallory to you. You’re not my friend, you broke into my lab.”
“Fine, Dr. Nerd, I had incredible powers for ages, and then they suddenly stopped, and that really sucked.” He said, crossing his arms grumpily.
“That’s not a question.” She observed.
“That’s exactly why people are calling you a nerd. That sort of statement. My question, obviously, is what the hell? How come they stopped?” Derek clarified.
“Because I took them away from you. I ran the required experiment to strip you of your abilities and return you to the soft, fleshy, powerless mess you used to be.”
“But only after several months. Why did it take that long?” He asked.
“Objection, that’s more than one question, your honour. He lied about only having one question.” Called Sir Oswald, between mouthfuls of lime and apple.
“Sustained. Mr Spaniel, you are clearly a liar and have been caught. This will be held against you both in this trial and in your sentencing. But I am also curious to hear why it took several months to put an end to the threat that Mr Spaniel clearly presented. Answer.” Demanded Agatha, hefting her gavel threateningly.
“Because that’s when I could be bothered.” Mal answered, unabashedly.
“Oh. Fine. No further questions, your honour.”
Derek stepped away from his microphone, perfectly satisfied.
“Please return to your seat, Mal. It’s been lovely to have you, even if you are a massive nerd, and thank you for your honesty.” Agatha said, suddenly softening, just as unaccountably as she’d earlier been taken by a disliking. The dark look that Mallory had been prepared to throw her was disarmed into an awkward nod, and she took her leave from the stand. “Sir Oswald, I believe that this brings you to your first ‘major crime’.”
“It does.” He confirmed, standing back up. In doing so he knocked the table and sent his pitcher of lime and apple crashing to the floor. “Clear that up and get me another please, Mallory.” He said, off-handed. Before the doctor could protest, Agatha confirmed that she had to obey the instruction.
With the backdrop of a huffy physicist clearing up broken glassware, Sir Oswald stood in the centre of the floor and faced up at the jury in their viewing box.
“The first real crime of Derek Spaniel, one that hurt people who matter,” He clarified, jabbing a thumb towards the doctor, “was the crime of making himself Prime Minister of the UK. Surely, you must all remember the day that our leadership changed suddenly, and out of nowhere? One moment it’s the status quo leadership of the faces we know and distrust, and the next? It was Spaniel everywhere. On news conferences, in the papers, running down the street chasing loose paper bags. All Spaniel.
Now I know, ladies, gentleman and… single horse of the jury,” He continued. It seemed that Mr Spaniel had either granted a horse both sentience and citizenship, or turned a member of the jury into a horse at some stage of his rampage. “I know that you might think that becoming Prime Minister is, in and of itself, not a crime. It might be necessary to be a criminal to get into that position, and it might be likely that you’ll commit a crime or two from that position of power, but why would I accuse Derek Spaniel here, a man who, at the time, had the capability of manipulating the fabric of reality to do a ‘big science’ as our expert put it.” Sir Oswald asked, rhetorically. A series of questionably scientific but definitely expressive hand gestures were directed at Sir Oswald, from among the shards of glass below his table. “I think the sniggers and whinnies I hear from up there are accurate. I put it to you that this man, this so-called Spaniel, used his stolen powers to take charge, and in doing so he subverted the democratic process of conventional corruption on which this nation’s government is based.”
Agatha tried to think back to when Derek had been made Prime Minister, but no details of a campaign trail came to mind. She had no recollection of promises about schools, positions on how many bins each home should be allowed to eat each year, or pledges to have the opposition tried for treason. It was as if the leadership had just spontaneously changed without any of the dreadful tedium in the middle.
“The man in the stands before you now did not win power by a vote, nor was he a member of any party that did. He used supernatural abilities to simply will himself into premiership of the country, effectively launching a one man coup and stealing power for himself. This not only positions him as an autocrat, but means that he did not follow the usual channels of nepotism, corruption and deceit to take leadership. It is heinous and criminal to abuse power in this way. The abuse of power is a controlled process, permitted to be performed only by those who have the history and legacy to do it, such as the wealthy, landed elite. This ‘new blood’ approach of Mr Spaniel, therefore, is not on. It’s not on at all. And clearly, the power went to his head in a way that it would not have done for someone with experience of leading without a mandate.”
This line of reasoning caused quite a stir among the seated audience of the court pool, not least of all because several of them were ministers who had been side-lined under Derek’s leadership.
“Do you have any evidence to present in support of this accusation, Sir Oswald?” Asked Agatha. She couldn’t even recall hearing the name Derek Spaniel until he was already being hung out to dry for several questionable decisions as PM, so she already had strong feelings about the truth of the matter. It felt fair, however, to at least ask the question.
“I do not, but that is because evidence is only present for things which have happened according to normal cause and effect. This was wrought by the hands of something that operates outside of our own logic and our own rules, therefore the lack of evidence coupled with the extreme plausibility and likelihood of my explanation, is actually evidence in and of itself.” Claimed the prosecution, rather boldly, even by his own standards of spinning cow’s excrement into gold.
“Surely you’re not going to let that slide!” Derek protested from the stand, but Agatha cut him off with several sharp taps of her gavel. That was the feeling of power that she craved, and it never got old.
“I’m going to allow it. These are exceptional circumstances, so exceptions to the normal rule that ‘evidence is required’ can also be made.” Decided the judge, in no small part out of spite. Derek clenched a fist and made the internationally recognised gesture for ‘drat’, but raised no other objections. “Your next point please, Sir Oswald.”
“Certainly your honour. The sordid tale of the crimes of Derek Spaniel continues, with various misdemeanours masquerading as hijinks for the duration of his leadership. We could talk at length about his transformation of the House of Commons into a giant marble run, or his conversion of the underground tube system into a gargantuan marble run, or his erasure from the market all domestic marble run toys that fell below his unreasonable minimum size limits. Who could forget the month we all spent beset by upward rains, with puddles launching, drop by drop, up into the sky to form clouds, all because the leader of the opposition gloated about owning an umbrella?” There were urgent discussions in the audience and the jury, as memories of those perilously sodden days were traded. Those who wore loose-legged shorts or non-pencil skirts, in particular, reflected upon them without fondness.
In the defendant’s stand, Derek was having to stuff his sleeve into his mouth to restrain the laughter at his good work as Prime Minister. It did nothing to win him any sympathy from the judge.
“But the next crime that I wish to linger on in detail is the perfect summary of his degeneracy, and his disregard for the well-being of others. It is an example of the kind of ill-conceived and childish material change to the world that Derek Spaniel made, and his disdain or apathy towards thinking of the consequences. I am talking, of course, about his flagship policy of July last year; the redistribution of stealth.”
A chuckle escaped the lips of Derek Spaniel, which he promptly tried to hide behind a glass of water. Unfortunately for him, the transparent nature of both the vessel and the contents did nothing to grant him concealment. Everyone in the audience, and even the jury upon high in their glass-fronted overlook, could see his joy at the suffering Sir Oswald was about to describe. The exact nature of what he’d meant by redistribution of stealth was the subject of much hushed talking among themselves while he paused for effect.
“Now I expect you’re wondering what that really means. It sounds innocuous enough, doesn’t it?” Asked Sir Oswald.
“Yes, it most certainly does.” Agatha confirmed, with a confirmatory tap of the gavel.
“Erm, that was a rhetorical question, your honour.”
“Apparently not rhetorical enough, because I answered it. No question is safe in the walls of rhetoric in my courtroom, Sir Oswald.” The judge informed him, looming over the edge of her towering bench.
“Duly noted. Anyway, it sounded rather innocuous to us all, if a little abstract, when Prime Minster Spaniel announced his intentions on the side of a blimp. Many simply assumed that he had misunderstood how to spell the word ‘wealth’, or perhaps had been the victim of a signmaker’s revolt. Alas, that was not to be the case. Tell me, do any of you here know what happened in this redistribution?” Sir Oswald asked, holding his arms out wide to demonstrate the applicability of his question.
“No?” Offered a gentleman in the audience.
“Yes?” Suggested another, covering the bases well.
“No. The first chap had the right of it. In all likelihood you won’t be able to recall exactly what changed, but you know that things felt different. Once you recognise it, however, you’ll see that it grew to become not just a nuisance, but actively disastrous. You see, stealth is not a quantity that anyone can readily measure, outside of specific trivial examples like role playing games or online rankings of aircraft. What are the units of stealth? How do you compare the degree to which things aren’t noticed?”
“You don’t.” Said Agatha, continuing her one-woman crusade against the tyranny of rhetoric.
“Exactly, your honour. And yet, I put it to you that Mr Spaniel’s powers gave transitive properties to the concept of stealth and, as a result, nothing about regular life has been the same since. Have you noticed, your honour, how you never hear the bin lorry coming anymore?” Asked Sir Oswald, craning his neck to make eye contact with the judge. She held his gaze for a few moments, making sure that he wasn’t trying any more silliness with questions that demanded no answer, and then nodded. “Unusual, I’m sure you would agree, that a whole team of people, who need to cover whole towns in a single morning, manage to travel in an enormous heavy goods vehicle and carry thousands of bins without making any noise at all. It’s been weeks since anyone really noticed a bin lorry on their road, or had to wait behind one on a busily parked residential street. For those with an impeccable memory the weekly collection is still fine, because they remember to take their bins out without prompting. But for others? Disaster.” He said, answering his own question quickly, before the judge could step in. “The leaflets detailing collection schedules are now all but unnoticeable, since that ensures the stealth of the refuse operatives. No-one notices anyone else’s rubbish anymore, because it has also been rendered stealthy. Some homes are almost drowning in plastic waste because, for the life of them, they cannot find the bin to empty it.”
Slowly, the gravitas of secret rubbish and clandestine disposal started to dawn on the assembled audience, and at the same rate Derek’s visible amusement grew.
“This is not the most egregious example, either. The normally silent cats that stalk around in the night are now blaring like sirens. Kettles have ceased to whistle when boiled and no cooking timer alerts you to the burning of your quiche, but one can hear one’s own organs diligently working away, day and night. Grass can be both seen and heard growing from three streets over, but smoke alarms only cause a room to become more silent in the event of a fire. It simply won’t do, and yet this is the world wrought by Derek Spaniel for no better reason, I posit, than a stupid pun on redistribution of wealth!”
“Mr Spaniel,” Demanded Lady Agatha, shouting to be heard over his laughter, “is this the case?”
Over the course of a lot of doubling over, cackling, and attempts at speech, Derek Spaniel finally settled on nodding to confirm the allegations. There seemed to be very little remorse involved.
"Now, one might be forgiven for wondering why exactly I chose these two crimes in particular to call out. Why draw attention to a usurpation of power and then a seemingly unrelated refactoring of what the world will or will not notice? A reasonable question if you are thinking it, and an unreasonable omission if it didn't occur to you; it would take someone calamitously stupid to fail to think of this question, and if that includes any of you, ladies, gentlemen and horse of the jury, I would encourage you to take a long hard look at yourself before casting a judgement. It is imperative that Derek Spaniel is found guilty, after all."
"Can I object to that? It doesn't sound very fact-based." The defendant asked.
"You may object." Confirmed Agatha.
"Great, in that case, objection! This is trying to sway the jury!"
"Overruled. I don't care." Announced the judge, with a self-satisfied smirk. "As you were, Sir Oswald."
"As I was saying, it is of vital importance that Derek Spaniel is found guilty of these crimes, so your own personal failings must not be allowed to give rise to an incorrect verdict. This brings me to the point I started making before the incredible potential stupidity of the jury distracted me. The third crime is of a nature so heinous, and with impact so global, that there is no way a reasonable human would fail to have noticed or remembered it, nor is there any capacity for someone other than a world leader to have orchestrated it. Derek Spaniel arranged for both of those factors to lie in his favour and then launched his masterstroke of villainy. I am talking, of course, of the bombing."
“The bombing?!” Cried Lady O’Hara, glaring down at Sir Oswald. “What are you blathering about? Did you bomb someone?” She flicked between the prosecution and the defence, waiting for one of them to respond to her demands. “Why didn’t you lead with that as crime number one? Surely we’d all know if there was a bombing…”
“Ah, you have rather hit upon the reasoning for how I structured this argument, your honour. I mean to demonstrate that this was a premeditated bombing, not just a joke that got out of hand or an incidental airstrike of the sort that all world leaders order from time to time. Derek Spaniel, standing there and sniggering to himself in the defendant’s… er, stand, plotted to orchestrate the deed. He first became Prime Minister, such that the means for launching a bombing campaign fell under his control; quite why this was required when his reality bending power would have let him orchestrate a bombing anyway is beyond my knowledge. Perhaps Mr Spaniel can explain, or perhaps he’s just stupid. It’s not for me to say, but I do presume the latter.”
“We all do. Even that nerd Mallory probably does.” Confirmed the judge, scowling down at the defendant.
“As one can readily imagine, a bombing is incredibly loud and incredibly easy to notice.” Observed Sir Oswald. “But no-one did notice it, because it was rendered unimaginably stealthy by dint of Mr Spaniel’s previous crime!
“Did you instigate a bombing, Mr. Spaniel?” The judge demanded again, channelling the spirit of Cinderella’s evil stepmother.
“I mean… it was only a little bit of bombing…” Derek said, holding his hands up in an attempt to placate the judge.
“The crux of the matter is that you did it at all! Not how many megatons of energy the bomb unleashed.” She roared, for fairly understandable reasons. If there was one thing she couldn’t stand, it was bombing campaigns. A rhetorical bombing campaign would be a close second. Unfortunately for her, the rebuke did not have the humbling effect on Derek Spaniel that she’d desired. Instead, his cackling only grew more intense.
“…Not…. Not megatons… your honour…” He managed, holding his stomach and leaning onto the edges of his stand. Holding in the start of some genre-defining apoplexy, Lady O’Hara looked down at Sir Oswald with a ‘what is the meaning of this’ look in her eyes.
“He dropped a twelve megaTony bomb on the peaceful nation of Carrovia!” The prosecutor announced, pleased with the theatre and gravitas that Derek and Agatha had built up for him.
“Twelve megatony… oh…”
“Twelve million Tonys, all suddenly ripped into existence from the ether and set loose, wandering around the towns and countryside of Carrovia. That nation, I hasten to remind you, is a small, quiet country of sparse populace and sparser urbanisation. At the previous census, there were only two-million recorded residents, meaning that after this, the greatest crime of all, the Tonys outnumbered Carrovians six to one. The population was seven times larger in one fell carpet-bombing."
Gasps once again tore through the court pool, echoing from the tiles of the deep end like a squared-off amphitheatre.
“Ripped into existence from the ether, you say…” Said the judge, trying to wrap her head around it. “Are you telling me that Mr Spaniel created people from nothing using these powers?”
“I am, your honour. I am also concerned that he could have willed people out of existence too, but that’s pure speculation. Still, it’d be pretty terrible if he did it.”
“Obje-”
“Overruled.” Snapped the judge, without even turning around. “Agreed that it would be terrible. Continue, Sir Oswald.”
“Can you imagine what it must have been like as a resident of the tiny, quiet nation?”
“No.” Answered Agatha, like a striking cobra.
“For your tranquil, rolling hillsides, your mountain paradises, your scenic valleys and yes, even your rivers and lakes to be inundated with a horde of confused but inquisitive Tonys?”
“Still no.”
“To glance outside your own home would be to see them like starlings in a murmuration, sweeping this way and that across the hillsides and valleys of the Carrovian landscape. They were a blight on the land, rummaging through bins, walking across fences, rustling the bushes, searching for treasure among the rougher barked trees, dragging outdoor furniture into clothing shops and demanding a refund without a receipt. The list of their innocently dumbfounded and ill-understood depravities goes on."
“Then please continue with it.” Requested the judge.
“As you please, your honour. The megaTonys caused huge problems with the most recent Carrovian census, as one can imagine, with every town’s ratio of services to population suddenly appearing woefully inadequate. Several government initiatives were kicked off during those dark days that now cannot be revoked. Every child will have their own school now that the Tonys have moved on. Doctors will crowd three-to-a-patient. Buses clog the streets in competition for the handful of passengers available. But there’s more still than a grievous skewing of the national infrastructure.
Nobody in Carrovia could buy a poncho during the rainy season, because the Tonys had snapped them all up. Beaches were a solid wall of Tony flesh, national parks were like zoo for bewildered wanderers, and crops were ravaged by hungry Tonys like a swam of locusts. In short, it was anarchy combined with Armageddon, and it was all the result of Derek Spaniel’s penchant for making puns of political decisions.” Concluded Sir Oswald, his own thoughts haunted by the footage he’d seen of the Tony swarms.
“Devastating. Utterly devastating.” Assessed the judge. “But you imply that the situation has now been resolved. Is there room in this for Mr Spaniel to have shown some personal growth, and to have used his powers to reverse the Tony situation?”
“I wish it were so.” Said Sir Oswald, as Derek shook his head enthusiastically. “The problem eventually solved itself when the majority of Tonys made their own way back into the ether between existences. Dr Practice explained it to me, because she’s the kind of pointdexter who finds these things interesting, but the gist is that they primarily left by improperly reheating rice in non-microwave-safe containers. A handful also made their way back by reading books that were banned in the local libraries. The remaining straggler Tonys are expected to dissipate over the next few years, either by accident or when they get bored of making a nuisance of themselves. Experts in Tony matters harbour concerns that some of them may develop into full-blown Anthonys, but nothing of the sort has been observed yet.”
“Hm. A terrifying notion.”
“Yes. Such is the wilful disregard for humanity that Derek Spaniel showed with his premeditated series of crimes, before Dr. Practice finally did the decent thing, probably against every instinct she has, and disempowered him. Thus concludes my argument, your honour.”
From the audience, the unmistakable sound of a furious academic standing up and leaving, pockets full of broken glass, filled the pool. They waited until she’d climbed the ladder, walked across the surface, and slammed the door behind herself before continuing.
“Thank you, Sir Oswald.” Said Agatha, trying to wrap her head around the full depravity of the defendant. “Well, Mr Spaniel. Have you anything to say in your defence?”
“Yes, your honour. In my defence, I did these things because I thought they’d be a good lark. Is that against the law now, to have a good time? Are larks illegal?” He asked, smugly.
“No, Mr Spaniel. Larks are not illegal but crimes you have committed, some of them technically war-crimes, very much are.” Informed the judge.
“Ah. Right. No further questions, then, your honour.” Derek said, stepping back from the stand to signal that he was done.
“Well. That was certainly more concise than Sir Oswald.” Agatha conceded. “Ladies, gentlemen and horse of the jury, if you would please commence your deliberations. It would be inappropriate to remind you that it’s vital we find Derek guilty, so I won’t do that.”
“Oh, there’s no need to dismiss us, your honour.” Said the jury’s spokesperson. “My name is Tony, I just got here from Carrovia and was somehow called immediately for jury duty. To be honest, I don’t really know what’s going on, but everyone else had already decided to vote guilty and I wanted to fit in with the real people. So, er, yeah. Derek’s guilty.”
Agatha looked into the smiling, earnest eyes of the Tony, and considered whether his presence there was a conflict of interest. Then she remembered how full her bins were these days, and decided that she didn’t much care.
“Fine! Guilt it is.” Shrugged the judge, to much applause and cheering from the audience. Derek didn’t look as pleased about the situation. “Mr Spaniel, I’d love to say I’d thought long and hard about this but I haven’t had a chance. So instead, my snap sentencing is that you shall have ten years of perpetual night.”
“You’re sending me to the arctic?!”
“Don’t be so stupid, Mr Spaniel. We’re sending you to our airborne penitentiary platform. It follows the earth’s rotation and remains in darkness the whole time. If I recall correctly, it was one of your creations from your time in power, so that you could try to make sunflowers sad.”
Derek failed to suppress a snort of laughter, despite the circumstances. That HAD been a good one.
“It’ll be a quiet ten years for me, I suppose.” Said Derek, taking the news rather well.
“Oh I wouldn’t say that, Mr Spaniel. One might think of space as being silent and still, but stealth has been redistributed there too, remember?”
Derek hung his head, and hoped that he could sneak some earplugs in with himself.
One bus journey, a short walk, and a visit to a local supermarket away, Mallory Practice sat in her lab, one hand on a computer mouse and the other on a cinnamon bun. She scowled at the screen, displaying a whole list of experimental parameters for the manipulation of reality, concentrated on a court room that looked like a swimming pool.
“All I bloody want is a transcript without so many insults directed at me! How they can still hate me more than Derek? He’s a war criminal for goodness sake!” She seethed to herself, poring over the numbers. After scrolling up and down a few times, which turned out not to help at all, she sighed heavily. “Experiment twenty four a failure, I suppose. Maybe if the court room is a library they’ll at least keep their derision quiet…”
A cold breeze swept across her from the broken window. It had been hastily covered with cardboard to keep the worst of the weather out, but not very well.
Standing opposite it, she tuned the dials on her experimental apparatus and heard the tell-tale whine as it powered up. A familiar tang of ozone in the air met her nostrils as reality morphed and twisted around her. She pulled a bus pass out of her handbag.
“Here we go again, you jerks.” She said.
Tall glass windows ran from ground level, around two metres above the floor of the court itself, up to the ceiling high above and allowed the early morning’s sunshine to saturate the room, rendering the bright fluorescent strip lights that hung from the ceiling on long chains redundant for the time being. Thanks to some precise orientation work, the sun shone directly into the eyes of those sitting and watching the case all morning, while leaving the defendant’s stand in permanent shadow.
A glassy walkway spanned the room overhead, grazing the ceiling and offering a bird’s eye view of proceedings from within its soundproofed confines. It led from a cafeteria at one end to the lavatories at the other, with no discernible way to get in or out of it at any point along its length, which was likely how it remained so spotlessly clean.
The unusual architecture of the Supreme Court of Utter Gits was just one more crime to add to the list of charges against the day’s defendant. It was a thought that lingered at the forefront of Lady Agatha’s mind, as she strode purposefully up the staircase to her high bench at the shallow end of the pool. Between the height of the bench and the slope of the floor, this placed her at an enormous distance above the other occupants of the courtroom, adding quite unnecessarily to the picture of authority that she already painted.
“Please, be seated.” She magnanimously declared, as she surveyed her court. In all of her years overseeing trials, from petty criminal acts all the way up to gardeners who direct their wood-chippers into the open windows of parked cars, she had never known such a packed courtroom, or such an eager crowd. It felt a lot like being up on stage, and reminded her of her stunning run as Cinderella in the previous year’s High Court Pantomime. Some days, such precious memories were all that sustained her when trying the kinds of heinous criminals brought before her. Today, she suspected, would be one such day.
While the stenographer warmed up her typing fingers, the only fingers she had, Agatha poured herself a glass of apple and lime squash from the pitcher she’d been provided. It was the greenest fruit juice she’d seen all day, and tasted sharper than expected, but it was exactly the ticket to prepare her for a day of work.
“Now, I won’t dance around the point. The trial we will see today is one of national, nay, international importance. I am sure that the events we discuss will have caused significant hurt to a lot of those present, but there will be order in my court. Any jeering, interruption, throwing of objects small or large, disrespect, or other disruptions shall not be tolerated. The process must be followed.” Agatha told her court, staring down at them from on high. There were murmurs of quiet agreement and a few cleared throats, but no-one raised any objections or complaints. Not even the defendant made a sound of defiance. He just loitered silently at his stand. His face, that everyone in the world would know by now, and waited for events to proceed with a small, smug smile.
“Sir Oswald Grim, would you please present the case for the prosecution.”
From a trestle table on the floor of the courtroom, near some redundant air jets that would normally make the water pleasantly bubbly, a middle-aged man stood. He was wearing a traditional barrister’s wig on his head, plus two more on his elbows in order to appear as professional and legal as possible. A long black gown covered the majority of his body, but a small cut-out over each knee showed that he was wearing dark blue slacks underneath, and had not elected to use knee-pads for the trial. Clearly, he did not expect to be kneeling or receiving impacts to the mid-leg.
“Your honour, I shall be presenting that case that the accused, one Derek Spaniel, ex-Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, abused not only his power of office but also his powers over the supernatural, in order to cause devastating harm to the world at large. Using these powers, all of which were stolen, I might add, he embarked on a self-serving campaign of frivolous entertainment, dangerous actions, and uncommon hijinks. Among these unjustifiable shenanigans he committed three major crimes, along with a gamut of ancillary crimes along the way. They include-”
“Objection!” Shouted the Derek, from the defendant’s stand. Oswald scowled across at him.
“It is highly unusual to object to the prosecution’s opening statement, Mr Spaniel, but then again we all know that you are an unusual gentleman. Do you need a reminder of how events are to proceed and the behaviour I expect in my courtroom?” Agatha asked, lowering her glasses to her nose so that she could appear additionally patronising in her rebuke.
“No, your honour. But I object to my crimes being listed at this stage. I would prefer for them to be presented to you afresh as Sir Oswald makes his case, so that each one may be judged on its own merit, without prejudice from the others.” Derek said, his face remaining passive.
Agatha narrowed her eyes and chewed on her tongue. It wasn’t quite what she’d expected to hear, but she didn’t hate the notion.
“Your thoughts, Sir Oswald?” She asked. “I am willing to proceed in either case.”
“I… I did spend ten minutes on writing this opening statement, your honour…”
“I feel that it would make a difference to how my case is understood, and it will make the narrative more compelling for our audience.” Derek added, taking full advantage of Sir Oswald’s hesitation. The memory feeling of boards being trod underneath her feet, and the sense of wonder she’d felt when the fairy godmother had appeared every night, was too much for Agatha to deny. A narrative mattered for her audience, possibly more than justice mattered for the nation.
“Fine. Sir Oswald, please do not list any crimes just yet. But, in respect of the fact that you have spent a long time on your statement, you may read it at the end of the trial all the same. You may also have an extra helping of biscuits with your tea during any recesses, as a show of good will.” Declared the judge. Sir Oswald nodded his head in acceptance.
“As you wish, your honour. In that case, I have no more to add.” He said, returning to his seat, and pouring out his own glass of lime and apple.
“As I understand it, you have chosen to represent yourself, Mr Spaniel. It is not the first time that I have seen this happen, but I have never seen it end well. Have you any opening statements for me, presumably without detailing any alleged crimes?”
“My only opening statement is that I am an innocent man. I broke no laws and did nothing but serve the interests of the nation at every step.” Derek Spaniel said, not even bothering to leave his stand. Discontented mutterings swept through the jury in their viewing pod.
“I see. In that case, Sir Oswald, the floor is yours.” Agatha said, leaning back in her seat and taking a drink. It was tempting to give her gavel a tap or two as well, but she restrained herself for the moment. There was no need to strip later gavel taps of their gravitas by over-using it this early.
Having sat down for less than a minute, Sir Oswald got back up to his feet and stepped onto the floor between the judge, Derek, and the jury.
“Your honour, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, Mr Spaniel, I would like to open my case by presenting a witness the first of many crimes that were committed by our ex-Prime Minister. Doctor Mallory Practice, would you please take to the stand?”
Standing up from her seat among the audience, a woman of around thirty years brushed some biscuit crumbs from her long, white lab coat and walked through the court-pool. Derek Spaniel gave her a small wave as she passed, but she didn’t look up at him, let alone acknowledge his greeting. Once she had sat down, adjusted her lab coat again, and cracked her knuckles, she smiled and nodded to signal that she was ready.
“Would you please confirm your full name to the court, doctor?”
The witness cleared her throat.
“I am Dr Mallory Practice. Mal, to my friends.”
“Hello Mallory.” Said Agatha, taking an instant dislike to the doctor without being able to put her finger on why. Despite this, looking down almost directly at the top of her head, she was impressed at the straightness the doctor’s parting. Mr Spaniel’s parting looked more like someone had gone on a rampage through a corn field with a chainsaw.
“And would you please tell the court what it is that you do, Dr Practice?” Asked Sir Oswald. A little part of Mallory’s heart sank at the insinuation that neither Sir Oswald nor Agatha considered her to be a friend, but the wound was shallow and soon healed.
“I am scientist. I perform research into meta-realism, the manipulation of the physical laws that govern our universe, and how we can imbue banal objects, not unlike Mr Spaniel himself, with these powers of manipulation.” Explained the doctor. “I perform this within the Institute of Science for Science’s Sake.”
“Thank you, doctor. And would you please explain what happened on the night of the twelfth of May last year?” Asked Sir Oswald. He was pacing up and down the courtroom, his shoes clicking against the tiled pool floor, with his hands behind his back. Whilst it was one of the formally approved courtroom fidgets, it did also make his waistline look hairy, courtesy of the extra wigs.
“There was a break-in at my lab. One of the windows that faces over the car park was broken, and one of my experiments was… I guess you could say it was appropriated by the intruder.”
“We don’t like guesswork here, Mallory.” Chastised the judge.
“Even when it’s a figure of speech?”
“Especially when it’s a figure of speech!” Agatha snapped back. “Well, actually, not especially when it’s a figure of speech, because it’s worse when guesswork is used as evidence. Strike that from the record, but keep the bit where I told her off.” She told the stenographer. A thunderstorm of typing carried out the request in almost no time at all. “Continue, Sir Oswald.”
“Thank you, your honour.” He said, although the judge had done very little for him. “As we could all readily guess, the intruder who performed this appropriation has been proven already to be none other than Derek Spaniel, who stands in defence before you.” Sir Oswald ‘s arm flicked out, pointing a bold, performative and accusative finger at the defendant.
“Yeah, I did do that.” Confirmed Mr Spaniel. Agatha looked at him, quizzically. “They have CCTV footage, and I admitted it in several interviews. No sense in denying it here.” He clarified.
“Would you please tell the court what this experiment was, and what it caused when Mr Spaniel indulged in some late-night breaking and entering?”
Mallory sighed irritably at the inefficiency of the proceedings. If the man would just let her speak then she could deliver all of this information in one go, rather than statement by statement, but instead they were bound into this judicial farce. She made a mental note not to help bring anyone else to justice in future.
“The experiment was trying to determine a way of granting a human the power to manipulate reality, in the same way that we’d recently performed under lab conditions.” She explained, leaning into the microphone.
“And in terms that anyone who’s not a massive nerd could understand?” Pressed Sir Oswald, looking weary with her science mumbo jumbo already.
Mallory frowned and looked up to Agatha for support.
“I’m going to allow it, because you are a massive nerd. Now answer the question, please.” Agatha judged.
“Alright, you cavemen. I was doing a big science to see if I could put the science I’d done earlier into a person’s body, so that they could do the same science without having to use the big, shiny, expensive science kit that we play with every day.” Mallory paraphrased, deepening her voice and slowing her speech for devastating insulting effect.
“Much clearer, thank you.” Sir Oswald declared. Mallory rolled her eyes. “So what kind of science would your big science let Derek Spaniel do, for example?”
“Anything. Basically anything he wanted. It apparently granted him the ability to render reality into the shape he wanted it to take, willing things into existence, changing how existing things work, making people accept things they wouldn’t accept before… anything.”
The audience was a sea of gasps and bad clothing choices, stunned as they were by the nature of Mallory’s ‘big science’.
“So it effectively made Derek Spaniel into a god. Not one of the really powerful ones who create the whole earth, but a lesser one that might transform someone into a mushroom, or give rhinoceroses wrinkly skin?” Asked the prosecution. “I will remind you, that you are under oath.”
“No I’m not. I didn’t swear an oath.”
“Oh. Well, consider yourself under oath for these purposes then, and answer the question.”
Agatha nodded to indicate that she agreed with Sir Oswald’s proposal.
“Fine. Yes, it would give him powers not unlike those attributed to gods.”
“So there you have it, your honour. Thanks to the incredibly negligent laboratory safety of this massive nerd, Derek Spaniel was able to break in, utilise the experiment for himself, and gain a tremendous ability that no mortal should ever possess. Mallory here is not on trial, as we know, but I almost wish that she was, so that we could prosecute her for the terrible, awful, inexcusable choice to leave such a powerful experiment where any old burglar could take hold of it. And whilst this is undoubtedly a crime on Mr Spaniel’s part, it is not one of the big three which I wished to present. This is one of the lesser, ancillary crimes that I mentioned, but it was necessary to present you with the full picture of what lies ahead.” Sir Oswald explained, still pacing back and forth as he spoke. It was as if he had to keep moving, like a shark, otherwise his voice and mind would shut down completely.
“I also think that Dr Practice should be tried for some crimes, for what it’s worth.” Added Derek.
“Mr Spaniel, I will find you in contempt of court if you keep interrupting, but I do agree. We all think that Mallory here should face some kind of criminal proceedings, not least of all for being such a massive nerd.” Said Judge O’Mara.
“You’re all the worst.” Sulked Mallory.
“Yes.” Confirmed the prosecution. “But I have no further questions for the witness.”
“Do you have any questions, Mr Spaniel?” Asked the judge. “Or shall I send her away like the negligent wretch she is?”
“Just the one question, your honour. Mal,” He started.
“Mallory to you. You’re not my friend, you broke into my lab.”
“Fine, Dr. Nerd, I had incredible powers for ages, and then they suddenly stopped, and that really sucked.” He said, crossing his arms grumpily.
“That’s not a question.” She observed.
“That’s exactly why people are calling you a nerd. That sort of statement. My question, obviously, is what the hell? How come they stopped?” Derek clarified.
“Because I took them away from you. I ran the required experiment to strip you of your abilities and return you to the soft, fleshy, powerless mess you used to be.”
“But only after several months. Why did it take that long?” He asked.
“Objection, that’s more than one question, your honour. He lied about only having one question.” Called Sir Oswald, between mouthfuls of lime and apple.
“Sustained. Mr Spaniel, you are clearly a liar and have been caught. This will be held against you both in this trial and in your sentencing. But I am also curious to hear why it took several months to put an end to the threat that Mr Spaniel clearly presented. Answer.” Demanded Agatha, hefting her gavel threateningly.
“Because that’s when I could be bothered.” Mal answered, unabashedly.
“Oh. Fine. No further questions, your honour.”
Derek stepped away from his microphone, perfectly satisfied.
“Please return to your seat, Mal. It’s been lovely to have you, even if you are a massive nerd, and thank you for your honesty.” Agatha said, suddenly softening, just as unaccountably as she’d earlier been taken by a disliking. The dark look that Mallory had been prepared to throw her was disarmed into an awkward nod, and she took her leave from the stand. “Sir Oswald, I believe that this brings you to your first ‘major crime’.”
“It does.” He confirmed, standing back up. In doing so he knocked the table and sent his pitcher of lime and apple crashing to the floor. “Clear that up and get me another please, Mallory.” He said, off-handed. Before the doctor could protest, Agatha confirmed that she had to obey the instruction.
With the backdrop of a huffy physicist clearing up broken glassware, Sir Oswald stood in the centre of the floor and faced up at the jury in their viewing box.
“The first real crime of Derek Spaniel, one that hurt people who matter,” He clarified, jabbing a thumb towards the doctor, “was the crime of making himself Prime Minister of the UK. Surely, you must all remember the day that our leadership changed suddenly, and out of nowhere? One moment it’s the status quo leadership of the faces we know and distrust, and the next? It was Spaniel everywhere. On news conferences, in the papers, running down the street chasing loose paper bags. All Spaniel.
Now I know, ladies, gentleman and… single horse of the jury,” He continued. It seemed that Mr Spaniel had either granted a horse both sentience and citizenship, or turned a member of the jury into a horse at some stage of his rampage. “I know that you might think that becoming Prime Minister is, in and of itself, not a crime. It might be necessary to be a criminal to get into that position, and it might be likely that you’ll commit a crime or two from that position of power, but why would I accuse Derek Spaniel here, a man who, at the time, had the capability of manipulating the fabric of reality to do a ‘big science’ as our expert put it.” Sir Oswald asked, rhetorically. A series of questionably scientific but definitely expressive hand gestures were directed at Sir Oswald, from among the shards of glass below his table. “I think the sniggers and whinnies I hear from up there are accurate. I put it to you that this man, this so-called Spaniel, used his stolen powers to take charge, and in doing so he subverted the democratic process of conventional corruption on which this nation’s government is based.”
Agatha tried to think back to when Derek had been made Prime Minister, but no details of a campaign trail came to mind. She had no recollection of promises about schools, positions on how many bins each home should be allowed to eat each year, or pledges to have the opposition tried for treason. It was as if the leadership had just spontaneously changed without any of the dreadful tedium in the middle.
“The man in the stands before you now did not win power by a vote, nor was he a member of any party that did. He used supernatural abilities to simply will himself into premiership of the country, effectively launching a one man coup and stealing power for himself. This not only positions him as an autocrat, but means that he did not follow the usual channels of nepotism, corruption and deceit to take leadership. It is heinous and criminal to abuse power in this way. The abuse of power is a controlled process, permitted to be performed only by those who have the history and legacy to do it, such as the wealthy, landed elite. This ‘new blood’ approach of Mr Spaniel, therefore, is not on. It’s not on at all. And clearly, the power went to his head in a way that it would not have done for someone with experience of leading without a mandate.”
This line of reasoning caused quite a stir among the seated audience of the court pool, not least of all because several of them were ministers who had been side-lined under Derek’s leadership.
“Do you have any evidence to present in support of this accusation, Sir Oswald?” Asked Agatha. She couldn’t even recall hearing the name Derek Spaniel until he was already being hung out to dry for several questionable decisions as PM, so she already had strong feelings about the truth of the matter. It felt fair, however, to at least ask the question.
“I do not, but that is because evidence is only present for things which have happened according to normal cause and effect. This was wrought by the hands of something that operates outside of our own logic and our own rules, therefore the lack of evidence coupled with the extreme plausibility and likelihood of my explanation, is actually evidence in and of itself.” Claimed the prosecution, rather boldly, even by his own standards of spinning cow’s excrement into gold.
“Surely you’re not going to let that slide!” Derek protested from the stand, but Agatha cut him off with several sharp taps of her gavel. That was the feeling of power that she craved, and it never got old.
“I’m going to allow it. These are exceptional circumstances, so exceptions to the normal rule that ‘evidence is required’ can also be made.” Decided the judge, in no small part out of spite. Derek clenched a fist and made the internationally recognised gesture for ‘drat’, but raised no other objections. “Your next point please, Sir Oswald.”
“Certainly your honour. The sordid tale of the crimes of Derek Spaniel continues, with various misdemeanours masquerading as hijinks for the duration of his leadership. We could talk at length about his transformation of the House of Commons into a giant marble run, or his conversion of the underground tube system into a gargantuan marble run, or his erasure from the market all domestic marble run toys that fell below his unreasonable minimum size limits. Who could forget the month we all spent beset by upward rains, with puddles launching, drop by drop, up into the sky to form clouds, all because the leader of the opposition gloated about owning an umbrella?” There were urgent discussions in the audience and the jury, as memories of those perilously sodden days were traded. Those who wore loose-legged shorts or non-pencil skirts, in particular, reflected upon them without fondness.
In the defendant’s stand, Derek was having to stuff his sleeve into his mouth to restrain the laughter at his good work as Prime Minister. It did nothing to win him any sympathy from the judge.
“But the next crime that I wish to linger on in detail is the perfect summary of his degeneracy, and his disregard for the well-being of others. It is an example of the kind of ill-conceived and childish material change to the world that Derek Spaniel made, and his disdain or apathy towards thinking of the consequences. I am talking, of course, about his flagship policy of July last year; the redistribution of stealth.”
A chuckle escaped the lips of Derek Spaniel, which he promptly tried to hide behind a glass of water. Unfortunately for him, the transparent nature of both the vessel and the contents did nothing to grant him concealment. Everyone in the audience, and even the jury upon high in their glass-fronted overlook, could see his joy at the suffering Sir Oswald was about to describe. The exact nature of what he’d meant by redistribution of stealth was the subject of much hushed talking among themselves while he paused for effect.
“Now I expect you’re wondering what that really means. It sounds innocuous enough, doesn’t it?” Asked Sir Oswald.
“Yes, it most certainly does.” Agatha confirmed, with a confirmatory tap of the gavel.
“Erm, that was a rhetorical question, your honour.”
“Apparently not rhetorical enough, because I answered it. No question is safe in the walls of rhetoric in my courtroom, Sir Oswald.” The judge informed him, looming over the edge of her towering bench.
“Duly noted. Anyway, it sounded rather innocuous to us all, if a little abstract, when Prime Minster Spaniel announced his intentions on the side of a blimp. Many simply assumed that he had misunderstood how to spell the word ‘wealth’, or perhaps had been the victim of a signmaker’s revolt. Alas, that was not to be the case. Tell me, do any of you here know what happened in this redistribution?” Sir Oswald asked, holding his arms out wide to demonstrate the applicability of his question.
“No?” Offered a gentleman in the audience.
“Yes?” Suggested another, covering the bases well.
“No. The first chap had the right of it. In all likelihood you won’t be able to recall exactly what changed, but you know that things felt different. Once you recognise it, however, you’ll see that it grew to become not just a nuisance, but actively disastrous. You see, stealth is not a quantity that anyone can readily measure, outside of specific trivial examples like role playing games or online rankings of aircraft. What are the units of stealth? How do you compare the degree to which things aren’t noticed?”
“You don’t.” Said Agatha, continuing her one-woman crusade against the tyranny of rhetoric.
“Exactly, your honour. And yet, I put it to you that Mr Spaniel’s powers gave transitive properties to the concept of stealth and, as a result, nothing about regular life has been the same since. Have you noticed, your honour, how you never hear the bin lorry coming anymore?” Asked Sir Oswald, craning his neck to make eye contact with the judge. She held his gaze for a few moments, making sure that he wasn’t trying any more silliness with questions that demanded no answer, and then nodded. “Unusual, I’m sure you would agree, that a whole team of people, who need to cover whole towns in a single morning, manage to travel in an enormous heavy goods vehicle and carry thousands of bins without making any noise at all. It’s been weeks since anyone really noticed a bin lorry on their road, or had to wait behind one on a busily parked residential street. For those with an impeccable memory the weekly collection is still fine, because they remember to take their bins out without prompting. But for others? Disaster.” He said, answering his own question quickly, before the judge could step in. “The leaflets detailing collection schedules are now all but unnoticeable, since that ensures the stealth of the refuse operatives. No-one notices anyone else’s rubbish anymore, because it has also been rendered stealthy. Some homes are almost drowning in plastic waste because, for the life of them, they cannot find the bin to empty it.”
Slowly, the gravitas of secret rubbish and clandestine disposal started to dawn on the assembled audience, and at the same rate Derek’s visible amusement grew.
“This is not the most egregious example, either. The normally silent cats that stalk around in the night are now blaring like sirens. Kettles have ceased to whistle when boiled and no cooking timer alerts you to the burning of your quiche, but one can hear one’s own organs diligently working away, day and night. Grass can be both seen and heard growing from three streets over, but smoke alarms only cause a room to become more silent in the event of a fire. It simply won’t do, and yet this is the world wrought by Derek Spaniel for no better reason, I posit, than a stupid pun on redistribution of wealth!”
“Mr Spaniel,” Demanded Lady Agatha, shouting to be heard over his laughter, “is this the case?”
Over the course of a lot of doubling over, cackling, and attempts at speech, Derek Spaniel finally settled on nodding to confirm the allegations. There seemed to be very little remorse involved.
"Now, one might be forgiven for wondering why exactly I chose these two crimes in particular to call out. Why draw attention to a usurpation of power and then a seemingly unrelated refactoring of what the world will or will not notice? A reasonable question if you are thinking it, and an unreasonable omission if it didn't occur to you; it would take someone calamitously stupid to fail to think of this question, and if that includes any of you, ladies, gentlemen and horse of the jury, I would encourage you to take a long hard look at yourself before casting a judgement. It is imperative that Derek Spaniel is found guilty, after all."
"Can I object to that? It doesn't sound very fact-based." The defendant asked.
"You may object." Confirmed Agatha.
"Great, in that case, objection! This is trying to sway the jury!"
"Overruled. I don't care." Announced the judge, with a self-satisfied smirk. "As you were, Sir Oswald."
"As I was saying, it is of vital importance that Derek Spaniel is found guilty of these crimes, so your own personal failings must not be allowed to give rise to an incorrect verdict. This brings me to the point I started making before the incredible potential stupidity of the jury distracted me. The third crime is of a nature so heinous, and with impact so global, that there is no way a reasonable human would fail to have noticed or remembered it, nor is there any capacity for someone other than a world leader to have orchestrated it. Derek Spaniel arranged for both of those factors to lie in his favour and then launched his masterstroke of villainy. I am talking, of course, of the bombing."
“The bombing?!” Cried Lady O’Hara, glaring down at Sir Oswald. “What are you blathering about? Did you bomb someone?” She flicked between the prosecution and the defence, waiting for one of them to respond to her demands. “Why didn’t you lead with that as crime number one? Surely we’d all know if there was a bombing…”
“Ah, you have rather hit upon the reasoning for how I structured this argument, your honour. I mean to demonstrate that this was a premeditated bombing, not just a joke that got out of hand or an incidental airstrike of the sort that all world leaders order from time to time. Derek Spaniel, standing there and sniggering to himself in the defendant’s… er, stand, plotted to orchestrate the deed. He first became Prime Minister, such that the means for launching a bombing campaign fell under his control; quite why this was required when his reality bending power would have let him orchestrate a bombing anyway is beyond my knowledge. Perhaps Mr Spaniel can explain, or perhaps he’s just stupid. It’s not for me to say, but I do presume the latter.”
“We all do. Even that nerd Mallory probably does.” Confirmed the judge, scowling down at the defendant.
“As one can readily imagine, a bombing is incredibly loud and incredibly easy to notice.” Observed Sir Oswald. “But no-one did notice it, because it was rendered unimaginably stealthy by dint of Mr Spaniel’s previous crime!
“Did you instigate a bombing, Mr. Spaniel?” The judge demanded again, channelling the spirit of Cinderella’s evil stepmother.
“I mean… it was only a little bit of bombing…” Derek said, holding his hands up in an attempt to placate the judge.
“The crux of the matter is that you did it at all! Not how many megatons of energy the bomb unleashed.” She roared, for fairly understandable reasons. If there was one thing she couldn’t stand, it was bombing campaigns. A rhetorical bombing campaign would be a close second. Unfortunately for her, the rebuke did not have the humbling effect on Derek Spaniel that she’d desired. Instead, his cackling only grew more intense.
“…Not…. Not megatons… your honour…” He managed, holding his stomach and leaning onto the edges of his stand. Holding in the start of some genre-defining apoplexy, Lady O’Hara looked down at Sir Oswald with a ‘what is the meaning of this’ look in her eyes.
“He dropped a twelve megaTony bomb on the peaceful nation of Carrovia!” The prosecutor announced, pleased with the theatre and gravitas that Derek and Agatha had built up for him.
“Twelve megatony… oh…”
“Twelve million Tonys, all suddenly ripped into existence from the ether and set loose, wandering around the towns and countryside of Carrovia. That nation, I hasten to remind you, is a small, quiet country of sparse populace and sparser urbanisation. At the previous census, there were only two-million recorded residents, meaning that after this, the greatest crime of all, the Tonys outnumbered Carrovians six to one. The population was seven times larger in one fell carpet-bombing."
Gasps once again tore through the court pool, echoing from the tiles of the deep end like a squared-off amphitheatre.
“Ripped into existence from the ether, you say…” Said the judge, trying to wrap her head around it. “Are you telling me that Mr Spaniel created people from nothing using these powers?”
“I am, your honour. I am also concerned that he could have willed people out of existence too, but that’s pure speculation. Still, it’d be pretty terrible if he did it.”
“Obje-”
“Overruled.” Snapped the judge, without even turning around. “Agreed that it would be terrible. Continue, Sir Oswald.”
“Can you imagine what it must have been like as a resident of the tiny, quiet nation?”
“No.” Answered Agatha, like a striking cobra.
“For your tranquil, rolling hillsides, your mountain paradises, your scenic valleys and yes, even your rivers and lakes to be inundated with a horde of confused but inquisitive Tonys?”
“Still no.”
“To glance outside your own home would be to see them like starlings in a murmuration, sweeping this way and that across the hillsides and valleys of the Carrovian landscape. They were a blight on the land, rummaging through bins, walking across fences, rustling the bushes, searching for treasure among the rougher barked trees, dragging outdoor furniture into clothing shops and demanding a refund without a receipt. The list of their innocently dumbfounded and ill-understood depravities goes on."
“Then please continue with it.” Requested the judge.
“As you please, your honour. The megaTonys caused huge problems with the most recent Carrovian census, as one can imagine, with every town’s ratio of services to population suddenly appearing woefully inadequate. Several government initiatives were kicked off during those dark days that now cannot be revoked. Every child will have their own school now that the Tonys have moved on. Doctors will crowd three-to-a-patient. Buses clog the streets in competition for the handful of passengers available. But there’s more still than a grievous skewing of the national infrastructure.
Nobody in Carrovia could buy a poncho during the rainy season, because the Tonys had snapped them all up. Beaches were a solid wall of Tony flesh, national parks were like zoo for bewildered wanderers, and crops were ravaged by hungry Tonys like a swam of locusts. In short, it was anarchy combined with Armageddon, and it was all the result of Derek Spaniel’s penchant for making puns of political decisions.” Concluded Sir Oswald, his own thoughts haunted by the footage he’d seen of the Tony swarms.
“Devastating. Utterly devastating.” Assessed the judge. “But you imply that the situation has now been resolved. Is there room in this for Mr Spaniel to have shown some personal growth, and to have used his powers to reverse the Tony situation?”
“I wish it were so.” Said Sir Oswald, as Derek shook his head enthusiastically. “The problem eventually solved itself when the majority of Tonys made their own way back into the ether between existences. Dr Practice explained it to me, because she’s the kind of pointdexter who finds these things interesting, but the gist is that they primarily left by improperly reheating rice in non-microwave-safe containers. A handful also made their way back by reading books that were banned in the local libraries. The remaining straggler Tonys are expected to dissipate over the next few years, either by accident or when they get bored of making a nuisance of themselves. Experts in Tony matters harbour concerns that some of them may develop into full-blown Anthonys, but nothing of the sort has been observed yet.”
“Hm. A terrifying notion.”
“Yes. Such is the wilful disregard for humanity that Derek Spaniel showed with his premeditated series of crimes, before Dr. Practice finally did the decent thing, probably against every instinct she has, and disempowered him. Thus concludes my argument, your honour.”
From the audience, the unmistakable sound of a furious academic standing up and leaving, pockets full of broken glass, filled the pool. They waited until she’d climbed the ladder, walked across the surface, and slammed the door behind herself before continuing.
“Thank you, Sir Oswald.” Said Agatha, trying to wrap her head around the full depravity of the defendant. “Well, Mr Spaniel. Have you anything to say in your defence?”
“Yes, your honour. In my defence, I did these things because I thought they’d be a good lark. Is that against the law now, to have a good time? Are larks illegal?” He asked, smugly.
“No, Mr Spaniel. Larks are not illegal but crimes you have committed, some of them technically war-crimes, very much are.” Informed the judge.
“Ah. Right. No further questions, then, your honour.” Derek said, stepping back from the stand to signal that he was done.
“Well. That was certainly more concise than Sir Oswald.” Agatha conceded. “Ladies, gentlemen and horse of the jury, if you would please commence your deliberations. It would be inappropriate to remind you that it’s vital we find Derek guilty, so I won’t do that.”
“Oh, there’s no need to dismiss us, your honour.” Said the jury’s spokesperson. “My name is Tony, I just got here from Carrovia and was somehow called immediately for jury duty. To be honest, I don’t really know what’s going on, but everyone else had already decided to vote guilty and I wanted to fit in with the real people. So, er, yeah. Derek’s guilty.”
Agatha looked into the smiling, earnest eyes of the Tony, and considered whether his presence there was a conflict of interest. Then she remembered how full her bins were these days, and decided that she didn’t much care.
“Fine! Guilt it is.” Shrugged the judge, to much applause and cheering from the audience. Derek didn’t look as pleased about the situation. “Mr Spaniel, I’d love to say I’d thought long and hard about this but I haven’t had a chance. So instead, my snap sentencing is that you shall have ten years of perpetual night.”
“You’re sending me to the arctic?!”
“Don’t be so stupid, Mr Spaniel. We’re sending you to our airborne penitentiary platform. It follows the earth’s rotation and remains in darkness the whole time. If I recall correctly, it was one of your creations from your time in power, so that you could try to make sunflowers sad.”
Derek failed to suppress a snort of laughter, despite the circumstances. That HAD been a good one.
“It’ll be a quiet ten years for me, I suppose.” Said Derek, taking the news rather well.
“Oh I wouldn’t say that, Mr Spaniel. One might think of space as being silent and still, but stealth has been redistributed there too, remember?”
Derek hung his head, and hoped that he could sneak some earplugs in with himself.
One bus journey, a short walk, and a visit to a local supermarket away, Mallory Practice sat in her lab, one hand on a computer mouse and the other on a cinnamon bun. She scowled at the screen, displaying a whole list of experimental parameters for the manipulation of reality, concentrated on a court room that looked like a swimming pool.
“All I bloody want is a transcript without so many insults directed at me! How they can still hate me more than Derek? He’s a war criminal for goodness sake!” She seethed to herself, poring over the numbers. After scrolling up and down a few times, which turned out not to help at all, she sighed heavily. “Experiment twenty four a failure, I suppose. Maybe if the court room is a library they’ll at least keep their derision quiet…”
A cold breeze swept across her from the broken window. It had been hastily covered with cardboard to keep the worst of the weather out, but not very well.
Standing opposite it, she tuned the dials on her experimental apparatus and heard the tell-tale whine as it powered up. A familiar tang of ozone in the air met her nostrils as reality morphed and twisted around her. She pulled a bus pass out of her handbag.
“Here we go again, you jerks.” She said.