'ORDER! ORDER!'
The low murmur of chat that had been buzzing around the courtroom dropped immediately at the command of the formidable looking female judge. The Right Honourable Lady Justice Avgi peered down sternly at the faces in front of her, turning her gaze from person to person in turn, eyebrows narrowed menacingly, and let the silence grow.
'We are here today to find the murderer of a Mr. Garner. Mr. Garner was murdered. MURDERED. Killed - killed DEAD! - by a person in this very room! Whomever it was will NOT get away with it!'
She slammed her hammer down to emphasise her point, then slammed it down again to reinforce the emphaticness with which she emphasised her point. Miss O. Kranti, the defending lawyer, leaned towards her clients. 'She always does this,' she whispered wearily. 'Third hammer this month. She hit me with it once. Said I was daydreaming. I wasn't! I was thinking about cheese.'
'KRANTI!' Avgi bellowed. 'SHUT UP!'
Kranti sat back in her chair, glaring mulishly at the judge. When Avgi turned away, she stuck her fingers up at her.
'Bring in the ... people ... who, er, have been, um, accused! The Accused! Yes. Bring them in!' Avgi yelled irritably.
Ben raised a hand. 'Er, we're already here, your honour. Been here for ages.' The others nodded. 'You were late,' he added petulantly.
Avgi scowled. 'Bloody people in this town, always wanting justice. Can't drive down the road without getting stopped. "Oh Lady Justice, a man stole my hat! Oh, Lady Justice, an alien killed my dog!" Well, what the fuck am I supposed to do about that? Reincarnate it? Send the alien to prison!? I'M ONLY HUMAN!'
The attendees waited patiently for her to finish ranting. Eight minutes and one new hammer later, when she had concluded her tirade, Rinso stood up and clapped. Kranti dragged him back down into his seat. Lady Justice Avgi really didn't suffer fools very well.
'So, anyway,' she snarled bad temperedly. 'Whodunnit?'
Everybody looked round at everybody else. A few people stared at the ceiling. There was a muttered chorus of 'wasn't me'. Avgi rolled her eyes.
'You!' she said, pointing at Ba. 'Your hair is on fire.'
Ba remained cool in the face of her stare. 'Ba's hair is not on fire. Ba's hair
is fire.'
Avgi gestured with her hammer. 'Right, well, get up here then. You look like a murderer to me.' She turned to the jury. 'Convict him quick and I'll slip you all a tenner or something. I want to get home for my stories.'
Dale sighed. 'Justice isn't what it used to be.'
* * *
Ba sat in the witness box with his hand on his chosen religious text of choice, The Book of Pie. Kranti tried to guide him through the oath.
'Now, repeat after me. I, Ba...'
'Ba, Ba...'
'No, no.
I Ba...'
'Kranti, Ba...'
'No! You, I, Ba...'
'Ba does not understand...'
Avgi smashed her hammer down so hard it exploded into a veritable firework of splinters.
'FORGET IT! Ba, you are accused of the murder of Mr Garner. Did you or did you not horribly, brutally, hideously, completely, utterly and totally hugely, kill Mr Garner?'
Ba smirked and said nothing.
Roman stood up. 'Ba is an evil fiend who proudly takes delight in hurting people and animals, and, in fact, anything which is capable of being hurt. Did he kill Garner? Mayhap! There are many reasons thereof. No, wait. Two 'there's. There are a multitude of reasons why he would do such a thing!' He paused. 'A
Multitude!' he cried.
'Mult,' Rinso echoed.
Ba's smirk turned into a leer as Roman went on, listing all the atrocities Ba had committed, or had been blamed of, in the past. By the end, he looked distinctly proud.
Avgi rubbed her cheeks wearily.
'Ba, you're a right bastard. Down you go! I sentence you to...'
Just as the hammer was about to fall, a shrill cry rang out through the courtroom.
'WAIT! YOU 'AVE ZE WRONG MAN!'
Heads turned towards the intruder. Avgi let go of the hammer in surprise, and it sped through the air, making contact with Kranti's nose. She yelped. Nobody paid any attention. They were all staring at the man who had just entered the courtroom.
Hermes the French waiter paused by the door, discreetly trying to get his breath back.
'Madames... Monsieurs... I 'ave 'ere in my 'and... zome EVIDANCE of anuzzeeeur persons geelt!'
Avgi banged the desk with her hand impatiently. 'Talk English, man!'
Hermes sighed. 'Fine, I'll drop the accent for a while, seeing as it's life and death and everything... But if anyone from Le Ha comes in here, I'm just putting on this English accent for your own convenience, alright?'
He swaggered up the aisle with his chest puffed out importantly, and placed a tiny microchip in front of Avgi, who stared at it.
'This is our CCTV footage from the time of the murder. Well, it will be, once you put it on that screen thing over there.'
Kranti rushed forward and put the microchip in the microDVD player. The screen crackled, and a blurry picture appeared on the screen, obstructed by a lot of static. Kranti fiddled with some knobs until the picture was clear.
'Ztep... I mean, step back, madame!' Hermes called. 'Everyone must see the evidence that shows that Ba is completely innocent!'
There were chuckles at this ridiculous statement. Kranti walked away. Avgi got down off her pedestal and walked around to watch. Ba remained in his seat. His smug leer now looked a little pained.
The image on the screen showed... Ba. Ba and somebody else. A woman. An elderly woman. There was a road... old fashioned land cars speeding past. Several women with a good sense of perception suddenly felt the need to turn away. Kranti covered her eyes. She felt she knew what was coming.
However, she didn't. Instead of hearing the screech of tyres and the soft thud of a squashy body hitting a bumper at 70mph, she heard... gasps of amazement.
'He's helping her to cross the road...'
Kranti's eyes flew open in disbelief. Sure enough, it was Ba on the screen, helping the woman cross the road safely. Kranti felt faint.
'Ba... why, Ba was merely feigning assistance!' Ba stammered from his seat. 'He was using the pretence as a method of installing a bomb into the old woman's pocket!'
Kranti didn't know whether to be alarmed or relieved. Hermes flapped his arms around in agitation.
'There's more! Keep watching!'
All heads turned back, this time to see Ba on the other side of the road, walking towards a group of small children. Nobody had any doubt about Ba's feelings towards children; namely, that they were better not seen, not heard, and not, in fact, breathing. Rinso hid behind Dale's back. Dale hid behind Doors' back. Doors punched Dale in the kidneys.
Kranti couldn't take her eyes off the screen. Now it appeared to show Ba giving the children something. It wasn't sharp. It wasn't fiery. It was an apple.
'Poisoned, Ba assures you!' Ba yelled down, a note of hysteria in his voice.
The audience were silent now. This was parallel universe territory.
'Oh, there's more,' Hermes whispered ominously. Kranti fanned herself with her notes. She didn't know how much more she could take. The jury had crowded around the screen. She could no longer see anything. She closed her eyes and tried to think about cheese. 'Stilton, cheddar, brie...' she muttered breathlessly.
'FOR THE LOVE OF GOD WHAT'S HE DOING TO THAT POOR KITTEN!?'
Kranti abandoned her meditation, pushed her way through the crowd to the TV screen and stared, open mouthed, at the picture.
'Is he torturing it?' Dale quavered fearfully, eyes hidden behind his hands.
'No...' said Kranti quietly. 'No. He's stroking it.'
'Well?' demanded Avgi. 'Are you all
stupid? Well, yes, undoubtedly, BUT. Isn't it obvious? The man's innocent! Q.E.D., case closed, die another day, nip tuck,
schtum. Everybody go away.'
'But...' said Ben. 'But we haven't found out who the real murderer was!'
'Hakuna matata, it's not your responsibility, don't you worry your pathetic little head about it,' the Right Honourable Lady Justice Avgi said on her way out.
* * *
Grace was on the run. Murder wasn't something she had planned, but she had been pushed so far...
A herd of reindeer stood up ahead. She cursed Jesnailsmas for its ridiculousness and plunged on, weaving her way through them. The teapot was still in her hands. To her unbelievable luck, she saw an old hovercar parked close by. The owner was talking to a friend just a few feet away, but she decided to risk it. She made her way towards it, her foot managing to get caught in the herd's reins. She cursed again and tried to shake it free while still running, pulling at it and triggering grumblings of complaint from the reindeer.
She tried the car door. It was unlocked. She climbed in, placing the teapot on her lap, and glanced nervously in the direction of the owner. His friend was pointing at her with a look of alarm on his face. The owner turned and cried out, running towards her. She slammed the door shut, the reins still wrapped around her foot.
She looked at the glowing dashboard. It was a
very old car. It required a key, not a fingerprint. A key which he'd left in, the fool. She just hoped the ancient thing would go fast enough. She turned the key and hit the accelerator. She pulled the steering wheel back and the car lifted up into the air.
The reindeer were somewhat startled as they started sliding helplessly across the ground before taking off. There were about a dozen of them in all, although the twelfth was in fact a wonderllama called Brad, wearing fake antlers.
'Put me down this instant or you'll be hearing from my lawyer!' he said.
* * *
Emperor Chrisbot was extending his wrath. If he couldn't get Jesnails, the least he could do was cause misery and dispair among those fools who chose to follow her.
He walked down the street, wearing a long, black robe just for the occasion. Huge chasms had been opened up in the ground, endlessly deep, and people were running out of their shiny silver homes, screaming.
'Give me back my bloody Jesnailsmas tree!' one woman said, whacking one of Chrisbot's servants over the head with a shoe. The servant was not stopped, however, and proceeded to throw the tree down into the chasm.
An orc-like creature hobbled up to Chrisbot. 'The trees are weighty, my Lord,' he said breathlessly. 'Their decorations are heavy.'
Chrisbot glared at the creature. 'Rip them all down.' He paused. 'Oh, and activate the Ice Age Machine.'
* * *
Mal and Marcia were in the building of the great library. Marcia was standing in the long, high-roofed, black-marbled corridor outside the library itself, waiting for Mal to finish perusing the toilet facility.
'Come on, Mal!' she said.
'Just a sec!' came Mal's voice.
Marcia sighed and leaned against the wall. She shivered and hugged herself. It was cold out here.
Then she looked up. She thought she heard a strange noise. A...crackling, almost. She walked to the middle of the vast corridor and looked up and down it. Then she saw it: ice, spreading along the walls and across the ceiling and floor.
'Er...Mal?' she said, weakly.
'Hang on!'
There was the sound of a fly being zipped up, and then of a toilet being flushed.
'
Mal!' she shouted, starting to panic. The ice was rapidly approaching.
The door opened. 'Yeah?' said Mal.
'RUN!' screamed Marcia, grabbing Mal by the arm and running down the corridor. Mal looked over his shoulder, bewildered. 'Oh dear...'
They raced through the building, the ice chasing after them like a nightmare. They skidded on the marble as they turned corners, desperately trying to get away.
They crashed shoulder-first into a set of heavy, wooden double doors, bursting through into the library.
The librarian looked disapprovingly up over the rims of her half-moon spectacles. 'Ahem!' she said. 'No ice in the librar--'