Case - 2 : Closest Ones

As expected, Morpheus said, "Your honor may I please call upon my first witness?"

Justia looked in my direction and smirked a little, something only I could pick up on since I knew him better than the rest, and turned back towards Morpheus and nodded.

"Then I would like to call upon Deputy Sergeant Quark to help me with this case."

Everyone looked at the entrance of the courthouse and waited for Quark to enter since all the witnesses waited outside the courthouse during proceedings, guarded by cadets.

The door opened slightly as Quark peeked his shiny head in.

He had shaved off any stubble just for the occasion today as he walked in with pride and occasionally glanced at me while smirking at the opportunity.

But when he saw Gracewell representing the case instead of me he faltered in his steps a little, almost doing a double take as he reached the witness stand while being escorted by the guards.

Stepping onto the stand he waited for Morpheus to begin questioning him but seemed a little uneasy about answering any questions from this point on.

"Are you worried about something...Deputy Quark?"

"No, I'm fine, you may begin asking me questions. Thank you."

"Alright then. For the record, you are Deputy Sergeant Quark, correct?"

"Yes, I am Deputy Sergeant Quark, that is right."

"You were working.. .in the Police Headquarters.. . a week ago?"

"That is correct, I was working in the police Headquarters a week ago."

"Then.. .Could you tell us what exactly happened a week ago from today.. . on the seventh of July.. . Three zero twenty-three, at the police HQ?"

"Yes, I can. On the day exactly a week before today, Sergeant Dave threatened to destroy my neural chip and physically assaulted me to almost do so. He was also suspended for a few hours for this."

*gasp**gasp**gasp*

Low gasps rang all throughout the courtroom as a few soft *whispers* buzzed about, no doubt discussing the revelation.

"Was this the same day he was kidnapped?"

"Yes, he threatened me as soon as he arrived at the office."

"Why did he threaten you?"

"For no reason other than the fact that I asked him to not take charge of a case that he was personally involved in."

"Could you explain...why he stopped his assault...on you?"

"That was because Lieutenant Gracewell had arrived and became a witness and also because I vomited."

"I see. That will be all...your honor." Morpheus said as she moved back to his seat.

"Lieutenant Gracewell, would you like to cross-examine the witness?" Justia asked with a polite smile, clearly wanting to drag my name through the mud further.

But I didn't back down from this challenge and sent Gracewell a question she could ask Quark.

"Yes, your honor. I would like to do so."

Justia's smile widened as he nodded for Gracewell to proceed.

"Deputy Sergeant Quark, could you explain why exactly Sergeant Dave attacked you?"

"What do you mean? I already did. Because I asked him to hand over the case to someone else, that's why."

"Is that really all Deputy Sergeant? Wasn't there anything else you remember?"

"I...no, there was nothing else that happened during our altercation that I am forgetting."

"Then perhaps let me remind you. You had threatened Sergeant Dave by telling him that you would disobey the chain of command to take up the issue with the council. This must've been especially infuriating for Sergeant Dave when he had obviously just risked his own life to catch the thugs that kidnapped a few of our best officers!" Gracewell explained adding a bit of her own flair to the reasoning to make it seem emotionally right to side with me instead of Quark.

"How would you know!!?" Quark all but screamed at Gracewell, causing her face to twitch in annoyance as she spoke in a calm tone without any fluctuations to her tone or voice.

"I was there as you said. Although I couldn't see what was happening I could still hear everything from around the bend of the corridor. And could you please state for the court to record, why exactly did the council rescind Sergeant Dave's suspension?"

"...because they found him to be wrongly accused." Quark mumbled.

"Louder please." Gracewell politely commanded.

"Because they found him wrongly accused." Quark said once again in a firmly annoyed tone.

Silent whispers broke out once again as Quark's mouth hung open like a goldfish but he still stayed calm, knowing if he did anything more it might just affect him negatively instead of me.

"I would thereby like to admit media six and seven into the case's evidence files your Honor." Gracewell politely stated since now there was no reason to deny their existence.

*SLAM**SLAM*

"Order will be maintained in the court!" Justia asked for silence using his gavel and then looked at the evidence recorder.

"Record Media six and seven into evidence files to be viewed later during the case trial. Is there anything else you want me to do Lieutenant Gracewell?"

"That will be all your honor." Gracewell did a polite bow and walked back to her seat beside me.

"Alright, since there are no more questions regarding this, let's move on to the main issue of this case, Mr. Waltinger's death." Justia said in an unsatisfied manner since he'd expected my name to be dragged through the mud.

"I would like to take the lead...if I may...my lord?" Morpheus stood up and asked for permission to begin.

"You may." Justia nodded with a slight grumble.

"In this case, the alleged killers are my client...Mr. Sterling and Mrs. Morrigan...all based on what? On speculation."

"Objection your honor." Gracewell commented but Justia stopped her to let Morpheus carry on with his opening argument.

"The entire speculation is based on...a tie clip that was gifted to Mr. Sterling...by his late wife...Cassandra Sterling!"

"Objection your honor."

Even if Justia did not grant her permission Gracewell raised another objection to keep heckling Morpheus.

"There are...so many assumptions...in Sergeant Dave's...argument...that I cannot even begin to...list all of them here when they don't even have the wavelength IDs of our alleged perpetrators...on the scene of the crime."

"Objection your honor!"

"..."

Given that Morpheus was now done, Justia finally spoke to Gracewell.

"It seems you have a lot to say, Lieutenant Gracewell, you may now proceed."

"Thank you, your honor. As I raised several objections in my colleague's statements earlier, I do have a lot to say, but let's begin with the opening statements first, the 'alleged' murderers of Mr. Waltinger. The two of them, Mr. Sterling and Mrs. Morrigan were both arrested not only based on 'speculation' as Mr. Argentum likes to put it, but on hard facts like the fact that both of them have no real alibi for the time of mur-"

"Objection your honor." Morpheus interjected.

*slam*

"Objection overruled." Justia spoke slamming the gavel onto the desk.

"As I was saying, both of them have no real alibi for the time of murder. Both were found to be using illegal methods of covering up their wavelength IDs and morphing it into someone else's. A method that has recently gained popularity. BMM, or Body Mutilation Morphi-"

"Objection your honor."

"Granted." Justia nodded.

"Thank you, your honor. The methods of using BMM to manipulate wavelength IDs have never been proven in a controlled environment, it is nigh impossible to use that as evidence for anything related to this case."

"And you should then also know that in all those controlled cases, the only reason BMM was not successful was because the body mutilation was caught before they could get to the morphing stage, and all these research papers only used the 'right' means to operate on a person's body, not the illegal means in the outskirts." Gracewell countered.

"...but my client Mr. Sterling did not even have enough money to keep his business afloat! How do you expect him to have gotten the surgery to mutilate his body in the first place?" Morpheus for the first time spoke in quick sentences, either panicked or really involved with the case for some reason.

"How then do you explain his missing Kidney that was removed from his body? Magic?"

"It could've been a mistake in the system!"

"The GAI does not make mistakes Mr. Morpheus."

"But you just said at the beginning that it did."

'Ah. So this is why he pointed out such an insignificant detail in the beginning.'

"That was a special case, how do you believe the system mixed this up?"

"The GAI did not mistake this, as you can clearly see from Mr. Sterling's financials, the GAI clearly recorded Mr. Sterling buying several syringes of Elixirs before and after the operation for the removal of his kidney."

"What about the operation itself? Shouldn't it have figured out that Mr. Sterling's wavelength ID has changed?"

"It could not! Because of accidental BMM. Mr. Sterling wears the tie clip right above his stomach, perhaps the flies inside learned to mimic the kidney's sounds and over time managed to replicate it so perfectly that the GAI began having trouble with-"

"Speculation, that is what your claims are Mr. Argentum. You have no proof."

"It is not like you have any." Morpheus countered but Gracewell stood strong.

"Oh, but I do." Gracewell smirked. "Firstly, under evidence two of this case, Alternate Violence, A.V and Killing Machine, K.M, recognized Mr. Sterling's handkerchief. Secondly, have you ever wondered why Mr. Sterling's financials were so terrible? Because he had to give away all his antiques to Mr. Waltinger for protection because the police had begun to focus on Mr. Sterling for the suicide case of his wife, Cassandra Sterling."

"Objection your honor!"

"Granted."

"How could Mr. Sterling be held responsible for the death of his wife when she committed suicide!!?" Morpheus asked, similarly excited as I was when wondering what Gracewell was cooking.

"Because Mr. Sterling was suspected to have changed Mrs. Sterling's recommendation algorithm to send her depressing and sad-themed videos. Every night when Mrs. Sterling went to sleep, Mr. Sterling picked up her phone and watched all sorts of depressing videos and liked the videos to keep making his already depressed wife who had been mindwiped to kill herself."

"...but how do you explain that Mr. Sterling and his wife were recorded at hospitals with the doctors before Mrs. Sterling underwent the mindwipe surgery?"

"Because of Media eight in the case evidence or the lack thereof. There are no communications between any of the doctors Mr. and Mrs. Sterling met outside the hospital, meaning that the recorded media are the only proof of any links between these doctors and Mr. Sterling or Mrs. Sterling are those media which are by elimination likely faked using AI."

"But still, how do you expect Mr. Sterling to have killed his own wife!?"

"Sometimes, people don't understand the trouble of those that are Mindwiped." Gracewell said, turning to look at me. "Their closest ones often go out in search of what once was, and ruin themselves." Gracewell turned back to look at Morpheus, "But sometimes along with developing a hatred for themselves, they develop hatred for those that were the victims in this case, the people that were mindwiped. It is not uncommon to hear about Mindwiped people being murdered by their closest ones in our profession, is it Mr. Argentum?"

Morpheus did not want to lie or add anything that would only distract others from his cause so he fell silent and chose to ignore the question.

"Either way, as I was saying, Mr. Sterling has the ability to do things like this since he has done them once before, and were it not for a few coincidences and the keen eyes of Sergeant Dave here who risked his own life to solve this case, he would've escaped ."

"Thank you, your honor, that will be all for now."