The Monster

1.

Tami was late leaving the office as she had been working on a big drug case.  It was her first time since becoming an Assistant District Attorney that she was trusted to be lead, and she didn't want to mess it up.  The defendant was an African American youth who was proving reticent about accepting a plea, but that was okay, it wasn't like he was going to be able to bond out any time soon.

But she'd have to talk to the lead detective on the case tomorrow, to square away some of the details.  Details wouldn't matter too much if there was to be a plea, and they sure hadn't mattered for the Grand Jury indictment of this small time dealer, but with less than 90 days before she'd have to go to trial, best to get things squared away as soon as she could.

Leaving the underground parking garage, she didn't notice the blue van that was parked on street level when she emerged.  Or that it followed her as she drove off.  Halfway before reaching home, she came to a near stop at a stop sign, fully intending to roll through it like she did all other "stop" signs, when she found herself flung forward and the airbag exploding in her face.

She had time to realize that someone had hit her from behind, and that she'd run into a lamp post, but no sooner had she thought that then a man was opening her door and helping her out.  Helping her out rather too quickly, it was alarming, and making her nauseous, but already she was being drug back behind her battered car to the van, and was shoved in before she could utter her first protest.

By the time she could yell "Hey!" the man dropped pretense of aiding her and yelled "Down, down, down!" while shoving a knee in her back and pressing her face against the van floor.  He wrestled her hands behind her and tied them with a plastic tie.  He grabbed her hair and warned her that if she made a sound, she could "ride the lightning".  He crackled a taser near her in case she didn't get what that meant.

Satisfied, he drove off with her, the total abduction taking but a minute and a half.  

2.  

He pulled the van all the way up the drive way past a fence and checked for any nosy neighbors before dragging her out.  She started to speak, but he reached for the taser and she subsided.  She started to beg when he opened a side door to a house that she saw led down to a basement. "Please, you don't have to do this - ", Tami started, but without any warning her body convulsed and she fell all the way down the steps, tased.  And bruised from the concrete steps.  He came down after her, and hauled her up, and took her to the back of a basement that was unfinished and rather small.

He threw her up against the back wall and spread her feet apart with his foot.  He did a thorough pat down, removing everything from her pockets, and being horribly intimate in the checking under her breasts and between her thighs.  He had brought her purse, though she'd not noticed him doing that.  He had it all on a desk.  He was looking at her ID.  He took her to a corner of the basement that was a makeshift cage, and put her in there.  He told her to face away from him.  Tami did, and he cut the tie off her wrists.

She cried quietly while he sat at the desk and made notes.  After a bit, he gathered up all her loose stuff and put it in a large manila envelope and wrote her name on it, Tami Jorgenson.  Then he put her empty purse in a box and the manila envelope in with it.  Looking at her he said, "Strip down now."  Tami mutely shook her head no.  

He got up.  "No one wants to rape you.  No one wants to kill you.  But you will do everything I say or you're going to regret it.  Now either strip down, or I will come in and aid you.  You'll like that less."  Tami, openly sobbing now, stripped down, shivering more in fear than in cold, though it was chilly.  He told her to pass her clothes out, and she did.  He picked them up, shook them out, folded them and put them in the box with her purse.

He went to a wall she hadn't paid attention to and grabbed a container and put it on the desk.  Then he placed the box with her stuff where that container had been. She was distressed to see that it was a shelving unit that held nine boxes, hers being in the last row. Before she could fully process the implications of that, he passed the container from the desk into her cell.  "There's clothes in there, put them on. Now."

Opening the container, she saw gray sweatpants, a gray sweatshirt, some flip flops and a blanket. She had barely reached for the pants when he yelled, "Hold it! Stand up and turn around!  Now!" Dazedly she did, and he then said, "Bend over and spread your cheeks!  I mean it!  You do NOT want me to have to come in!"  Tami started mumbling over and over, "Please don't do this, please don't do this" while complying. He almost immediately said, "Enough, now get dressed!" and she felt irrationally grateful that he'd left it at that.

3.  

Dressed, he told her to place her hands behind her through the bars so he could ziptie them again. She did.  Then he opened the door and took her over to the other half of the basement, behind a curtain.  He took her to where there was a table and two chairs, and an old video camcorder set up on a tripod behind one chair, facing the chair on the opposite side of the table.  He sat her down, then fiddled with the camera, then sat down himself.

"Tami Jorgenson", he intoned, "You are under arrest for the violation of the Constitutional rights of Mitchell Sanders.  In that you did on or about the 28th of March have him kidnapped and held against his will, for ransom, when he had harmed none and there was no threat to you or others, nor valid Constitutional reason for acting in such a way.  You have the right to remain silent, that is to say nothing at all. Anything you do choose to say may be used against you in your upcoming trial. You have the right to representation.  If you cannot afford such, it will be provided for you at no expense.  Do you understand these rights as I have read them to you?"

"Wait...I’m sorry?" Tami sputtered, unable to process what was going on, what this madman could be playing at.  "Are you saying you're a policeman?"  The man looked at her calmly and said, "I'm a detective, actually, for the Freemen of America.  I got this case from a group of citizens that share some of the ideals of Black Lives Matter, but believe in doing more than blocking traffic.  They have asked us to aid them in their pursuit of justice, and for an appropriate fee, we agreed."

Tami shivered, in fear again, but her anger started to overcome her fear a bit.  "Terrorists.  You're going to what?  Torture me?  Kill me? Or will this inevitably lead to sex?"  The man shook his head. 

"Terrorists?  Interesting that our following of the Constitution would have you think so.  You were arrested for the felony crime that we believe you to be guilty of, and that was only after 16 of us met as a grand jury and returned that indictment based upon the evidence presented.  One of our judges then issued the warrant.  I, an adult citizen, exercised my right of citizen's arrest.  At no point has any force been used on you beyond that which was necessary to apprehend you."

"You were rougher than you needed to be," Tami started, but he broke in, "But not rougher than your own police.  Now, play time is over.  Do you wish to answer questions?  It matters little to me, but your cooperation will be reported to our prosecutor who may take that into consideration." Tami, feeling a bit more oriented, spit on the table.  "You won't get away with this!  But hey, if you're so legal and proper, how about my phone call?"

"Of course, Ms. Jorgenson.  What number would you like to call?" the detective asked gravely.  Tami looked surprised and said, "Bring me my cell phone, I'll call my boyfriend."  The detective said, "I'm sorry, but as with your jails, cell phones are not allowed.  But if you change your mind and would like to give me a number from memory, I'll call it and pass you our phone."  Tami exclaimed, "But that's the same as denying me a call, who remembers such numbers nowadays?"

"Exactly", said the detective.  "Who indeed?  Certainly not your kidnapping victim Mitchell, who was incommunicado for four days before his family found where you were holding him.  But as you aren't up for answering any questions, I'll take you to your cell now. Be grateful.  If I were I in a mood, I’d interrogate you for ten or so hours anyway.  And you’d have confessed by then, if nothing else for a bathroom break.”  She shook her head dully as if to contradict him.  He smiled.  “Oh, you doubt that?  Well, that’s fine.  Your arraignment will be tomorrow."  

Tami got up cautiously and said quietly, "And my lawyer?"  He led her back to that original cage which was spare and empty save for a toilet and sink and a gym mat on the floor.  "The judge will handle your request for counsel." he said, and with that he pulled a curtain around the corner area where the cage was and left her alone for the night.

4.

After a restless night, in which she did manage to get a few more hours of sleep than she'd have thought, Tami was up and pacing, feeling fear, feeling nervousness, but oddly, feeling boredom, too, as she kept reaching for her iPhone and finding it missing.  Through a slit at the bottom of the cage door a tray was slid, but her yells brought no response.  She sat on the floor next to the tray and saw that it was runny powdered eggs, a plain piece of bread, a cup of Kool-aid and a plastic spork with the handle broke off.  

In her blanket she had found a toiletry kit of a tiny toothpaste, a tiny soap and tiny toothbrush with a short nub for a handle.  She sopped up the runny yellow mess with the bread and washed that bad taste away with the unsweetened Kool-aid.  Then she brushed her teeth to get rid of that bad tasting Kool-aid.  A clock that she could watch through the bars now that the curtain was open showed 5:45 am.  After forever, including several bouts of seeing how loud she could scream for help, it was noon and a baloney sandwich and a cold mashed potato sphere were presented.  At 2 pm, he came back.

"Come with me, it's time for your arraignment.", he said, and escorted her back to the other side of the basement.  But now instead of it saying "Interrogation Room" over the desk and two chairs, it said, "Courtroom 4B".  He sat her down in the same chair, and then stepped into a corner that looked like a closet.

He was putting something on and - Tami gasped!  It was a black robe, like someone in a church choir might wear!  He walked back over and while she had not stood up, he said, "Be seated" and then sat down behind the table.  He looked at a folder he had got from the closet and then said, "Tami Jorgenson, draw near."  while making "stand up" motions with his hands.  She got up and stood before him, angry, fearful, but unsure what to say. 

"Tami Jorgenson, you have been charged with kidnapping and holding one Mitchell Sanders for ransom, and an indictment has been returned saying the same.  I also see charges of resisting arrest and assaulting a police officer.  How do you plead?"  Tami said, "So this is a joke?  What possible fair trial can I get when you are the Detective, the Police Officer, the Corrections Officer and the Judge?" He looked stern, "The same kind of fair trial that Mitchell could get when the police, you and the judge all worked for the exact same government and got their pay the exact same way.  Or do you not agree with the 14th amendment?  Do you think you have more rights than a black man?"

"Wait, no, what? What do you mean?  I'm no racist!" Tami started, but he interrupted her.  "Equal protection under the law is your 14th amendment.  If you were up for treating Mitchell in such a manner, you can't now complain about being treated the same."

Tami said, "But at least we operate with actual authority!  Where's your authority?"  He looked at her and said, "My authority is from the people, and I mean that the same way you do.  That is, I know some people, and they gave me this authority.  Do yours have titles like President and Governor and DA and such?  Mine have titles, too.  Tell me, does it matter?"  Tami said, "Yes, of course it matters!  My authority is legal and yours is not!  Mine is of the real people, yours is from what, your friends?"

The man in the black robe said, "We could have a long and probably fruitless discussion on that topic.  I could point out that your Constitution was wrote when barely 10% of the population had the vote.  Or that if a thing is really to be of the people, it should have been voted on by the people, and not by the random delegates of 13 states who were there on other business and exceeded their mandate.  Or that such would only be valid for that generation and each generation should have to re-vote on the Constitution."

"I could even", he continued, "point out that to any extent that your Constitution derives from the people - and it seems it really does not - that any of those people would have the right to withdraw their support and give it to my bosses who appointed me here.  Do you find that last part fair, by the way?"  Tami shook her head no.  She said, "You can't just have your friends say that they withdraw from the government and that you're a judge.  It doesn't work that way!" He said, "Really?  Because that's how America started.  It wasn't a 'revolution' - " but here Tami interrupted scornfully, "Uh, yeah, it was!"  

He looked at her, and she held his gaze defiantly.  "A revolution", he said, as if to a child, "is where a group is trying to take over the government so they can run the nation as they see fit.  The Founding Fathers, or the 'Original Oligarchs' as I think of them, were not trying to do that.  They didn't try to take over London and run the British Empire.  What they did was try to withdraw one part of that empire to have it ruled by them.  That's called a secession.  Same with the Confederacy.  It was not a "civil" war, which is two factions fighting over the same capitol and nation.  It was a secession.  And in case you're wondering, yes, we mailed a Declaration of Independence in years ago.  The State Department no doubt filed it with the others, from other groups.  Does that make you feel better?" 

She shook her head no, but said nothing.  "Do you at least now know the difference between revolution and secession?"  She nodded yes.  "Do you think the Original Oligarchs - your 'Founding Fathers' - had the right to secede from Britain?", he asked.  She nodded yes.  "Why?  Because they were stronger and won?" he asked.  She shook her head no and said, "Because they had real grievances!"  He looked at her and said, "So do we.  Now tell me, who gets to decide whether the grievances are enough to warrant secession?  Those aggrieved?  Or those in power?"  Tami, seeing the trap, said nothing and just hung her head

He asked, "Tell me, is there anything that I could say that would get you to agree that this is fair?" She shook her head no again.  "When any citizen is before your courts, does his agreement that it is fair matter?"  She looked up sharply and said, "No...but what does that have to do with anything?" Her judge said gravely, "I think you know.  But in any case, we run things the same as you - and you thinking this is unfair or that we have no proper authority no more matters to us then when you grab one of our own.  Now no more nonsense, enter a plea, or I'll enter a nolo contendere."

"Not guilty!" Tami said shakily.  Then more firmly she said, "And I want bail!"  He held up a finger, as if saying "wait" and got up and took off his robe.  He walked over to her side of the table and stood next to her facing the chair he had just left. "Your honor" he began in a voice that sounded like a silly imitation of a southern accent, "If it please the court, these are felony charges and she does have the means of fleeing our jurisdiction.  Given this, we ask that she be remanded to our custody until the trial."

Tami wasn't sure whether to laugh or scream or throw up.  But her fear was real, in spite of her anger, and she was sensing that her only chance was to try to win against him at his own game. "Objection", she said while looking at the empty chair.  "I'm entitled to bail, this is hardly a capital case.  I've no prior record, either!"

He nodded approvingly at her, and walked back around to the other side, putting on the robe as he did.  He said, "Young lady, I've your record before me, and while you've not been the ringleader, you have participated in past kidnappings and the holding of people at ransom.  So please do not lie to the court further.  And while this is not a capital case, it is a serious one.  I won't deny you the opportunity to post bail, but I am setting it at $750,000."

"I will need to contact my family and friends for that, your honor." Tami said without much hope. Such hopes that she did have a bit of were dashed when the judge said, "I will have your request of them recorded, and they will receive that tape by this afternoon.  If they deposit the bail in the numbered account we’ll give them, and without trying to trace it, you will be released.  Otherwise, you will remain in our custody."

"But you know they won't just give you ransom money!" Tami burst out in frustration that trumped her fear of this dangerous man who seemed to have split personalities. "It's not fair, and it's not how our system works!"  

The judge stared at her in silence.  The silence drug out.  Tami felt her face flushing.  Yes, she thought, it can seem that way to the poor people who she would have rather excessive bail set for. Not that it was called excessive, that would be unconstitutional, but few in the poor neighborhoods could readily come up with the $50,000 or even $10,000 or even $3,000 amounts routinely asked for - and granted.  Even though those did only amount to $5,000, $1,000 or $300 needed by cash, verified check or credit/debit card.

And, she admitted to herself, most of the families of poor people had caught on to the fact that they were unlikely to get the bail back, because even if their relative showed up, the court fees and jail fees and public defender fees would whittle it away to nothing.

Most of them, come to think of it, took pleas from her only because waiting in jail 90 days for the "speedy" trial would exceed the sentence that she could offer them.  She shied away from those thoughts, not before giving a small shudder, though.  The judge seemed to notice this and looked a bit more intently at her.  But she only sat down, and started softly crying again.

"Wait here for the CO.", he said, then went over to the closet.  And hanging up the robe came back and looked for all the world like he knew nothing of what had transpired here.  He led her back to the other side, to the cage.  About to go in, she broke away and ran off a few steps, then held her hands out to him at his approach, as if to ward him off.  "Wait, wait, I just want to talk for a second, just to talk!", she said, and he replied at once, "Ma'am, you need to calm down.  You will return to your cell or you will be subdued and took there."

"No, wait, you don't understand, I think I get it, but how long are you going to hold me here?  And what of my lawyer - " but she was interrupted by a vicious blow to the side of her right shoulder, he had pulled a baton out and slammed it into her with more force than she knew was possible.  She flew into the wall and crumpled to the floor, her useless arm tingling and aflame in pain but a pain that she could overlook a moment later, as he started kicking her viciously in her back, driving her towards the door of her room.

"I know your jails do not negotiate with inmates but only insist that they comply.  Same here.  Get in your cell." he said and gave her another healthy kick, driving her the rest of the way in.  Slamming the cage door he started to leave, but she gasped out, in spite of the fear and pain, "My lawyer!" and he turned back.  He said through the bars, "You chose to represent yourself when you negotiated the bail.  But if you've changed your mind, I'll bring you the paperwork to request representation.  Tomorrow."

5.

Several crappily monotonous meals later and Tami was simultaneously bored and terrified.  She knew that if she wasn't found in the first few days, the odds were that she'd not be found.  Which would mean having to somehow win her freedom from a man who she was not sure if he was schizophrenic, a political terrorist, or both.  She was wondering whether dinner would be another baloney sandwich when some papers were pushed through the bars.

They were the same applications for counsel that the courts had defendants fill out. Question after question about her income and assets and bank accounts and cars and property and stocks and homes - like she was going to tell him about any of that!  She wondered if she did fill them out if he'd be her lawyer.  And if that would be in any way to her advantage.  Seemed unfair that she could not have any lawyer that he didn't pick for her, but she had realized since the "arraignment" that this was the game he was playing, trying to show her that her system was also unfair.

Back the next day he asked, "Where's the paperwork?"  "I wiped my ass with it and flushed it down the toilet." she proclaimed defiantly.  "You know they'll find me, don't you?" He didn't seem phased by her threat, but only said, "If it clogs the toilet, it will be fixed, but you will spend the rest of your time restrained.  Now how come you don't want a lawyer?"  "I do", she said, "but not at the cost of revealing my whole life to you.  Ever hear of the Fifth amendment?"  "Yes", he said gravely.  "We've heard of it.  But we only used your forms.  It's on you if you find them unfair."

She feared him, hated him, but in spite of that she was eager to talk to him more.  "Look", she said, "I get it, I do.  Our system can suck.  But it's better than most.  And I'm not the one who made it!  Let me go, I don't know where we are, just release me in a random cornfield, I won't give any hints as to who you are.  Please. Please, I beg you.  I'm not the baddie here."

He contemplated her.  Then he said, "It's not that your system 'can' suck, it's that it does nothing but that.  Any bit of good ever is accidental, and rare.  It's not a system of finding the truth, but only of finding out who has better lawyers, which itself is a code for who has more money.  It's not 'better than most' unless you wish to claim that North Korea is worse.  Though even there, for the day to day, I doubt it's much worse for those accused of non-political crimes.  'Different' might be the better word."

"As to you not making this system, no, you did not.  But you dreamed of it, you learned all about what it was during three years of law school, you tested for it, you succeeded, and then instead of joining the ranks of those who might fight against it, you chose to represent it.  You literally are the baddie.  That you are not the top baddie, is due to your lack of years, not your lack of desire."

"Is it really so bad? Most regard Anglo-American Jurisprudence as the best the world has ever seen!" Tami replied. "Yes, they do", he said, "which speaks a lot more to the other systems than yours. Your own system, like the others in varying degrees, makes sense if you see it as a means of keeping the poor in check, but no sense at all if 'justice' for all is desired. You surely should have caught on to that. I dare say if you have not, you will before too much longer."

She glared at him sullenly and said, "No one does this for a cause.  You've been hurt, probably by our office, and my office and the police will track you down.  What'd we get you for?"

He studied her as if trying to take in seriously all that she was trying to get across.  Then his eyes seemed to lose focus as if he was lost in thought.  He nodded absently as if at words only he could hear.  He re-focused on her.  He calmly said, "It was a bogus case, and my ignorance of the law and inability to afford a real attorney made me plead it out, when had I not, it would have been dropped. It gave me a great deal of pain and anguish, and was financially devastating, and as you know, I had no recourse.  Another time, I lost my child due to the ADA not caring to hear anything a man had to say in a custody case.  He advised, over the phone, that the cops remove my child at my ex's request, though she had no right or cause to ask that.  Again, no recourse."  

Tami's heart leaped in excitement.  "Look, I get it", she said.  "But they're going to notice that double whammy and be on to you!  Let me go now, I swear I won't give you away, and even if they find you, I'll stick up for you!"

He looked at her silently, then spit on the floor in front of her.  "You've gravely misjudged me", he said, eerily calm and cold.  "I'm aware of how you keep tabs on those who you do the most wrong to, but it occurred to me that all of your type of offices have done similar evil.  Any casual reading of the internet shows that every District Attorney's office from coast to coast has their horror stories that are frankly, far too routine.  Thus I have entirely left alone the office of the DA that hurt me and focused on an entirely random one instead.  Your office.  And you were working on the the Mitchell Sanders case, so naturally, bigoted fools that you all are, your co-workers and cop pals will be chasing off after those in Black Lives Matter and coming up entirely empty.  Leaving us to have as much fun here as is necessary."

Tami shivered.  Then said fiercely, "It'll be rape in the end, won't it?  Some how in spite of all the high sounding ideals or noble causes, that's what it always comes down to, isn't it?"

He shook his head and said, "How are your own prisons on rape?  You ponder on that.  Meanwhile, know that 'in the end' it'll be you having learned a valuable lesson."  With that he shoved some papers through the door and walked off.  She picked the papers up then sat back down on the mattress.  The papers were notices that her pre-trial motions would be heard - July 14th?  That was three months away!  Three months of this?  And then the kangaroo court with everyone, all one of him, against her?  How was she to in any way prepare to answer these ridiculous charges?  How could she round up any witnesses to speak to her guilt or innocence?  How could she afford a real attorney even if there was one that would be available to her?

And what the hell was taking the police so long? If he truly had no connection with her office, would they really be chasing after false leads?  She sadly knew that the cops always went with the most obvious first...and tended never to depart from it.  Tami started trembling, then shaking. Her career hadn't yet gave her much experience in abductions or serial killers, but she had seen enough shows to know that if this kept up much longer she'd likely be dying here. And even if there wasn't straight out sex to be forced upon her, it was rare that some weird form of that didn't come into play sooner or later.

Like a switch, her fear turned back to anger, and she was banging on the cage door screaming and screaming. Hurling profanities which even as she did a tiny sane part of her knew was in no way helping her, but probably goading the very man who's good side she needed to be on. If he had any good side. Starting in on screams about his mother, she suddenly collapsed as if unplugged and crumpled to the floor by the cage door.

A few hiccoughs later, she started quietly crying and fell asleep like that. Unnoticed by her, the man at the bottom of the stairs that led out, who had been standing listening the whole time, went upstairs to wherever he went back to when not with her.

6.  

It was a month later and 3 am and she stopped screaming and listened.  She had been screaming for five minutes while banging repeatedly on the cage door - she'd timed it - and her throat felt sore. And her hands and shoulders. Always did when she tried this.  She listened harder - was that a thing, she wondered?  Could one listen harder?  Had it really been a month? It had if she had not lost count, she thought. She estimated she'd lost 20 pounds. And sometimes she imagined the clock was sped up or slowed down. Other times, like now, she trusted it.  Her cheek was pressed to the bars, so that her ear was between them, her mouth slightly open, as she'd read once that you could hear better that way. She was inhaling very slowly, she'd heard that helped, too.

Nothing.  If any besides her captor had heard her, they were not rushing to beat down the door and rescue her.  Nor was he coming down to tell her off.  From which she guessed he lived in some old farm house in the middle of nowhere.  Or had gone to a great deal of trouble to soundproof the whole house.  Or both.  He only talked to her once a day, but it wasn't quite "him".  Not him the detective or judge or CO, anyway.  At the end of the first week, he had tossed in half a dozen books, the 'jail library' he called it.  And he set up a TV a few feet from her cage that she could see through the bars.  And hear whether she wanted to or not.

It only played from five pm to nine pm.  He provided a stool that she could sit on. Then quiet time till 5 am, though the lights were maddeningly left on.  And the TV was only ever on the BET channel, and she knew better than to ask why.  Jail TV was always by vote, and she knew who the system arrested more of.  Not that it had mattered to her before.

It was disgustingly terrifying how thorough he tried to be at duplicating the experiences of what those in jail went through.  Once a week, was 'shower time' and he'd take her across the basement, past the "court room", and to the shower behind the closet area.  It was as poor and make shift as everything else in the basement.  Then she'd have to strip down and wait.  Then he'd disappear and reappear nude, with a woman's wig on, grinning like that end scene in "Psycho".

She'd screamed the first time, and in real fear. She had braced herself for rape early on, but to have the possibility of it seemingly turn real had really affected her a lot more than she had thought it would.  But he hadn't killed or raped her. He was just playing at being a vaguely threatening lesbian inmate. She could shower relatively undisturbed, but he'd gawk at her and make sly and suggestive innuendos at her, and get up close to her, even smack her ass now and then, but never quite do anything. For several hours after, alone in her cell, she had shivered uncontrollably, while now and then making unconscious moaning sounds.

Analyzing it later, she knew from what she had heard of jails that he could decide to touch her more thoroughly now and then, and still be in character.  “Slap and tickle” the guards called it, and to them it was only something to watch to relieve their own boredom.  She was glad it hadn't been 'now' that he sexually assaulted her but worried each time about the 'then'.  As he no doubt wanted her to.  

She glanced at the 'library'.  The largest book was a hardback called "I, Q", an improbable tale about some third rate Greek god wannabe with the manners of a teen boy, and the morals to match. Which come to think of it, was pretty in character for a Greek god. She'd never been a Trekkie, but apparently this was a Star Trek “novel”.  Three paperbacks were by Louis L'amour.  Another paperback was "See I Told You So" by Rush Limbaugh.  And the final paperback was "Wrong Kind of Girl", apparently a part of what was called the Sweet Valley High series, though it read at more of an elementary school level.  

She snorted in disgust at the sight of those books, not that she hadn't read each of them three or more times in what seemed like an eternity spent here.  Not for the first time she resolved that if she got out, that some portion of the money she planned to make in book and movie deals from the story of her ordeal would go to reforming jails.  While he might not care that she agreed with him on some things, she did.  There was no need for jails, in theory where people were awaiting trial to determine if they were guilty, to have any kind of intimidation in the showers, or terminal boredom at the scant selections in the 'library'.  Or such lousy food.

She also was now opposed to solitary confinement, though in fairness, she could not say he'd done that to her totally.  The TV was a voice, she had books of a sorts, and he did do this insane routine of taking her daily to a corner of the basement with a window that had sunlight coming through it. Every afternoon after the inevitable baloney sandwich for lunch.

For three hours she would be in that corner with a bench to sit on, a basketball and a lone barbell with 25 pounds on either end.  At the start each time he'd leave and after two minutes return in gray pants and a gray sweatshirt and the same woman's wig and pretend to be an inmate.  Nor would he break character.  She'd tried to discuss her situation, but all he'd do is talk about "her" man, the jobs he'd had “her” help pull, the 'gang bangers' "she'd" rolled with.  

At first she'd begged and pleaded with him, then yelled and screamed at him, then when she got too wound up and got punched in the face for it, she ignored him in part due to fear, but mostly exasperation.  After a few days though, she'd talk to him as if she believed he was the girlfriend of a low level drug pusher in because "her" boyfriend/pimp had gave "her" up on a raid of some drug house "she'd" been at.  Not that "she" admitted any guilt.  But "she'd" perpetually scratch his inner elbows and otherwise twitch about as if he were the junkie that she knew him not to be.  A part of her marveled at his thoroughness, but only at the time and briefly after.  Then it was back to the knot of fear at how this was going to play out.

And the boredom.

7.

Boredom was an ever present feature of her new life as a - hostage? Kidnap victim? Serial killer plaything?  Inmate of a domestic terror cell? A political prisoner?  Sometimes she cried. Sometimes she fought him when he was with her as the "Corrections Officer" and he’d beat her savagely about the shoulders and thighs with his baton. Sometimes she screamed at random times in case any hypothetical neighbor, mailman or jogger might hear her.

It had been over two months. It frightened her how quickly she had got used to the routine of her insane new life. After "breakfast" she'd hear him messing around out there. She knew what he was doing. Checking his battery banks and the hookups to a modified exercycle. Then at 8 am, she'd be called out for "work duty" and spend half an hour cycling to nowhere while generating some power, she guessed for his house.

He’d talk to her if he was in a mood, but not in the same way as when he was the female inmate.  It would be gruffly, like a regular working joe prison guard, vaguely sympathetic at times, but figuring, as all his breed does, that she was in here for being guilty, and that was that.

At eight thirty it was upstairs.  The first time up he had shown her how all the doors were locked from the inside and the windows barred.  Upstairs was bare and spartan.  The kitchen small and plain.  The living room just a couch and a TV, not a flat screen.  She scrubbed the floors and the walls, sometimes with a diluted bleach, sometimes with pine scented generic cleaner, other times with a toothbrush and a small cup of Drano.  When it was Drano, it was for scrubbing along the edges where the walls met the floors.  She asked why and he just told her to be careful.  

There was a back room, probably the bedroom and bathroom, she never was in it.  After an hour or so, there'd be enough time for putting the supplies away under the kitchen sink, then back down stairs.  Then it was ten am, he'd pass her a Bible and she could read that till 11 am. Given the "library" selection, she did so, but she'd made the mistake of starting in the Old Testament so none of it had really made an impact on her.  Not that she was striving for it to.  Lunch at noon was always baloney sandwiches.  The side dishes were consistently boring and cold.

The sun room - as she thought of it - was, sadly, her favorite part of the day, and she sometimes cried softly to herself late at night over that. Three hours she got to have a conversation, and it disturbed her how quickly she got used to speaking to a man in a wig pretending to be "Lila Mae". She had found that as long as she phrased the questions within the parameters of the role her captor was playing, that she could get answers that might be of aid to her.

"Lila Mae" talked a lot about the "justice" system, and Tami was sure that this was for her political education. And she understood. The system was grossly weighted against the poor and uneducated. But some of the complaints surprised Tami still. One day "Lila Mae" had complained about how she'd wanted her brother to represent her at her last trial, but he couldn't. For the obvious reason that he wasn't a lawyer, Tami thought, and said so.

"So what?", her captor said, "My brother knew enough about the law to help me, but they don't want you to have anyone with you that knows what's going on unless they are loyal only to the court." Tami asked, "What do you mean, 'loyal to the court'? Lawyers are to 'zealously' represent their clients, whether they're private or public."

"Yeah, right", said Lila. "That's why they're called 'officers of the court'? No, they all go along with the courts or they can have their license yanked. That's why they won't try and argue jury nullification, or why drugs should be legal due to the 10th amendment, or about how the judge and DA suppress evidence in advance even if the jury should hear it, or how RICO keeps a man from having the money to hire a real defense.”

Tami was jolted by that, not for not having known of some of that, but for realizing that she had come to think of Lila as Lila during these hours, though it was clear by how she expressed her concerns with the justice system that "she" was the middle aged man "she" obviously was. And her captor. Dear God, I've been here too long, Tami thought. I'm starting to lose it. But even then, she could rally herself and realize that just being able to think you'd lost it meant you probably had not.

8.

She wasn't sure of the exact day, but knew that it had been about three months. Finally she heard the blessed words, "Ready for the pre-trial motions?" "Yes", she said, "As ready as I can be, when I had no pen or paper or phone or means to prepare at all!"  He grinned, "I'll tell Mitch that you are starting to sympathize with him now."  His grin faded.  "If he's ever released, that is." he finished.  He took her to the same court room and sat her down.  She waited patiently.  He got dressed in that black robe which she was sure was a choir robe being re-purposed as a judge's robe.  This time she rose, as she knew what to expect.

"Be seated" he said, sitting down himself.  He pretended to look at a file - or was he pretending?  She still wasn't sure if others had been here, she did not think so, but one never knew.  He looked up. 

"Are you still wishing to represent yourself?"  She nodded and said, "Yes, your honor."  He said, "Very well, but you should know that if you make an error or otherwise lose due to your own mistakes that such will not be grounds for appeal.  Also, the court will not be able to help you with any legal advice.  You still wish to proceed as your own counsel?"

Inwardly, she was amused.  She knew a bit about those who labeled themselves "freemen" in general, and while they were better versed in law than the average citizen, they'd not be any match for her.  If they ran this fairly, she'd give them a run for their - his - money!  "Yes, your honor, I'll be representing myself.  For my first motion, I wish an evidentiary hearing to determine if enough evidence exists to even hold me."

"I'm sorry", he said.  "But this is a prime example of why you should have already retained counsel.  The time for that motion expired two and a half months ago.  Did you have any other motions?"  Tami was outraged, but more at herself.  She realized that she should not have expected them - him - to play fair.  Why had she even thought he would, she wondered?  Aloud she said, "I wish to have copies of all the evidence that you, I mean the prosecutor, thinks he has against me.  I want his witness list.  And I have witnesses of my own I wish to be able to subpoena."

He got up, took off the robe and walked around to her side, disconcertingly holding her gaze the whole time.  He turned to the empty chair. "Your honor, I object." came the southern drawl of his Prosecutor personality.  "The time for all those motions was two weeks ago!  They were to be typed up and filed with this court, and a copy gave to our office!  This meeting today was only the formality in which all that was submitted by paper was to be discussed and ruled upon!"

Tami burst out in anger, a part of her horrified that she was addressing an empty chair, "Your honor, no one told me about any deadline or that it had to be typed and submitted in advance, and none of this is in accordance with how my office has ever done it, or how we have treated Mitchell Sanders! This is not fair or just!"

Her captor, standing right next to her, still facing the chair said, "Your honor, this is exactly why we petitioned you to assign counsel to the defendant.  She knows nothing of our laws and procedures but insists on representing herself!"  Tami said, "Wait!  The procedures are different than those I was trained in, that's all!  You'd been the same so far, how was I to know they'd be different now?"

The "Prosecutor" immediately walked over to the judge's chair, and put on the black robe.  He sat down and motioned for her to sit, too.  He said, "Ms. Jorgenson, how were any of those you had brought to trial to know any of your laws and procedures? You spent four years in college, three in law school, a year interning, another two years in the trenches carrying the briefcases of your mentors, then and only then were you allowed to press a case in court after a decade of training and preparation.”

“You then pressed these court cases,” he continued, while holding up a hand to forestall any interjections she might have had, “against high school drop outs, IQ 90 types, adults who had been born with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, and adults born addicted to crack, heroin or meth.  Against people from broken homes, poor schools, and zero educational opportunities.  Was it fair when you piously offered them the right of representing themselves in an arena they knew nothing of against an entire system of well off and highly educated citizens trained to do nothing but prosecute?"  

"Were your victories", he continued, "glorious ones against equals, or more in the nature of a gym teacher punching a 3rd grader in the face over and over again while he tries to cry uncle through his own broken teeth?"

As Tami stood mute, contemplating those words and trying to figure why what she'd always took for granted as fair sounded so bad when he said it, her reveries were interrupted by him roaring, "You WILL answer this court!"  Tami jumped up, startled, and said, "Y-your honor, that's w-why we offer them counsel, because of course it's unfair to expect them to know the law!"

“You mean counsel that does not wish to represent them, feels put upon for having to represent them, and if they do enjoy the guaranteed income, will never do anything to offend the judge or prosecutor?  You mean the counsel that does the minimum - or even less - and only wants to plea everything out by lunch?” the judge asked.

“Yes, your honor.” Tami said shakily.  “But some took it seriously.”

"Did they?  Well, were you offered counsel?" the judge asked, as if he didn't know.  "Yes", she said, with a sinking feeling.  "I was."  The judge said, “Then why did you not take it?"  She said, "You know why."  He said, his voice dangerously soft, "I asked you a question."  She said, utter defeat coloring her tone, "Because I did not trust counsel that worked for those who were prosecuting me."  

"Ms. Jorgenson, if I and the prosecutor did nothing but play poker every day of our lives, if we were paid to play and did that eight hours a day, what do you think the odds would be of a person who had never played poker winning against us?"  Tami, a tear rolling down her cheek said softly, "None, your honor."  The judge continued, "Ms. Jorgenson, if we offered one of our own friends who played poker with us each day as an adviser to the person who had never played poker, would you think that the odds of that person winning would go noticeably up?"

"No", Tami said, even softer.  "What was that, Ms. Jorgenson?  Speak up!" the judge barked.  "No, your honor", Tami said.  "The non-poker player would need a real professional poker player who worked for him and him only."  The judged looked satisfied.  "Yes, Ms. Jorgenson.  Yes, that is exactly what such a non-poker player would need.  But that's not what your system does for such brought before you, is it?"

"No, your honor." said Tami.  "And", the judge continued, "If you had a friend who played poker and played it well, and he offered to come and advise you, but we who made a living playing poker said, 'no, you must either play with no adviser, or use only one of our friends', would you think that very fair?"

"No, your honor." said Tami again. "Tell me", the judge said, "Does your system insist that each lawyer be a member of the same club, the 'bar association', that among other things regulates and restricts who can be lawyers so that the price of them is artificially raised higher than it needs to be?"  "Yes, your honor." Tami said, her head hanging down and staring at the floor.  "Did this", the judge continued, "insure that if you were not rich, you were stuck either playing a game you didn't know the real rules to, or had to go with someone who was not really on your side?"  

Tami could only shake her head 'yes' and only let out a broken sob instead of a verbal answer.  The Judge overlooked that and went on, "Then stop complaining.  And remember, if you like, you can always take a plea."  Hope briefly flickered, but then she caught herself.  "May I try and negotiate that now, your honor?", she asked, looking up.  "It's a bit irregular, but I can indulge this once", he said.  "Talk to the prosecutor", and with that he de-robed and came over to her side of the table.

9.

She stood next to him, and noticed that he had a flag pin on his shirt. Her vision seemed to dim and come back, and - is this what fainting feels like? She caught hold of herself. She had almost fainted at the surreal aspect of it all she realized.  And she'd not had lunch yet.  Who knew she could miss a baloney sandwich?  She started crying again.  He looked at her and motioned for her to sit in the chair, and she dazedly did.  He brought the judge's chair - a folding one like hers - over to her side of the table and sat down, too.

"I can offer you a reduced charge." he as the Prosecutor said. "Unlawful detention.  Simple assault.  Three to five, with good behavior you could be out in two years, less given time served.  I can drop the resisting and assaulting a peace officer nonsense, too." Tami glanced at where the chair had been, wondering what she could do to get out of this.

"You want me to stay here two years?" she asked him, not believing this nightmare.  She thought each time that she grasped it, but it kept getting worse all the same.  "No", the he said in his drawl. "Not here.  Anything more than a year is prison, not this soft touch jail.  You'd be sent to a facility we have in Montana where they have real discipline.  You'd be on a work crew, and you'd earn your keep.  We've more people there then you know, enough to keep you...heh, heh...company.  You know how prisons are, right?"

Tami knew how prisons were, and found it hard to believe that theirs could be so bad, but was willing to believe that they'd make a good effort at trying to duplicate the hellish conditions that till now she'd never gave much thought to.  

She also noted that he had literally said "heh, heh", and she wondered anew at his sanity. "And if I decline that plea?" she asked.  "Then", he said, "We can go to trial and when you're found guilty, it'll be 15 to 20."  Tami said, "So even if someone is innocent, they'd be likely to take the 'out in two' over the 'nearly 20', yes, I get it.  Look, please, I've learned my lesson, but now you have to let me go, it's too much!"

"Too much", the prosecutor said and paused as if he were contemplating those words.  "Too much.  Again you seem to disagree with the 14th amendment.  How many defendants have you offered such a deal to already in your short career, how many such deals were offered by others with you sitting there as the loyal assistant?"  At seeing no answer, he got up, took the chair back around, put on the robe and barked, "Answer!  How many?"  She hung her head again and said, "Too many."

"Cute answer", the now judge said.  "But just one was 'too many', and you've got far more than one under your belt.  And by the 14th amendment, why should you be treated any differently under the law? Well?"  Tami said softly, "I should not be.  But I hope you will.  Please, I hope you will.  I've learned my lesson, I'll quit as soon as I'm back.  Honest." More "heh, heh" sounds.  "We're here for a plea, do you take the offer?"  Tami cried out, "You bastard, you aren't satisfied till what?  I break?  I go insane?  I've learned my lesson, what more do you want?"

"Justice", the judge said.  "I don't care what lesson you have or have not learned, but if you want my personal opinion, I doubt you have learned it.  What you've principally learned is that those in your position need to be more careful driving to and from work.  There is no world in which you honestly feel now that your whole system is the lie that I know it to be. But maybe after a few years, you will get that.  Either way, you'll at least have paid the price for your crimes, whether you've learned anything or not.  Now, do you accept the plea?"

Tami, who actually was more broken in spirit than her captor knew, said, "Yes.  Yes, I'll take the plea."  Now the judge said, "Great!" and held out a micro-cassette recorder.  "Now dictate into this recorder, 'Please free Mitchell Sanders so that they will let me out in three to five years instead of fifteen to twenty.'"  She looked at him, amazed, and then fear grew, then anger swamped the fear out.  "You...you..." she started, "You know they'll never...you never intended me to take a plea, did you?"

"But of course I hoped you'd take the plea", he said.  "But surely as part of the plea you had to know that you had to agree to stop committing the very criminal activity you were arrested for, didn't you?"  Tami said, "It's beyond my power.  You know it is."  He said, "Well, Ms. Jorgenson, they're your people, not ours.  We can hardly help it if they do not value you as much as we value our own.  After all, I assure you that we'd be up for such a deal."

“But they can’t negotiate with terrorists!  You know that!” exclaimed Tami heatedly, then after an embarrassing pause added, “No offense, your honor, but that’s how they would see you!”  The judge said, “No offense taken.  They would see me as a terrorist.  But they’d negotiate at once if you meant as much to them as say, the daughter of the President or a billionaire.  Or even just a governor's mistress or a political donor with a private jet.  They’d even negotiate if it was for some of their spies, their "undercover agents".  Or even just for them securing some given objective valuable to them at the moment.  But not for the little people.  Not for those citizens who pay their salaries.  Never them.  And so never for you.  You might be a part of the system, but they have as little regard for you as a CEO has for a random janitor in his world-girdling mega-corporation."

"What now, then?" Tami said resignedly.  The judge said, "First, please notice that you were willing to admit guilt to something that you do not feel you're guilty of. Ponder what that means later. Second, what now is that we'll have a trial." The judge held out a folder and said, "Here."  She took it and looked inside.  It was the arrest report of Mitchell Sanders and the formal charges that had been proffered after the indictment.  And a transcript of the indictment.  And the statement he'd made after 6 hours of non-stop interrogation which seemed to include a confession, but she knew was an invalid one.  Not that she hadn't planned on using it against him.

The judge said, "So there's your discovery after all, don't let it be said our courts can't be fair." With that the judge got up and hung up his robe back in the closet, then came back over. His demeanor had changed and he was the jailer again and walked her back to her cage.  "Good luck", he said while shutting the door, sounding for all the world as if he meant it.  She collapsed on to her thin gym mat, the folder falling near the toilet, and wept.

10.

She had talked about whether she wanted a jury trial or a bench trial with Lila Mae.  Lila advised against having just the judge decide, as they were never fair.  “Never?” Tami had asked with arched eyebrows.  “Ever?”

“Never,” Lila Mae said firmly.  “For the big civil cases, judges are always bribed one way or another.  Donations to charities ran by their wives.  Campaign donations.  Favors.  Back scratchings.  Always something.  And in other cases, they decide it upon what the current social cause of the moment is, because that’s always safe and they hate being over turned.  Like domestic violence cases are always decided for the woman.  60 years ago it was always decided for the guy.  Lousy judging either way, since in each case then and now, they aren’t really ‘judging’ they're just ‘going with the crowd’.”

“For little people like you, where there are no bribes or social justice to worry about, he’ll be weighted in favor of the prosecutor who he may well have lunch with each week or be in the same club with.”, Lila continued.  “Or he went to the same school as the prosecutor, or they know people in common as the legal profession is like every other profession - a Kozy Klub.  But he’ll be biased in other ways, like how you look or whether it’s before or after lunch or whether he got laid last night.”

Tami snorted.  “It’s not that bad.”

Lila Mae said grimly, “Yes it is.  That’s why some still use ‘court recorders’ instead of an audio/video recording each and every hearing, case and trial.  They don’t want proof lying about of just how capricious their rulings are.  If people had those video clips, they could compare things over time and see how some judges would give harsher sentences based on ethnic or class reasons.  Or how they might cut off a person if lunch is drawing near.  Or a thousand other things.  Including, as you well know, plenty of procedural errors.  Ever wonder why your own courts charge a couple of hundred bucks for copies of a transcript that cost less than five bucks to print off?”

Tami said, "You act like no one ever gets a break!" to which Lila Mae answered, "Some do.  The ones whose dads play golf with the judge or who play golf with someone who plays golf with the judge. Then the judge will be quietly told that this one is a 'good kid', one who 'just needs a chance', and yeah, then the fix is in.  That's who gets the breaks."

Tami was inclined to argue, but knew there was enough truth to that to make disputing it pointless. Judges were only human.  Lila looked at her sharply and said, “You’re thinking that they’re only human.  And you’re correct.  But we’re supposed to be a nation of laws, not of men, and so it makes no sense to not have clearly objective standards that judges are only in charge of enforcing.  As it is, they have leeway, too much leeway.  And it’s always abused.”

Tami had already known she would go with a jury, and since it seemed that was her captor’s preference, she saw no reason to rock that boat.  

The following week the CO came and said, "Jury selection".  He led her to the courtroom where to her shock, three people were seated against the wall facing the table.  He sat her down and went over to change into a judge.  Meanwhile, the three in the chairs looked her over intently.  She didn't dare to speak to them, they each looked like what she thought of as homeless or like gang members.

All three were black, and in what she thought of as poor or gang clothing.  The third one was a woman, who looked vaguely trampy, but looked like she had tried to dress up.

The judge entered and Tami rose.  So did all three street people, or should she think of them as the jury?  He said, "Be seated.  I don't want this to take too long. The prosecutor already let me know that any of these people are acceptable to him.  Does the defense wish to examine any of them?  Or may we simply seat the first six?"

"The first six, your honor?" Tami asked.  "Not a jury of twelve?  And where are the others?"  The judge said, "It's not required that twelve sit on a jury.  True, it’s what the Founding Fathers meant, but since they didn’t say so specifically, plenty of your states have played fast and loose on that.  So six will be sufficient here, especially as we're paying them real rates, not the pittance you force your jurors to accept at gunpoint.  And each of these three has a 'proxy' for a friend or relative of theirs. Now, do you have any questions for them?"  Tami contemplated.  She risked another question to the judge.  "Your honor, this jury pool does not seem very diverse, may I question the fairness of the selection methods?"

"You may question the fairness of the selection methods to your heart’s content." answered the judge.  "For all the good it will do you.  As it happens, they were picked for their affiliation with, and sympathies to, various black liberation movements."  Tami looked shocked at such a baldly honest answer.  "But your honor, how is that fair when I'm on trial for kidnapping a black youth?"  The judge said, "How is it fair that the black youth you kidnapped will have his jury pool drawn only from those who love the system enough to register to vote and obey a summons?  Where are the non-voters, the anarchists, the gang members, the homeless, the hookers and the druggies in the jury pool for he and his?"

Tami lowered her head.  Of course, she thought.  She should have known.  She even 'got it', in a sense, though her fear and anger made it hard to appreciate the cleverness of this as much as she'd have liked to.  For it was clever.  And where else was this guy going to find a jury that wouldn't turn him in?  She shivered.  Then she lifted her head, figuring it was best to see this through to the bitter end.  "Your honor, I do have some questions."  He nodded and said, "Proceed."

She went to the first one, a rough looking male - though that didn't narrow it down too much.  "Sir, I'm on trial for the kidnapping and illegal detention of a drug dealer - " But she was immediately interrupted by the judge furiously taking off his robe and drawling out like a southerner, "Objection! Assumes facts not in evidence!"  Oh, Tami thought, of course.  And in fairness, Mitchell had not had his trial yet, or if he had, she'd not heard the outcome.  

"My apologies." Tami said.  "I mean, 'for detaining an African American youth'.  One who my boss had accused of selling narcotics.  Have you ever sold narcotics?" The rough looking man looked amused and answered, "Yeah."  She asked, "Do you think you could judge me impartially?"  "Yeah I do", he said with a smirk.  "As much as a white suburban voter could fairly judge one of my friends!"  Tami shook her head and stepped back over to her seat.  "I get it, your honor", she said.  "I assume the proxies are similarly diverse?" The judge chuckled and said, "Two Hispanics and a very poor white guy who lives in a trailer with his mother.  You may be sure that these three will vote as those absent three would to the honest best of their ability!"

Tami sighed and said, "Fine, they're all acceptable.  What now?"  The judge turned to the three and asked, "Do you have any questions? "  The woman spoke up and said, "Can I hold proxy for another that will serve as an alternate?  My man always told me that you gots to have an alternate for in case one of the jurors is going to give the wrong verdict or try and hang it, then the judge can replace that one with a juror who’ll say what he’s s'posed to!"  The judge banged a gavel that Tami hadn't known he had and said, "Fine!  And a great point! Now for the juror's oath - all of you read it out loud with your right hands raised!"

The three took out papers and read, "We promise to in no way judge the justness or fairness of the law, but only listen to whether the prosecutor and judge say that they proved the facts in the case! If the judge instructs us that the facts in the case are proved, then even if we think the defendant is getting a raw deal we will rubber stamp the judge's decision!"

"Your honor!" cried out Tami in frustration, though she recognized this plain spoken version of the Juror's Oath she had heard administered dozens of times in her short career.  He laughed, and said, "Thank you, Jurors!  Now we're adjourned till tomorrow at ten am!"

11.  

Tami spent that evening pondering how unfair the jury system was.  And how strange it was that she'd not seen that before.  How many times had she took a list of those who were registered voters, and even better, lovers of the system enough to bother to come in, and then calmly gave them a dozen pages of questions designed to make sure that only the most docile and law abiding could pass?  It had never previously occurred to her that by the time the defense got a crack at asking questions, they were asking questions of those who were almost guaranteed to be excellent prosecutorial advocates.  And even while the defense then got to ask questions, she'd get to ask more, too, just in case any jokers had slipped in!

And what an odd take on the reason for an alternate! But unbidden came a memory of a conversation she'd heard one of the older ADAs having at lunch one day, involving the news that one of the jurors had been a member of some Patriot group in his youth. "I'll let the judge know we'll need one of the alternates put in." had been his comment. And it hadn't sounded like he was saying anything all that unusual, either.

When Tami got to the court room the next day, she saw the three "jurors" sitting in the folding chairs, and they all looked ready to convict her. Or maybe she was just nervous.  She sat down in her chair, and to her surprise, her CO, instead of going back and changing into a judge, put on a ballcap - Cubs she noted dazedly.  She gave a surprised chuckle.

Then he said in some kind caricature of a New Jersey accent, "Hi, I'm Jimmy and I'm to be your lawyer for these proceedings."  She said, "But, but I'm representing myself, you, you said that's my right."  He said, "Save it, lady.  We both know that your own system assigns lawyers in an 'advisory' capacity to make it look fairer to the masses.  We may all know that we're here to teach you a lesson, but our own 'masses' will want to see that you had half a chance."  He nodded over at the ever present camera.  Tami thought for a moment and asked, though knowing that whatever hat or robe or wig he wore that he was still her captor, "And do I?  Have half a chance?" He gave her a broad wink. "Probably not.  But stranger things, eh?"

Then he got up, took the hat off and went to put on the robe.  He came back over.  Tami dutifully stood up, as did the three, presumably because they're all friends, and/or all getting paid.  It galled her that everyone was here for wanting to be and for getting paid and for knowing what was going on except for her.  Then she shook her head ruefully, realizing that once again, this was how those she prosecuted felt.  It had sank in more and more over the months how flawed her system looked to those it ground up, but even now she was still surprised to be confronted with yet more unfair aspects of it.

"Be seated", he said, and they sat.  The judge calmly removed the robe, walked over to Tami put on the ball cap and looking at the empty judge's chair said, "Ready to proceed, your honor!"  Then he took off the cap, stepped a couple of steps over and said, "Ready to proceed!"  Then he walked back around, put on the robe and sat down.  The jury looked amused.  Tami realized that for those disenfranchised by her system, this must be pretty entertaining. Still, she wondered if any of them were nervous that she was clearly being held against her will. Could they not know?

Tami had waited for this moment.  "No matter what your beliefs", she told the three, "Please know that I'm a hostage. This man," she pointed at the judge, "has kidnapped me. I've been held here in his basement for over three months. I'm not being paid. This isn't an act. There is probably a reward for my release.  Can any of you please help me?"

Two of the jurors looked uncomfortable, but the judge merely said, "You knew the deal. She doesn't know what city you're from. You don't know what city she's from. None of you can get in trouble. You'll be paid and took back where you came from, blindfolded as you were when brought out. We good?" Two jurors nodded mutely, but the woman said loudly, "Yeah, we good! None of us give a crap about this bitch! Her type never gave no crap about us!"

Tami sighed, defeated. But, what the heck, she thought and asked, "Your honor, before we begin, what of my motions for subpoenas for witnesses on my behalf?"  The judge said to empty space to her right, "Control your client."  Then he got up, unrobed and came over to her.

12.

"You know full well," began 'Jimmy', "That your system does not allow you to truly represent yourself. So long as you are playing at it in a way that is of no threat to it, or unlikely to make much of an impression, sure, but otherwise, no. All your motions were supposed to be already filed. Yes, we are aware that such is unfair - that has been the point. But it has been how your court does things, so where is your complaint? Don't answer, that's rhetorical. Now, you can play along with what you will justly call a farce here, but call ‘Anglo-Saxon Jurisprudence’ when you do it out there. Or you can be tied to the chair and gagged. Your choice."

"I withdraw my motion, your honor," Tami said, looking towards the empty chair, "With my apologies to the court."

Her lawyer nodded approvingly and went over and donned the robe and said, "Accepted".

The next one or two hours were not as Tami had half fantasized about, half worried about. In her imaginings she figured that she'd get various moments to make telling points that might sway a juror in spite of this mad man. But what happened instead was that a very clear case was made against her.  Particularly damning was when the judge took off the robe and donned the wig of “Lila” and then gave testimony that supposedly Tami had confessed to everything and laughed about it.

Tami even understood, this must be the lesson on how wrong her system was to use jailhouse snitches.  People in jail who would say anything if the District Attorney gave them a break on their own sentences.  She listened tiredly to him stand there as the prosecutor and ask “Lila Mae” a series of questions to which he would then don a wig, sit down as if in a witness stand and answer.  

“Were you offered any inducement?”  “No”  “Are you here freely, just to tell the truth?”  “Yes”.

Tami didn’t bother to object or to cross examine and that farce - one the jury seemed to enjoy - ended soon.  “Lila Mae” exited, and the jury giggled among themselves as her captor came back and robed up.  

It was her turn now.  But no sooner had she finished her own defense when he de-robed and as a prosecutor asked her one question.

"Yes or no, do you agree with everything that has happened to you the past few months?"

Tami knew if she said "yes", it was a confession of guilt, for who but a guilty person could even begin to deserve all this. And if she said, "No", it would be a confession of guilt, for how could she have put that young man through all this that she'd been made to go through?

It was a neat trap. Nevertheless, she tried to wriggle out of it.

"I was representing the system that I grew up to know as good and just and normal. I suppose anyone could make this error, but instead of trying to educate everyone, you have come specifically after me, while tens of thousands of other Assistant District Attorneys go free. I admit that my eyes are open now as to the various injustices of the system I was a part of, but I still say that there was no way I could have been reasonably expected to know it was wrong while I was doing it."

The prosecutor said, "Yet here we all are, all having grown up in the same nation, none of us with the same educational opportunities, but all of us perfectly aware that kidnapping a person for indulging in a recreation that you don't agree with is wrong. And giving them no real chance to defend themselves is wrong. And offering them false choices to trick them into agreeing with their own abuse is wrong. And the torture of threatened rape and boredom and lousy food and confinement and lack of contact with any friendly face is wrong. And that for all that to happen even before the fake trials designed only to put a nice face on a crappy act is wrong.”

A pause.  The prosecutor turned to the three jurors who were leaning forward.

“And she studied all this, and learned of all of this, and used that system against many individuals, each who must have begged for mercy, and found none. Some who wanted to beg for mercy but knew that it was futile.  Now here she is, the victim of her own ethics, her own procedures, her own values and her own system and she asks now for that which she never granted to others. Her guilt is clear. She is not sorry for what she did, she is sorry for having been caught. If given a chance, she'd throw all of us into jail right now, and lose not a minute of sleep over it."

The jury applauded.  They literally applauded, clapping their hands and woo-wooing.  He calmly put the robe on again, and banged the gavel for silence, but smiled while doing so.  He then told the jury, "Here are my instructions. If you find that the State has proved beyond all reasonable doubt that the defendant, Tami Jorgenson, has kidnapped and falsely imprisoned Mitchell Sanders, then you must find her guilty. No considerations may be given to her claims of ignorance as to the nature of reality or poor upbringing or any other factor whereby she may pretend to have no responsibility for her actions. That is all. You may adjourn to the green room to discuss this."

They went up the stairs, to what "green room" Tami did not know. The judge changed into her lawyer by removing the robe and adding the ball cap and said, "The waiting is the hard part. But you made a valiant attempt." Tami looked at him and said, "Really?" with as much sarcasm as she would have used if not held hostage. Her captor seemed to imperceptibly shrug his shoulders in a "what can you do?" gesture, but then went back to being robed up, and sat down opposite of her.

A half hour went by, and Tami was surprised to find herself dozing a bit, and jerking awake when her head drooped. The judge seemed not to notice.  Finally, he seemed a bit perturbed, and he grabbed broom and banged it into the ceiling twice, sharply.

Almost instantly, Tami could hear footsteps coming down the stairs.  And some giggles.

Two jurors came in and sat down, and the third took a piece of paper up to the judge. He looked at it, looked at the jury, and said what Tami had said to him just a half hour before. "Really?"

The jury looked amused, but a little nervous.  They all looked like they had been drinking, they all looked high.  "Yes, your honor, really", said the juror who had passed him the paper.  "We have two hold outs who say 'not guilty', and they swear vehemently that they will not change their minds!"

"The two hold outs will approach", the judge said.  One man rose and came over.  He and his proxy were apparently on her side, which surprised Tami.  Then she saw how he looked at her, and the surprise left.  She knew that always played a factor.  Hence her and other “enlightened” female prosecutors never failing to dress sexy if they had even vaguely the looks to pull that off.  She herself was attractive enough that she had sometimes been asked to be second chair just to bolster a failing case. 

The judge said, "Ordinarily her type of judge would do this in chambers where the public would not get a chance to see how the sausage was made.  But we'll do this here.  You!" and he pointed at the guy who had looked at Tami speculatively, "you're off the jury, and the alternate will take your place."  The man grinned, turned and winked broadly at Tami, and swaggered out unconcernedly.

"As for you", the judge continued, insanely addressing the file of the "proxy" that the man had left behind, "Her system would have had two alternates, but we’ll have to do things the hard way - like they do, in a pinch.  Why are you voting 'not guilty'?"

Her captor then cocked his head as if listening to the file and said, "What's that?  You say that you get what we're shooting for here, but we can't hold this poor woman accountable for all the crimes of a centuries old system?  That it isn't fair or right, and you won't be a part of it?"

The judge uncocked his head, leaned back in his chair, and said while staring into space, "If you violate your juror's oath this will be a hung trial and she'll just be held the longer while we go through this again.  And then she'll receive the same sentence.  But you will be arrested for obstruction of justice, jury tampering and perjury.  True, out there in their system, those threats can be fought, and are mostly bluff - but even out there, it costs the juror a lot of time and effort and money in lawyer's fees and motions and hassles and such.  Enough that he justly remembers it as the worst hell of his life.  Now just think of how we could duplicate the State's sadism here.  Care to reconsider?"

He leaned back towards the file and cocked his head, "What's that?  You agree now?  And you'll go along with this, but you don't think it is right or fair?"

"I know, son," said the judge to the file, settling back, "but honestly, you were all made aware from the beginning that such was the point.  And you can't honestly say that this kind of unfairness is not going on right now in hundreds of courtrooms across America as we speak.  And if they don't get so heavy handed at the end as I just did with you, it's for being more practiced and more able to achieve their goals with more veiled threats that never quite have to be listed out.  You see that at least?"

And he pretended to listen to the file again, apparently heard something he liked, and said, "Good! Glad you see that at least!  None of us like this kind of thing, but I thank you and the others for bearing with us all the same."

Then, almost as an afterthought, the judge looked at her and said, "The defendant will please rise."

She contemplated not rising, which then gave her a revelation as to why she had seen some sit defiantly in her system’s court rooms. Still, aware that it only did harm, she rose grudgingly.  He nodded as if satisfied at some wager he'd made with himself and said, "The foreman will read the verdict."

The foreman stood up - Tami noted that they had not had to leave the room for the "alternate" to convey her agreement with the rest who disliked her - and said, "We the jury find Tami Jorgenson guilty.  On all counts."  Well, at least they didn't drag out the obvious like on TV, where to heighten the drama the scriptwriters have the foreman say stuff like, "In the matter of blah versus blah, on the charge of blah de blah, we the jury, of the state of blah find the defendant, in this matter, to stretch out the suspense further, on this day of blah in the month of blah..."

No, in real courts, and apparently this one, just "guilty" or "not guilty" sufficed.

The judge looked at her.  "I was going to have you wait a few days, but really, why bother?  So you can be in suspense over whether it really will be 15 to 20 years or not?  I'll suspend that part of your sentence, anyway - the three day part of you waiting on pins and needles, that is!  This court hereby sentences you to 25 to Life, with parole eligibility not until you have served 20 years of your sentence.  You see, the young man you kidnapped was killed three months ago while awaiting one of your farcical trials.  You would have got the report of his death the next morning, but were apprehended that very evening.  You will remain here for now, while the prosecutor brings forth additional charges of murder upon you."

"Oh, and look", the judge said, "The prosecutor is already ready!"

The judge unrobed and came over to drawl, "If you accept a plea now, I'll keep the death penalty off the table.  2nd degree Murder and you do 25 to Life.  It can even be concurrent, but in that scenario, no eligibility for parole till you've served 30 years."

Death!  Tami had always known that such could be a part of this, obviously her captor was insane, but to hear it so calmly!  How could they think of death for her, hadn't she said she agreed with them about the unfairness of - and then she hung her head in shame.  It just struck her that the young man that she'd hardly known, this Mitchell, was dead, and her first thought was not as to her role in any of that, but how that was going to affect her.  

They were right, she thought.  Or he was right.  Whoever.  The freemen.  The judge.  That Alice in Wonderland jury.  Even the proxies, if they were real.  She “got” it.  She was a bad person.  She played in a system in which people died and she and hers just called it “Tuesday”. And shrugged. Tears streaming down her face, she lifted her head, turned to the prosecutor and said, "I accept that plea."

13.

The next day, somewhat recovered from her initial shock, she was brought to the courtroom for her allocution and formal sentencing.  She immediately opened with, "Your honor, having had time to reconsider, I'd like to reject the plea - " she paused due to he taking off his robe and grabbing his defense attorney baseball cap, "If you do this," he said in his silly imitation of a Tony Soprano accent, "it will go hard on you, you face the death penalty and you will not enjoy the 15 years of solitary you'll get before we set the date and delay, set the date and delay, set the date and delay, over and over till you're almost yearning for death just to not have your hopes raised and dashed any more.  And if at any point in the 15 years you do not dance appropriately with various arcane appeals procedures, the death can - and will - come far sooner."

He paused and looked at her intently.  Then he said, “And the execution will be as poorly botched as your system botches them. You’ll writhe for a half hour eternity in burning pain before your brain turns off in self-defense just before your body dies.”

The courage she had thought she had mustered fled, and she said to the empty judge chair, "Never mind."  What was the point, anyway, she thought.  She'd have no easier time fighting this charge than the last.

Her captor took the ball cap off, dropped the New Jersey accent and picked up the Georgian one.  He explained the plea deal in a drawl.  Then dressing in the robe, he as judge said, "Are you entering into this plea of your own free will?"  She wondered at the hypocrisy of the man who just threatened to murder her by painful torture asking if she was entering into this of her own free will. Then thought that they'd scored yet another point, for obviously her system indulged in that hypocrisy every day.

"Yes, your honor." she said, head bowed, just wanting this over.  

"Please allocute now." the judge said.

"Your honor," she said, "I am guilty of the death of Mitchell Sanders.  He was a young man who - at worst - may have sold some recreational drug to another person, freely and voluntarily, and in accordance with the 10th amendment.  Ignoring this, and believing that we had the right to control how others lived their lives, I did cause to be sent to him armed men who kidnapped him and held him against his will, for the ransom we - I - called 'bail' and did so hold him till he was killed in a brawl which our system had failed to protect him from."

The judge asked, "Does that satisfy the prosecution?" to which he immediately changed, walked over, and said, "Yes, your honor."  Then went back and said, "The plea is thus entered.  The prisoner will serve a sentence of 25 to Life, said sentence to run concurrent with the previous one, and will not be eligible for parole until thirty years from now.  The prisoner will now be returned to her cell until such a time as the Department of Corrections determines the facility best suited for her sentence and arranges for her transportation.  Court adjourned."

And he banged his gavel and went to hang up the robe.

And came over to her as the CO.  But with an oddly changed attitude.

"Come along now, hun.  Relax, it hits everyone like this, you'll adjust.  And you aren't going any where for awhile, so you'll have time to get yourself in order.  As much as you can, anyway.  Never going to be easy, a big sentence like that.  Still, others have handled it."  He looked closely at her.  "Do you feel like hurting yourself?"

She nodded "no" absently.  "Okay," he said, almost kindly, "If you do, let me know, no shame in such thoughts, just don't dwell on them. Any life is better than no life, which you must know, or you'd not have took that lousy deal."

And before she could grasp those words, she was back in her cell and he had gone.  

14.

Two days later, with no hours spent in the sun room, and the CO not speaking to her and only pushing through the same lousy meals, he came for her.

This time, he made her have her hands bound behind her with zipties.  She wondered why he couldn’t invest in handcuffs.  

Was he really going to take her to Montana?  That might afford an opportunity to escape.  She should play very nice right now.  It was a pity that he wasn’t attracted to her, wait, what was she thinking?  She knew what she meant, though.  She was glad he hadn’t done anything to her that way, but it would be handy if he was attracted to her.  Fanatics, she thought.  An honest psycho would have raped her by now.  She giggled, hiccoughed and started crying.  I really, really am losing it, she thought.  

He walked her upstairs.  He took her to the living room, where a TV was displaying a blue screen with the word "Pause" on it.

He took her ziptie off.  He sat her down on the couch.  She was crying softly now, he sat down next to her, then pulling her over, he was holding her so that she was leaning back against him as if they were two lovers about to watch TV.  As indeed they were positioned to watch it.  All they needed was popcorn, she thought manically, and giggled and hiccoughed again.  He told her, "Welcome to Montana." She nodded dully and thought that it did make sense.  It had been unlikely that there was a whole organization doing this and sure enough, as she had half suspected all along, he was a lone nut.  

“So you know, there is my basement, which is small, and this one floor, where I live, equally small.  But it serves its purpose for your type.”

She wondered at the phrase, “my type”.  Could there be others already here?  She looked at a door frame with no door, only a blanket serving as a curtain - to a bedroom? The house couldn't be big enough for more than one bedroom, and the bathroom would have to be back there, too.  She didn't hear others.  All the windows were covered with thick drapes.  Were the windows breakable, she wondered?  Were they really barred as he said?  Would she have opportunity to find out?  How was he really meaning for her to stay up here?

“This is the place where there is no darkness.” he said, as if quoting something that she should understand.  She did not, having long forgotten being made to read "1984" in high school English class.  Nor did she care to understand.  He put his ankles and feet over her lower legs, like a boyfriend might, and enfolded her in his arms, and one hand had a remote.  She started to struggle, but he said sternly, "Stop.  Don't make it worse.  We're going to watch a home movie.  Then go from there." 

She looked at the TV and when he hit "Play", she saw the basement she had just came from.  Apparently the cameras were more extensive there then she had thought, she could see a man tied up so that he couldn't move, on the floor of the cage she had lived in. Battery cables were hanging off to the side, and some kind of car battery assemblage was on the floor.  Her captor could be seen walking over, entering the cage, taking two metal prods of some kind, and touching them on either side of the man's head.  

The man writhed and bucked soundlessly.  Then the sound broke in, her captor had just unmuted it, but all that was heard was the thrumming, the struggle, and a strange "hnnnnhnnnnhnnnnn" coming from the victim.   She screamed at the implications and tried to get out of his grip.  He instantly tightened his grip, like a bear hug, and hissed into her ear, “Shut up!  And stop struggling, or you'll regret it!  Do you understand me?

“Yes,” she gasped through sobs.

“Have you ever given ECT to anyone?” he asked.

“What?” she said, utterly disoriented.

“Electro-Convulsive Therapy.”, he elaborated.  “Have you ever gave it?”

“No, no, please, I’ve never, don’t do this - “, she started, and he held her tighter, and hissed "Shut up!" again.  She did.

“Relax,” he continued, still holding her firmly, now the video on pause, “I know you haven’t gave anyone ECT.  And so it won’t be done to you.  Not everyone I've dealt with has been ‘in’ for the same offense, though.  He's ‘Doctor’ Jenners.  When patients committed to his facility would not do as he said, would not ‘behave’ as he desired, his ‘cure’ was what he and others call ECT.  They run an electric shock through a person.  While they claim such has a myriad of benefits, they none take it themselves.  When I brought him here, though...he did get to experience those 'benefits'.”

“But only,” he continued, “When he failed to follow the rules.  Only when he failed to 'behave'!"

Tami shuddered.  He laughed and somehow shifted about so that she was more settled into him. “Just relax.  You’re only punished for your own sins, not the sins of others.  But I’m not up for any of you misunderstanding the nature of why you were brought here, and part of that is seeing how it was for others.”  

He idly wiped away some tears on her cheek and then said, “Your judicial system, while consistently the most guilty of any agencies, is not the only agency that does wrong to others.  By doing wrong, I mean ‘initiating force’.  It’s wrong to initiate force against others, but a distressing number of people - including you - think it’s okay if you’ve some group or name or ideology behind you.”

Tami nodded dully, her head aching, her stomach churning.  She felt like throwing up.

He paused and said, “Look.  Watch.”  Tami looked at the TV and now it was showing a fat man sitting in her cell and three shower heads had been rigged over the cage and were all drizzling water on him.  There was not even that crappy gym mat for him to use as a cover, no blankets, and yes, he was nude.

“A city building and zoning inspector,” her captor said, “Who thought that he knew better than others on what was and was not appropriate with their own property.  He condemned a man’s house over a roofing issue, a roof that didn’t leak, but that he felt was ‘too old’.  The man, unable to afford a new roof, got fined, he could not afford the fine either, so the fines ran up until the City used that as a pretext for first placing a lien on his home, and then forcing the sale to have the lien paid. After that first night out in the cold and the rain their victim chose to kill himself rather than endure homelessness.”

Tami shuddered.  Her captor chuckled.  “You don’t think I have just anyone in here, do you?  It has to be an egregious offense.  Kidnapping.  Death.  Rape.  Stuff like that.”  Tami said, "You really think that the loss of the house was the only reason he killed himself?"  To which her captor stayed silent for a bit, with the screen paused, and then finally said, "No.  No, I think the man was probably pretty damaged in other ways first, or he'd have found some way of paying that fine.  Or just moved on and started again.  But sometimes a man is buffeted about by all manner of life's hardships.  And somehow he managed to at least still have a house.  Whatever else, he had a house, and that's not nothing to the lower classes your type loves to chew up.  When he lost that...well, call it the final straw.  He who had been bent severely, might have recovered, but the last blow to him broke him. Broke by a civil servant, who's salary he had helped pay."

He hit play again.  A small and inoffensive looking man was in her old cell now, sitting on the floor amidst much paperwork.  “You have it all sorted and filled out yet, Well Poisoner?” her captor could be heard asking him cheerfully.  The man didn’t even look up but mumbled, “It’ll be done by end of week, as always, sir.”

“Great!” her captor said, “Maybe this time it’ll be done right and you can get out!”  With that, he chuckled and started to leave, but the man spoke up.  “It would be great.  Will it meet with the requirements you told me of last week?”  Her captor grinned and said, “Careful of the attitude.  I’ve every reason to hope that it will, so long as you truly followed the instructions and nothing has changed since last week.  I’ll let you know when I review them at week’s end.”

The man looked angry, then his face went blank and he leaned back over the papers.

“W-what are you doing to him?” Tami asked, unsure of what was being done to the man but sure that something was being done to him.

“Oh,” her captor said cheerfully and paused the clip, “he was an executive in a corporation that was sued for poisoning a town’s water supply.  He aided that corporation in fighting off the civil suits, buying vacations for regulators and judges, and in general being the murderous well-poisoner he nearly literally is.”

“By the time the class action suit finally overcame every hurdle and won, he had helped transfer all assets of note from that corporation to, first, a dummy corp, then a sister corp, then so far around and up and down that the assets never could be found.  But a new corporation that he and others each held stock in was held not to be liable, even as the corporation he helped loot declared bankruptcy and left the widows and the orphans and the sick with no hope of receiving compensation.”

Tami nodded.  Of course, she thought.  “And the paperwork?” she asked.  “That’s a 729 page form which if filled out correctly would have had him released from here.  At the end of the week, I would review his submission, but with the regulatory environment changing and the corporation that owns his cell changing hands so often, it’s not surprising that he failed for three whole years!”, he said and chuckled again.

“Why did he keep doing it?” Tami asked, while really wondering where that man and the others were now.  “He didn’t like doing it,” her captor said grimly.  “But any week that the paperwork was incomplete or filled out obviously below what I knew his skill level to be, I would send him to the Box.  A day or three cures most everyone.  If it is a day or three, and not longer like some claim I’ve done."

"What's the Box?", Tami asked.  He snorted.  "C'mon," he said, almost kindly, "You know what the Box is.  You've seen 'Cool Hand Luke' or any movie with a Southern Sheriff and an uppity minority.  Or a back talking white guy.  You sit in the Box and you're cramped up in there and can't stretch out and you freeze or fry depending on it being night or day, or whether I'm running a heater or an air conditioner into it.  You're with your own wastes.  You're really thirsty.  If you're really lucky, I might spray a hose in there after a day to keep you going.  What, did you think that stuff was only in the past?  Really?"  And the last word "really" he said with very heavy sarcasm, and a poor attempt at imitating her.

Tami said, "But that stuff is in the past, isn't it?"  She had started out confident, but trailed off into doubt.  He said, "The Box can vary from prison to prison.  Maybe it's 'just' extended solitary with bowls of slop gave that are so foul with spit and piss that a guy has to be starving to choke it down, and even then tends to vomit it back up.  Or maybe it's handcuffing a guy to a scalding hot shower.  Or a freezing cold one.  Or maybe it's just beating the crap out of him.  Or letting a particular inmate rape or beat him for extra privileges.  Or shoving a broom handle up his ass and pretending an inmate did it.  Or maybe it really is a box still.  It's just whatever blatantly 8th amendment violating punishment each prison is used to using against recalcitrant prisoners who have not yet learned who is who and what is what.  It's damning that you who send so many to such places act as if you do not know this."

Hitting play, the TV next showed a young and buff looking man inside the cage.  He was just sitting there, but leaped up and stood at attention when he saw his captor approach.  “Who’s he?” Tami asked.  Her captor said, “Hush up, and watch.”

In the video the captor clearly said, "Tell me who you are", like he knew a future audience would wish to know.  Tami shuddered in her captor's arms and kept watching.  The buff man said, "Sir, I was a cop who like too many abused my authority.  I would insist upon an ass kissingly high level of respect so sickeningly fawning that it would have made Oriental Potentates of old blush.  If any failed to call me ‘sir’ or answer my endlessly condescending questions, I’d accuse them of smarting off and load on more goads and more humiliations and more punishments till they danced to my tune thoroughly enough to satisfy me.”

Her captor said, “And?  You need reminding?”

“No, sir”, said the former cop.  “Often times with men, they’d not be willing to debase themselves like that, and so they’d get...they’d get…”

“Say it!” barked her captor.

“They’d get uppity.” the former cop said grimly.  “And so then I’d teach them a lesson.”

“By yourself?” her captor could be heard, asking almost gently.  “No, sir.", said the cop resignedly,  "Like the coward that I and most all cops are, I would always have back up.  Often several back ups.  It being so important that we get home safely no matter how many men we goaded.   No matter how many tiny situations we escalated into needing violent or deadly force.  So my buddies and I would taser or mace or beat the uppity civilian.”

“The uppity who?” her captor asked dangerously.

“I mean, the poor and the minorities, those who we knew had no connections or influence and so could not get us in trouble.  Wealthy whites, or those of color who still looked well off were generally safe.” the former cop amended.

“What word had you used?” her captor asked again.

The former cop could be seen to visibly shudder and Tami watching sympathized.  “‘Civilian’, sir.  I mistakenly said ‘civilian’, forgetting that I and my kind are not real soldiers with actual courage, but just civilian patrolmen who were abusing our delegated authority.”

"How many did you murder for being uppity?", her captor asked him.  "Three before you got me, sir. I was never indicted, because the system works with us against the little people that we were all supposed to protect."

“That’s right, boy.” said her captor.  “Glad we’re clear.  Glad you've learned your lessons so well.  Now you do 25 jumping jacks, and then sit back down.”  And turning to walk away from the now frantically exercising man said, “And have a nice day!”  The screen paused again.

15.  

“Wait...what do you have in store for me?  It’s more than just prison, isn’t it?” she asked.  “Yes,” he said.  “It is.  There will be a specific punishment for you.  I’ve arranged a coin operated slot.  If you can put $100 worth of pennies into it in time, then I’ll know its okay to give you a meal.  If you don’t, then no meal.”

She puzzled over that.  “I don’t understand…” she began, and found his legs now wrapped tightly around her while he was gripping her throat and shaking her head back and forth.

“Really?  Really?!” he said through clenched teeth right near her ear.  “Mitchell waited how long because of the bail you set for him, which you knew he had no hope of paying?”  Tami turned her head futilely left and right and said nothing.  “Answer me!” her captor growled, letting up on her throat a bit.

“I don’t know, I don’t know,” she gasped.  

“Long enough to die though, right?” he asked.

“Yes, yes, I’m sorry, y-yes!” she cried.

He let go of her throat.  He relaxed his grip on her in general.  He said, "Try not to be so stupid in the future.  You will participate in this, and you will deal with the consequences of this, and you will contemplate how your victim felt, or I will send you to the box till you comply.  Do you understand?” She nodded her head.  He added, "And there'll be five Canadian pennies extra each time, and you must NOT put those in, but give them to me separately.  That'll make sure you look at each individual penny, get it?"

“Yes”, said Tami, while privately resolving that suicide was starting to look good.  As if he sensed her thoughts, he said, “If you commit suicide, you may well fail, and if you live it will go hard on you.  But if you succeed, it will go harder on your family.”  He reached into his left pocket and got out an iPhone and held it out so as to video record both of them.  

Hitting record he mechanically said, “I’ve told Tami that if she kills herself that you will regret it. Maybe that’s a bluff, as we don’t harm innocents.  Or maybe if we looked hard enough we'd find you guilty of something!  Or maybe I’m just a psycho!  If you’re watching this, that means she didn’t give a crap about you!”

“Now,” he continued, putting the phone away, “How would you like me to play that to your niece, shortly after you kill yourself?  Maddie, right?  Short for Madison?”  Tami nodded mutely.  She knew he had her boxed in.  Tears silently rolled down her cheeks.  “None of that”, he said, while brushing them away for her, “Unless those tears are for the dearly departed Mitchell, which somehow I doubt.”

Tami tried to calm herself down, a task not made easier by the fact that she felt something stirring under her bottom.  Oh my dear God, she thought and prayed to a God she had never gave much real thought to, so it was finally happening!  Her tears were flowing more freely now, though she made a special effort to make no sound.  She tried to wiggle away, but his grip tightened again and he ground into her with what was unmistakably his now erect penis.  His mouth went right near her right ear and he said, "You know some guards in your system take care of those who take care of them, right?"

"No, I mean, yes, I mean, please, don't do this!", Tami sputtered.  

"I won't do anything you don't want me to do.", her captor answered.  "And I guarantee I won't be punished any more or less for it then any of those in your system.  Now, we've got thirty years together - you tell me how you'd like it to go?"

And as the horror of that sank in, as Tami knew that it was to be rape and torture and solitary and 'the box' and more rape and lousy food and no hope, all administered by a self-righteous hypocrite who reveled in acting like he was an angel dealing with an animal, and as she further realized just how thoroughly and completely this mirrored the system she had so willingly represented, and as she started to retch and moan and sob in terror and helplessness at her fate over the next thirty years....her captor whispered in her ear, "Me, I'm looking forward to fucking that sweet, tight virgin asshole of yours" just before he blew her head off from behind, so that while she died feeling that utter hopeless terror that she had generated in so many others, she at least received more mercy than she had ever gave to any of them.

And had she been alive to realize it, she might have marveled that while he excelled at making her scared of all those horrid things, that unlike her foul system, he had not actually gone through with having her raped and tortured for thirty years.  She died with her anal virginity intact, which was more than the tens of millions who went through her "justice system" could say.

Her captor gently got out from under her body.  He looked professionally about the small room, assessing the clean up that would be needed.  Idly, and almost guiltily, he knelt down and squeezed one of her breasts.  He petted her thighs, squeezing a bit.  Then he got up, grimaced at the sight of her non-existent face, and went to get his camera.  He took her clothes off, ran his hands over her breasts and thighs again, then took some pics of her still attractive body.  He adjusted himself in his pants, and looked speculatively at her a few seconds more.  He shook his head as if refusing a request of his own.

Then he got to work on the clean up, and in a few hours, it looked normal.  The body was in a fifty five gallon drum.  Later, he would load it into the van (that he had titled and registered in a homeless man's name and address) and take it to a hole already dug.  Digging holes without any body to put them in was pretty safe.  If caught, you could simply walk away, and if they searched the vehicle, there was nothing to find, and they'd be looking for a different guy.  And he was careful, and never got caught anyway.  When he did return to the burial site, he'd fill the barrel with Drano before sealing it.  He'd leave no prints.

Her hands and head - including her teeth, which might have dental records - would be crushed later, and scattered in a different location.

But that was for later, after tomorrow's sunset.  Because first off, tomorrow morning, would be a cleaning of the basement.  If they ever caught him with a future victim, they'd only have proof of that person there, never of the others.  The video he had played would be returned to the safety deposit box he had in another city, under another name.  Even nowadays, post 9/11, fake ID wasn't all that hard to get.  His "fake" ID was real enough - the ID he had simply bought off of a homeless addict who looked vaguely like him. 

Meanwhile, he pondered about the "jurors".  It amused him that they had thought it was all a YouTube reality show!  Tami's speech during the trial about how she was really being held hostage they took as her reality show lines, though he did think that it was possible that the woman juror was suspecting that maybe he was a psychotic nut.  Still, they enjoyed the "green room", which was just his bedroom filled with beer, hard liquor and a few grams of crack, which he let them use as they pleased, and take any leftover with them.  And they really did not know what town he was in, he had drove them from a town forty miles away.  Nor had they ever seen the outside of his house, or anything in it that could narrow things down.

He had never needed "others" before, this was a first for him.  The next day, after ten hours cleaning the basement, he speculated upon using others in the future, but was thinking that it was too much trouble.  He called a prostitute that he had known for years, and she was happy to have him come over.  When he was done with her, having done nothing more than masturbate while kissing her and pretending she was Tami, he went and got rid of the fifty five gallon drum.  It was late when he returned home.

Time for bed?  No, he was still keyed up.  He went to his second laptop which was logged into the neighbor's wifi, and went to a fake email account.  He looked through the files.  A Dean of Students who had ruined many a young man's life by getting them to sign false confessions of "rape" against women who were taught that any sex that had any alcohol at all involved, or was regretted later for any reason, was rape.  One young man, who had been as drunk that night as the woman who by all accounts voluntarily went home with him, had killed himself after that Dean's "justice".  

A public defender who had failed to "zealously" defend his client?  But which one, those were a dime a dozen!  A School Principal who had hushed up a bullying incident involving the son of the District Superintendent?  The boy her boss's son had harassed had died of an overdose of his mother's pills, in what that Principal was trying to insist must have been an accident.  

Or how about the Planned Parenthood "counselor" who had never once counseled adoption or marriage or anything clean or decent, just abortion, abortion and for variety, abortion?  Over the course of her 16 year career, no less than 4 underage girls had died in botched procedures, but a source said that she helped make sure that it was as if those girls were never there.  Disposing of the files meant no accountability.  The source having leaked copies to a pro-life agency he knew of meant there might be.

If he chose her.

But would it be better to get the doctor?  Or would that be misconstrued as a larger political statement?  Or should it be that file destroying counselor?  He was honest enough with himself to know that he preferred to mete out justice to women wrong doers.  For that reason he vowed that the next three would be guys.  Well, or maybe one more woman.  There was a particularly cute bank officer who had apparently foreclosed on a family in which the father then killed his wife and kids before shooting himself.  Could she benefit from his instruction?  He scratched his crotch idly, and suspected that she could.  

Yawning, he got up, stretched and went into the bedroom.  A hardbound copy of "The Weapon Shops of Isher" was on his night stand, under two remote controls.  He picked up the smaller remote and called up "The Shawshank Redemption".  

Hitting play on that, he only half watched while thinking his usual thoughts before dozing off.  About how the figures of authority around the world did not realize that you weren't supposed to initiate force just for having a state or church or cause or some alleged 'good reason' behind you.  How they couldn't be trusted with such unaccountable authority.  How no one could.

Well, no one but him.