A Court for the Coward

Chapter 1

This new thing, the Reaffirmed Punishment Act, was an enormous and previously unreachable achievement inside the infant nation of only twenty-three years. After years of states being redistricted, remapped, and renamed into generically numbered counties, the first major step in building strength in the Kingdom States of England had apparently been reached.

The RPA presented the Kingdom States with the opportunity to build not only some sort of order, but also eventually its real army, one of viability. After six years since its conception, the RPA finally found enough clout to be legalized and acted upon. Three counties in particular pushed the hardest to pass the Act—County 35, County 22, and County 29, once known roughly as Arizona, Illinois, and Nebraska respectively. Unfortunately for this one man, at just one year the junior of the age of the KSE, he fell right in the heart of County 29, in the relatively new fort city of Mortimer Outpost.

Ivan Tiel, amongst a handful of others, was to be an example; the newly appointed Lords and Earls of the KSE deemed the Reaffirmed Punishment Act necessary, but it had still yet to be accepted by the exhausted public. The RPA would pass, results would be displayed, and the building would then truly begin.

One of the most crucial aspects of the RPA, and perhaps one of the most controversial, was the expediency of justice. Ivan had only been incarcerated seven days in the Mortimer Jail when his trial began. Due to the severity of his accused crime, he wasn’t entitled to an attorney or any representation other than his own rebuttal, again a mark of the RPA.

Awaiting the accused entry into the courtroom, the four justices, all fat and aged white men appointed to preside over the trial, conversed about the coming event.

His own father? Justice Harper asked Justice Pallamendo.

Apparently.

Thank God for the RPA when we have to deal with scum like this, Justice Manuel said.

Justice Isaacson watched on from the left of the bench with a far less demeaning and forthright attitude. He, unlike his colleagues to his side, had issues with the Reaffirmed Punishment Act from the beginning. Since the Act passed only eight days prior, he rarely spent any of his free time away from the quite lengthy document, almost a book. He had read it and reread it several times, and each time he found horrible things inside. This trial would not be of his liking and he knew it. The three men beside him would certainly override any judgment of his own, thus making his presence there meaningless.

In the long corridor leading to the courtroom, a man with shackles around his ankles and a shock collar around his neck was being escorted by four guards armed with electric buckshot rifles. If the prisoner were to get out of line, those rifles would shoot a charge and paralyze him for twenty-four hours—this measure had been around long before the RPA, almost since the fall of the USA.

With a shaven head and baggy prisoner garb in black, Ivan felt the eyeball sting of the guards who escorted him and the bystanders watching him go by. He expected to be spat upon, but the public had not been convinced of his guilt. Also, shoddy communications of the decade limited the publicity of his trial.

Ivan had not seen Olivia since the day on the hill. He knew she would be in the courtroom. This, and the hope that some justice would see his innocence, kept him going throughout the awful week. The corridor seemed to get smaller the further down it he went, although it actually remained the same height and width.

The double doors came open in the Mortimer courtroom. Ivan wobbled inside. He instantly caught a glorious glimpse of his brimming daughter, who was certainly happy to see him also. He prayed deeply that he would be granted his innocence strictly for Olivia’s sake. Her mother, a woman he knew briefly but long enough to create the baby, had died in childbirth. Olivia had no family left. She would be an orphan, much like the former USA during those many decades between the collapse and the annex. He needed to win this for that wonderful three-year-old.

As he sat down at his designated chair, the eyes on the justices that looked back on him did so with sheer contempt and unfounded wrath. Looking at the table beside him, Ivan could see the same set of eyes contained inside the head of the Public’s Arbiter, a man designed to destroy any chance Ivan had of being freed.

Ivan Tiel, Justice Manuel formally said. The sub-King of the Kingdom States of England calls you as the guilty party in the act of Mortem, Tiel—homicide. What says your plea?

Ivan rose, turned around to look at his daughter, and turned back to the justice. Not guilty, he simply delivered.

The Public’s Arbiter. What says your accusation?

The Arbiter, a short, thin man with a shiny mustache running across his lip, stood from his chair and presented a gaunt grin. Guilty, he said.

The time is 13:30, Justice Manuel said. September the 4th, 2082, Mortimer Outpost Courthouse. Now, with the formals out of the way, let us begin this, the first case directly involving the use of the Reaffirmed Punishment Act.

For three hours, Ivan Tiel was reminded of the crime he had supposedly committed. The details of how he placed his father’s unconscious body in a moving lift car and set it adrift toward a mountain were relayed; so was the ‘fact’ that he had cut the head off his father’s body, as proven by the photos circulated through the justices.

Ivan sat in agony and disgust as he continued to be reprimanded and dehumanized for something he didn’t do, that did not occur whatsoever. He was there at the funeral. True, it was a closed casket, but he knew his father’s body was in there, head and all, as did the other fifty people attending. All fifty, apart from his daughter, were conveniently absent from the courtroom.

Once the pile of evidence had run its course, Ivan got a chance to defend himself. He stood from the chair and took a deep breath.

The evidence is constructed, not valid, he nervously argued.

No? Justice Pallamendo sarcastically queried. Who exactly constructed all of this then, Mr. Tiel? And why was the casket closed at the funeral? Were you not the person in charge of the funeral arrangements? Could you not have left the lid open?

Your Honors...

Why was your father’s head removed? Justice Harper hastily demanded. And if it wasn’t you who performed this foul travesty, who was it then? Huh?

That’s just it! Ivan said. He wasn’t murdered! The lift car killed him! I’m an instrument here!

Instrument of whom? Justice Isaacson asked, his tone more aware and level than that of his colleagues.

Maybe not by someone.

Then what? Manuel asked.

Some thing.

The few people in the courtroom gasped, knowing exactly what Ivan was ready to profess.

Tread lightly, Mr. Tiel, Harper ordered. Very lightly.

"This new government, the only one I’ve ever known, is looking for a way out, a way to counter the embarrassment introduced by a once-mighty country eating itself from the inside. The Reaffirmed Punishment Act is a curtain to hide the shame that is the Kingdom States of England, that was the United States of America. I am a sacrifice necessary, a material needed to form that curtain, and I see every bit of it."

Do you hate your country? Isaacson carefully asked.

In no means do I hate my country, Your Honor. I hate what it’s doing and where it’s going is all.

That statement, Manuel said, it carries a telling story of your nature, Ivan Tiel. In our former days, such an utterance would demand your execution. You and your treasonous poison of words can never speak like that about our dear land. You are effectively denouncing our dear King Vernon and sub-King Frederick.

Justice Pallamendo’s face grew a hot shade of red. It’s because of creatures like you that I’m happy the RPA passed. Goddamn happy. Myself and many of my fellow justices made the decision to leave Britain and come to these broken states just for the reason that we’re here today. Serving liberty has never been so clear-cut, Mr. Tiel.

Eighty years earlier, such a trial would take upwards of a month, and ending somewhere in the area of a year after the act was committed. Under the new RPA, the trial lasted three hours and ten minutes and the end was reached one week after the crime. Justice Manuel presided.

Ivan Tiel, your accused crime has been investigated and you have defended yourself. Justice Pallamendo, what says your verdict?

Guilty, the fat man condescendingly spewed.

Justice Harper?

Guilty, the fat man charged.

Justice Manuel hesitated, knowing Isaacson would not be so easily bought. And you, Justice Isaacson. What says your verdict?

Isaacson looked over at the three men to his left and horribly pondered in his head the entire ordeal. He had no doubt as to what Manuel’s verdict would be; three against one and no way around it. He looked down from the bench at Ivan, who appeared and sounded nothing like a guilty man. It nearly brought tears to the smart justice at the bench. He closed his eyes and softly mumbled, Guilty, to the general courtroom.

Justice Manuel grinned vividly and turned back to look at the convicted young man. So say the justices of the Kingdom States of England. Ivan Tiel, you are hereby an incarcerated person under the ward of sub-King Frederick I.

The moment quickly approached when Ivan would know how the rest of his life would be spent. Death was out, as told to him earlier. But what was next?

The three justices, with Isaacson rather on the outside of the huddle, conversed in bunched whispers. They broke away and faced Ivan.

It is a prime decision above us all, Justice Harper said. Ivan Tiel, you are to be a custodial property of the Reaffirmed Punishment Act. Under this new form, you are designated a ward of Mr. Lionel Castle, one of the major proponents in creating the Act. He has rights over your person now. How he incarcerates you is no longer under our control.

I hope it’s something quite nice, Pallamendo said.

Take him to seclusion until Mr. Castle collects him, Justice Manuel said to the bailiffs.

Wait! Isaacson stated, seeing the distress on the face of Ivan. The convicted deserves to speak aloud one last time. Mr. Tiel, the court is yours.

Ivan, remaining standing, bit his bottom lip and kept his head lowered slightly. Instead of addressing the justices, he turned to his young daughter. She wept, knowing by the tone of the big men’s voices that her father would be leaving forever.

My dear little Olivia, Ivan said. You know I would never harm you, nor your Granddad. We will be together again, little girl.

Not a chance, Justice Pallamendo rang out.

Olivia ran up and wrapped her tiny arms around Ivan. In the process, she slipped a small black sphere in his hands away from the eyes of the bailiffs. It was a scent sphere, containing her smell, her essence. For three years old, the girl was quite astute. Ivan promptly stuck it in his coat pocket.

Be a good girl, he whispered.

I love you, Daddy. I’ll be good.

Alright! Manuel loudly stated, disgusted by the pretender’s acting. Take him away, gentlemen.

The guards took his arms and hauled him out of the courtroom. Ivan maintained a caring face as he watched his daughter get smaller and smaller in the distance. He’d always imagine her growing bigger as the years went on. He was brave for her, but honestly terrified for his life and how it would be until he died.

The doors closed. The courtroom emptied. Olivia was taken by three women in proper late 21st Century business suits, with dark cummerbunds containing their wastes. Just like her father, Olivia’s future was completely uncertain.

****

Chapter 2

Ivan opened his eyes one day after the trial to find himself lying in a cot in a cell with black walls and a single fluorescent light dimly shining over his head. His hands were cuffed in front of him, just as his ankles remained shackled. His black prison garb had since been replaced by a pair of simple black shorts, nothing covering his top.

The room was cold, wherever it was. Ivan had forgotten everything since being tossed in a wheeled bus minutes after the trial. His current, just like his future, was a scary mystery.

A prison guard walked up to the two small holes in the glass. ‘Darby’ embraced his nametag. He began reaching in the hole to unlock the lock before stopping and just looking at Ivan with a smirk across his face. You’re just a regular tosser, aren’t ya?

Ivan knew by his high cockney accent that this man wasn’t a native Stater like he. What are you going to do with me? he feebly asked.

Why, whatever Mr. Castle has in store, of course. The plans that man has, my friend, you’re certainly a part. Not like you don’t fucking deserve it, though.

Behind the guard came two other people—Carla Keyes, the head doctor in the prison, and Warden Haffrey, a middle-aged man that must have been formed directly from a muscle machine. The stature on the man far surpassed that of any other man in the place.

Guard, the warden said, his Cockney tremolo apt for opera. Open the cell.

Darby did as he was told. He went in and picked Ivan up by the arms. The reinforced steel on the cuffs and shackles prevented any sort of retreat or fight. The doctor, a tall, thin lady with curly black hair, assisted in the escort.

Can you tell me where I am? Ivan asked the fetching lady doc.

Shhh. We need your compliance now, Mr. Tiel. Alright?

Ivan nodded.

As he painfully traversed through the very dark halls of this strange prison, Ivan could not help but notice the dozens of others in dark cells without as much as a drop of light. Each one, a man, was as young as or younger than he. Ivan just knew he was being led to his execution.

You see all these other men here, Warden Haffrey said. They are just as wicked as you, Mr. Tiel. None the less heinous were their crimes, thus the punishment is justified.

Death? Ivan asked.

Death? Too good for you, young man. The KSE banned such a penalty years ago, as you know. No. Mr. Castle has a specific punishment for you, along with these others.

It won’t be justified, Ivan added.

Shut your trap! Darby ordered.

Quiet, guard, the warden said. Ivan, the Reaffirmed Punishment Act allows for proper justice. Mr. Castle has pushed for this since he got into office. It’s realized.

They stopped before a door of very thick steel. The warden loosened the cuffs a little and looked at Ivan directly in the eyes.

Like it or not, Mr. Tiel, you will now be part of history. Think of yourself as lucky in that light. After today, you’ll need some light in your soul. But it’s your price, right? Killing will not be accepted in my new Kingdom States.

Two guards opened the heavy door, both greeting Ivan with horribly intimidating protective masks, though intimidation was not the intention. Doctor Keyes rubbed Ivan’s right hand as she gently, almost sadly said, Try not to fight it. With that phrase, Ivan was instantly enveloped in fear.

The two masked men, donning thick smocks of maroon, took him by the arms and dragged him in, Warden Haffrey following directly behind him. They cut the shorts from his body leaving him completely naked before placing him in an uncomfortable reclining chair of cold metal and sticking his arms and legs in roomy slots in the chair. A helmet-like gadget at the top of the chair restrained his head.

Warden, one of the men said, you cannot remain in the room for the first stage unless you desire to be a baby again.

Of course, the warden said. One thing, Mr. Tiel. Do refrain from blaming anyone but yourself. Punishment finds us all in some way. You have the privilege of showing the sub-King how punishment can be used to benefit his new kingdom.

The warden left. One of the men wearing a mask closed and barred the door behind the warden. He and the other man walked toward the machine with blinking yellow lights along the wall of the room. Ivan could see everything. He saw the guard push a lever down. He saw the other guard push two buttons. With that, a smell entered Ivan’s nose, one of unaccounted intensity, much like burning flesh. However, his flesh did not burn. A white mist lightly clouded the room.

After only a minute, the guards began looking around the room. The red light on the low ceiling came on. One of the masked men pulled up on the lever. They walked over to Ivan.

One of the men looked Ivan up and down, moving his penis and testicles side-to-side. He examined Ivan’s chest, face, and finally head.

One more time? one of the men asked, his voice badly muffled by the mask.

No. That took care of it all. No follicles anymore.

‘Follicles’ made things clearer for Ivan. The powerful gas had removed any hair from his body, never to have it grow back. That only added to the horrifying mystery.

One of the men pushed a button on the side of the chair, making it rise mostly upright. The other man wheeled over a machine with a very long, metallic tube arching from the top. But before he could reach Ivan with the monstrous machine, the other masked man quickly slapped a strange muzzle-like mechanism around the frightened subject’s mouth. He pushed a button to release a series of automatic piercings all throughout his mouth. Ivan squinted, as the pain couldn’t be overlooked. The man removed the muzzle. Ivan’s mouth had been sewn wide open with an intricate network of ultra-thin chrimadium steel cables, seemingly irreversibly.

Ivan tried to say something, but was only able to emit incoherent grunts along with an occasional scream. Blood had begun to fill his mouth. The masked man used a vacuum tube to eliminate the blood.

Give me your last statement, the masked man controlling the big machine told Ivan. But Ivan couldn’t even remotely form words in his state. Prepare to never truly speak again, Mr. Tiel. Okay?

The man slowly brought the machine forward and began sliding the metallic arm down his throat. Naturally, Ivan gagged. The arm reached down until it stopped at the larynx. The two men backed away. One raised a touch pad wired to the machine. He pushed three buttons in succession. After the third button was pressed, an immense and feverish pulse surfaced in Ivan’s throat. The pain with the muzzle was nothing compared to the pain of the metallic arm. His entire body jolted madly in restraints. The pulse lasted twenty seconds before the masked man pushed the button to turn it off.

Once it was over, the men walked back to Ivan and slowly removed the arm from his throat. Vomit chased the metallic arm. They were sickened, but only mildly.

Say something now, Mr. Tiel.

He moaned, but it was no longer his same, medium-pitched voice. That voice had been replaced by one deeper than any computer program could produce. It was loud, however, an effect the masked men hadn’t anticipated. They conversed over it.

It was supposed to quiet him, John. He’s just as loud as before.

We were told of a small chance of this. It’s fine. He still can’t talk. His voice is forever altered, and that was the bloody goal, it was.

As the masked men carried on in private, Ivan sat in the chair hearing the wickedly deep growl coming from his own mouth. Each sound made him upset even more, and each groan of anger forced him to hear the sound again. He felt cursed above all else to be in this position. How could he ever talk to Olivia again with this voice?

The two men finished their conversation and presented themselves back to Ivan.

You’re wondering why we haven’t put you under, aren’t you? It’s not part of the punishment. We need you awake so we can understand our progress in the procedure, Mr. Tiel. You are the first. Remember that.

Ivan tightly squeezed his eyes shut. Tears of pain streamed out. He knew by the tone of the men that this was only the beginning of whatever ‘procedure’ he was undergoing.

One of the masked men clicked a latch on Ivan’s chair. Suddenly, he was being wheeled out of the small room and placed in an elevator. Whether it went up or down, Ivan couldn’t tell. However, he knew it was quite some distance as told by the many minutes spent in the elevator. He didn’t believe the masked man completely. It was punishment to be left in such pain. Otherwise, they would at least sedate him somewhat.

The doors to the elevator dinged open. They opened upon a very sprawling room with a finely domed ceiling and a brilliant violet light circling fully around. The two masked men handed Ivan over to what seemed like twenty other masked men, each clad in the same maroon smocks and gloves and protective masks.

The men wheeled Ivan to an awkward object in the center of the large room—it was a square, unassuming, and eye-level platform. The men attached the back of Ivan’s chair to the platform. A small section of floor directly under his chair immediately began to rise, lifting him a small height from the floor.

Suddenly, two machines, one on each side of him, swung in his direction. They edged ever closer. The machine to his left swiftly produced a long needle from one of its mechanical arms. The sensors on the arm examined Ivan’s left leg for a moment before driving the needle deep inside. Again, Ivan deeply moaned in agony as he felt it reach his femur and puncture it. Shortly thereafter, the machine to the right followed suit. Once they were finished, each machine dropped down to the tibias and did the same. Meanwhile, he felt needles pop out of the back of the chair and into his spine, pelvis, neck, and finally every bone in each arm. Lastly, amongst all the other needles in his body, Ivan felt two needles enter his sides and puncture his ribs.

The ordeal lasted three excruciating minutes. The needles one-by-one left his body. He tried to remove the intense pain in his mind all in futility. It was too much. Ivan rapidly drifted off to sleep, the only defense he had left. None of the masked men in the room appeared to be effected by the haunting, inhuman bellows of Ivan before he went unconscious.

Ivan opened his watering eyes a short time later, the pain somewhat subsided. He noticed two very thin steel tubes entering both sides of his mouth. He could feel the tubes resting against his esophagus. A masked man came over to Ivan and began to operate a small panel on the table next to the chair. When he pushed a button on the panel, Ivan could feel an intense burn emitted from the tubes. They seemed to be cutting through the flesh inside his mouth. Indeed they were, but only minimally. After just a few seconds, the tubes had disappeared inside the skin of his mouth.

Two more men walked over and started to bring a large steel contraption down from the chains above. Ivan grew even more terrified. By now, however, he knew they were not going to kill him. But whatever it was, nothing good could come of it.

The contraption stopped suddenly. One of the masked men turned to his coworker. The lastic steel did well in its mouth, he said in a thick Scottish accent. That’s proof. It will go well for the rest.

And the pain? another man asked, this one with a perfect post-American accent.

Naturally it will be there, but short-lived. Remember, its bones are now chrimadium. The body is already getting used to foreign elements. Lastic steel is just as safe as chrimadium, see?

Of course.

The third masked man hit a switch on Ivan’s chair, sending him into temporary paralysis. He couldn’t move even his neck. The steel canopy was again slowly lowered. It reached his motionless body. Instantly, Ivan let out a ground-shaking howl that nearly broke the chains from the canopy.

The canopy reached his flesh. Once against the skin, the dull, rather dirty metal began to morph, almost bubble. The pain Ivan had felt with the tubes in his mouth was the same he felt all over the front part of his body, less his toes, genitals, and most of his face and head. The burn was so strong that Ivan’s heartbeat raced fast enough to near arresting status. A quick injection of bessigol prevented any damage to the heart. But the pain remained, and with force too.

Two mechanical arms picked Ivan up out of the chair by the steel on his arms and carefully turned him over. Another canopy of steel was introduced and did just the same thing, this time to his complete backside. Once his entire body was covered, the metal started to shrink and form to his body. The lastic metal had been constructed from hot gels containing faux cells, smart molecules that recognize living cells of all sorts. The result was the metal fusing with Ivan’s flesh permanently, instantly consuming it into its own element safely. The lastic steel had in fact become Ivan’s new flesh.

Pain now fully silenced Ivan rather than make him livid and vocal. His chair was pushed forward. As was to be expected, he couldn’t move a muscle. He managed to open his eyes long enough to see the new cover of his body. The steel was far from polished or gleaming of chrome. It contained many seemingly random slots and protruding disks throughout.

The same two mechanical arms that turned Ivan over to apply the lastic steel on his backside now lifted him by latches that attached to the slots in his shoulders. He felt it, although the pain wasn’t so intense. The arms carried him over to a busy stand of rods erected off to the side of the chair he had called home since the ordeal had started.

Ivan could see the countless men in masks simply standing around watching the procedure. An occasional bout of double vision came and went amidst his state. Then, from almost nowhere, a jointed rod slammed a very thick chunk of metal against one leg, followed by another and then another. After only a few seconds, both legs were awash in armor-like steel in the same dull fashion of the metal that replaced his flesh. More rods began gently placing pieces of steel free of rhythm all over his body, each noticeably heavy in weight.

By now, Ivan had involuntarily numbed himself to the agony he had felt the entire time. The rods stopped their actions. A single masked man walked up directly in front of Ivan.

Mr. Tiel, he said, his accent resembling the dead tongue of Old American. You see me now in the same form that you’ve seen everybody throughout your life. My skin is peach, my hair grey, my smock maroon. In a moment, such a vision will be a memory.

Ivan realized they were about to do something to his sight, whatever it could be. But that seemed minor in comparison to the rest of his situation.

The masked man was silent, allowing the noise of gears and clanging chains to enter Ivan’s ears. He couldn’t see it, but a large helmet was being lowered down onto his head. Ivan watched the form of the masked man before him get cut off slowly from top to bottom as the darkness of the helmet covered his head. Suddenly, when the clamping sound emerged alongside the sound of a tube losing or gaining air, Ivan could see the masked man once more. The man was correct. Ivan no longer saw things the same way. The masked man before him was a complete shade of blue. The eyes of the helmet contained semi-glowing blue lenses. In a strange development, he could see everything buried within the shadows of the room better than before, only in a blue tone.

The same masked man walked back up to Ivan and reached behind his head. He pushed something that clicked, giving a decent shock in the back of Ivan’s head. The man backed away, back to the area where all the others stood and watched in awe.

Ivan was stunned. Even as he was fully awake and feeling each part of the process, he still remained in the dark as to what these people had done to him. Furthermore, his entire body remained paralyzed. He saw the door, all in blue, open at the other end of the room. In walked Warden Haffrey, who instantly came in Ivan’s direction.

This seems very right, he casually stated. And all in just over two hours. Tremendous job, gentlemen. Tremendous! It was time to address the subject of this procedure. Ivan Tiel, I know what you’ve been through makes you feel tortured. Perhaps such a feeling is your reward. But as it stands, at this time and ever forward, you are Ivan Tiel no more.

Ivan had the notion to reach out and strike the man, if only he had the capability to move his extremities.

Do you still not know what you are? Shame. Process of elimination should have narrowed it down bloody well to a T by now. Gentlemen, can I get a mirror over here, preferably full length?

A masked man quickly rolled over a tall mirror in a beautiful wooden frame, its splendor intended