Dee’s Diner, early morning, was alive with the clatter of breakfast consumption. The early bird gang—a group of bald men in denim and women in polyester, their hair light pastel shades of pink and lavender—sat around a table at the center of the restaurant, arguing over the finer points of the encroaching election:

Old Man 1: I don’t care how much carpet she munches, as long as she ain’t a Lib.

Woman with Pink Hair: I told Janice that I’m just afraid the pumpkins are going to freeze.

Old Man 2: So you want another AI crawling up your ass? Third Eye is nothing to fuck around with.

Woman with Lavender Hair: Well, my pie comes in a can. I dare you to tell the difference. Ya’ll know it’s all in the crust.

Old Man 2: Someone needs to get shit under control. Old man Vance found them camping on his back eighty…

Near the far wall, a long table held a team of young, boisterous men chowing down their Lumberjack Stacks, occasionally laughing or reaching across to offer a high five.

Alan felt old. A headache had taken up residency in his skull—and it had brought a gong and friends for background orchestra. It didn’t help that Mickey Verona was whistling a happy tune as he highlighted sections of a document on his old laptop, which, like his glasses, was held together by electrical tape.

Alan massaged his temples.

Mickey stopped his song and work long enough to impale two triangles of his pancake, logged with buttery maple syrup, and plunge them into the sunny center of an egg. The chubby man wiped a dribble from his chin and regarded Alan.

“It’s going to jeopardize your professional testimony,” said the lawyer, sipping his coffee, dull morning light glinting off his balding head.

Clack! Alan’s mug hit the table. He nearly stood. “Being ruled insane will destroy his life. The state will have sole custody over him. He’ll be institutionalized until he’s eighteen.”

Mickey raised his mug and, like a schoolteacher, looked skeptically over his glasses. “Being found guilty and listed on the sex offender registry will destroy his life,” he said. “He’ll never be able to go within a thousand feet of a park, a school, a movie theater, or a shopping mall. He’ll have to publicly list his address. He’ll have a special driver’s license with ‘predator’ written all over it. He’ll always be looking over his shoulder, waiting for the next internet vigilante to track him down and livestream the harassment. They’re doing it in the metaverse these days—have you heard? That shit happens, Doc. You know what they did to that guy out in California.” He shoved more pancake into his mouth and chewed while watching Alan.

Alan recalled the famous case from several years ago when a teacher in California had been convicted of having carnal relations with his underage pupil. The man had avoided a lengthy jail sentence due to a technicality, but that didn’t stop a group of pedophile hunters with big-name sponsorships from tracking him down. Pretending to be a pest control company to get inside his home, they tied him to a chair and held a virtual trial, allowing their viewers to vote. Predictably, the man was found guilty. For punishment, they put a tire over his neck, filled it with gasoline, and struck a match. To that day, it remained one of the most-watched internet events in history, and it had inspired hundreds of copycat streamers.

“Warmer upper, boys?” The buxom blonde waitress swooped in with a steaming carafe of dark coffee.

Mickey beamed. “Oh, you bet, Foxy. This coffee is mighty fine, and the hot cakes today, perfecto!” He kissed his fingertips.

Alan picked up the Valley News and held it in front of his face to hide his eye roll.

“And some for you, Dr. Smith? You sure you don’t want more than an English muffin?”

“I’m good, thank you.” He turned to the last page: horoscopes and chess moves, a crossword puzzle, and a comic. There’d been no mention of Francis and the events at the high school.

“Watcha gonna go as?” asked Foxy.

“I was thinking a vampire or a leprechaun,” said Mickey.

“I’m feeling a dark Alice in Wonderland vibe. How about the Mad Hatter as Dracula? Oh crap! I forgot table five’s hash browns!”

Alan found the courage to lower the newspaper. The lawyer’s eyes were locked on the shapely curves of the departing waitress.

“I asked her to the Halloween gala. She said yes!”

“Congratulations. I’m beside myself.”

“Come on, Doc, you ought to go. There’ll be some fine things there. I know for a fact that little red from the sheriff’s office is going. Fire down below, know what I mean? Yep, I think we should move to dismiss this afternoon. It’s not there. The evidence is just not there to go to trial. Any luck with this White Owl character?”

“I wouldn’t trust that crazy hag to be the guardian of a turnip, let alone a human child. She was nonplussed when I told her about Francis.”

“Shit. Well, there might be a workaround. I do recall a case where they got the lunch lady to testify…”

The adventure in White Owl’s cave had proven unproductive, and he highly suspected the tea she’d given him had been a sedative. He remembered everything vividly up to that point. Then there had been a story, Francis’s bedroom, and his flight down the mountain as though he were being carried by an indistinct and winged creature, pursued by murky forms through the trees, across the canal, to his car, where the self-drive, the angel of the future, had whisked him home.

The next thing he remembered was jerking wide awake at 4 AM in his own bed, still in his clothes, a dry, bitter taste in his mouth. He would have sworn it was all a dream, but when he went to make coffee—there on his kitchen table was a faded, old, blue guitar.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

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The courtroom seemed better suited for a business conference. The room was large and unassuming. A double-wide conference table with an oval hole in the center accommodated microphones, monitors, cameras, and power strips.

The midday gray of October’s final day filtered through the windows. They’d come thirty minutes before the scheduled time at the advice of Mickey, quoting his father, “Things happen early at courthouses.”

“Just so you know.” Mickey rubbed the back of his thick neck. “Judge Myers, the prosecutor Janet Bell, and I have what you might call a history.”

“What do you mean, ‘history?’” Alan asked.

“A procedural argument, really—details aren’t important. Let’s just say I’m not on anyone’s Christmas card list. Hey, you only live once, right?” He held up a chunky fist to bump. Behind him, a man stood in the doorway.

“Excuse me, gentlemen,” said the man, young and blond and fit beneath his suit jacket. He walked right up to Alan, getting in his face with his sleek AR gear. “Alan Smith, doctor of psychology.”

“This is a legal proceeding. And you are?” asked Mickey in a licit tone.

“Timothy Boothe, Senator John Taylor’s personal security. I need to scan you. It’s protocol.” He pulled aside the lapel of his jacket and produced a pen device. With a flick of his wrist, he extended it into a long wand and ran it up and down Alan’s front and back. It beeped twice at his phone.

Boothe repeated the procedure on Mickey, who puffed up his chest and said, “You want to do that to yourself?”

The young man’s healthy, enigmatic smile did not change as he retracted the wand with a snap and slipped it back into his pocket. He then opened the side of his jacket to reveal the hefty grip of a holstered weapon.

“Are we done, or you going to probe my ass like a gentleman?” said Mickey.

“My apologies, Mr. Verona.”

“Good job, you can use the internet.”

“Senator Taylor would like a quick word before everything gets complicated,” said Boothe.

“I’d say it’s already complicated.” Mickey slammed his briefcase on the table.

“All clear,” Boothe spoke to a mic hidden somewhere in his glasses.

The door opened, and a figure that had dominated the news screens during the election cycle—a tall, chiseled mountain of a man— strode in, followed by an attractive young woman, skin dark as chestnut, long platinum blonde hair done up in a tight bun, save for braids painted silver and gold in the current fashion. She wore sophisticated glasses and a skirt that stretched around her ass and across her crotch. Her blazer was open, and the two moons of her breasts were trying to rise out of her dress shirt.

“Gentlemen, I’d like to come to an out-of-court arrangement,” said Taylor.

His deep voice filled the room, making Alan’s skin tingle. Like Mickey, he had to look up into the man’s face, which was clean-shaven with dark, striking features, perfect teeth, a buzz of salt-and-pepper across his temple, and the famous white scar beneath his right eye—a torture wound from his days as a POW. For the last year, the war story had been plastered all over the news and rung dry of any political juice it contained.

“How about this?” Mickey squared his stance to match that of the powerful man. “You drop all charges against my client. You don’t have the evidence.”

“There’s CCTV footage,” said Taylor.

“Of a hug,” retorted Mickey. “And then the camera cuts out because you cut funding on education.”

“He broke the ‘No Touch’ law. And he’s male and Native, and our two governments are on the rocks at the moment.”

“So you’re going to racialize this?”

Taylor flashed a wide smile. “I have the Chief on speed dial if you’d like to talk to her. The tribe is one of my biggest clients in Montana. What with refugees and Gretas swarming in like a plague of locusts, devouring up precious resources, I don’t think she wants another scandal on her plate.”

“Is that a threat?” said Mickey. “I can bring it up to the judge.”

“No, no, not a threat. I don’t make threats, but I’ll tell you what I will do if you proceed.” He gestured with a hand larger than Paul Murphy’s to his companion. “This is Ms. Sule.”

The woman held out her hand, and Mickey shook it. “Sandra Sule. Call me Sandy. I’m the senator’s personal legal adviser. I’ll be advising Prosecutor Bell throughout the trial.”

“Of course you will,” said Mickey. “I read your profile in Time. You probably make more in a week than she makes in a year.”

Sandy smiled; her candy-apple-red lipstick gave her teeth a hungry glimmer. “Mickey, if you don’t mind, I like to be on a first name basis with council.”

“You can call me anything you like,” he said.

She bit her bottom lip and fingered the fringe of her shirt against the smooth skin of her breast. “As you know, Senator Taylor is engaged in high-level political affairs. He doesn’t want the media to exploit his daughter’s suffering, which they will do.”

“Unless you own the media,” said Mickey. “Funny enough, there wasn’t a word in the papers this morning.”

“We’re hoping there won’t be much to say about this issue,” said Sandy.

“Our justice system is what makes us a civilized nation. Besides, justice is blind, right?” When she didn’t answer, Mickey added confidently, “I believe Francis Builds A Fire will be found innocent in any court of law, based on the evidence.”

Sandy perched her shapely rear on the conference table and stared at the door where the security guard stood with his arms crossed, observing all, probably recording everything on his glasses.

“If you take this to court, we will bury you,” she said. “We will throw the book at the boy. We will have him labeled a sex offender and chemically castrated, or surgically, whichever he prefers. I’ll make sure he’s on the list for all the new pervert treatments. I’ll make sure he’s famous. We will launch a billboard campaign. We’ll pin his location on the map as a level 3 predator, so people will be able to find him in real time. Even if we lose, which we won’t, but even if we do, that boy’s life will be over.”

“That’s depraved,” Alan cut in. He couldn’t help himself. She reminded him of Becky Madison.

“That’s the law,” said Sandy.

“Your offer?” Mickey asked.

She crossed her legs, leaning back on her arms. She was looking at Tim Boothe. He was looking at her. John Taylor had somehow receded and seemed like a spectator on a stage, or a game master admiring his arena.

“Francis pleads guilty to assault.”

“Not sexual,” Mickey said quickly.

“Not sexual.”

“What’s the hook?”

“Cross Heirs, Pastor Tony’s reformatory program for troubled youth. Your client agrees to enroll until his eighteenth birthday.”

“Will I have access? Will his mental health professional and temporary guardian, Dr. Smith, be able to visit whenever he wants?”

“As an organization of faith—”

“That’s what I thought, Sandy,” said Mickey.

“He’ll receive an education. His record will be expunged.” She stood and turned to Alan. “If you give a damn about this kid, you’ll take this deal.”

“Give us a moment,” said Mickey.

“Of course.”

Mickey pulled him to the door, which Tim Boothe held open for them.

There was a nip and bite to the outside air. Dark clouds above threatened to drop snow. He needed a heavier jacket. “What the fuck is going on in there?” Alan asked.

“Listen. I think we should take that deal. She’s not lying. If we go to court, regardless of the outcome, Francis’s life is going to be forever altered, and not in a good way. Hell, I wouldn’t give him a year before the vigilante streamers start to track him down.”

And then Francis would be gone forever, and everyone could get back on with their lives.

“No, I want to see the judge. He’s innocent. You know it. I know it.”

“With all due respect, Doc, this isn’t about you.”

“Francis has a right.”

“Okay, alright.” Mickey threw up his arms. “We’ll talk to Francis.”

He followed as Mickey stomped back to the courtroom. Inside, the lights had been turned on, and a warm breeze blew out of a vent. Taylor and Sandy had moved to the far end of the table, conferencing in front of a large laptop. A plump woman in a dress that made her look like a blueberry arranged items at the head of the table.

“Hey, John,” hollered Mickey upon entry, “why the fuck you want that boy so bad?”

Taylor jerked to his feet, but Sandy had a hand on his arm. He looked at her, whispered something, and she returned a whisper in his ear. He sat, his face flushed red.

“Have you considered our offer?” asked Sandy.

“We’re going to confer with our client. We’ll need two weeks.”

“You have one.”

“Fine.” Mickey sat.

Sandy smiled.

Taylor glared.