Jack knew he needed to find somewhere to lay low for a few hours. He looked down the street. Pond Scum Bar. That would be a safe place. He jogged down the dark street to the ill-lit building, ran through the door, and stopped as soon as he entered.
“Now Jack,” Judge Johnson looked seriously towards Jack’s smiling face, his jolly tone replaced by a gruff, distained voice. “I am certain that you are aware of the charges against you.” As the judge spoke he held up a file folder, bursting from the papers stuffed within it. The jury stared at the overstuffed file folder, filled with the numerous charges against Jack. “And these, Doctor Savage, are just the ones we have indisputable evidence to support”
There were only seven other patrons in the bar, but with all fourteen eyes staring at him, Jack felt a great discomfort. He quickly realized why he was the object of interest in this bar. The others were fixated by his appearance. A grown man, panting, having just ran out from the street, blood dripping on the floor from the scratches and bullet wounds around his chest and shoulders. Realizing that there was no line Jack could use to cover up his obvious wounds, Jack recognized two potential courses of action. One was to casually walk out of the bar, right into the police filled streets. Realising there were probably attack dogs out there too, Jack shuddered, the bite marks on his leg were still healing from a week prior. Option two then.
Jack straitened himself up and walked straight to the bar. He took a seat on the second furthest stool from the entrance, far enough that he would be ignored, but not so far as to draw attention to his hiding in the back. “I’ll take two of the hardest thing you got!” he yelled at the hairy looking man behind the bar. He was short, wearing a beer stained apron. He was a little out of shape, but his hairy arms still looked powerful. Even thought he was bald, he had a large black beard hanging off his chin. Cleaning a cup, he took a few steps towards Jack, the light showing the discolourations on his clothing.
“Now mister, you walk into my bar, frightening all these fine folks by dripping blood all over my floor. Locusts are running around outside with doggies, and you got quite a few wounds. Now I don’t plan on giving you a damn thing till you tell me what your story is.”
“Dr. Savage, if you would be so kind as to answer a few questions for us.” A slender man stood up, papers in his hands. He was the legal representative of the Maximum Corporation. Although trials such as Jack’s were usually quick and simple, Jack was a threat to the world’s government. This trial was less to decide if Jack was guilty, that had all been decided when he was apprehended. This trial was an example. To show off Jack, his plans, the resistance, and then show how slow a death such a man could be given.
The slender man in front of Jack was the formality man. The government wanted to hold Jack up as the enemy, and then give him a torturous death. The torture they had chosen was a brain-slice. A procedure that, while quite painful, would also extract all the key information running around in Jack’s head. Dates, times, pass codes, names, schematic would all be in the government’s hands.
While the government would normally have preformed a brain-slice behind closed doors, their wish was to make Jack’s death public. Hold him up as an example to anyone else willing to perform “mass atrocities against state and society” and to do that they needed to play fair. Build up Jack on his own televised trial as the bad guy so that when Jack was sent off for his punishment, the people would still see the government as powerful but fair.
“I said, Doctor Savage, are you willing to answer a few questions for us?”
Jack slowly turned to the bartender. “Ivan, you know full well how I got these wounds. Now stop screwing around and get me my drinks.”
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