Normally speaking, I would have had the day off on Sunday after getting zapped
by the lab ray. But not this one. Things were moving too fast, and the situation
was still unresolved. I was almost at the end of my part in it, though. There
remained one last crucial point before I could only sit back and hope it all
worked out.
Sabre-X had contacted the First Councilor of Terror Mountain, and told him
that we needed to have an emergency briefing today. They knew, of course, that
we had captured the Lupe who had been causing the avalanches the previous morning,
and that Sabre-X had interrogated him. Since the next day would be the day when
the official court pleadings would be entered, they knew the value of a heads-up
before anything happened and they had all promised to be there. Well... almost
all.
Kyruggi had made it very clear to me that I was not going to back down on my
earlier promise to give an account for my actions, and as such, Sabre-X went
to his meeting with me as his helper. I entered the council chamber behind him,
noting the eleven Bruces there, talking to each other in low tones. They didn't
notice me, which I didn't mind- much.
The talking died as they saw Sabre-X stride in, and First Councilor Tramin
called the meeting to order. They didn't bother wasting time with the minutes.
In fact, there was no secretary present at all. Although we were in official
chambers, this meeting would not show on any official records, so we could feel
free to give the honest situation. Considering what the situation was, that
was all to the good.
"Gentlemen, Ladies, Sabre-X has very important information for us regarding
the avalanches. As I'm sure you all know by now, our fears of a rather inconclusive
and drawn-out investigation have been proven false, but have been replaced by
the more shocking fact that the disasters were deliberately set acts of sabotage,
and not normal acts of nature. I am like you, though, in that I don't know any
of the details. Sabre-X, would you please tell us the exact situation that we
face?"
"Right," Sabre-X responded rather shortly. "The situation is simple. We did
catch the Lupe doing the sabotage, we have interrogated him, and he has given
us testimony leading towards the pet, or pets, who hired him." He waited until
the buzz of speculation died down. "No, he was not acting alone, I'm sorry to
say. He was financed and set up by one of you. Please! I do not mean that personally,
but only in a general sense." The near shouting that had broken out died down,
but the air remained tense. "Some of you have probably noticed that the sole
Blumaroo on the council is not here today."
"Yes, we have all been talking about that," one lady councilor remarked. "He
caused us all of this trouble by pressing publicly for action of some kind,
then he's not around to see the results."
Sabre-X nodded. "With very good reason. He caused you the trouble in more ways
than one. He was the one who decided to cause the avalanches, who masterminded
the process, and who financed it."
I winced at the roar that came from everyone at the table. It was a good thing
Bruces didn't have stronger builds, I thought, or the council table would have
disintegrated from the blows of fists beating on it about then. Sabre-X simply
waited with a statue-like stillness while they spent themselves and began a
more coherent talk.
"Tramin!" one of the councilors called. "I demand that you, as head of this
council, immediately order the arrest of Bloriarity on charges of sedition,
attempted murder, and wanton acts of public disobedience!"
"No, wait!" BelindaU, head of the educational affairs cried. "First we must
remove the taint by formally ousting him from the council! That's in the constitution,
and we must do that before anything else!"
"All academic if we don't know where he's at!" thundered another councilor.
"We can make speeches all day long, but if he's fled the country, we can't do
a thing to him! I say call out the police with an all points bulletin to hold
him immediately!"
Tramin gaveled as loudly and for as long as he could to get everyone quieted
down . Finally the talking stopped, not because they didn't have anything more
to say, but because everyone was waiting to hear what orders he was going to
give.
He never had a chance to give those orders. Sabre-X smoothly resumed talking.
"I commend you for your public spirit, ladies and gentlemen, and your ideas
all have merit, not to mention justifiable urgency. But before you do something
you'll regret later, you need to remember that you have a large part of your
population on the verge of open rioting, if not downright revolt. You are sitting
on a powder keg right now, and a couple of minutes of consideration could make
all the difference between peace and war."
"It could also mean the difference between Bloriarity facing justice, and him
getting away!" said the councilor who had called for the police to capture Bloriarity.
I recognised him as Turnkey12, the NeoPet who owned the chemical factory.
"Ah, well, there I'm afraid I have some bad news," Sabre-X replied. "Councilors,
may I introduce my assistant, MonoKeras."
I stood up, and hissed to Sabre-X in an undertone, "some prep you gave, they're
about ready to eat me."
"Bon Apetit," he murmured back with a straight face and subtly retreated to
leave me to fulfill my side of this bargain.
I gulped as they all stared at me. I could see the contempt in their eyes.
No one takes a male Faerie Cybunny seriously. Trust me, I know! I was entering
this situation with two strikes against me.
"Councilors, I have been involved in this investigation from the start, and
I am intimately aware of the legal case that we are facing. That means I know
that you stand a very poor chance of convicting Bloriarity in a court of law."
"That doesn't answer my question!" Turnkey12 declared. "I want to know where
he is!"
"Anywhere except Terror Mountain, I should think. Maybe not even in Neopia,
if he can get away with it," I replied with a defensively bland air.
"Hold it!" BelindaU said, forestalling another blast from Turnkey12. "First,
you say we can't convict him, then you declare he has fled. It doesn't fit...
MonoKeras? If he can't be prosecuted, why would he flee?"
"Because I confronted him yesterday," I replied. "I realised he would know
soon what the score was, and I also realised that there was no way you could
avoid committing political suicide by trying to prosecute him. Magical evidence
is not permissible in a Neopian court of law, but that was the crucial link
in proving that he financed the whole thing. Without that, we can only make
a reasonably good circumstantial case."
BelindaU tapped the table with staged impatience as I paused for breath. "Now
you are not answering my question," she replied. "Only justifying your own actions
in apparently aiding and abetting this criminal's escape. But why should he
flee?"
I took a deep breath. "Because, when he knew no Neopian court of law could
do anything to him, I scared him with the Faerie Queen." Baffled looks went
around the table until I continued. "He had his agent obtain explosives from
the fire faeries. Using that explosive to provoke possible civil war, or at
least open riots, is a violation of the agreement between Neopia and the Faerie
Kingdom. He scoffed at that too, until I reminded him that the Faerie Queen
is a law unto herself. If she thinks she might be held liable for an incident
which he provoked, she is perfectly capable of either ending his existence,
or, more likely, making it so miserable that he would long for it to end. Wouldn't
you flee if you knew the anger of the Faerie Queen was about to be directed
your way?" There were numbed nods around the table.
"So, MonoKeras, you take the law into your own hands--"
"No, I didn't," I replied. "I made no prosecution at all."
"You deliberately manipulate affairs by allowing this unspeakable villain to
escape, and then you stand here and tell us about it. You are either a fool,
or you are very confident in your ability to justify yourself."
I steadied my gaze upon BelindaU. She'd neatly taken over the interrogation-
there was no other word for it- and if I didn't convince her, I might as well
get ready to get acquainted with my new Lupe cell mate. "Councilor," I said
softly, "why are you angry at what Bloriarity did?"
She blinked. "I'm angry because he committed sedition, had atrocities committed,
and deliberately used them to foment political unrest and distrust!"
"Good. Now, to defeat him, shouldn't your first priority be to overcome that
political unrest? Shouldn't it be to satisfy your people that you are acting
in their interests?"
"And what better way than to show vigorous action in the capture of the criminal
responsible?" she retorted.
"Oh, you already have the criminal responsible--our Lupe friend, k9evil1 as
he is called."
She waved a hand dismissively. "A simple pawn. Useless unless we have the
mastermind behind it all."
"No, he's going to be incredibly useful because he is all you can afford to
implicate. I talked with Bloriarity, remember, and he threw in my face the very
fact that you seem intent on ignoring. You can't prosecute him without threatening
to bring your own government down. Think about it. You, a government of Bruces,
are faced with angry Blumaroos. Your response? To find as a scapegoat for your
own political atrocities the one Blumaroo who has stood up for them all of this
time."
"Nonsense!" thundered Turnkey12, "no reasonable pet will consider such an obviously
self-serving story told to cover guilt!"
"Of course not," I retorted. "But most reasonable pets will be Bruces, and
most Unreasonable ones will be Blumaroos! You'll be driving in the wedge between
your people that Bloriarity set for you! And don't give me that line about pets
believing the truth when they see the evidence. You're all politicians, and
you know very well that pets believe what they want to, no matter how ridiculous
it seems. And, whether you've done it yourself or not, you know very well that
playing on those prejudices is what leads to political support! Bloriarity was
in a perfect position. Either you accepted him as saviour in helping force you
into finding the Lupe, or else you turned him into a martyr to cover your own
illegal deeds. Never mind that there were none, it would make sense to the ones
you most need to convince otherwise!"
A few of the councilors shifted their eyes away from me, and I could tell that
I had scored some points. Even BelindaU was studying me with more thought than
rage. "So, what would you have us do?" she asked, with that menacing undertone
still present.
"Your first priority is to bring your people together," I replied, "and to
do that, you've got to convince them that you care about their interests. That
means Blumaroos, Blumaroos, Blumaroos It means you prosecute that Lupe as quickly
and as publicly as possible, and that you hold him up as the sole villain in
the scheme. It also means that you outwardly divert speculation away from who
his backer was, by saying it's all over and we need to move on. But, no, you
don't let Bloriarity get away with it, you let leaks occur so that OTHER pets
are asking the questions that need asking, and are finding out for themselves
what the truth is! They may not take it from you, but let someone else that
they DO trust come to that conclusion, and they're more likely to listen."
The silence in the room was nearly absolute. I could see the political calculations
going on behind everyone's eyes. At last, the First Councilor finally got his
chance to speak up. "So, would you have any other suggestions as to what to
do?"
Even though it was asked with a dry, half-barbed manner, I treated it seriously.
After all, none of them were about to turn on a Neopoint, admit that they had
me wrong, and openly began fawning on me. "Actually, yes. You've got the perfect
opportunity to be out there publicly helping the Blumaroos by passing all sorts
of emergency aid to help them rebuild AND perfect opportunities to make personal
contacts by going out there and helping do some of the building yourself."
BelindaU gave me a wintry smile. "You forgot to add that those occasions would
be perfect campaign fodder for all of us, showing all Neopians that we care."
I nodded to her respectfully. "You are correct, madam, and I knew there would
be no need for me to say it to this intelligent group of pets."
Her only response was a short laugh. "Mr. Chairman, I move that Sabre-X back
there give us hard copies of the findings from his investigations, and that
the meeting then be adjourned without further discussion."
"I second it," another councilor chimed in.
"What? Are we just letting him go?" Turnkey12 inquired. I could hear
the disgust dripping off that word, 'him', and knew he didn't like my faerie
colouring any better than I did. Oh well. We were both just going to have to
live with it.
Tramin ignored the question. "Motion has been made and seconded. I call for
a voice vote. All ayes?" A rather ragged chorus answered him. "Nays?"... dead
silence. "Motion passed. Sabre-X, give us your written information, and then
you two are free to leave." He cast a significant look at me as he said that
last phrase.
Neither of us argued. We quickly took the not too subtle hint to get lost.
Outside of the council chamber, I breathed a vast sigh of relief. Sabre-X chuckled.
"Kyruggi said you'd pay for that one," he remarked.
"I know. I was just hoping it wouldn't be that rough. But it looks like I managed
to overawe them, even if I am in the form of a Faerie Cybunny instead of my
normal gold Uni self."
Sabre-X laughed again and lost no hesitation in pricking my balloon. "You don't
get away with it that easily," he said. "I was there and I saw you wilting in
front of them when they were mad at you. The reason you convinced them is because
they saw you pleading for your life, not because you scared them into anything.
Hard to turn down a faerie anything with those big blue eyes begging for understanding."
I tried hitting him on the shoulder, but I might as well have hit the wall
instead for all the good it did. "Oh, you!" I spat. "Very well, have it your
way. But Kyruggi was right."
"Oh? About what?"
I snorted again. "As if you didn't know. I am officially sick of politics,
that's what she was right about."
To be continued... | 
