Gryman had returned to his office after another media attack out in the common area. Until he left, he would make it a point to stay within the restricted areas and away from the reporters trying to pick up any useless information. Once in the protected surroundings of the office he maintained in part of Parren’s administrative office, he could think about the business at hand. The trial was playing on the viewer, and his previous annoyances began to fade away as he took an interest in what was unfolding with Charles’s trial. He had done what he could to put Charles and his lawyer at a disadvantage. He had talked to all three Judges and investigated the lawyer’s background. A quick background check had given him enough to threaten the lawyer with damaging personal information (there was always a scorned woman in the background). There was a knock on the door, and Morgan came in.
“Are you watching?” Morgan asked when he came in.
Morgan sat down next to Gryman. Gryman did not notice him, until he smelled curry, and realized he had missed lunch, whereas the portly Morgan had not. “The judge on the right is an idiot.”
“Friend of yours?” Morgan asked
Gryman did not pick up the joke, but commented on the man anyway. “His name is Pendrig, and I’ve had the...pleasure...of working with him in the past. I tried to get him removed from this case, but they stuck him on this anyway.” Gryman did not add that he had done a check of Pendrig and was not able to find much other than poor grades in law school. Over the past few decades, Gryman had built up a database of thousands of people he dealt with. The database contained professional as well as personal information he could pull up if he needed to. There were numerous channels he used to gather this information, and he had a habit of switching this around to lessen the number of people who knew what he was doing. Gryman looked at Morgan, the publicist that Parren had hired. He wondered what Parren would think of Morgan’s sexual dalliances.
“Is he throwing the case to the defendant?” Morgan asked.
Gryman listened some more before answering. “There are rights laws that can be interpreted in numerous ways. What he is doing is taking a very direct interpretation. The other two are largely quiet on the matter, but Pendrig thinks he is the center of the show. He’s playing to the viewing public.” Gryman could tell where this was going to end up, since many of these cases relied on previous cases for guidance. Rare is the judge who was bold enough to break new ground and jeopardize a career.
Charles was now standing on the chair yelling at the screens. “What the hell is he doing now?” Morgan said. “They are like that. Out of control most of the time. Does he really think this helps him?”
The sound was turned down, but Gryman could make out what Charles was saying. Unfortunately, the answer to Morgan’s question was that it did help him. “He’s an uncouth lout, even for a Bent. But we can’t underestimate him. He’s actually smarter than you think.” He turned the sound up slightly.
“‘This is a setup. She was put down there. Now why the bleep do you think she would be? The valve was messed up on purpose, and she was left there. Look at the timing. I know how fast that bleep works. bleep, bleep, bleep it!’“ Gryman turned the sound down again.
“My god,” Morgan said, apparently understanding the implications.
“Exactly,” Gryman said. Gryman knew everything Charles was saying was true. He did not know who actually carried out the murder, but he knew the timing Charles was talking about was accurate. For all he knew, Charles did it, but there was no proof. Gryman tried to think over his next moves, assuming Charles would be locked away for only a limited time. Morgan would not know what he had done or what he was planning to do, so he would wait for him to leave before making any arrangements.
As they watched, Gryman began to imagine he would need to make sure the incarceration was as disruptive as possible. He guessed that Charles would be charged as an accessory to the crime and maybe get two years. That was plenty of time to reeducate him, but he had to make sure he was hidden away and treated as quickly as possible. The reeducation techniques were thorough and well proven out. At the extreme, a recipient retained only a smattering of what actually happened in their lives, and they struggled to hold those pieces together in any coherent form. It took time and a skilled practitioner to make it work, however.
“Morgan, I’m afraid I have some pressing issues. Do you mind if we take this up later?” He turned off the broadcast. Though he was intensely interested, he knew what the outcome was going to be.
Morgan stood up. “Of course. I’m sure I’ll be getting a call at any moment when this wraps up.” He left the office.
As soon as the door closed, Gryman began going through his records. There were specialists to contact and arrangements to be made. Once there was a time when people could be physically punished in prisons, beaten, starved, whatever. Gryman wished that were still possible by the law. However, with the softness of so many leaders, new, less painful techniques were developed. Still, with the superior human ingenuity of Straights, torture had become sterilized and law-abiding to the point where it no longer made people wince. Simply wiping out people’s memories and leaving the body unharmed was deemed acceptable time and again in a court of law. They used to call them frontal lobotomies many centuries before, but there were now other, hygienic ways of doing the same thing. The reeducation techniques were the only tools available, but they were very effective. In the hands of the right practitioner, Charles would be a drooling idiot in a few months.