Becca played with her new friend Rachel in the playground.
Running, games, they even played a little hopscotch. It was all quite surreal to Becca. She didn't remember playing so much as a child besides football. She recalled the wind in her face, running around with the literal goal in front of her. This was a different kind of play though. There was no actual goals in their games. She thought it should be boring to her, but for some reason she really enjoyed it. Not to mention her athleticism showed in a few of the games they played. She could even do the splits! They played a quick game of patty-cake- which brought both of them down to giggles. All so normal to anyone watching.
"So did the sunlight change you much?" Rachel asked eventually with a smile to her new friend.
"U-um.. I got different hair now" She said. She didn't want to admit the truth to her. She wasn't sure she even could say it.
"Me too!" the girl giggled running her hand through her hair. "I think its pretty."
Becca studied her. She acted so naturally as a child. Was it as natural as she was acting? Who was she before? This was so frustrating! But she realised she couldn't really ask her questions without those same questions being directed at her as well.
"Are you gonna join the ballet group?" Rachel eventually asked. "I'm in it. I think you would do good."
Becca's jaw dropped, as she had a vision of her transformation into magical girl mode. "I- Uh- um-" Trident pinched her through her pocket. "Y-es?" Becca said uncertainly.
"Yay!" Rachel Beamed giving the girl a hug. "I bet we'll be a great team! I'm so glad we're friends"
Becca blushed. "U-h M-me too"
She looked up at all the grown-ups, a nameless child among a sea of faces. The lady with the strange skin felt warm to her though, and like a child to a mother she wanted to stay close to her. She didn't want to let her go. She promised she would help her find her real parents. The questions were so hard to understand. Who was she? Why did she feel so strange? Why was she here? Where was she? The grown-ups said 'amnesia' a couple of times but she didn't really understand the word. It was just so hard to think. For some reason having no name is the thing that hurt the most.
"Okay sweetie," the nice lady told her. "We are going to take you to a house to get you cleaned up, and have a bed-"
"Stay with you!" She said her eyes tearfully-
"I- I don't think that's possibl-"
"Please! Pleeease..." She whined. She was the only one she felt she could trust. She didn't want her to go away. She might never see her again.
"I'll see what I could do..." She was filling out a piece of paper. It had 'name' and something scribbled.
"My name?" She asked quickly.
"No- this is just what we call people when we don't know their names. The system needs to have a name to work with sometimes so we put down 'Jane'."
She didn't understand anything said before the name again. "Jane? My name is Jane?" The child asked, suddenly feeling a lot more calmer.
"Well, you look more like a Jenny to me" the officer said with a little chuckle.
"Jenny? I like..." the child gave a little smile.
"Alright, Jenny it is."
"Anderson Collins?"
"Yeah..." Anderson called from his cell.
"I'm afraid bail was rejected, due to the current crisis,"
Anderson looked at the sleek looking lawyer he had hired. Harris had a reputation as a good lawyer to the rich but even these situations were trying times. He had a sharp brain, enough to be able to continue his job while avoiding the sunlight. Some wonder how he did such feats, but it was all simply timing to him as well as an in-depth knowledge of buildings, and spaces in the city.
"What's the plan now then?" Anderson leaned back against the wall, the cold concrete little comfort to his predicament.
"First of all... I must know, are you guilty of the crimes alleged on you?"
Anderson gave his lawyer a long look. "I thought your not allowed to ask such a question".
"The world has become very different recently. Tell me..."
"Does that really matter?" Anderson spat back.
Harris was not at all intimidated. "It matters in terms of the strategies we could employ. We might be able to plea bargain."
"I didn't get anyone killed!" He shouted in the end. "You're all treating me like I'm some gangster. That's not at all how it is."
"It is alleged you hired a hit man-"
"Not a hit man!"
"You hired...a man, to push another man into direct sunlight... is this the truth?"
There was a long pause, and at that moment Harris knew it was the truth. Still he had a job to do, to protect his client. Anderson looked a little... regretful. But did he regret his acts, or did he regret being caught?
"I am paying you good money to get me off this... tell me my options."
"Very well." Harris took out a few papers from his briefcase. "From what I understand, the evidence against you is severe. The prosecution has papers for ten thousand dollars removed, and you have no explanation for your acts. Can you provide me a reason why you took out so much money?
"I was... trying to keep it away from the tax man" He said eventually. "A tax dodge... that's all."
"Interesting story..."
"Look you're my defence attorney! Why all these questions?"
Harris narrowed his eyes "Anderson... if I am to protect you, you must answer all my questions. Because if you lie to me, the prosecutors will destroy any credibility of defence we might have. You might think you can weave the greatest lie in the world, but these people are 'trained' to destroy them. They will find one thing that makes no sense... and the truth will come out. Now... comply with me. Tell me the truth. I will work out what we can do from there."
Anderson was quite angry now but simmered some. "Fine. I got a call from Toby... the ingrate grew a spine. I made him everything he was, and he was going to throw it all away."
"What happened exactly?"
"I got angry... Some things went out of control. Our news corp is still small fry, but we were entering the big leagues. Do you know just how hard that is? Challenging an industry is no small feat... Then the sun crisis came, and we got a lot more stories. But one on our team wouldn't play ball. Jay Mathews... Do you think I want that as the face of our news? Our audience was leaving us in droves because of that thing, and going to more 'trusted' sources. Toby moved the creature to a desk job and everything would have been fine. But they decided to call me a bigot- and put that as national news. It wasn't anything like that. If one of my news casters got horrible scaring they couldn't continue the job. That creature had a face nobody could ever trust again. I was trying to protect our company... but yeah. They put malicious rumours about me, destroying my reputation. Everything I had worked for was gone in that instant. Mathews had a contract stipulating very clearly that if his appearance was unacceptable he could no longer continue his role... That does not make me a bigot!"
Bigot, Harris thought... Well, if the shoe fits... "Do go on, Anderson."
"Right... I got angry at the whole thing. This little man thinking he had a rope around me. He had the balls to try and blackmail me, thinking he could get his way now. ... It wasn't really supposed to go like this. I figured maybe he would get the message if he was nearly exposed or something to the sun. So yeah... I paid someone."
"Are you saying you didn't actually want to expose him to the sunlight?" Anderson queried.
" ... yeah. I just wanted to give him a scare."
Liar, Harris thought. Worse thing is, this man actually believed his own lies.
"Very well... I will tell you what we can do. As it stands, this is not an 'actual' crime on the statute books. If we play our cards right, we could argue a simple case of assault. But it would require you to plea guilty. You would get a month- no more then three months in jail, and perhaps we can make sure it's a 'human' jail.
"I would die before I go to any house with those freaks." Anderson spat again folding his arms.
"If you decide to plead not guilty, we would have to satisfy the courts that no actual crime took place at all. This is actually a lot harder then it might appear. If things go wrong, the prosecution could push towards a charge of mutilation."
"Mutilation?" scoffed Anderson. "I didn't do that!"
"Pushing someone into the sun, changes the person. In a sense mutilation, and the prosecution would argue for that. If they push really hard, they could make some... very unsettling crimes as equivalent to what you have done..."
It didn't take long to get the implications of that. "What the hells are you playing at!" Anderson was red faced and really angry now. "There's no way in hell they could make that stick. No way!"
Harris looked over the papers one more time, a sheen on his glasses as he bore a laser guided stare onto Anderson. "I recommend you plead guilty.. The risk of doing otherwise is substantial."
"Never! I didn't pay you all that just to tell me to plea guilty. Defend me!"
"Is that your final decision?"
"Yes"
Harris sighed. "I will prepare for court then..."
** _
