the most damning evidence of all,” Dr. Scott said. “Do you see how far this conspiracy reaches? They eat those babies, bones and all. There’s nothing left for ‘evidence.’ That mind control is unbreakable. How can someone who is being unbreakably mind controlled give you your so-called ‘evidence?’ It is the very absence of evidence that is the most damning evidence of all. This conspiracy is real, it is present and it is completely and totally impossible to detect.”
Concerned murmurs filled the courtroom. Judge Gold nodded to himself. Satan put his head back in his hands.
Despite Sheriff’s Furlough’s enthusiastic approach to crowd control, the mob outside the courthouse had grown. Now that Satan had actually appeared, as well as Nero the one-time leader of the Roman Empire, people flocked to the courthouse like bugs to the zapper. Official estimates put the crowd that ringed it at over two hundred thousand strong. This massive mob, in turn, lured attention seekers: professional lunatics, street preachers, mail order philosophers and podunk politicians who all staked their claim to parts of the tent city that stretched from the courthouse grounds all the way over to the fields at the end of South Saliman Road.
Unable to cross this human moat, the people actually involved in the trial were forced to live inside the courthouse. Leaving was too dangerous, and what with every hotel room, sofa bed, and RV in Carson City booked solid, where were they going to go? Food was brought in by helicopter, rooms were assigned, the Sheriff’s Department showers were made available on a rotating schedule. It wasn’t comfortable, but it was safe.
Sitting in their assigned conference room, Satan and Nero waited. Neither Satan nor Nero actually required sleep, and so the room became a giant drift of papers and law books as Nero attempted to cram a four-year law school education into the moments he could snatch away from the case. Satan had a hard time focusing and so he read Nero’s Grisham novels. He had finished The Firm, The Client, The Chamber, The Partner, The Brethren, The Broker and The Summons and now he was almost finished with The Appeal. He was beginning to suspect that a lot of Nero’s legal strategy was based on things he had read in these books, but he didn’t want to say anything because criticism might throw Nero off his game and, right now, Nero was all he had.
Sheriff Furlough put his head around the door.
“Half hour delay, fellas. Ms. Babbit is crying in the bathroom again and her therapist is talking her down. Can I bring you boys a Mountain Dew?”
“No, thank you, Sheriff,” Nero said.
It was the big day, the day Frita Babbit was to testify, and already they were running behind. Satan finished The Appeal. With nothing left to read he began paging through the complaint against him. It was very long and he had mostly avoided reading it up until now. Reading the complaint had made him feel like a thousand people were shouting at him all at once and it had made his head hurt. Now he was so stressed and desperate for distraction that he found himself flipping through the back pages of the complaint. There was a section entitled “Remedy” that he had never really read before. If Nero could be so focused, he could be focused, too. He began to read “Remedy.”
After a few moments he stopped.
“Nero?” he said.
“I don’t have any more John Grisham novels,” Nero replied, not looking up from his papers.
“Have you read the ‘Remedy’ section?”
“Of course,” Nero said.
“What’s this number?”
“That’s two hundred million US dollars, sir.”
“Yes, but what’s it doing here?”
“That’s what the plaintiff is asking for. It’s the combined actual and punitive damages.”
“Two hundred million dollars?”
“It’s unlikely she’ll be awarded that much if she wins, sir. It’s far more likely the court will reduce the award by half.”
“Nero,” Satan said, barely controlling himself. “We don’t even have two hundred and fifty dollars in the bank.”
“Sir, I have been trying my best not to think about it,” Nero said. “I am under a lot of pressure. The last thing I need to think about is what happens if we lose.”
“If they win they get more money than we’ve seen in centuries. How are we going to pay this?”
“Sir, if I thought about that then I would be underneath this table sobbing. I would be completely paralyzed.”