A Year At The Opera

Interlude 6, Part 2: To Be Judged

Word Count: 5800 words

Max and Nathan

Max stopped in front of room number five, put his hand on the door and quickly turned to face Nathan. "You ready?"

Nathan nodded.

"Remember what we talked about, yeah?"

"Yeah." Nathan said, trying to hide the fact he was sweating everywhere. He was more stressed than he should have been. He had Max after all. But he tried to keep a straight face.

Max pushed the door open and walked inside. The court room smelled like wet grass and lilies for some reason. Nathan took a long sniff as they walked to their table in the front.

They took a seat and waited for the prosecution to come in. Almost on cue, the doors behind them opened and Max saw the prosecution lawyers come in. They walked briskly to their table.

Max looked at the large camera on the tripod set up in the right corner of the room. It was at least six feet off the ground. It recorded all the things that went on during a trial. After the day was finished, the recording was backed up to six different locations to prevent data loss or corruption and then handed to a typist to transcribe and keep a written copy of the recordings.

Max straightened his tie as Nathan gently tapped his fingers on the table.

Max looked to his left, looking at Nathan. "Hey, you remember what I said, right?"

Nathan nodded. "Yes. You already asked me that."

Max was nervous too, to be honest. He didn't know who he was up against. He glanced at the prosecutor, his gaze lingering just long enough to start being creepy. He wasn't a newbie, to be sure. The Council wouldn't put anyone but the best against Max.

But Max had never seem him around before. He was old, maybe in his late sixties, with wrinkles decorating his forehead and every time he smiled, there was a twinkle in his eye, as if he'd just had an epiphany.

Who was this guy? Max didn't know anything about him besides his first name: Evan.

Max thought long and hard to see if he knew the guy as they waited for the judge to arrive.

Thankfully, things had gone according to plan with the judge and His Honor Terrance Wright would be looking over the case. At first, His Honor Norman Duke was set to oversee the case. And if he hadn't had some accidental health problems, the case would have been lost before anyone even set foot in the court room. Duke was a cranky old son of a bitch.

But, thanks to Duke's unforeseen 'accident', and some craftiness on Max's part, he'd managed to get Terrance to oversee the case and provide the final verdict. Terrance was the most lenient of the seven judges, and there was no doubt the Council would have told him to be extra strict during this case. But Terrance was a wild card. You never knew what he would do.

If nothing else, Terrance was a man of his word, a man who valued honesty and friendship and relations.

And Max considered himself lucky, for the first time ever, to be his father's son. Mr. Ian Fleming and Terrance went way back to being childhood friends and it was almost a certainty that Terrance would be more lax thanks to that.

For all the odds stacked against them, this was their ace. If all else failed, at least Max could petition Terrance for a lighter sentence or a reexamination of the evidence at hand and the testimonies.

The door opened, making Max jump in his seat.

"All rise for the Honorable Terrance Wright!" The bailiff announced as the judge entered the room.