Dabbling in Danger

Finale

"State your full name."

"Adeen Malachi Hutchinson."

"Do you swear or affirm that you will speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?"

Hand raised, I refrain from rolling my eyes, "so help me God," I reply evenly.

"Is that a yes?" Grunts the baliff.

"Yes, I do."

He nods and it is finally my turn to speak my truth, but first I lay eyes on her.

My sweet girl's all choked up, her hair's messy pulled into a bun. Her eyes are bloodshot and I'm reminded of the night this all happened. How she looked at me and how it made me feel sick.

Francis clears his throat, "Mr. Hutchinson?"

I blink twice and refocus my eyes on Francis.

"I'm sorry, can you ask me that once more?"

"Can you pick three words that you feel describes yourself?"

The answer leaves my lips like an automatic voice message, "orderly and caring."

We've practiced this, next he will ask, why are these the words I've chosen.

I say, "because that is how I was raised. In order to have a sense of purpose one must carry themself in a certain manner to grasp what is to be achieved. I want to succeed in whatever I put effort into and so I ensure to always have myself in order and I care for those who need my help and those I'd humbly receive help from."

Francis nods, pleased with my strong delivery. He goes on to ask about my relationship with Tiana, asks about my work, my employees. He reads a couple short letters sent on my behalf regarding the incident of Christina's arrest. Here I am finally shrouded with guilt, hearing the words from my workers, how they viewed my once attractive secretary. I'm glad she'd been asked to leave when she did.

"You enlisted in the Army correct?" Hank asks cooly.

I nod once, "yes, a month after I turned eighteen."

"What was your position?"

"I was on the team of microwave system operators and maintainers."

"This entails?"

"We would go out into the field and install satellites and antennas that were used to communicate and read microwave signals. We'd check on the functionality and ensure security on our end could never be breached."

"How long did you serve?"

I know where he's going with this.

"A little over two years."

His graying eyebrows knit into a bushy unibrow, "not a full term, what's the deal with that?"

"I was discharged under honorable mentions."

"Discharged under what circumstances?"

If I don't reveal this, I will appear as though I was attempting to hide it. If Hank is the one to announce my past to the court, I will appear feeble.

I am not weak.

"I had something of a nervous break down... I'd been feeling depressed for sometime, not like myself and it started effecting my sleep. I started sleep walking, but hardly raised much concern at first because I hadn't gone as far as outside my bunk, just wandered around the room. At least that's what my bunkmates told me. I kept it under wraps for some time, and it didn't really bother anyone. But one day I was out on duty with two other guys, we were assigned to set up an antenna, but we had to wait for the go ahead in order to power it up... I hadn't slept more than five hours in the past week, so having nothing to do for more than ten minutes was like a sleep sedative. Only I didn't just fall asleep, I slipped into another sleep walking fit and with my gun slung over my shoulders began walking in the direction of the kill zone with my hands up. I was lucky enough that one of the other guys assigned to work with me noticed me wandering off and brought me back to post. I still hadn't come to and the guys didn't like having to watch over me on top of everything else so when we returned to base I was reported for very obviously being a hazardous liability."