I couldn't believe my eyes. The Think Tank had made a mistake. An actual mistake. And not a little one either. The defendant was going to go free for this. Of all the people on the entire police force, none were more trusted nor more trustworthy than the Think Tank, a group of twelve autistic savants with a keen eye for detail, eidetic memories and an obsession with crime. They read old case files, discuss them with each other and just basically remember the hell out of them. The defence lawyer was theatrically brandishing his evidence, enjoying his moment: a crime novel, found in the think tank rooms and containing all the major points from this so called case. Fiction was strictly forbidden in the Think Tank, since they didn't care whether they remembered real cases or pulp fiction novels. So that explained it.
The final blow came when the lawyer turned out the inside cover and read the book's owner's name, written on an old, yellowed sticky label. My name. My blood ran cold in my veins and I started sweating. It couldn't be mine. It's impossible. I don't even read crime novels. Why would I? Police work is hard enough without spending leisure hours reading about imaginary crimes.
When the trial concluded, I had no badge, no gun and no idea what was going on, but I did have two things. Two certainties in this world. One, the Think Tank had been manipulated, and I'd been made to take the fall. Two, I was going to find out who did it, badge or no badge. I hunched over to duck past the reporters on the courthouse steps and hurried home through the smoky streets, thinking over the points in a new case - a bigger case than I could have imagined even this morning.
Mokalus of Borg
PS - This feels like part of a bigger story to me.
PPS - Maybe it will be, someday.
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