Alex Reynard

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Part FORTY-FIVE

The disembodied voice was merciful enough to actually give them a whole eleven minutes to get their shit together.

Toby had screamed a bit until Piffle calmed him down. Yesterday, ending up in a prison cell hanging hundreds of feet above a cesspool seemed almost relaxing in comparison to staving off a runaway apartment building. Today, it most certainly did not. Piffle crammed some confinement loaf in his mouth to cease his shrieks.

As Toby looked around, he saw that everyone was reacting to the ten-minute warning as expected. Junella and George were already pre-plotting an escape from the courtroom if found guilty. Zinc looked like he fully intended to make use of every second of sleep he could hold onto. Piffle was a bit nervous, but tried to keep up her good cheer by observing that today would definitely be interesting no matter what happened.

'And I'm panicking,' Toby realized. 'All systems normal.'

Soon the rubber sphincter above them beeped in unmistakable countdown tones. Toby didn't even have to ask how they were going to get out of the cage. When the beeps stopped, hurricane-strength winds plucked everyone out like an interoffice pneumatic mail system.

***

Toby and the others were swooshed away from their cell, back into the police station, where they were re-informed of their ultimate destination. Then they were all snatched up by the shoulders and carried bodily out of the building by police drones. As soon as the doors opened, Toby's eyes were assaulted with a ground-level fireworks display: the flashes from the press' cameras. The ambush of reporters hurled questions towards the five suspects at such volume that not one word was comprehensible. Toby's ears rang. Blue afterimages swirled in his vision. The copbots just bulldozed their way through the crowd towards the nearest elevator.

Toby had a realization. He and the others could just as easily have been put inside the robots like last time. But this was on purpose. The police wanted the suspects to be seen. Maybe to humiliate them. Or maybe so Ectopians could enjoy watching the terrorist scumbags being frog-marched to justice.

They were escorted by their metal guards without a word, to begin the long ride down. A few of the more rabid reporters tried to squeeze their way into the wrought-iron car, but a couple rubber bullets dissuaded them. Toby had plenty of time to squirm and worry as the elevator descended several dozen levels, all the way down to Five. He thought he vaguely remembered hearing that this was where Luxy lived. If so, it made sense to have the courtroom there too. Short commute.

The elevator car was open-air, giving Toby some splendid acrophobia, but also allowing him to get lost for a moment in the city's design. So many wheels. So many people living on them. He'd seen a lot of the city already, yet it was still just a small fraction. It was a strange feeling to pass by places he knew he'd never set foot on.

They descended past another of those Luxy Sez billboards. Like the rest, Toby wasn't sure if he agreed with it, or even fully understood it:

HOPE IS FOR PEOPLE WHO DON'T WANT TO GET THEIR HANDS DIRTY

And then below, their terminus came into view: a massive metal cube as big as a sports arena. All of Bigwheel Five was structured around it. Crisscrossing metal beams covered the outside. Walls crawled with floodlights and neon. A rippling sea of people encircled the place. Toby could hear them even from high above, plus the pumping growl of hard rock music to excite everyone's blood.

The copbot holding George engaged a police-level override on the elevator, shunting it onto an enclosed horizontal track heading towards the cube-building. 'Like being inside the arm of a construction crane,' Toby thought. He'd been wondering how he'd survive being led in through that mob at the doors. Descending through the ceiling was a solution he approved of.

The rock music rumbled the rafters. It was dark up here, with thin beams of light slipping through from the main chamber below. One by one, the copbots tossed their prisoners into a large round cage. Once everyone was inside and the door was shut, Toby saw a dim figure approach. It was a feline stage manager with a clipboard, earpiece, and biceps the size of canoes.

"You need anything explained?" she grunted.

Neither Toby or the others could think of anything.

"Good. You'll be lowered into the courtroom in a few minutes. Don't interrupt Mr. Bleeder or he'll kill you. Don't try to run away or he'll kill you. Don't try to break the cage or I'll kill you. Are we feeling cooperative today, chums?"

Four nods. (George was currently unable.)

The stage manager nodded, turned, and gave a signal to an unseen assistant. The cage began to move.

A hatch below the five defendants opened, and they descended through to dangle just below the ceiling of Luxy's Court.

To see it on a small television set is impressive.

To see it in the flesh is intimidating enough to loosen one's bowels.

The air in here was dim, smoky, and shaking with relentless noise. Down below was a square room roughly twice the size of a college gymnasium. From the floor to the ceiling was a twenty-foot drop. And covering that floor was a carpet of writhing bodies. This did not look like a courtroom, but a rock show. The music was loud enough that Toby could feel it vibrating his entrails. The audience thrashed and crashed against one another. Discs of colored light swam over everyone's heads. Beach balls and moshers were being tossed around. Electric guitars screamed like the death cries of buzzards.

Situated at the front of the room, at approximately ribcage-height to the crowd, was an actual basketball floor (Toby didn't realize the pun for several minutes). To one side was the source of the music. A six-man act was pulverizing their instruments while the hype man Toby had seen on TV was cradling his mic and erupting bloodcurdling lyrics into it. For as short as the guy was, he sure as heck had some pipes. And he was still wearing his black suit and the black sunglasses with daggers through the lenses (Toby could just make out red tears streaking his cheeks, so definitely not a special effect). The rest of the band was a motley crew of different species. All lanky, scuffed-up, scarred, and tough as gristle. They looked like a pack of skeletal pirates.

Also on the courtroom floor were the bare essentials of courtroom furniture. Two long wooden tables for the defendants, a podium for the judge/prosecutor, a box for those lucky enough to have ringside seats, and half a dozen cameras and cameramen. Several of those TV-headed mannequins were strutting around too. Creepy.

Behind the court, the far wall was nothing but carnival bulbs. A solid floor-to-ceiling square of light. At the very top, in colossal neon letters, were the words LUX AETERNA.

Being this high up, Toby noticed some other writing. Opposite the courtroom floor, near the ceiling, a long quote was engraved in austere font. Given that he had no idea how long he'd be spending up here until the show began, he tried to make it out. (He was glad to discover his dyslexia was receding. The letters only jittered around a little this time.)

"Only a corrupted heart and a moral mind are fit to lead.

A soul of pure good remains always at the mercy of the ruthless.

A soul of pure evil sows disloyalty and reaps a lonely downfall.

Those with righteous hearts and corrupted ideals are the most dangerous of all.

But a soul born to evil, who learns the ways of good,

will come to learn the proper time for both."

Seeing as there was no attribution at the end, Toby could only conclude it'd been written by Luxy himself. It was certainly poetic. Though Toby had no idea if it was actual wisdom or just hot air to inflate the raccoon's ego.

Toby could also finally get a sense of what he and his companions were trapped in. The cage was a sphere, made of interweaving bands of black iron. Comfy enough for one, but a little cramped for four people and a skull. The design of it seemed familiar, and Toby soon remembered that it looked just like the big metal globes he'd seen motorcyclists driving around inside at the circus.

The band below played on. Smoke seemed to stream from the instruments. The drummer was nearly cleaving his skins in twain. They finished up with a demonic crescendo and fireworks exploded behind them. The crowd's cheer was like an earthquake.

Sweating like crazy, the lead singer wiped his forehead with his hat and stepped forward. "AllrightallrightallRIGHT!!! Are we FEELIN' it tonight, ladies and gentlemen!?"

Their roofshaking response was a definite "YES!!!"

"Damn good! Damn good! Now we all know why we're gathered here, don't we? We all know why the house is packed even fuller than normal? Why it's standing room only, shoulder to shoulder? We all KNOW, don't we!?"

"YEAH!!!"

'To crucify us,' Toby thought.

"So let's not waste any more of your precious time! Raise your heads skyward and call out the name of the one you love!"

"Luxy!!!"

The hypeman twirled a finger in his ear. "I don't think he heard you! Hell, I don't think I did! You nice folks wanna try that again, a little LOUDER this time?"

"LUXY!!!"

"Can I giddit one! More! TIME!!"

"LUXY!!!!!"

"Then let's bring that motherfucker on down! The nexus of mind and might! Our wingless angel of vengeance! The center of the universe himself... LUXYYY BUH-LEEEE-DERRRRR!!!" The hypeman turned and pointed to the ceiling. Toby felt a shudder in the rafters as a hatch opened and powerful hydraulics began to whirr.

The crowd went positively apeshit as their mayor descended from on high. Two incredibly long articulated arms carried down a platform containing one ornate maplewood desk, two lovely plastic assistants, and one sagging pelt of raccoon fur that looked like roadkill.

The audience didn't seem to mind that their icon was passed out or possibly dead. They cheered and stomped the floor. Toby wondered if this was a regular occurrence.

Lights flashing and reflecting all around, the desk lowered with tantalizing slowness. Toby noticed that one of the TV-head ladies by Luxy's side had a large meat grinder and was putting... something shiny into it. What the heck?

When the platform touched down, about a dozen audience members managed to scramble up onto the courtroom floor and run towards it. Four of the TV-heads produced semiautomatic weapons like a magic trick and gunned the stage-rushers down quite efficiently. Bouncers with push brooms mopped their corpses back into the audience pit.

Toby could see clearer now: Luxy's plastic assistant was grinding up diamond necklaces into a fine powder. Luxy himself still looked catatonic, then suddenly he reached behind himself and yanked his head up by his shirt collar. The raccoon's eyes were the color of spoiled tomatoes. He blinked, tried to focus, and directed his head by scent towards the pile of powder. Another assistant provided him a rolled-up Luxybuck. With one heroic snort, half the pile vanished and the coon was instantly on his feet, a Cheshire grin lighting up the whole room.

"Hoo-wee!! Rock 'em sock 'em shitbang! Let's DO this!!"

The crowd’s decibel level doubled.

Luxy Bleeder, king of Ectopia Cordis, swung his agile frame around his desk and moseyed over to a microphone stand. Sharp snout, wiry limbs, black fur glossy on his gloves and bandit mask. Slender as a machete with a tail. He was resplendent. And 'audacious' did not begin to describe tonight's outfit. Orange denim pants. A belt buckle with his own name on it. Ostentatious cowboy boots: pure leather. A red and blue vertically-striped vest underneath a big fluffy bear-fur jacket. And from behind the round yellow lenses of his sunglasses, his electric eyes gazed out.

He cupped the mic in one hand like a lover's shoulder and leaned in.

The audience was silent.

The mic picked up the parting of Luxy's lips. Then he whispered, eyes closed, "How we all doin' tonight?"

An eruption of noise. A waterfall of screams.

Luxy's smile seemed to cover the whole room. Perfectly comfortable as the center of everyone's attention. He let go of the mic and suddenly ran full-tilt over to the gallery box.

The spectators there leapt out of their seats, all of them reaching out their arms in hope of a single touch.

Luxy obliged them. From within his jacket he pulled two nightmarishly-long black-handled straight razors. Jacket flapping behind him, he sailed past the gallery, twirling and flicking his blades like a conductor's baton. Fingers flew. Blood arced. Flesh parted like the red sea.

It was a stomach-churning sight, and Toby clutched the sides of his cage hoping he wouldn't throw up on the people below. Though there was nothing but smiles among the victims. Toby knew he should have been used to this by now. Luxy was beaming with pure love for his fans, and they were as receptive to his blades as a cheek to a kiss. Those who were lucky enough to get maimed held their bleeding stumps with faces full of awe. Toby saw two girls who'd had their noses sliced off turning to each other and hugging in joy.

Even with all that blood flying around, Luxy walked away near-stainlessly. There was gallons of the stuff on the floor, and he flicked plenty off his razors, but his outfit was still immaculate except for a few red dots on his sleeves. Not luck: skill.

He strolled back to the microphone. "I hope you sweets didn't come all the way out here just to see me. Let's give it up for our house band, the magnificent, hardworking, Nitrous Dockside!!"

The band played a crunching riff while the crowd clapped their hands red.

Luxy pointed to his hypeman. "Keep it going for the vox populi himself, Loud Kevin!!"

The applause poured over the stage and Kevin pumped his fists in the air, drinking it up.

When the room quieted again, Kevin and Luxy began their traditional pre-trial patter. "Dude, man, you looked ROUGH just now! Hard night?"

The raccoon nodded, running a paw through his uncombed (but still marvelous) hair. "Very accurate. I have not slept voluntarily in a couple of centuries."

"I haven't seen you snort diamond necklaces before. A hell of a lot of other stuff, but not diamond necklaces." A chuckle and a beat. "What's the high like?"

"Ah, there's no high at all. But the pain is fantastic!" he grinned. "Wakes me right the fuck up!"

The audience guffawed.

"You're, uh, havin' a birthday soon if I'm not mistaken."

"Right you are, o faithful major domo. This coming Tuesday. I believe I will be four hundred and twelve." A swell of applause. "I'm not gonna tell you nice peoples to send me gifts, but I'm also not gonna tell you not to send me gifts."

Perfectly timed, someone threw a pair of panties onstage.

"There's the spirit!" Luxy shouted. He swished over and scooped them up, stuffing them in his pocket. "A thousand thanks, mon chere. I'll smell them thoroughly later." He turned back to the mic, as if in afterthought. "You know, I get frequently asked questions sometimes. Eff-ay-kyews. One of them I get is, 'Luxy,' they ask me, 'you're the most handsome and popular man in Phobiopolis. When are you going to settle down? Find that special someone? After all, with your limitless, raw, voodoo-like charisma, you could have any girl in the city!'

He paused for dramatic effect.

"My answer is, 'I already do.'"

Riotous laughter and applause from the crowd. Toby noticed there were a lot fewer clothing articles amongst them than just a few minutes ago.

Loud Kevin chortled. "That is true. Plus several boys. And nonevs. And furniture."

"Now that is just slanderous and shocking and perfectly true," Luxy replied. "C'mon over here, Kevin."

"I'd better not. You'll kill me."

"Ohh, come on! Be a sport. I promise I won't."

The prairie dog did not budge. "You're reaching for another knife already."

"P'shaw! I would never! Trust me!"

"Ehhh..."

"Kevin, have you ever seen me lie?"

"I have seen you lie literally hundreds of times on this very stage."

"Ha HA! Absolutely correct! I am a monster of Biblical proportions!"

The crowd enjoyed a good laugh at the well-oiled interplay between the two. Luxy let it continue for exactly the right amount of time, then made a sharp horizontal slash with his hand.

Instant quiet.

Luxy stepped in closer to the mic and held it tight. "Ladies and gentlemen, there is a psychological need for the catharsis of tension through laughter. But now it is time to fully face the purpose that brings us here on this day. We are here because of a crime beyond the pale, against city and citizens. You've all seen the news footage by now. The wheel. The bodies. The destruction. The mall. This is not the humdrum everyday felonies this courtroom usually sees. This is not your regularly scheduled programming. This is something different. This is... an affront, is all I can call it. Even though I'm sure we all share a mutual love for blood and destruction- I myself can't deny a respect, perhaps even an awe, for the sheer magnitude of the chaos we witnessed yesterday- what happened is more than just the images on our screens. Some of you died yesterday. Some of you lost your homes, businesses, life's savings, irreplaceable possessions. In a city where life is cheap, we know the value of what we own and work for. Ladies and gentlemen, let's look beyond the immediate. Yesterday was an afternoon of screams and suffering, of losses both personal and financial, and it is going to have long-term repercussions as well. This is going to fuck up our economy, and hard. There's no ignoring that. We all, as a city, are going to feel the effects of yesterday's cataclysm for quite some time. And, speaking personally, I'm just a little bit upset about that. Aren't you?"

A rumble of anger and grief had been brewing amongst the audience as he focused their minds back on the unholy mess that had been wreaked upon them the day before. Luxy kneaded and molded their outrage into a tidal wave that grew and crashed upon the courtroom floor as a mass cry for retribution.

"What is our law?" Luxy asked.

Together with the crowd, he recited: "Have a good time. And do not fuck with someone else's good time."

"That is correct." Luxy Bleeder spoke softly, placing careful emphasis on each word. "A great many good times were fucked with yesterday. Not the least of which belonging to our steadfast cleanup crews, who'll be spending god knows how long rebuilding. Give them kisses and cash wherever you see them, promise me. But this was not a natural disaster. Not the kind where no one's to blame but Lady Luck. No. This was planned. This attack, that cost us so dearly, was masterminded and executed with cold, ruthless precision. I feel your hearts calling out for blood. And you will have it, my sweet darlings, oh I promise you that. But, as in the aftermath of a natural disaster, I have seen you all pull together and show me the best parts of yourselves." He glanced to someone in the crowd with her shirt off." There's a pair right now. Thank you Ma'am." A guffaw rippled through the crowd. Luxy's sincere whisper did not miss a beat. "I am asking that best-ness from you now. I am asking for your trust. The urge to vengeance is one of the most basic parts of us. But we are more than that. We are smarter than that. We will feel that fire burning inside us, but we will temper it with reason and patience. We do not rush to justice. Not here. Not you. Only evidence decides guilt, not our hungry hearts."

He stood up straight and tall, suddenly holding the microphone up above his head, above the crowd.

"WHO ARE YOU!?" he shouted.

"WE ARE ECTOPIA CORDIS!!!" came the unanimous cry.

"AND WHAT IS THIS CITY!?" he bellowed, voice cracking from sheer force.

"WE ARE THE LIGHT OF REASON IN THE CHAOTIC NIGHT!!!"

Luxy took the mic back, breathed hard for a moment while the crowd cheered, then whispered, "Damn right we are. Let's get this goin'."

***

All while Luxy spoke, Toby had felt like he'd been standing mere inches away from him. It was almost disorienting to realize, after the mesmerising words had ended, that he was still in a little round cage thirteen feet off the floor. Luxy was a vortex of attention. The very silverest of tongues.

As the raccoon went back to his podium and began to paw through a mound of hand-scrawled notes, Loud Kevin took over at the mic. "The videos have been playing day and night on every news channel. You've seen their faces. You know their names. You want their heads. So here they come! Please, no projectile weaponry as we bring in... your defendants for today!"

Toby's guts lurched as the cage jolted into motion. The small mouse looked across the crowd and saw an ocean of hatred reflected back. Gritted teeth. Glaring eyes. Roars of outrage. He found himself immensely grateful for Luxy's speech persuading them to hold back judgment, otherwise he was sure there'd have been a hailstorm of bricks and molotov cocktails heading straight at him.

The cage bumped into the courtroom floor and sprang open. Everyone inside tumbled out. They stood up and stretched while Kevin motioned for them to take their positions at Table A. Toby felt a million hateful eyes upon him. He could barely stand the thought that he'd be sitting with his back to them. All those people, staring. Burning holes in his neck.

Piffle saw him shaking and took Toby's paw.

He squeezed. "Thank you."

Together they took their seats. At least the chairs were comfy. The table was plain, wooden and well-scuffed, with microphones on little stands before each chair. Zinc looked cool as a cucumber as he plopped down and put his feet up. Junella took a moment to turn and face the crowd, matching their fury with her eyes. She stared defiantly for a few seconds, then scooped up George, plopped him on the table, and sat down too.

"Well SOMEone's certainly not displaying remorse!" Kevin cracked.

"Ain't done shit to feel guilty for," she shot back.

The audience "Ooooohhh!!"ed.

"But that's not all, folks! Incredible as it may seem, we have yet another defendant here in the courtroom today! Yes, that's right! Despite what you've seen with your own eyes, an accusation has been made that everything that transpired yesterday was masterminded by... this man!"

Another cage lowered, and this time the audience was a lot quieter. They buzzed with confusion, squinting to see the sphere's lone occupant.

It snapped open when it touched the floor and out popped the muskrat with the totem pole eyes. He dusted himself off and stood with wounded dignity.

Toby was as surprised as anyone else to see him here, but was damned glad for it anyway. He'd thought they would have had to go through their own trial first, then afterwards, if they managed to somehow prove their innocence, they'd testify against the muskrat. He'd never heard of two prosecutions happening simultaneously. 'Certainly efficient though.'

What puzzled him was the rodent's body language. If it wasn't for his appearance (those eyes were unforgettable), Toby would have thought he was looking at a completely different furson.

He was dressed in a cheap but presentable suit. He stood with shoulders hunched, stooping, seeming to wilt under the weight of the crowd's gaze. His forehead was damp. His hands clutched at his jacket buttons. The sneering arrogance from yesterday was gone, every atom. This man looked like a cowering puppy, bewildered to be here and wholly unprepared. He was paralyzed, squinting through the bright lights to all those angry faces in the crowd. Loud Kevin had to come around the table and nudge the man towards his chair. The muskrat's arms were shaking so badly, he nearly tripped while trying to sit down.

Toby looked over to Zinc and Junella. The skunk loomed over the table, eyes slitted, shooting daggers at the little man. Zinc was breathing so hard he sounded like the Big Bad Wolf. "Hold me back, Juney, so I don't run over there and blow our case by doing somethin' dumb and bloody to him."

She put a vinyl paw on his shoulder. "Ease up. So he's a good actor. Makes things more difficult, yeah. But we'll get him back one way or another. Either we win here, or we break out afterwards, hunt him down, and give him nightmares for eternity."

Zinc ground the gears of his wrenches. "How 'bout both?"

Luxy pondered at his podium a while longer, then straightened up and approached Table A, arms folded behind his back.

Toby looked up into those eyes. Their gaze reminded him of a security system scanning intruders with a laser grid. They darted back and forth over the five defendants, soaking up every detail. In just the few seconds it took for the raccoon to walk towards him, Toby felt as if that cold gaze had given him an autopsy.

Then, like flipping a switch, the 'coon changed demeanor again, rubbing his hands together and smiling gregariously. "Bienvenido, amigos! How was jail? The food okay?" He quickly cataloged all their reactions.

George was unreadable, Toby was apoplectic, Piffle smiled warmly, Junella didn't flinch, and Zinc made direct eye contact and shrugged a little. "Eh, not shitty. I've had worse; I've had better."

Luxy nodded. "You are Anthony 'Zinc' Galvan, yes?"

The canine winced a bit at all these people hearing his real name, but nodded back. "Yeh."

Luxy sized him up. "Uncouth, dangerous, and irreverent. A petty thug. A goon. A brute. A hooligan. A rapscallion. A knavish malfeasor!"

Zinc grinned and feigned bashfulness. "Y'trying to flatter me or what?"

A few people in the audience chuckled.

Luxy grinned approvingly and took a step to the side.

When he saw the limitless disdain in Junella's orange eyes, it startled him.

"Ah, Miss Junella Brox. I believe I last met you and your hardware-laden partner while I was under the influence of an impish little pill called 'duststorm'. A transcendent high, and then episodes of lost recall for four days afterwards." He leaned in, emphasizing this last point, letting her know through his tone that he understood her contempt perfectly.

Junella sat up a little, honestly surprised.

He waited for the recognition in her eyes, got it, passed to her a glance of sincere regret, then went back to being professional. The audience didn't need to know of his previous acquaintance with these two suspected terrorists. Or that he'd accidentally screwed them out of money he had promised them. "I shan’t dally with that devil n'more."

Luxy moved on. Piffle beamed at him and held out her hand for a shake. Luxy instead kissed the back of it, making her explode in giggles. "And this must be the charming Piffle-Whiffle Whisper-Whizzle Weasel-Fister Princess-Penis Shrinky-Dinky Humpty-Dumpty Something-Or-Other McPoodlescreech. A pleasure."

She was thoroughly amused by his mangling of her name, and could tell he'd done it just for fun. "You big silly! Get it right! That's Shimmer-Thistle Whisper-Kimmy Vivilandria Lavender Dorabelle Loribelle Trixi Fizzy Piffle McPerricone."

His eyebrows went up, as if he couldn't believe he'd made such a dreadful faux pas. "A thousand and one apologies! Pray, forgive me! Your outfit is as pink as a dozen sunsets and your eyes are like ruby disco balls."

She covered her mouth with her paws to hide giggles.

Luxy took another sideways step, this time chuckling at how much Toby shrank in his seat at the sight of him.

"Toby deLeon. The new kid on the block. Only been in the Big P a few weeks, judging by your scent." He squinted. "What's that on your palm, son?"

Toby had to look and remind himself. "Oh, this? It's something I bought in Coryza." He carefully unsheathed his hammer in the most nonthreatening way he could manage.

Luxy ran a finger along the steel. He took a sniff. "Only recently been baptized. Just a few heads knocked in." He sighed wistfully. Then his tone turned ice-cold. "Are you usually in the habit of drawing a weapon in front of a judge?"

Toby's whole body jumped. "What!? No!! I mean... You asked, right? I'm sorry!!"

Luxy snickered. "Wowza, kid, you're easy to spook! Relax; you'll live longer!"

Toby sucked his hammer back up and tried not to faint.

Finally, Luxy stood in front of the large blackened horse skull resting on the table. He cocked his head sideways like a dog. "You folks keep a pet nightmare? How?"

George cleared his throat. "If you please, sir, my name is George Charles Atkinson. And I am not a pet."

Luxy whipped off his sunglasses to make sure he wasn't hallucinating. "It TALKS!? Jesus McFucking McChrist! How'd you teach it THAT trick!?"

"I taught myself," George said in a patient tone that betrayed a bit of irritation.

Luxy darted around, poking at George, lifting him up, inspecting the restraint collar, trying to find where the speakers were hidden. Finally, looking utterly stumped, he set the head back down. "Well shit my pants. I've seen a hell of a lot of stuff in this city, but a talking bonecuddy... I gotta admit that's new. Are you, uh, prepared to testify?"

"I would prefer to do so with the rest of my body restored, but I cannot say I begrudge the precaution, given the behavior of the rest of my kin. I am not only prepared to testify on behalf of my loyal and wrongly-maligned companions, but my memory is near-to-flawless."

Luxy was not so egotistical to hide the fact that he was flat-out stunned. George's sentience was something he hadn't believed, even despite all the videos and reports he'd seen so far. Certain things just didn't happen. Pretty high on that list was an ascended nightmare. He'd heard legends, but only a couple times in a century. His skepticism was grounded. He'd been sure up until a second ago that this was a very well-made robot. But once you've been killed by a bonecuddy, you never forget how they smell. And that smell was not easily replicated.

Luxy made a small bow to George and then walked over to the other table. Toby thought he'd been awfully friendly to them, and that maybe it meant he believed their story. But then he considered that, more likely, Luxy was simply treating both sides as innocent. And also trying to catch flies with honey. Toby watched and was proven correct.

The muskrat fidgeted in his seat a bit when Luxy approached. Though seemingly from indignity, not guilt.

The raccoon's eyes caressed the fellow like giving him a pat down. "Here now we have the other item on today's menu. Mr. Pandevar Skyks. I don't think I've ever heard of you before. I had to research you before the trial. By all accounts, you're a mild-mannered inoffensive nobody."

The muskrat bristled a bit at that. "Mr. Bleeder, I do not understand why I'm here today."

Luxy looked genuinely concerned. "...The fuzz didn't explain it to you?"

Mr. Skyks sat up a little straighter. "No. I mean, yes. I mean, they did. I mean, I understand the charges against me, but how could anyone take them seriously!?" He pointed across the room at the other defendants. "They did it! They're on camera doing it! Why am I here!?"

Luxy leaned in to put his hands on the man's shoulders, flexing his skilled fingers to relieve tension. "Calm thy heated blood, Mr. Skyks. Justice, you see, is all about coralling every possible possibility, then hacking away like mad till all the impossible ones fall. An accusation was made, Pandy. Fair play says I'm duty bound to look into it." He paused. "Speaking of that, how's your depth perception?"

"Just fine, thank you."

Luxy gestured up and down between the man's eyes. "Was that, like, an accident? Birth defect? Lose a bet?"

The muskrat deflated a bit to be asked, as if it was a question he was dead tired of answering. "An April Fool's prank. It never wore off, and it hasn't bothered me enough so far to get it reversed."

"C'est la vie," said Luxy. "By the way, what do you call it when siblings fight over who gets to go first unwrapping presents on Christmas morning?"

Pandevar blinked at the total non sequitur. "What? I..."

"Opening arguments!" Luxy threw his hands in the air. Confetti fell from the ceiling above him. "Don't you just love 'em? Let's have a few right now, whatchasay?" He reached in his pants pocket and, lightning-quick, launched a flash of silver high above his head. "Call it in the air!!" he commanded Skyks.

"Heads! No, wait, tails!"

Luxy caught the coin in his palm, making sure the cameras could see which side it landed on. "Lucky boy. Tails it is" He gave the mic in front of the muskrat a tap. It echoed appropriately. "Go nuts, kiddo."

Taking that to mean that he'd won the tossup and he could make the first statement, Mr. Skyks cleared his throat and pulled the mic closer. He opened his mouth, then cast a worried glance behind him at the crowd. Then he looked down at his reflection in the shiny tabletop, not able to meet the unblinking gaze of the two cameras that were wheeling in close.

"I... I don't really know where to start. I didn't prepare anything. I didn't have time to, really. I spent all last night dangling in a cell, wondering why I opened my door last night to find a pack of riot cops standing there. I was stuffed inside a police drone without a word. It was dark and stank of sweat, and I probably screamed my throat raw begging them to let me out.

"When they finally did, they explained everything. How I was being called some kind of comic book mastermind. That I'd blown up the Praxus Pammer apartments and was somehow responsible for the Panjandrum Mall too. I can't... I mean, how is someone supposed to respond to that? How can you even begin to respond to something so crazy and ridiculous!? And stupid! I mean, look at me! Judge Luxy's right. I am... a nobody.

"I've been wracking my memory all day, trying to figure out 'why me'? The best I can come up with is that I'm pretty sure I bumped into... him the other day." He cast a wounded, ugly look at Zinc.

"He says I shot him and stole his arms. That's insane. Yes, I saw him. That's it. You might be asking, 'So what were you doing all the way down on Bigwheel Fourteen when you live on Twenty-Eight?' Because Baccetti's is there. It's a nice little restaurant. I enjoy eating there. I like their soup. I was just leaving after lunch when I passed by this furson with metal arms. Maybe I brushed against him, and maybe he said something. And maybe someone robbed him, but I don't know who. Maybe I was just someone he remembered seeing and I was convenient to point the finger at. So I went home. I watched Drainage Ditch and Who's On Fire until dinnertime when I ate some leftovers, watched more TV, and fell asleep on the couch. Everything was normal."

His head had sunk lower and lower onto his folded hands. "The next thing I knew, the cops were banging at my door. I spent the night in a cage. I never... What did I do to deserve this?"

His head suddenly whipped around towards Table A. Desperation, frustration, and tears burned in his eyes. "You did this!! You've already caused so much pain to so many people! Why me too!? Because I bumped into you? Did you just pick me at random? I don't understand! Please, haven't you done enough? Can't you just take back whatever it was you said and let me go!?"

Toby was stunned. The muskrat's words seemed completely heartfelt. Exactly how he'd expect an innocent man to sound. If Toby hadn't seen him with his own eyes at the crime scene yesterday, his aching plea might have been convincing. Toby began to wonder if he and his friends had made a mistake somehow. Was this man innocent? Could he be? It suddenly occurred to Toby that the furson he'd seen sabotaging Gyre 2 might have transformed himself into Mr. Skyks' likeness. 'I hope that's not the case. I'd feel guilty for weeks.'

Luxy had been standing to the side, mind and features blank, concentrating everything on listening. When Mr. Skyks finished, the raccoon walked over and patted the man's shoulder. "Thank you."

The muskrat seemed to snap to reality and remember how many people were watching him. He sat up and interlaced his fingers. "You're welcome, Mr. Bleeder."

Luxy then strode across the floor to the other table."The defendant has suggested that your accusation against him is meritless. He is asking you to rescind. Anything you'd like to say in response?"

Junella saw the explosion about to come out of Zinc's mouth and gently pinned her partner's lips shut with her fingers. She looked to Luxy and asked placidly, "Is this all on the official record?"

"Of course," he said.

Without a ripple in her expression, she enunciated, "Then my response is as follows: I don't give a fuck. Not a single fuck. Not a single solitary fuck, motherfucker."

Luxy's eyebrows went up.

Junella leaned all the way back in her chair to make eye contact with Skyks. "Does that answer your question, you lying-ass homicidal piece of shit?"

Skyks was so flustered by this he puffed up like a wet hen.

Luxy steepled his fingertips "I'm just gonna make a wild guess that you're in disagreement with his version of events. Would we like to share with the class?"

"We would like nothing more," Zinc snarled.

And thus the quintet began to tell their side of the story. Seeing as this was just the opening arguments, everyone tried to summarize. There'd be time enough to go through the details later upon cross-examination.

"...and then POW!! Next thing I know, I'm wakin' up in a pool of blood with my ears ringin' like churchbells and my wrenches gone. 'Inconsolable' is not a word I use lightly, but it applied. Now, did I see him do it? I didn't. I admit that. But I got a few witnesses who did. And I sure as hell smelled the rotten little prick strong enough to track him all the way to Fifty-Two..."

"...he was standing closer to me than he's sitting right now. I was keeping crouched down and hidden. He had my friend Zinc's wrenches on his shoulders and he was fiddling with some buttons and stuff at a control panel. He and Zinc yelled at each other for a bit, then I heard him say that he'd done something to the main hub and it was gonna explode in a few minutes. I swear I am not making any of this up..."

"...whereupon Sir Zinc located a Route Finder and we plummeted to Rippingbean & Woofingbutter's fine department store, which we had patronized not more than an hour beforehand. We were in need of a transformation potion to use upon myself and time was of the essence. I regret to admit that Sir Zinc did indeed burgle said potion. But we would be more than happy to pay for it this very moment, plus any interest deemed appropriate by the proprietors."

"...do you have any idea the kind of work it takes to knock over a whole damn building? No one's denying he did that, or that I keelhauled about forty-five pigbots to stop them from stoppin' him. But look at the results. Picture the destruction that already happened, but add five or ten more Bigwheels' worth. Just take a moment to really fix that image. Instead, we flattened some cars and pissed off some shoppers. Big deal. We probly saved half the city. You people oughtta be thankin' me. I swear to fuck, if you try to put me in that Pipe, I will personally..."

"...and then the whole mall shook like jelly and went CRRREEEAK! It got real tipsy, and for a second there I thought the other wheel was gonna miss it, but it didn't! It went KERSMASHAROONIE and there was oodles of broken glass, and the big bad apartment building went SWOOSH all the way down the side and rolled off the edge like a big donut! Hooray! We did it! So listen up, all you nice people. We didn't do anything bad. We was framed, y'see! We're a pack of peppermint patsies!"

Reactions were mixed.

Toby couldn't see behind him, but he could hear the waves of murmuring going back and forth across the crowd. There seemed to be some consideration that these five freaks might actually be telling the truth. But most of the other whispers were partially or unmistakably hostile in tone. Toby had heard the word "bullshit" multiple times.

Luxy had been reclining upon his podium, eyes closed, muzzle pointed heavenward. He stayed in this statuesque position for quite a while after Piffle had finished up her section of the story, until some people began to wonder if he'd fallen asleep on a diagonal lean. Instead, his hands suddenly clasped together and he vaulted between the two tables towards the audience. "Intrigue! Deception! Mystery abounding! Two different versions of events, both of which cannot simultaneously be true. Oh, it's delicious. I was hoping for one of these, weren't you? Isn't it boring as hell when someone's just obviously guilty as shit right from the start? Ain't it so more satisfying when there's a tangled web to chew through?" He clutched his crotch. "MMMmmmnhhhffhh!!"

Toby blinked.

Luxy whirled around. "Kevin!! The big screen, sill voo play!"

"Ready!" The prairie dog already had a control box in hand, and with the push of a button, two long, thin panels at the back of the room cracked open. From below rose a flatscreen TV half as big as a billboard. Meanwhile, two of Luxy's mannequin assistants were wheeling in a large bingo cage. They positioned it near Luxy's podium and made a flourishing gesture like magician's assistants.

Luxy walked over and put his paw on the cage. "Before I spin the witness balls, would either side like to add another name? Last chance!"

Toby guessed from context what was about to happen. He whispered to his companions, "When were we asked about calling witnesses? The police didn't tell me anything about that."

"It's taken care of," Zinc reassured. "Junebug and I gave 'em about a dozen names. We're covered."

Toby nodded, glad to hear it.

At Table B, Skyks spoke up. "Is Mr. Baccetti in there?"

Loud Kevin replied, "If you asked for him, he will be. No worries." Then he turned around to face the audience and recited a soliloquy he'd been through so many times he no longer even heard the words. "For new viewers the cage to my left contains the names of all the witnesses requested by any and all defendants witnesses will be called one by one chosen randomly each time all witnesses will eventually be chosen all witnesses will testify via Luxycam to ensure the safety of the witnesses back to you Luxy."

"Righty-o! Let's give 'er a swirl and see who's on first!"

Kevin opened his mouth.

"...and if you say 'what's on second', I will put many bullets into you."

He pouted. "You're a mean ol' poop, bossman."

Luxy tittered. He gripped the handle firmly and sent the witness balls a-tumbling. The band struck up a quick riff. Then Luxy brought the cage to a stop, popped the hatch, and dived his hand in. Each ball was ping-pong sized. He peered at the one he'd chosen.

"Ohoho, one of my favorite newscasters. Our first talking head is, appropriately enough, the fetching Miss Jamais Dreamsicle!"

He gestured towards the big TV screen and it came on. The perspective showed the hallway of a relatively posh apartment building. The camera dipped in low towards one of the doors and something emerged below the lens to pick the lock. From the movement, Toby soon guessed the camera was housed inside a hovering drone.

Luxy twirled his mic around his finger as the softly-humming Luxycam floated around the apartment, looking for Jamais. A muffled sound was heard past the living room. The camerabot surged forward.

Then it showed a door being flung open and one unsuspecting vixen sitting with her bloomers around her ankles on the toilet. She looked up and screeched. The audience cackled while Jamias threw hygiene products at the lens and tried to wrap the shower curtain around herself. "LUXY, YOU UNIMAGINABLE BITCH!!!"

He was grinning ear to ear. "Pleasure to see you again too, Jammy! My stars, you sure do keep your bathroom tile clean. What's your secret?"

***

Thus began the long, long, LONG parade of witnesses.

On every daytime court show Toby had ever seen, cases were decided as swiftly as fast food orders. He was absolutely unprepared for how a real trial worked. There were dozens of balls in that cage, each one corresponding to an Ectopian citizen who told their version of events, and were then asked a plethora of followup questions from the defendants and from Luxy himself. Toby would have been gobsmacked to learn that Luxy's court was actually incredibly efficient compared to most others in the terrestrial realm. With his policy of forbidding lawyers, the plaintiffs and defendants were responsible for their own cases, meaning far fewer technicalities, no tedious bickering over what was admissible (everything was), and, most importantly, the furson with the most amount of money to spend on a legal team didn't automatically win.

Once she'd knocked the Luxycam out of the room with the lid of the toilet tank, finished her business, and moved the interview to her balcony, Jamais began her testimony. She was, unsurprisingly, firmly against the defendants at Table A. She said she'd never seen or heard of Mr. Skyks before, but as footage from her newscast played on picture-in-picture, she narrated her eyewitness account of the canine, skunk, horse, hamsterfly and mouse demolishing the Panjandrum's supports and murdering dozens of security guards.

Toby watched the video in baffled fascination. It had seemed so different while it was all happening. It felt like it'd lasted a lot longer, for one. And he hadn't fully realized just how many copbots George and Junella had plowed through. There was a literal hill of sparking tin corpses once they'd finished.

Then there he was, flailing his hammer around. Missing with most of his swings, but when he connected... holy shit. He didn't remember most of it, but he'd made some true home runs. He felt kind of sick to realize that he was much better at bludgeoning people than he ever would have imagined.

And Zinc. The canine was a literal blur. 'Awesome' is a word so overused it has lost its meaning, but watching Zinc work on those support struts was awesome. He moved faster than Toby thought physics could allow. For these short moments, he was the living incarnation of determination.

Jamais finished up by telling how the 'albino one' had tried to take her hostage, which Toby rolled his eyes at. Next on the stand was one of Millie's friends from Bigwheel Fourteen. She tried to help the quintet's case, but probably did more to harm it. At first she said she was 100% sure Skyks had shot Zinc. But upon cross-examination, admitted that she hadn't actually seen it happen. She'd looked out the window after the loud 'pop', and saw someone muskrat-shaped running away. Luxy eviscerated her testimony, and her face was flushed red by the time the camera switched to someone else.

For hours afterwards, the big screen showed more eyewitnesses to the destruction, more friends of Millie's, several residents of Praxus Pammer, several mall employees, several security guards, several employees at Baccetti's restaurant, several police drones, and eventually Millie herself, plus the bazooka-toting doorman.

Some of the witnesses helped Toby's case, others damned it. But the longer he sat and watched, the more he came to realize just how good Luxy was at his job. His questions were rapid-fire, never allowing his prey the time to think up a lie. Plus the raccoon could put a chameleon to shame. He could transform into a different personality with each question he asked. Constant shifting from silly to serious to bored to abusive. It was a juggling act. Keeping the witness on their toes at all time, never sure what he'd do next. One moment he'd be demanding specific details about what they'd seen, the next he'd be asking them for their shoe size, or their favorite type of pie. And if someone stonewalled on giving Luxy a simple 'yes' or 'no' when he wanted one, he could use his words like a scalpel to force it out. Toby could barely believe that someone could switch so effortlessly, like a leaf on the breeze, between comfortingly persuasive or viciously ruthless.

Luxy wanted truth. Nothing else mattered. End of line.

But he didn't have to show his venom often. Most of the witnesses were cooperative. Either because they wanted to help their chosen side, or just because they tuned in frequently to Luxy's Court and didn't want to end up on the receiving end of a tyrant's temper.

It was difficult to watch the testimony from the employees at Baccetti's. They painted a picture of Pandevar Skyks as a beloved regular. A humble, soft-spoken fellow who always tipped. One waitress said she'd breathe a sigh of relief whenever he walked in, because he was a dependable contrast to some of the other assholes from the neighborhood. "He never came in drunk, never puked, never punched nobody. I wish we could run a business just sellin' soup to him alone. Whoever called him a terrorist is fucked in the head, I say."

If that was difficult, when the security guards spoke it was downright heartbreaking. Toby would cringe and try to will himself to vanish whenever one of them showed up on screen. These were decent people, all of them. And with the exception of the beheaded guard on 52, he and his friends had murdered or maimed every one of them. Not caring if it hurt their case, Toby made a point of always standing up at the end of each guard's testimony and saying, "I am genuinely sorry." Some responded with disgust, but others looked surprised and appreciative.

Toby had thought that the malamute doorman was going to slam-dunk their story. He'd seen Skyks entering Gyre 2. And while wearing Zinc's arms to boot! But Skyks pounced. He became surprisingly fierce, bombarding the man with questions, accusing him outright of being in league with Zinc in a conspiracy against him. "What else can we assume from a guard who lets four strangers, and a nightmare, just waltz right into the place he's supposed to be guarding? Please tell me they fired you for that! That's dereliction of duty if I ever heard it!" The doorman tried to stick to his story that he'd already seen Skyks enter, but the muskrat countered that, even if it were true, that only meant he'd failed at his job twice in one day. The malamute wilted like a pressed daisy after that. The muskrat had torpedoed his credibility.

Skyks tried to do the same with Millie, but she wasn't having any of it. The Luxycam showed the squirrelgator lounging in her bed, a cigarette dangling from her paw. "Y'know, I always wanted ta be on TV." She was wearing a nightgown so transparent you could see the stitching in her undergarments.

Luxy was pleasantly flustered. "Madam Millie Maybach, I presume?"

"At ya service, sugar." She pulled her big fluffy tail up close like a teddy bear and ran her scaly claws through it.

Luxy made an involuntary growl of 'I enjoy what I am currently seeing'. "Well, ah, yes. Would you do this courtroom the honor of providing testimony about the events of yesterday afternoon?"

"Are you sure that's all ya need me ta do?" she purred.

The raccoon melted slightly.

Zinc chuckled from his seat, not a bit jealous. Millie's livelihood was to have this effect on people, after all.

Millie began to describe, with perfectly composed candor, exactly what she and the defendant Zinc had been getting up to the day before. Suffice to say, heavy duty fooling around had commenced. There were many shouts of "Woooo!!" from the audience.

Zinc basked in the happy memories for a while, until he glanced over at Toby to give him a 'Yeah, that was me!' wink. Then he saw Piffle.

The hamsterfly was sitting very quietly with her hands in her lap. Lips pursed. Very deliberately not looking at the screen or at Zinc.

She didn't look angry. Something else. Zinc puzzled over it for a moment, and then a lightbulb came on.

"Oh..."

It seemed he'd need to talk with her later about this.

Toby said nothing, but was glad to see the realization flash over Zinc's face.

Skyks was pointing at Millie. "This is the same story as the other two, uh, hookers that already testified. None of you got a good look at this furson you claim you saw, but you're all ganging up and blaming me anyway! And you all seem to know this Zinc guy pretty well. Well enough to lie for him!"

Millie sat up straight and folded her arms across her not-inconsiderable chest. For a moment it was as if the screen wasn't there and she was sitting directly across from him giving him the evil eye. "I'm not exactly fond of being called a liar to my face," she said coldly.

"Neither am I!" Skyks shot back.

"Listen, shrimp. You're right that I didn't see you shoot my dear playmate. So I can't testify ta that. But what I will say izzat I trust my girls. I tawked to everyone, we pieced together a description, and it matches you. For whatever it's worth, I put my trust in that. Although, what I can testify to is that I've nevah had a terrorist's tentpole all up in my campgrounds, if ya know what I mean. Zinc's a stand-up guy. I believe him. And what I did see out that window? I saw his dead body layin' in the street, arms missing, blood all ovah the place in a pattern that looked remarkably like a shotgun blast. I've been around bad places long enough ta know what one looks like."

She turned to Luxy. "Talk ta Rosella, sweetie. She says she got a photo. I'm sure you have blood spatter analysis guys down there who can take a peep at it."

He patted the bingo cage. "She's in the balls somewhere."

"That sounds accurate," Millie quipped.

The audience guffawed.

Pandevar was not amused. "If I allegedly had a shotgun, then where is it? The cops said they never found one."

Millie shrugged. "People dumbfound things bigger than that." She casually flicked her cigarette out of existence, then reappeared it in her other hand.

Skyks tried a few more angles of undermining Millie, but she parried his jabs like a champion fencer. Luxy, charmed as he was, was not gentle either. Millie was more respectful with him, but managed admirably to keep up with his chaotic questioning. Her story did not budge an atom.

After Millie departed with a shake of her tail, the next witness up was one of the maintenance workers from Gyre 2. Toby had been steadily slipping into boredom for the past hour, and while Millie had perked his interest, now it was plunging floorward again.

As he stared ahead and spaced out, Toby inadvertently noticed something interesting about the camera feed. There were tiny colored numbers down at the bottom edge, flickering by so fast they were almost unreadable. Toby puzzled over them a bit, then noticed Luxy kept glancing at them. The mouse got a hunch that they were displaying things like heart rate and other body signals which wouldn't be apparent on normal video. The Luxycam was secretly a lie detector. He felt certain he was right about this.

The hours dragged on and the witnesses started blurring together. Toby was sure one of the security guards had testified three times. He was having trouble keeping his head propped up in a position faking alertness.

But then, something entirely new began to demand his attention. His bladder.

'Oh crap,' he thought. What was the procedure for something like this? This situation hadn't come up on any courtroom drama he'd ever seen. Did they call a recess? Would the bailiff escort him to the potty? He looked around. There wasn't even a bailiff here. Or did Loud Kevin count? Toby certainly did not want to be escorted down the hall and then have that blaring voice asking him, "HEYYYYY, you through tinkling yet!?"

Piffle came to his rescue when she noticed him squirming. "Are you doing the Zuni rain dance, Toby?" she whispered.

He squeaked in alarm. "Am I obvious?"

She giggled. "You look like it's about to come squirting out your ears."

"What do I do!?" he moaned.

"Silly mousie!" She tickled his tummy briefly (which made him wiggle like a fish). "Just will it to go away! You're in the spirit world, remember? Bodily functions are an illusion."

He had forgotten that. He took a moment to calm his nerves, thought about how it felt to fill a willwell, and told his bladder to behave. Just like that, the urge vanished. "Huh."

"Easy as pie."

A thought occurred to him. "But wait... If no one has to go number one or two, then was Zinc lying yesterday about the big pile of poo below the jail cages?"

"Prolly not. After all, you do gotta concentrate to make the feeling go away. I imagine most new people just 'go' like normal for a long time after they get here, until they figger out they don't have to."

He nodded. "That seems likely."

"Discussing legal strategies?"

Toby just about had a heart attack as he realized that Luxy Bleeder had crept up soundlessly and was leaning over with his face two inches away from theirs.

Piffle jumped a little, but was less fazed. "We were talking about bathroom issues!"

"I see. That's understandable. I'd hate to think I was boring anyone." He traipsed off towards the screen to resume interrogating the guard.

Toby's heartbeat sounded like a timpani. "That brought back bad memories of first grade."

***

Hours earlier, some TV-head gals had brought around a cart with fresh-baked confinement loaf. It broke the monotony, but just barely. After that it was back to the seemingly infinite cavalcade of witnesses. Toby thought he might actually get so bored his flesh would all fall right off his skeleton.

One thing had become clear to him though: his side's case was not going well. People tended to believe what they see with their own eyes. What they'd seen was him and his friends running away from Gyre 2 just before it exploded off its hub, and then destroying a much-beloved shopping center in broad daylight. What they had not seen was Pandevar Skyks. He didn't appear in any video taken by any spectator yesterday. It was much easier for most people to believe the simple, obvious story of events, rather than the convoluted truth. Countless guards, tenants. and shop owners had directed pure hatred at Zinc and the others, refusing to believe they were anything but terrorists. On their side, it was pretty much just the malamute doorman and Millie's girls.

Though there was also the video a bystander had shot of Toby and Piffle rescuing Jamais and her crew from the crashed news chopper. Piffle leaned over to hug her mousefriend for that, congratulating him again for being brave and thinking ahead. Jamais' cameraman had not been able to answer Piffle's question, "If we're so evil, then why would we bother rescuing you?"

Things got much more interesting in the courtroom once the last ball was drawn from the bingo cage and the last security guard gave near-identical testimony to a dozen others.

It was finally time for the defendants themselves to take the stand.

By now, Pandevar Skyks had built up a juggernaut of sympathy. He was flawless at portraying an innocent man wronged by the conspiratorial lies of a quintet of evildoers. When Loud Kevin announced that his testimony would be next, the audience cheered. And there was a near-tangible aura of goodwill coming towards him as he fielded Luxy's questions.

The one spark of hope Toby was clinging to was that Luxy did not seem to have fallen under Skyks' spell. He questioned the muskrat with no more sympathy than anyone else. Pandevar sat at Table B with his arms folded neatly in front of him. He looked Luxy straight in the eye as he calmly walked though the previous day's events one more time. Luxy came at him from every angle imaginable. And he seemed to catch him in a lie more than once. But Skyks was a wiggler. Like magic, he always had a perfectly reasonable comeback.

Luxy interrogated him for nearly an hour. At the end, Pandevar sat there smelling like a rose. Looking like a halo was hovering above his head. The harder the raccoon pressed, the more the mood in the room turned against him. They felt he was just bullying the muskrat at this point. When Luxy turned and stalked away towards his podium, Toby saw an expression of dark, blazing irritation briefly flash on his face, before he covered it again with a mask of nonchalance.

The crowd had been willing to laugh along with Zinc and Junella's wisecracks at the start of the trial. The rock music had them pumped and giddy anyway. But after hours of testimony, and plenty of video, all depicting in abundant detail the havoc and carnage these five had wrought upon their beloved city, the crowd was not laughing anymore. Zinc was glad he was facing away from the audience pit. If he thought there'd been hatred directed at him before... Not even close. He was glad he only had to look at Luxy now while he was being questioned.

Zinc, overall, did well. The day's accumulated boredom helped temper his molten hatred towards Pandevar. He was able to keep a cool head as Luxy lobbed figurative fastballs. He stuck to his story, and supplied as much detail as he could remember. Details he hoped could be corroborated by other evidence. It did at least help that, when Zinc brought it up, Luxy was honorable enough to admit having hired him and Junella years ago. The audience was a bit shocked by this. Zinc didn't push Luxy too hard, and didn't make him reveal what he'd said earlier about duststorm. It was enough just to have it entered into evidence that the mayor of Ectopia Cordis could personally vouch for Zinc being the owner of the two big metal wrenches on his shoulders. That fact could not be disputed. Pandevar had tried earlier to sow doubt that Zinc had even been robbed at all.

Junella was next. Toby had prayed to whoever was listening that she'd reign in her dislike for Luxy and her general combative disposition. While she smoldered like cold fire with her every response, she never lost her temper. Or swore too much. When asked about the police drones she and George had destroyed, she didn't deny a bit of it. Even said she'd had a hell of a lot of fun. But she remained adamant about her motives. In every way possible, she denied responsibility for the attack on Praxus Pammer, and in every way possible she reiterated that knocking over the mall was a choice made to prevent even greater losses if the wheel had continued downward.

When Luxy had finished, Skyks asked to cross-examine.

He scooted his chair back to lock eyes with her. "What do you have to say to the people who were in that mall yesterday? The people who lost their shops? The customers who died screaming? What do you have to say to them?"

Junella remained placid. She considered her answer then sang back quietly, "I would tell them, 'You got dealt a bad luck hand', that's all. If it had been some other big building at the right time and place, it would have been them instead. But it wasn't. That's just how it goes. And also, I'd ask those people, 'If you knew another few thousand people would've suffered if we hadn't done what we did, would you have asked us to spare you?'"

The courtroom got very quiet then.

Skyks turned back around in his chair and muttered, "No further questions."

Next up was Piffle. She didn't really have much to add that hadn't already been said before, but she let her natural effervescence work in her friends' favor. She answered Luxy's questions with a persistent cheerfulness. By the time he had finished, there were few in the room who weren't at least considering the doubt that someone this sweet could somehow be as evil as the evidence suggested.

Then it was Toby's turn. He immediately requested a glass of water.

Luxy sat it down and said, firmly but apologetically, "I know you are scared, but I'm not going to be any easier on you than anyone else."

Toby gulped down liquid and nodded back. His throat slammed closed from sheer intimidation, but when he was able to force it open again, he said, "I respect that."

And Luxy had been truthful. If indeed these five fursons were terrorists collaborating together on an insane lie to frame Pandevar, then Toby was the obvious choice for a weak link to break. Luxy pummeled him with questions. What happened when, who did what, why, how, where. He threw in innumerable random, nonsense queries too, trying to trip Toby up like marbles on a glass floor. Luxy asked him again and again and again, from every possible angle, to repeat patches of his story. Anything and everything to trick him into a lie. And Toby knew he'd fumbled plenty of his answers. He just hoped Luxy could tell the difference between plain terrified nervousness and a crook trying to keep his house of cards together.

When the questions finally stopped, Toby slumped down in his seat, panting like he'd run a marathon. Piffle reached out to pat his knee. He slammed back another glass of water.

And then George came to the rescue.

Anyone would have thought it impossible for a nightmare in Ectopia Cordis to get a roomful of people rooting for him. And while George didn't change everyone's minds, he changed the vibe in the room considerably. He was the perfect witness. Magnificently composed. His pleasing basso voice resonated through the room like a cello solo. He was unfailingly polite in his responses, and replied effortlessly to whatever cockamamie tactics Luxy hurled at him. Best of all, his recall, as he had said earlier, was immaculate. He remembered more details than the other four put together. Specific details. He was able to describe, exactly, the path that Gyre 2 had taken, and the path it would have taken if he and the others had not diverted it. He described the destruction in calm, surgeonlike precision. Luxy allowed him the request of a city map, and George listed site after site that would have been ashes if the wheel hadn't been sent to the parking lot. A guard earlier had testified to the total amount of property damage Zinc and the others had caused. The total amount that George calculated was nearly triple that. Why in the world would a terrorist group expend so much effort to cause less destruction? And it just kept getting better. Because George was able to punch holes in Pandevar's story that even Luxy hadn't touched. By the end of his testimony, this blackened skull positioned on a table like a basket of fruit had the complete attention of everyone in the building, plus the thousands tuned in on TV.

After Luxy finished up, thanked George for his cooperation and walked back to his podium, Toby leaned over and hugged the horse head so hard he almost splintered.

"I take it then, Sire Toby" the stallion said, his voice wavering a bit, "that I have performed to your satisfaction?"

Toby couldn't speak to reply. He just hugged harder. Piffle, Junella and Zinc joined in, till the poor horse felt like he might get ground to powder. But in the best possible way.

Luxy, meanwhile, was sagged over his podium, glaring daggers at his notes. His shoulders were hunched, his knees sagging. He was finally letting his exhaustion and frustration show. It was bravado, what he'd said earlier about how much he preferred a twisty, complex trial. Ones where the guilty party was all but advertising it in neon were so much easier. This one was a slog. He could take it though. He was the mayor of Ectopia Cordis after all. But to drag the defendants, the witnesses, and the audience through all this was unfair. Under his breath he muttered, "Things would be so much simpler if I had a truth ray."

But in his position, he knew, 'they must never see you slip.'

So he sprang up, posture straight, and ran his fingers through his headfur. His grin returned, blazing incandescently.

He strolled to the front of the stage and clasped his hands together with a boom. "Well! This's been fun. We should do this again sometime. In fact..." Irritation slipped into his smile. "...it looks like that's gonna be necessary."

Grunts of confusion from the audience. They'd been getting psyched up for him to deliver the verdict.

He could see that in their eyes. "No one's more disappointed than me," he said, placing a hand upon his chest. "But justice is not about wants. Justice is about the weight of the evidence." He mimed holding up a scale. "Before you today, we have heard two stories. Two very different stories. One, admittedly, much less ridiculous than the other." He cast a nod of acknowledgment towards Skyks, who looked quite happily surprised.

Luxy continued, gravely. "...But I don't make decisions based on plausibility. We have heard considerable amounts of testimony today, my pretty darlings. Testimony enough to bore the ears off a brass cat. And while much of it has favored one side over another..." Another nod to Skyks. "...we are concerned only with the content of the evidence we sift, not the quantity." He paused. "I just said 'titty'." This thought amused him into a blank stare for the next six seconds. And then a sudden twitch. "Where am I!? Where was I?"

"Evidence 'n shit, boss," Loud Kevin supplied.

"Yes! Evidence! Trials! Law! The thought of titties can make a man forget such things, Kevin."

"This is true."

Weary chuckles from the audience.

"Anyway, from where I'm at, there's really only one way to determine guilt or innocence at this point," he said somberly. Then he punched his palm and pointed ceilingward. "Dance-off!!"

Everyone at both benches gawked at him. Most of the audience did too. Piffle looked quite receptive to the idea.

"Only kidding, folks," Luxy said with a chagrined chuckle, realizing that, with his judicial eccentricities, far more people had taken that joke at face value than he'd expected. He kneaded his hands together and began to pace in a tight circle. "This pains me. It really does. Because I know everyone in the room wishes I could deliver a nice, fresh, steamy verdict right now." A groan of disappointment came from the crowd. Luxy held his fingertips a millimeter apart. "I understand the groan, my fellow Ectopians, for lo, I am this close to rendering a decision. But I can't yet. My moral code won't let me. Because, you see, it's all in my gut right now. I've heard the evidence for and against both sides. I'm weighing them. And neither side outweighs the other. There are heaping great mounds of circumstantial and eyewitness evidence in this case. But it's not ENOUGH, forfuckssakes!!" He punched his hand hard enough to sound like a bat smacking a baseball.

Something about the way Luxy kept saying 'evidence' tickled the back of Toby's mind.

Luxy raked his claws down his cheeks melodramatically. "Ohhhh, it's driving me shitbonkers, ladies and gentlemen! I've read the lines and I've read between them! On one hand, we have a band of vile terrorists hellbent on causing wanton destruction to our bright, shiny home, and they're willing to frame an innocent bystander with a skyscraper-sized lie to cheat accountability. On the other, we have a single monstrous mind, stealing a stranger's very limbs, framing five strangers for the colossal crime he is about to commit, and forcing them to do the unthinkable to minimize the aftermath. Every sinew in my body is telling me I know which story is true by now. But it is not enough that my blood and bones know. I need something I can point to, something that tips the balance."

Toby's breathing had begun to quicken.

Zinc heard his mouse friend start hyperventilating and looked over. His eyebrows shot up. "Jeeziss, Toby! Your engine about to throw a rod or what!?"

The mouse was sitting rigid as stone, eyes bulging out of their sockets, hands clutching the edge of the table like he was afraid gravity was about to reverse. He could barely force himself to speak. "I think... I think I've just found a way to win the case..."

Zinc's ears sprang up. "Well don't keep it to yourself, man!"

Luxy was still pacing. "You good kind folks know I am a lover of efficiency. I hate to have a trial last more than a day. But in this case, I think I have no choice. Tomorrow, I think, we will bring in more expert witnesses. People who can attest to-"

Toby's hand shot up.

The raccoon stopped mid-stride and swiveled around. He cocked his head; puzzled and amused. The white mouse had his hand raised like he was about to ask his teacher for a restroom pass.

Toby was nearly paralyzed. Half of his brain was screaming at him to go ahead and blurt it out already because this might just save all their butts. The other half was telling him that he was no superhero detective. There was no way this stupid, last-second idea would change anything.

"Yes?" Luxy asked.

Toby's willpower reached inside his body and forced his jaw and tongue to produce sounds. "Sir... I think, maybe, I might have, maybe, thought of something interesting."

Skyks put a hand to his chin and narrowed his eyes. He had a bad feeling about this. But why should he?

Luxy crossed his arms behind his back and strolled over. "Sir? Sir!? The touristyness is strong with this one, innit?" The audience laughed. "Don't call me 'sir', it's too boring. Call me 'Luxy'. Or 'your excellency'." He paused. "...'Your Luxcelency'?" He considered the sound of that.

"Luxy, sir, Mr. Bleeder," Toby sputtered, "you said you needed evidence?"

That got his attention. His posture mirrored a hunting dog en pointe. "If you know where I might find some, don't hold my balls in suspense."

Toby took a humongous deep breath. "Okay. Um. So, I don't even know how this occurred to me just now, but you said 'evidence', and then you said something about 'blood and bone', and that made me remember that Zinc's wrenches are bloodpowered."

Zinc nodded. "Yeah. Go on, kid."

"Okay, so, well..." Toby's lower lip wouldn't stop trembling. "When Skyks stole them, he'd have to have powered them with his blood, right?"

Junella's jaw dropped as she realized where Toby was going with this.

Skyks sat bolt upright in his chair and left clawmarks in the armrest.

"So maybe..." Toby went on, "...there might still be traces of his blood inside. Which would be proof that he stole them from Zinc."

Skyks leapt skyward to stand on his chair. "THAT'S COMPLETE BULLSHIT!!!"

Luxy turned slowly, like a buzzard towards a carcass. "My goodness. You seem to be agitated, Mr. Skyks."

It was the muskrat's turn to sweat and fidget. He collected himself and got his mask back on. "I'm sorry, but I'm just tired of this! You were right on the edge of telling us we could go home! I've been sitting here all day! I'll go back to that jail cell if it means I can just rest my brain. And now he's trying to keep it going with this... this bizarre, untestable garbage idea! I am tired, Mr. Bleeder! And I think most of your audience are tired as well."

Luxy Bleeder's eyes seemed to transform. To become cold, undead glass, shining with mischievous fire. He spoke softly, but through a grin that threatened to slice his face in half. "Superbly interesting, Mr. Skyks." His head creaked towards the audience. "Well, my loyal subjects? Is he right? Does he speak for everyone?"

Only a few affirmative shouts, which were quickly muffled by whoever was standing near the shoutee. The clear consensus was no.

"Or maybe," Luxy purred through that monstrous smile, "would you like to stay a teensy bit longer to see where our boy Toby's idea leads?"

A solid wall of roaring agreement.

Toby was quite happily stunned.

Skyks sat down hard. He seemed to deflate. His eyes reflected the coiling tension of a nonev caught between fight or flight.

Luxy smelled fear, and pounced. In half an eyeblink he was across the room, clutching at Pandevar's fat arm. "You won't mind if I borrow this for a second, eh Sunny Jim?"

"Let go of me!" Skyks squealed. "I don't consent to any blood test! Stop!"

Luxy's head tipped back obscenely in an echoing chortle. "You really think that means anything? Have you forgotten this ain't no democracy you're in?" With that, he swept his head forward and bit deeply into the man's flesh.

Skyks shrieked and the audience bellowed its approval.

Luxy tossed the little man aside and sucked in a deep breath. His smile was now ringed with red, like he'd eaten half a tube of lipstick. He licked his chops. "That was just a taste test, ladies and gentlemen."

Skyks had tumbled to the floor, clutching at his arm, wailing. "My ARM! You bit my arm like a rabid animal!!"

Luxy looked over his shoulder. "Yup!"

He then moonwalked back to Table A. Sitting down in front of Zinc he asked, "Y'mind if I borrow one of them thar doohickeys you got fastened t'yer shoulders?"

Zinc knew there was no hope in this exercise. Skyks had used the wrenches for a tiny fraction of time. And once he got them back, he'd put them through the most intense use of his life. Any trace of Skyks's blood would have been scrubbed clean by the sheer amount of lava-heated red he'd surged through them during the mall assault. But then again... this was Luxy. Maybe there was a tiny bit of hope.

He shrugged off his right wrench and reverently handed it over. "Careful, I just redid the upholstery on 'er."

Luxy guffawed. "Won't need this but a mo'," he assured. He stood up, making sure the whole crowd could see him, and brought the shoulder mount of the wrench-arm to his lips. He began to suckle like a baby at a tit. Like a vampire at a neck.

The sounds were obscene beyond describing.

Everyone stared at him. Zinc stared. Skyks stared. Toby stared. (Poor George couldn't, but only because no one remembered to turn him in that direction.)

Luxy's eyes were glassy and faraway. He slurped and slurped at the wrench, drawing in every last drop of blood he could. Filtering out the taste of the metal. Losing all his other senses. Concentrating everything on taste...

Then his eyes lit up. And one could practically hear his head ding like a bell.

He lowered the wrench, and that ungodly, mile-long grin was on his face again.

He rotated in place towards Skyks. "You... my friend... are fucked."

Skyks leapt straight up out of his chair. "OBJECTION!!!"

The crowd murmured. Some of them didn't understand exactly what Luxy had found. Others weren't sure they trusted it. Others were already convinced of the muskrat's guilt just by his body language and wanted to start the lynching right then and there.

Luxy sauntered back towards Skyks' table, hands in pockets, wide-eyed innocence in his eyes. "You object? Dearie me, whatever for?"

He'd exhausted himself with his sudden vertical vault and panted to get the words out. "That's... that's... Am I expected to believe you're going to convict me based on THAT!? Because you supposedly found a fleck of blood inside that thing that tasted like mine!? That's ludicrous!"

Luxy tipped a shrug towards the crowd: 'fair point'. "You know, Skyksies, that's reasonable. It really is. But you see..." He traced a single finger lightly down the man's face, from forehead to lips. Skyks slapped it away. "It brings up a contradiction is what it does. You said you've never been to Gyre 2. They say you have. So if we could manage to find one single molecule of you at that crime scene... well, that's case closed, now isn't it? And, what a shame, any evidence that you'd thrown yourself into the main hub was surely destroyed in the sub-see-qwent explosion. Or was it?" He tapped his chin. "Was it, Sky-blue-skyksiekins? I'd considered the possibility, then discounted it. Thought it would take too much time to sift through all that debris. But now I think I've had a change of heart. You don't think the evidence as it stands is sufficient? Your blood in his wrenches? Okay then." He lowered his head and his voice, putting both palms flat on the desk. "I'll have my little elves crawl all over Praxus Pammer like cockroaches. I'll have them bring me every single shrap of shrapnel they can find from the Gyre's core. And I'll stand here and I'll look you in the eyes, and I'll lick every single piece of it. Alllllll over. Just hunting for a taste of you." He waggled his tongue. "You don't think I will? I've got all the time in the world. We can stay here till midnight. Just give me the word, sweetheart, I'll have 'em start bringing in debrisicles right now."

Skyks bolted.

You wouldn't think a short little fat guy could run so fast. But when you're running from the wrath of Luxy Bleeder, you find surprising reserves of inner strength. Of course, it was wasted effort. Like ghosts appearing from thin air, half a dozen TV-headed assistants popped up and sunk their plastic claws into the muskrat. They wrestled him to the hard lacquered floor with ease, fracturing his shoulder. Luxy tittered as they dragged him, mewling and wiggling, back to his seat.

Luxy had the presence of mind to return Zinc's arm before zeroing in on Pandevar again. "Gosh, Pandy, you'd almost give me the impression you don't enjoy my company. And here I was just about to invite you to have tea and scones and mud pies."

"LET ME FUCKING GO OR I'LL DISMANTLE EVERY LAST ONE OF YOU!!!" the muskrat screeched at the mannequins.

Plastic does not typically respond to threats. Their stiff, pointy fingers remained snaring him in place like the teeth of a bear trap.

Luxy, eyes locked on Skyks, extended a hand to cup the man's chin. He savored the moment as long as he could.

Their eyes were locked. A silent contest of wills began.

Skyks clung to his lies for as long as he could, but was inevitably powerless against the sheer typhoon will behind those yellow orbs of Luxy's.

Finally, he let the act drop.

"Wow. Sonofabitch, you got me. Goddamn. I actually thought I was going to get away with it."

Luxy nodded, pleased that his prey had shown the good sense to concede defeat and not drag this out any further. "Many people do think that. It's why I don't doubt that there really would be villains lining up to commit crimes in Gotham city, or 'round near Baker Street."

"Christ, Luxy, are you actually comparing yourself to-"

"Yes." Simple and unequivocal.

Skyks shrugged. "I guess you've got reason." He sighed. Then he craned his head as far to the side as he could. Trying to get a clear view of Table A. He called out, with a surprising lack of malice, "Hey! Hey mouse! Double fuck you, okay? Double fuck you. Do you understand that? I'm going to hunt you til my last breath and bury you alive in your own shit, you feel me?"

Toby was still quaking and trying to process the fact that he might have actually, through some miracle of luck, saved the day. He barely registered that the muskrat guy had just threatened undying vengeance upon him. He felt a moment's stab of fear once it sunk in. But then Junella reached behind Piffle to put a hand on his shoulder. The skunk caught Toby's gaze, and her eyes said, 'No he won't.'

Toby nodded in gratitude back to her.

Skyks shook his head at Luxy. "So are you really telling me that you could detect such a tiny, tiny amount of my blood in those wrenches? Seriously? Fuck me, I never planned for that. Never even imagined it."

"Sure" Luxy tossed off. "I've been in the murder business a right long time, pardner. I think I know the taste of B positive when I come across it, even when it's mixed in with a gallon or two of O. It was like finding an olive in my ice cream."

Skyks grinned an absolutely mirthless, eternally spiteful smile. "Fuck you too, Luxy. You pompous cunt."

Luxy chuckled, then sighed happily. "I thought I saw through your disguise right from the start. But then you started talking. And oh boy, could you lay on the bullshit thick. Even knowing my super special secret thing about you, I started doubting that you did it. You had me doubting my instincts, Pandy-pie. Do at least take some credit for that."

Their noses were inches apart. The rest of the room held their breath. Both men smiled and spoke as if in cheerful conversation, but the tension between them was like two electrical storms trying to shove each other out of the sky. "Get bent, clownshit," Skyks said pleasantly. "What the hell kind of super secret do you think you know about me?"

Luxy 'tsk'ed. "You didn't say the magic word."

Skyks made a kissy face at him. "Tell me now, you pathetic psycho-faggot."

"There it is," Luxy purred. "Y'see, my investigative crew is thorough. Legendarily so. We have computers like you wouldn't believe, and we can crosscheck anything we can think up, even in our wildest tripping-our-tits-off imaginations. One of the things I asked them to crosscheck was if there was any connection whatsoever between a certain pudgy muskrat and any of the victims of yesterday's little 'oopsie'."

Skyks' smile cracked a little.

"I mean, how nuts is that, right? The idea that someone would destroy a fifth of my beloved city, all because of a vendetta against one furson? Aw, that's Christmastime fruitcake with nuts! But we checked it! Because it might be true. And we found something very funny, hee hee."

Skyks' teeth ground against each other.

"It seems that, almost six years ago, a landlord named Faron Yonburg terminated the lease on an apartment belonging to... gasp! What's this? One Pandevar Skyks! And Faron later sold the whole complex and used the profits to buy himself a spot on Bigwheel Fifty-Two. Not in Praxus Pammer. Nosiree. We thought about that first, and it was really only pure luck we had the goofy thought to check beyond that. So where did Mr. Yonburg move to? Why, the apartment building exactly three blocks across from Gyre 2!"

Skyks' eyes seemed to boil. "Fffffffuck youuuuu..."

"Could it be? Could it be that retard-bangingly simple, Pandykins? In this whole big craaazy universe, is it anywhere possible that one man could hold a grudge for six years, and hate his landlord so much that he'd get his revenge by throwing an entire goddamned building at him?"

Skyks' voice was tiny, bitter and quivering. "You weren't supposed to find out now. I was going to get away with it, and then reveal it after the trial. Double jeopardy. I couldn't be tried twice."

Luxy's smile radiated sunshine, fresh meadow air, and baby lambs. There was nothing he loved more than freshly squeezed stupidity. "Pandy, Pandy, Pandy. You miscalculated. For starters, you’re still thinking in terms of a court system that has to play by the rules. If you ever confessed post-trial, I would have hunted you down and personally eaten every last scrap of flesh off your bones. Just for being a dickhead."

The muskrat flinched, looking at Luxy's teeth.

"For seconds, are you honestly trying to tell me that, after living in this city for at least six years, you didn't know that 'they deserved it' is a perfectly viable legal defense?"

Skyks closed down his face, saying nothing and showing no more emotion.

Luxy cocked his head back and forth, trying to force through that blank mask. "I read the file. He terminated you on shitty grounds. You had a case. You could have walked right up to him, cut his nuts off, hit him over the head with them, then told the court, 'He threw me out of my home for petty, personal gripes.' And I would have said, 'You're lucky he only cut your nuts off. Get outta here.' And that would've been that. You just... I mean, wow. Everything else you caused, was just so singularly unnecessary."

A facial twitch.

"Or was it...?" Luxy probed deeper, like a doctor with a bonesaw. Digging open Skyks' closed face with the sheer penetrating force of his will. "No... it wasn't..." he breathed in amazement.

Skyks' facade fell slack. Luxy had cracked his safe.

Luxy was giddy with joy now. "It wasn't! Oh you demented little puppy! I get it now! This wasn't just about Faron. I mean, he was the lynchpin allright. The keystone. He was your motivation. But I can see you, huddled over a table in whatever rathole you were able to carve out after he kicked you to the curb, planning. Hating him. Rejecting idea after idea, because they were all too simple. They weren't big enough to demonstrate to this little ant the colossal enormity of your hate for him. And then one day, you got the idea. THE idea. But it was TOO big. You could never pull it off. Or could you? With a little planning, heck yes you could! All you'd have to do is start going to some little out-of-the way diner. Establish a presence there. Build your persona. Make them love you. Love you enough to maybe misremember that you were still eating there at the time when Praxus was going boom-boom."

This was intolerable. Luxy was reading him like the back of a cereal box.

"It would have been so perfect, wouldn't it?" Luxy cooed. "You'd get your revenge in the most spectacular way imaginable. You'd send a twenty ton yo-yo crashing through your ex-landlord's living room, and all the other death and ruin would be whipped cream on the cake. It would be your message to the world: 'I am not small. I can move mountains. You do not fuck with Pandevar Skyks'.

"...But you deviated from the plan. Didn't you, Precious? Tsk-tsk, such a nono! You saw some rube walking past with a twinkle in his eye and big fucking metal wrenches for arms. How useful those might be! So you took it as a sign of providence. You dumbfound up a gun and claimed your new toys. But the downfall for people like you, Pandy, is that you can't conceive how other people might have as rich and complex a life as yours. You couldn't fathom that the guy you just mugged was a bounty hunter good enough to get hired by me. And now he was coming to get back what you stole."

Skyks stole a glance towards the other table. Pure concentrated radioactive murder was in his eyes.

"Your message got spoilt, chuckles, because no one was supposed to suspect you. Not until you confessed on your own terms. Not until you beat the system, got away with it, then revealed your masterstroke. Show 'em all. But it didn't work out the way you hoped. Shoulda stuck to the plan, my man! Guess that's the way the cookie crumbles! And that brings me to your third big mistake. All this time, you were courting the wrong judgment. All the time you spent at Baccetti's? All through this trial, working the crowd's sympathies like milking a teat? You thought you needed to worry about the public's judgment."

Luxy pulled him a little closer by the front of his shirt.

Skyks could smell his own blood on the man's breath.

"No, Pandy. You needed to worry about mine."

He kissed Skyks on the nose.

Skyks' pupils became catlike slits. He was vibrating with sheer vitriol. He forced his words out through gritted teeth. "I hated him, and look what I did. I hate you now, Luxy darling. You're never going to be safe from me. Not even if I have to wait a millennia for my chance. I will bury you for toying with me like this."

Luxy chortled and patted him on the head. "Nigga, please. I killed Scaphis Tarrare. I fear you about as much as my own toejam."

For a second, it seemed like Skyks might actually morph into a giant blood clot and explode from rage. Then it passed, quite suddenly, and a calm smile appeared in its place. "Fine then. Fine. Let's just get this over with. How long in the Pipe, Luxy? How long for bad ol' me? Ten years? Twenty? That millennium I mentioned?"

This day just kept getting tastier and tastier! Luxy clapped Skyks chummily on the shoulders. "Heavens no! I'd never dream of doing something so barbaric!"

Oh dear. Skyks did not like the look of pure screaming joy in Luxy's eyes right now.

"Not because I'm merciful, but because that would be completely wasted on someone like you! It's too easy! You'd dangle in there, completely immune to remorse or self-reflection, and just plot and scheme all day about how yer gonna git me. No, no. We've gotta think of something better. Something more useful."

Skyks barely stopped his bowels from opening and filling his pants with terror-turds.

"Pandy, sweet moron, what you are is a coward. You made other people suffer because you had a tiff with one man. That's not how adults settle their differences. No sir. I don't abide cowards, Pandy. They give me gas. So what we are going to do, to hopefully stir some empathy somewhere in that wrinkled gonad you call a soul, is put you to work. You're going to join the rebuilding crew. You are going to toil, day and night, without rest, putting back together all the toys you knocked over. I am going to give the workmen special instructions. They are going to give you all the shit jobs, dear Pandevar. The jobs so demeaning they normally get robots to do them, because to knowingly let a fellow sentient being take on such a task is, well, defiling. And if you step out of line, they will have special dispensation to punish you in any way they see fit. Pandy my fellow mental abnormality, you are not going to rest on your lazy little tuchus in the Pipe. You're gonna fix everything you broke. You are going to work your fingers down to stumps. You are going to learn the meaning of 'back-breaking labor'. You, my friend, are going to make amends."

Skyks seethed. His chest muscles vibrated like high tension wires. His face was clenched up like a boil about to pop. Loathing incarnate. "You won't break me," he snarled. "I'll wait. I'll put back every pebble, and I'll wait till my time's up. I'll wait for you, shitcunt. You prick. You germ."

Luxy just shrugged. Face a blank. He flicked his hand in a dismissive gesture, ordering his plastic lovelies to take Mr. Skyks away.

The crowd began to cheer as they lifted him up and his chubby legs dangled in the air. He struggled in their clutch, staring back into Luxy's eyes the whole time. Glaring daggers. Machetes. ICBMs.

Luxy turned and looked up towards the ceiling, a glaze coming over his gaze. "Oh! Oh, right, I almost forgot! Silly me!" He waved at the TV-heads. "Bring him back, girls!"

Puzzled silence trickled over the crowd.

Skyks held his glare, but began to fidget. His face turned wary. The sentence was already passed. What now?

The assistants dragged Skyks to within a foot of where Luxy stood. A tiny flick from his fingers. They obeyed, and brought the man closer. Another flick. Closer still. Until the two men's shirts were rustling against one another and they were sharing each other's exhales. Luxy held up an A-OK to the mannequins. Just perfect.

Luxy's teeth parted, and he whispered. "You didn't really think you were going to get off that easy, did you?"

The crowd pushed nearer to the courtroom floor. The stage crew brought the mics closer. Viewers at home turned up their volume.

Skyks chewed his lips. He probed Luxy's eyes. They might as well have been glass lightbulbs. The raccoon's poker face was impenetrable. Skyks had no idea what was coming.

Luxy lifted a hand to Skyks' shirt and began to play with the neckline, twisting it back and forth between his fingers. "No, you see... Putting you to work would only address one half of the problem. It'd be miserable for you, and it'd help heal this city's broken bones... but it's not enough, y'know? Pandy, you... you didn't just hurt my city. You traumatized it. You didn't just cause buildings to crumble. You caused tears. You caused terror and loss and heartbreak. You took away things that people had worked their whole lives for. And just putting brick and mortar back together isn't gonna heal that, now is it? No. And in fact, nothing will." He pulled himself even closer, wrapping an arm around the muskrat like they were old college buddies. Skyks was wrigglingly uncomfortable. The camera caught beads of sweat rolling down his nose. "And that makes me sad, bubbe. You wanna know why? Because I get irked when there's something I can't fix. For all my power, I can't fix hearts and bad dreams. That gets me all tangled up inside. So what do I do when I lack the ability to set something right? Well... let's just say I never took the phrase, 'two wrongs don't make a right' to heart. I like making wrongs. To the right people, I mean." His voice was already low, but it had taken on a disturbing, breathy edge. He began to rub himself up and down Skyks' body. "I bust their fondest dreams into itty-bitty pieces. I find what they yearn for most, and I take it from them." He made a grasping gesture with his left hand. "You, Pandevar Skyks, want recognition. That's why you confessed here. Not because I had you, but because I was teasing you with the prospect of dragging this out and letting uncertainty linger. You couldn't wait to get to the good part where you'd get to jump up and down singing, 'It was me! It was me! Look at what I did! All that sadness and strife! All that power! Look at the power I held, to affect so many people! I'll be in the history books!'" Luxy traced a finger across Skyks' lips, then roughly pinched them shut. Openly humping the muskrat's leg now, he withdrew from his pants a silver pocket watch. Or so it seemed. He opened it and pressed it to Skyks' muzzle. Together their eyes widened. Skyks from the sensation, Luxy from the reaction. "Here's a little something I probably shouldn't have, but I stole a sample of it a while ago from an old friend of mine. Just let it do its work. It's gonna shut you up good, Pandy. No more crowing about your dastardly achievements. I'm taking away your gloating, little boy. More than that, I'm taking your identity." He hissed the word. Pandevar had lost the ability to blink. "I officially pronounce you guilty, Mr. Muskrat. Guilty of causing unnecessary suffering. Tons of it. And just like the pharaohs of old, I am going to strip your existence from all records. Your photos, your history, your very name. You will be forgotten entirely. People will remember your crime, yes, but they'll draw a blank when they try to remember who committed it. 'Who was that? I can't remember.' You don't deserve an atom of satisfaction from your legacy. As of right now, it's just gone up in a puff of dust. You have already heard your own name for the last time. You, my friend, are a non-entity. You're a ghost. You are expunged. Your only name now is a description. Wholly deindividualized. You are nothing now but Cleanup Crew. Welcome to the rest of your infinite afterlife."

The muskrat began to howl. It was the senseless, feral scream of an infant in pain who doesn't understand why the world is so unfair.

Yet he was almost totally silent. The sound was muffled, by a thick gag of melted teeth and flesh.

The device Luxy held had erased half his face. Permanently. No more mouth. Just two raving eyes and a flat, wide scar. No more laughter, no more witticisms, no more boasting. Cleanup Crew would remain silent forever.

He thrashed desperately to get away. Trying everything to escape from the mannequins holding him down, until his tantrum made their fingers dig in and get red.

Luxy savored this moment like a connoisseur sipping from a goblet of hundred-year scotch.

Then he turned to the audience, as if remembering they were all still there. "But, is that not immediate enough for you folks?" he asked brightly.

They were a bit too stunned to respond.

"How 'bout this? I'll let you guys play with him a bit before his sentence begins. Cash and prizes go to whoever brings me the biggest piece of him when it's all over!"

All it took was a nod to his assistants and they let the muskrat flop into Luxy's eager hands. He smiled at the little man. Cleanup Crew squirmed mutely in horror. The kind of horror people feel when they look into the eyes of a Lovecraftian horror. Luxy lifted him up and drop-kicked him into the audience pit below.

They fell upon him like starved piranhas.

"Bare hands, everyone! No tools!" Luxy called out merrily.

Luxy paused a moment to appreciate the charming scene before him. The splashes of scarlet. Skyks' near-imperceptible shrieks as his consistency was altered. Pure art.

While the crowd in the stadium enjoyed playtime, Luxy's head popped up to face the cameras and he clapped his hands for the home audience's attention. "Sorry if I got a little quiet. Whispers do help put the fear of god in 'em. But I meant what I said. I'd like you all to help me carry out my sentence. If all of Bigwheel 52 can change their sky, an entire city oughtta be able to do something as simple as forgetting one li'l ol' name."

He held up his palms and drilled into the cameras with his most hypnotic stare. "I'm going to count to three, my friends, then clap. When I do, my friends, you will choose to forget this criminal's name. You will deny him his fame. You will help me bury him in the past, while this city moves forward without him. Ready, my friends?

"One... Two... Three."

CLAP

The sound seemed to echo far more than possible within the open amphitheater. Many people, even at home, felt a shockwave pass their faces like a breeze.

And just like that, over sixty percent of Ectopia Cordis forgot the muskrat's name.

Luxy knew his little trick wouldn't affect everyone. Only those who had truly put their hearts in it. But the rest would take care of itself. He'd put his crew to work right away scrubbing the city's records, scouring the muskrat's identity like a stain. He'd strangle every remaining source he found. Citizens who dared speak it aloud would be taken aside, have the words plucked from their mind, and then sent on their way with a spanking. He was serious about the muskrat's unequivocal obliteration. He'd change the man's body, too. Make it unrecognizable. Starve off even his own memory of his former self. And even if, despite all his efforts, some lingering trace of 'Pandevar Skyks' still remained extant outside of Luxy's own mind, it would be enough that the muskrat believed. That he would lament his obscurity every hollow night and every backbreaking day. Eternally. No second chances, no redemption. Just a torment that would last for all time, yet would still not equal the sum total of what he had caused.

The raccoon turned his head towards Table A. "Looks like all I gotta decide now is what to do with you guys."

Toby let out a shriek a full octave above what he thought his larynx was capable of producing.

Luxy 'tee hee'ed. "Oh, no need to be like that! You guys are innocent! Off the hook. Out the door." He jerked a thumb over his shoulder and whistled.

As much as Zinc admired Luxy, he had to admit he'd come very close to shrieking like Toby had. "G-good to hear!" he said shakily.

The raccoon could see that all of them (besides the nightmare) were varying degrees of terrified, and that was understandable. "No, really. You can relax. Honest injun. I got my jollies out with Whats-His-Name over there." And dear god, there was actually a wet spot on his pants. "You five deserve nothing but praise."

Junella arched an eyebrow. "For serious?"

"Cross my heart." He had a thought. "Speaking of that..."

He turned back to the crowd. "Hey, guys! Guys? Could you maybe murder Mr. Cleanup Crew a little quieter, for like, two minutes? Okay?"

Very few people can calm a ravenous mob and make it look so effortless.

The crowd settled down, stopped hooting in animalistic triumph, and cast their eyes to the front of the court. Even the bloodstained dozens closest to the stage paid attention. (Cleanup could not look up, because at the moment he had become Manhattan-style clam chowder.)

Luxy held his arms up, palms out. "I'll let you get back to unrestrained acts of savagery and bloodlust and all that wholesome family fun in just a moment. For now," he looked towards the table, "would you guys come on up, right over here? Oh, and you can take the collar off your pony pal."

Toby got out of his chair and turned around to see uncountable eyes pointed in his direction. He had cringed when they'd glared at him in hatred. But now the expressions were varied. Some still refused to believe his innocence, but some... some were actually looking at him like he and his friends had done something heroic.

It was not as uncomfortable as being reviled, but Toby nonetheless flinched at having no idea how to react in a situation like this.

Zinc leaned across the table to scoop up George. "Hold 'im steady, Junella," he asked. She did, and he snipped through George's restraint collar with a crunch. Seconds later, there was a full-sized horse skeleton standing on stage. (If Zinc had not ducked, George's rapid re-expansion might have gotten him a hoof-shaped sternum dent.) Some of the audience instinctively recoiled at seeing a nightmare so close. But once he'd gotten himself reoriented, George took a bow to them, then trotted with dignity towards Luxy.

The other four followed. Zinc raised his wrenches and let out a rebel yell as the crowd cheered. Junella waved her sword, her face a quiet smirk of 'Was there ever any doubt?'. Toby kind of wobbled in place for a moment, until Piffle hug-propelled him forward. She speckled his cheek with kisses. "See, Toby? I told you everything was gonna come up roses!"

Luxy Bleeder, mayor-king of Ectopia Cordis, stepped aside to let the five friends stand center stage.

He allowed the crowd to make noise for a little while longer, then gestured for quiet again. "Fellow Ectopians, I know there will still be those among you who will have a difficult time disbelieving your eyes. You saw these five seemingly commit acts of mass chaos. But if you trust me at all, believe this: the longer I listened, the more I believed each one of them. Their story is true. For all of you who live on levels Fifty-Two through Forty-Six, there was nothing that could have been done to spare your homes. I am sorry. I take full responsibility, because the cranes should have gotten there in time. My administration: my accountability. I failed to protect you.

"But luckily, for everyone on Forty-Five and below, someone else was there to do what I couldn't."

He simply swept his hand towards the five, and the crowd erupted applause.

At times like this, there is not really anything one can do but simply stand there and let the moment wash over them. To stand and receive the ovation of hundreds, knowing that many more are watching from their homes, cheering too. For you.

Toby looked over and... was Zinc crying?

Luxy smiled. Not the razor-sharp madman's smirk from before, but a warm and genuine one. "You guys, I have a gift for you. It's not much. But, along with an official declaration of innocence, it's what I have to give."

When Toby glanced at Luxy to see what the gift might be, he could see a small white mouse standing there in the big TV at the back of the room. Was that really him? Was all this really happening right now?

Luxy marched forward to stand before the quintet. "Hold out your hands in front of you. Cup them slightly." He winced and looked towards George. "That'd be a little difficult for you. How 'bout I think of something special if you gimme a sec?"

"That will be perfectly fine," George said.

The others stood there with their hands cupped. Toby wondered if they were going to get medals, maybe?

Instead, Luxy reached into his vest and solemnly drew a pearl-handled knife with a blade that looked carved from moonlight. Obviously a very personal weapon.

Toby's eyebrows went up. "Um..."

Zinc muttered out the side of his mouth, "Just go with it, guys. If this is what I think it is, there is no higher honor. You can't even pay for this to happen to you."

"Damn right," Luxy said.

As the foursome stood still while George looked on, Luxy let his fingers dance along the blade of his instrument, letting them remember its weight and dimensions. He looked the four defendants up and down. Precise calculations were made in his mind. This move required all of his considerable skill. These four deserved no less.

"Close your eyes. Please," he requested.

Zinc did. Junella did. Toby (hesitantly) did. Piffle, with her compound eyes, couldn't. So she focused up at the ceiling instead.

Luxy drew in a deep breath, then lunged forward like a painter taking first strokes at a blank canvas.

The arena was so quiet, everyone present could hear the slash of perfect metal through muscle. Skin yielded. Bones parted. The action was so quick, even the blood stood still until after the act had been completed.

Toby felt a tingling wave ripple through him. A kind of euphoric shiver. Then he felt something warm and heavy land in his hands.

He opened his eyes.

All four of them now stood holding their still-beating hearts. Perfectly excised. Like cut gems.

There was no pain at all. Just a spinning, sparkling sensation too fleeting to categorize. Toby stared at the peach-sized ruby in his hands. He blinked. A heart sat on Zinc's wrenches, and one in Piffle's paws too. Junella's was black as oil. 'Looks like a big olive,' he thought, and recognized the oddly-welcome feeling of going into shock.

Luxy spoke softly, so only they could hear. "This is the best of what I do. I can think of nothing greater I could give you to show my thanks."

Junella dropped her heart and her falling arm scratched out, "How 'bout cash?" before she and the others all passed out from blood loss.

As they spun down into darkness, the last remaining sensation that echoed in their ears was the audience's applause.

*****

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