My contribution to the deadlinesforwriters short story challenge February 2025. The prompt was „Charge“ and the required word count was 1250. Cover photo by Tingey Injury Law Firm on Unsplash.
Guilty as Charged
Kel took pride in his job. He enjoyed providing safety and justice to the people. Kel often wished for less violence in the world. On the other hand, he had to admit that others breaking the law gave him purpose. Whenever he spent too much mental energy on this conundrum, he ended up rearranging the utensils on his desk. Today was especially busy and his workspace spotless, apart from a stack of forms in the inbox tray.
His manager had recently rewarded Kel with a new office. She had praised him for being so reliable and exemplary with his work. Kel wouldn’t have minded a promotion with higher wages. Then again, that would have meant a different role with different assignments. All things considered, he preferred to have a more spacious room, a new wooden desk and this seriously comfy swivel chair.
His task was mainly processing defendants. Ten minutes ago, he had delivered another group of them to the courtroom. Trials usually took an hour, but this morning the judge seemed to be in some kind of hurry. Kel expected to have to pick them up soon. Depending on the verdict, he would stamp their documents and lead them to the exit. Or he would escort them to the room of assembly.
Anyone found guilty would face work in the padonium mines. Most of them would be let go after a year or two and as far as Kel knew, extracting the ore was hard and dirty work, but not exactly a health risk. A valuable lesson, a deterrent, and also important for meeting the general padonium demand.
Either way, any person going through the process meant paperwork. In general, he quite liked filling in forms and filing them. But right now, documents were piling up on his desk faster than he could work through them properly. Kel felt tension creep up into his neck, so he decided to looked at the swaying trees outside his window for a breather.
A knock on the door brought Kel back into his whitewashed office. Before he could answer, Yat walked in, his uniform spick and span, his boots shiny.
“Ready for the extra shift this afternoon, Kel?” he asked as he sat down on a corner of the desk.
Kel stared at Yat’s boot connecting with the desk leg and took a deep breath before answering:
“About that: What is going on? We’ve had so many cases this morning already, I don’t know how to get rid of the paper backlog as it is. And so many guilty verdicts that the room of assembly is getting crowded.”
“I keep telling you, you need to follow the news more. The new Primus has issued a couple new decrees. Honestly, if you hadn’t moved into this room with an outside view, you wouldn’t know which season it was!”
Kel scratched his tight neck muscles.
“We have a new Primus? Since when?”
Yat shook his head.
“Since the election last week? If you ask me, it was about time someone took over with a mind to straighten things out. Now we need to clamp down on the unrest.”
Kel didn’t have the heart to tell his colleague he hadn’t heard about any unrest, either. Not for the first time, he wished for society to get a grip and stop changing the rules again and again.
“Was there anything you needed, Yat? As you can see, I am already behind and -”
Kel was startled by the bell ringing so early. He rolled his eyes, rose from his chair, and pushed Yat off the desk. Luckily, he had prepared his clipboard and placed it by the door, so he could just hurry off towards the courtroom. On the way, he checked his pad for the verdict.
Guilty. Oh, well.
They had looked so harmless. But obviously, with some people you just couldn’t tell.
As Kel jogged along the well-lit corridors, his rubber soles made squeaking noises he wished they didn’t. He arrived just in time to take the prisoners from the court officers’ hands.
Usually, his charges struggled against their cuffs and ankle bracelets. This group threw him defiant looks, but were otherwise weirdly quiet. Kel touched a button on his pad. Now they would receive a mild shock via the cuffs, should they misbehave. Better safe than sorry, he thought. Also, it was common procedure.
One of the prisoners spoke up anyway:
“You must be really proud of yourself! Just because you control all the buttons gives you the power to send us to the mines! Remember: You never know when it’ll be your turn!”
Kel was too stunned to order the prisoner to be quiet.
“Why should it be my turn? I never break the law!”
“Laws can change! Obviously!”
Kel had had enough. He barked at the prisoner to shut up and gave him a shock for good measure.
The assembly guards had opened up a second room for keeping their freshly assigned miners, because they had run out of space. Kel was happy to be rid of this lot and agreed with the guards that the transport coaches better turn up soon.
The group he picked up next looked similarly mutinous. And for some reason just as unlikely to commit robbery or murder. Who knew what had made them do whatever they had done to get arrested?
After handing them over to the court officers, Kel went back to his swivel chair. His clip board was full of fresh paperwork, and he didn’t feel up to doing any stamping or filing at the moment. For the first time in years, he opened one of the forms, leaned back and started reading.
From the image stapled to the front page, he realised this was about the prisoner he had had to zap earlier. There was nothing interesting in the personal data section, just a very ordinary person with a very ordinary life prior to this morning.
What made Kel sit up straight was what this person had been accused of. It didn’t make any sense. He swivelled around and looked at the trees outside. Their brown foliage reminded him of something Yat had said to him. Kel looked at his pad. Even with the fast pace of today, he had some time until the next bell. He grabbed the form and rushed over to Yat’s office.
“Hey, what was it you said about clamping down? Since when do we sentence people to the mines for unrest?”
“That’s what I tried to tell you, Kel: The new Primus is not having these traitors running around and stirring up trouble anymore like the last one. You should have seen it, just five minutes ago the entire bunch taken away! The admins had to organize four extra coaches, it was glorious! And the room of assembly is filling again as we speak!”
“But Yat, we’re here to keep the world safe from violence, not from annoying protestors! Wait, what did you say? They took these people away to the mines? They’re gone?”
Yat shook his head.
“You’ll come around to my point of view, Kel. Hopefully.”
The portable bell on Kel’s pad rang. His heart sank when he looked at the verdict.
Guilty. All of them.
There was no point in delaying it, so he trudged to the courtroom. He accepted the stack of papers from the court officers and led his charges towards his office, where he would have to take a serious decision.
Like my contribution to the story challenge February 2025? You can find more of my stories here!
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