| ROPEVILLE REVENGE [ part 6 ] "All rise, The court of Ropeville town is now in session, Judge Marshall presiding." The judge looked at Victor, his arm in a sling where Stephanie had broken it. "Mr. Jones, I hope there will be no more such outburst today?" She was watching him sternly "I apologise your honour, and it won't happen again." Victor said The prosecution counsel then got to her feet, "Your honour! I have received news that the FBI have run DNA analysis on the body and confirms that the identity is that of Betty Donaldson, reported missing by her mother a few days after the discover of the girls body, but as Mr. Jones positively identified the body as his niece - when it wasn't - then he prevented burial by the legal guardian, we would like this to be added to the charge sheet" Victor rose to his feet, "Objection your honour. Given the way the body was dressed and the way that the fish had eaten the face, I thought it was my niece." The opposition snorted, "Even though you knew that your niece had been kidnapped at your request first. And that you knew she was alive!" Victor almost screamed at the stupid cunt, "I did not know anything of the sort, that is what this case is supposed to prove!" The judge banged her gavel, "Counsels please, Objection overruled," when Victor tried to complain the judge looked at him, "I hope you're not going to comment?" he heard Stephanie behind him, for some reason she was no longer the submissive slave that she used to be, Victor shook his head, "Good! This court understands the heartache that a missing child can be, and to be denied the right to bury that child is even greater as the parent will always believe the child to be alive, I direct the usher to add the charge as requested by the prosecution." Victor sat down, this wasn't happening; they were twisting everything he was trying to achieve. Even his powers were letting him down. The prosecution then spoke again, "Your honour, we have shown that Victor Jones hired Mr. Purple to kidnap his niece, we now wish to deal with the computer virus introduced by Jones Software inc. at the direct command of Mr. Victor Jones. I would like to call senior Technician Roberts." A rather harassed man stumbled to the chair and looked attentively at the prosecution counsel, who spoke. "Mr. Roberts, you were given an order a few days ago to release a particular program onto the Internet?" she asked him. He nodded his head, "Oh yes. The Janius program. A rather nice piece of coding if I may say so." The counsel made a face, "It all depends on whether you're on the sending side or receiving side," She commented, "What does the Janius program do exactly?" she asked him. "Ah, yes, Janius - it's a smart program, you tell it what you want hidden and just release it, it will find any machine connected to the internet with that information, and will also search any intranets that it finds, once the details match it will encrypt the data so that normal methods are unable to retrieve it" he was proud of this program you could tell. The Prosecutor persisted, "You say it encrypts the data, it doesn't overwrite it?" Victor was startled he'd missed that in the information he'd read. Roberts smiled, "Oh no, our software is designed to only encrypt, in that way we could either send the antidote or use our own systems to safely read the data, it was only designed as to cause inconvenience not damage, we've too many programs that can do that!" The Prosecutor then jumped on the statement, "So it's easy to reverse this program?" Roberts nodded his head, "Oh yes, in fact the antidote was released yesterday morning, after the FBI contacted us, all systems should be un-encrypted as we speak." Victor was crushed, he wanted all information about his brother's family erased completely not this fiasco; well he'd do better the next time. Then the question was asked that brought all his plans down. "We've heard from the defence counsel that there are checks that have to be done before this program is used, why were they not followed?" The prosecution counsel asked. "But we did," said Roberts, "even though Mr. Jones said that we weren't, it's part of the program safety protocols, we had a recording of Mr. Jones voice authorising the use of the program, our voice recognition system ensured that it was Mr. Jones's voice, and a permanent record was made, I have a some copies of that with me, as I was directed." "Thank you Mr. Roberts." She said with a smile, and then turned to Victor, "Your witness!" Victor rose, he didn't want to talk to this person, he made a mental note to fire him at the next opportunity. "Mr. Roberts, why would I give you such an order?" he asked. Roberts looked flustered again, "I don't know, you said that the program needed to be tested and gave those names as a test parameter, you said that you didn't need a reason." He scanned through the papers in front of him and then said, "but here you gave the activation code, it's your own code, nobody else knows it, this means that you yourself gave the order which the system recognised." Victor had forgotten about the blasted coding, he said, "No further questions." And he sat down. The prosecution stood up again and asked one more question, "Is it possible for some one else to use the codes?" Roberts looked smug, "Oh no, it's part of the program, the code has to be given in the voice of the holders, its our way of preventing malicious or unauthorised access.. No only the user can activate the codes, its foolproof." The prosecution looked at Victor, "Unique codes assigned to particular voices, so only Victor Jones can use his own code, Thank you Mr. Roberts, that was very helpful." 'Helpful?' Victor was shattered, that bastard and his programming had proved that only he could have given the order - he'd have to strike back, discredit the bastard somehow, make him piss in his pants as he left, he could do that, he was a god after all. But still his powers seemed to fail as Roberts left the courtroom without a stain on his trousers. ---- The next prosecution witness was a severely dressed woman, her skirt was neatly pressed jacket was neat and professional looking; she was identified as Agent Watkins, of the FBI's local office. "Agent Watkins, following information received from our police officers what can you tell us about the accident that befell Jonathan and Samantha Jones?" Victor was confused, where was the rest of the evidence regarding the computer virus, he missed the start of Agent Watkins testimony. " . . . ascertained that the brake linkage had been tampered with, they'd be treated with a rust agent that accelerated the breakdown of the metal, the result was when they tried to break, there was nothing there to use." The prosecutor nodded. "I see, would there be any natural way this could happen?" she asked the agent, who shook her head. "No Ma'am, this was a deliberate case of sabotage, we checked on the person who had serviced the vehicle last, and found that he'd broken his neck in a very suspicious accident, however a search of his property revealed a sealed envelope marked 'in case of my death', in it was a letter, copies of which have been passed to the District Attorneys office, they state that he was paid by Victor Jones to ensure that, and I quote, 'My idiot brother and his stupid family never see the light of day again.'" She looked up from the paper, a groan from the defence bench drew all eyes to Victor, and he was shaking his head. The judge called out, "Mr. Jones are you alright?" Victor laughed, "Alright? Am I all right? NO I NOT, I am Victor Jones, I know what you're doing, this is all designed to frame me, you knew I was a GOD and so you're testing me, well the test is over. ON YOUR KNEES I COMMAND YOU!" the judge was banging her gavel, but Victor wasn't listening to her, the final straw, hearing his words being repeated by that stuck up bitch was too much, they thought he was human, he'll prove them wrong! In his mind he saw the judge being dragged out of her chair by her hair, her clothing being torn off from her body which was then pulled into interesting shapes by the power of his mind, he'd bend her over backwards, spreading her legs so that she would split in two, and then he'd turn his attention to the stupid cunt who dared to act as prosecutor, he'd show her how to prosecute somebody, and he'll soon see her body, yes indeed they'd crossed the wrong god. Inside his head he was laughing at the fools who thought they would win, he was almighty, and they would never beat him! ------ The judge called out to Victor once more, he just stayed in the one position, not moving, a doctor was called, but could find no medical reason but Victor Jones was not responsive to any sounds, it was as if he'd gone catatonic, he was taken away to the asylum for tests. Number 3 switched off the television receiver and shook her head; Elizabeth was in the office with her. "Why did you allow that to happen?" Elizabeth asked her, she knew the woman, and knew that this was something that she'd never normally do to anyone. Number 3 sighed, "I had MY orders, Victor Jones was a menace to our society - our way of life, there was no way that he could be allowed to control such an empire as his brother had built, Jonathan had been carefully conditioned to gradually build up connections in all branches of the modern sciences, with offices here in Ropeville, after some time, after Jonathan's death in fact, we would have received control of all the companies, and would have the world to steer in the direction that would benefit us all. It was vital that Victor was stopped! "Stephanie had special instructions to play a certain CD every night to Victor, who was quite a sadist in his way. This CD increased his delusion that he was a god with strange powers. We knew he'd killed his brother and Samantha, which was a loss; we were lucky that Melody was taken by that man, he saved her life! - As soon as possible he'll be sent back into the world, he's too dangerous to remain here with us, we'll assign a watcher to stay with him and report on his actions, but he might be useful to us later." She paused for a moment and then continued. "We now have Melody under our control, she'll be found appropriate parents to look after her and guide her and when she's old enough to control the companies, we will get our control even quicker than it was scheduled." She shook her head and then added. "As for Victor, he was a fool to try to fight us, we have our own gods to look after us, and remember the old saying. 'Those who the gods destroy, they first make mad!' It's a pity but I'm afraid we had no choice!" Elizabeth just stared at her; the picture of Victor Jones's catatonic form was forever etched in her mind. |