The Eleventh Dimension or, a Series of Events that were NOT MY FAULT

8

And so begins a rather unpleasant experience. It's like being nicked, except without the lousy coffee. Oh, and without the phone call, lawyer, and general human rights. In theory I am free to leave, but I notice that there are gentlemen of extremely large breeding occupying a number of strategically important locations, such as all the doors.

They have the decency to drive me back to their offices – I notice the company name, and it is indeed big pharma – and let me get cleaned up first. Then I find myself in a meeting room with Doctor Singh, and another man and a woman, neither of whom bother telling me their names. They rig up a laptop and a mike to record our little chat; and then they start asking for the story.

I was not astonished to discover that Mal hadn't bothered telling them anything about what we were doing, and that the first they had heard from him was an invitation to our offices, three days ago. As I told them of our preparations they were first incredulous and then silent. Singh shakes his head.

About half way through the final act, someone sticks his head round the door, and asks if he can have a word. The grand jury file out. A full fifteen minutes later they come back, looking paler and more tired, if that was possible. I slurp the last of my coffee, and ask if they'd like me to resume.

'We know how it ends, thank you, Mr Jacobson,' says the woman.

'I'll be on my way then...' I say, without much conviction.

'That was the hospital. Dr Smith passed away in the ambulance, killed by a neurotoxin that they'd never seen before.'

This is a bit of a shock. I had become quite fond him over the last few days.

'As you can imagine, this puts us all in an unpleasant position,' she continues. 'The ambulance staff have a duty to report the death; a number of questions will be asked that we are going to have to find answers for.'

'...OK', I say, hopefully.

The nameless bloke takes it as his cue.

'We are going to say it was an industrial accident. That you were working, unsupervised, and something went wrong, and both the deaths tonight were as a result of that.'

I nod, enthusiastically. This sounds pretty close to the truth, from where I'm sat.

'Good. We will charge you with the blame. In return, you will receive significant remuneration from us, in the form of bank transfers into a nominated account, after you have served your prison term.'

'Er, what...?'

'For criminal negligence. And if you don't cooperate, we will accuse you of murder.'

'Oh.'

I have a think, and count the witnesses that I can trust. It ends pretty quickly: nice round number, the roundest of them all, actually... And, frankly, even if Mal had been alive, I wouldn't give it much hope: I've seen what he looks like in a suit.

'If you accused me, I could say that...'

'We have very expensive lawyers. Do you?'

'Um.'

They sit back, and let the silence settle like a cloud. I look at them, at Singh with his swollen nose, at the other two sitting pale and tense. I mentally curse everything and everyone, and then sigh.

'Where do I sign?'

'Oh,' smiles the man, 'you don't sign anything for this. But we'll need to know your email password, birthday, post code, mother's maiden name...'

And so I tell them.

#

Credit where credit is due, they are professional; or at least the people they hire are. I never speak to anyone from Alpha Green technologies again, but I see a bunch of things in the pack of documents that my legal-aid barrister is given, including corporate emails that I apparently wrote while I worked there. I'm impressed when I read them; not only do they sound like me, they sound like me, but clever. Brilliant! I wish I'd been me when I wrote them. Or, something.

More confusingly, I spend the day reading character assassinations of my non-existent time in a global company, and then my evenings sorting out dummy bank accounts to receive payments from the same. Tell you what; want to make an easy penny? Get sued by a vast multinational for killing two of their employees with an animal from the eleventh dimension. That's a tip that you can take for free.

What I hadn't anticipated – and, I think, neither had my almost-employer – was what happened next. Some chinless fuckwit (who's younger brother was presumably waiting tables somewhere near Barnard's Star) had introduced a new corporate murder bill, and his Majesty's forces of law and order saw fit to prosecute. This means that instead of an inquiry, there is a trial; and we leave the quiet world of civil law and enter the rather more public one of criminal. It also means that the whole thing becomes a three way ding-dong, with me in one corner, the company in the other, and the CPS in the last. Obviously the company and I are quite happy to agree on the result – so long as the transfers keep coming – but the government lawyers are always, 'you just have to tell us what the nasty old multinational made you do, and we'll forget all about it,' so they won't let it lie. Which is frustrating, because we'd all be happy otherwise. And the more it's drawn out, the more the press get interested, and the more lurid details leak out, mostly distorted or just plain invented. And of course I get fired from my job for moonlighting, and my mates think I've been telling porkies to them for five years, and Alpha Green drip-feed me with more cash – presumably as they get more and more nervous – which I can't spend, for fear of giving the game away, as they pile on the accusations in order to take me down.

Interesting times. Particularly having paps on your doorstep and seeing yourself on the news websites. Although some of the interviews make me laugh, especially the one with my old science teacher, who claims that he always knew I had potential. Lying toerag: he told me I would never amount to nothing.

But, without wanting to bore you with the details, it ends badly for everyone. CPS don't get their giant; Alpha Green pay out a pretty large chunk of cash to me; and I am awarded five years hard labour on a colony planet, plus fines and legal costs.

Now. This may not seem such a terrible thing to you, but stop and think about it. Five years is actually a pretty big chunk out of your life, especially as it's on a planet a long way from home with no visitors likely to drop in. It's five Earth years, by the way, which means for a sufficiently far away star that's more like four and a half years that you actually experience, because of the time dilation; but imagine being removed and then returned for that period of time. That ten year old cousin is now fifteen; your parents have aged unimaginably; you come back with an extra half-decade under your belt and a trouser size to match. This is not being stuck in Wandsworth with parole and mates who drop in at visiting time. This is more like being in isolation: proper hard time.

And the place? DX-548b, or Plethin. Twenty one degrees round the galactic arc, at the very edge of inhabited space; two months ship time away, which is seven months Earth time. Arse-end of nowhere. Down I go from the dock, from where I am shuttled up to the prison ship which is in a sub-lunar orbit, waiting to leave. Feeling utterly, utterly miserable.