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Before We Begin: What You See Is What You Get is an old story, one of the oldest kicking around that I had published. It’s a bit of psychological horror about cover-ups, lies, and the consequences for telling the truth. When I wrote it, I thought of it as a bit alarmist, although subsequent history has lent it a certain plausibility.

Dakota Styles was gliding along a long-since polluted lake, riding a cigar-shaped powerboat that cut smoothly through the comforting blanket of green water. The air rushed past him like globs of the softest cotton candy and his hair, longer than he remembered, flew out backwards like the pennants of some ancient knight. He looked north, to the horizon of the water, where he saw the skyline of what could be any city, jumbled and crushed together like a set of gnarled, unkempt teeth. A blinding white flash filled his vision from end to end and a thick whap filled the air, drowning out even the steroid-bee buzz of the boat’s motor. In the distance he saw the Greek column of a perfectly formed mushroom cloud rising above that unknown, anonymous city. Then he awoke.

“Come on, you bastard, wake up already,” was being whisper-shouted in his ear. His eyes flew open, crust-crumbles of sleep spilling out onto his cheeks. 

A dark man with a square jaw knelt beside his bed, staring intently into his face with shadowed black eyes. One of the man’s hands was on Dakota’s shoulder, shaking him despite his already being awake. The other hand held a black cylindrical object. His fingers clamped like machinery and his breath smelled like almonds. For a moment, fogged and delirious, he floated on that warm, sour almond breeze, and then the post-dream adrenaline kicked in. He sat up quickly, trying to get as far from the stranger as possible. 

“What are you doing here?” Dakota asked, fear choking up his throat and making him stumble on the syllables. The strange man’s mouth twisted in a blatant sneer and he pressed one end of his black cylinder to the taut side of Dakota’s neck. 

In the next instant he realized that he was being dragged through his living room. Someone was carrying him by his elbows on one end and another unknown person was carrying him by the ankles. His belongings, his furniture – his familiarities – went by him in a sort of skewed, awkward fever-dream. All of the lights in his house were on, it seemed, and several men in non-descript black uniforms were poring through his things. His books had been pulled off of the shelf, the art that he’d hung so carefully on the walls was now on the floor, and the laptop was missing from its usual spot. Dakota had a pang of panic and suddenly knew that his phone was no longer in his possession either. He watched them tear his life apart but could not muster up any sort of feeling about it.  

They reached the front door and he saw without much surprise that it had been smashed inward, and by something much heavier than a human foot. Outside, in the thick, swollen summer night air, there was a commotion on his front lawn. More of the men in plain black uniforms were moving to and fro. Several of them were barricading the edge of his lawn with reflective yellow tape. Others were turning away his whey-faced neighbours, many of whom were ringing his yard with shocked, hand-on-mouth expressions. One of them, an older, grey-haired woman in a resplendent silk robe, was standing with her arms crossed and a knowing, smug look dancing around her vaguely wrinkled face. 

The men carrying him turned and the smug woman left his field of vision. Replacing it was a long black van with a simple sunburst logo splashed on the side. Overlaid over the sunburst design were, in a bold font, the letters JUSTV. So it had happened, then. They had finally come for him. He had suspected that it was so, from the beginning, but there is nothing so bitterly satisfying as confirmation. 

The van’s back doors were wide open and Dakota was shoved unceremoniously inside. He had enough time to feverishly think I’m being born in reverse before the doors were slammed shut and he was enveloped in cold, metallic darkness. There was a muted thump on the side of the van and Dakota heard the engine start. It was a faint sound, though, as if it were being heard through a layer of cotton. Motion ensued, and Dakota was thrown onto his ear, where he remained for the rest of the time he was trapped in that dark disorientation. 

A sweaty, meaty palm slapped him hard and fast across the broadside of his cheekbone again. He cried out with involuntary anguish, as he had each time before. He was on the edge of sobbing, but he gritted his teeth and made himself stop. His jaw ached from the amount of reflexive clenching he’d done. The man to whom the heavy hand belonged was of no help at all. He was balding on top, he wore the same black clothing that the others had worn, and he could see that his front teeth poked out of his jawbone at a different angle than the others. He wore a small grin that parted his lips a bit in the center, and it grew wider with each slap that he plied upon Dakota’s rapidly bruising face. He was breathing heavily, but not, Dakota thought grimly, in the way one breathed from exertion. 

He had tried to find out something – anything – from this sweaty scrap of humanity but the man remained verbally mute. His only communication was with his open hand, and it was the only reply he gave to a question. Dakota thought about trying again. There was a rat kneading his heart and clawing at his throat. He assumed that he was somewhere in the JUSTV building, especially since it was only a half-hours drive from his quiet little neighbourhood, but beyond that he had no idea. His spatial position was just as much a mystery as his temporal one. He tried to remember if he’d seen a clock at any point while he was being dragged from his house, but he couldn’t. All he knew was that he had been abducted before dawn. What time was it?  

The unnamed soldier continued to stare at him, that strange broken-zipper smile in static display on his face. Dakota decided that further questions were pointless. The sparkle in the soldier’s eyes told him that the man was clearly getting off on slapping him, and that alone was enough to get Dakota to shut his mouth. He stared at the floor instead, and tested the bonds by which his wrists were tied around the back of the chair. They were professionally tight, with no give at all. The floor was simple concrete. There was no information to be found here at all. 

He might have eventually broken under these conditions but was saved by the plain metal door behind the soldier squealing open. A tall, silver-haired man dressed impeccably in an Italian suit that had to cost in the four figures walked in, his sleek black leather shoes clacking loudly on the hard floor. He took in the situation and looked Dakota over. It was a brief glance – over in less than a second – but Dakota felt that he’d been thoroughly measured in that short, instantaneous span. The expensive man tapped the soldier on the shoulder, the taps more like impatient jabs. The soldier spun around and Dakota saw with satisfaction that in the span of 360 degrees he stumbled twice. He snapped a shaky salute after a momentary pause. The silver-haired man leaned forward and peered into his face. 

“Have you been abusing this man, soldier?” he asked, his tone low and dangerous. It was crisp, melodious; the voice of a cultured, refined gentleman driven to an outrage. The soldier had turned away from Dakota, so that he could no longer see his abuser’s face, but he watched the man stiffen to attention. 

“Sir, I have not been abusing this man, sir,” the soldier said, his voice striving for mindless barking and failing by shaking. The suit stepped back, and a look of utter disgust crossed over his face, as if he had stepped in something particularly vile. 

“Private, you stand there and lie to me in the face of all evidence to the contrary,” he snapped with a measured cadence. “I can see the bruising high up on that man’s cheek from here. Now I want you understand that this man has to go in for makeup and that the bruising that you have inflicted here will take a considerable amount of time to cover up and that we will have to retain the services of whatever bloody miscreant the agency has dredged up today to slap powder on this man’s face for that much longer. We pay these people fifteen-eighty-four an hour to do this – highway robbery if you ask me – and I imagine that we’ll have to pay her for the full hour just to cover up what you’ve done here”. He pointed his finger and shook it under the soldier’s nose. “If we do end up having to pay her for the full hour, Private, you’ll have $15.84 coming out of your next paycheque”. The soldier maintained his salute, but there was a shake to the man’s weak chin.  

“Sir, yes sir, but…” he trailed off. The suit’s jaw clenched and he stepped forward to get back into the soldier’s face.  

“But what, Private?” he growled. The soldier hesitated. 

“Sir, I’m a Corporal, sir”. The suit darted forward and grabbed the man’s ear. 

“It takes twenty pounds of pressure to rip off the human ear, Private, did you know that?” he shouted. The soldier wailed, his composure finally broken. 

“Sir, no I did not, sir!” The suit tugged on his ear and the man began crying. His sobs were wracking, and Dakota, too fascinated by the interchange to really think about it, began to be afraid. What sort of man was this, to reduce soldiers (no matter of what calibre) to tears. 

“Well you do now,” the suit said, his voice having undergone a complete reset. He sounded like a radio announcer on a CBC show, his voice low and confident, ready to discuss the latest artistic event. He let go of the soldier’s ear and patted his cheek briskly. 

“Run along, Private, and count yourself lucky that you’re getting out of this with a demotion. You very nearly became a Van Gogh caricature”. He allowed himself a small laugh here. The soldier bolted as soon as he finished speaking, still sobbing. 

The suit’s attention turned to Dakota and he felt a wave of fear pass over him, as though the man possessed the Eye of Sauron. A wide, cold grin appeared on the man’s face. He clapped his hands together and the sound seemed very loud. 

“Well,” he began, his tone jauntier now with the soldier having fled, “here we are, Mr. Styles. You certainly do seem to be in some trouble, here”. He chuckled. “You’re probably a little disoriented”. 

Dakota licked his lips, trying to draw some moisture into his mouth. “Where,” he croaked. “Where am I?” 

The suit pursed his lips and he seemed disappointed.  

“A stupid question, Mr. Styles, I do not abide stupidity. Please remember that I can do things to you that the cretin that just left can only dream of. Painful things. So please, Mr. Styles, if you aren’t going to say anything of any value, I advise you to keep your mouth shut”. 

Dakota could barely think over the triphammering of his heart. He could feel a thin veneer of sweat break out despite the atmosphere in the tiny room being quite cool. He breathed heavily twice, in and out, and tried to keep a hitch out of his voice. 

“What’s happening to me?” he asked. His voice sounded vague, as though he were really asking himself. 

The suit smiled at this. “Now that is an excellent question! Really getting to the meat of the situation, that’s much better. As you’ve no doubt figured out by now, Mr. Styles, you’re under arrest.” 

Dakota felt his chest thud, even though he’d known all along. He tried to maintain calm. 

“What have I been charged with?” he breathed. The suit’s lips pursed again. 

“You know very well what you’ve been charged with,” he said, his tone tight.  

“The videos,” Dakota quavered. “It’s the damn videos”. The suit nodded impatiently, and emphatically.  

“Yes, yes, exactly. It’s about the videos.” The suit looked at the expensive Rolex on his wrist and his eyes widened. 

“It seems that we’ll have to hurry this along. Very well. My name is Edwin Lancaster, and I’ve come to have a brief chat with you before we continue. The JusMag Group wants to ensure that you understand what’s required out of you before you leave this room. We have a very strict script to follow and any glitches along the way will result in extra costs incurred by my direct employers, JusTV. You will, of course, be billed for these extra costs. Are we clear?” 

Dakota nodded, not trusting himself to speak. Edwin Lancaster went on as though his assent were a foregone conclusion. 

“Good. I will accompany you out of here and into the makeup area, where you will be prepared. This may take up to two hours, more if that bruising gives them trouble. Regardless, you will be sent from there to another room, where you will wait until you are sent for. You will be brought out to the court and sit at the place you’re lead to. Whomever the Crown has sent over to represent you will meet you there. You may confer with them but you are to let them do the speaking for you. Failure to comply with this may result in forfeiture of innocence as well as a monetary penalty. Are we clear?” 

Again, Dakota nodded. Lancaster walked around him to the back of the chair. 

“Good,” he said, beginning to push Dakota out of the room, “let’s get a move on. Tempus is an awful lot of pecunia.” 

As Dakota sat in silence, watching a pudgy Cambodian woman apply heavy makeup to him, he reflected bitterly on those videos. Grainy, low-resolution footage, taken on a tiny hidden surveillance cam that was patched wirelessly into a cheap, disposable phone that had been smuggled into a cattle farm. Highly illegal work, if you could find it, and Dakota’s cousin had eventually found it. Although Dakota had never asked, he imagined that Lamar would have to have been well-paid. The price for getting caught was very high. 

It was about the sickness, you could see it everywhere in the videos his cousin had smuggled out of the cow factory. Bovine spongiform encephalopathy, the death-drum of mad cow disease, present and accounted for. One in every twenty cows in the videos was sprawled in their tiny pens, unable to stand. Shaking knees, attempts to stand that resulted in disheartening crashes, that unsettlingly bland bovine stare: these videos had them in spades. There were two men besides his cousin in these videos. One seemed to be a plant foreman of some sort, at the very least a lead hand. The other was a fresh-faced young man who seemed ill at ease in his HazMat suit; his eyes kept darting to and fro, never really settling on anything. He was the one who did most of the talking. 

The lead hand would point out the obvious cases and also some of those cattle that had tested positive but had not yet displayed any symptoms. The young man, a corporate liason of some sort, would nod his head quickly and rap off something that was mainly unintelligible. Due to the noises in the background, most of the conversation was garbled. There were, however, moments of real clarity and it was one of these that had originally caught Dakota like a barbed hook. The lead hand had just finished pointing out the various cases of BSE in this particular area and had said something half-heard, to the effect that the entire population would have to be slaughtered. 

“I’ve been in contact with the bigwigs,” the young man said, very clearly and with a great deal of self-importance. “They’ve instructed me to deal with this cautiously.” The lead hand said something unheard here. “That means that you are under no circumstances authorized to destroy any cattle in this or any other block of this farm”. 

“There’s a good possibility that they’re all infected,” the lead hand said at this point, the only time his voice is ever clear in the videos. One this one sentence, this one starring role, his voice is hard like diamonds, and disbelieving. A good skeptic’s voice. Dakota often wondered, late at night when sleep was hard to find, what the man had done after the timeline presented in the videos. How he’d been able to cope.  

“Yes, but there is a possibility that they’re not, as well, and destroying the entire herd is a rash and costly decision. A herd of this size is extremely expensive, Mr. Donder, not to mention the costs of destruction and disposal, and the loss of income from having to shut the plant down”. 

The lead hand – Mr. Donder – had no reply to this. His expression was reply enough, and Dakota had often considered it a wonder that the young suit’s face hadn’t melted off from its withering glare. The suit obviously caught this and his tone stiffened with haughty disapproval. 

“Mr. Donder, you have your job to do and I have mine. My job is to keep the company’s overall financial situation in mind when problems like this arrive. It isn’t as if we are arriving at this decision on a whim. We have very detailed cost-benefit analyses that indicate that, statistically speaking, it is a net gain for us to destroy as few units as possible. You have your orders, Mr. Donder”. 

What Mr. Donder thought of his orders was unknown, as very shortly after this little speech the video ended. Dakota played that particular interchange around in his head, remembering the voices; Donder with his low, competent, caught-by-surprise voice, and the suit with his glad-handing, grinning populist bounce. They rattled off of the inside of his skull as the makeup artist they’d corralled finished up. They wound their way through the synapse-laden kinks of his brain as a grim-faced, well-armed soldier took his chair and wheeled him down to the next waiting room. 

The videos. 

The goddamn videos. 

He sat in the Spartanly appointed waiting room, staring at a cracked concrete wall and wondering what had possessed him to take up the cause in the first place. Loyalty to his cousin, he guessed, but it wasn’t as though they’d always been close. They hadn’t even spoken once in the year before he’d contacted Dakota with a nervous, urgent message to meet somewhere public. Lamar had met him at some fly-by-night indie-kid espresso café on Yonge Street, sweating and sipping plain black coffee. They’d kept the conversation neutral, asking after each other’s immediate families, chatting about what they’d been up to. Dakota filled Lamar in on the wonderful and exciting life of being a blogger with Edge Weekly (he had, of course, kept lucrative rightfully out of it). Lamar had talked vaguely about being employed in agriculture, somewhere out west. In the end he’d slipped a small, flat USB drive across the table and Dakota had palmed it without a pause in his description of the Mayor’s habit of repeating himself in triplicate. Shortly thereafter they’d parted company, for good. 

There was a scraping sound from somewhere far off, and there was a tap in the vicinity whose plumbing could use a good tightening; a steady drip drip drip filled in the white spaces in his dark thoughts. He tried to enforce calm upon himself, but to his chagrin he found that he kept right on thinking, like a train barrelling for a broken rail bridge without any means of arresting it’s momentum. Had he been going to try to publish those videos? Edge wouldn’t touch them, he knew that; they talked a good game about journalistic integrity and getting the truth of any story out there, but in the end they were beholden to the almighty advertising dollar, and no corporation would advertise with a media source that would flaunt the law in such a flagrant manner. He could send them to the alternative sites but those corners of the internet were already jammed full of videos of “damning evidence”, much of it doctored or spun hard. These were sites that, when Dakota saw links to them in discussions, he rolled his eyes. They would probably gladly accept such videos, but their complete lack of credibility would render it moot. He’d batted around the idea of getting into contact with the Wikileaks people, knowing that they could get it to the right areas and in front of the right people, but he didn’t know the first thing about getting ahold of people like that. Since they’d gone underground, you could only reach them in very specific ways, through very specific people; Dakota knew no one like that. He’d messaged Lamar through an encrypted email, couching his questions in a heavy cloak of misdirection, but he’d never received a response.  

As Dakota listened to the steady drip of that leaking faucet, he wondered if he hadn’t already received a response. Perhaps he was sitting in the response, right now. He frowned and his abused, shell-shocked cheekbone replied with a nauseating scream. He bit his tongue involuntarily and felt a faint trickle of copper wash over his taste buds.  

Had they gotten Lamar, then? There were so many questions that he wanted answered, questions that he was sure that he would never get answered. There were no answers, unless they were encoded into the drip of the faucet, the scrape of far-off chairs, the footsteps leading up the hallway. 

He focused on the footsteps, really hearing them for the first time. They got closer. They stopped in front of the door. After a second, the door swung open. A bald-headed, goateed man in a blue jumpsuit with the sunburst JUSTV logo emblazoned on one breast stood on the other side. 

“Time to go,” the man said, and wasted no time. Within seconds Dakota’s chair was on the move again, being wheeled down an endless sweating grey hallway. From somewhere up ahead, Dakota could hear the faint murmurs of a crowd waiting. 

The ‘court’ was, in no uncertain terms, a studio. A quarter of the room was given over to a mockup of a courtroom – the judge’s bench, the desks for the prosecution and defence, and the witness stand. Aside from the lack of a jury stand, it was exactly like the front of any courtroom Dakota had seen ever seen in broadcasts. Behind the lawyer’s desks, the room was bisected by a strip populated with cameras, and beyond that the rest of the room was concerned with studio-audience seating. Every seat in the audience section was filled; Dakota took in every face as he was wheeled into the room.  

Everything looked as though a trial were already underway. Each actor on the stage was in position, looking sober, professional, and ready to conduct business. Edwin Lancaster stood amongst them, not in any particular area that would mark him out for some specific task, but floating around the scene, seemingly checking on things. He looked up and saw that Dakota was being wheeled in. He smiled a chessmaster’s smile.  

“Showtime, ladies and gentlemen,” he exclaimed, and pointed to the cameras. “On three!” he shouted. A clipped, mechanical voice filled the studio, counting backwards from three slowly. As this countdown occurred Lancaster walked quickly towards the exit, passing Daktoa along the way. 

“Good luck,” he heard Lancaster murmur as they intersected. 

He was wheeled up to a desk to the left of the judge, where a weedy man with thinning hair and a drooping expression stood fingering a tablet idly. He looked over Dakota and his face was noncommittal. His eyes were listless, and there were light bags under them. 

“John Baldwin,” he introduced himself, sticking his hand out. Dakota took it and Baldwin put his tablet on the table and clamped his free hand over their handshake. “For god’s sake, don’t talk. Just let me say everything, or it’ll be over before it’s begun”. Dakota felt a shudder roll through him but remained silent. 

“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,” the judge intoned, “I am your host, and judge presiding, the honourable David Gilborn. Welcome to another episode of JusTV, where YOU are a part of the process of justice. Get set, log in, and grab your Target Cola!”. The audience broke out in applause. Judge Gilborn waited until the applause died down before continuing. 

“As you know, our proceedings will take place in two parts. First, our team of legal experts here will analyze and summarize the situation. Then it will be up to you, the audience, to ask whatever questions you want of the defendant. After that, you’ll hear from the lawyers and be asked to decide”. Here, the audience spoke along with the judge in a practiced, game-show chant: “GUILTY OR NOT GUILTY!”.  

Judge Gilborn straightened in his seat. “Alright, let’s begin. On the docket today we have Dakota Styles, of Burlington, Ontario. Mr. Styles stands accused of seventeen counts of possession of child pornography, thirty-five counts of access of unlawful servers, and thirty-five counts of unlawful modification of BellNet security software”. 

Dakota’s mouth dropped open and he felt his heart stop. What were they charging him with? He felt a tremor begin in his knee, and found that he was unable to stop it. His bowels suddenly felt loose and hot. Baldwin stood up after the charges had been read. The judge pointed at him and spoke. 

“Mr. John Baldwin, tonight’s defence attorney, is sponsored by ZonOil, the slickest way to ride the Transcontinental. To keep your engine running at full boil, trust ZonOil! Mr. Baldwin, how does your client plead?” 

“My client pleads guilty, your honour,” Baldwin said amiably. Dakota gasped and found he was out of breath, and came perilously close to shouting something. Baldwin’s eyes cut down to him dangerously, but Dakota had gotten himself under control. 

Guilty? he thought, his vision blurring and seeming to spiral. The judge had already moved on, though, addressing the prosecution (a Mr. Lance Corwin, tall and calm, light chocolate skin without a trace of sweat) and confirming that they were ready to proceed. Dakota felt a deep sinking in his stomach as he watched Mr. Corwin rise from his seat. 

“Your honour,” Corwin said, with a voice like melted butter, “this case is pretty open and shut. The audience has already seen the video taken of his arrest, and the obvious evidence of underaged porn that was present on the laptop in his kitchen. The state would like to apologize for the live viewers of that video for the scenes that they were forced to see before our automatic censoring software kicked in”. He gestured with a hand and two thin flatscreens came down from the ceiling to face the audience. Images of deconstructed electronics flashed across the screens. 

“You can see here the data storage devices that were seized from Mr. Styles,” Corwin went on. “A laptop drive and three external storage drives, as well as a dozen or so USB devices. All contained child pornography, as well as a little over two terabytes of unlawfully accessed media – audio files, commercial video files, sophisticated, expensive software. There was enough in there to warrant a separate, civil case brought about by a dozen or so media corporations”. A disapproving murmur ran through the audience and Dakota clenched his teeth to keep a bubbling spew of vomit from coming forth. He had in truth a couple of gigabytes of “unlawfully accessed materials” but the amount that had just been listed off was, in terms of the fine that could be levied, was astronomical. There would literally not be enough money on the planet to pay it off, if they pressed the case. Yet that wasn’t the worst accusation being thrown around. 

“We have obtained a list of the websites that Mr. Styles’ IP address has communicated with in the last ninety days; please take a glance through them”. Corwin paused here for dramatic effect. “Take in exactly how many there are there”. 

Dakota was not afforded a chance to see the list, although he would have dearly liked to. His lawyer seemed unperturbed by the display. Dakota felt an urge to reach across and strangle Baldwin, but he suppressed it. His heart was now lumbering along, a leaden sledge going dangerously fast within his ribcage. His mouth cried out for a mouthful of water, but there was none around. Baldwin had nothing with him but his briefcase. The shaking had moved up into his arms now. He became vaguely aware that Corwin was continuing to talk, but he’d ceased listening. None of it made sense. There was no visceral reality to anything that was happening.  

He came out of his thoughts when Baldwin rose to his feet. He gaped at the receding man but Baldwin paid no attention to him. 

“Your honour,” he began, his voice as listless as his eyes, “my client is suffering from a degenerative mental health condition. He is not, at heart, a pederast. The tests we had him undergo while he was in custody show the presence of a dangerous misbalance in his brain chemistry, caused specifically by the rs1344706 SNP of his zinc-finger protein 804A. My client does not deny that he possessed and accessed unlawful sites containing child pornography, but he contends that his mental condition necessitates his being exempted from the usual sentence so that he may be remanded to a mental health facility for the remainder of his days”. 

Dakota leaned back in his chair. His mind had gone completely blank. He closed his eyes slowly. 

“Is that the extent of the defence?” Judge Gilborn asked Baldwin. The wisp of a lawyer nodded and sat down. Gilborn banged his gavel.  

“Then it’s up to you, the audience,” he said, pointing the gavel towards the audience. “First, after a word from our sponsors”. 

After this, a tension seemed to come out the air. The cameras were no longer feeding information to servers, terminals were no longer accessing the live feed. Most of the people took out phones and tablets, checking in with their lives. The audience was being prepped for the question period. Dakota stared around incredulously before turning viciously on his lawyer. 

“You!” he hissed, “Baldwin! What is going on?”  

Baldwin turned to look at him, and his look was half dripping contempt and half an inscrutable pity. “Look, kid,” he said, “I don’t really care what you did or didn’t do, ok? My job is to make sure that you come out of this as easy as you can. Right now that’s a funny farm, you get me? Now I’m going to handle all the audience questions for you, so just sit tight and let me do this. Don’t make it worse for yourself than it already is”. 

Dakota leaned forward and began pleading, blubbering with panic. 

“Please, Mr. Baldwin, I don’t know what’s going on, please, please, please, I don’t know what they’re saying I did, I didn’t do anything they’re saying…” 

Baldwin put up his hand to arrest the flow of increasingly agitated words. The pity in his eyes had dropped away, leaving only that apathetic contempt.  

“Like I said, kid, I don’t care. They’ve got a lot of evidence on you and I don’t get paid to judge you, but don’t waste my time, ok? Just keep your mouth shut”. 

Dakota kept his mouth shut. He ruthlessly grabbed every emotion that surged up through him and smothered it. He closed his eyes and found himself drifting in a vacuum, thoughtless and free. He wanted to stay there, but that robotic voice counted down again and he forced himself to come back to the courtroom.  

“Welcome back,” Judge Gilborn said, “and now, let’s move onto the second portion of our show, where you the audience get to ask your questions. Anything that you think is necessary to get the full picture, so you can make an accurate, informed decision. On behalf of today’s sponsor, Target Cola, each audience member will be given a free can of their newest formula, Target Watermelon! Taste the picnic! And now, you the people”. 

He gestured towards the audience, who were being given pink plastic cans of watermelon soda. There was a smattering of snaps and the hiss of escaping carbonation. Dakota wished that he could turn around to face them, but there was no way of turning himself in the chair. He thought that he might be beginning to lose circulation in his legs. 

“Alright, our first question,” Judge Gilborn continued. “Seat number 17, please, further your understanding”.  

There was a brief pause as Seat Number Seventeen got to his feet. 

“Yeah, I gotta know something,” he said in a quick, faintly Italian accent. “Do you really think you have a disease, or are you really just a sick pervert?” 

Dakota closed his eyes and leaned back again. He heard his lawyer shuffle to his feet. 

“Sir,” he replied with a considered weariness, “addiction to child pornography and pedophilia are both relatable to a number of genetic, environmental, and other medical factors. I assure you that Mr. Styles suffers from a clearly defined, debilitating mental health issue that results in his being sexually attracted to children”. Dakota, who’d had a predilection for web searches utilizing “MILFs” as a keyword, felt a sick rush of black humour come out of the reptile part of his brain; he kept himself from laughing like a loon by the barest of margins. He tried his best to ignore the rest of the questions, since he knew then that there was no point to any of it. Some of them got through his mental façade. Had he ever had normal sex? Had he been molested as a child? Was it a brain tumor? Humiliating questions, degrading, offensive insinuations that Dakota had no way of refuting or arguing. They disgusted him, made him feel like he were covered in sour cellar dirt. He clenched his fists until he couldn’t feel them anymore, and tried to regulate his breathing.  

After a dozen or so questions, Judge Gilborn indicated that the time allotted for the sequence was up, and that it was time to make a decision. 

“Remember,” he told the audience, “you hold a person’s life in your hands. You will be deciding the guilt, or lack thereof, of Mr. Styles, as well as choosing what sentence, if any, to hand down. I must remind you that whatever decisions you reach are legally binding and will be final. If everyone is clear on this, we can get down to it”. He gestured to the screens that faced the audience. “These displays will give you real-time polling updates of our worldwide members, as well as their tweets and status updates regarding this case. Please take these into consideration during your decision-making process as well. If there are no concerns, we can begin”. He paused to see if there were, in fact, any concerns, but of course there were not. 

A low, lounge-jazz number began playing over the studio’s sound system. Dakota let himself bounce along with it, losing himself in it’s cheesy, sleazy Mixolydian melody. A panel of randomly selected studio audience members held his future in their hands. Their decision – his fate – was being influenced by millions of randomly selected audience members. He tried to remember the one or two times he’d streamed this show, long ago. Did you need any sort of credentials to login to their system, or would they admit anyone who could pass a captcha? He thought blackly that it might be the latter. 

The song played itself out into waves of major-key chords and switched up to a lively, bopping number, a homogenized Muzak take on Coltrane. The upswing in tempo seemed to be a sign to the audience to hurry up and finalize their decision. Three minutes passed and it was done. Dakota let out a sigh of relief. Judgement was bad enough; having to wait while judgement was passed upon you was even worse. The music ended and Judge Gilborn seemed to come out of a trance. He sat up and looked to the audience.  

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he intoned, “have you reached a verdict?” 

A burst of powerful, strident snyth music played out over the studio system. A small flatscreen panel rose up in front of the judge. 

“I’ve got the full statistical analysis in front of me here, and it’s findings are binding!”  

The audience applauded with synchronized clapping. A clammy hand wrapped grey, squalid fingers around Dakota’s heart.  

“On the question of the verdict, you, the audience, found Mr Dakota Styles GUILTY AS CHARGED!” 

More applause now, heavier, louder than before. There were some muted hoots and cheers throughout the audience. Judge Gilborn waited until the crowd died down before continuing. 

“Alright, now on the question of what sentence to impose upon Mr. Styles in the event of his guilt,” he smiled patronizingly here, “you the audience have chosen”. He paused here, letting the drama of the situation sink in. “You have chosen a life sentence to the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, in the Sexual Deviancy wing!” 

The audience gave it’s loudest applause of all. Many were cheering now, carrying on in a manner that suggested that they had all been given some kind of wonderful gift. In Dakota’s mouth it tasted like ashes, mixed together with a thick, coppery sludge. He looked to Baldwin, but Baldwin was gathering up his papers and stuffing them into his battered briefcase without much care or consideration. After he closed up the clasp on it, he spared a glance for Dakota. There was something resembling sympathy in his expression. 

“Don’t sweat it, kid,” he said gently, “it could be a lot worse”. Dakota wanted to ask him what could be worse but Baldwin got out of his chair and left without another word. Dakota was left to stare silently at the bare, scratched, faux-wooden tabletop until someone came to wheel him away. 

He was a different waiting room, although the only way that he could tell that it was different was by the cracks on the wall. They were in different positions and in different shapes here. It had to be near the previous room, however, as Dakota could hear the steady drip drip drip of the leaking faucet. The scraping of chairs had ceased, but the dripping went on and on, defining time in its intervals. Dakota stared at a crack in the wall and lost him self in the leak. They were the only things holding his world together. 

Presently the door opened and Edwin Lancaster stepped through, still looking dapper without a mussed hair in sight. He looked at Dakota, but Dakota did not return the regard. He continued to stare at the crack and listen to the water. Lancaster cleared his throat but Dakota did not acknowledge that either. Lancaster stepped around until he was taking up Dakota’s direct field of vision, and Dakota finally looked up at him, unable to look at anything else. 

“Can I help you?” he asked sullenly. His mouth felt slack, his eyes dull. Lancaster smiled but it did not touch his eyes. 

“Such attitude from the condemned prisoner,” he said briskly, with a touch of amusement in his voice. “One would imagine that you had dignity left to you, after the terrible, perverted things you’ve done”. 

Dakota stared at him, his eyes slowly losing focus. “You know as well as I that there was no kiddie porn on my computer,” he muttered. Lancaster let out a booming, deep laugh. 

“Of course, son, of course,” he chortled, “there was no such thing…except in what other people saw”. He bent over and put his first two fingers under Dakota’s chin. Dakota’s face was tilted up so that there was no way of avoiding Lancaster’s heavy, sardonic expression. 

“Perception,” he said in a near-whisper, “is the new reality”. Dakota’s eyes immediately began to water. Lancaster’s breath was scented with coffee and cheap mints gathered from Chinese restaurants. His eyes were coloured with flushed, hectic glee and a cold, bottomless depth beneath it. He tried to blink the wet away from his eyes and twin tears ended up leaving snail trails down his dry, bristly cheeks. Lancaster let go of his chin and Dakota’s head snapped down, a painful twinge kicking up a fuss near to where his spine connected with his skull. His head sat there; his brain had decided to cease any and all unnecessary movements for the foreseeable future. 

Lancaster stepped back to take stock of him. He rubbed a smooth hand over an expertly shaved chin. He smiled, a fox’s smile. 

“You’re a little skinny, but that’ll change in time, I suppose,” he said slyly. Dakota snuffled, still staring down. 

“Do they feed you a lot at the mental hospital, or something?” he mushed out, the words seeming to just fall in chunks out of his loose lips. Lancaster laughed uproariously, as if this were the funniest thing he’d ever heard. 

“Good, good,” he proclaimed, wiping a tear away from his eye. “it’s really a testament to how well the system works”. 

Dakota looked up at him, finally finding the wherewithal to raise his chin. His gaze was uncertain, his brain spiralling through a dozen unconnected thoughts. 

“I mean, you really didn’t think you’d be going to a mental hospital, did you?” Lancaster continued, his tone descending into mockery. “Some place with a sympathetic ear, willing to hear your tale of being falsely accused of a disgusting crime? After all, just as we both know that there was no child porn on your computer, or your access history, we both also know that there were other videos in your possession. Don’t we?” He looked directly at Dakota with fake sympathy. “Nasty, illegal videos”.  

Dakota bristled, suddenly coming to life and straining against the bonds on his chair. “Don’t you know what will happen? What the cost of just ignoring that kind of an outbreak is?” He breathed heavily and collapsed back against his chair. Lancaster flapped a dismissive hand at him. 

“The problem has been taken care of,” he said vaguely, “and that is all you need to know. More, really, than you need to know. Terrorists like yourself should be kept in the dark as much as possible, that’s always been my philosophy”. 

Dakota looked at him with radiating hatred. “The only terrorist in this room is you” he grated. Lancaster snorted contemptuously.  

“Au contraire, mon ami,” he said with a light flourish, “you are quite mistaken. After all, what was your plan with regards to those videos? You accepted them, kept them, and then what? Were you just going to sit on them, keep them as part of your personal archive?” He waited for a response, and when he didn’t get one he continued on with good grace. “You were going to release them, to whatever media source would be degenerate enough to host them, and for what purpose?” He pointed his long index finger directly at Dakota’s nose. “You wanted to scare the public. You wanted to show them a horrific outbreak of a dreaded disease directly in their midst, to unsettle them, make them pause when they considered buying beef, to keep them from going out to eat”. He paused, significantly. “To terrorize them”. Dakota clenched his teeth. Anger seemed to have replaced any other emotion that he could feel.  

“So I suppose that you’re the hero of your little narrative, then?” he asked maliciously. Lancaster threw up his hands. 

“There is obviously no reaching you,” he said, and his tone said why bother. “I am part of an effort to keep the public safe, secure, and unaware of the various…problems that may surface from time to time. My job is the exact opposite of terrorism, and since you can’t see that, then, well…” he crossed his arms, “perhaps you really should be kept away from society. You certainly can’t be trusted not to try to instill fear into them, after all”.  

Dakota’s head swam; there was no response forming in that maelstrom. 

“I think a lifetime of toil at the Aberdeen extraction camp is more than you deserve, really”. This had the sudden effect of focusing Dakota’s wandering attention. 

“What?” he whispered. It was the maximum level of volume that he could achieve. Lancaster grinned. 

“I have your attention now, don’t I?” he said condescendingly. “You didn’t think we were just going to throw you in jail, did you? Amongst the other indentured workers? No,” he chuckled, “those poor unfortunates have sentences that will end eventually. Who knows what kind of tales they could carry with them back into free society? No, Mr. Styles, we can’t have that, and besides which, I don’t think that any of the federally contracted corporations are really hiring right now. The resource industry though…they’re always hiring. For some reason, they can’t find free, able-bodied, employable folks to do the dirty work at their sites. Especially the sites in the north. It’s odd, really.” His grin widened until it seemed to swallow his entire face, Cheshire-like. “Folks like you, though, always seem to find their way up there, sooner or later. I guess the climate agrees with you”. 

Dakota mentally felt for a hand-hold. “The trial, though, wasn’t it broadcast? Streamed all over the world?” Lancaster nodded, never losing an inch of his smile. “So, then, everyone knows what I was sentenced to, and where I was sentenced to. The show is legally binding! They’re contracted to provide justice! They…” 

Lancaster held up a hand wearily. “Yes, yes, yes,” he said, with infinite patience. “People saw what they saw. For all that the public knows, you are being remanded to Toronto to spend the rest of your life in the nuthouse. That is all they will continue to know”. He clapped his hands together. “My job is to keep the public safe, secure…and unaware. You remember this?” Dakota swallowed. “Do you think that the average public follows up on a prisoner after the sentence has been handed down and the headlines fade? Do you?” Dakota stared straight ahead, not seeing anything. “Of course you don’t. There will be reports filed from time to time in your name, commenting on what sort of progress, if any, you’ve made. To the public, that’s all you are, and all you will continue to be. A series of diminishing news reports. Eventually you will be forgotten. People keep databases of serial killers, Mr. Styles. They do not keep tabs on child-raping perverts. They trust the government, or whomever the government contracts it out to, to do it.”  

Dakota chuckled weakly. Lancaster laughed along with him. 

“You’ll spend the rest of your life up by Lake Aberdeen, as long as that will be. No one will know that you are there, except for the administration of the extraction camp. It will be quite cold, as a friendly warning,” he put a finger to the side of his nose, “but at least you won’t need a nightlight”.  

“People will die,” Dakota said faintly, “people will die and what will you do then?” 

Lancaster shrugged. “We will deal with it. We’ve already dealt with the outbreak itself, in the most cost-effective manner, and we’ll deal with any outbreak in the human population in the same fashion. In a way that makes the population believe that they are being kept safe and secure. Safe from disease…and from the molesters of their innocents”. He checked his watch, nodded, and turned to leave. 

He’d opened the door and passed through when he turned back to regard Dakota gravely. He smiled, a ghostly echo of his earlier feverish grin. 

“Perception, Mr. Styles. What they perceive, becomes reality”. 

He left, and the door swung shut. Dakota was alone again, free to contemplate the cracks in the wall, and the steady drip drip drip of the leaking faucet. He closed his eyes. The far-off tap checked off the time, an endless, haunted track leading off into the future.

But wait! We don’t have to stop here! Click on the image above or those below to check out other unsettling glimpses into horror.