sixth trial

[airlockedmods]

[Six weeks, thirteen Champion dead out of their original twenty as well one half of the former Overseer pair. With Jamie now counted as a fellow Champion in the Benefactors' eyes, their numbers have dwindled down to eight.

C.E.C.E.'s announcement sounds and for what may be the last time the Champions must file to the teleporter with their evidence and the Champion Landscape Artist now officially among them. The courtroom is empty this time around, the floating platform as empty as the updated circle of surviving Champion's podiums. Jamie makes a small, humorless sound when he sees the lack of a portrait at Lightning's podium and his own name in glaring green where she once stood.

There's no Bolton to speak to them this time around so it's C.E.C.E. whose voice rings from on high.]

Welcome, Champions, to the courtroom. Eight of you have entered, but if you vote correctly only seven of you will leave. Compile your evidence and select the correct culprit is. If you vote correctly, the culprit will be executed and the rest of you will be allowed to go back upstairs.

Thank you!

Comments

[kingshaming]

In theory, yes, though I can tell you with complete honesty I did not know this lockdown was going to happen.

[ratherdoweddings]

But you knew something else. That request was actually yours!

[kingshaming]

...

That is correct. I made the request for the motives to end.

[ratherdoweddings]

How would you get access to the master computer? The Doctor tried to contact her before and nothing happened.

[kingshaming]

It was not CECE I was in contact with.

[ratherdoweddings]

So you had Bolton-san or Jamie-san ask for you?

[kingshaming]

No, they had no idea. It would in fact have been counterproductive for them to aid me in any way.

[cyan_maid]

...

Temerity. Or...the Benefactors?

[kingshaming]

Neither. Or I can at least say to my knowledge they have never claimed to be either of those groups but I would suspect they are with the Benefactors.

Come on, you know who already. We've seen what they can do to a man with the right carrot.

[cyan_maid]

...EP.

[She says it with such raw, spitting poison in her voice.]

[ratherdoweddings]

EP?

[cyan_maid]

...It's...it's the person who put Bolton and Jamie up to being Overseers and who promised them freedom for conflicting conditions. Whatever it's supposed to mean...

[ratherdoweddings]

Someone who just wants blood, no matter what they have to promise.

[refusedtoleave]

Isn't everyone supposed to be in here? If that thing can't lie...

[stitch_in_time]

No, I don't think anyone saw that coming. But that fits too, doesn't it? Like I said, if someone were being blackmailed somehow, shutting down the experiment wouldn't do anything but make them desperate.

...No, not blackmail. Carrot, not stick. They had a way to save your people, didn't they?

[kingshaming]

Yes. All my people. Not just the Nohrians.

[stitch_in_time]

And the shutdown put that into jeopardy.

[Dozens of people, at Xander's hand. What was risking, even condemning, less than a dozen more? If they were already doomed to slow death from isolation and madness...]

[His entire race. Two and a half billion children versus the fate of the entire universe.]

[Just like with Toby, he'd been too blind-]

Who turned your PIP back on? They would've given you some kind of emergency contact- EP, the Benefactors?

[kingshaming]

[He shakes his head softly, amused, like he can tell the Doctor is making an assumption. But he makes no move to correct him]

It was EP, yes.

[stitch_in_time]

[He squints, for just a second, at that headshake. Something...]

Do you know who they are?

[kingshaming]

No, they gave me no details about themselves.

[stitch_in_time]

How did you contact them during the lockdown?

[kingshaming]

I didn't. I thought they had abandoned me with everyone else. They contacted me early this morning.

[stitch_in_time]

"Here's the teleporter, go kill someone and the lockdown ends," was that it?

[Why Bolton then, specifically...]

...Wait, no. What was the exact message, can you remember?

[kingshaming]

'Kill Mr. White, and the lockdown ends'

I demanded more assurance, that after my death they would never take from Nohr again. They agreed.

[imnotfat]

They never mentioned why Bolton was the target?

[Jamie was closer to you in terms of location, after all. Or maybe that's why. Bolton was in another floor]