“Well, I saw that,” I said.
“It’s our ace in the hole,” Vincent said. “What we hope is going to get this whole thing dismissed right here, right now, and that stupid ankle monitor taken off.”
“It chafes,” Marcus said. “Figuratively and literally.”
“I gave you moisturizer,” Dawn said.
“Mom? It’s an ankle monitor for a criminal. It doesn’t matter how much moisturizer I put on. It’s always going to chafe. That’s kind of the point.”
“That’s kind of cruel,” Dawn said.
“They kind of don’t care,” Vincent said. “Innocent until proven guilty means nothing to some people.” He tossed a meaningful look at Kyle.
Kyle didn’t flinch, but his eyes looked hurt.
“We’re just going to sit here and wait?” Dawn asked.
“We are,” Marcus said. “The information we gave her, and is currently available for the judge to review, should be the end of it.”
I pulled out my cell phone and messed around with it, even though it earned me some dirty looks from the officers around. Tough shit—I needed to check the status of work with some of the people on my team, to make sure I didn’t have to go into work tonight.
At the nine minute mark, the prosecutor walked back in, her heels making a threatening clack on the floor with each angry step. She didn’t head to her own table on the right. Instead, she headed straight for Marcus, Vincent, and Kyle.
“Counselors. A moment?”
The three of them walked off to talk quietly in the corner, and I could see her face go from angry to resigned, and then to her professional neutral and nod once.
The door to the judge’s chambers open and the bailiff had to scramble. “All rise!”
We shuffled to our feet, and watched him sit. We sat.
“Your honor,” Vincent started. “We have some new evidence we want to present to the court. We want to put this on record.”
He nodded.
Kyle walked to the media center the courtroom had and slipped the CD in the player. The bailiff turned down the lights and the CD started playing. The logo of Kyle’s firm came up, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw Vincent grouse. After that, you could have put the seal of the office of the president and I wouldn’t have cared.
Because the screen was filled with Ed Roberts.
The first clips were of all the times he tried to get Marcus alone. Next were the times he’d managed to do it, and Marcus walked right the hell out of the room. There was one time where he’d stood in front of the door so Marcus couldn’t leave. There was the antagonizing catcalls down the hall. The intentional shoves. The pushes. The ‘whoops why are you here?’ encounters.
And through all of them, Marcus was never in his space for longer than it took to get away.
The piece de resistance, though, was composed of two clips.
In the first, it was just Marcus in his studio. Sitting, working, playing with the soundboard, mixing for the images on the screen in front of us. It sped up, showing hours of work, right through 9:03 p.m. on the night of the attack. The report said he was attacked between eight and nine at night.
The other one was just as damning. Roberts, sneaking into Marcus’s studio, planting prints and evidence.
The prints and evidence that were sitting on the table in front of the judge.
The player shut off and the room was quiet for a long moment.
“What is that bullshit!?” Roberts finally roared. “Are you presenting deepfakes as evidence?”
“I have a signed affidavit that these are not deepfakes at all,” Vincent said. “They are genuine copies from the hard drive of the security system at Sonic Boom Studios. A system which had not previously been known to us.”
“Oh, isn’t that convenient!”
