In Vino Veritas
Authors note: Due to midterms and a hard-drive crash, the Sailor Moon fanfic The Watch
is temporarily on hold. This is
something I whipped up in my spare time between studying for Calculus and
writing my philosophy paper.
Feedback: Feedback is welcome at dickbeck@ix.netcom.com
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Quincy Itomi, majority stockholder
and chairman of Genom biomechanics Corporation, pleaded guilty today to
423,712,009 charges of mail fraud, tax evasion, false advertising, and
antitrust violations. It is expected
that he will testify against his various organized crime associates in return
for a reduced sentence."
"This station is
offering a 100,000 yen award for the identity of the anonymous tipster who sent
documentation to all major news organizations and to the Advanced Police
proving Genom’s complicity in gross financial deceit on behalf of the
Yakuza-Mafia crime organization, formed in 2011 after the American FBI. . .”
Priss hit the rewind
button, and the tape went back to the beginning for
the eleventh time.
“Come’on.” Nene said.
“Haven’t we seen this enough?”
“No.” said Linna from
where she was lying on the couch.
“We’ve been working towards this day for the last five years. We deserve to bask in our own glory.”
“You mean Nene’s glory.”
Mackie commented. “It took her five
years to crack Genom’s computer system and get access to the *real* financial
records.”
“Actually, it only took
me two months to actually crack it. The
problem was that Genom kept on restructuring its security and I kept on having
to start over.” Nene pointed out. “And
after I did crack it, it took me another week to figure out how to copy the
data without alerting anybody.”
Sylia entered the room,
carrying a crate of wine. “Here it is,
people.” she said, smiling broadly. “My
father’s private cache of wine that he didn’t think me and Mackie knew
about. We’ve been saving it for a
special occasion, and it just doesn't get much more special than this.”
Nene spoke up. “Um, Sylia, about your father. There something I think you should
know. While I was wandering around
Genom’s computer banks, I found the investigation Genom did into your father’s
death.”
Sylia blinked. “Why would they do an investigation? They’re the ones who caused his car crash,
and then made it look like an accident.”
Nene shook her
head. “I’m afraid not, Sylia. You see, Genom didn’t have to make it look
like an accident. It *was* an
accident.”
The other four
stared. “Impossible." Priss
said. “That tape he left, that said
Genom was planning to kill him . . .” her voice trailed off.
“Genom wasn’t even
planning his death.” Nene replied.
“They didn’t really trust him, but they weren't about to kill their most
brilliant research scientist without concrete evidence. Your father over-reacted,
Sylia. He death was a genuine accident.”
Sylia looked like
someone had just hit her head with a hammer.
Hard. Then, she broke down weeping.
“All for nothing.” she wailed.
“All for nothing.
*Nothing.* NOTHING!” at that
point she hit incoherence.
It took the others two
hours to calm her down enough to listen to reason.
“Listen.” Mackie
said. “OK, so Genom didn’t kill
Dad. They sure killed enough other
people. Thousands, according to the
records Nene got out of the computer.
All in the name of a bigger profit margin. We stopped something that was evil, and we should be proud that
we did it, not in the depths of despair because we were wrong about just one
crime.”
Sylia smiled, her eyes
red. She had literally been weeping
blood for a few minutes there, and Priss had almost called an ambulance. “Your right, bro. Common, let’s have this wine.”
Three hours later, the
entire crate was empty and four of the Knight Sabers were lying around in
various stages of drunkeness. The
exception was Priss, who was singing.
Despite the fact that she had drunk more than any of the others, her
songs were still on precisely on key.
As she listened to
Priss’ singing, Nene sighed to herself.
She had hated to lie, but there had been no other choice.
Genom’s investigation
hadn’t given a verdict of accident. It
had given a verdict of suicide. They
hadn’t been able to come up with the reason, but Nene could. Dr. Stingray hadn’t wanted to live anymore
with the knowledge of what he had done, so he had taken the cowards way
out. He had killed himself, and left
his two children to stop Genom in his place.
Sylia couldn’t ever be
allowed to know. Nene had discovered
the hard way over the past few years that Sylia wasn’t mentally stable. The revelation that her father had committed
suicide would drive her to do the same, Nene was sure. The lie of last night had diverted Sylia’s
attention. With luck, she would never
know now.
‘All I do is lie,’ Nene
thought. ‘I lie to my computers, I lie
to my coworkers and now I lie to my friends.’
‘Who says there’s truth
in wine?’ she thought as she drifted off to sleep.
THE END
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