TRIAL 04

[thecomputer]

Attention, Citizens! You have ten minutes to proceed to the Loyalty Chamber. Anyone who is late to the Loyalty Chamber, or who brings any weapons into the Loyalty Chamber, will be immediately executed.

[Once you arrive, you will find a large chamber, with twenty podiums spaced around the room in a circle. On the ceiling, a massive screen showing the digital eye of The Computer, turning to look at whoever is talking.]

You have one hour to come to a consensus about who to eliminate. Ties will be broken randomly.

[The floor of the chamber begins to split apart, eventually only leaving the twenty podiums as safe places to stand, above a seemingly bottomless abyss. Each podium lights up with a touch screen showing twenty user IDs (the dead are grayed out), plus the word “ABSTAIN”. However, ABSTAIN has now been grayed out as well. The trial begins now!]

[[Vote here]]

Comments

[staunton]

[ clears throat. ]

I'm sure you all already know that Yomiel outed himself as the Loyalty Officer and indicted Robin Newman as a Communist earlier, but maybe we should follow the Detective's suggestion from yesterday's trial and save the known threat for tomorrow while going after a probable suspect today? I don't think it's a bad idea.

Oh, and Newman's probably going to start shouting about how Yomiel's a liar. Show of hands, how many of you believe that noisy runt?

[fullonbraced]

Actually... I don't have to shout, if that's a problem, Mister Knightley?

[wow that brace sure is gone.

And wow, that sure is a girl that's standing at Robin's podium-Oh, wait.]

[staunton]

[ okay, he sure did not expect that. ]

...You're not a guy!

[fullonbraced]

Haha! [She does a little spin, making an ":D" face at the end.] Yup! I'm actually a girl, and smarter than you think. Which is why I'll be defending myself with a theory that I think makes some sense!

[staunton]

Go on, then! Don't keep me waiting, share that theory of yours.

[fullonbraced]

[And she does!]

[schrodingers_man]

...

[ Huuuuuuh. Not expected! ]

No yelling is fine by me.

[fullonbraced]

Are you sure? It does start to hurt my throat sometimes.

[schrodingers_man]

I can imagine. [ He's done more than his fair share of yelling these past few days and he's not pretending to be a guy when he's not. ] But I don't need to count on you losing your voice to win this debate.

[fullonbraced]

Hmm, why are you so sure, mister Yomiel? Are you really exempt from suspicion?

[schrodingers_man]

I'm sure because I've got the truth on my side. But accusing me's a pretty bad strategy on your part. Win or lose here, I'm a dead man tonight and everybody knows it. And once I'm dead, everybody's going to know I was telling the truth. All this is buying you is one more day, at best.

If anybody even believes you to begin with.

[angry_jerk]

[Well. If Dan had water, he'd do a spit take. And yet, he does it anyway.]

The fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu...

[fullonbraced]

Tee hee! Yup! I'm a girl, body and soul!

[angry_jerk]

Well, less believe the brat and more thinking that conehead is too idiotic and murder happy not to screw this up.

[standbyrival]

Do you have another probable suspect in mind?

[staunton]

Of course I do -- Detective Fulbright.

[standbyrival]

That's a surprise. [said very flatly]

So what do you have on him, and why does the order of who goes out matter right now?

[staunton]

Remember the second trial, when Yomiel made his argument? He tried to cast suspicion on Kimbley using that message as "evidence" and completely refused to back off until Tohsaka confessed to being a Communist. He's a detective, he should realize that a message like that is completely worthless as evidence here.

Also, the timing is pretty suspicious. Rather than trying to make a case on why we should suspect Kimbley early on during the trial, he chose to wait until Yomiel just made a convincing argument that narrowed it down to Tohsaka and Matou -- who both were later confirmed to be Communists. The way I see it, it was a desperate attempt to avoid getting a teammate killed.

[schrodingers_man]

And we know the Communists already knew Kimbley had a role at that point. If they could've talked us into taking him out for them, they could've used that night to get rid of somebody else.

That might've been the aim of the message about Phi in the first place. It would easily be discredited by the Loyalty Officer's word, so they might've picked Phi to accuse to cast suspicion on the person who she voted against the night before. But nobody took that line of reasoning, so the Detective had to propose it himself.

[schrodingers_man]

I agree with that. That guy's been suspicious from day one and I'm tired of watching him squeak by behind bigger targets. If I get to pick which Communist I take down with me tonight, I'd rather it be him than the kid.

[thefaceofjustice]

Huh?? Why do you think I'm one?

[staunton]

[ Sit down and listen, Detective. ]

[thefaceofjustice]

[ Whoa, horse. Whoa. ]

[schrodingers_man]

Why did Seryu Ubiquitous die that first night, while you didn't even get scanned? Why did you accuse Kimbley in the second trial when nobody else was gunning for him at all? Why did you try to distract us from voting for Sakura last night?

It doesn't look very good for you, Detective.

Why don't you do the chivalrous thing and confess so young Robin over there can live another day? It'd save us all a lot of trouble.

[thefaceofjustice]

First thing, I have no idea!

Second, Mr. Kimbley was my top suspect because the evidence against him seemed stronger than anything else we had to go on at the time!

Thirdly, I wasn't trying to stop the vote on Ms. Sakura, I just said we could vote her out the next trial instead. My alternate suspect was Ms. Newman, and you confirmed that she is one of them, so how was that helping the communists at all?? I came to the wrong conclusion in my investigation of Mr. Kimbley, but you've confirmed that I was right about Ms. Newman!