Sitting in his Nowhere Land…

Retired Judge Hannah Stone dug her fingertips into the creases of her left knee, trying to keep it from kicking the row in front of her. But the knee would not give, it was her lie detector, a nervous twitch she’d acquired in grad school at Harvard. Even through out her decades on the Bench, it flailed uncontrollably whenever an “innocent” defendant took the stand.

Today it was worse than normal, and already the dark skinned gentlemen in the white suit had turned around twice, asking her if there was a problemo? In answer Hannah smiled back as coy as a pair of flashing headlights. But then she’d always had that effect on men. Even at seventy-nine, many thought she was an aging model for a cosmetic line, despite the harsh truth of her dating life and harsher nickname among her peers, Judge Spinster was all show and no social.

She would keep up appearances till she returned to her chambers or, as was the case of the past seven months, to her brother Donald’s houseboat overlooking Lake Union in downtown Seattle. During dinner, she discussed the inside information she was still privy to as a friend of acting Judge Miller.

“You should have heard the facts Mack, the guy shoots 5 people at a truck stop, and nobody saw him do it!”
“What about the video cameras in the convenience store, didn’t they catch anything?”
“You would think, but he killed that employee then shot up all the equipment in the backroom.”
“No ballistics match? Fingerprints on the weapon?”
“Spoken like a true Lieutenant, and no… they haven’t found the weapon.”
“You do have survivors right Hannah? People he hadn’t shot at the scene?”
“ Yes there were eight of them. A mother of three and her kids who of course aren’t about to come forward. I believe she knows the shooter personally.”
“Umm what makes you say that?”
“Oh well he got there in her car according to the report.”
“He drove a carload of witnesses to a shooting?”
“No the shooting happened on sight, nobody knows what set him off.”

Once again Hannah’s knee started to swing forward in place, if not for the tightness of her laces, her comfortable shoes would have down a belly flop into the lake.

“Okay what’s that about?”
“Well his statement was some trucker took the first shot, he was just at the wrong place and time.”
“Who are the other four witnesses?”
“You won’t believe this, a band of college kids in a van.”
“Band? As in a real band?”
“Yes, some grunge band called the Bongs”
”Let me guess they were too stoned to see anything?”
“ Exactly.”

Hannah got up to walk off her nerves, while Donald drank his last beer battered salmon steak. Opening the fridge inside the tiny kitchenette, she popped the cap effortlessly with her right thumb, making sure her brother did not see.

Later when he passed out, she would dip into the water like a seal being chased by a torpedo, and cross the lake to emerge in the underground pool of a secret hillside cabin. The creases in her neck and joints would open up subconsciously, as she shot herself into the lab. All at once her natural eight-foot height, and bristling muscles would contract in place, causing the water to glide off her nubile swimmer’s build.

On her state of the art computer, “Lady Judgement” dawn the folds of her jet black leather corset and cape like robes. In the creases were several special sensors relaying all the information her lightweight night vision visor could acquire: thermal imaging of her cat, Liberty, density and alloy of the floor she stood upon, and lastly the dual heartbeats of herself and the animal who’d been missing her all day.

“Hey there girl, didn’t the automatic feeder come on?”

Hannah glanced across the room, and sensors told her of the electrical current running low on dispensing liver flavored Kitten Chow. A quick wave of her right metal gauntlet, now powered up as she redressed herself, and the feeder spattered a familiar sound to Liberty’s ears.

“We’ll catch up later Libby, I’ve got a mystery to figure out.”

Above her the shuttered ceiling opened up to reveal the crisp starry night, Hannah took in a deep breath before activating her low emission ethanol-boots. Ascending into the night, she had the license plates of every vehicle that had possibly passed through that truck stop cycling across her visor’s internal readout… Some run down from seven different DMVs, others filed in the most recent police report, and lastly several hundred off truck delivery invoices hacked into by her brother.

Rounding down to forty-seven possible leads, she decided to start at the bottom and work her way up. It might take several weeks, but one of those vehicles according to her alien intuition had a 38-caliber stowaway. With her right knee twitching like hell, she spread out the creases of her robe, billowing into two giant scale-like wings that would carry her hopefully towards justice.