CHAPTER SEVEN: In court

I arrived at the police station at 3.15 a.m., and said nothing. The Futures arrived at 3.45. ‘It was our car,’ Dan said. ‘Someone tried to steal it.’

‘Yeah, OK, sir,’ a policeman answered. ‘We’ve got the woman here.’

Then I said: ‘You stole my house, so I wanted to steal your car. That’s OK, isn’t it?’ It wasn’t true, but it gave me time. While we were all talking in the police station, Al was getting warmer every minute.

So we talked angrily from 4 a.m. until 5. I loved it! Then the Futures had to write their story on three pieces of paper for the police, so it was after six o’clock when they went back to the house. And I was happy, because I knew they were too late. By now, I thought, Al won’t be frozen. He’ll just be dead.

Of course, they found out. At eight o’clock the Futures came back and there was a lot of trouble. ‘Al’s dead!’ they shouted. ‘You killed him! You switched off the freezer and killed your brother!’

I laughed. ‘Of course I didn’t,’ I said. ‘He was dead already. I just saved you some electricity!’

That’s why I’m here in court today. The police called me a murderer, and all the newspapers wrote about me. And so of course now I have not one, but two really good lawyers! The lawyers are free, because I have no money, but I am famous, and they want to be on TV. And because of my expensive lawyers, the police and the Futures look really stupid.

‘Al Shore was dead,’ my lawyers say, again and again. ‘He was already dying of AIDS, and then he took a dangerous sleeping drug. Either he took the drug himself, or the Futures gave it to him. And then the Futures put him in a freezer and froze his body to -196 Celsius. Nobody can stay alive when they’re just a piece of ice. So the Futures are the murderers, not his sister Ellen. When she switched off the freezer, he was already dead. How can anybody kill a dead man?’

Every day, people write about this in the newspapers, and talk about it on TV. Most people think I’m right, and the Futures are wrong. Last week, a newspaper tried to give me $100,000 for my story, but my lawyers told me to wait. And this week, another newspaper tried to give me $200,000! This is the last week of the trial. Soon, I’m going to be free.

Free – and rich too! At last!

Today, my lawyers asked me questions in court, and I told my story. Then they sat down, and the police lawyer stood up.

The police lawyer is a young woman with short dark hair. She talks very quickly, in a hard, strong voice. She is clever, I know, but it doesn’t matter now. She found only one doctor who thinks that cryonics is possible. We found four very famous doctors who don’t. They say that Al was dead before I switched the freezer off, either because of the sleeping drug, or because of the cold. So how could I kill a dead man?

‘Ms Shore, did you love your brother?’ she asks.

I laugh. ‘No, not really.’

‘Oh? Why not?’ There is a small smile on her face.

I tell the court the story of our family. How our parents gave Al everything, and me nothing. How Al gave me nothing – only our parents’ old house. How I cleaned his house for him, and cooked at parties. How I helped him when he was sick, but he gave me nothing.

My lawyers look unhappy, but it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters now. Next week I’m going to be free!

‘Your brother was very sick. He had AIDS. Did you know that?’

‘I know now, because Dan Future told me. After Al was dead. I didn’t know before.’

‘I see. But you knew that your brother was sick, and you bought medicine for him, didn’t you?’

‘Yes, I did.’

‘Why didn’t he go to a doctor?’

‘Because I’m a nurse, and his sister. He trusted me.’

‘That’s right. He trusted you, his sister.’ The lawyer looks at me. For a long minute she is silent. I begin to feel cold and afraid. She takes a police bag from under her table, opens it, and slowly takes out a syringe. She holds it up, in front of my face.

‘Look at this, Ms Shore. Have you seen it before?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe.’

‘Maybe, you say. But it has your fingerprints on it, Ms Shore. It came from the hospital, and we found it by your brother’s bed, with two other syringes. You stole them from the hospital and gave them to your brother, didn’t you?’

There is a long silence. In a very small voice, I say: ‘All right, maybe I did.’

‘Why did you steal them?’

‘Why? To help Al, of course. To help him to play good music. He wanted clean drugs.’ I tell her what Al said to me.

‘Clean drugs, you say? Do you know what was in this syringe, Ms Shore?’

‘Clean safe drugs.’

‘Oh no, Ms Shore. These drugs weren’t clean or safe. These syringes also had bacteria in them – very dangerous bacteria. Bacteria that can kill a strong, healthy person. Bacteria that will kill a person with AIDS very quickly. And perhaps a while ago – who knows? – there was another syringe, a dirty syringe, not from a hospital but from a drug user in the streets. A syringe that gave your brother AIDS.’

The police lawyer puts the syringe down on the table, and looks at me again.

‘But we found these three syringes by your brother’s bed, with your fingerprints on them. Do you know why they had these dangerous bacteria in them?’

‘No… of course not.’

‘Don’t you, Ms Shore? Well, that’s strange, because I know why they were there. And I think everyone in this courtroom knows why they were there, too. You hated your brother, didn’t you? Because he was rich and you were poor, and he gave you nothing. And you stole drugs and syringes for him, because he trusted you! He trusted you, his sister, the nurse!’

She looks at the people in the court, a small smile on her young face. ‘But that was your brother’s big mistake, wasn’t it, Ms Shore? You wanted him to die, because you wanted his money and his big house – just like the Futures! So you gave him syringes with dangerous bacteria in them, because you wanted to kill him!’

The court is very quiet now, and everyone is looking at me. But there is nothing I can say. Nothing. Because it is all true.

‘You didn’t kill your brother when you switched off the freezer, Ms Shore. We all know that now. But you were trying to kill him. Slowly, week by week, month by month, you were trying to murder him. Dirty syringes, dirty drugs, dangerous bacteria – you wanted to give him a slow, terrible death. I think that this court will want to send you to prison for a very long time, Ellen Shore!’

I look around the courtroom at the faces. Hundreds of eyes are looking at me, and they all hate me, all of them. No one understands me, no one loves me, no one wants to save me.

No one.

I feel nothing, at first. Then I begin to feel cold, like ice. Like a body in a freezer.