The City Courthouse was designed to look like a temple. Massive marble pillars held up a ceiling painted with angels, and in the center of the lobby stood a twenty-foot statue of Lady Justice. She held a sword in one hand and scales in the other, a stone blindfold carved across her eyes.

  "She is beautiful," Elias murmured as they walked across the polished floor.

  "She is a lie," the Stranger replied. He didn't look up at the statue. He was looking at the people scuttling beneath it—lawyers in Italian suits whispering to weeping clients, bailiffs checking their phones, the machinery of the law grinding human lives into paperwork. "The woman this statue represents is blind. The men in this building have 20/20 vision for gold."

  They entered Courtroom 7.

  The air inside was stale, smelling of floor wax and old fear. Elias and the Stranger took seats in the back row. The wooden benches were hard, polished smooth by the trousers of a thousand anxious families waiting for bad news.

  The High Bidder

  "All rise," the bailiff droned.

  Judge Arthur Halloway swept into the room. He was a heavy man with a face like a bulldog and eyes that looked perpetually bored. He sat behind the high bench, looking down at the courtroom like a king on a throne.

  "Case number 402," the clerk announced. "State vs. Julian Thorne."

  A young man stood up at the defense table. He was handsome, wearing a navy suit that cost more than Elias’s life savings. He looked bored. Julian Thorne had killed a pedestrian while racing his sports car at 3 a.m. His blood alcohol level had been twice the legal limit.

  But Julian didn't stand alone. He was flanked by four lawyers—sharks in grey suits who covered the table with stacks of motions and suppression orders.

  "Your Honor," the lead lawyer said, his voice smooth as oil. "My client is a promising university student. A prison sentence would destroy his future. He has suffered significant trauma from the accident already. We ask for a suspended sentence and community service."

  Judge Halloway nodded sympathetically. He glanced briefly at the weeping family of the victim in the front row, then looked away. He knew Julian’s father. They played golf at the same club.

  "A tragic accident," the Judge ruled, tapping his gavel lightly. "Two years probation. And a fine of fifty thousand dollars."

  The young man smirked. Fifty thousand was what his father spent on a weekend vacation. He paid the fee at the clerk's desk and walked out, stepping over the grief of the victim’s family as if it were a puddle.

  The Stranger watched the money change hands. "The price of a human life," the Stranger whispered to Elias. "It has dropped significantly since I last checked."

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  The Low Bidder

  "Next case," the bailiff yelled. "State vs. Maria Gonzales."

  A small woman was led in. She wore an orange jumpsuit, her wrists cuffed. She was trembling. Her lawyer was a young, overworked public defender who was sweating and shuffling through a mess of papers. He clearly hadn't learned her name until five minutes ago.

  "The defendant was caught shoplifting from a pharmacy," the prosecutor announced, not even looking up from his file. "Value of stolen goods: forty dollars. Antibiotics and painkillers."

  "She has a prior record," the prosecutor added. "Another theft two years ago. We are asking for the mandatory minimum. Five years."

  Elias gripped the bench. "She stole for a sick child," he hissed to the Stranger. "Look at her hands. They are rough. She works three jobs. She didn't have the money."

  The Judge didn't look sympathetic this time. He looked annoyed. He wanted to go to lunch.

  "The law is the law," Judge Halloway droned, checking his watch. "Sentenced to five years."

  The woman screamed. It was a raw, primal sound—the sound of a mother being ripped away from her children. The bailiffs grabbed her arms to drag her away.

  The Verdict

  "Objection," a voice said.

  It wasn't a lawyer. It was the man in the grey coat in the back row.

  The Stranger stood up. The air in the courtroom instantly dropped twenty degrees. The fluorescent lights overhead flickered and dimmed, casting long, unnatural shadows against the walls.

  Judge Halloway squinted. "Who are you? Sit down or I will hold you in contempt."

  "I am already in contempt," the Stranger said, walking down the center aisle. The bailiffs moved to stop him, but they froze, their feet glued to the floor by an unseen weight.

  The Stranger stopped in front of the bench. He looked up at the Judge.

  "You paint statues of Justice with a blindfold," the Stranger said, his voice echoing without a microphone. "But you are not blind, Arthur. You simply close your eyes to the poor."

  "Bailiff!" the Judge screamed, his face turning red. "Arrest this man!"

  "You sold the boy his freedom for silver," the Stranger continued, ignoring the shouting. "And you sold this woman into slavery for being poor. You believe you are the law? Let us see how you like the laws of physics."

  The Stranger slammed his hand onto the prosecutor's table. BANG.

  The Recoil

  Judge Halloway gasped.

  He dropped his gavel. He clawed at his throat.

  Suddenly, the Judge wasn't sitting in his comfortable leather chair anymore. In his mind, he was in a cage.

  The courtroom vanished for him. He smelled urine and bleach. He felt the cold steel of handcuffs biting into his wrists—not metaphorically, but physically. His skin chafed and bled invisible blood.

  Then came the panic.

  It was the suffocating, drowning terror of the woman he had just sentenced. He felt her heartbeat in his own chest—a rabbit trapped in a snare. He felt the agony of her children waiting for a mother who would never come home.

  "No!" the Judge shrieked, falling off his bench. He crawled on the floor, weeping. "I can't... please... let me out! It's too small! The walls are closing in!"

  The courtroom fell into a stunned silence. The "King" of the court was curling into a fetal position, sobbing like a child, crushed by the weight of five years of prison compressed into five seconds of experience.

  The Stranger turned to the weeping woman, Maria. The handcuffs on her wrists clicked and fell open.

  "Go home to your children," the Stranger said gently.

  He looked at the terrified lawyers and the frozen bailiffs.

  "Court is adjourned," the Stranger announced.

  He turned to Elias, who was standing in the aisle, watching the Judge writhe on the floor.

  "We have one more stop, Elias," the Stranger said, his eyes hard. "We have seen the Greed and the Injustice. Now we must see the Engine that keeps it running."

  "The Engine?" Elias asked.

  "The Hate," the Stranger said. "Take me to the News Station."

  Next Chapter: We are heading to the News Station. It's time to tackle the people who divide us for profit.

  Rating! It really helps new readers find the story.