Nano Contestant - Episode 1: Whatever It Takes by Leif Sterling Page A

life.

C HAPTER T HREE :

    C HAMBERS

    RETREATING FROM THE media frenzy, Judge Hennessy headed towards his chambers. He stopped outside his door and leaned into the retina security scanner. The red light washed over his eye and then the door to his office clicked open.
    He was greeted by the sickly sweet smell of a Cuban cigar. His high-backed leather chair swung around towards him and Vincent Bishop, the CEO of Pinnacle Technology Corporation, propped his expensive leather shoes up on the judge’s desk. “Johnny-boy, you’ve returned from battle. See, it went according to plan.”
    Judge Hennessy frowned at the uninvited guest. “Vincent? What are you doing here?”
    The CEO set his Cuban cigar down. “I came to congratulate you.”
    Judge Hennessy hung his robe on the wall hanger. “You mean, you came to keep an eye on me.”  
    “See, it wasn’t that hard.”
    The Judge looked Vincent in the eye. “I’m a Justice of the Supreme Court, not a fast food clerk. I just found a man guilty and put him on death row.”
    “Of course you found him guilty. How couldn’t you have, with the jury I gave you?” Vincent picked the Cuban back up. “Anyway, it’s over now.”
    “Until your next favor.”
    Vincent got up to leave. “I like you better when you need election funds. You’re much more pleasant then.”

C HAPTER F OUR :

    L ETTER

    SKYLAR EXITED THE courtroom. “I’m headed back,” she said to Roland over the uplink in her glasses. Then she killed the video feed by touching the side of her glasses.
    His text flowed across her glasses and then disappeared. “Hurry.”
    She arrived at Roland’s house fifteen minutes later. Roland Crane shared the house with his father, and she rented the garage apartment in the back. Skylar went in the front door of the main house and saw Roland pacing back and forth in the living room. Roland was wearing his boxing gloves, and whenever his pacing took him to side of the room where the punching bag was, he would let loose a frenzy of punches and kicks on it.
    Roland looked up when Skylar came in. “He’s my dad. I should have been there today!”
    Skylar closed the door. “You know your dad asked you not to come. He said that he didn’t want the media to learn he had a son and have you be branded as ‘the son of a traitor.’ ”
    “But I can’t believe they took him away! Less than an hour the jury was gone. Can you believe that?”
    “No, that’s almost unheard of!”
    Roland gave the bag a hard left hook. “Deathrow? C’mon. You’ve got to be kidding me.” Two right jabs. “It was just seventy-two hours ago that he was arrested. I’ve heard of these speed trials before, but I never imagined it would happen to my own family. It’s not like I have much family left. Lost my mom to cancer, what, barely seven months ago?”
    Skylar nodded and put her video glasses in their case and put her regular glasses back on. “Death by incineration? That’s only reserved for the worst of the worst. Remember that serial killer in the news a few months ago? Well, he got lethal injection. He didn’t even get incineration.”
    Roland paced to the other side of the room. “What are we going to do, Sky? We have to get him out somehow. We have to figure out who did this and expose them!”
    Skylar stood behind the punching bag and held it steady. “You heard what your dad said, right?”
    Roland took a stance on the other side of the bag. He bounced on his feet a couple times. His clear, blue eyes echoed the pain he felt, but were filled with fury. “Yep, I heard him.” Then he pounded away on the bag as hard as he could, yelling all the while.  
    It took everything Skylar had to keep hold of the bag. “You gonna stay back and keep away? You know it’s every bit as dangerous as he said, probably more.”
    Roland chugged a blue sports drink. He slammed the empty bottle on the counter. “You know I’m not, Sky. I thought I was all alone in the world when my mom