The Verdict

[Diya Behari]

(The first part of this story takes place the morning of 9/12/11)

Diya fidgeted in her seat in the defendant’s chair. It wasn’t her first time in the seat, but it looked like it was going to be her last. The last year and a half had been consumed with lawsuits, as one gymnastics body after another tried - and succeeded - to strip the mutant of the medals she had won. Won through deceit, they claimed, as these competitions were intended for “normal” humans.

Waiting for the judge to enter the courtroom, Diya tugged on the sleeves of her suit coat. It was the only suit she owned, a heavy black one that wasn’t suited for the heat that lingered at the beginning of September. Her hands were bare, however, at her parents’ insistance, making her feel vulnerable.

Sitting on the table in front of her was Diya’s last medal case. The medal in dispute was pinned in one corner - a gold medal she’d won when she was eleven. The first gold she’d won in national competition. She’d wondered why it had taken the organizers so long to come after her for it, but she supposed the win had made more of an impression on her young psyche than it had for the adults who had been running the competition for years before her win and in the six years since.

Pinned next to the gold medal was another emblem - one that was decidedly not human. It was the patch from the gang of Rikti that had attacked her and Brook, when Brook had been in the middle of trying to cheer Diya up after her huge fight with Roach. When the Rikti had shown up, she and Brook had tried to hide, but then the Rikti materialized practically on top of them, leaving the pair of students no choice other than to fight their way out. With the Rikti lying on the ground, all with various bruises and scrapes and in varying stages of consciousness, Brook had ripped the patch off the leader, and presented it to Diya, saying it was one medal no one could take away.

Diya put her right hand on top of the medal case, right over the Rikti patch - the silhouette of a spaceship in front of a star. She wished she could have sworn her statements two weeks ago on top of this. Right now, it meant more to her than anything else in the world.

The bailiff called for all in the courtoom to rise as the judge entered the room. Diya glanced behind herself as she stood, noting the sparse crowd. Her parents sat immediately behind her, both of them stonefaced. The trip into New York had been a tense one that morning, with her parents not saying any more to her than had been necessary.

Diya figured it hadn’t been the right time to tell them she’d helped win her school’s first football game on Friday. Technically, they didn’t even know she was on the team in the first place.

After the judge sat, and everyone else resumed their seat, Diya bent her head and folded her hands in her lap. She wasn’t the religious type, but sent a plea into the ether. Please let our evidence sway this judge. Please let me keep one symbol that I used to be somebody...

***
Two weeks earlier

Diya wasn’t sure why her parents were fighting this suit. She had been more than willing to settle, just hand over the stupid medal and move on. Gymnastics was done. There was no way she was going to get to go back to that life. Even if one of her mom’s crazy cures worked out today, Diya had missed a year and a half of training and practice. She’d gotten soft, literally and physically. And, not that her parents knew it yet, but she had a new sport to occupy her time.

But Marie Behari didn’t listen to her daughter’s complaints - as usual, Diya thought. So once again they were in a courtroom - New York City this time, a day late as they hadn’t been able to get in yesterday thanks to the transit shutdown after Tropical Storm Irene - and once again Diya was listening to the same tired arguments about why she shouldn’t be allowed to keep her medal. Athletes who were found to use performance enhancing drugs were stripped of their medals and records - why would meta abilities, especially an ability that would so clearly affect athletic competition, be any different? While no proof of her meta abilities existed before the 2010 Brazil genetic test, there’s “clear and convincing” anecdotal evidence to show that Diya Behari had been a mutant from birth. The prosecution even went so far as to ask for a summary judgement from the judge, declaring that since Diya had already lost more than a dozen similar cases in the last year and a half, this really should be an open and shut case.

Diya’s lawyer, Jayin Chandra, had been by Diya’s side through all of these cases so far. He objected to the prosecution’s motion, saying he had evidence that would fulfill the burden of clear and convincing proof that Diya was more than capable of great athletic prowess, even without her metahuman abilities.

Diya frowned as a TV set and DVD player were wheeled into the courtroom. She could recite the usual court room procedure for these cases in her sleep by now. This was definitely new.

Jayin stood and addressed the court. “This recording was sent to me by a teacher at Miss Behari’s school, the Westbrook Academy for Metahumans in Paragon City, Rhode Island.” Jayin hit play on the DVD player, and a video of Diya popped up on the screen. Diya immediately recognized where the video was from, but had no idea when she’d been recorded. She felt creeped out suddenly, like she had when she’d first learned about the paparazzi in Rio. Violated. Who the hell would do this to her again?

“This video was taken via closed circuit security footage at the newly-opened Denton High School Sports Complex,” Jayin explained. “This sporting complex is designed to be a place where metahuman students can safely engage in athletic activities while under the influence of power suppression technology. One of the overseers of the complex has made himself available to the court should you have further questions about how it works, but for now what you need to know about the video you’re about to see is that the complex not only has large playing spaces to host activities such as football and basketball games, but also practice and weight rooms where the power suppression field extends.”

Diya watched herself on the screen, feeling only slightly less creeped out by the revelation that it was security footage rather than a peeping tom’s camera. If she’d known about such a security measure, she probably never would have gone into that room to goof off.

It was a small practice room. One wall was made of mirrors - and the video was now showing Diya pressing her fingernail against the mirrors to test if they were normal mirrors or two-way ones. She couldn’t help it - in the last year and a half she’d become very paranoid about people watching her. The feeling had lessened somewhat as she’d settled into Westbrook and felt comfortable again for the first time in ages, but her habits died hard. The floor was covered with thick blue tumbling mats, with only a small border of hardwood floor around the perimeter of the room.

Diya remembered feeling terrified as she walked into that small practice room. She still wasn’t used to the feeling of the sports complex. She couldn’t imagine what being in that place felt like for people with “real powers” as she called them - what would someone like Wyatt, with super strength, or Peyton with her super speed, or even psionic Roach feel in a place like this? For Diya, whose power was more in the background constantly, all she felt like was something was missing. It was like...the feeling in her head when she left her hair up all day in tight pigtails. A kind of background tingle that told her something had changed.

While Diya’s favorite event had always been the uneven parallel bars, the sports complex didn’t have those, so to test herself, to see if maybe everything she’d done in gymnastics before really had been a lie like all of those gymnastics bodies had said - that she was a cheater like the tabloids had said, she was doing floor routines.

The video showed Diya stretching out and loosening up - probably for longer than was necessary, but Diya remembered the nerves she’d felt that day. She hadn’t been entirely sure she’d wanted an answer.

She did a few cartwheels and roundoffs across the mat, a somersault and a backhandspring, just to get a baseline feel, to see if it felt different now.

It didn’t feel different at all. After the last back handspring, the security footage caught Diya grinning. It felt good to tumble like that again.

On the video, Diya launched into a full on floor routine - the one she’d been planning on using in Rio de Janiero last spring. She’d loved that one, as she spent a lot of her time in the air. Flysprings and aerial cartwheels were used liberally, finishing with a series of backflips across the mat, highlighting her strengths.

Upon the completion of the routine, the video shoed Diya turning to the mirrors with a huge grin, pumping her fist in victory. In the courtroom, Diya felt herself flush with pride as she remembered the feelings she’d had in the little practice room. Accomplishment. Pride. Feelings she hadn’t felt - or at least acknowledged - for over a year.

Jayin pressed a button on the remote, and the DVD suddenly showed a split screen image. On the left side of the screen was Diya in the practice room, frozen in position to start her routine. On the right side of the screen stood a Diya frozen in the same position, but standing in the middle of a proper gymnasium. Her hair was plain dark brown and held back in a short pony tail. Her features were sharper than modern Diya’s, her limbs harder. Diya gulped at the sight - she knew she’d let herself go a little bit over the last year and a half, but she didn’t think the change was so visible. On the other hand, she thought she looked about half an inch taller in the recent video, so that was something.

“On the right side of your screen you will see practice footage of Diya performing the same routine in March of last year,” Jayin explained to the judge. “This routine was the one she was preparing to perform in Brazil the next month.” He pressed play, and the two Diyas leapt into their performance.

Diya easily caught subtle differences in the performances. The practice room performance was clearly inferior to her trained eyes. Little flourishes she’d forgotten about in the last year and half, some flips not getting as much height as she used to get and the like. But would anyone else notice these differences?

Jayin halted the video just as the Diyas on the screen stuck their landings in identical poses. “Extensive studies of Diya’s mutation shows that when Diya watches an action, she retains that knowledge for roughly 24 hours,” Jayin explained. “However, as she practices an action, she can retain that knowledge indefinitely, as far as the scientists Diya’s mother has contacted have been able to tell. Down to the smallest detail of a performance, Diya is able to retain that knowledge. However, as an athlete, Diya did not spend her time studying videos of other gymnasts. Her coaches will testify that Diya put in hours upon hours of work in the gym to perfect her routines, working tirelessly towards her goal of becoming an Olympic gymnast.

“In these two videos, it is obvious that Diya is performing the same routine. If her gymnastic prowess were attributable solely to a metahuman mutation, would she have been capable of such a feat a year and a half later? That is the question we are here to answer today, and we will prove that the answer is an emphatic no. While perhaps it is fair that Diya should be barred from competitions with normal humans for the forseeable future, to strip the girl of her accomplishments after the fact, with no proof that her metahuman abilities were what pushed her to such heights, is unfair and, in fact, illegal discrimination against a member of the meta-community.”

Diya looked up, slightly slackjawed at Jayin. She hadn’t seem him so passionate in the courtroom in months. The repeated losses had taken a toll on him too, but today he seemed to be on fire.

And for the first time in a year and a half, Diya began to let herself hope that maybe this time she’d found a case she could win.

To be continued...

[Diya Behari]

Today

The judge spread her files in front of her after she sat down. She looked from the prosecution’s table, to the defense, looking Diya directly in the eye, but her face was unreadable.

“The question of metahumans in athletics is a thorny one,” the judge said. “I don’t claim to be an expert on the subject, and am glad that I am facing this question in civil court, where my ruling won’t be taken as law across the land. As metahuman abilities manifest in infinite possible combinations, these questions must be addressed on a case by case basis.

“But in the case of Miss Behari, we are not questioning her right to continue to participate in athletics. She has agreed, perhaps reluctantly, but she has agreed that she will not pursue further gymnastic competition unless there is a change in the rules of the governing bodies of gymnastics, or a change in her metahuman status. No, today we are here to answer whether or not she should continue to hold a title that some feel should be reserved only for those who are unquestioningly human.

“Miss Behari and her lawyer presented some compelling evidence to show her impressive gymnastic ability. There is no doubt that Miss Behari worked hard as a competitive gymnast, and had a bright future ahead of her. She still has a bright future ahead of her, according to her teachers at the Westbrook Academy. She is an accomplished athlete, and she and her family should be proud of everything she has done.

“It is the opinion of this court that the prosecution has not met the burden of proof in this case. The evidence they presented is not clear and convincing enough to prove to the court that Miss Behari unduly used her metahuman abilities - if she was even in possession of them at the age of 11 - to attain her gold medal. Miss Behari may keep her medal. The court rules in favor of the defense.”

Diya jumped to her feet in excitement, pumping her fist in the air and letting out a cry of victory as the judge declared the case adjourned. Remembering where she was, she quickly pulled her arm down and smoothed the sleeve of her suit coat over her wrists, then turned back to her parents. The normally stoic Beharis were both grinning at their daughter, and Diya thought she saw the glimmer of a tear in her mother’s eye before she was swallowed into an awkward hug over the barrier between the audience and the defense table.

After a smothering minute, Diya slipped out of her parents’ embrace to turn to Jiyan, who was also caught up in the emotion of the moment and grinning at his young client. Diya held out her hand formally to the man who had suddenly given her a small part of her life back. Jiyan took the teenager’s outstretched hand, but pulled her in for a friendly hug.

“Thank you, Jiyan,” Diya said.

“It was my pleasure, Diya.”

Diya pulled back from the embrace. “So, it was Coach Armstrong that sent that tape in, right?”

“Coach? No, no. Let me check a second.” Jiyan reached over to his files stacked on the table and flipped through a manila folder quickly. “It was actually a Mr. Herbert. Your music teacher? You never mentioned you were interested in music, Diya.”

“That’s because I’m not.” Diya frowned slightly, thinking it over. “Guess I’ll have to track this guy down when I get back to campus.”

(Thanks to Peyton's player for giving me some more insight into the sports complex! And Roach's player, as always, for his critique)