Free Stories for Chip by Nisi Shawl Page B

mobile number hadn’t changed, we would catch up at leisure, et cetera.
    At the math department, I found the staff room in a hubbub. Ramki-sir, our probability guru, had been asked to be an expert witness for the defense in the Zohrab rape case. The actor was accused of assaulting his mother’s nurse; the hospital had collected DNA evidence from the victim, but apparently hadn’t handled it properly. Ramki-sir’s articles in the Indian Express on the contamination of DNA evidence and the misuse of DNA matching had led to the present honor. He would have to shave his beard; he always shaved before a court appearance.
    â€œBut it’s an open-and-shut case,” said Mrs. Patwardhan, Statistics. “Zohrab confessed. He was drunk he says, but he remembers raping the nurse. He confessed. The police released the tapes.”
    â€œThe police!” snorted Ramki-sir. “You’d trust
our
bloody police. It’s a frame-up, I’m telling you. What you’re seeing and hearing is all an illusion.”
    â€œCome on, Ramki-sir, she has a point,” said Mrs. Balamurali, Linear Algebra. “The man did confess. Don’t you feel the least bit guilty? You have a daughter.”
    That struck home. Ramki-sir slammed his hand on the table.
    â€œIt is because I have a daughter,” he said dramatically. “I want the right man punished, not some poor idiot roped in by the police to satisfy the public’s blood-lust. Rape and murder? No sir! Seduction and suicide. It doesn’t matter Zohrab confessed. We can be made to remember anything.
    â€œTake the case of Bradley Page, nineteen years old, accused of murdering his girlfriend. Not a shred of evidence, no motive. Nonetheless, the police lied to him, told him he’d been seen near the body, that he’d failed the lie-detector test, that his fingerprints had been found on the murder weapon. Sixteen hours of interrogation. Young Bradley begins to wonder if he could have killed his girlfriend and somehow ‘forgotten it’. The detective interrogating him tells him ‘It happens all the time,’ and together they recover his lost memory. Imprisoned for nine years before the real murderer is caught. The bloody police—”
    â€œBut he confessed!” insisted Mrs. Patwardhan, looking around piteously for support.
    â€œYes!” echoed Mrs. Balamurali.
    â€œI rest my case,” said Ramki-sir. “You have just confessed to being idiots. Are you?”
    Hubbub and
halla
.
    â€œConfession or not, he will go scot-free,” said Rajan-sir, Discrete Maths. “The entire system is rigged. Ramki-sir will do his
chamatkar
, the slut nurse will withdraw her complaint, the hospital will admit it mishandled the evidence, and we middle-class fools will continue to believe there is law and order in the universe. Why should we fight over what has already been settled?”
    â€œIt’s all an illusion,” repeated Ramki-sir, finger-combing his beard.
    Noticing my silence, one of the teachers tried to draw me in.
    â€œWhat do you think? Is Zohrab guilty or not? Or is it just an illusion, as Ramki-sir says?”
    â€œEverything can’t be an illusion if some things are to be an illusion. Even in a story, at least some things have to be facts. The Fixed-Point theorem says—”
    â€œ
Please
do not teach me the Fixed-Point theorem, sir!” begged Ramki-sir.
    â€œThe Fixed-Point theorem says—”
    â€œSir Isaac Newton to the rescue,” crowed Mrs. Patwardhan.
    â€œActually, it’s Jan Brouwer,” I corrected her, “The Fixed-Point theorem says—”
    â€œPlease do
not
teach me the Fixed-Point theorem. I can prove you’re biased, I’m warning you; I have a Brahmaastra and am prepared to unleash it.”
    â€œRamki-sir, I wasn’t aware we were locked in combat. All I’m trying to clarify—”
    â€œHere’s my