The family went to court just as the parent said they would. Recordings of the cruel abuse the students, and instructors, of the Alliance - run school were shown as evidence. And now these people were forced to see, and hear, everything they did to her and face their crimes. Of how Barbara would stop, turn away to hide her tears, something the cameras saw, though everyone else ignored. It wasn't just the parents who intended to teach the instructors, the students, and their parents a lesson for such unkindness, the courts themselves intended to burn this into a memory so that students in other alliance schools, ones going through the same brutality that this young girl had endured, would finally have hope. And it would set a legal precedent known as the "Barbara Incident". -- Fighting Fit
[AN: Callback to this thing ]
The court watched a vibrant little girl turn to stone, pebble by pebble. A stream of daily check-in facial scans. The first day of open-faced optimism slowly morphing into a Human being barely hanging on by a thread. And then... that thread snapped, and so did young Barbera.
The evidence was plentiful. A cultural and sociology professor explaining that Humans were social animals and having a group of friends was essential to their mental health and well-being. Seemingly endless footage of Barbera trying to befriend her schoolmates and being shunned. Even more endless footage of Barbera being alone; in the playground, during group projects, at in-school social events. Hours' worth of Barbera finding corners to hide and cry in.
"The Humans have a form of torture in which the penitent is immobilised and forced to endure regular or irregular drops of water landing on their face. One drop of water does no harm, we know this," said the Menanis family lawyer. "It doesn't hurt. It's harmless. But drop after drop, incessantly, unavoidably hitting you?" Here, the lawyer held up a hag stone. It was granite, but drops of water had worn a hole straight through it. "It can wear at even the strongest."
They put the hag stone down on a little stand, allowing the jury to contemplate how innocent drops of water had drilled through one of the toughest stones known to civilisation. "Barbera Menanis could have left, and gone to a Human school, but that would have proven a point that didn't need to be made. The goal was to teach the Alliance that Humans were perfectly capable of integrating with Alliance citizens at every level of life. If she left if she gave up... she wasn't just failing for herself. She was failing for her entire species. Billions... trillions of Humans, accused of not being able to handle life as civilised citizens. One failure, used as an excuse to exclude trillions. I thought we were above this."
Even more devastating were the witnesses and the criminals, each one both when they took the stand. The principal revealed that half her staff had left the day she announced, and required more extraordinary proof from Barbera than she or her parents could provide. Or, for that matter, more extraordinary proof than was necessary by the standards of education or law.
Their lawyer revealed how even they couldn't do anything until the school was blatant enough for a call to come home. And the office would not call until something got extreme. The school counselor simply repeatedly told Barbera that she was a fearsome Deathworlder and she should act like it. The implication being that the entire school was hoping that she would act like it.
If she attacked or hurt someone - anyone - she would be expelled and Humanity would be set back. If she hurt someone by accident, she would be liable for the medical expenses and Humanity would be set back. If she yelled, if she misbehaved, if she set one hair wrong, it would be all the excuse they needed.
Complaint after complaint after complaint was ignored. So too were the pleas for aid and assistance. After all, couldn't the mighty Deathworlders fend for themselves?
Even more damning were Barbera's schoolmates. They told how their parents never tried to teach them that what they were doing wrong, and when they finally learned it from others, they still continued because those others were not part of their recognised authorities. It had been fine for years by the time they learned that their brand of collective psychological abuse might be wrong.
The few who didn't share their shenanigans with their families knew that it was wrong but preferred moving with the peer pressure to add to Barbera's woes.
It was Years worth of Time for each of the offenders. Many couldn't afford to pay in money, and therefore had to make an effort. This included culture sensitivity training care of the CRC and a mark on their record. Years of working on unlearning prejudice had been the goal of the exercise the entire time.
The school still had to pay for Barbera's counseling and therapy. They had been the administrative body responsible for enabling the entire mess in the first place.
Those following the entire debacle got to watch a young woman return to life. Pebble by pebble.
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / Pakhnyushchyy]
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