The Observer's Case

Court sessions drew him in the same way thunder attracts lightning. Simon Wells sat in the courtroom, barely noticeable among the public, his face resembling an emotionless mask. He was only interested in the details—witness testimonies, the lawyers' lines of thought, the mistakes that cost defendants their freedom. In every session, he took notes in his black notebook.

Simon wasn’t an ordinary listener. He didn’t come out of curiosity. He studied every crack in the system, every loophole, every way one could evade punishment or, conversely, manipulate the law. He knew how words, intonations, and even pauses could either save a person or drown them. And he was preparing.

Each session brought him closer to his goal. He studied court practices, analyzed the mistakes of criminals and investigators, choosing the perfect method. He needed a flawless strategy. All for one crime he intended to commit.

The system had taken everything from him. Simon's father, Walter Wells, was an ordinary man, a mechanic in a small town. He was neither a criminal nor a victim of dark schemes; he just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. A poor lawyer, holes in the case, injustice, and there you have it—a man who had never broken the law received a life sentence for a murder he didn't commit. Simon's mother, already ill, couldn't withstand the blow and died a few months after the verdict. And his father... His father was killed in prison when new evidence emerged that threatened to expose the real killer. He was eliminated so he couldn't testify.

Simon was a child when his world collapsed. He grew up in orphanages, then on the streets, learning to survive where the law was just a word and justice an illusion. He remembered everything. And now, years later, he was in this courtroom, observing, studying, waiting.

He was being watched too. Marisa Winters, a journalist, was writing a series of articles about the imperfections of the judicial system. She had noticed Simon a month ago when he sat in on one of the cases but hadn't paid much attention then. Now, however, her professional intuition told her there was more to him.

"Who is that guy?" she asked one of the bailiffs. "Nobody knows. He's always silent, always writing. We thought he was just a student."

But Marisa doubted it. She began to follow him, track his route, gather information about his habits. Once she tried to talk to him, but he politely yet curtly brushed her off, citing "studies."

Meanwhile, Simon was perfecting his plan. His target was Ronan Fields, the owner of a chain of elite jewelry stores. Fields was confident he was untouchable, but Simon knew the truth. It was Fields who was implicated in the crime for which his father had been framed. He had found records confirming his suspicions. Now it was time for payback.

Everything was supposed to happen at night when Fields was heading abroad. No witnesses, no traces. But on the night it was all supposed to go down, Simon realized something was wrong: picking the locks was too easy, the alarm deactivated on the first try. It seemed... too simple. Too easy for a man who built impregnable security systems.

He finished the job as planned, but unease gnawed at him on the way home.

The next morning, he turned on the news and saw Marisa Winters' report.

"A robbery was thwarted last night," she announced, standing in front of one of Fields' stores. "Police were tipped off in advance and were able to seize evidence right at the time of the crime. But the most interesting part is the figure of the alleged perpetrator, who, according to our data, meticulously prepared for this act for months. Sources confirm that this is one of those individuals who attended virtually all court sessions..."

Simon sat in front of the screen, stunned. Everything he had planned for so long, everything he considered his trump card, was laid bare. No one had told him, but someone definitely knew his intentions. Someone had been watching him while he watched others.

And now the game was just beginning, because all these years he had studied the system, observed those who easily bypassed it, and prepared to apply this knowledge in practice.