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slightly as he realises that everything hasn’t been a bad dream. They put the heal bots, tiny particle-sized electromechanical medic machines, on him as soon as he passed out. He can feel his teeth back in his mouth, shiny and new.
    “Still, thank you,” says Jon.
    Edward sighs and says, “Don’t worry about it. You’ll have bigger problems soon enough, same’s me.”
    “What’s your deal?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “I mean why are you in this cell?”
    “I’m in this cell because the current government doesn’t seem to take kindly to people campaigning for recognition and the right to vote, even if you happen to be a tree.”
    “You’re an activist?”
    “No, worse. A sentient creature, something with consciousness that wants to have the same rights as people who don’t look like trees.”
    “So you started a riot or something?”
    “Worse. I handed out pamphlets.”
    “How is a pamphlet worse than a riot?”
    “Because words are forever. Even if you kill the person who writes them, words are forever. Even if you disagree with them and spend the rest of your days arguing against what was said, what was said, was still said. A riot only lasts as long as it takes for a fire to burn itself out.”
    Jon nodded. Great. A political tree with a penchant for rabble rousing.
    “And you?” asks Edward.
    “I was framed.”
    “That’s original.”
    “I was only half arrested for the right reason.”
    “What is the right reason to be arrested?”
    “The right reason, or at least the legal and official reason I was arrested, was for possession of Sadness. But they planted some on me, too.”
    “You’re a junkie?” Edward recoiled slightly and a shadowed expression passed quickly across his face like a summer storm.
    “No, I’m normal. I take the Sadness to counteract the shit the government puts in the water supply.”
    “Oh, really?”
    “Yes, really.”
    “That’s bullshit. You’re a fucking junkie.”
    “I don’t drink, I don’t do cocaine, I don’t shoot heroin, I just take Sadness.”
    “You can try and justify it however you want, the point is, you’re a slave to something. Something else is in control of you and when that happens, you can either fight it or ignore it or try to justify it, or you can do what you’re doing, which is try to make it make sense. That’s what you’re doing.”
    “Who the fuck are you to lecture me?” asks Jon, forgetting just how big the person he’s just met is.
    The conversation is cut short as the door to the cell opens with a dull, ominous clank.
    Two Peace Ambassadors come into the room, one after the other. They stand on either side of the door, in a manner that suggests that a third person will soon be coming through it. When he does, Jon has an instant dislike for the white-haired, scraggily-bearded man that eventually steps out of the shadows and into the room. He’s wearing a white lab coat with numerous pens sticking out of the pocket and thick rimmed glasses. He looks like a doctor. Jon will call him the doctor.
    “Good evening, gentlemen,” says the doctor.
    “Fuck you,” spits Edward.
    “I understand your anger,” says the doctor and it doesn’t even sound like he’s being condescending.
    Edward sighs and leans back. He has a collar around his neck that Jon suspects is weakening him; there is little else to explain the fact that the half-ent hasn’t launched himself up and at the trio in front of them.
    “Jon, I’d like a word with you. Edward, some of my colleagues would like to talk to you too about the political flyers you’ve been printing and handing out,” says the doctor.
    “They have a problem with philosophy?”
    “I believe they have a problem with certain subversive ideas you’re promoting.”
    “So that’s a yes then.”
    “You’ll see them soon, you can ask them yourself. You are not under my department’s jurisdiction,” the doctor turns and smiles at Jon. “He however, is.”
    Both of them are