Guilty

    The noise of the rotors was Mia’s only companion in the back of the snow-white hover car. In the front of the car, the robots’ sparkling white bodies were as well-kept as the building they were approaching. Dotted with hangars, NYC’s Justice Building stood as a symbol of the new America amid the crumbling skyline. Towering white pillars graced a giant faux doorway that stood beneath an enormous air control tower. The air control tower was flanked by two small AI data centers. In this way, the justice building stood like a middle finger, one perpetually given by the upper to the lower class. A class siphoning money away from the lower like water. A voice blared from the front, jolting Mia in her chair;

    “DO NOT ATTEMPT TO RESIST FURTHER. ANY MORE DISOBEDIENCE WILL RESULT IN YOUR TERMINATION.”
    What was Mia going to do? Sprout wings and fly away? And perhaps, using her awe-inspiring powers—conjure some explosives, and with all the gusto of a wanted criminal, flee to the outskirts of the city? And– 

    “CAR 42355, YOU ARE CLEARED FOR LANDING.” 

    4/23/55. The day the US began to lose the Second Pacific War. Mia could still picture it vividly in her head—the way her mother described it to her, at least, on the verge of tears and with fingers trembling with more than arthritis. The attack came without warning. First, the electromagnetic pulsors descended, as if to turn the lights out before a long, deep sleep. Thousands died from plane crashes, and thousands more patients in hospitals died within days. That night, the only light to be found anywhere was from the ballistic missiles. Mia’s mother’s house shook as the missiles hurtled closer, like hounds sniffing out their prey. All of their family’s finery began falling off of the shelves, their fine china splintering and shattering, like shrapnel on a battlefield. For the first time in American history, the war had truly come home, behind the country’s borders, from a foreign front. At last, cowering in the darkness, Mia’s mother heard the missiles stop. Gently stepping across the splintered dinnerware, past her husband’s favorite mahogany armchair, Mia’s mother reached the door. Opening the door, she looked around at the outskirts of Queens. Shielding her eyes from the rising sun, she put her hand to her belly and realized more missiles could return any second. Before she could reach the inside of her house, a burned and bleeding figure rounded the corner and shambled toward her. It mumbled, its head swelled and reddened to the point of unrecognizability. 

    “Won’t you help me you nice sweet lady please help me, yes you’re more stable than that other lady I hid in the liberty, but she fell sadly she fell unfortunately, she died sadly, she fell what will this mean I do not know what this will mean.” 

    In the new, sudden stillness of the smoking dawn, Mia’s mother looked at this dying figure and brought it inside. He could not be saved. 

    Mia’s train of thought was interrupted by the unfolding of landing gear and the death of her new best friend, the engine. The screen that had separated her from the robots piloting the vehicle opened, and the robots motioned for her to exit. Mia did not comply. So one robot simply push-kicked her out of the vehicle. 

    “Could you kick me a little harder next time, please?” 

    “Request granted,” the robot intoned, now in a soft melodic voice. 

    Fantastic. The bots have sarcasm programmed. Another form of art robbed from humans. 

    “Excuse me. Please refrain from hitting my client.” A man with a strong Londoner accent, holding in his hands not a tablet, but a clipboard; wearing not headphones, but ear muffs. Not wearing metas, but rimmed gold wireframe spectacles. With his button-up shirt and bow tie, he reeked of someone who had taken too much fashion advice from his great-grandmother. 

    “Of course, Attorney Edward Earl.” This smiling (apparently British) man turned toward Mia right as she unloaded on him.

    “Could you be a little bit faster than your fashion next time, please?” 

    The man grimaced. “I’ll be your lawyer for this trial. Please follow me and we’ll discuss your defense.” Walking down a hallway lit by bright LEDs, they came to an elevator. 

    “You’ve placed yourself in quite a fix, young lady. Since you’re only seventeen, you might get off easy. I’ll have to argue for your value to society to save your case and keep your time in a cell short and sweet. Tell me, what were you doing before you were arrested? 

    “There’s no point. No one gets away easy from the algorithm.”

    “With that mindset, you won’t even survive the opening statements. The prosecution won’t even have to try to get you locked up—they’ll just be showing a few charts of your DQ and average number of rebellious statements and non-comforming acts per year.” 

    Danger Quotient. Is that all? A score taken from tests done sporadically throughout your life combined, with every book you’ve ever checked out, every paper you’ve ever written—really, anything you’ve ever said that’s been recorded—these numbers were high for Mia. Though it supposedly measured the stability of your psyche, what it really seemed to measure was your loyalty to your country. Mia’s goose wasn’t just cooked—it was roasted and sizzled over a roaring bonfire. 

***

    Sparse was the word to describe Mia’s cell. More like a celebrated closet, it featured a bunk adorned only by sheets and a wash basin. There were no windows, not even barred ones—just a magnetized door. Not exactly comforting accommodations. The metallic doors lifted open. Her attorney awaited her, followed by about a dozen robotic guards. After some walking through corridors and a lengthy elevator ride, they reached the courtroom. The judge’s presence was yet to grace the room, to decorate it with a tool of the state. The jury sat on risers to either side of the attorneys’ low desks, while the judge’s stand towered over the defendant’s. A blank, large screen sat behind the judge’s desk. Clusters of security cameras surveilled the room. Mia looked back at the guards flanking the jury’s risers, standing erect and gleaming in the light. 

    “Never too many guards for a good show,” remarked Edward, with all the casual ease of someone who’s been there and done that. 

    Show? Mia’s heart sank. 

    “All rise.” 

    The judge walked in. Mia recognized him immediately. His name escaped her, but he was straight out of those courtroom shows her Grandma liked to watch while Mia was putting her siblings to sleep. 

    “Today, we’ve come here to imprison a new criminal. We already know this, but we’ll show this to his honor: the defendant is guilty.” Gasps sounded from the risers, but they came not from the audience, but as a recorded sound effect. All part of the show. 

    Mia’s mind immediately left the site of the trial and returned to her siblings, at home, without a guardian, a provider, a role model figure, and probably scared for her life. What would they think of her now, in this silly courtroom, in this trivial trial? The cameramen panned to her blank face, as she robotically answered questions that had nothing to do with her singular crime, and everything to do with her being a poor and desperate New Yorker. In the background, the fake laughter at her apparent stupidity rose in volume until gradually, the judge smashed his gavel.

    “Stop! Michael, how many times have I told you to stop simulating the future of law with AI?”

    “Evidently not enough.” Michael’s gaze turned away from his wife until, at last, he was consumed in his simulacrum of reality. 

    “Michael, stop! I want you to acknowledge me, acknowledge our situation! Michael, I want you to…” Michael, blinded by his Ivy League intellect and the glare of his screen, registered his wife only as the annoying hum of the jury as the trial went on. 

To be continued.