Marianne Dyson: Virtually Correct

Chief of Security Unlimited, Maxwell Bishop, slammed a meaty white fist onto his desk. “You’re telling me that the government won’t let me use holograms of real criminals committing real crimes to create virtual reality simulations?”

The thin black man from the Social Justice Department nodded his head. “That is essentially correct, Mr. Bishop.”

Maxwell stood and leaned across his desk. “Do you realize how little time my guards might have to save you from one of those new beam weapons?” He shook his head and exhaled as he sat down heavily. “I have to use real crime scenes, or innocent folks won’t have a chance.”

“You misunderstand, Mr. Bishop,” the man responded. “You may use crime scenes, but you must color-neu-tralize your characters. This removes unconscious bias from the virtual reality training experience, and helps people respond instead to suspicious actions not associated with race.”

Maxwell had paid a fortune for his VRs, and any change was likely to ruin their effectiveness. There must be a way to get an exemption granted. He studied the man, noting how he sat nervously on the edge of his chair. He was probably a rehabed offender drilled by the jail VRs to subconsciously defer to Maxwell’s uniform.

“Mr. Crompton,” Maxwell began, watching the man’s response carefully.

“It’s Compton, not Crompton,” the man corrected.

Good, Maxwell thought, a stickler for details. He might be persuaded to let him use his VRs as a control. “Excuse me, Mr. Compton. Let’s be perfectly honest here. I can no longer train my officers with actual scenes because most of them contain black suspects?”

“That is correct. In Houghton versus Crime Alert, it was determined that the use of virtual reality training using black criminal suspects resulted in the unnecessary shooting of Mr. Houghton by a Crime Alert security officer.”

“Unnecessary my ass!” Maxwell shouted. “He had just grabbed a woman and obviously intended to rape her.”

Compton cleared his throat. “Mr. Houghton slipped and grabbed her arm for support. The grand jury concluded there wasn’t sufficient evidence to prove otherwise. His social rights were violated by Crime Alert’s use of color-biased VRs.”

Maxwell didn’t believe that for a minute. Crime Alert’s real mistake had been not training the officer to shoot to kill.

He leaned back and toyed with a small acrylic paperweight on his desk. It contained three different bullets, all of which he’d like to test on social rights lawyers. “Mr. Compton, do you admit statistics show blacks are much more likely to commit violent crimes than whites?”

The man shifted nervously in his seat. “What is your point?”

“My point is that I run a security outfit, not an arm of the Social Justice Department. I do not like the statistics, but I’d be a fool to ignore them. My VRs reflect the criminal profiles my officers are most likely to encounter. Using this data, I have earned the best record in Los Angeles for ridding the city of criminals who threaten innocent people, many of whom are black. I even hire young black men who might otherwise turn to crime to support themselves. Yet you say I am a racist.”

“I never said you were a racist,” Compton replied.

“But the government says if I use the VRs I use now—that I have found most effective in stopping crime—then I am promoting racial bias and therefore I am a racist.”

“Some experts say using the data the way you do creates a self-fulfilling situation,” Compton replied.

Maxwell frowned. This was getting nowhere. “How about if you let me continue using my VRs while the others color-neutralize, and see if I’m right?”

Compton shook his head. “Sorry, Mr. Bishop. My job is only to insure that you color-neutralize your VRs to comply with the new social rights law.” He reached into his breast pocket, and instinctively Maxwell drew his gun and leveled it at Compton’s head.

The black man’s eyes glowed white with fear. “What are you doing?” he squeaked.

“You’re not from the Social Justice Department!” Maxwell boomed.

“Yes, yes, I am,” the man pleaded. “I was getting some instruction disks from my pocket.” He spread his hands wide, dropping a few small VR disks onto the desk. Maxwell lowered his gun, a bit embarrassed.

“Sorry, can’t be too careful these days,” Maxwell said. He wondered briefly if he would have reacted that way had the man been white. No, he was obviously responding to suspicious behavior. “Lots of criminals would like to shut my operation down, you know,” Maxwell explained as he reholstered his gun.

Compton exhaled loudly and stood, surprising Maxwell by looking him in the eye. “Mr. Bishop, you will convert your characters to a neutral shade of green using the master set on these disks. Do you understand?”

Maxwell saw the man’s fear had turned to anger now. Obviously his action had cost him a chance at an exemption. He sighed and took the disks. There was nothing to do but comply with the ridiculous law.

LOS ANGELES, CA—Our first encounter with alien life ended in tragedy today in a downtown Los Angeles neighborhood. The little green man died after being shot as it grabbed a black woman who was walking home. The security guard, a new employee of Security Unlimited, said he believed the alien was about to rape the woman, and shot it to protect her. Scientists believe the being was most likely having trouble adjusting to our gravity, and merely clutched the woman for support. The Department of Social Justice will be investigating the case to see if anything could be done to prevent future incidents.