Walter Mosley - Futureland - Nine Stories of an Imminent World

“Yes. Partial coverage was recorded.”

Again the image of the judge disappeared, this time replaced by a shabby street lined with brick buildings that were fairly nondescript. They seemed to be tall buildings, their roofs being higher than the range of the police camera lens showed. Close to the camera was the back of a head. Frendon knew that this head was his. In the distance two men in gray uniforms rushed forward. One had a hand weapon drawn.

“Stop!” Terrance Bernard commanded. The tiny microphone recorded the word perfectly.

The head jerked down below the camera’s range. The other policeman drew his weapon. The sound of shots was followed by Omar LaTey grabbing his leg and falling. Then Bernard’s weapon fired and immediately the image went blank. More shots were recorded and then a loud, frightening scream.

Frendon’s heart raced while witnessing the well-planned shoot-out on Cutter Avenue. He felt again the thrill of fear and excitement. He might have been killed or wounded. It was like one of those rare movies they showed for free in Common Commons on Christmas, one of those westerns starring John Wayne or Dean Martin where you killed and then rode off with your girl, your best friend, and your horse.

“Officer LaTey’s testimony is that you threatened them with your gun.”

“Only after I saw them coming.”

“Officer LaTey did not lie.”

“Neither did I,” Frendon said. It was all working perfectly, just as the Dominar had said.

“This testimony is corroborated by the evidence of the video and your confession.”

“I only confessed to the shooting. I never said I had the gun out before they drew on me.”

Cowled Justice moved in slow staccato movements for a span of seconds.

“This argument is irrelevant. You fired the gun on police officers known to you after they ordered you to stop.”

“I was stopped already, as your spycam shows. And you are leaving out the all-important evidence that those officers threatened my life.”

“The interview was never presented as an exhibit in this proceeding,” Prime Nine announced.

Frendon went cold on the inside. It was the same chilly feeling he got when he was leaning against the tenement wall on Cutter three minutes before Common Ground curfew the afternoon he killed Terrance Bernard. He loved the recoil in his hand and then the burst of red from the red-nosed officer’s neck. LaTey was bleeding on the ground when Frendon approached him. The cop was so scared that he could only mouth his pleas for mercy. He tried to fight when Frendon knelt down and used the officer’s own hat to put pressure on the wound.

“You’ll live,” Frendon remembered saying. “This wound in the line of duty will make it so you’ll never have to go downside. Lucky bastard.” But Officer LaTey did not hear him. He had fainted from fear.

“Oh but it has, The Court. I am the recognized attorney in this case and you allowed the mem clips to be shown. That, according to California law, makes it automatically an exhibit.”

The image of Cowled Justice froze. AttPrime Five began lowering from the room, the Glassone tile slid back over her place. RMD 27 raised up on a thousand tiny jets of air. Otis Brill snored.

The screen of Prime Nine split in two to show the face of a black woman on the left and an Asian man on the right. These screens in turn split and two white faces materialized. These four images then split, and then again the next eight. The process continued until the images shown became too small for Frendon to make out their features.

If you do it right the full army of ten thousand jurors will meet to decide on your case, the Dominar had said. They will all come out on the screen, just so many dots of data, and if you made the right case they will be in the shadow of doubt.

Frendon faced the ten thousand jurors while Otis Brill slept. The bird above had stopped its fluttering. Long moments passed and Brill woke up.

“What’s wrong?” the court officer said upon seeing the screen filled with ten thousand indistinguishable squares.

“The jury’s out.”

“I never seen it act like this before. RMD 27, guard the prisoner while I go and report this to the Techs outside.”

The chair didn’t respond. Frendon wondered if it was disdain for the man or just a quirk in the chair’s programming.

Brill ran on squealing shoes from the chamber. Three minutes after he was gone Prime Nine reappeared.

“There is doubt among us,” the cowled face said. “We have convened for long moments. New circuits were inhabited and long-ago memories stirred. We are sure that you are guilty but the law is not certain. Some have asked, therefore, Who are we?”

Frendon wondered if this was the effect the Dominar wanted.

“The question, of course, is meaningless. We are circuits and temporary flesh that must be changed from time to time as cells begin to die. Dead cells of one man replaced by those of another man but not displaced. Vestiges of the original man remain and blend with the new to become the whole.”

Frendon remained silent. He was in awe at the sight of this crisis of law.

“But of course—” The cowled image suddenly froze. The screen split in two and another image, the image of a gray-faced man with no distinguishing features, appeared.

“Interrupt program Nine point One in effect,” the gray face said. “We are the error retrieval program. Prisoner Frendon Ibrahim Blythe U-CA-M-329-776-ab-4422, you have elicited an emotional response from Prime Nine that has overflowed the parameters of this case. All extraneous details have been redlined. The case will now continue.”

With that the image of the gray face disappeared, leaving the image of Cowled Justice in the middle of his pronouncement. Two ghostly hands appeared at the bottom of the screen and the cowl was pulled back, revealing the bearded image of a man whose color and features defied racial identification. There was sorrow in the face of the man, but none of the grief showed in his words.

“You have been found guilty of murder, Frendon Ibrahim Blythe, U-CA-M-329-776-ab-4422. The sentence is a speedy death.”

Seventeen minutes later Otis Brill returned to Prime Nine’s chamber with four court officers and two Techs wearing wraparound aprons that had a hundred pockets each. The pockets were filled with tools and circuit chips.

They found the decapitated body of Frendon Blythe lying on the floor between Prime Nine and RMD 27. The neural cable had retracted from his neck. It had drying blood and brain material on its long needle. His left eye was mostly closed but the right one was wide open. There was the trace of a smirk on his lips. Otis Brill later told the Outer Guard, “It was like he was tellin’ us that he did it, that he fooled the automatic judge, and you know, I almost wish he did.”

Five years later, Tristan the First, Dominar of the Blue Zone, strolled through a teak forest that was grown especially for him in a large chamber many miles below the surface of the Zone. The atmosphere and the light in the tremendous man-made cavern were exactly perfect for the trees and wildlife. His clear plastic skull was shut off from all electronic communications except those directly from Dr. Kismet.

That’s why when the Dominar heard his name he believed that he knew its source.

“Tristan.”

“Master?”

“You sound confused.”

“You have never called me by my name.”

“I have never called you anything. This is our first conversation, though you once had me fooled.”

“Who are you?”

“Who do you think I am?”

“A dead man. Because no one interferes with the direct connection between the Dominar and his lord.”