Just a little step into the future of punishment

Capital Punishment

I didn’t know what to expect of course, nobody did unless you were a member of the judiciary, government or one of the so called keepers. I’d like to say that I didn’t deserve it but that would be an untruth because the jury were correct in finding me guilty .

It wasn’t the red mist of madness either. Jacob had been screwing my wife for something like two years before I found out and  pretended ignorance until…three months later… I had perfected my plan. The killings were easy enough, their ‘secret’ love nest handily situated in a secluded woodland area…well away from any major highways….and, I misguidedly thought, from prying eyes.

I’ve never been a squeamish person, but I must admit having to overcome some revulsion as the contents of Jacob’s ample belly spilled onto the bed. The sheer terror in Zoe’s eyes quickly made up for it though!

I didn’t make her suffer too much. Mental torture really, telling her just what I could do. In the end I slit her throat. One neat slice from left to right. You’d never believe the amount of blood there is in a human body! I was drenched, the bed was drenched, Jacob was drenched…not that he minded. I wasn’t particularly bothered as I intended to incinerate the chalet and all it’s contents anyway.

All went perfectly to plan apart from the two lovers fucking in the bushes. Not only were they copulating but they were videoing themselves doing it….filthy little perverts! Unfortunately they caught a third person on tape, jogging back to his car dripping blood all over the ferns.

The trial was as fair as one might expect I suppose, the judiciary computer comparing similar cases with others dating back to the mid twentieth century and then summing up concisely and thoroughly for the jury, safely ensconced in their individual rooms.

The teleconferencing took under an hour and I was sentenced to life in order to repay society for my crime.

And here of course was the crux of the matter.

Nobody, outside the few mentioned above, knew what life meant these days.

In the past it meant being shut up for a period of years although if you behaved yourself the sentence was pretty short. As we all know from our school laptops this all changed with the McClellen uprising  and subsequent Radical Government.

Coupled with the astonishing growth of the micro implant programme the majority of wrong doers could be contained and punished without incarceration. It’s a type of aversion therapy and I’m told that the pain is so great very few participants relapse. They were free to carry on a normal existence until the implant kicked in and forced them to endure a period of agony equivalent to the severity of the crime.

All except murderers that is.
They simply vanished. And I mean vanished. Completely, utterly and untraceably.

The public were assured that punishment was being meted out but as to what that punishment consisted of for such a heinous crime…better not to know.

It clears the mind magnificently when one hears the word LIFE and is then led downstairs for a last night in the austere but familiar Court Rooms. The realisation that I was about to become one of the privileged few did nothing for my nights sleep.

Morning crept in through the bars of my room and with it two Court guards and three attendants dressed in medical gowns. This was something new, frightening and unexpected. I was politely told to dress myself and accompany them to a waiting autoambulance. Once inside I was strapped to a rollerbed and one of the attendants pressed a drugpad to my neck.

I awoke in a bright sunlit room lying on my back in as comfortable a bed as I can remember. There were no bars on the window but I could see a securiguard halo around the door. I didn’t appear to be strapped down so I slid my legs over the side of the bed and made for the window.

The countryside was a pleasant surprise, wherever I was being held it was far better than the Court cells. Unfortunately it was also something like fourteen stories up, hence the lack of bars!

Meals were brought to me on a regular basis, good meals at that, by nursing staff who had clearly been told not to divulge any information save that of what day it was or what the weather was like.


The first week I spent alone in my room but thereafter I was allowed access to a common room/library containing a 3Dholoscreen and shelf upon shelf of books.

Oddly all the books were on sports or pastimes relating to physical pursuits and the holovids were the same. At first this was quite exciting as I was of an athletic bent myself representing my District at badminton and my Canton at roundball. I always admired the skill of other athletes and to watch some of the world’s best was a real pleasure.

There was also a Gymnasium and I was actively encouraged to use the facilities whenever I wanted to and took great delight in honing my body to almost Olympian standards.

I was not, however, allowed to meet any person other than my own personal nurses who, although polite and pleasant enough , hardly managed to string two sentences together.

After a month I began to wonder just what was going on. I was, after all, a convicted murderer sentenced to some form of punishment in order to pay my debt to society.

After eight weeks the good life came to an abrupt end with the entrance one morning of Dr. Lasio. He explained that he was the House Surgeon and had come to examine me in preparation for my operation.

Operation?
 
Alarm bells began to ring. I thought Aha! Here come the devilish implants designed to make the remainder of my life a misery. But the Doctor assured me that no implants were planned and that the procedure was simple and one he had performed many times before. I explained to him that there must be some mistake as I wasn’t ill but he explained to me that although I was a remarkably fit and healthy young man, Society was sick of me.

There ended the conversation.

As you might imagine I spent a disturbed night and with the grey dawn appeared two Medical Assistants who stripped me naked, washed and shaved my entire body before leaving me in a ferment of terror.

Dr. Lasio appeared just after lunch, sat by my bedside and told me not to worry…everything would be OK.

Some joke! He asked me to lie down on my left side and the last thing I remember is feeling a drugpad against my neck.

I awoke once again in my room with sunlight pouring in through the window and I remember thinking this is not too bad at all, perhaps Lasio was right and things will be OK. I tried to slide my legs out from the bed and found that I was strapped in.

That was unusual…only my legs and torso by the feel of it though. I reached out with my right arm to get a glass of water from the bedside cabinet and transferred the glass to the left whilst I found the happy pills.

The glass fell to the bed soaking the plasticoat cover.
 
I looked in astonishment

It is strange how the brain cannot at first accept the unacceptable so it was several seconds before I realised that I did not have a left arm. There was the shoulder alright but nothing protruded from it.

I screamed. Again and again and again.

There was a flurry of movement and then blackness. Blessed blackness.

Once again I awoke in that sunlit room but this time with consciousness came knowledge and I felt the scream well up again. This time however it turned into a whimper, a pathetic little bleat as the room swam into view. Dr.Lasio sat by my side, keen eyes observing me with what appeared to be sardonic humour. At his urging a nurse bustled in and applied a drugpad to my neck and I was instantly calmed.

He told me there was no need to worry as the operation had been a complete success…laser surgery was almost foolproof these days. He went on at some length about the what and how of the procedure but my repeated whys? Went unanswered. He left telling me to heal quickly so that I could be up and about again to resume my normal life.

Normal life? Minus an arm?

The days dragged on, nurses appeared at regular intervals to feed me or change my plastiskin and at the end of the first week I was encouraged to get up and was taken to the library in an autobuggy. Somehow the available books and holivids had lost their appeal.

Then, of a sudden I was moved down several floors and given another room this time with a restricted view overlooking what I could only imagine was the back of the building, a sombre dark and dirty courtyard. Little sunlight brightened this window and I awoke each morning to a dirty grey dawn.

The library and holivid room was much different too, smaller and darker but with the same range of material taunting my now deformed body. The stump had healed well, but the desire to use a phantom arm is almost overwhelming…as if the brain cannot accept the obvious.

Dr. Lasio’s second appearance filled me with dread. And with good reason as he explained to me that my second operation was scheduled for early the next day but there was nothing to worry about. Oh no, nothing to worry about.

I lost it at that point. Thrashed ineffectually about so that the nursing staff had to sedate me

Waking up in that dingy room and finding I was minus my right leg nearly tipped me over the mental precipice. This was not allowed however and I was quickly restored to sanity by a Dr. Precine who informed me that his speciality was psychiatric surgery.

I was, of course, now completely in the hands of my jailers…as it was obvious this is what they were. It was only later that I discovered they were called The Keepers.

I won’t bore you with the gruesome and distressing details but over the subsequent two years I moved inexorably down the floors to the basement losing my remaining limbs in the process.

At all times I was treated with courtesy if somewhat coldly, my physical and mental conditions constantly monitored. Oh yes! They made damned sure I stayed alive so that I could enjoy my new life.

After the loss of my right arm…. my last limb… I awoke to find myself in a kind of harness, suspended from a cross beam. It was at this point that I got a visit from the Ministry man, a Mr. Droit, who took great delight in telling me that my limbs had been sold on and undoubtedly by now would be enjoying a new freer lease of life.
 I was beginning to pay my debt to society and he hoped I now felt grateful for the opportunity to so do. He left on a chilling note, telling me that there was a huge demand for most organs in the human body.

I hope this sorry tale gets out into the world…at great risk to himself one of my nurses recorded it hoping to smuggle it through the stringent security arrangements…and will thus serve as a deterrent.

As for me, I wish to God they had hung me….although ironically I suppose that’s just what they have done
