The prosecution attorney
began his opening statement:
“Ladies and gentlemen of
the jury,” he said. “The woman seated at that table, Seraphina
Baker, has committed one of the most terrible crimes a person can
commit: a particularly bad type of sex crime. We will now present
evidence that will show her guilt beyond reasonable doubt.”
It was the year 2145, but
they still conducted court cases pretty much as they did during the
twentieth century. A few courts had tried using robotic judges and
juries, but they had been laughable failures, and the cases in which
they were used had to be retried using regular human judges and
juries. But robots were usually used as court bailiffs, and every
court now used electronic stenographers to record all the words
spoken in the trial.
The first witness called
by the prosecution was Seraphina Baker. She could have taken the
Fifth Amendment, and refused to testify in the case. But she thought
that she could say some things that would help in her defense.
“Ms. Baker, did you
begin to consort with one Ethan Baker two years ago?”
“Yes,” said Seraphina.
“That's when we started dating.”
“And did you begin to
conduct intimate carnal relations with this Ethan Baker?” asked the
prosecution attorney.
“What does that mean?”
asked Seraphina.
“Did you begin to engage
in sexual intercourse with Ethan Baker?” said the prosecution
attorney.
“Yes,” said Seraphina.
“But that was only after we were married.”
“Your honor,” said the
prosecution attorney. “As you well know, marriage is irrelevant to
whether the defendant has committed the crime with which she is
charged. I move that the defendant's claim about her marriage be
struck from the court record.”
“I agree,” said the
judge.
“Now, Ms. Baker,” said
the prosecution attorney, “before you began to engage in sexual
intercourse with Ethan Baker, did you go the appropriate government
website, to check whether this was allowable?”
“No,” said Seraphina.
“I figured it must be okay since we were married.”
After the prosecution
attorney objected, the last part of Seraphina's statement was struck
from the court record. The prosecuting attorney was able to get Seraphina to admit that she had made love with her husband, had not
used birth control, and that she had given birth to a child.
The trial was a very short
one. The defense called two character witnesses to try to show that
Seraphina Baker was a very admirable and charitable person. Soon it
came time for the prosecution attorney to make his closing argument.
“Ladies and gentlemen of
the jury,” said the prosecution attorney, “let me briefly review
the glorious history of our people. One hundred years ago the
genetic engineers bestowed a great blessing upon planet Earth. Using
gene-splicing, they created a new race of humans that is now known as
the Second Humans. The Second Humans are smarter, stronger, faster, healthier and more beautiful than the lowly race of humans who first lived on this
planet, the race we call the First Humans.”
“People such as you and
me,” continued the prosecution attorney, “know how great it is to
be a Second Human, so much superior to the inferior First Humans. But
this blessing comes with a solemn obligation. It is the great
responsibility of every Second Human to eventually father or mother
at least four children. This is so that the Second Humans can grow
in numbers, and fulfill their destiny of completely replacing the
race of the First Humans.”
“And there is one simple
thing that every Second Human must do when choosing a mating
partner,” continued the prosecution attorney. “He or she must go
to a particular government web site, to make sure that any
prospective mating partner is also a Second Human. Any Second Human
who fails to do this, and who mates with a First Human, is a traitor
against the sublime ordained destiny of the Second Humans.”
“By her own testimony
Seraphina Baker failed to do this simple thing,” said the
prosecution attorney. "She has committed the terrible crime she
has been accused of: the crime of inferior copulation, the crime of a Second Human mating with a First Human. So you must
find her guilty.”
After the defense attorney
made his plea, the jury went into the jury room to deliberate. After an hour of debate, they came back with a verdict.
“In the case of
Seraphina Baker,” said the judge. “How find you on the charge of
inferior copulation?”
“We find her guilty,”
said the jury foreman.
Seraphina was sentenced to
ten years in prison. Her husband Ethan and her child Kristen tried
to continue to live in their community of Second Humans. But the
Second Humans would often make nasty remarks about Kristen, calling
her a half-breed. So Ethan and Kristen reluctantly moved to a
community of First Humans.
Living in that
impoverished community was very hard. Eager to make sure that the
Second Humans would take over the planet and replace the First
Humans, the government was doing everything it could to help that
happen. All of the government benefits went only to the Second
Humans, and the First Humans were left with no health insurance, no
municipal services, fire-trap housing, much higher effective tax
rates, and very poor schools. When the First Humans would go
downtown in their cities, they would find many store signs and
restaurant signs telling them to keep out.
The Second Humans would
often torment the First Humans with this taunt:
First Humans are the
worst humans!
First Humans are the
worst humans!
Sometimes a Second Human
child would ask a First Human child a hard historical or scientific
question such as “What caused the Boer Wars?” or “Explain the
difference between a quark and a quasar.” If the First Human was
slow in answering, the Second Human child would unleash a taunt such
as:
Boys can't reckon
Unless they are Second.
A
First Human girl might get a taunt like this from a Second Human:
Girls are accursed
Whenever they're First.
Years later Kristen asked
her father a question.
“If the Second Humans
are a superior race,” wondered Kristen, “then why are so many of
them cruel and heartless?”
“Maybe it's because the
genetic engineers didn't find any way to make people more moral by
messing with their DNA,” said Ethan sadly.
No comments:
Post a Comment