12 Future Men

Juror #1:

I was roped into this against my will, as who in this perfect era cares to put oneself at any risk?  Yet I was assured the risk would be minimal, and the Prof's comely lab assistant sniffing derisively at me when I said "minimal wasn't non-existent" made me flush, and agree before I knew what was happening.

My reward was a smile from her, and it was well worth it, and she then granted me the boon of asking me to dinner that night.  Not without some pretense of drama, I agreed conditionally, upon my safe return!  For it was a dark time I was going to, and psychologically speaking, no time jump is ever 100% safe anyway.

You see - or perhaps you don't, not sure if I do - various tachyonic particles are going faster than light, and thus travel from the future to the past, instead of the past to the future.  While such can do so, it involves rest masses of the square root of negative one, and other "imaginary" features which apparently are real to mathematicians.

And chronicians.  So I was to don a helmet and be sedated and sensitized, then a flood of such Tau particles would be released that would sweep my neural net, my "me", to a given point in the past.  Properly calibrated, the machine could hit the exact right time and space, even down to overlaying my net upon a living person of that time.

And, upon an appropriately timed time, my net would flow back instantaneously, with the person left behind taking what had happened as "his" memories, and no further disruption taking place.  Unless I didn't get all the way back to present me, or the "signal" faded a bit in transition.  Rarely did such happen, I was assured.

But the word "rarely" rarely reassures.  

My mission?  To save the world, of course!  Why else would you be reading of this account?  Would anyone risk what I was risking for something small, like fame or fortune?  You maybe, but not me.  I was content, as content as everyone was in our 23rd century, and not looking to rock any boat.  But that this was to prevent boat rocking was the only reason I agreed.

I came to, groggily, and found myself staring at several pages of questions.  One of them said, "Have you or anyone you know ever been convicted of a crime?"  Searching the host's memory, there was a cousin who had been.  Not a huge crime, but it seemed to give the host a feeling that the justice system was not always just.  I dutifully checked "yes" on the box.

Instantly back in the future, it was explained to me by a disapproving lab assistant that any chrononaut would "snap back" if the change attempted failed.  It was pre-programmed that this be so, or otherwise after the initial failure there could yet be more damage done.  The "yes" answer?  

Apparently that was the failure.  Trials back then in 21st century America were show trials, and the Government's advocate - called "Dee Yay" - would weed out any potential juror who might be inclined to any sympathy or empathy with the wrongly or rightly accused.  I had in my honesty disqualified myself to judge the accused, and thus could not accomplish my goal of hanging the jury.

Juror #2:

Finally, something exciting to do!  And not exciting in the sense of how things were in our Perfect Stasis, but exciting in that there was real danger!  Climbing Olympus Mons, sub racing, surfing the Red Spot, such things could be fun, but when you know safety bots won't let you be too injured, then it takes some of the zing out of things.  

Or so I grokked.  Or so I felt that I grokked.  

One failure already, they chalked it up to inadequate written records on the qualifications of jurors.  But I was ready as I could be.  

The case was "the" case.  Where Jim Barnes had been arrested for some random protest, and had argued on 14th amendment grounds that he was not being given "equal treatment under the law" as the plea offered him had involved only a fine, and obviously a rich citizen would have an easier time getting out of punishment than he, a poor citizen could.

His novel defense was that maybe he had been guilty, maybe he had not, but why if the crime was worth trying had they offered to settle it for mere money?  A $500 fine that - Jim argued - would be but the work of a day or so to someone in the upper middle class, but would be half a month's wages to a part time poor person like himself.

In our Perfect Stasis, we had long since acknowledged that, and the case of Barnes vs. Illinois was generally regarded as the case that had kicked off the Egalitarian Movement of 2028 that had started us on the right path to our modern utopia of Basic Incomes and Cradle to Grave Security.  He had not won, but nor had he lost, and that it was a "hung" jury sparked the movement that founded our wonderful world!

Whoops - here's the chronician!  Time to go!

Owf, I feel woozy!  Must hold it together!  Where am I?  Ahh, already in the juror box?  That man in the suit - the government rep?  The Dee Yay?  He's asking questions, best be careful!  My host's memory shows...shows...no criminals in his family!  Wonderful!

"Are any of you Doctors or Lawyers or other professionals?"

Oh, I get it!  Naturally they wish to have some experts on the jury, men and women versed in law and letters who could give some wisdom and insight to the rest of the jurors, so it wouldn't just be decided emotionally!  My host's memory shows....yes!  A pediatrician!  This is where I raise my hand!

Wait...what?  I'm back to the future?  

They deliberately excuse all those who are in highly regarded professions?  But that would leave only the unemployed, under-employed and those who primarily work manual labor jobs or other work of no great intellectual skill!  Who would expect a fair trial from those who could be so easily swayed or manipulated by folks trained in the law....oh.

It's not a bug, it's a feature.  Sad.  

Juror #3

We have to learn more of what these juries really were!  We're sending people back to insure the trial is hung, but if we can't get one of ours there, then the assessment of the Central AI is that it would not have then happened!  But we're still here, so it must have already then happened?  I hate chronistics!

I'm prepared, though!  Better than the others!  The Manual for the Selection of Jurors, 1723, still mostly intact, and transcribed so that I could have the whole of it imprinted upon me!  And none of this temp-memory for me, I got it perm, and so even after a month, I'll be as expert in it forevers as I am now!

An overkill, but worth it!  Someone has to get far enough along in this case to hang this jury!  

"You must not substitute or follow your own notion or opinion as to what the law is or ought to be."

Huh?  I shook my head a bit and tried to focus.  A man in a black dress was speaking.  No wig, though.  Was I in the right nation?

"It is your duty to apply the law as I explain it to you, regardless of the consequences."

Why is he telling us that?  We're here specifically to judge not only the facts but the law!  A joke, maybe?  A test?

"It is also your duty to base your verdict solely upon the evidence, without prejudice or sympathy.  This Juror's Oath I do swear or affirm."

Involuntarily, I had my host, a young woman, burst out laughing, and all turned to stare at "her", the man in the black dress looking angry, the others looking puzzled.

"I was supposed to be sent to America!  Land of the Free!  Ever heard of it?  Oh, never mind I'll be yanked back soon enough, they clearly sent me to the wrong when!", I started, annoyed beyond all reason at the error.

Then I gasped upward in the future, like a drowning woman breaking her head above the waters.  Stern faces were glaring down at me. 

"What?" I said.  "You sent me to the wrong nation or something!  The judge was trying to usurp the power of the jury!  Oh, come now, surely my exclamation of frustration could not have changed anything, I know the math a bit, it takes a Tau 7 level offense to make even the slightest difference upline!"

"We needed you to be cautious.", the chronician said.  "It wasn't enough to learn from that old book, you had to take into account any cultural drift or history evolution or devolution.  But done is done, and for chrononauts, it's one and done, or we wouldn't need so many volunteers.  Go home."

Juror #4:

Answer bland, answer bland, answer bland.  That will be my mantra.  I am nothing but average, and I am better prepared for how to get on this jury then the first three.  A jury that we now know is specifically chose to be as bland and easily manipulated by the government as possible.

My stomach!  Ahh, the grogginess the others spoke of!  But my hand is up, and my host body is already swearing and affirming the false Juror's Oath!  Great!  That's out of the way!

There's the judge, the man in the black dress!  Do they have to be transvestites to serve?  And I'm to call him "yerronner", not "doctor" or "professor" like we do in our time!  And the man who just gave us the oath - the Dee Yay?  Yes, he must represent the government, and here he has just finished whittling down this jury to those he feels will safely vote as he desires!

Such gall!  No wonder this case galvanized the people!  Now someone else was entering.  A man dressed in a suit - if it's another lawyer, that would be the "defense attorney".  And a small but wiry looking - Great Barnes, it's Barnes himself!  Dressed like a "workingman", or how mannekins in our time dress when doing all the manual tasks for us!

"Barnes!  Barnes!  We're with you, Barnes!", yelled those on either side of me, jurors, already screened, and now seeming to show support of the defendant!  Hey, doesn't that mean that they'll be bumped?  Look, both are wincing now, cramping up...oh no!  

"You three!" yelled the man in the black dress.  "You're dismissed!"  He means me?  But I didn't yell - 

I'm back!  In the future!  This isn't fair!  Guilt by association?!  That yerronner, that "judge" got me bumped by association!  If only those two well meaning fools hadn't gave away that they supported that social activist, they could have nullified the verdict and we'd not have to keep trying this!

But the cramping?  "Juror Five and Juror Six were sent after you failed, and it turned out that they were lodged in the two on either side of you!", the chronician said.  "They got then too late, and so snapped back almost simultaneous to you!  The judge took no chances and had you removed, too!"

Juror #7:

I'm - at a house?  How shabby and small it is!  What am I doing here, was it an overshoot?  No, wait, they said that at least one try would be early, for when they'd be sending jury duty notices out in the mail to a given area.  I'm to wait for a government delivery man to give me my notice!  If they timed it right, he should be making the rounds of this building now!

That discolored section of the wall - a door?  Yes, there is the round thing, it somehow opens it if you touch it.  And windows?  Yes, it's showing outdoors, and it's real glass, not a visor!  Is there a "mail box" I must go to?  Or is there - yes, a slot in the door!  I can go wait by it!  But not too close, I want to look through the window!

Such odd garments they are wearing out there!  Which one is the delivery man?  Does the host's memory know?  Yes, blue and gray.  The "mail" men wear blue and gray uniforms.  There he is!  The house next door!  He's putting something through their slot!  

My turn next!

He's coming to my door, am I to greet him?  No, the host memory says I can just wait inside, he'll put it in the slot.  There!  Papers!  Many papers, many colors!  Spilling to the floor!

He's walked on now, I can go look!  Pizza?  Light and power?  Bank notice?  Where is the jury notice?  There is none!  Why?  My host memory is speaking - it took my "Why?" to heart!  I'm not a registered voter?  What does "it only encourages them" mean?

The chronician!  Staring down at me!  I'm back?  I failed?  I didn't even get to court!  "We mistakenly chose someone who has not registered to vote in their system of government.", the chronician explained.  "Apparently they only want people to serve on a jury if they believe in the goodness of the government sufficiently to try and participate in it.  It insures that they are more likely to vote in the jury box as the government representatives would wish them to!"

Juror #8:

I must listen carefully, to all the data presented, so I can more ably try and persuade my fellow juror's of this historical man's innocence.  I'm leaning forward too much, though, I can't draw attention to myself!  Sit back, sit back!  Act bored!

"Mr. Barnes, please tell the court what prompted you to be at that unauthorized protest that day?  Did you intend the property damage that took place as the prosecutor has claimed?", said the defense attorney.

"No, I did not.", said Barnes clearly and calmly.  "While I agree with those who protested that minimum wage should be tied to the cost of living and go up automatically in response to the government's inflationary tactics, I was only shopping for my wife.  And I don't see why I'm being tried for inciting to riot, a charge that even the prosecutor does not believe I committed!"

"Why do you say that, Mr. Barnes?", asked the defense attorney, casting a nervous glance at the Dee Yay who was himself leaning forward as if to spring to his feet at a moment's notice.

Mr. Barnes looked at the Dee Yay, then at the man in the black dress, then seemed to collect himself and turned to the jury.  Then he rapidly spit out, as if by practice, "Because they offered me a plea, where I'd say I was guilty of disorderly conduct and pay a $500 fine!  And because I'm not rich, I had to decline that offer and now face a possibility of a year in jail!  Where if I was rich I could have simply paid the extortion fee to be released - "

But the Dee Yay was on feet yelling, "Objection!  Objection!" and did not even bother naming a cause for objection.  Not that there was any need for him to.  The judge nodded at once and said sternly, "Mr. Barnes, you will refrain from any more of that talk!  There are good reasons why pleas may be offered, and this forum is not one for you to air your social commentaries!"  Then turning to the jury he said, "The jury is instructed to ignore that comment!"

I'm leaning in again, how'd that happen?  Oh, it's excusable, this is the greatest social reformer of the age - "Your honor, may I approach?" said the Dee Yay to which the judge motioned both the Dee Yay and defense attorney forward.  They consulted quietly then the judge turned to - me!  "You, sir, please come with me!" and with that the judge rose and went to the door leading to his chambers.

Here comes the bailiff, what do I do?  Okay, I'll go with him and see, I've not bounced back, maybe whatever it is can be salvaged!  What an office!  Very old timey luxurious!  You could live here!  That motion, to take a seat, same in any era!  Not so nice a chair as the judge had, but comfortable enough, for all that it failed to accommodate itself to my form!

"Young man, you seemed inordinately interested - even fascinated - by what Mr. Barnes was saying.  Tell me, and remember you are still under oath, are you now, or have you ever been, in any groups affiliated with the 'Occupy' movement?"  Search the host memory, what is the Occupy - ahh, a quasi resistance group dedicated to a variety of social justice causes and oh, Great Barnes, the host is a member of several such!  

And the Dee Yay, he has a pad out and is already shaking his head affirmatively - are their primitive data banks that good even in this dark time?  Apparently yes, as -

The chronician just shook his head dolefully.  "There was nothing you could do.  They don't always catch such, but once they know to look, they always can if they want to.  Your host's social media page, which they didn't routinely scan, showed your group affiliations.  It was when you looked so interested in what Barnes had to say, that let them know that a sympathizer might be in the mix."

Juror #9:

"Hold on, please", I said calmly.  "Let's not leap to sending me back just yet, obviously we've some time.  And I've heard of the failures of #10, #11 and #12, one caught by the full ID and background check they do on jurors that revealed he'd had a conviction in his youth at a free speech protest, the other who was accused by fellow jurors for trying to 'nullify' and the judge bounced him to be safe, and the last for having asked a clarifying question during the trial that was apparently not allowed.  This is our last chance, is it not?"

"Yes, it is", said the chronician, "And so you must succeed!"

"But we're still all here, it's still the Utopia of our Perfect Stasis, surely this means I did?  How can we not know?  Can't the Central AI of our own future send someone back here to tell us exactly how to do this?  Given how much is riding on it?"

"There are chronistic delicacies that would be hard to explain to the layman.", the chronician said.  But nevertheless, we need you to go back.  Part of our calculations are based upon the previous failures, so do not think that we're just shooting in the dark here.  Before a future incarnation of Central AI could instruct us, it needed the data of all the previous runs."

I seemed to give a shiver, and the woman across the table from me said, "Are you okay, Madam Forewoman?"  I looked about and saw that I was in the jury room, deliberating on the Barnes case.  I hastily checked my host's memory and said, "Just pondering it all.  And I'm still concerned about the juror who had to leave."

"The first alternate is here now, so it'll be okay.", the woman assured me, as did the others.  They all looked at me expectantly.  Ahh, the vote.  There had been two votes already, and my host had voted guilty the last two times, and only the person who had voted "not guilty" was now bumped.  This would be delicate.

"This time I want everyone to write their answer down on the papers provided, and we'll tally them."  They all solemnly did so.  So did I.  I went through the pretense of counting the votes.  11 to 1.  With me the one.

"11 votes 'guilty', 1 vote 'not guilty'.", I said to the shocked room.

Amid the babble of the voices, I checked my host's memory to confirm a variety of things and then stood up and said, "Listen carefully.  I've been a registered Republican for my entire life.  I am in no way affiliated with any of the types of people who glorify Barnes.  I strongly believe in law and order.  My vote, which I was too cowardly to give before, reflects only that I do not believe that the case presented has proved his guilt beyond reasonable doubt."

A cunning looking man at the other end of the table said, "Uh huh.  Please name your 'reasonable doubt', that we all might know it."

I was prepared for that, thanks to the briefings arranged by those in the future.  "I don't like your tone.  My reasonable doubts are my own.  I'm standing by my vote, and you all can stay here for as long as you like.  I've heard nothing so far to shake me in my position, and I strongly doubt I ever will."

"Bailiff!", yelled the cunning looking man.  "Tell the judge we have another!"  The others looked uncomfortable, but the bailiff simply went to tell the judge.  And I found it telling that he had not asked the juror what was meant by "we have another".  Soon the bailiff returned and motioned for me to accompany him.

In the yerronner's office, he had me sit down and asked, "Are you trying to nullify the verdict?"  I sat silently for a moment, then said, "Yerronner I'm familiar with the concept, but no, I totally agree with laws against inciting to riot.  I'm not trying to nullify anything.  I just don't think he did it."

"Why?", yerronner asked.  "Your fellow jurors think he did.  Why don't you?"

I was prepared for that.  I knew that nothing I said, no reason at all, good or bad, would be accepted by this black clad transvestite trying to rig the outcome.  To offer any reason, however good, would simply have this man, who had four years of college, three of law school and several decades on the bench, use all his skills and sophistries to invalidate my reason.

Then, if I still persisted, he could claim I was clearly trying to nullify, since my concerns had been 'addressed'.

Calmly I said, "I can't explain it, yerronner.  I just don't feel it was proved.  I can't say it was when it wasn't, can I?"

This put yerronner on the defense, as he had to in fairness answer my question.  Very few people can ignore a question.  "No, you can't.", he grudgingly affirmed, because to do otherwise would give away his game.

"Can I go back then, yerronner?", I quickly asked, before he could ask me anything.  This way if he said "Yes", and I did go back, he could not plausibly call me back in again.  He looked like he wanted to say "No", but only waved his hand and said, "Yes, sure.  Listen carefully to the others, though."

"Yes, yerronner.", I said as I went to the door.  "One more thing", yerronner said, "Is there anything the others could say that would have you change your mind?"

The 'one more thing' ruse, I'd not heard of it in our time, but had been briefed on it.  You were supposed to feel relaxed that you'd got away with it, then just when you were about to escape the danger, they'd ask 'one more thing' and catch you off guard.  You'd toss off an unthinking answer like, "No, nothing." and they'd have you!

"I don't know, yerronner.", I said smoothly, as if I'd practiced it several times in the future.  "I'll certainly listen carefully for such." and without breaking stride continued my exit back into the jury room.

I sat down -

- I gasped up!  Wait...what?  

The chronician, now wearing all black instead of the soft pastel pink he had been wearing, said, "Our man was successful, you time traitor!  We had him overlayed on the judge who then had the bailiff yank you back out of that seat as soon as you sat down!  He simply claimed that you had told him you were trying to nullify, and he jammed the second alternate in!  What do you imagine they have such alternates for?"

"So...but...the utopia!  Our Perfect Stasis!  It's all lost now?", I stammered, sick to my stomach.

"You mean that living death ran by computers you called utopia?  In the Time Patrol, we've seen hundreds - thousands - of you idealists, always trying to change things to your liking!  But we protect things not as you'd have them, but as they were and always shall be!  We brook no meddling in time, no matter what reasons!"

"But...but...I had lived in that utopia, the reasons were good!  Are good!  Please!", I nearly shouted.

He looked at me pityingly.  "Of course they were good reasons.  With you social reformers, it's always for a good reason.  When have you or any of your kind ever claimed it was for a bad reason?  But it's all neither here nor there.  You failed.  And now to your hearing."

He paused for a moment.

"Don't worry, though.  You'll have a jury!"