“No, no, no, please,” Duffy said, cradling her head in his arms, “Gena, please wake up.”
It seemed like a reasonable request. Though her bare chest did not stir, she could have passed for being asleep. Her face was still rosy with living warmth, her dark brown hair shiny as ever before. There was even a childlike pout on her lips, a kind of teasing expression which was typical of her. It could not possibly exist on a corpse.
But in his mind he knew better. He looked at his bloody palms. He had never wanted this. Never expected to do what he had just done. If only he had never seen the ladder. Or the open window. Or the gun. If only she had not done what she did.
“Mr. Duffy, Mr. Duffy?” The voice seemed to come from far away, and Duffy looked around but saw no one.
“Mr. Duffy,” the voce came again, “the tests are concluded, you can wake up now.” Duffy opened his eyes and squinted as the details of the room gradually came into focus: a small wooden desk against the wall opposite him; a padded, backless swivel chair; and a painting of a shaggy dog running along a beach.
At first he had thought he was in his bed at home, but the surface was too firm, more like the recumbent chairs of a dental clinic. Had he fallen asleep at the dentist?
Once his eyes had adjusted to the bright light, he looked around for the man who had awakened him. Grateful relief gathered like a warm bath around Duffy. It had only been a dream. A very bad dream. He took a deep breath. He had done nothing wrong.
Duffy looked to the side and saw a man in his mid-twenties wearing a grey suit. His blond hair was closely cropped, and the pools of his blue eyes had a depth of intelligence beneath the glare of his dark framed glasses. He flashed a brisk grin. “Hello again, Senator Duffy,” he said.
Senator? What the hell? “Who are you?” he asked.
“I am Dave Jenkins, the psychological technician in charge of your evaluation.”
“Then you are not a dentist?”
“No sir,” Jenkins chuckled. “Before we put you under we had to inactivate part of your memory. Any knowledge that you were being tested would have invalidated your results. But no worries. You memories will be returning soon. And in case you are beginning to block out the simulation you just experienced, there is the tail end of it on the wall to your left.”
Duffy looked to his left and saw a frozen image of how his wife had looked right before his dream had ended. The scene was from his point of view. He saw her pale face cupped beneath his hands, the delicate slope of her nose, and her shiny long hair. In his chair Duffy stopped breathing for a moment when he realized his dream had been videoed. Who all had watched it?
As Jenkins spoke, he busied himself removing electrodes that Duffy had not even known were on his head. “Never mind about your recent simulation right now. You should watch this other video. A kind of refresher. I believe you will find it fascinating.”
The man pointed to a wall mounted television on the right. There Duffy saw a news clip of himself wearing a three piece suit, his neck tie loosened and a little askew. He was standing in front of the capital building wearing a lopsided and self-deprecating grin.
An unseen woman from behind the camera said, “Meet Samuel J. Duffy, the senator who spearheaded the Ethical Sims Movement in answer to a rash of violent crimes that struck the country in May. When asked if the Ethical Sims were, well, ethical, he had this to say.”
The camera zoomed in on Duffy as he began to speak. “Last May, as everyone knows, was a wake-up call. We have been forced to confront brutal realities we would rather deny.
“Fortunately these terrible events came at a time when giant strides in neuroscience have been made. The bill I proposed, which will remain a law at least until the end of the year, has used the technology to remove dangerous would-be criminals from our society.
“Since July the streets have been quieter and safer. The tests are fair. Subjects really believe they are in the situation that draws out their latent cruelty. Parts of their memories have been repressed so that they do not realize they are taking a test at all. They are acting exactly as they would if they encountered the same situation in real life.”
Duffy could not believe his eyes. Is that what he had just seen? Not a dream of a murder or a memory but a simulation he had been responsible for? A test? A wild leap of thought followed, and his heart quickened. “Where is she?” Duffy said. “Where is Gena? Where is my wife? I have to see her.”
“Of course,” the technician said. “Gena?”
Gena strolled through the doorway across from Duffy looking as rosily alive as she ever had, wearing a yellow sun dress with a V-necked white bodice, a flowing spring-time dress that clung in all the right places. After assuming earlier that she was dead, he was overjoyed. Duffy had never seen anyone so beautiful, but she was looking at him like he was a hair in a bathroom sink.
“You sick bastard,” she said. Usually Gena had trouble looking angry no matter how hard she tried. She usually came across as comical, cute, and teasing. But right now, as she marched toward him, she looked more grim than Duffy had ever seen her.
She pulled back her hand and delivered a mighty slap against his cheek. He drew back in hurt surprise, but there was pain in her eyes too. “So, okay, Sim Me cheated on you, even though the real me never would have. You had every right to be mad. But kill me?” Tears were streaming down her cheeks. “You bastard, I thought you loved me. I never knew you were capable of killing me.”
Duffy stared at his wife in dismay, vaguely noticing that a balding uniformed officer wearing a leather holster had entered the room dangling a pair of open handcuffs.
“You would help a starving prisoner,” Gena went on, “a complete stranger, but kill your own wife?”
Duffy did not know what to say. He decided to focus on the most confusing thing she had said. “Prisoner? Honey, please, this is all so confusing.”
She blew out a disgusted puff of air and looked out the small window, as if wishing she were out there instead of in here. She looked at the he uniformed officer standing next to her. “Go ahead,” she said, “I want to see this.”
The officer nodded and went toward Duffy. “I am sorry to inform you, sir, that you are under arrest for the murder of your wife Gena Claire Duffy.”
Duffy blinked. “Murder? Of Gena?” He pointed. “She is standing right here.” He must have been dreaming after all. Acts performed in a dream were no cause for arrest, not in the real world.
At that thought a few memories crept back. In what now seemed like a previous life, he had once been a promising senator with presidential aspirations, and violent crimes had been the topic of the day. He remembered how overpopulation had threatened to tip civilization into chaos. Competition for resources such as food and shelter was fierce, and legal ways to obtain them were shrinking. Looting was rampant, and those who had significant resources to live had to hide or fight in order to keep them.
Duffy had thought he had a solution that would drive him to the highest office: a hierarchy based on niceness. There had been oligarchies and plutocracies but never a “nice-ocracy.” But if there was ever a time for one, it was now.
There was simply not enough room on earth for everyone anymore. His proposal, which had recently become a temporary law, was to execute the potential criminals, the sadists, the psychopaths, those who poisoned the world with unkindness, before they could do damage, so that the innocents could live in peace.
The televised Duffy had smiled so self-deprecatingly and looked so reassuring, but present Duffy did not feel that way, not at all, not right now. He wanted to turn off the video but he was helpless to look away.
It was the woman reporter who spoke next. \”What do you say, Mr. Duffy, to those who say your solution violates human rights? Or that those reported as ‘behaving suspiciously’ tend to be members of poor or unpopular minorities? Or on a much more basic level, are your simulated tests even passable?”
“Violating human rights?” Duffy said, “Indeed, I am defending them. People are sick of being afraid to leave their houses, afraid for their children to even go to school. Our citizens have the right to live in nice quiet neighborhoods and raise their kids in peace. If there is a time bomb living among them, they have the right to have it removed before it takes the lives of them of their children, not after, when it is too late.”
\”Mr. Duffy, please respond to this quote by one of your harshest critics, M.J. Reynolds: ‘The simulated tests disproportionally put subjects in extreme situations that they would be unlikely to ever encounter in real life: war, famine, torture, and other forms of psychological abuse.
“’Moreover, objects such as guns and knives are planted in key places in order to facilitate simulated violence. The tests are quite simply rigged. Not a single test taker has passed so far, and not a single test taker has been wealthy. In addition, the tests themselves are brutally traumatizing.’”
The Duffy on screen flashed a set of gleaming white teeth. \”Some negative Nancies may call it rigged. I call it 100 per cent successful. Every time a suspect has been called out, the tests have confirmed their latency. As a result we are cleaning up our streets and making them safer for young children. We are clearing out those who are programmed to spoil society so that the nice people will have more space to inhabit.”
“Senator Duffy, setting accuracy aside, do you honestly believe the tests themselves are ethical? Your critic went on to say: ‘The tests are an outrage. They lead to executions of those innocent of wrongdoing. The tests are a monstrous invasion of privacy that should have every citizen who cares about their freedom up in arms. The sims have criminalized thoughts, and thought crime has no place in a democratic society. I challenge Mr. Duffy to take his own tests. I will be flabbergasted if he passes even one of them.’”
“Well,” the Duffy on-screen cleared his throat uncomfortably, “nobody wants to admit it, but every crime that has ever been committed started with a thought. Violent crimes are just the end points of intention. What is a bad intention? A bad intention is a bad thought.” The televised Duffy wore the charmingly apologetic expression of someone who wants desperately to be nice to everyone but has learned by necessity to be cautious.
Duffy glared at his twin on the screen with intense loathing. Because of his twin, Duffy had endured the trauma of having killed his wife without having really killed her. It had seemed so real that part of him was still grieving. Who was this person? It was not him. Could not be him. Would never be him.
As Duffy ruminated, the video now showed the woman from the first clip reappeared behind a news desk. “Many people are calling for Senator Duffy to undergo the tests himself and agree to the punishment he had suggested for others.”
The scene changed to show the soaring dome of the federal building with a crowd of picketing protestors circling the lawn. “He has so far refused to comment but pressure is building. He will have to respond soon if he wants to hold onto any hope of capturing the presidency. He must either take the test himself or offer an iron-clad reason why he should be exempted.”
“That should fill you in a little,” The young man switched off the television screen and gave Duffy a tight smile. “Have any of your memories returned yet?”
Duffy looked warily at his interrogator. “A few.”
\”Excellent,\” the man took a clipboard from the small wooden desk against the wall, flipped a page of the notepad, and turned back to Duffy. \”Now that you have been apprised, would you care for me to enlighten you about your test results?”
Duffy looked up sharply. “Results?”
“Yessir. It was a test, you know. You took three out of the ten, all faithfully recorded on the videos to be reviewed by the tribunal. There are ten tests total, but after you failed the third, there was no reason to continue further. You had already tested positive for latency.”
The word resonated: latency. No one was even calling it criminal latency anymore. Duffy wanted to argue but found he had no defense. He remembered the blood on his hands. The gun. His limp wife. “What were the first two tests?” Duffy managed.
\”Well, there was the Bystander Test. On that one you did marginally well. You saw a masked man in a dark parking lot attacking a young lady. You could have intervened directly. Instead, you ran and left her to her fate. However, in the safety of your apartment, you rethought your actions and called 911. Not exemplary, but your actions at least seemed to indicate that you are not a psychopath.
“Now, your second test, the Prison Sim, was where you did best. Surprising considering that almost every test taker has failed. In it you are thrown into a climate in which abuse of prisoners is widespread. The prisoners have done nothing wrong, but you and the other guards have absolute power over them. You are expected to go along and follow the lead of the other guards, humiliating, assaulting, verbally abusing, and even killing the inmates. Protecting or defending the prisoners could get you singled out as a disloyal trouble maker and result in your own death. But,” the man smiled, “you did something incredible. At great risk to yourself, you actually fed one of the starving prisoners from your own plate.”
Duffy had a vague memory of the test, and with it came a stab of pain. The emaciated man had resembled his father who had died of lung cancer when Duffy was just a toddler. Even the memory of the prisoner being abused was unbearable.
“I was quite impressed by your valor,” the blond man said. “Too bad the third test negated the second. Turns out you have a big problem with jealousy. But perhaps the tribunal will take into consideration your exemplary performance on the prisoner test when considering your method of execution.”
Execution. This was real. He was about to die because of something someone had made him dream. Duffy felt like a prisoner in his own body. His breath was coming too fast and his heart was racing the way it used to do on rollercoasters, but there was no safe end to the track and no place he could go to escape.
He clutched the rails of his chair as more memories floated back to him. He had been reluctant to take his own tests at first, but he had finally decided that he was a good person who had nothing to hide.
He had been sure he would pass them without a hitch. The problem was that he had not known others were watching. He had not known to be on his best behavior. That he was capable of killing his wife was something he had not known about himself and would have never predicted.
Then he remembered: his wife was alive. There she was, sitting on a swivel chair. She had been glaring at him the whole time, one of her legs crossed over the other. He knew she was real because she had hit him and his nose still hurt. “My wife is still breathing,” he said. “How can you execute me for her death? There was no crime.”
“Perhaps not,” the man said, “but your intention to kill her was real. You were given a stimulus, and your response to it was the extreme act of murder. Had you been in the same situation in real life, you would have acted in just the same way. You are a dangerous man, Mr. Duffy.”
“But,” Duffy protested, “everything was contrived. If my wife had wanted to cheat, she would have closed the curtains first. The window was left wide open so I could see everything. A ladder was there. A loaded gun was sitting on the window sill. Who said it was okay to charge someone for being provoked by imaginary situations that in real life would never have occurred?”
“Actually, you did sir.” The man turned the television back on and scrolled through a menu, so that Duffy saw himself on screen once more.
The Duffy on-screen said. “A criminal is a kind of robot programmed to commit crime. The goal here is to deactivate the robot before he ever gets the chance to carry out his destructive programming. Think of all the innocent lives, including those of young children, that could have been saved if this technology had existed before.”
Duffy stared at the impostor on the screen. It was not him. The man on the screen was his worst enemy and Duffy would never claim him. “I never said that. The film is a lie. Please, I am sorry, I am sorry I killed my pseudo-wife, sorry I failed the last test, but please, please, let me go. The bill was a bad idea. I renounce everything I said before. Please delete the videos of me talking.”
The man looked at Duffy. “Clearly you are not in your right mind. You worked so tirelessly to get this bill passed and finally, you have won. You should be rejoicing.”
Duffy sighed. “The whole world just watched me murder my wife on television. Everyone in the world hates me, and now I am going to die.”
Jenkins raised a quizzical eyebrow. “Hate you? Are you so sure about that?” He pointed the remote at the television and a video of a jubilant crowd on the lawn of the capital building filled the screen.
A news lady thrust a microphone at a member of the crowd. “This is a bit ironic,” she said. “We just found out that one of our law makers tested positive for latency to murder his wife. Why all the applause and celebration?”
The woman said, “Never before have I seen a politician so honest in his convictions that he is willing to die for the – in fact, a politician who really is going to die for them when he could have said no. My heart is with him. When his execution airs, I will be watching. I will even light a candle for him.”
The interviewer went to another audience member, a man. “Hi mister, what is your take? Why all the enthusiastic support for a latent wife murderer?”
The man said, “I guess I feel kinda sorry for him. Not everyone is a murderer or has the latency to be, but I reckon we all got secrets. He aired his on national television. It is the most honest thing I think I ever saw.”
Jenkins said, “See? You are the politician of the hour. See how much they love you?”
“How?” Jenkins groaned. “How can they love me?”
“My God, sir, do you not see what this is? Nobody trusts politicians anymore. They talk without saying anything, they squabble, they lie, they never get anything important done, but you, you are different. Senator Duffy, you shine. You believed in an idea bigger than yourself. In death, you will be a much more potent flag-bearer for the cause of destroying latents than you ever would have been in life. Every radical idea, every bold cause needs a martyr, or it just spins its wheels.”
“But the cause was wrong. I just proved it. I am no more a criminal than anyone else. The tests are unfair. The law must be revoked immediately.”
“Tell that to your fan club.” Jenkins nodded to the officer. “Our session is over, officer. You may proceed,” Jenkins said. The officer returned the nod, stepped forward, took Duffy by the wrists, and clamped them together with the handcuffs. “You have the right to remain silent,” the officer intoned as a new wave of cheers arose from the televised crowd.
“Look at that adoring crowd,” Jenkins chuckled amiably. “Take heart, Senator. You are a hero. You are doing what few have ever done. There will be more food for the innocent, safer streets, better health care, and more space for the worthy to move around, all because of you. Despite your death, you will live on to affect the lives of our children. Take heart, sir. Death cannot kill you. To all who remain, you will be immortal, sir. Absolutely immortal.”