Wicked Prompts

CONVICTION

Nathan left the house at the usual time that morning and stood outside to wait for the autonomous vehicle that would take him to work. Normally a blue van with three other people picked him up, but on this morning it was a white sedan with no one inside. Sometimes it worked out that way. The commuter system had to make adjustments for traffic, passenger change-requests, and maintenance. He stepped into the car, sitting in the right side front seat, and proceeded to read the daily news from his chip-paper, a foldable paper-feeling collection of pages about the size of a small magazine, that displayed a variety of different texts uploaded into the synthetic fabric.

After two minutes the car's audio system interrupted and the command computer toned to indicate a message was forthcoming from the traffic management system.

"Mr. Nathan Redford. Can you please confirm your identification?" Of course, they would know it was him, from his chip implant, but it was still normal operating procedure to confirm with a voice print.

"Yes, it's me."

"Please be advised that the following conversation is being recorded from here forth. You are being officially notified that you are under arrest. Your workplace has been informed that you have an unspecified emergency appointment and will not be in the office today. The car is being diverted to the West Los Angeles police precinct with an estimated time of arrival of fifteen minutes."

"Arrested? What's this about?" Nathan thought hard about the previous days and weeks events. Had he done something wrong? He was a banking consultant and knew there were thousands of regulations and rules he was supposed to follow. It was likely something along those lines. Probably nothing too series. It was the cost of doing business in a firm like his. They even had insurance to cover the legal fees and a special rehabilitation program to help adjust his career, should he be sentenced to a prohibition for working in a regulated bank or public company.

"If you are in agreement, the charges can be discussed on the way to the precinct. Be advised that anything you say in these discussions can and will be used against you in the proceedings. Would you like to discuss?"

"Yes, of course." He might have to be careful about what he said, but he at least wanted to hear the charges.

"You have been charged with unlawful conduct and conspiracy to commit social disruption on a network and communication device. The conspiracy charge is a felony. There is a mandatory sentence of one year, limited travel and weekend house arrest, and license revocation for three years, for this crime. Since you have previously been convicted of a workplace financial transgression in the last seven years, it is likely you will be sentenced to a higher grade penalty, which will require a twenty-five percent income tax penalty and two months community service, be added to your sentence if convicted."

Damn it, thought Nathan. His mind ran through all the possibilities. Unlawful conduct and conspiracy to commit social disruption. He'd been chatting with a bot last night. It was one of those sports chatters programmed to exchange ideas about gambling. It had baited him into making a joke about persuading one of the amateur team stars to throw a game. In fact the bot was the one that had made the suggestion. All Nathan had done was hit the 'thumbs-up' button. Then he'd abruptly typed in that he was just kidding and it was only a joke. That's probably why they weren't charging him outright with conspiracy to manipulate sports gambling. The bot had sent him a link to some unorthodox pornography depicting women having sex with an artificially constructed avatar resembling a well-known politician. He'd clicked on it and a warning was received in his email that the site was illegal. He should have reported it but he didn't. He erased his browsing history instead, which is technically obstruction, but they hadn't charged him with that. Just illegal conduct. They usually saved heavy charges like obstruction for when they didn't have anything else.