The Jury App

This piece is for a competition held by @calluna. You can find the prompt here: https://steemit.com/contest/@calluna/tell-a-story-to-me-and-win-5-sbd-writing-contest-5-a-fair-trial-and-winners-of-4

My watch dinged and vibrates on my wrist, warning me of an incoming message. An urgent one, at that.

“IMPORTANT MESSAGE,” flashed across my vision in bold, bright red. “INCOMING FROM GOVERNMENT: VIEW AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.”

Oh no, I thought. Government videos were rare. Something terrible must have happened. I tried to mentally prepare myself before hitting the button to play the message.

“Breaking news,” the anchor said, his demeanor incredibly serious. “There will be an emergency trial. Attendance of all citizens of age is mandatory. Today at 5pm, Eastern Standard Time, everyone must check into the virtual courtroom. After all evidence and testimonies are presented, voting will proceed immediately. You will be allowed 5 minutes to make your decision and cast your vote with the Jury App. Reminds, this specific trial is mandatory.”

“Mandatory?” I said to myself as the broadcast ended. Since they released the Jury App, there had yet to be a mandatory trial. This one had to be something crucial. My stomach sank with the horrid feeling of dread. I was not looking forward to this trial by any means.

When 5 o’clock rolled around, I was curled up on my couch, counting down the seconds while simultaneously trying to forget about what I was about to witness.

The Jury App icon popped up into my field of vision. They weren’t messing around with this one. With great apprehension, I loved the app. The courtroom filled my view, making it feel like I was physically in the room, sitting in the Jury stand.

A very angry looking man sat at a table in the center of the room. Beside him sat a man in a suit. I assumed he was the man’s lawyer. I watched the angry man fearfully. Not only was I fearful of the man himself, but just the sight of him made me fear what this trial would be about. His blue eyes were so cold and piercing, I thought he could kill me just by making direct eye contact.

“Now that everyone seems to be accounted for,” the judge’s voice boomed, “we shall begin. This evening, Thomas Grove is to stand trial for multiple counts of murder.”

I gasped. The thought that he could be the one responsible for Molly’s death finally popped into my head. She hasn’t been the only one that gone missing recently, but she was the one that hit closest to home. We had grown up together and had remained close friends until she disappeared. I hadn’t heard any news that they had found her killer, though. Or that any of the other girls had been found, alive or dead.

“This is a unique trial,” the judge’s voice interrupted my thoughts. “Not only is this our first mandatory trial, this is our first trial with video evidence from the trial of our new eye chips.”

“I didn’t agree to have that implanted!” Thomas yelled, pure rage saturating his voice.

“Silence, Mr. Grove.” The judge hit his gavel. “For those of you who don’t know, clinical trials have started for the video component of our brain and eye implants. Me. Grove here was part of the first batch of testers.”

“Your Honor, if I may,” Grove’s lawyer spoke as he stood from his seat. “My client never gave his consent to having the device implanted. Therefore, morally, it is a violation to use any video from the implant as evidence against Mr. Grove.”

“In this case, the situation is so dire that it outweighs any moral obligations of his consent. A warrant was granted for the footage, regardless.”
The lawyer took his seat once again, accepting defeat. The look on his face confirmed it had been a long shot to begin with.

“Now, if there are no other objections, the members of our jury will be shown the footage from the defendant’s eye chip.”

A few seconds passed before my vision turned to black. I thought something had gone wrong until the video before me blinked a few times, bringing a picture into focus.

My heartbeat picked up as the scene before me registered. It way Molly! Oh no, it was Molly. She was lounging in a bed, flipping through a magazine.

“Oh, there you are,” she said, glancing towards the camera, towards Thomas. I gulped, terrified of what was about to happen. Poor Molly.
“I thought you weren’t coming back for a second. Thought I was going to have to see myself out,” she smiled. “Some interesting stuff you’ve got here.” She cast the magazine aside and turned towards Thomas.

He chuckled, my skin crawled from the sound of it. I wished more than anything that I could tell Molly to run, to get out of that situation while she still could.

“You’ve seen nothing yet,” he said. I could hear the smirk on his face.

“Oh yeah,” Molly egged him on, smiling even more.

He walked over to her; and, before I knew it, he was beating her. First, with his fists, then with a bat he had pulled from underneath the bed. Molly’s screams echoed through my head as I watched her blood spatter all over the room. My eyes filled with tears as I screamed with her. My heart ached. Knowing she was gone had been bad enough. Watching her death firsthand, like o had been the one to do it, was far worse than anything I could have ever imagined.

Four more videos played after Molly’s. Each played out nearly identical. I cried and screamed through every single one of them. Those poor girls. The courtroom came back into my vision. Thomas Grove sat at his table, laughing maniacally. There was no denying he was a monster.

“Do you have anything to add?” The judge asked Grove’s lawyer. His face was sullen as he tried to ignore the rabid laughter.

The lawyer shook his head, eyes cast down.

“Jury, you have five minutes to cast your vote.”

The courtroom disappeared, leaving two large buttons. I wasted not time voting. I clicked the “guilty” button with no hesitation.

Photo Source: https://unsplash.com/photos/B0zAPSrEcFw