Dark Fiction – A Stitch in Time Punishes Crime
Written By Casey Douglass
You are sat quietly in
a train station, the distorted caterwauling of the announcement
system informing you that aliens have invaded, that the country
actually has a compassionate government, or more unbelievable lies,
like the 10:30 train is running on time. It’s hard to tell what the
damn thing says, so you just people watch, like you always do.
You realise there is a
voice in your head telling you these things, but it informs you that
you needn't worry, and it hopes that you will try to be more
interested than scared. That’s it. Back to the people watching.
Look!
A man in a business
suit is striding across the tiled floor. Watch him. He looks a prick
doesn’t he! Do you think he’s ramming his pretty personal
assistant, the harassed looking woman bustling beside him? Oh look,
he stumbled. She’s trying not to smile. How cute.
So what is so
interesting I hear you wonder? The man was just invaded by another
personality, just for the briefest of seconds. Do I have your
curiosity? I expect I do.
You see, crime still
exists hundreds of years from now. I am sure that will come as no
surprise to you, an astute people watching person sitting on an
uncomfortable plastic seat at a train station. But as in many things,
the future has numerous new ways to deal with the less desirable
parts of human nature. Serial killers are still the worst, people who
would snuff out human life just because they want to, because it
turns them on or gives them some feeling of power. Their punishment
is the most severe. They are strapped into a chair that creates an
M-field around them, sucking out their mental energy. This leaves the
body pretty much dead, so it is recycled into MP’s notepaper as a
reminder to keep them humble. This mental energy is injected into a
quantum cell that... oh why bother explaining it all! The mental
energy is sent back through time at one second intervals, to inhabit
another’s body for the briefest of moments.
That might sound
barbaric for the visited body but tests confirmed that they have
little awareness of the visit, and some rather complicated algorithms
stop the personality invading the body of anyone in a precarious
position, such as a bomb defusal expert or a fan about to shake hands
with a reality TV star. The fact that the invasion lasts only a
second also safeguards against the criminal taking action that could
harm the person being inhabited.
Why do it? I hear you
thinking. Imagine being sent back in time, starting minutes away from
your mental transfer, and going back years and years and years, only
spending one second in each body. The assault on the mental faculties
alone turns most of the punishees into gibbering wrecks within only
hours of the punishment starting.
They do have set
sentences however, and the final body that they possess will be one
of their victims, chosen according to a variety of factors, so that
they can experience themselves killing through another’s eyes. Even when half mad, they will know it, and know it in style. When
the victim dies, they die, therefore ending their sentence.
Before you ask “Why
doesn't someone from the future stop the crimes?” it’s all very
complicated, causality and whatnot. If we could, we would, be assured
of that. This punishment seems to carry little effect into the course
of events, someone stumbles or almost drops something, then they move
on with their lives. The algorithms are good at selecting who gets
targeted.
Oh, yes I did say “We”
didn’t I. You are a clever one! Yes I am from the future, and yes,
I’ve been a naughty chap.
More than a second you
say? It’s been at least a few minutes by my reckoning. Guess who
has figured out a way to roam where he pleases? Go on, you are the
clever one after all...
THE END
