Judge
Kozlowski, a pretty and platinum-haired young woman of about sixty,
returned to the courtroom and sat in majesty behind her elevated
bench.
Billy
rose with his court-appointed lawyer, a Droid of Sympathy who did
well in defending Billy as he explained Billy's actions away via
an unhappy childhood and a less than fulfilling adulthood of missed
potential and wasted opportunities. The Droid also did well in illustrating
Billy's acute and pervasive addictions, addictions that caused his
mind to think the worst about himself and others, especially women.
The
invisible jury found Billy guilty of degeneration and recommended
death by decapitation.
Judge
Kozlowski read the verdict and she agreed, but she felt just a little
bit sorry for Billy, she felt herself stifle tears as the well-dressed
and elegant Droid of Sympathy spoke about Billy's unorthodox childhood,
a childhood where he was raised by two parents. His parents had
fought all of the time and never showed affection for one another
and they refused to divorce or separate because they thought it
would be bad for Billy and his younger sister.
But
the judge hated Billy too. Billy was an addict of perversion and
she could hear his projected thoughts, she could hear his mind straining
to catch a glimpse of her legs that were bare behind her black and
slit robe.
She
hated perverts, she hated men who thought lewdly about women and
the culture had gone a long way in eliminating perversion through
intervention and entertainment manipulation.
But
there were still the Billys of the world, the Billys who walked
through life drooling at women, their thoughts like ink stains on
a white, white world.
"The
defendant will need to keep himself in check for the sentencing,"
the judge said and Billy's Droid placed a silvery hand on his head,
the metal shielding and scrambling Billy's thoughts from view.
"Thank
you, counselor," the judge continued. "The jury of peers
did find Mr. William Williams guilty of degeneration and recommended
the death penalty based on his age as they feel he is too old for
corrective therapy and his brain is too ingrained with corrupted
thoughts. And I have to agree, a forty-year old is too far-gone
and I find it hard to believe that Mr. Williams has made it this
far in life without getting caught before."
True
enough, Billy did his dark thinking in private and had trained himself
well enough to keep his perversion in check when at work or in the
company of others, even though his mind was running rampant while
in court.
But
he had slipped; finally. He had slipped in front of his wife who
interrupted an early morning reverie by barging into the bathroom
unannounced.
His
wife heard his thoughts and was shocked and disgusted and horrified.
She ran out into the street screaming and Billy was arrested almost
instantly, with an inventory of his brain taken upon his arrival
at the police station.
The
brain inventory cinched his fate, and gave the prosecution a strong
and invincible case.
"And
I must add that it is good that Mr. Williams and his wife didn't
have children," Judge Kozlowski continued as she readied herself
for the sentencing.
Billy
and his wife were going to wait until they were fifty before having
kids; they didn't want to be too young for the responsibility of
child rearing. And Billy couldn't wait to have kids; he thought
having children might change him, he thought it might shift his
perverted thoughts, thoughts he enjoyed but life would have been
easier and safer without them.
"I
do not recommend the death penalty, however," the judge continued
and her magenta and long-lashed eyes rifled through the screens
on her bench. "I am not convinced that Mr. Williams's soul
is corrupted; I think his mind is the cause of all of his problems
"
and she proceeded to give her sentence.
Billy
screamed when he heard the sentence, even though his defending Droid
congratulated him.
"But
you'll still be alive, and if you're alive, there is always hope,"
the Droid said as he tried to give Billy a compassionate hug.
Billy
screamed. He screamed until the bailiff muzzled him and led him
shackled to a waiting Volvo Hovervan outside the courthouse.
The
Hovervan took Billy to a hospital where his muzzle was removed and
Billy kept on screaming until the anesthesia that was injected into
his still shackled arm took effect. He fell asleep to the sound
of a surgical saw making contact with his skull.
His
brain was removed and his body was destroyed, per the judge's sentence.
His brain was placed in a silver jar in the storage network underneath
the courthouse, the collected and sentenced brains kept alive through
a closed and flowing circuit of oxygen and nutrients that hydrated
the hundreds of minds sentenced to eternity.