“Of course not,” said Cassandra. “We don’t want one of the other pilot programs to move ahead of us, now do we?”
O’Connor considered her, smiling tightly, and she chastised herself for having possibly stepped over a line. Finally he said, “No, we don’t. Do you know the first man to sign the Declaration of Independence, Ms. Howard?”
“That would be John Hancock.”
“Yes, it would be. But I wager you don’t know the second. Second never draws the same recognition as first does. First is history; second is merely trivia. I intend this case to be history. Everyone should be clear on that.”
Cassandra snapped her case closed. “I don’t think it’s going to be a problem, Judge,” she said.
“Good.” O’Connor held the door for her. “It was Josiah Bartlett, by the way.”
“I’m sorry?” said Cassandra.
“Josiah Bartlett was the second man to sign the Declaration of Independence.”
“Is that right?” Cassandra passed through the doorway into the hall. “You learn something new every day.”
Forrest pulsed Cassandra on her way home, again inviting her to get a drink. She pulsed back, again declining. At home, after feeding Baedeker and checking on her sleeping father, she spent time on her yoga, trying to clear her mind and focus on her center. Since middle school, when she reached her full height of five eleven, Cassandra had felt alien in her body, awkward and encumbered. She took up yoga in college as a way for her mind and body to relate. But tonight she was unable to fully close her mind down. Ammie’s face stubbornly snapped into her consciousness and her timid voice repeated in Cassandra’s ear.
When her father woke, she tried to get him to eat, but he complained that swallowing was painful. Instead they spent the evening with Cassandra asking him more questions. Jarius seemed to appreciate the short “strongly agree, agree, disagree, strongly disagree” answers. It was all he had energy for. In the quiet of the darkening room, it was just Cassandra’s even-toned voice and her father’s shallow breathing. Occasionally she had to ask him to repeat his answer and lean in to hear it. After a time she came to the end of the identity query.
“No more questions, Chickpea?” asked Jarius. He sounded wryly disappointed.
“No more questions,” said Cassandra. “We’re done. Why don’t you get some rest?”
Jarius closed his eyes. He whispered something Cassandra couldn’t understand.
“What’s that, Daddy?” she asked.
But he was asleep, the cat curled beside him.
The HD hologram of a red-haired woman with oversized glasses rotated slowly in front of Judge O’Connor’s bench.
“Ms. Renee Elder, fifty-two, works as a floral designer. Divorced with two children. Grew up in Grand Rapids, moved to Detroit to attend Wayne State University to study art education but didn’t finish. On tab two you can see the various organizations she associates with, any volunteer activity, religious affiliations, and so on. And on tab three are her stances on a range of issues, from the death penalty to climate contamination.” O’Connor looked up from reading the identity brief and addressed the attorneys. “Any objections?”
“None, Your Honor,” said Cervantez.
At the next table, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Jessica Blick leaned over to consult with Forrest.
“Your Honor,” she said, “this juror would be acceptable if we modulated her emotional quotient as related to her oldest daughter’s problems with drug addiction. The daughter’s been in and out of rehab for several years.”
“Mr. Cervantez?” asked O’Connor.
“I don’t see what the daughter’s experimenting with drugs has to do with Ms. Elder’s suitability for this jury,” said Cervantez. “In fact—”
“Mr. Cervantez,” cautioned O’Connor.
The defense attorney sighed and looked at Cassandra, who was drilling down on the identity construct and calculating bias percentages. She whispered to Cervantez her recommendation and the attorney nodded.
“Your Honor, we would accept a modulation of thirty-five points to fall within the impartial range,” he said.
“That wasn’t so hard now, was it, Mr. Cervantez?” said O’Connor. “Does that sound acceptable to you, Ms. Blick?”
Forrest nodded and Blick said, “Yes, Your Honor.”
“Good, that’s what I like to see. Everyone working together,” said O’Connor. “Then if there are no more objections we have juror number three.” The hologram of the red-haired woman dissolved to be replaced by an older white man with a lean, shaved face and perfectly styled silver hair.
“Mr. Ian McMasters,” said O’Connor.
Two hours later a jury had been selected, and O’Connor scheduled the trial to begin the following morning.
Cervantez leaned over and whispered to Cassandra, “I think somebody is anxious to start writing his next book.”
Remote-controlled vid-drones whirred and hovered in the back of the courtroom like hummingbirds, streaming the trial live to subscription criminal justice channels.
Blick’s first witness was Detective Darrell Foster, a square-jawed man with a closely trimmed Afro. The bailiff clipped a response sensor to the detective’s right index finger and affixed a visceral patch below his left temple. A subcontractor had developed the advanced polygraph technology for Real Thought Analytics to interface with the Surrogates, who could judge the truthfulness of a witness’s account through the extensive physiological feedback.
With Blick’s guidance, Foster described the murder scene and the steps of the investigation that had led to the arrest of Ammie Moore. Throughout his testimony, he shot uncertain sideways glances at the avatars projected in the jury box. Under cross, Cervantez established that police had not found the knife used to kill Russell Lipke or any bloody clothes they could identify as belonging to the defendant.
“And finally, Detective Foster, I’m curious why you failed to interview Ammie Moore’s boyfriend, Charles Jackson,” said Cervantez.
“You mean her pimp?” asked the detective.
“Yes, a violent man known on the street as C-Jack.”
Foster shrugged. “We couldn’t find him.”
“I see,” said Cervantez. “Did you look very hard, Detective Foster, or had you already decided a poor drug addict nobody would believe was good enough?”
“Objection,” said Blick.
“Withdrawn,” said Cervantez. “No further questions, Your Honor.”
When he returned to his seat, Cassandra leaned over to remind him the Surrogates would not be affected by inflammatory language.
“Old habits die hard,” said Cervantez with a grin.
Ammie was dressed in a blue pantsuit that came from a wardrobe Cervantez had picked up over the years from thrift shops and kept in a closet in his office. He’d also gotten the doctor to up her dose of khem so that she didn’t reveal telltale signs of withdrawal. With her hair brushed and wearing makeup, Ammie almost looked as if she could be an innocent college student. Cassandra told Cervantez the measures were unnecessary because the Surrogates would not assign any judgment based on a defendant’s appearance, but Cervantez insisted; it was more for Ammie’s dignity than the jury, he said.
The remaining witnesses included the medical examiner, who testified to the nature and angle of the more than a dozen stab wounds found on the victim, and an expert from the state crime lab, who established that trace evidence of blood and hair found on the passenger seat belonged to the defendant. It took time for the expert witnesses to become comfortable with the idea that they were freed from having to simplify technical descriptions into layman’s terms, because the Surrogates had access to scientific portals that provided comprehensive glossaries. Once the ME and lab tech got the hang of it, they almost delighted in spouting industry acronyms and jargon.