The Reform Box

When Jacob committed the crime he didn't think of the consequences of his actions. In the heat of the moment all he had thought about was release to the anger that was coursing through his veins at the time. He saw her with John. She in his arms, being hold and loved by him and he had just let the world burn red around him.


Before he knew it he had killed them both. He hit them both with a statue of the Buddha that then was left sitting to the ruins of her head afterward. He hadn't meant to, that is what he said to the judge. But Jacob and the judge both knew that for the lie that it was.


He meant to, he would do it again if it were before him now, people didn't change, but the scenery did, and that is what caused the different actions for each reaction. The go and the stop the push and the pull of every choice that is made by each person, at least that is what Jacob thought.


When Jacob first heard his sentence from the judge he wondered if he had heard him correctly. Not many people were released from jails any longer since psychiatry had been determined to be a false science after the rise of the Technocracy during the mid 21st century. Men, and women to be fair, were determined by reading signals in their brain whether they were recoverable or not, if they were Reform was immediately implemented and then they were released to the public to live a life without the impulses to gravitate back to crime and without the stigma that was attached to it in previous times.


In essence it was worse and better depending on your point of view. Worse in that it destroyed the person that used to exist, the person that would have committed the crime was wiped away with new motivations, new ideas, new belief's. Even if the person has the same memories, is this the same person?

However, it was seen to be a better solution than to keep the prisons increasing in size and it had an almost perfect record for correcting behavior, though none of the people who went in were ever the same person again, crime did go down astronomically, there were no repeat offenders for the major crimes. Though you could still get at least 3 speeding tickets in a year without the need for going in for a 'correction'.


Some people were unlucky enough to be incurable as deemed by the AI's that controlled the societies prisons, these very few, less than 1 in 1000, were immediately disposed of, without qualm by the machines of the Technocracy to assure humane treatment.


No one spoke about the cure for the crimes, what drugs if any, were used. Of course something was done to alter the brain but none of the previous inmates could or would speak of it after they came back to society. Plus it would have been rude to bring up, kind of like asking a German why they killed so many innocents in World War II, or asking the Mongolians why Genghis invaded Europe. It wasn't fair or relevant, and these people were not the ones who went in regardless of whether they kept the same names.


"Jacob? Do you understand what I am telling you?" My lawyer asked me again.


"What?" I said. I was staring out into the courtroom, my heart beating loudly in ears. I could barely hear him.


"Guilty." He said, and looked so guilty himself that he blushed red and sweat poured off his skin. None of my family was there, they knew I was guilty of the crime, and her family had all died when she was young.


"There will be no appeal, none allowed in this case. You are sentenced to undergo reform at the soonest possible time. Until then you will be confined in the Stormlake's prison and kept there until such time as your sentence can be carried out." The quiet robot voice spoke out of the speakers in the wall, a simulated face shone out of it.

People said that the simulated faces were used so judges wouldn't be identified by the public and ridiculed. At least that is what they said out loud so everyone could hear. But there were whispers that there were no more human judges, there were only machines left.


So I sat in my cell until today in Stormlake prison. Until this morning when I was taken to a waiting room by a woman with blonde hair, so yellow that it was almost white. She was wery thin in a white jacket and suit pants, with very tight curves and ribs that were visible as they rose up and down in her jacket.


"Jacob", she said and smiled at me "please follow me."


"You're it? Where are the guards?"


"I don't need guards Jacob. You don't want to give me trouble do you?" She smiled in the dark gloom of the hallway as we headed toward the waiting room, and in that smile that never reached her eyes, I could see she wanted me to give her trouble, was begging for it. Her eyes were beyond lifeless, they were the chill product of dead space where even matter never roamed.


"No ma'am, I don't".


"I thought not. Ah here we are." She said and pointed to a chair, she pointed to a chair, "Please sit, and I will explain a few things you are no doubt wondering about. First of all, there is no physical torture used in the Reform process, second you will be unable to speak of it afterward. This is a side affect of the treatment that we have not been able to remove over the years, though we have tried quite a bit let me tell you." She smiled a 'gosh darn ole silly us' grin at me.


"We think it would help further reduce crime, however it is beside the point." She said. "Most people don't die during the Reform, though some do, currently we don't think you will be one of them, so you can relax on that point."

"How sure..." This seemed like a very relevant point to me and something to be discussed at length.


Her voice deepened instantly and her black eyes turned an even darker shade of nothing. "I will not tolerate interruption sir, you may survive the Reform, but I assure you, I am not something you would survive without scars." She frowned at me a moment then looked down at her hand and scratched at it.


Her smile came back, and she looked up, "In any case you will wait here while the Reform room here is prepared for you." With that she stood up and the two walls on my right and left disappeared and I could see sitting in the same area as me, three other men.


"You may of course speak with the others." She said.


"How long is the wait?" I asked standing up.


"As long as it takes." She said and left the room by the one door that was visible.


"No use asking" A man named Johnson said as he stood up and shook my hand, "I'm Johnson, I've been here for about five days I think. The only way out is the door she left through."


"Why not go through then?" I asked.


"Ask him." Johnson said and pointed to a man who sat unmoving and staring off into space. "He said he was here when I got here for three months, but I don't see how, they don't bring us water, or food. You couldn't live here that long. Besides I haven't pissed in three days, and when he would still talk like a sane man he said he hadn't either. I only think it's been three days because that is as many times as I have slept."


"The box, it sits in the dark, waiting for you, when you go, and then it opens. Then you see, oh god so much. Do you understand? The box! The Box!" The man in the chair started speaking in a wail.


"Huh? What box?" I said.


"Oh please don't encourage him." Said the other man, Steven's was his name, "I'm Steven's." He said and shook my hand, he had a firm grip and dry hands. "Before you ask, I don't know how long I have been here; I came in after that crazy shit, whoever he is, and before Johnson here. I watched the crazy shit go nuts though, after he looked into the room and from the way he screamed I think I will stay here, thank you very much."


"Won't we starve if they don't feed us?" I said.


"Ain't hungry." Steven's said. "So, the question of the moment is of course what did we do to get here." Then he grunted.


"Well..." I said.


"Yeah? I stole a car. After the Technocracy took over here in North America, the back waters of Wyoming were not part of their grand plan at first, so I stole a car to get there before it was planted with GPS signalers and an AI unit." He then spit on the ground. "But it was already bugged you see. So they found me."

Something didn't seem quite right when he said it.


"Johnson here got drunk, ran into a bus full of kids, and hurt a few, though thankfully none were killed." Steven's said.


"Yes." Was all Johnson said.


"I ..." I said, and my voice was quiet.


"You can tell us, none of us will know man when we leave, we won't even remember this. Get it off your chest."


"I stole some money from my company" I said quickly.


"Huh?" Johnson said, "That isn't so bad."

"Liar" said the voice behind us.

It was the man who didn't have a name. "What." I said.

"You lie." He said. "You killed those two people in rage."

"What? Steven's lies too, no one has stolen a car in ages, and the Technocracy was founded thirty years ago"


"This boy has gone strange on us Johnson, let's beat it." Steven's growled at me and they walked across the room. I was left with the crazy man who knew my lie.


"Lies." He said.

"Screw off and die, how do you know!" I said indignantly. Then suddenly I knew how he knew.

"I know." He said and looked up and I saw my face there.

My face was always there I remembered now.

I screamed and ran, to the door and in that room, was the box.

I went in, the door closed and sitting on that table was the box and the box shuddered.

The door closed, and the box opened.


I screamed.