A Change.

The tension was so thick you’d need a chain saw to cut it.

Sam sat in the far back right corner of the packed courtroom next to the senior reporter for the ‘left wing’ news agency. The reporter for the ‘right wing’ sat opposite to them, on the left corner.

He was just an intern but his ocular camera was turned on. A simple set of contact lenses that were linked to a chip implanted in the occipital lobe of the brain. He had a perfect view of the defendant, his stress was evident, staining the man’s features. It was authentic, and rightfully so.

The hushed conversations ceased upon the entrance of the jury. So silent it became that the movement of their clothing sounded as if there were microphones attached. Their steps were not synchronized but felt orchestrated.

He wanted a smoke.

A speaker for the jury rose and the judge asked if they had reached a verdict.

“We have, your honor,” he said, “We the jury find the defendant, Chris Stevens, guilty of first degree murder.”

Sam was stunned to silence as the court room erupted into cries and gasps of disbelief. The victims family clenching their fist, tears pouring down their cheeks while some raised their hands as if in a church service.

The defendant‘s family sat shocked in disbelief. Sam had slowly gazed at them all in an even pan, his instructions as a reporter at the hearing. His attention ended upon the defendant, who held his face within his palms, head lowered, his life over.

They had been calling it the biggest landmark case in human history and they might have been right. Stevens wife had died in a brutal car accident on her way to work. Her name was Shannon, 35 years of age and a mother to three children.

It was an autonomous car she was in, hit nearly head on by another autonomous vehicle. They said it was some sort of outlandish malfunction, something they could not have imagined. This judgment clears both companies of any fault or financial retribution.

It had been a phone call that was Stevens undoing. He admitted to his mother that he wanted her to die. That he imagined it would be a car accident, that she would not suffer but he would be free from a woman he no longer loved. He did not say any of this without remorse. The conversation had been interrupted with choked sobs of grief.

Society had advanced enough to the point that the human design chart of each individual was recorded at birth. Whether they were a Projector or Generator, they were taught differently at school. But Stevens had missed that boat, his generation being raised in the older form of an educational system. This did not, however, excuse him of his part in the human evolution.

This was the first case where a Manifester was held responsible for the input they issued into the universal code.