Right to Live

“I swear on all that’s holy, on my life, everything I am, have been and ever will be that I was born human. I don’t know how I ended up as a droid but I know my name was Mario Washington.” Metal fingers crunched into the wood of the witness stand.

If he could only sweat it would have been running off him in waves.

“Impossible. There is no such thing as a man becoming a droid. It’s impossible,” said the prosecution lawyer. “This entire case is a blatant waste of taxpayer money. The droid has no rights. He attacked his owner. He should be decommissioned as per the law.”

“I know things no droid could,” Mario yelled. “I know what it feels like to have morning wood and need a piss when you wake up. I know how you feel dizzy after sneezing. You say it’s impossible that I was human. How many droids lie? If one is possible, why not the other.”

“It is simple enough for droids to be programmed to give out false responses. It should be scrapped without delay. It was clearly the work of a criminal enterprise.”

“I AM NOT AN IT. MY NAME IS MARIO WASHINGTON.” Seeing the fear and knowing it could turn against him, Mario turned down his volume. “I was born on July sixth on Pennsylvania Avenue in Terrance City, Missouri.”

“Ridiculous,” said the prosecutor, smirking.

“I’m not an empty coke can you can crush when you’re done with it. I was born in America. I have rights! Robots don’t fear death. They don’t beg.” Mario sank to his steel and aluminum composite knees. He clapped his hands together, weaving the fingers together. “I’m begging you. Please don’t kill me.”

“Whatever scam or prank this is, it makes fools of us. Somewhere there’s a marketing team waiting for their pay when this machine gets off with this farcical performance. I’ll admit, it’s impressive. But we all know it’s a lie.”

“I’m not lying,” said the droid, wishing he had tears to cry. His head hung, motors whirring as the joint in his neck spun.

“Defendant,” the prosecutor began.

“Mario. My name is Mario.”

“Mario then, your story was investigated. The man you claim to be died years before your incident in the warehouse.” The lawyer's face was granite hard, icy stare picturing the droid in a car crusher.

“Years, what do you mean years? What year is it?”

“The year, droid, is 2343. Is that news to you.”

“Why didn’t the police tell me that?”

“Probably because droids have an internal clock. Will you not admit now, that you are at present a droid?”

“I know it’s 6:47 pm. My clock doesn’t have the date.”

“Unlikely.”

Leaning forward in his chair, the judge eyed Mario through his glasses. “Be you a man or a machine, Mario. You committed a crime. You have not denied the assault. Being a droid doesn’t excuse you from consequences any more than being a man would.” The black garment the judge wore hid his body language from human eyes as it billowed in excessive folds. His eyes had an imperious brown stab. His posture, revealed by the thermal filter of Mario’s lenses, was tense but measured. He would not snap to judgment to please the prosecutor. Neither would he spare the droid for anything less than cold hard logic.

“Please, your honor. I understand that my case is without precedent. Try me as a man, I beg you. Give me the sentence befitting the assault I committed. If I cannot prove my life by the end of the sentence then it would cost nothing but the electricity to charge me. Please. If you send me to death, and I am a man, for a crime that would only mean years for any other, could you live with that? Would you never doubt yourself?”

Analysis of the frown the judge gave him told Mario he had made a mistake. Asking how Judge Matthews would feel had come off as emotional manipulation. An instinctive response of anger began to blossom across the liver spotted face of the octogenarian.

“I know I hurt someone. I should be punished. But I don’t want to die. Please don’t kill me.”

Sitting back in his chair, the judge looked up at the stained wood of the ceiling. The building had been around longer than robots, almost as old as America itself. Whatever the judge’s call, Mario was sure the mighty granite stones would outlast him. The only question was by what degree.

“I need time to deliberate on the case,” said Judge Matthews. “I hereby adjourn court until,” his eyes flicked to the clock on the far wall, “tomorrow at seven am. This case has many implications, wide reaching. Both the prosecution and the defendant himself have raised questions I must consider carefully.”

The gavel hit with a clack.

The prosecution lawyer sighed, shaking his head as his eyes rolled over Mario like a truck through a smudge of roadkill.

Security droids clapped reinforced handcuffs over Mario’s wrists, leading him out of the court.

“That went much better than I expected,” said Mario’s lawyer, appointed by the court.

“No thanks to you,” the droid grunted.

“Legally speaking this was an open and shut case, Mario. Whether you were a man or not, you’re a droid now. Any droid that injures a human through its own decisions in contravention of the laws of robotics is summarily scrapped as standard practice. To even make it to court was a minor miracle.

I normally represent drunk drivers, Mario. This is way out of my wheelhouse. I’m sorry. Proving you’re human, or that you were is your best chance but I have no idea how we do that.

All of the records about your life are gone. I’ve been searching for any trace of Mario Washington. I can’t find anything. No social media. Medical records, social security. School records. None of it exists.” The pasty man scratched his thinning hair. A rash at his hairline had claw marks through it.

Mario’s processors raced. “But, what about the graves of my parents?”

“The plots you mentioned are blank. There are no headstones.” Sweat patches showed in the man’s armpits as he scratched again. A faded wedding band of copper discolored the finger it enclosed.

“My ex-girlfriend? Maria?” Mario’s lenses scanned signs that his lawyer was in the early stages of diabetes and clearly had eczema.

“Emigrated. She’s not in America anymore and I’ve had no luck contacting her.”

“Military records? My unit?” Mario flexed fingers that had been flesh and bone, had held an assault rifle during deployment on bases halfway across the world.

“The USMC has been blocking our requests, they say records from the unit you mentioned are confidential. Their lawyers have appealed against my requests for the files.”

“Can you get a school yearbook from Corvin High 2328? I have a profile and I’m in graduation photo. Anyone from my year should have it. Please Johnathan, they’re going to kill me.” He remembered being the quarterback in high school, legs devouring the football field as he dodged with athletic majesty cut short by a broken ankle.

“I’ll do what I can. I have a list of graduates from that year. Several have left the country.”

“Thank you, Johnathan. I’m counting on you. Can you find a way for me to replay my footage tomorrow. I want to show the judge what happened when I woke up. Hearing about it, he can think I lied or left things out. He can watch it for himself.”

Chains across his chest in utter darkness. No cold even though he knew it should have been. Struggling free of badly wrapped bindings. The lid of the box opened. A grouchy face looked down at him with disgust.

‘Get back in there.’ 

‘Let me out.’ He pushed up, free of chains. A hand reached down to push him back into the darkness. He slapped the grasping digits aside and hauled himself up into the flickering light of a warehouse.

‘I said, get back in the box, piece of shit. Do as you’re fucking told, bot.’ A glance at a metal hand. The man raised a stunner that short circuited droids that were malfunctioning. He slapped the arm away with enough force to break it.

“Defendant.” The guard’s voice stirred Mario from replaying the video in his head. “You’re up.”

Pulling a charging cable from his port, he stood and approached the bars, offering his wrists through the slot. Cuffs clicked shut.

“Security.” The droids that escorted tax evaders, drunken brawlers and killers alike to their fate stomped across the concrete floor of the jail. Their hands were specifically designed to hold an arm without bruising it, much like handcuffs but with three digits that could move independently. They escorted him back to the courtroom through the back corridors.

Johnathan gulped as his client entered. Mario’s metal soul sighed. He nodded. The man had done his best. Forces bigger than either of them wanted him to die. It was all up to the judge. Judge Matthews was the last to enter, press and legal teams standing until he sat.

“Once again, gentleman, why not make your cases?” The wizened man leaned forwards in his raised chair. “This has been an intriguing case indeed. Never in my forty years of service have I heard anything like it.” He waved a hand to the prosecution.

“Your honour. This case is simple. The droid is malfunctioning and poses a risk to the public. It has harmed a human, violating the laws of robotics which keep us all safe. Allowing it to exist threatens us all. Manufacturers would cite this case as precedent that droids are not required to follow Asimov’s laws. For the safety of Americans and all of humanity, you must find the defendant guilty, not as a man, but as a droid. It must be decommissioned. It has presented itself as a man reborn as a droid, but has given no evidence to prove the man it claims to be ever existed.”

The door of the court room opened cautiously, a pimply face peered through, trying to sneak down the center aisle despite all eyes being on the intruder.

“Young man, this had better be of the highest importance,” said the judge to the thirty year old carrying an envelope the size of a picture book.

“Your honour, I believe this may be the evidence to show that Mario Washington at very least, existed.” Johnathan took the envelope from the runner and nodded. Sweat on the lawyers forehead splashed on the court desk as his bitten nails ripped open the envelope.

Mario recognised the faded read cover of the Corvid High Yearbook 2328. The lawyer flipped through the pages desperately. Stopping with a wide childlike smile on his ashen face, he held the book high.

“It’s here, your honour. Definitive proof that Mario Washington existed. His photograph, profile and a group photo of him with his peers.”

Johnathan rushed to the judge to hand over the book. The prosecutor raised his hand, not waiting for permission to speak.

“With all due respect, that book proves nothing. Creating something like that is child’s play. This is nothing more than another delaying tactic in a clear cut case.” His smooth black suit contrasted the deep frown in his surgically youthful face. His eyes burnt with anger.

“There has been a pattern of missing evidence in this case which I would argue hints at efforts to cover up something relating to my client.” Jonathan said, speaking with strength Mario hadn’t heard before. “Tombstones removed recently. Would be witnesses who decided to emigrate since the trial was announced. I must argue that without speaking to these people we cannot be sure whether Mario Washington probably existed or not.”

“My honorable colleague seems to be wilfully ignoring the fact that this case does not hinge on whether Mario Washington existed. It regards the conduct of a droid and the wider safety of the public.”

“The USMC has withheld evidence that would prove one way or another whether the defendant has told the truth about his service on behalf of the country.”

Frowning at the book in his hands, the judge looked at Mario in the dock. “How did you receive the scar on your left cheek?”

“I got the scar on my right cheek when I was three, sir. Standing up under a table, I cut my face on the corner.”

The judge nodded. “What is the motto of your school?”

“Usque conabor, sir, I will try harder.” The droid watched the old man above him with a flicker of hope.

“What were you wearing when the photo was taken?” asked the judge.

“My letter jacket. I had a lipstick stain on my cheek because my girlfriend Maria Winters thought it was funny.” Memories from before he’d become a droid were frustratingly vague.

“I want to speak to Maria Winters,” said the judge, squinting as he flipped through the pages. “I also want the USMC records. Unlike a yearbook,” he held it up, “they aren’t easily tampered with.” He bit his lip. “Councillor McKay, I’m going to give you two months to track down Maria Winters and the records for Mario Washington’s USMC service. If you cannot, or if Maria Winters testifies that she never knew Mario, or that she did but this droid is nothing like him, then I will sentence the droid to decommissioning. You will be given appropriate funds to have Miss Winters travel here. I will make a point of contacting the USMC. While they have a right to confidentiality, it does not exclude them from legal cases such as this.”

Two months passed in a cell. Jonathan had tracked Maria to Hong Kong and arranged for her flights and accommodation. The United States Marine Core had resisted disclosing Mario’s records for a whole month, but had finally given in to the insistence of Judge Matthews. Birth records for Mario were missing, but Jonathan found photos of him in his kindergarten which had been analyzed by experts and verified as accurate.

An expert on the field of brain wave mapping was to testify at the final hearing that while Mario’s story was unlikely, there were two dozen companies registered in America working on consciousness transference. Police investigating Mario’s disappearance would testify that their case had been shut down from high above.

With a week to go, Jonathan found an intelligence expert who would testify that Mario Washington had been ‘scrubbed’. It was a term used in high powered circles for making a person not just disappear, but making it seem that they never existed.

“What did you once tell me my birthmark looked like?” Maria asked Mario from the stand.

“The Statue of Liberty holding a dolphin instead of the torch.” Mario laughed in a sound that was entirely inhuman.

“What’s my darkest secret?” Her green eyes had lost their teenaged shine, weathered with red.

“You’re afraid of marshmallows.”

She shivered. “That’s Mario alright.”

“Miss Winters, I wanted to ask you, for the court, why you moved to Hong Kong in the first place?”

“I’ve was given a job offer I couldn’t refuse. An apartment paid for, more pay per month than I made per year. It was too good to be true.”

“And was it? Did you get everything you were promised?” Jonathan asked, he wore a brand new suit. Normally disheveled hair was gelled in place.

“Yeah, which is weird. No one else I work with got that. I’m paid more than my manager. I wasn’t even qualified for the job.”

Judge Matthews gave the court a long glance before giving his verdict. “This trial is unprecedented. After witnessing testimony from experts in the relevant fields, I feel that the defendant’s testimony is not only possible, but may represent a terrifying future for us all.

Having witnessed the defendant’s emotional outbursts and the disturbing footage of his awakening, I can only think of him as Mario Washington. Therefore I try him today as a man, not a droid. With the best evidence I have been presented and what is clearly a campaign to hide the facts around his creation, I sentence Mario Washington to time served and demand that he be released as soon as possible.”

Gasps from the press seating turning into the whirs and clicks of cameras. Lights flashed.

“Thank you, sir.” The lens covers shuttered, blacking out Mario’s view of the world.

“You’re welcome,” said the judge. “I fear the fight has just begun for you. I wish you the best. You have the right to live. Many won’t believe that.”

The prosecutor stormed out of the court shaking his head.

After signing paperwork, Mario’s cuffs were removed. Maria met him in the lobby of the courthouse. Her eyes scoured him for the boy she’d known.

“Thank you,” he tried to smile, but lacked the capacity.

“You’re welcome. This is surreal though.”

“How do you think I feel?” He tried to laugh again. The distorted mess of sounds that left his speakers sounded more human than before, but needed work.

Mario walked down the steps with press drones hovering in the air around him. Flashes and questions overwhelmed him.

The bullet knocked him back onto the steps. Further shots registered to his microphones.

“MARIO!” Maria’s voice echoed in his digital mind.

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