‘Haven’t seen one of these for a while,’ said the second operative, picking up Libby’s device to show his colleague. He tried to flex its unbendable chassis and it threatened to crack.
‘Careful,’ said Libby.
‘I bet she still uses cash too,’ his colleague added.
Once X-rayed, they returned her handbag but her phone and watch were placed in a silver metal locker under the table. White discs strapped to the palms of his hands were used to scan Libby from head to toe in search of recording or communication devices. Satisfied she possessed neither, the shorter of the two men removed a swab from a sealed packet.
‘Mouth,’ he said and on her tongue placed the cotton end, which was then inserted into a cylindrical case the size of a pen lid. With his face up close to hers, Libby noticed that reflected on the inside of his Smart lens wasa tiny image of herself, likely taken from her National Identity Card along with information only he could read.
‘Speak into this,’ he continued and held a tablet towards her mouth. ‘Name.’
‘Libby Dixon,’ she said, and a green tick appeared on the voiceprint recognition screen.
‘Will I have to do this every day?’ she asked. ‘I don’t see my DNA or voice changing much over the next twenty-four hours.’
‘Rules are rules,’ he replied and escorted her towards another hefty set of doors. He typed in a code and scanned his own eye before they opened into a generous-sized, square chamber. Inside, two men and two women were gathered in a corner under arched opaque windows that could neither been seen into nor out of. With their backs towards Libby, they turned only their heads at the sound of the moving hinges.
‘Hello again,’ she began and offered a nervous smile to no one in particular. They replied with nods instead of words and continued their conversation.
It was exactly the same unfriendly, sterile environment as it was yesterday. Four broad wooden desks were set out in a semicircle formation in the centre of the room. They faced a triple aspect wall on which Libby could just about make out the faint outlines of twelve television screens, one much larger than the others. In the corner of each was the word ‘offline’. Shoulder-high mahogany wall panelling ran all the way around the room.
To Libby’s left were three more tables where two men sat quietly, each wearing Smart glasses and with only tablets laid out in front of them and virtual keyboards projected on to smoked glass surfaces. Now that phones and tablets had the same capabilities as desktop computers or laptops, Libby couldn’t recall the last time she’d come across either.
One of them was a stenographer, there to digitally record and type notes of everything discussed once proceedings were called to order. The other was responsible for projecting visuals on to the wall. Neither had spoken more than a handful of words yesterday.
Unsure of what to do with herself until the clock struck nine, Libby removed her pastry from a paper bag and pulled off a piece to nibble on.
‘There is no food to be consumed in here,’ sniffed a woman with a Scottish accent. She wore a dark-blue plaid skirt and matching jacket. Libby felt her face redden like she’d been told off by a teacher and she dropped the snack into a metal bin. ‘That’s for paper only,’ the woman added.
Libby searched for another dustbin to no avail, so she reached in to grab it, then slipped the pastry back into her handbag instead. Suddenly, a green light on the wall flashed.
‘Right, shall we begin?’ a voice began and a man turned. He eyed Libby up and down distrustfully, but tried to disguise it with a disingenuous smile. Jack Larsson was a Member of Parliament, cabinet minister and the only face she recognised from outside the room from his occasional television appearances. As he moved towards the tables, he whistled the opening bars of an old song she recognised called ‘Feeling Good’. Considering the serious nature of what they were about to discuss, it wasn’t the most appropriate of choices.
As each of his colleagues made their way towards the desks, she hesitated, waiting until they were all seated before pulling out a chair. Yesterday she’d received short shrift from the woman in plaid for choosing a seat not apparently allocated to her. Libby’s chair was the furthest from the exit she’d have to wait the entire day to use again.
Aside from Jack Larsson, she had no idea of the other people’s names. She had been warned by one of the security operatives that asking any personal details, even a Christian name, was strictly prohibited. However, she had been made to wear a silver badge with Miss Dixon etched in black capital letters.
The person controlling the footage placed a black, metallic briefcase in front of Jack, then typed a combination into an electronic keypad before the catches clicked open. He removed its only contents – five electronic tablet-like devices – and handed one to each person. Libby was the last.
‘Begin recording,’ Jack ordered. ‘System recording,’ the stenographer replied, and Libby could just about hear his fingers gently tapping on the glass keyboard.
‘Well, ladies and gentlemen, we all know the routine by now,’ Jack continued. ‘But in accordance with the Road Traffic Act Autonomous Car Provisions, I’m obliged to remind you that I am calling a start to meeting number 3121 of the Vehicle Inquest Jury. Our purpose is to hear what each car’s black box has to say about an accident and thus apportion liability. Today, the burden of responsibility will be upon you to decide whether people involved in fatal collisions with driverless vehicles were either killed lawfully or unlawfully. Either man or machine is to blame, and you will decide.’
Libby knew what was to come next and she hated that she had been forced to be a part of it.
Chapter 9
Libby ran her eyes across her fellow jury members as foreman Jack Larsson continued to read aloud a mandatory list of rules and guidelines.
As the head of the Government’s Ministry for Transport, Jack’s appearance yesterday came as a surprise to her. Initially she found him an affable manand the only one of the four to introduce himself to her, shake her hand and offer her a coffee. Despite landing somewhere in his sixties, his stocky physique and shaven head made him a physically dominating presence. His nose and thick lips were pronounced and his hazel eyes bored straight through anyone who challenged him with the ease of a drill going through water. His perma-tan suggested a man who frequently holidayed abroad.
Libby had been too self-conscious to regard any of the jurors properly yesterday. But now, as Jack spoke, she took the opportunity to assess them all.
She placed the Scottish woman in plaid sitting next to Jack as in her forties. She wasn’t listening to the speech she must have heard a hundred times before and surfed her tablet instead. Libby noted that each time she dropped her head to something, her frameless glasses slipped to the end of her nose before she pushed them up again.
Adjacent to her was a handsome, younger man who represented the General Medical Council and wore an olive-green tailored Tweed jacket over a crisp white shirt with silver cufflinks in the shape of pills. His eyes were as rich and chocolatey as the colour of his hair and the stubble growing from his cheeks and chin. He had paid her no attention and Libby had yet to witness him smile. Outside of those four walls, she might well have been attracted to him.
At the end of the row of desks sat a plump woman with thick red hair, little to no make-up, and clad in dull, shapeless clothing and a chunky black wristwatch. Her face was softer than the woman in plaid’s. A solitary hair poked out from a nostril and it was all Libby could do to stop herself from leaning over and plucking it out. On the lapel of the woman’s jacket were the redembroidered letters ‘RP’, an acronym for Religious Pluralist.
