Other stories may be found in Thom's Library.

"Yer honours, I din't mean to do it. It was strictly an accident. I din't mean to make her pregnant. You gotta understand how it happened. Let me tell you. You'll unnerstand when I explain it." Alphie was sweating buckets.

The three judges looked like the hardest crew he'd ever tried to hustle. The one in the centre just stared daggers at him. He never saw him blink. The one on the right was nodding off. His eyes were half-closed and he sounded like he was snoring. Damn hard to con a man when he's asleep. The one on the left was paying more attention to his desktop screen than to Alphie. He never thought a judge would be so techno.

But the stakes were high. This was real life. These judges could take everything he had. He had to give it his best shot. More. He had to win.

"So tell us how it happened."

At first, Alphie could not tell which judge had spoken. Then he figured out that it was the one on the right. Guess he wasn't asleep after all. He had not looked up and had barely moved his mouth. Then he spoke again, "Come on, just get on with it. We're waiting."

"Yessir. It's like this, sir. I was just trolling the net looking for a little company. Y'know. Look for a little thrill of the feminine persuasion. Y'know. Everyone does it."

"I don't do it." The centre judge glared even more intensely.

"No, yer honour. I didn't mean you. Everyone else. Y'know. People who like to meet other people. Y'know. Not like you. People who like a little excitement." All three judges were now looking up, glaring at him. This was not going well. "Umm. Like, young people?" He scanned the sour faces. The judges looked old. And grumpy.

"Just tell us what you did." Almost a snarl.

"Oh. Ok. Sure, yer honour." Alphie licked his lips. "So, like, I was cruising the net, y'know. Dressed in my drop-dead duds and stopping in at all the hot spots. Mutter on the net was that Club Paree was the place to be, so I slammed into the F. R. domain and found the site. The mutter was right. It was jumpin'. More talent than hunk, if y'know what I mean."

"No. We don't." The judge on the left was playing with his computer again. "Who is this mutter?"

"It ain't nobody. It's everybody. It's just what people are sayin'. On the Net."

"You were dressed up? Were you using a camera?"

"Nah. It don't work like that. You use a masker. Y'know. A computer program? I had my box programmed to show me dressed up in a pink tux."

"You weren't wearing a pink tux?"

"On the net."

"But not really."

"As real as anything on the net."

"So, if I understand correctly, you were, through the assistance of this computer program, disguising your appearance?" The judge on the left was typing something on his keyboard.

"Nah. Not really. I wasn't disguising my face much. I still looked like a man. I don't cross no lines. And it didn't look like anyone else was crossin' any lines, either. There were more good-looking ladies of the feminine persuasion than men at the club. Plenty to go around, if you know what I mean."

"You program your own computer?"

"No. That's just a way o' talking. I mean I'd installed a masker that someone gave me."

"Gave you?" The centre judge raised an eyebrow.

"Umm...Yeah, I..." Alphie stopped taking. He thought that it would be a bad idea to explain how he came into possession of one of the primo maskers without paying the megabucks that the rip-off companies were charging. After all, this was a court of law. They might not be a sympathetic to the individual action in the struggle to keep information free.

The judge at the computer interrupted. "As information fraud is not legally related to the charges under consideration, I am obligated to advise you that you are not required to respond to this question in any way that would incriminate you. You may not perjure yourself, but you have the right to continue your story without reference to the source of your software, even if that means ignoring the last question."

The judge in the centre glared at the judge on the left.

The judge on the right yawned and nodded.

Alphie was confused but understood that he should forget about the masker and get back to his story. "Anyway, so back at the Club Paree, I was just chatting up a few chicks. Y'know, giving them my standard lines. And one..."

"Excuse me. Standard lines? Exactly what were you telling them?" The judge on the right was looking a little more awake. Alphie was disconcerted to see that the judge in the centre had entered something into his computer. He looked up to glare at Alphie again.

"I don't exactly know, yer honour."

"You mean you don't remember?"

"No, sir. I mean I don't know. I have a rodney. I tell it to do funny and sexy and it makes up the jokes. I don't listen to them. I try a bogart sometimes, but the chicks go for funny more than serious. Puts them at ease, y'know."

"You mean the women see your face telling jokes that you don't even know?"

"Yeah, well, kinda."

"Kind of?"

"Yeah. It's kinda my face. The masker improves it a little." Alphie hastened to add, "But nothing too much. I don't cross no lines, y'know. I don't think that's right. Besides I don't wanna attract guys or nothin'. I go as white, male, mid-twenties. I just smooth the skin a little, darken my hair, stronger chin and cheekbones. Y'know."

More glares from the centre judge. "You mean that the women see someone else's face dressed in a pink tux telling someone else's jokes? That's your idea of a seduction."

"Yeah."

Silence.

After a long minute, Alphie returned to his sad tale of misunderstanding. "So anyway, I was talking to this foxy marilyn and twigged that she was in the city in real space..."

"Marilyn?" The judge on the right consulted his computer screen. "The complaint was brought by a woman named, 'Ruth Anne.' Who is Marilyn? Is she relevant to these proceedings?"

"No, your honour. That's Ruth Anne. Ruth Anne was a marilyn. Y'know. Blond hair. Pouty lips. Whispery voice. And a black sequined number that would kill a lesser man just to see. To hear her laugh at my rodney, I just about cream..." Alphie stopped himself, certain that he was not generating much sympathy.

The centre judge took the opportunity to ask, "What do you mean, '...she was in the city in real space...?'"

Alphie looked surprised. "Why, that she was here. Right here. Not in New York or Jakarta or Mexico or anywhere. She was right here in T. O. She lived in Burlington."

"How did you come to this conclusion?"

"We was talkin' about drinks and I said I was drinkin' Upper Canada Ale, y'know, it always pays to look sophisticated, and she said that she was drinkin' Niagara Maple Wheat Beer. Well, I knew she had to be somewhere in the area to be gettin' Niagara, so I said I liked the oatmeal stout at Rick's Tap at Queen and Spadina and she said that she preferred the microbreweries in Yorktown and I knew I had her."

"Had her?"

Alphie looked chagrined. "Well, not had her. But it's kind of a game on the net. To find out real facts about people. Usually it's pretty hard to tell what's a line and what's real. But knowing about Yorktown microbreweries wasn't just a line. I had some hard information about her. That's what I meant. It's like winning a point in a game."

The judges looked uniformly disbelieving.

Alphie carried on, resolutely. "Anyway, so I said we should go for a high-bandwidth thrill."

"High bandwidth thrill? What's that?"

"That's just what she said. 'What's that?' So I told her that there was a cybershop I knew that did VR sex. But it was like totally real. Like a holodeck. Too much bandwidth to do on the net. You had to go there. But it was worth it. You'd think you're really doing it."

"VR. This virtual reality technology that we've been hearing so much about?" The judge on the right pursed his lips.

"Yeah. But for sex."

"I've never heard of such a thing." The judge in the centre looked like he wished he had still never heard of such a thing.

"Yeah. Well, I just happened to know about it. It's like totally experimental, you know. Real expensive, but real real."

"How expensive?"

"That's what she asked, too. I told her that it don't matter. It would be like on me. It was like totally experimental, and not available to just anyone, but I was in tight with a guy at the university. We could be like leading edge VR pioneers. It'd be a real cool thrill. She could tell her friends she'd done the latest and best VR ever."

"What guy at the university?"

"I don't know. I met him on the net. We were net buds, but I never got real with him. He was an albert."

"His name was Albert?"

"No. He was an albert. Y'know. Old fart. White hair sticking out everywhere. Sad eyes. An albert."

"I see. Albert. That old physicist fart." The judge on the right was frowning balefully.

The judge in the centre said, "So if you never 'got real' with him, how did you arrange to use this experimental apparatus?"

"He just gave me an address at the university. And told me a time when it would be available. I just went there and it was open. I gave a woman my debit card and she gave me a room number. It was simple."

"907 University Boulevard according to the complaint." The sleepy judge was looking at his computer screen again.

"Yeah. That sounds right. I don't remember the number. I threw away the paper afterwards."

The centre judge said, "According to the city records, that isn't part of the university. That establishment is a kind of small motel known as a 'bed and breakfast.' We have a statement from the management that rooms are usually occupied by people from out of town who have business at the university."

"I wouldn't know about that." But Alphie was dripping sweat down the front of his shirt.

The judge on the left said, "I think we are getting a little ahead of ourselves. Please tell us what happened. In your own words."

Alphie nodded, "Yeah. Ok. No problem. So I told her I would meet her at the VR shop on Monday." He could not resist a little grin. "And I did. She showed up and we talked for a few minutes about how realistic it was. Just like the real thing. Then we did it."

"Did it?"

"Yeah. You know. We had carnal knowledge of each other. She seemed to really like it. We took off our clothes and..."

The centre judge interrupted, "That's ok. We don't need to know every detail." The other two judges looked disappointed. "It is sufficient to say that you had sexual intercourse."

"Yeah. For a few hours."

"More than once?"

"As often as I could."

"And then?"

"And then we agreed that this VR stuff was great. It sure was realistic. And then we got dressed and went home."

"Did you see her again?"

"No, never. I didn't know who she was. Not until the cops showed me the warrant. Said she got pregnant. I don't know how that could happen with virtual reality. I think she must have some boyfriend on the side she's trying to protect. She's just blaming me so she don't have to blow the whistle on him. Or maybe she's trying to soak both of us for support. Women like to do that, you know. Find a few saps they can hang with support payments to make life a little easier." Alphie gave the judges his best worldly look and wise nod. He wished there was such a thing as real-life masker. He'd run a bogart on these judges.

"But there was no virtual reality apparatus at 907 University. Just a bed."

"I don't know about that, man. I was told it was all VR."

"More than once, I would guess. According to our records you used your debit card to stay there on eight occasions over the past year."

"Yeah? That could be."

"And you used a different name each time?"

"Well it was VR, you know, not reality. Like on the net. Persona are the norm."

"Persona are the norm?"

"Yeah. That's a thing you say on the net. It means it's ok to use a masker."

The judge in the centre said, "Yes. I understand the sentence."

The judge on the left added, "But that doesn't mean that we agree with the concept."

The judge on the right said, "It sounds like an attempt to avoid responsibility for your actions. But you are responsible for your actions, young man, no matter the persona you adopt."

The judge on the left said, "We used to call it trying to hide behind an alias." He leaned forward, "And, in this court, we still do."

"So continue your story."

Alphie's eyes darted from one judge to the next looking for a way out. He did not see any weakness anywhere. "That's it. I used the VR room and now I'm being charged with knocking this girl up."

The centre judge glanced at the other two judges for silent confirmation, then said, "Actually, no. On the basis of the events that you have described, the charges have been upgraded. This is no longer just a paternity suit. You are now charged with rape through fraudulent representation."

Alphie looked like he was about to faint. "Rape? I didn't hurt her. I don't hurt nobody. She wanted it. She liked it. I don't rape."

"You lied about your intentions. You caused her to believe that she was not really engaging in sexual intercourse when you knew that she was. You preyed on her trust and naiveté about technological matters. She never consented to sexual intercourse with you and you were well aware of that. Sexual intercourse without consent is rape."

"It was a mistake."

"I believe that if we look into your seven previous visits to the..." The judge glanced at his screen with a moue of distaste, "...Bodleian Bed and Breakfast, we would find that it was a mistake that you have made eight times with eight different naive and trusting young women."

The centre judge said, "Do you have anything to say in your defense before receiving our judgment?"

"Judgment? You've tricked me. I didn't know I was giving evidence about raping. That's not fair. What I said doesn't count. I got a right to due process and stuff. You gotta read me my rights or something."

"Not under the simplified-revised court system, young man. You've been watching too many old movies. The impaneled judges only seek the truth and then pass judgment on that truth. We are unanimously satisfied that we have heard the truth here. Unless you can show that we have been misled, we are prepared to deliver our judgment now."

Alphie said nothing. He knew when to hold and when to fold. When you are up to your waist in quicksand, frantic thrashing about does not help.

"Good." The judge on the right spoke. "On the new charge of rape through fraudulent representation, this court finds you guilty. On the charge of paternity, this court finds you provisionally responsible, pending refutation by DNA analysis, should you choose to undertake the appropriate medical test."

The judge in the centre said, "Though not as serious as forcible rape, rape through fraudulent representation is morally reprehensible and is a serious crime. Therefore it is the unanimous decision of this court that you shall be confined to your domicile for a period of six months, except for the hours that you are required to be present at your place of employment, the..." The judge consulted his terminal again, "...Powell Corporation, Automobile Repair Division. As well, you will be required to recompense Ruth Anne Jackson a sum of twenty-five thousand dollars at a rate of five thousand dollars per year for the next five years. Your employer has been so informed. Furthermore, to inhibit further engagement in this habitual crime, you are enjoined from accessing interactive services on computer networks for a period of one year. Your network provider has been so informed.

"On the charge of paternity, you will recompense Ruth Anne Jackson a sum of one thousand dollars per month each month until the child reaches the age of majority, contingent upon the birth and survival of the child. Your employer has been so informed.

"This court has so decreed. These decrees shall be so executed."

Alphie looked at the judges in stunned silence.

"You may go now, young man. Stop at the court clerk's desk in the anteroom and she will give you a written explanation of these judgments."

"But I don't understand. What do I have to do?"

"Not much, except to remember to stay in your house for the next six months. Everything else will be done automatically. Your employer has already been advised to deduct the judgment from your paycheques and your net service provider has already been ordered to suspend your net access."

"No net for a year? What'll I do?"

"I would suggest you learn to read books."

The judges turned to their screens to prepare for their next case.

Alphie left the room.