THE MERCY FILTER

by Irizari Aloway

The first thing Tom noticed was the silence.

Not the Dean speaking---she was speaking---but the silence around her. No applause. No protest. Just phones. Dozens of them, raised chest-high, angled slightly upward.

Recording.

Or checking.

On the screen nearest him, he caught a glimpse of a number in green.

94.

The Dean stood beneath the university seal, composed, deliberate.

"Alan University will not alter its curriculum at the request of any administration."

No cheering. Not yet.

Tom shifted his weight. He wasn't supposed to be here. He was waiting for his niece. The door had been open. It seemed harmless enough to step inside.

"Funding threats will not dictate scholarship," the Dean continued.

That's when the noise began.

"Lies."

Not screamed. Declared.

Several phones pivoted toward the voice.

The Dean continued as if she hadn't heard.

"You're poisoning students," the man said, louder now. "Clevans will answer for it."

A few people murmured. Others stepped subtly away from him, sensing trouble.

One woman near Tom leaned close.

"Don't engage," she whispered.

The man turned slowly in a circle, arm extended, his phone scanning faces. The screen glowed as it passed over the crowd.

He smiled.

The Dean tried to continue, but he cut across her.

"WHORE!"

The word landed heavy and crude. No mistaking it now.

The Dean stiffened. A flicker of disgust crossed her face.

"We will not be intimidated."

Intimidated.

The man laughed softly and tapped his chest.

"Mercy ninety-four," he announced. "What are you?"

He lifted the phone higher.

Tom knew exactly what that meant.

He also knew he should step back.

He didn't.

"That's enough," Tom said.

The man's head tilted, studying him.

"Enough?" he asked mildly.

Two others moved with Tom---a woman from the aisle, a graduate student by the look of him. They took hold of the man's arms.

"Let go, you idiots," the man said.

He didn't resist.

They pulled him toward the side exit.

As they reached the door, he leaned close to Tom, voice calm, almost friendly.

"You should've checked your number first."

The door shut behind them.

Inside, the Dean resumed speaking.

Outside, Tom's phone buzzed.

He looked down.

Mercy Status Update: Under Review

#

"Who the hell was that?"

"I don't see him on the guest list."

"Wait, I found him... Tom Johnson---his name just popped up for Mercy re-evaluation in the area---he's a parent of one of the students: Jenifer Johnson."

"We're gonna get our asses chewed out for this---Tavers personally wanted her humiliated."

"Where's he sitting?"

"Forty-three."

"Drop him."

"How far?"

"Make it hurt. That's what they'll expect upstairs---maybe we can keep our jobs after this mess."

#

"How about signs?"

"There are already signs everywhere. Nobody will notice."

"I'm sure you've looked online?"

"Gimme a break. You either need a brilliant idea that goes viral or a million-dollar advertising budget."

Tom shook his head, defeated. Ever since he pulled the rude man out of that college auditorium, his mercy rating had been well below zero.

"What about volunteer work? There's an election coming up," Janice said.

"Tried it. They turned me away."

"Are you doing okay? I mean, you're safe, right?"

Janice was always looking out for him, as older sisters should.

"I work from home. My biggest problem is that I can't get food delivery anymore from the online services, but my neighbor John has been bringing me groceries. I pay him two hundred bucks a trip."

"What do the online services say when you try to place an order?"

Tom laughed. "They say, 'delivery is no longer available in your area.'"

He shook his head.

"Apparently my area is a border that encircles my house---John lives a hundred feet away and they deliver to him."

A news report caught Tom's eye. He turned up the volume.

The screen showed Dean Clevans again---paused mid-sentence, mouth open, frozen in a frame that made her look wild.

"The President commented today on the incident at Alan University," the reporter said. "He praised the citizen who 'stood up to the radicals' and announced a pardon for an assault conviction connected to the Dean's family."

The reporter hesitated, listening to a feed.

"When asked whether a pardon was appropriate before sentencing, the President said, 'Mercy is mine to give.'"

Tom's phone buzzed. He picked it up.

It was a text from John. It said: "My mercy filter just dropped five points for 'helping radicals.' Sorry man, I can't get your groceries anymore."

Tom grimaced and looked up at Janice. "Can you do me a favor?"

#

Albert saw Dave's hand signal indicating aerial surveillance had cleared the area and moved forward from the side street to the main thoroughfare.

The body armor was heavy and itched. In the last few years, police patrol had turned into what looked more like a military operation.

They were nearly to the target and could see it now. Smoke billowed from a small building. As they approached, about six people in civilian clothes raised their phones into the air pointing at them, which usually meant they were pointing to their mercy ratings as a form of defense.

Dave gave them the signal to stand by and watch the area. They formed a U shape. Albert scanned the area through his rifle sights on his side of the U, which happened to face the burning building. He heard, but couldn't see, Dave talking to the group.

"What's going on here, gentlemen?"

"We've got Mercy 100."

"Yeah, yeah," Dave said. "I'm sure you do. What's going on?"

"These folks aren't welcome to the Tavers," the man said.

Then Albert heard someone walk up from the other direction and say, "Can you folks move back that way a few feet? You're blocking the camera."

Albert heard and felt his group move forward a few steps and followed along.

"What have these people done?" Dave asked.

He shrugged. "Not really my business," the man said.

The front door of the burning building burst open. Smoke poured out, and a woman bolted out wearing a robe streaming behind her. She cradled something in her arms close to her chest.

BANG!

A gunshot took her down. She dropped instantly, and the bundle she held fell to the ground beside her.

Dave called, "Hold your position!"

"That's the murder of an unarmed woman in front of witnesses," Dave said.

Albert turned and saw the man set down his phone and pistol, still smoking from the shot. Then he presented his hands to Dave, wrists together, in a gesture of accepting handcuffs.

Dave signaled with his head to another of the crew, who cuffed him.

Dave shouted back, "George, Larry, check the victim."

They shot out toward the woman motionless on the ground. George held his finger to her neck. Larry looked around at the bundle.

"You can take the others in if you want," said the man who shot her. "But I wouldn't bother. Their mercy's all at 100. I do recommend calling in the fire department. I think you'll find them willing to come now."

George and Larry raced back, each watching the other's back for snipers.

"She's dead. The bundle was an infant. I'd guess it already died of smoke inhalation."

"You gonna take them in, or should I tell them to go home?"

Dave grabbed the man. "Let's go, asshole."

The man raised his voice to his team. "Go home, guys. Good job."

As they pushed him forward and moved out, he said, "Easy there, big guy. Damage this, and you'll find a little less mercy in your wallet."

Just before they got back to the side street, Albert saw the camera crew still filming the building. Someone next to the cameraman stepped forward a few feet and tossed an object toward the woman and baby still motionless on the ground.

KABOOM!

An explosion. The team reacted but kept moving, their training keeping them in formation.

"Looks like that bundle was a bomb, not a baby," said their hostage, laughing.

#

Tom was fired the next day. They said it was a reorganization, but that was BS. He knew why.

He'd worked at InoTech for 20 years, and he'd been in good standing. This was spiraling out of control.

Tom found a paid site online that seemed to have good reviews for finding people with low mercy ratings: "Mercy Doctor," it was called. The free sites were almost all scams... people with grudges claiming their enemies had low mercy ratings.

Mercy Doctor was expensive, but it was worth it. If he couldn't get his mercy level up, he'd never get a new job, and they'd surely deny his unemployment benefits.

The site allowed searching by zip code. It said the identities of the individuals were provided separately by a different site. Each subject showed a mercy rating, whether it was "confirmed" or "forecasted," and a recommended "Method of Justice." The lower the mercy rating, the more egregious the "justice"... The whole thing was disgusting.

On top of the weekly service fee, you had to pay to unlock individual subjects. It looked like the cost was a function of how low their number was and whether their mercy rating was forecasted or confirmed. The most negative numbers with confirmed mercy ratings cost as much as Tom's salary or more. He didn't have the stomach to really hurt somebody badly, so these weren't his target. He wanted something that didn't do permanent damage and was confirmed so he wouldn't have to do this again.

#

Dave sat uncomfortably in the surprisingly comfortable leather sofa across from the Prosecuting Attorney, who leaned forward toward Dave over his dark wooden desk.

"You need to let him go," he said.

"He killed a woman and her infant baby in cold blood, in broad daylight," Dave said.

"He had a mercy rating of a hundred, and she had a mercy rating of negative 94---he'll be pardoned the day he's found guilty."

"So what? It's our job to bring in the bad guys, Owen. Maybe it'll be different this time."

Owen shook his head.

"Look, I know how you feel. But we don't have the resources to prosecute people we know will be pardoned. This is exactly why they put the mercy rating system in place. Before that, we were spending months prosecuting people who were immediately pardoned, and other criminals we could have put behind bars weren't getting prosecuted for lack of resources. The whole system was wasteful."

"The prosecution itself incurs a cost... legal defense costs, anxiety, bad PR, and it goes on for months. Even if he's pardoned, going through all that will be at least some sort of punishment."

"You're right. That's what they call 'Prosecutorial Punishment,' and it's only ordered by the administration. If we're suspected of doing our own Prosecutorial Punishment, we'll be resigned or worse."

Dave got up. "This system has gotten out of control, Owen."

"It's the best we've got," Owen said.

On his way out the door, Dave saw a TV monitor high up on the wall behind him in Owen's office. The volume was off. He saw a news report of the scene he'd been at earlier today. He saw the same smoking building, a few of the group who'd been with the man they brought in. But they looked as if they were in fear of something, which was very different from their confident pose he saw when he'd been there.

Then he saw his team, and the woman come running out of the building, which he recognized. She dropped, and the bundle fell---but this time, as soon as the bundle landed it exploded. The caption on screen read, "Terrorist suicide bomber attacks police."

#

Tom's phone rang. It was Janice. He swiped to pick up.

Janice was in tears. "Tom, Tom, I'm sorry."

"Janice, are you okay?"

"... Yes, well, I'm---beat up a little, but okay."

Her voice was shaking, her words broken.

"I lost your groceries... I'm sorry."

"Don't worry about that. What happened?"

"I stopped back at my place before..."

"Slow down, Janice," Tom said.

"I stopped back at my place," she took a breath, "before bringing the food to your place. I thought it would be safer... that people wouldn't think the food was for you that way. They must have been following me."

"Oh, my God," Tom said.

"When I got out of the car in the parking lot, a van pulled up fast, and four people jumped out, all in black with ski masks and guns---" she broke off, then continued, "they had big guns."

"They shot at me, and I fell. I thought I was dead. It hurt. Knocked the wind out of me---it was paintball. I was covered in yellow, red---I just got out of the shower. I'm all bruised, Tom..."

She whimpered. "I thought I would die."

"I'm sorry, Janice. I'm so, so sorry."

Tom had a tear in his eye.

"Stay in your apartment."

#

Dave watched the man from his car as he left the station.

It turned out the man they'd picked up this morning was Lance Dohee. He worked for one of the big tech firms. Dave's research indicated he'd gone from some kind of office work to become a mercy enforcer for the same company.

In the last three months his mercy rating had a consistent pattern. It grew gradually from about 50 to 100 and then dropped suddenly. Then it climbed back up and the pattern repeated.

Right now he was at 51, and if nothing else happened, that would be the extent of his punishment for murder.

But Dave was going to make sure something else happened.

#

Back at his computer, and on Mercy Doctor, Tom picked something more expensive than he'd been planning because of Janice. He had to get out of this... it wasn't just about him anymore. They were going after his family now.

He went with a subject flagged for a punishment of "Accidental Injury." He couldn't afford one that was confirmed, so he picked "Forecasted with high confidence."

On the identification site, he entered the subject's number. His name was "Dave Trustgurthy." His vehicle was described in great detail, as well as common routes of travel.

He hesitated, his finger on the left button of the mouse.

He clicked "submit."

He got up and walked into his bedroom.

He couldn't remember why he'd gone there.

He started to feel dizzy.

He ran to the bathroom and vomited.

When he washed up, his phone buzzed.

It was a text from Janice.

"My mercy rating just dropped ten points."

The three dots blinked... she was typing more.

"I'm scared, Tom."

Tom steeled himself, dried his face, and headed for the keys to his truck on his dresser.

#

Dave followed Lance with one car between them so it wouldn't be obvious he was being followed.

He was in a beater of a car he purchased for cash the day before.

He had a crowbar and ski mask ready in the passenger seat next to him.

Lance stopped at a light, and Dave stopped as well.

Dave turned to reach for the ski mask. Since they were getting close to Lance's house, it was time to put it on.

SMASH

A pickup rammed into the side of Dave's car, knocking him further over to the passenger seat.

The whole car had been moved and hit a parked car on the side of the road.

#

Tom got out of the pickup to check the person in the car.

He needed to make sure he'd hurt the person. He also needed to be identified as the attacker on whatever cameras were in the area, and for his own peace of mind, he wanted to make sure he hadn't killed the man.

He looked into the smashed driver-side window.

The person was hunched over the passenger seat.

It looked like he had a ski mask partially on his head. Criminal, Tom thought. That made him feel a bit better.

He turned to head back to his truck to leave.

As he did, Tom saw a man standing in front of him with a gun pointed at him.

The man was all in black, but his face wasn't covered.

The man laughed. "You've got quite a score on Mercy Doctor, dude."

"Oh no," Tom said.

"Oh yes---We're all guilty of something. But mercy will save ME."

BANG

Tom heard the shot---but not the buzz of the man's phone as his mercy score jumped.

END