Crime and Punishment

[April request: new technology sentences guilty criminals to a muscle transfer]

On my first day of Bailiff training I tried to just stay quiet and observe, just like Bilco said. Turns out I surprised everyone there, even myself.

Just after the defendant--a pro football player I guess, so big he even made Bilco look small--just freaked out as soon as we walked into the Sentencing Chamber. Right through the doorway he just spun and shouldered Bilco right off his feet and kicked his taser into the air like a hackey sack. Even with his hands cuffed behind him he turned and caught it like a pro ballplayer would, I guess (although now that I think about it, a guy his size probably just leveled other players and never touched the ball once).

I was the next closest person there. I panicked, looked to Bilco (who was stunned on the floor) and then just kicked the defendant right in his junk. Guy had a huge package, too; big bulge in his jumpsuit made for an easy target. Big old gorilla just crumpled. I stood there stunned until another I felt Bilco’s hand on my shoulder and turned to see him beaming at me like a proud dad. I guess there was press behind us, too, although I was so shocked I didn’t even notice. My pic’s probably going to end up all over the internet now.

The perp gave me a nasty glare as they loaded him into the pod, so cold I actually shivered. I had a flash of waking up in the middle of night with his big muscular body looming over mine, powerful hands clamping on my throat while he just snarled, wildeyed… I mean, I’m a decent scrapper, but this guy had about 150 pounds on me, and looked like he ate a stack of steaks for breakfast.

That is, he did, until they loaded him into the Sentencing Pod. The perp had been found guilty of assault. Bilco said not to pay too much attention to the case details, just to stay aware of who was guilty and who was innocent, but I overheard that he’d roughed up a couple young gay guys outside a bar one night. One of them he beat up pretty bad I guess. They caught him on camera and everything, a real open-and-shut case.

Guilty verdict means you go in the pod, and I felt honored to have a front-row seat for the event. The process was still brand new, so I was shocked when they sealed the pod and flipped a switch. The pod lit up with blue light and I could see the perp’s big, meaty fists banging on the small window… only, after a few minutes, those big paws were just slim little hands.

I couldn’t believe my eyes when the pod opened and the perp walked out, scrawny and shorter than me. I towered over him! He stumbled over his jumpsuit, the sleeves hanging loose over his much smaller arms. He looked at the room like he was seeing it for the first time. I don’t know what came over me (maybe the fear of his retribution washed away by the hilarity of his tiny new body) but I lunged at him a little. He actually squealed and fell backwards! Bilco told me later that was no good, but because I had saved the day minutes before, it would slide this time. “Absolute professionalism in front of the perps, even when they turn into wimpy little runts.” I just shook my head at the advice and promised I’d be more composed next time.

I saw the gay couple on the news later that night, just after I thrilled over footage of my foot-to-the-balls in action from three different angles. They showed their before pictures--one bookish little guy in a turtleneck, the other tall and rail-thin--but the guys they interviewed after the sentencing were thick and beefy, like wrestlers. Still tall and short, they had muscles bulging out of clothes that weren’t big enough to handle their big bodies. The tall one had about four inches of skin between his shirt and his pants. I paused the video and gawked at the ripped abs underneath.

They seemed so clumsy in their new bodies. I had to laugh, watching them gesture as if they were still their former selves, but with all this muscle packed on their frames. I wondered if, later on, they’d reflect on the attack as if it were the greatest thing to happen to them. Maybe, even though they were huge studs now, they’d always be afraid of some drunken asshole hiding in an alley, waiting to strike. At least, if it happened again, they’d be better able to handle themselves.

Over lunch the next day Bilco said the sentencing process changed both the victims and the perps on a genetic level. “You could be a natural strongman, all around athlete who gets big just by looking at weights, but if you’re found guilty that machine sucks all that away. You could chug protein shakes and steroids for weeks and you’d be lucky if you gained a pound.” Similarly, a guy who had a hard time putting on size--a guy like me, for example, who had to work twice as hard for every stubborn pound of muscle--would stay reasonably big for the rest of his life without ever lifting a thing.

“And the guys that do put their new gains to work get MASSIVE,” Bilco continued to explain as he chomped on his egg-salad sandwich. “The NFL is all up-in-arms over it, banning anyone who’s been through the Sentencing Pods from playing. If you ask me, I’d love to see some poor schlub who got hit by a drunk driver end up the biggest, toughest linemen on the field, but what can I say? I like an underdog story.”

Bilco liked to talk, so, as the new guy,  I just absorbed as much as I could. He told me the sentencing pods actually get a strong magnetic charge during the process. “Pulled a reporter’s earrings right off her ear once! So be careful with your metal.” He told me the rumors about radiation from the machines making you sterile were false, as far as he knew. “I donate my loads just about once a month and my stuff’s just as potent as ever!” he said, grabbing his hard gut as he chuckled, his big chest bouncing with each guffaw.

“The lawyers, too, you want to watch out for,” he said. When they reworked the system to accommodate the new tech, they passed legislation that allowed some of the sentencing to extend to the lawyers as well. Lawyers whose clients lost would be unaffected, but those whose clients won would get a small percentage of the mass transferred from the guilty party. “You can always tell prosecution from defense by who’s bigger! Those prosecutors man… Fucking BEASTS.”

The weak after the football player-turned-shrimp, I was there to see some suspected mugger found guilty. In the hallway outside the courtroom I happened to see the lawyers showing up. The defense lawyer was a big guy, like a lihebacker with a big barrel chest and thick quads I would have killed for filling out some nice fitted pants. Just the swing of his big arms caught my eyes. If I’d seen this lawyer in the gym I would have thought he was a model from a muscle magazine or something.

Then I saw the prosecution team: two massive BEHEMOTHS who had to turn sideways just to get through the courtroom doors. They were each about 6’5” each, one with short dark hair, the other shaved bald. Their tailored suits looked ridiculous on their 350 pound bodies, and I swear I felt the ground shake as they stomped by. Their confidence was even more distracting than their gigantic size; they gave each other a high-five on the way in, louder than a thunderclap. They stood during the whole trial; I guess there were no seats strong enough to support their massive bulk. I felt for the defense attorney, who looked small in comparison. They had given him a chair but he chose to stand anyway, probably to try to measure up with the twice-his-size opposition.

The accused was a massive tattooed freak with a list of prior convictions a mile long. Honestly, he looked like the kid brother of the prosecution. He was even bigger than his jacked up lawyer (who I truly pitied, seeing him dwarfed not only by the musclegods lawyers he had to face down but by his client who dwarfed him as well). He had ink all over his face, a lazy eye, and lip that kept curling up like a vicious dog. I guess he was a pill addict and hoped the old doctor he thrashed would have some meds on him, or at least a nice stack of cash.

Even though Bilco said not to pay attention to the cases too much, I sure was relieved to hear that mass monster was found guilty. Something about knowing he could be out there, on the streets, ready to smash my face in to score some drug money made me even more nervous to be out at night. This was the big oaf’s first conviction since the new sentencing system had been implemented. I’m sure, the night they cuffed him after he’d beaten that poor old doctor down, he expected another stint in prison. He’d be going back, all right, but his prison buddies wouldn’t recognize him--and he’d better not drop the soap, that’s for damned sure!

Bilco was assigned to escort the big drug-addict to his sentencing pod, but I was relieved to find out I’d be escorting the good doctor. He was a kindly old man with a warm smile who shook my hand and referred to me by name as we made small talk on the way to the chamber. I don’t think I’ll ever forget his: Dr. Melvin Goode. His grip was warm but firm, and even though he looked frail, something about him made me want to cuddle up to him. He still walked with a limp from the beating, so I had to slow my gait to match step with him. I kept thinking, “Who would want to beat up this sweet old guy?”

Once in the pod he gazed around it with a look of wonder, then winked at me as they sealed the door. He smiled, his face creased with lines that showed his age, and settled back as he was bathed in blue light.

Melvin had explained his ill-fitting, baggy suit as a recommendation of the court. “They said,” the old man said in a scratchy voice, “to wear something I could grow into. Otherwise, I assure you, I’d be better dressed.” His petite body looked silly in the clothes, like a little kid trying on his dad’s suit, but when the process was over and the pod door opened, I was surprised to see they’d split along the sleeves and down the center of his chest anyway.

The man who pulled his huge body out of that pod couldn’t possibly be the Melvin I’d just made conversation with! He was the same height, but now he was wide with hard muscle. He took a step--he still had that limp--and his pants split down the quads. The hulking guy actually blushed, which looked silly atop all that size, but I recognized Melvin in his warm smile. He looked like Zeus now, his face still showing his age but with a body that looked like it could hoist a truck overhead.

His huge hand swallowed up mine as he grabbed it and gave it a powerful shake. I was grateful that he was still gentle, despite his enlargement, because as tough as I was, the good doctor could snap me in half now! Dr. Goode was easily twenty years older than the next oldest person in the room, but all the press, court staff and bailiffs all looked at him with admiration and respect now. The little old man had become the alpha, and I’m sure I wasn’t the only one whose hair stood up on the back of his neck.

Dr. Goode told me to stop by Sunnyview Memorial if I ever needed anything. I imagined sitting on the table as those big muscular hands felt around my body, searching for what could be wrong. I got a pit in my stomach imagining him asking me to breath as his face--now looking like it had been carved from marble--considered the sound of my breathing or counted out my pulse, or asked me to cough. I couldn’t deny I was smitten by the good doctor, and the warmth in his eye as he lumbered out of the room made me think the feeling might have been mutual.

On my way out of the courtroom, I ran into Bilco, who walked with a cocky air as he escorted a skinny little punk in a massive orange jumpsuit--the attacker, now the size of one of my legs. They were going to eat him alive in prison, and there was no way he was ready to be that low in the pecking order! Outside, Bilco and I watched as the prosecuting attorneys (whose absurdly gigantic suits displayed little tears in the shoulders and ass after some of the attackers size had bloated out their bodies with even more mindblowing size) gave interviews with the press. I had to wonder if they were intentionally patting their even-thicker pecs and flexing their cannon-sized arms for the cameras, although Bilco said it’s a side effect of the machine.

“It’s the brain making connection with the new muscles, they say,” Bilco said under his breath as the big beasts flashed their confident grins and showed off their incredible bulk, probably eager to win another case so they could push the boundaries of human size even further.