Here’s an excerpt from the short story “A Sign of the Times” from my new collection Patti 209: Fifteen Tales of the Very Near Future, available in ebook or print:
“…under the new Washington State statue, corporations are regarded by the law as individuals, and advocating any action to harm them is a hate crime. Joe, you’re going to be the test case.”
“Yeah. Got it. I mean, I’ll plead guilty. I’m ready to take my punishment.”
“No.” Kate snapped.. “Joe, if you’re convicted of advocating violence against the corporation, violence that clearly took place—”
“Prison?”
Kate looked right at me, for the first time, as if she thought I might be joking. One eyebrow went up. “Prison?” She gave a short, ugly laugh. “Under the new statute, the judge has no sentencing discretion. And law says the penalty for publicly proposing violence against a corporation is death.”
“A Sign of the Times” was written a few years back and published in Quaranzine. It seemed pure fantasy at the time I wrote it but with the former director of the FBI being “investigated by the Secret Service” over his use of a common slang phrase in a social media post, it’s now grimly appropriate.