Round 11, Part One [Terminal Connection v. Little Black Stray]

Terminal Connection
In a world where telepathy is a disease, and known telepaths are imprisoned, all laws are built by consensus over the internet via double-blind anonymous computer terminals to guard against undue psychic influence. One politician is called to jury duty, also conducted over computer terminals, but doesn't realize that the accused, whom she thinks should be dealt with harshly, is actually her husband. Nor does she realize that the crime of which he's accused, but hasn't committed yet, is murdering her. And what would she do if she knew that when she's deliberating, her husband could read her mind and was plotting to kill her precisely because she's about to send him back to the living hell of forced labor known as the Prison Planet?

Character Sketch: Mary Harwood
Relationship to Story: Protagonist

2020. It's been seven years since the Kuleshov Event unleashed a virus that cursed a portion of the population with telepathy. At first, it was easy to tell who was infected -- they were the ones who were screaming about the voices in their head, the ones who went schizophrenic, the ones who killed themselves. But there were a few who were able to control their ability and keep it hidden, and they used it to get ahead, in business and in government. When researchers, looking for a cure, developed a test to determine if someone was a Patho (as they were called), it was soon revealed that the upper echelons of the governing class were teeming with Pathos, and a witch-hunt cum revolution ensued. An agency known as the SAFE Initiative was created, and the Pathos were round up and taken away to a place that had no name, but was commonly called the Prison Planet.

Mary Harwood is the owner of a successful chain of diamond and jewelry stores, but political aspirations gnaw at her. She's already served on a number of corporate boards, and hopes to be an appointee when her friend Ronald Ek wins the governorship in the fall. She is also cozy with the SAFE Initiative Director of her state, David Kensington -- in fact, she's sleeping with him. That relationship is already fraught with potential conflicts of interest, but to complicate matters further, both are married. Mary's husband, Parsons, comes from old money and was instrumental in getting Mary's businesses off the ground.

Mary grew up in the suburbs of Detroit, the second child of John and Ellen Katsoulas, married veterinarians. Although she loved animals, she also became unsentimental about them -- she worked in her parents' office and helped put many an animal to sleep. Her two siblings -- older brother Mike and younger brother Alan -- also worked in the office, although only Mike would follow even remotely in his parents' footsteps. Mary intended on studying biology in college, but was put off by the unforgiving difficulty of the classes and gravitated towards business. When she graduated, she joined a classmate's startup business as the marketing director.

Although that business was ultimately a failure, Mary moved on from job to job, slowly climbing the corporate ladder. Things came to a crashing halt, though, when she was arrested for aiding terrorists. This was a surprise to her -- she considered herself patriotic, and moreso than most. It turned out that the checks she'd been writing to her brother for many years -- out of familial obligation -- were going to his nascent eco-activist group. The group, during a raid on a animal testing lab, accidentally killed a guard, and were prosecuted as terrorists. An investigation into the group's finances ensnared Mary... and a young millionaire named Parsons Harwood.

Both Mary and Parsons were, thanks to a talented lawyer, cleared of all wrong-doing. It's here that they met, and after a year of romance, they wed. Unfortunately, as Mary would later realize, she really married Parsons for his money and her potential for career advancement. That same year, the Kuleshov Event struck. The Harwoods were isolated from the chaos that ensued, although they personally knew several people who were affected. Parsons used his money to help in relief efforts... and quietly buy up the properties and businesses of those who were now unable to maintain them. Mary, feeling out of place in Parson's world but asked by him to play the wealthy socialite, began to volunteer her time for the SAFE Initiative, where she first came into contact with David Kensington. She immediately fell for him, but she kept her feelings secret for the next six years, instead trying to convince herself that her marriage was working.

The world changed considerably since the Kuleshov Event and the Pathos Purge that followed a few years later. Although there are no more Pathos about, extreme paranoia is rampant in the nation. People are staying indoors more and more, doing as much as they can via computer. Trials are now done completely online on double-blind terminals, in order to avoid potential Patho tampering. One of the common reasons for murder now is "I thought he was reading my mind." And the government is more secretive than ever.

And so the story starts with Mary Harwood, potential political appointee, finding out that her younger brother Alan has been working in gay porn under the name Al Hardwood, and, when she can at least afford it, has been summoned for jury duty on a conspiracy-to-murder case.