Monday, January 30, 2023

Face the Truth...

It was a good gig. It wasn't strictly legal, but it was a good gig. And because she was more protected than the people who used her service she felt fairly confident that she'd never get caught. Or at least it would be hard to get caught. 

When the technology first became available, the combination of CRISPR, 3D Printing, and Nanotech, very few people understood the possibilities. Hollywood was there first, of course, with some fabulous facelifts. Instead of looking rested, celebrities suddenly looked like they did 20 or 30 years ago. Their own faces, just de-aged. Then you saw the spread into wealthy communities, facelifts and plastic surgery that really did change you into the version you always wanted to be. 

But she grasped that you could use it to become someone else. Over and over again. She hadn't yet found the limit and she'd done it a few hundred times. Changed everything she could to match a provided ID card. Eye color, face structure. She didn't really worry about body shape and height, those could be faked with shoes and clothes as long as they weren't too far out of her normal range, but the face? She could, and had, changed that so many times she wasn't even sure what she would look like now if she hadn't started altering years ago.

But she liked what she did and didn't mind seeing a different face in the mirror every few weeks.  And she felt like she was really doing the world a favor. 

She was a professional jurorist. Nobody liked jury duty. Well nobody normal at least. But she loved it. The stories you heard. The chance to make a difference in someone's life. The power. She was good at it. She believed that too. She was really good at being a juror. She didn't have a lot of preconceived ideas about who people were. Except that they didn't like jury duty. That one she could almost guarantee. But she had been so many people, seen so many different things, that she had a deep understanding of how you didn't know anything about someone until you spent a few days wearing their face. 

People contacted her through a webpage that was masked and hidden and buried so many times there was no way to trace where it originated. She ran fairly extensive background checks on potential clients. Most of the time wondering why they were willing to go through as much trouble as they did to get out of jury duty when just showing up and doing it would probably take about 4 hours of their time. Most people didn't get called to sit on a jury. She usually did, which was part of why she was so sought after. If you sit on a jury you are cleared from being asked to serve for 5 years instead of just 1 if you don't actually get on a jury. 

And the first time she met someone in person she made sure she looked like their mother, or their sister, or their best friend. If they were trying to set her up it would make it very uncomfortable when their own loved one was called in by the police for questioning. 

But, for the most part, she didn't worry about that. She just donned her face and showed up at court for the selection process. Her favorites were the big cases. She normally only took federal summons but would take a state or local if there was a big case working its way through the system. Just to see if she could get lucky and serve in one of those trials. 

She had to make sure she didn't act too excited when she got to the court houses, or too familiar with the layout and the people. Because nobody liked jury duty. 

Except her. 

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