DeceptNO!
by Constance Gelvin

I. "To unmask falsehood and bring truth to light."
-Shakespeare

"Your Honor, jurors, Ecourt participants, I will now present the propositions of law that will govern this case. The first is: the burden of proof rests with the State. And I will prove that on February 9, 2020 the Defendant did willfully and brutally murder another human being. And why? In the course of this trial, the State will prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the victim's loss of life resulted from no other reason than a simple desire for the truth. The truth. The evidence will show..."

II. "It is obviously a most effective protection for legitimate secrets that it should be universally understood and expected that those who ask questions which they have no right to ask will have lies told to them." H. Sidgwick, The Methods of Ethics

Last night's fight, or discussion as Jocelyn had called it, put Peter Pruett into an uncharacteristically philosophical frame of mind.

Or funk, as he called it. He awakened unrefreshed, having dreamt of work. He heaved himself out of bed, stumbled to the bathroom, and squinted at his image wavering before him in the re-imager. He jabbed a button. Nothing. A week ago he'd fiddled with the Hair Apparent feature which had never worked right, and now the whole thing was on the blink. Shit.

But so what? Zoe liked the dusting of silver around his temples. Zoe. Pleasure tingled through him. Uh oh, he thought. That's how the DeceptNO! would be able to nail him. He paused, his laser poised inches from his cheek. His face hadn't flushed, the vulnerable muscle under his left eye hadn't quivered. But he knew--with the feeling of dread he'd come to associate with the word DeceptNO!--that the poetical lilt of the name "Zoe" caused internal conflagrations that would be his undoing. If he let it come to that.

After he'd showered, dressed, and grabbed the banana his VitaLizer told him he needed to raise his zinc level, he lowered himself onto a dining room chair and grunted a greeting at Jocelyn.

He checked his e-mail, while mentally berating Jocelyn for the lukewarm coffee and their life. As he deleted messages, his mind wandered to the vicissitudes of truth, the necessity for trust, the impossibility of trust. God, I sound like one of those fucking DeceptNO! articles, he thought. Why can't Jocelyn get off this kick, if for no other reason than we can't afford a DeceptNO! right now? She'd bitched about the cost of the re-imager, but did the DeceptNO!'s 10k give her the slightest pause? Hell no.

"Well, what did you decide?" Although Jocelyn had been glycerined, lasered, and tucked, lately Peter noticed there was something...old...about the press of her lips, the unerasable smudges under her eyes. He couldn't shake the feeling that her aging was somehow insulting to him.

Peter grimaced. "Look, let's not start, okay? Can I at least finish my breakfast?" Jocelyn winced, and he immediately felt ashamed. She lowered her gaze to the neatly folded sheets of The Chronicler. A modern day Luddite, he sneered mentally, who glories in all things antiquarian: print newspapers, CD players, laptop computers--old fashioned in every way except for her unwavering belief in the transforming abilities of the DeceptNO!.

He sipped his Forta. Cold. "Would you mind..." he gestured with the cup.

She sighed theatrically. "Yes, sir, massa, sir. I'll move my sorry--"

He jumped to his feet; coffee sloshed unto the newspaper. "Forget it. I need to head out. I'll be home late. Got that telecon I told you about. With Kay-Jap?" He'd told her no such thing.

"The whole committee'll be there?" Lately Jocelyn's voice always sounded strained, forced out through the chokehold of her distrust.

He nodded. He felt the slightest twinge: what am I doing? But it served her right, she was always interrogating him--where will you be? who will you be with?. That is, when she wasn't clipping articles about all that "the DeceptNO! saved my marriage" crap.

Later, waiting for Zoe, he realized if he were D-NO'ed he couldn't get away with even the smallest of white lies, like the telecon one. But so what? It wasn't as if he and Zoe were lovers.

Yet.

III. "...and the truth shall set you free." John 8:32

(DeceptNO! commercial:)

(Zoom shot:) Couple walks on beach. (Close up:) Man speaks earnestly to woman. (Close up:) Woman smiles, buries her face in his chest. (Shot:) Crashing waves. (Voice over:) "When I met her I wanted to give her the moon..." (Close up: full moon) "...the stars..." (Close up: stars), "...and the most precious gift of all: my heart. I never wanted anything to come between us, and that's why I gave her..." Man holds out his wrist. Woman peers at his DeceptNO! screen.) "...complete access to the depths of my soul."

(Music swells:) "De-cept-NO! Now and forever, no untruth can ever sever. De-cept-NO!" (Announcer:) "DeceptNO!: when you want to give the gift of truth."

IV. "No pleasure is comparable to standing upon the vantage ground of truth...and to see the errors, and wanderings...in the vale below." Francis Bacon

(TO: Mr. Englen, Historical Imperatives II SUBJECT: "History of Polygraphy: Lie Detector through DeceptNO!" FROM: timmiepruett@aal.edu)

Part One: The first machine to show the correlation between the changes in someone's body when a lie is told was made in the late 1800's, but no one has an exact date. The inventors of the "lie detection test" were an Italian criminologist Cesare Lombroso and a physiologist named Mosso. Hugo Munsterberg developed the science of polygraphy, and his student William Marston developed the first practical lie detector. (1)

It was based on the principle that when people lie their blood pressure rises, their heart beats faster, they breathe more quickly, and they sweat more. The polygraphs charted these reactions with pens on a moving strip of graph paper. An examiner, trained to ask relevant ("Did you steal the money?") and irrelevant ("Is your shirt blue?") questions, analyzed the graph looking for "jumps" in response.

In the late 1990's a breakthrough occurred when galvanic brain wave activity was measured instead of the standard autonomic nervous system reactions. This led to CyberPoly, Inc.'s invention of the DeceptNO! which "combines advances in miniaturization with the latest in polygraphy." (2)

Part Two: How has this technology affected my life? My mother wants my father to get a DeceptNO!, but he said, "no way in hell." I think it'd be cool to look at his wrist and tell if he's lying or not. But I'm not sure what I'd ask him, if anything.

V. "Lord, Lord, how this world is given to lying." Shakespeare

"You too, huh? Welcome to the fucking club." Zoe whinnied a laugh that caused the men at the bar to turn, smile. Peter felt a surge of lust, pure and sweet. "So are you?"

Peter smiled, be cool, he warned himself. "Am I what?"

"Don't be coy. Are you going to 'take your relationship to the place that only complete honesty can take you?' she mimicked the molasses-y voice in the DeceptNO! commercials. She swirled her index finger in her drink, then stuck it in her mouth. Peter was struck by how she made such a stagey gesture look natural, sexy. "Jocelyn must be kinda suspicious if she wants you to get 'planted. So where does she think you are right now?"

Peter smiled sheepishly. "At a Kay-Jap telecon. But what about you? Why does Kevin want you to get a Decept--"

"Power to the people," Zoe tilted her martini glass at him, then gulped the drink like it was cold water.

"You're too young to remember the Sixties."

"Heard it in this old movie--when Ambassador Griffin was still a star? In it she was, like, learning the ropes from this older, business guru-type guy. They were lovers, and he helped her trounce her older, bitch boss."

"Ah, popular culture, capable of reincarnation."

"Say what? Jesus, is this thing working?" She pressed the remote control button, but the AutoJeeves didn't swivel from its frozen position by the bar. It reminded Peter of playing the game Statues when he was a kid. "You feel oh-so-trendoid coming here, but the service sucks."

She smiled, and the thought wisped through his mind that this was an insight for her. He knew he saw her from behind the forgiving scrim of newness, but, well, that was what he liked about the beginning of...what should he call it? The word "affair" seemed so outdated. But that's what his father-in-law Rory "Rogue" O'Riley called them--call a spade a spade was his motto. And Jocelyn had idolized the guy. So why was it different when he did exactly the same thing?

Zoe tha-whacked all the buttons with her fist, and the AutoJeeves jumped, then herky jerkied toward them, crashing into their table.

"Welcome to Henninger's an old-fashioned bar with new-fashioned service. I'm Robin and I'll be your server."

"Another round."

No response.

"A martini, dry, and for the gentle--" Zoe's lips writhed with the effort to speak clearly.

"No, I'm fine."

"--man, a Jack Daniels. Rocks."

Nothing.

She turned away from the immobile machine, honked a hollow-sounding laugh. "At a Kay-Pro telecon, you say? Good one. The best lies always have an element of truth. Or so someone once told me. Are you ready for this? I actually dated this guy--before Kev--who had one of the first DeceptNO!s. Caused a nasty-looking infection on his wrist; he sued CyberPoly and got a whopping dinero infusion. He was always saying, 'Ask me anything' so I could, like, tell if he was lying. So I'd ask him if he wanted to eat my pussy."

She roared, and Peter felt dizzy at the image her words conjured up.

"Like I gave a shit if he loved me truly, and would never lie to me, and all that. But Kev's, like, a hundred times more annoying."

"How so?"

"His moods vacillate from 'boo hoo, poor me' to 'I, for one, value the truth' sanctimonious holier-than-thou bullshit, to mean dog mad. At least Jim--the one with the infection?--would only get all literary. He'd quote H.L. Mensch--Menk-something, some philosopher, I think. Anyway this guy said, 'No normal human being wants to hear the truth.' Interesting, huh? So what argument does the little wifey use?"

"Pretty much the DeceptNO!'s party line, 'the truth shall set you free'--she doesn't even know the quote is from the Bible. But Joss has trouble articulating what, exactly, it sets one free from." But he did know, she'd told him during a recent fight: 'From the burden of not knowing the nature of your relationship with this young-enough-to-be-your-daughter, anorectic bimbette.' "So why did this other, uh, boyfriend, of yours get implanted?"

"Said it gave him an edge with the ladies. Like it proved he was an empathetic kinda guy. You know how you keep reading that the DeceptNO!'s aren't all that accurate? He said he used visualization techniques to get better readings. He told me that half the women he'd been with hadn't even read the manual all the way through. And, get this, he said that when some women got an unmistakably dishonest reaction from a question, they still wouldn't believe he was lying. Like they couldn't internalize it somehow. Christ."

Zoe glared at the unmoving robot, scooted out of the booth, walked over to a nearby table, empty while the couple danced, and snatched up a fresh drink. She winked at Peter as she scooted back over the booth's seat, her bare thighs squeaking against the fake leather. "You're not going to believe this. You know Nancy? From TriUSA? Red freeze-do, dresses like a slut? Anyway, she knew this chick who was a manager at AutoJeeves, who somehow programmed one to, shall we say, service her."

She waggled her eyebrows at him, and he raised his in honest befuddlement. "Instead of a tray, he was re-programmed to use--how can I put this delicately?--an adult sex toy on her. She said it was one of the hottest experiences of her life."

Peter half-rose from behind the table, leaned toward Zoe, kissed her deeply.

VI. "Buy the truth, and sell it not." Proverbs 23:23

(Excerpts from: "A Computational Investigation of Brain Wave Representation Denoting Oculogyric Crises of the Integrative Action of the Nervous System as Relating to Paradigmatic Activity Using Anatomical Loci and the Polygraphmetrical Unit Referred to as the DeceptNO!", Arasmith, pp. 117-123.)

"...And, thus, it appears that the latest usage of the schematic axis from which modern day polygraphy was birthed--the DeceptNO!--springs from a seemingly prelapsarian Marston. For it was he who not only invented modern lie detection, but was among the first to appreciate its commercial possibilities. An article in Look magazine described his use of the polygraph in marital counseling; a wife's reaction to her husband's kiss is compared with her response to the kiss of an attractive stranger.

...In experiments conducted by psychologists utilizing lay field trial participants, using a imaginary adulterous situation as the mainline, (adapting Marston's "ground truth" schematic) the experiential element of the potential negatory consequence of detection was missing. Even under these circumstances, a high rate of accuracy (87%) was obtained. However, certain questions need to be addressed in continued integrative laboratory work, i.e. can complete exoneration of participants be achieved despite the evidence of galvanic brain wave manipulation that is possible by some individuals? Can..."

VII. "There is no worse lie than the truth misunderstood." William James

"So where've you been?"

"Jesus! Kev, you scared me. What are you doing sitting in the dark?"

Kevin rose, wobbled, pressed the back of his legs against an erg for support. Zoe noticed he listed to the right like a strong wind was blowing.

"God, you're drunk. How much have you--"

"I thought you were coming home early. Tonight's the last night for--"

"Shit. Sorry. I completely spaced...I forgot I had to do the Kay-Jap..."

"Are you having an affair with that old fart, that--"

Zoe slipped out of her jacket, let it fall to the floor, held Kevin's gaze. Brazen it out, she instructed herself mentally. "Who in the world are you talking about?"

"Cut the crap. I went by Henninger's. I saw you."

"You saw Peter? Now it's my turn to tell you to cut the crap. You know Peter and I were assigned the--"

"Don't patronize me." Kevin stopped, tensed, the opening guitar riff from Deathrockers' "Blankness Within" blared, but he didn't play his imaginary guitar as he usually did. Zoe unbuttoned her blouse with a God, I'm hot, but Kevin reached up, grabbed her wrists, stilled her hands. "And don't think you can launch into one of your sexy little routines, and good old Kev will start salivating like Pavlov's dog."

"Let go--you're hurting me! So you're going to turn into a girlfriend beater over my friendly drink with a co-worker? And mentor, I might add. With his help I could--"

"Shut up." He dropped one wrist, but brought the other up to his mouth, kissed it lightly. "So you're sticking to your story, huh? Even after I told you I was there, for crissakes? I want you to take a look around, at the way we live--the view, the furniture, everything. You're just a fucking entry level peon, don't forget. Keep in mind that all this is mine, baby, and you'll be left with what you brought to the table: a Dyna-sizer, a used Exceltron II, and closet full of designer rip-offs."

"Let me get this straight. I come home--what?--an hour or two late and you're ready to kick me--"

"I can't believe we're here again. I thought after that Gavin asshole from Centronetics that you'd--"

"And I can't believe you're beating that dead horse again. What do I have to do to get through to you, baby? Come here, come to Mama. I'm gonna make everything all right." She traced the sworls of hair on his chest, lowered her hands to his hips, brought her right hand forward and down, pressed.

"Stop. I love you, Zoe, you know that. But I just don't think you're as committed in this relationship as--"

"What do I have to do to convince you? What would it take? You know I promised Dad I wouldn't get married 'til I was over thirty. How 'bout a tattoo? Kevin 'n Zoe equals true love. In a heart with--"

"I want you to get a DeceptNO!"

VII. "What is truth?" John 18:38

Jocelyn's eyes swam as she turned, stumbled toward Henninger's door. She bumped into a young guy who reeked of alcohol. A typical Neo-techer, expensive leather jacket, Monord shoes. He mumbled a "sorry" but stood stock still, and it seemed to Jocelyn that he, too, had been staring at Peter and his Zoe-whore.

Jocelyn pretended to sleep until Peter left for work the next day. She rose, dragged herself to the loft area of their home that she'd converted into an office. Get all my ducks in a row; she thought as she typed in her password then: financialwhiz.bus. She wept quietly as she remembered Peter half-standing, bending toward the girl, the intensity of his kiss. She wiped her tears with the back of her hand, stared at the hourglass icon that seemed to pulse before her. What the...? She re-booted, got a 'financialwhiz.bus is not a valid address' prompt, gave up in frustration.

She dialed the company's number: Press one if you want your account balance, two to transfer stock; none of the options fit: what number did you press if you wanted to cash out, take the money your father had left you, the money he'd earned by the sweat of his brow when he'd started Diskers so many years ago? The money she'd be damned if she continued to use one minute longer to underwrite her underachieving, lying, adulterous husband.

Finally, in desperation, she choose "0" for the operator, perhaps a real person could help her. Nothing, just the click and buzz of the line as it went dead. A fresh torrent of sobs washed through her, but afterward she felt no cleansing, no relief. She felt spent, dried up...how long had it been since she and Peter had made love?

Her VitaLizer flashed a Code Three; she'd better take some Euphorion. But still she sat, smelling her unwashed hair, the acrid smell of her body.

Timmie. Oh, God, she'd better call him. Her heartbeat picked up speed; he would hate this, he would cry, their family being ripped apart. But she'd have to make him understand that she'd had enough. A busy signal. She picked up the TeleComm, ripping its tentacles from the outlet, and smashed it to the floor.

And that was her whole day, into the early evening. Trying to connect, to find out, to take charge, to corral her resources. All to no avail. And that was how Peter found her: sitting greasy-haired and foul-breathed before her computer, looking over at him, sullen.

"Joss, you okay? Are you sick? Did you just--"

"Sick? You could say so. Let me get this over with. I saw you and your...girl...friend last night. You see, I'm not stupid enough to believe every alibi you dish out. I'm divorcing you. And I'm taking every penny of Daddy's money with me."

Something Peter couldn't name zinged through him. He didn't know what the outcome would be, but he was in it now, in something life-changing and inalterable. He noted how empty he felt; the relief he'd anticipated would rush through him, didn't. He wondered what was happening with Zoe and Kevin, when he'd pulled away from her embrace this afternoon, she'd said she was going to tell Kevin she wanted to move out, move on with her life, and Peter had heard himself promise to do the same. Funny, he hadn't known that this would be the relationship that finally, mercifully, put his marriage to Jocelyn out of its misery.

At the same time, across town: "Kev, this isn't working out, you know it as well as I do. You're a--"

Kevin put down his whiskey, glared at Zoe. "Don't say it, don't say I'm a wonderful person and that you hope we'll remain friends."

Zoe slid her hand up and down his sleeve, hoping to calm him. "But you are a won--"

Kevin swept the Old Grandad bottle off the table; it smashed to the floor. Zoe felt fear swell inside her.

And at the exact moment the bottle smashed, in another part of the city, Jocelyn picked up the Werringferd vase her father had given her for her fortieth birthday and hurled it, barely missing Peter's right shoulder. "I said don't tell me you're sorry, that you didn't mean to hurt me--"

"But, Joss, that's the truth. You act aggrieved, like I woke up one morning and said, 'How can I hurt Jocelyn? Turn her life upside down? Zoe and I...just happened, it's almost like..."

"Fuck you. But at least I'm finally getting the real Peter. The real, self-serving, self-absorbed asshole that you really are is finally, finally coming to the surface. After all these years, I'm getting the truth at last."

"And the truth will set you free."

"Exactly. So tell me, did you also screw Rebecca?"

"Rebecca?"

"Rebecca, the temp who took Janelle's place when Janelle was pregnant? Come on now, 'fess up. Honesty's the best policy, and it's all water under the bridge now, right? Come on, coming clean will make it easier for me, I swear. I won't grieve for you as much."

"Yes."

"Yes. That's it? How long did it--"

"Don't do this to yourself. When you wanted us to get DeceptNO!s, I told you then that--"

"Ah, it took me a while, but stupid, little honesty-loving Jocelyn is finally understanding why you were so resistant to the idea of getting 'planted, why--"

Across town: "--a DeceptNO?" Kevin had Zoe pinned, his palms pressing the backs of her hands into the wall. Zoe smelled his thick odor, felt his bulk, her whole body throbbed from the rapid, metronomic pulse of her heartbeat. Her mind filled with the screamed words: I hate you, you son of a bitch.

"I'll get a DeceptNO!, Kev, if that's what it takes to make you happy."

"Shut up! Liar! You'd say anything to--"

"Fuck you, Kevin." His ham hock-sized hands loosened, but only long enough to leave her hands and encircle her neck. She groped for something, anything to...

In a building high above Central Park: Jocelyn tried to wiggle away from Peter's grasp. "Get your hands off me--I'm going to call Timmie. Now. Let him know what his father has been up to. Let him know Dad's 'dating' someone only, what? eight? nine? years older than he is, tops." They struggled for the commpiece; Peter raised his hand to yank it away from her, but..."

IX. "Investigate a murder and you'll find a lie, moldering."
-Gelvin, No Reason to Lie

...And so, gentlemen and women of the jury, Ecourt participants, it is widely believed that the machines variously referred to as "lie detectors" are not accepted in a court of law. But that is not always the case, as when the evidence has been "stipulated," that is if both parties--Prosecution and Defense--agree before the tests are conducted that the results of said tests will be admissible no matter what their determination. Thus, these results are, indeed, admissible. And the Defendant,"--he gestured at Zoe, subdued, dressed in expensive clothes, wondering: How is it my life has come to this?--"has willingly agreed to be implanted with a DeceptNO! A device that will show--"

Constance's story "As Lightning Fall From Heaven" placed third in the recent Garden State Horror Writers Short Story Contest.