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The Playground Judge

(897 Words / 4 Minute Read)

The children laughed as they chased each other across the monkey bars, through the jungle gym, and between the swings while under the watchful eye of the multi-turret stabbed into the center of the playground. The servomotors and cooling fans were nearly inaudible under their giggles and quiet enough for them to whisper innocent secrets without interruption.

Parents argued with little ones about keeping their sweatshirts on while they ran and played, crunching through golden brown leaves.

A barking dog tied to a tree across the street pulled and gnawed at his leash. His furious barking punctuated the lulls between when the kids would decide which game to play next.

"It just gives me the creeps," Liam said. "I can't even tell where it's looking." He sipped his coffee and kept his eyes glued to the multi-turret instead of on his youngsters, Michael and Jessica.

"I think that's part of the point," Ava said, wrapping her fingers around her paper cup. She tracked their son and daughter running across the playground bridge.

"I know. It doesn't look anywhere. It has sensors for all sorts of stuff that we can't see. I think this turret is actually the point our weather comes from. I know we always get the weather for the park, but it never occurred to me that its coming from this thing. What does it need a barometric pressure sensor for?"

"We don't know, but I'm sure its good for something."

Michael and Jessica joined a game of tag with a group of kids and they squealed as "it" chased them down the slide. They spiraled down the plastic, one after the other, and then ran to the column of the multi-turret. Stretching their hands out to the cold steel, they yelled "safe!" and 'it' had to search for other prey.

"Come on, you can't tell me that isn't creepy."

"What?" Ava asked.

"They're using it as base, calling it safe. That's creepy." Liam said.

"It's the center of the playground. Of course it's base."

"The fact that its a three-hundred-sixty-degree killing machine doesn't creep you out at all?"

"Stop."

"That's what it is!"

"Remember when everyone freaked out when they realized that the doctors at Mayo were no longer diagnosing patients and the doctors were just reading what the computers were telling them?"

"Okay, sure."

"People were pissed, remember?" Ava said, raising her voice above the dog’s incessant barking.

"Yeah. People thought Mayo and Johns Hopkins were going to close." Liam said.

"Right, until Mayo came out and showed a huge increase in patient success. Then everyone else started to do it and even advertised they were using AI to diagnose and doctors to treat."

"What exactly does this have to do with the guns pointed toward our children at the center of our park?"

Across the street, the dog’s barking pitch shifted higher. Liam glanced over and saw the dog yanking at his restraint, covering the leash in handfuls of frothy drool.

"They would see a threat before people would and keep our children safe." Ava said.

In a flash, the turret whipped ninety degrees and shuddered with micro-adjustments.

"I'm allowed to be creeped out." Liam sipped his coffee.

“I think it hears you,” Ava snickered.

“You know, there’s hardly any other parents here. They just dump their kids off and think they’ll be safe with this thing. How does it know if uncle Oliver is picking up his nephew or if it’s a random pedophile? How does it stop that?”

“Liam, stop.”

The turret spun again.

Ponk!

A few children looked up at the turret, curious over the small noise it made. But the older children looked across the street and saw the barking dog lying still next to his severed leash with steam rising from the small hole in its head.

“Oh fuck. Before they know what happened and the other kids start crying.” Ava said.

“Yep,” Liam said. “I’ll get Jessica.”

One of the older girls drew in a deep breath and screamed a shrill, piercing scream that brought the entire block to a standstill.

The parents scooped up their children and playfully covered their escape from the playground with shoulder rides and tickles.

Later, after the children had gone to bed, Liam was brushing his teeth while Ava washed her face. He spit into the sink and asked “what do you think it was going to do?”

Ava stopped scrubbing. “What?”

“The dog. What do you think it was going to do?”

“Hurt one of the kids, I guess. Didn’t think about it.”

Liam considered retorting but rinsed his mouth out instead. “You don’t think they saw, do you?”

“No.” Ava rinsed her face and patted her skin dry then gave her pores one final examination for the night.

But Liam couldn’t leave it alone. “So, was this like precrime for dogs?”

“Come on, man. I’m tired, you’ve got work early, I’ve got work early. Can we go to bed without worrying about if the entire security network has a big enough library of incidents to know whether or not that dog was going to attack one of the kids? Maybe one of our kids?”

“Okay, okay just hate to think of it shooting a kid.”

“Hasn’t happened - anywhere.”

“I know.” Was all Liam could say. But he couldn’t stop thinking about the kids laughing, and playing tag, and whispering innocent jokes while the machine judged which threats were to be executed.

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Blake Armstrong is a writer from Chicago who has worked in the film and television industry for more than a decade. He likes to explore the primal conflicts of humanity as well as our hopes and dreams through stories painted with science fiction, fantasy, and the American Old West.