Blog 11: Post Voyeur

I never wanted this for my creation. You can’t trust anyone to do the right thing. It was supposed to be the greatest aid the police have ever had in catching criminals. I trusted an officer with an invention that would have handed the police any criminal from a crime scene where the invention was used fast enough.

The machine takes to a new level the idea that every action has a consequence and will leave a trace of itself on the world. Light and sound are far from immune to the laws of physics. They alter the world around us with more legacy and subtlety than we ever imagined before. Each surface is altered by these two forms of energy. The energy fingerprint of an action is left on the walls and objects around it. My machine can take in these memories, record and play them back within the space. The success of the machine depends on the quality and materials of the surfaces in the room which alters the record time as well.

In a sound booth up to three hours of audio energy can be stored in the walls. Those three hours are constantly overwritten which makes urgency a priority of the machine. Some damage will be done to the recorded data simply to retrieve it. Perhaps only two and a half hours would be viable for use. After taking in the information the black box can replay it as a three dimensional projection of light and sound which appears as a pale but near perfect depiction of what happened in that time. If a crime occurred within that time then officers would be able to view the crime from any angle to identify the criminal and their means and possible motives.

Prosecution of quickly recorded crime scenes would reach unprecedented levels of success. To avoid the typical learning curve I proposed that the police roll out the technology on a need to know basis. If no one knew the technology existed then they would make no efforts to fool it.

I presented the device for testing to a man I should have been able to trust. He said he would work with me to prove it’s use in the field. He promised me that my invention would improve the safety of mankind. He used my creation to spy on women of the force. For his perversion my invention my not get it’s chance to change the world. I have to defend the possibilities of the machine to a committee today. If I fail it will be made illegal.

Today I must outweigh the damage done to the reputation of my creation with the possibilities it holds. Lives may be saved, criminals caught and the world purified. It would also be nice not have wasted years of my life.