The Truth Machine

by James L. Halperin

  “In your expert judgment, how many lives would have been saved if the ACIP had been introduced two years earlier?”

  “In 2023, the year before the ACIP was approved, there were an estimated 2.6 million murders worldwide. That figure includes deaths resulting from political and religious repression, wars, terrorism, and all other human lawlessness. 2023 was a fairly typical year. There were approximately the same number of murders in 2022. Ten years later, the number of murders was under 100,000, and today it is less than 1,500. So theoretically, if the curve could have been moved ahead by two years, at least five million lives would have been saved. In fact, those statistics understate the benefit of the ACIP, since they do not include improvements in productivity, technological progress, and general prosperity, all of which have been definitively linked to increased lifespan. My numbers also do not allow for the ACIP’s role in reducing negligence.”

  “If Scoggins were alive today, and we discovered that he’d intentionally delayed the ACIP for two years, could he be prosecuted for any related crimes?”

  “Yes indeed. There must be at least 10 different charges under which he could be prosecuted and convicted. Any intentional fraud resulting in provable death is the same as murder, so there would be several million counts of that statute available for any skillful prosecutor to file against Mr. Scoggins. Today, without question, Charles Scoggins would face execution for his offenses.”

  “Dr. Carter, you were with Pete Armstrong just two days before the murder, and you’ve recently interviewed him using a Sun Truth Machine. What’s your expert opinion of Pete’s state of mind when he killed Charles Scoggins?”

  “Mr. Armstrong was extremely upset after learning the details of his brother’s death. I believe he was mildly delusional at the moment he killed Mr. Scoggins.”

  “How so?”

  “In my opinion, Mr. Armstrong suffers from Intermittent Delusionary Disorder. He possesses the classic vector and displayed symptoms at the time.”

  “Which are?”

  “IDD only affects people with exceptionally high intelligence and tends to cause hallucinations, particularly when the subject is under severe or prolonged stress.”

  “Is Mr. Armstrong insane?”

  “In my opinion, sanity is a matter of degree. Mr. Armstrong is not insane under the standard definition, but neither is he completely sane.”

  “Based on what you’ve learned of Mr. Scoggins, what would he have done had Pete released him?”

  “I can state, with virtual certainty, that Mr. Scoggins would have attempted to kill Mr. Armstrong.”

  “Did Pete believe that?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Was Pete Armstrong acting in self-defense when he killed Scoggins?”

  “In my opinion, yes, he was.”

  “Thank you, Dr. Carter. No more questions.”

  Lezar polled Shaw, “Cross-examine?”

  “Yes, sir. Dr. Carter, are you familiar with the eight conditions of self-defense?”

  “Of course.”

  “And what’s condition number three?”

  “The defendant must reasonably believe that there is no sure means of escape.”

  “So are you telling this court that Mr. Armstrong, having handcuffed an unarmed man to a chair while pointing a laser pistol at him, had no sure means of escape?”

  “Mr. Armstrong believed Scoggins would kill him if he let him go.”

  “But even so, Mr. Armstrong did have a sure means of escape. Could he not have simply kept Mr. Scoggins there and called the authorities?”

  “Yes. But as I said, he was upset and mildly delusional. I seriously doubt the option ever occurred to him.”

  “Is it possible that Mr. Armstrong did not call the authorities because he’d have been required to confess that he’d fraudulently reprogrammed the ACIP and perjured himself to government attorneys?”

  “I suppose that is possible.”

  “In fact, as delusional as Mr. Armstrong was at the time, his actions were consistent not only with self-preservation but also with a desire to save his company, his wealth, and his reputation from the aftermath of his earlier crimes of fraud and perjury. Is that not correct?”

  “Yes, it is. But, I. . . .”

  “That’ll be all, Dr. Carter. You’ve answered my question and I have nothing further. Thank you for your time.”

  Lezar said, “The witness will please step down.”

  David called six other witnesses, including Leslie Williams, ATI’s comptroller, and Carl Whatley, its recently retired marketing director, each of whom affirmed Scoggins’s mercenary attitudes about ATI’s products and Pete’s altruism.

  Whatley’s testimony produced the day’s only whimsical moment. Shaw asked him whether he believed Armstrong had acted in self-defense, an inappropriate question since Whatley wasn’t qualified as an expert in criminal law or psychology.

  Before David could object, Whatley replied without missing a beat, “I’m not sure, but if we’d known what was going on, I can think of at least 30 of us at ATI who would’ve killed Scoggins just for sport.”

  “The defense would appreciate a list,” David joked.

  The last witness of the day was 68-year-old Dr. Sharon Rosenfield. David didn’t believe she had any knowledge relevant to the case, but wanted the jury to see how the world-revered doctor admired and respected his client. And he knew Shaw wouldn’t dare treat her roughly on cross-examination.

  “Sharon, when did you first meet Pete Armstrong?”

  “In August 2009, when he and Bill Tannenbaum recruited me to ATI.”

  “How would you describe Pete’s agenda at that meeting?”

  “When I first met him, I wasn’t sure what to make of him. He never talked about money—only about the benefits of the products we’d be creating. To be perfectly candid, I was suspicious. Everything Pete said sounded too good to be true. I thought his attitudes unusual for a businessperson and I suspected maybe he was just telling me what he thought I wanted to hear. But I knew he was a genius and I trusted Bill Tannenbaum. As it turned out, Pete was completely sincere.”

  Shaw interrupted, “Objection. I don’t see the relevance of this line of questioning. Isn’t the issue self-defense?”

  David answered, “I am establishing Pete Armstrong’s character and intent, particularly relevant to the charges of fraud. . . .”

  Shaw interrupted, “To which the defendant’s already pleaded guilty.”

  David countered, “And for which we now seek amnesty.”

  “Mr. Shaw, your objection’s overruled,” Lezar said. “If the prosecution didn’t wish to deal with motive and character issues, it shouldn’t have brought the fraud charges.”

  David continued. “What finally convinced you of Pete’s sincerity?”

  “Two years later, I met with him in Dallas. I presented him with a plan to launch the MediFact national field study and asked him for $5 million to market the concept. That was no big deal. What I really wanted was permission to discount the price on HealthFile and HomeDoc by 15 percent to anyone who’d take part in the studies. Keep in mind, HomeDoc was well on its way to becoming the most profitable software product in the world. At the time, it was ATI’s heart and soul, so a 15-percent discount was a huge concession; it would have had a major negative pull on ATI’s earnings and its stock price. But every question Pete asked me had to do with how my ideas would help advance medical science. He couldn’t have cared less about the money or who got the credit. By the time I left his office, he was more excited than I was. He authorized an unlimited marketing budget and recommended I double the discount to 30 percent to attract more participants. That discount cost him an absurd amount of money, but he never thought twice about it because he knew it was the right thing to do. Pete Armstrong is for real.”

  “Dr. Rosenfield, could you briefly explain the effects of MediFact on the progress of medical science?”

  Shaw interrupted, “Objection! That’s an entirely
gratuitous and irrelevant question.”

  “I agree. Objection’s sustained. President West should know better than to try something like that.”

  Oh well, it was worth a shot. David felt neither ashamed nor embarrassed, but was discreet enough to surrender. “Sorry, Judge. I have no more questions for Dr. Rosenfield.”

  Shaw added, “Neither do I.”

  * * *

  So ended the first day of testimony. Lezar adjourned the proceedings until the next morning at 10:30. Pete himself would be the only remaining witness.

  As they left the courthouse together, David advised, “Try to get some sleep tonight, Pete. Tomorrow’s going to be grueling.”

  “I’ve been thinking; I’m not sure you should ask me whether I thought Scoggins would’ve killed me if I let him go.”

  “Are you worried about Shaw’s cross-examination?”

  “Yes, I sure am. He’ll ask me if I think I acted in self-defense. But if we don’t lay a foundation for that question in my direct testimony, you’ll be able to object.”

  David and Pete had disagreed on one particular point. David believed that his friend had acted in self-defense, both morally and legally, but Pete himself didn’t think he had. In his own mind, he was guilty of capital murder.

  “I understand that,” David said, “but you have to trust me. We’ll probably lose this verdict anyway, so let’s go down fighting. I’m going to ask you every question we went over last week. Shaw will cross-examine, I’ll object whenever I think it might help, and you’ll answer every question Lezar instructs you to answer. Otherwise we have no chance at all. Whenever someone pleads self-defense, the burden of proof rests on the defense—and we’re nowhere close to proving our case.”

  “Okay.” Pete’s body began to sway.

  “Pete, listen to me. If we lose at trial, it isn’t over. There’s still the appeal, and if we lose that, we have a year to try every legal and political maneuver we can think of. I’ll never quit. Neither will Diana or Maya. If there’s any way to get you out of this, we’ll move heaven and earth to find it.” David put his hands on his friend’s shoulders and looked straight into tear-filled eyes. “Heaven and earth.”

  Pete nodded. “I know.”

  CHAPTER 47

  DAY IN COURT

  Austin, Texas

  July 2, 2050—After the first day of the Armstrong murder trial, opinion polls show 73 percent believe Armstrong will receive the death penalty, but only 39 percent now think he actually deserves it. According to those polls, the testimony of Sharon Rosenfield made a strong and favorable impression.—World-renowned neuroscientist Dr. Carlos Senoma suggests that if Armstrong isn’t executed, it might only take a few years for the genius/inventor to figure out how to fool any competing Truth Machine. Other scientists in the field, most of whom favor amnesty for Armstrong, reluctantly agree with Senoma’s assessment.

  They had rehearsed every question and every response, so David’s direct examination of Pete would be fairly easy.

  “Don’t try not to rock or bite your tongue,” David told him. “Save all your concentration for answering the questions.”

  Before the Truth Machine, the defendant’s demeanor often had a greater influence on the outcome of the trial than the facts of the case. Not so anymore. Such displays of uneasiness would hurt neither his credibility nor his case.

  There was preliminary testimony of course—name, address, age, educational and business background, that sort of thing—but David wasted little time. He set the scene for the crimes early in Pete’s testimony.

  “Please describe the Renaissance code and the circumstances under which you first saw it.”

  “Charles S-Scoggins had been t-telling me for several months that his team was close to completion of the ACIP, but that about two percent of the population was immune to it; they were able to dissociate themselves into believing their own lies. That made the ACIP only marginally more useful than computer-operated voice stress analysis and polygraphs, and certainly disqualified it from use in the judicial system. On August 15, 2021, Scoggins showed me eight pages of computer code. I scanned it and knew immediately it would solve our last problem. N-Naturally I was very pleased until Scoggins told me the code had been developed at Renaissance Corporation, and that he’d obtained it from a former Renaissance employee.”

  “Do you know who the employee was?”

  “It t-turns out that was another lie. He’d gotten the code himself by hacking into Renaissance’s central research computer.”

  “What was your response when Scoggins told you the code was from Renaissance?”

  “I told him we couldn’t use it.”

  “But you did use it, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “When and why?”

  “A little over two and a half years later, on March 1, 2024. It was the day the Dallas News Syndicate ran an article about Harold Edward Kilmer’s wrongful execution. I was so angry. The ACIP could’ve saved his life. I thought to myself, ‘If I’d let Scoggins use the Renaissance code back in 2021, Kilmer would still be alive today.’ So I rewrote the code; made it a little different, but it was still plagiarism and I knew it.”

  “Is that why you added code that allowed you to fool the ACIP?”

  “Yes. I had to. Otherwise it would never have been approved, and I knew without a Truth Machine, more people would be executed for crimes they hadn’t committed, just like Kilmer.”

  “Pete, if it weren’t for the illegally obtained Renaissance code, would you still have written an override code?”

  “No. I had no reason to lie except for that.”

  All eyes and every camera in the courtroom focused on the CyCare Truth Machine, which registered solid green.

  “When did you learn Scoggins had figured out that you’d used the Renaissance code and overridden the ACIP?”

  “August 6, 2024, the day before I was to be deposed by government attorneys to receive approval for the Truth Machine contract.”

  “Did you think that was a coincidence?”

  “I didn’t give it much thought then, but of course now I know the timing was part of his scheme.”

  “What did Scoggins say to you?”

  “He said that the attorneys would probably want to question him, and that since he knew I’d reprogrammed the machine, I’d better reprogram the ACIP so he could fool it, too. Otherwise we’d never get approved.”

  “Did you go along with that?”

  “Yes. I thought Scoggins and I were on the same side. I wanted to get the ACIP into our judicial system to save people’s lives, and I thought that was also his motivation; I regarded him as my ally.”

  The Truth Machine was still solid green.

  “The next day, you committed perjury. Tell me why.”

  “It was the only way to get the ACIP approved and the world needed it.”

  “Pete, the ACIP also made trillions of dollars for Armstrong Technologies, of which you own controlling interest. You didn’t do it for the money?”

  “I already had more money than I could ever spend. The money meant almost nothing to me.”

  Still solid green. Not a flicker.

  Pete described the blackmail. “I’d already perjured myself and Scoggins knew it. He told me he was going to turn me in unless I signed over enough of my interest in the ACIP to bring him up to an equal partnership with me. He even had the document all drawn up.”

  “And you signed it?”

  “Yes. I was trapped. As I said, I’d already committed perjury. Besides, I wasn’t going to let anything delay the approval.”

  At David’s request, Pete described his encounter with Daniel Anthony Reece. Then David questioned him about his state of mind afterward.

  “I was undone by it, which I know wasn’t a rational response. What difference did it make what my three-year-old brother believed at the moment of his death? I mean, any way you look at it, Leonard was gone. But I couldn’t stand the idea that he might have
thought I was responsible. It was illogical, but it affected me, drove me a little crazy. What Reece had done was evil. Evil was the only word for it. I couldn’t understand why anyone would do something like that. Then I started thinking about Scoggins. Was he evil too? Had he been planning the whole thing for years?”

  “So you took out the override codes and scipped Scoggins at gunpoint while he answered your questions?”

  “Yes. I needed to find out exactly what he’d done. I had to know. I just had to.”

  “Did you fear for your own life?”

  “I suppose so. I suspected that if Scoggins had really been planning for years to blackmail me, he might eventually murder me as well. I hoped it wasn’t true, but I knew I’d better find out, and the ACIP offered the only practical way to do that.”

  “What did you learn when you questioned him?”

  “I learned he’d intentionally shown me the Renaissance code to delay the ACIP. He told me the ATI Truth Machine team could have figured out the solution themselves, but he made sure that didn’t happen because it would’ve exposed his crimes.”

  “Are you sure Charles Scoggins would have tried to kill you if you’d released him?”

  Pete thought, I sure hope David knows what he’s doing. “Yes.”

  “How do you know?”

  “First, I asked him what he’d do if the situation were reversed—meaning if he were me. He said: ‘I’d have killed you five minutes ago.’ Then I asked him what I could do to prevent him from trying to kill me if I let him go. He asked for some time to think about that.”

  “Did he ever deny he’d try to kill you?”

  “Never. We both knew he would. But I wanted him to help me come up with a way to prevent that. I was thinking maybe we could create some evidence implicating him, evidence that might surface automatically upon my death. Or we could reprogram the ACIP somehow, so that if anything happened to me, Scoggins would no longer be able to fool it. That kind of thing. Of course whatever we came up with would have to be foolproof, which would have been nearly impossible with someone as clever and treacherous as Charles Scoggins. Frankly I was grasping at straws because I didn’t want to kill him. I’d never killed anyone before and I hope I never will again. It’s a d-d-dreadful thing to kill someone. A t-truly dreadful th-thing.”