Crime Capsule
by
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(Jim Henry and his girl friend Jane are with Krong in the Space Needle. Krong will explain and demonstrate the Crime Capsule.)
Krong said, "Your crime capsule is finished and ready for your inspection, Mr. Henry. You may examine it at your leisure."
Still tongue-tied with excitement and with the grateful gratitude of the pleasure of a dream fulfilled, Jim, clenching his teeth hard, managed to say, "Thank you, Mr. Krong, I really appreciate it, sir. I'm so overwhelmed I can hardly talk. Can I see it tonight?"
"That would be perfectly all right, Mr. Henry. Come to room 19F 19R in the Space Needle at 8 p.m. I will meet you there."
"Wow! Thanks, Mr. Krong, thanks a lot, I really appreciate it, sir. I can't believe it. Can I bring my girl friend, sir?"
"Why, of course, Mr. Henry, she would not want to miss seeing your crime capsule with you. Goodbye, my friend."
"Goodbye, Mr. Krong, thanks, thanks a lot, I can't tell ya how much I appreciate this. Goodbye, sir."
"You are welcome, Mr. Henry. Goodbye."
Hanging up, Jim turned, yelled, "The crime capsule's ready," opened his arms to Jane, who instantly leaped into them, then they hugged each other in an ecstasy of abandoned joy as Jim picked her up and waltzed around the room with her, swinging her back and forth as he did so, her feet inches off of the floor, both of them laughing with exultant happiness that Jim's crime capsule was at last a real reality.
After a few boisterous whirls around the room, Jim kissed Jane long and deeply, then sat her down and, holding her hand, led the way back to the dinner table, where they sat down, both of them so bubbling over with high spirits and happy joy that they could hardly eat their food, but, chatting happily and speculating joyfully about what the crime capsule would look like and what it could do, they found they weren't hungry, so they left the table and went in and made ardent love as the best way to express just how happy and pleased they were with Krong's wonderful news, then they took a shower together, dressed carefully and, when it was time, drove to the Space Mall and parked.
Holding hands, and consciously holding themselves in check to keep from dashing into the Space Mall like a couple of ecstatic kids going to meet Santa Claus, but still walking fast, they hurried across the plush foyer to the elevators and went up to 19F 19R, and, as the door opened, they hesitantly went in, looking around with great curiosity and excited, expectant interest. The room was big, and it was some kind of a laboratory, with all kinds of scientific equipment and machines in it.
A very tall Watcher came striding swiftly toward them, awing them with his size and powerful presence. He was the first Watcher they had ever seen in person. He spoke: "Hello, my friends. I am Krong. It is a pleasure to meet you."
Jim and Jane stammered awed hellos, wide eyed and overwhelmed by their first sight of one of the fabled Watchers from outer space. They were so overwhelmed they didn't know what to do or say for a moment, but Krong put them at ease quickly as he made some small talk until they got their wits back, the usual reaction when an earther met a Watcher for the first time.
Krong looked ten feet tall to their awed eyes, but he was only seven feet tall.
Smiling his small smile, Krong said, "Come this way, please, it is time for you to examine your crime capsule." Leading the way, Krong took them to a small room behind the back wall of the big Lab which had been designed as a lounge. It was rather bare, but pleasantly done, with a couch and two overstuffed chairs against the left wall, a coffee table in front of the couch, and with other chairs against the other walls out of the way. Jim and Jane were so keyed up with excitement and expectancy that they didn't notice much about the room.
There was an object against the back wall covered with a dark blue canvas-like cover. Krong strode to the object and with one powerful flick of his big right hand, removed the blue cover letting it fall to the floor, exposing an upright device which Jim and Jane thought at first was a telephone booth, except that it was a round cylinder instead of rectangular, and appeared to be about eight feet high and three feet in diameter.
Gesturing at the device, Krong said, "This is your crime capsule, Mr. Henry. It resembles a telephone booth, does it not? Please come closer."
Jim and Jane slowly walked to the crime capsule, all eyes as they looked it over, so excited and overwhelmed they were panting and their hearts were pounding.
The capsule had some kind of a silvery metal skin from the bottom up to about two feet above the floor; above the metal skin on the bottom, the exterior was of a glass-like substance which was so transparent that it looked like there was nothing there, extending all the way to a foot from the top which was made of the same kind of silvery metal on the bottom, giving excellent visibility from the inside or from the outside.
The capsule was empty with no visible controls inside or outside, which Jim and Jane could recognize, anyway.
Krong said, "I will describe this capsule, then I will demonstrate it for you. This capsule is made of a very strong metal and a clear, super strong, transparent plastic. All of its machinery and electronics are in the bottom of the capsule. It has an independent power source, so it may be taken to any location on earth. It is a robot machine, with a robot brain. It can talk and it can fly, which is the best way to move it around. It is self-contained, providing all that is necessary for a human being to live inside of it for extended periods of time, but extended periods of time are not necessary, nor is suspended animation, this machine has been designed to hold criminals for a short period of time, depending on the criminal's period of jail time he has been given for his crime. The period in the capsule will not be in real time, it will be capsule time, a time which will seem to be as long as real time in a jail cell. Remember, Time is relative.
"During the criminal's period in the capsule he will be in a dream state of unconsciousness in which he will suffer great discomfort for his crimes,
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About the Book
Mr. Warner says: Crime Capsule is another of my popular Krong The Watcher stories.
I got to thinking about time capsules, the kind people sleep in in suspended animation on long space voyages, one day when the name 'Crime Capsule' popped into my head and I thought what a neat place to keep criminals thugs in. They could be put to sleep and forgotten until their jail sentence was up then they could be revived and turned loose. Crime capsules would be cheaper and take up a lot less space and reduce the costs of keeping criminals in every way. The result is Crime Capsule.
Jim Henry, the main character, goes to see Krong. Krong The Watcher had the Crime Capsules built for Jim Henry, then a big obstacle came up: no one was interested very much, least of all the prison system, which saw the Henry Crime Capsule as a threat to the entire prison system: especially costing jobs, so Krong rounded up some thugs and some racists and put them in crime capsules then Krong made a media circus of the event to advertise the Henry Crime Capsule, which worked very well indeed, attracting the FBI who requested a Mafia thug leader be put into a crime capsule, which Krong and Jim Henry agreed to, and the dung hit the fan.
New York Mafia thugs arranged to have Jim Henry and his girlfriend, Jane Foxwell, kidnapped and held as hostages by some Mafia thugs in Huntington Beach, California, until the Mafia thug leader was put back into a regular prison where he could tell his thugs what to do over the prison telephone and keep selling drugs to moronic people and innocent school children.
Only Krong and his Watchers could help Jim Henry and Jane Foxwell, but the Watchers were on earth only to watch!?
About the Author
Robert James Warner was born and raised in Long Beach, California. He went to the local schools. He was drafted into the Navy on March 9th, 1944, during the 2nd World War as soon as he finished his last semester in High School. He was discharged from the Navy on June 16, 1946.
Mr. Warner went back to school, Long Beach City College, on the G.I. Bill, taking Mechanical Engineering, then he switched to journalism. After about a year and a half at City College he quit.
Mr. Warner had always been interested in writing, but he had huge handicaps to overcome: he couldn't spell (he still can't); and grammar was then and is now a mystery to him.
Mr. Warner first began to write when he was about 20.
During the next few years he wrote some songs and some poetry and some short stories, but his output was quite low.
From 1947, after Mr. Warner left City College, to 1950, he had a number of different inconsequential jobs, the longest at Douglas Aircraft in Long Beach where he worked in the blueprint department for eight months, then he quit and loafed awhile.
In 1950 he enlisted in the Active Naval Reserve as a Weekend Warrior, so he could learn seamanship and get paid doing it. He has had a life long love affair with boats (building his own) and fishing.
About three months later, the Korean War started and Mr. Warner was called back to active duty in the Navy Aircorp for a year, getting discharged in August, 1951, serving on three aircraft carriers, operating off of Korea in the China Sea, bombing and strafing the communists!
After Korea, Mr. Warner went back to City College for awhile, then he got a job on a freighter as a deckhand, and made two trips to the Hawaiian Islands, about 30 days round trip, hauling bulk sugar for C&H Sugar in Crocket California on the Sacramento River.
Leaving the ship in Crocket he went to Santa Rosa, California, where he washed dishes in some restaurants and got a poem published in the local newspaper, a big day in his life.
Next, he went to Yosemite, and washed some more dishes then he went home.
Mr. Warner has cleaned chicken dung from under the pens; he owned and operated his own auto wrecking yard; owned his own 2nd Store; was half owner of a Yacht Landing; speculated in Real Estate and worked at some other odd jobs, going to work for the Long Beach Fire Department in 1953 for the next 26 years, retiring in October 1979.
Mr. Warner got married in 1961, had his son in 1963, then got divorced in 1973.
In 1974, Mr. Warner and his son, Jeff, drove to Alaska during the summer. On his return, Mr. Warner wrote his first novel.
Since 1974, Mr. Warner has written 15 novels, about 125 short stories, two Civil War books, and two poetry collections.