Ahdam Miclen was only twenty-five, twenty-five and about to die. It was amazing how fast the justice system worked in the later half of the twenty-first century. Only six hours ago he had been arrested for murder—a murder he hadn’t committed mind you—four and a half hours ago he had been tried, convicted, and sentenced to die. Actually now a days it really couldn’t have been a trial. The police simply presented their evidence—all of it circumstantial—several “witnesses” said they had seen him in or near the location of the crime, and stated that he had had a violent temper in the past.

That was it. No lawyers to cloud the issue. No chance to defend himself. No jury, just a magistrate that listened to all the damning evidence that only thirty years before would have at least been questioned. That was it, and now he was only a few minutes away from a very gruesome death.

That was another amazing thing about the modern justice system. The prescribed punishment for most felonies was death. Granted those executions were at least quick and merciful—the execution of a person convicted of murder was usually slow and incredibly painful. In the event that it wasn’t slow, it was horrendously painful. However, Miclen had no illusions about his own execution, he knew it was going to be pain beyond belief.

The door to his cell opened and two buff guards pulled him, struggling, from the cell. They marched him down a long hallway, toward two large steel doors. He knew that the other side of those doors would be the last place he saw. He knew this was the end of everything. He struggled to escape. It was better to die in the attempt of escaping than what awaited him on the other side of the steel doors. But it was hopeless. The guards were too strong, and the held him fast. His head fell in defeat as the doors opened.

Melany Ordan was pissed off. They weren’t listening to her. “I have to see the Governor! It is extremely urgent.”

“Do you have an appointment?” the secretary behind the desk asked for the tenth time!

“I already told you that I didn’t! There is no time for one.”

“Then I am afraid that there is nothing I can do for you. Without an appointment, no one sees the governor.”

Melany was a slight woman of twenty-four, not normally strong but the adrenaline pumping its way through her veins more than adequately increased her strength. Before the secretary knew what hit her, Melany was over the desk hands about the terrified secretaries throat, holding her pinned against the wall behind the desk.

“WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE?!”

The doors opened on an operating room. Yes, that is how the justice system thought of executions these days. There was a table made of a hard plastic coated metal, that stood slightly upright in the middle of the room. One wall was nothing but glass, and behind it he could see the faces of at least a hundred people; including, he assumed, the victims family. At both corners of the glass wall were television cameras. His execution, like most, was to be televised, another of the oddities of modern times.

The Warden of the prison stood to one side, his pin stripe suit looked fancy enough for a formal dinner, way to overdressed for a simple execution.

“Ahdam Miclen,” the Warden said as soon as he saw Miclen. “Having been convicted of the crime of murder in the first degree, you have been sentenced to death that sentence will no be carried out.”

Immediately two “technicians” came forward and while the guards held him, stripped him of what little clothing he had been granted to wear when he arrived at the prison. Little was correct; in fact all he wore was a simple loincloth.

After he was nude, the guards drug him to the table, where the technicians strapped him down. No one even commented on the fact that he had no hair on his body. There was no point. Everyone knew that one of the first things done upon arrival in any prison was the permanent removal of absolutely all hair from the prisoner—from the scalp downward.

“Governor,” Melany began, “I was trying to explain how urgent it was that I see you. But your secretary wouldn’t listen.”

State Governor Haines starred at the woman who had his secretary pinned to a wall. In all his years he had never seen the like. “Why is it so urgent, miss…?”

“Melany Ordan. And it is urgent because an innocent man is about to executed for a crime he didn’t commit!”

The governor didn’t even blink. “If he has been convicted then he is guilty.”

“Governor, the police did not take into account one thing. No matter how the justice system works in this day and age, they are still required to determine if the suspect was in the place of the crime at the time it was committed.”

“That’s true,” the governor acquiesced, “but…”

“Governor Ahdam Miclen, who this morning was convicted of first degree murder, was five floors above the crime scene at the time the victims were killed. I know this because we were having sex!”

The first thing they did, or at least the first part of his execution, was that they injected a quantity of acid into each of his testicles. His screams filled the room as everyone waited for the acid to dissolve his nuts and begin eating its way out of his sack. The agony was unbearable. But the bioneural devices attached to his temples simply kept him from passing out. After his balls were gone, a base was added to counteract the acid. The pain was still there but it was less.

“The next stage of his execution ladies and gentlemen, will be short.” the Warden said—like some announcer from an old football game, back before it had been deemed to dangerous and had been outlawed—“The removal of his penis!”

Miclen groaned, but that was all he could do.

A mechanical arm left the side of the table to pick up his flaccid member, and pulled it straight up and away from his body. The stretching was painful, but had nothing on what followed. Another mechanical arm, this one armed with a laser, moved into position at the base of his penis. The beam of energy was invisible as the room was kept dust free, and so none was in the air to give the laser visual life, but it cut just as well.

Compared to the acid, this was not really all that painful, but it was humiliating to have his dick cut off by an invisible beam of light, both on live television and in front of more than a hundred people.

After the laser had finished its work there was nothing left but a cauterized patch of skin where his dick had been.

“And the final stage ladies and gentlemen, slow torture. Our specialists should be able to keep him alive for a few hours.”

And then he felt pain in every part of his body. Pain beyond belief. Worse even then the pain he had felt as the acid dissolved his balls. He was screaming. Screaming so loud that there was not another sound he could hear. It went on for days, or so it felt. Then it stopped. Suddenly, just like that the pain stopped coming and was only a dull throb, a mere memory.

Three years later, Ahdam Miclen watched the real killer being executed. He of course was a guest of honor. It was some small way for the government to compensate him for his wrongful conviction and almost execution. The pardon from the governor came barely in time to spare his life. Melany, then his girl friend, now his wife, had come through for him. True, he was still, and would remain hairless. True he was now a eunuch. However it was not unbearable. He was alive and he was with Melany; and the real killer was getting what he deserved. Hell, his doctor had just told him that there was an experimental treatment that might make it possible to re-grow his cock and balls. That would be wonderful, he and Melany would at last be able to have children. But for now, he had to content himself with what he had. The life of a eunuch.