Short Story
The Sentence Is Always Death
- by Brian Hirt and Ken Gerber
- Daily Science Fiction, 14 March 2014
Forty-three-year-old Paul Beaumont, who used to switch places with his twin brother Thomas, faces sentencing in a court where the sentence is always death and the worst death option involves government time-traveling executioners—although the universe will allow the sentence to be carried out only after the condemned no longer has a future contribution of importance.
“I order death from category K.” Somehow these words sound less insidious than the proper name. There is only one type of death in this category. It's called “Erasure.”