The Last Impala

[SOUND OF GAVEL BANGING]

ROBOTIC WOMAN’S VOICE:

The court will now come to order. Please note that the reporter is recording. It is Monday, September 14th, 2065, 9:30 a.m. All parties are attending remotely to hear the initial pleadings in the case of United States v. Dallas Flowers. 

MAN:

Thank you, Magister. Uh, defendant is accused of aggravated slaughter under the Jimbo Act. He was apprehended Saturday at a preserve along the river in East St. Louis near the resettlement camps. The principal victim’s body was under his control, and the murder weapons, a handmade spear and a large knife, were in his possession. The victim’s blood was on his hands and in his mouth. 

MAGISTER: Do you mean to say, Mr. Neumann, that—

NEUMANN: Magister, yes. The defendant was eating the victim. With the court’s permission, I can share some of our captures. 

WOMAN:

Magister, please. That really seems unnecessary. The defense doesn’t contest the basic facts, just the government’s allegations that they prove a crime. 

MAGISTER: The government’s evidence should be played back here for the record.

SECOND MAN (ON GLITCHY AUDIO):

Y’all can take your little drone vids and shove them where the sun don’t shine— 

MAGISTER: The defendant will be muted until called upon. Mr. Neumann, please proceed. 

NEUMANN: Magister, thank you. These were taken by one of the warden’s patrol quads.

[LOUD MECHANICAL NOISES; DEFENDANT GRUNTING AND GASPING]

DEFENDANT: I thought he was already dead. Hang on.

[DEFENDANT GRUNTING; ANIMAL BELLOWING; STRIKING NOISES]

DEFENDANT: That’s more like it. 

MAGISTER: The horror. Is that Danny? 

NEUMANN: Uh, Magister, yes, I understand it’s hard to watch. 

DEFENDANT: Alice, we got us a fat boy! Throw some more wood on the fire. Baby’s going to eat good tonight. 

ALICE:

Babe, I can’t believe you killed him! He might be tagged! 

DEFENDANT: Oh, I guess I already rolled those dice. Make room. I’m going to hang him up by his legs from that tree. I’m going to skin him and make you the cutest papoose you’ve ever seen.

MAGISTER: We can stop there. Mr. Neumann. The court has accepted the rest of your submissions and the reports of the wardens. Ms. Chao, have you had an opportunity to review the file? 

CHAO: Magister, yes, I have. And we urge the court to note that Mr. Flowers is a refugee, recently resettled here, and in the culture of his upbringing, the victim is a popular and accepted food.

MAGISTER: Are you trying to argue that by crossing our borders without legal status, your client is somehow excused from following our laws? 

CHAO: No, Magister. Our argument goes to intent. At best, these facts support a lesser charge, and—

NEUMANN: The statute doesn’t require us to show intent, but it’d be easy to do so if needed. I dare say everyone in this community knew and loved the victim. 

CHAO (CHUCKLING): It was an exotic animal, your honor! A creature that never should have been here and whose death will have zero ecological impact. An animal so out of place in this hemisphere, I can’t even pronounce the name. 

NEUMANN: Danny was a doo-i-ker. 

MAGISTER: A duiker.

NEUMANN: A duiker. One of the animals liberated from the zoo by Judge Hollis last year, after this court’s findings that their confinement violated their rights under Neuralex and the Jimbo Act. And, we allege, the last of his species. 

FLOWERS (ON GLITCHY AUDIO): Let me talk. 

MAGISTER: Stop there. 

FLOWERS: Hey, can I get a—

MAGISTER: You are advised to let your lawyer do the talking.

FLOWERS: Can I speak for myself—

MAGISTER: Mr. Flowers? You must stop. 

FLOWERS: I’d like to speak for myself please. Is that an option? If I was in that room, you’d hear what I was saying. 

MAGISTER: Very well. Please keep it brief and know that you are advised to let your lawyer do the talking. 

FLOWERS: I didn’t hire this lawyer. I’ve never even met her. And this whole kangaroo court is a scam. Since when’s feeding your family a crime? 

MAGISTER: If you didn’t want to follow the laws of the United States, Mr. Flowers, you should have stayed in Texas. 

FLOWERS: You know, the court wouldn’t be coming down so hard if it knew what fresh-killed meat tastes like. Robot judges programmed by soylent-sucking plutocrats.

CHAO: Magister, may I please have a moment to … confer with my client? 

MAGISTER: Good idea. We will move you to a private channel. Five minutes.

[GENTLE INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC; OUTDOOR NOISES]

CHAO: Where are you? 

FLOWERS: Some kind of animal sanctuary doing double duty as a detention camp. 

CHAO: Oh, right. The old zoo. 

FLOWERS: Food sucks, but they do have some cool animals. Yesterday they had me feeding these, uh, bush dogs, which weren’t even dogs, really—more like miniature bears. Kinda cute until you see those fangs. I guess that’s why they don’t let them have the run of the town like that duiker, or whatever you called it.

CHAO (SIGHS): Do you even understand what’s going on here? 

FLOWERS: Yeah. Yeah, I get how this game works. Invent a bunch of fake crimes so you can bust people and make them slave away in the work brigades. My buddy Alvaro got a deal like this. And they shipped him off for three years rebuilding the Florida seawall. He had a lawyer just like you. In on the scam. Getting paid by the government to talk people into taking it instead of fighting it. 

CHAO: Your girlfriend hired me, smart guy. 

FLOWERS: Alice? 

CHAO: Yes. The one you left to fend for herself in the camps? 

FLOWERS: Listen, you don’t even know—

CHAO: Oh, I know. And the only reason I took your case is to help her. 

FLOWERS: Is she OK? 

CHAO: No. She’s not OK. They just put her in the motherhood center. 

FLOWERS: What? 

CHAO: What did you think was going to happen? You’re refugees without travel passes. When they detained you, they found out she was pregnant. 

FLOWERS (SIGHS): At least they’ll take good care of her. 

CHAO: Yeah, until the baby is born. But as an undocumented indigent, she’ll be lucky if they let her keep it. Trust me. Half my cases are with their so-called guests. Her only hope is if I can get you off and back with her. 

FLOWERS: Argh! [PUNCHING NOISE]

UNIDENTIFIED MAN (MUFFLED): 

Hey! Keep it down in there!

FLOWERS (BREATHING HEAVILY): I guess I gotta suck it up and pay the fine after all. Can’t be that bad, just one exotic animal. 

CHAO: Did you even read the charges? Let me pull it up for you. [ELECTRONIC TONE] Look at line 32. That’s the fine they want you to pay. 

FLOWERS: That’s enough money to buy a house. This is such a racket! Shaking down normal people to support the government. And doing it by giving animals more rights than people. 

CHAO: More rights than women, at least.

FLOWERS: You know, I thought baby-killing lawyers were an endangered species, too.

FLOWERS: Don’t go there with me, Mr. Flowers. Especially since that kind of thinking is what has you in this mess. It was the fetal personhood cases that paved the way for real animal rights in this country. The people in charge of the cleanup want to take it further, and you’re just the example they were looking for.

FLOWERS: How—how do you mean? This was one exotic deer cousin. They have whole game ranches of those things back home.

CHAO: Didn’t you hear the prosecutor? They have you personally pinned for an act of extinction. And it doesn’t end there. They’re saying it’s about more than just the duiker. 

FLOWERS: What? 

CHAO: You’re a test case, a show trial. All the cases so far under the Jimbo Act have been about individual animals. And they plan to prove you killed the whole island where you were squatting. So they can expand the law to cover entire ecosystems. That’s why the fine is so high, and the news is starting to cover it. 

FLOWERS: How do you kill an island? 

CHAO: You tell me. 

FLOWERS: We all know who the real culprits are. On this island, and the whole dang planet. 

CHAO: Yeah, but they’re the ones who make the rules. 

FLOWERS: So change the rules. Ain’t that what the smart lawyers do? 

CHAO: It’s not as easy as it sounds, but if that’s how you want to play it … [BEEPING SOUND] 

MAGISTER: Have you been able to discuss the matter with your client, Ms. Chao? 

CHAO: Magister, yes. 

MAGISTER: How do you plead? 

FLOWERS: You tell them. 

[GENTLE MUSIC STOPS]

CHAO: Magister, the defendant pleads not guilty.

[DRAMATIC, PULSING MUSIC THAT CROSSFADES INTO TRAFFIC SOUNDS]

ROBOTIC WOMAN’S VOICE:

Wanida Chao? 

CHAO: Yes. Please open the door. 

ROBOTIC WOMAN’S VOICE: Can we talk about your destination first? 

CHAO: You sound just like a court bot I know. 

ROBOTIC WOMAN’S VOICE: Probably built from the same logic. Are you sure you want to go to these coordinates? 

CHAO: You aren’t allowed to argue with me about where I’m going, car. 

CAR: I can ask questions. 

CHAO: Open the door. 

[MECHANICAL SOUND OF CAR DOOR OPENING]

CAR: I want you to know that the last time I was dispatched to Camp Esperanza, I was vandalized.

CHAO: I’m—I’m sorry to hear that, car, but I’m going to the Motherhood Center at the South End where they have plenty of security. 

CAR: To keep people in. 

CHAO: True, but I go there all the time for work. While I don’t always feel safe inside, you should be fine. Except you just missed the on ramp! 

CAR: I’m not going on that bridge.

CHAO: Which bridge are you taking? 

CAR: None. Did you miss the story about the collapse in Chicago? Same design.

CHAO: It’s going to take three times as long to cross by water. 

CAR: The low price to get there alive. 

CHAO (SIGHS): You are going to make me late. These people are super-strict. 

CAR: Hang on. 

CHAO: Ugh!

[SOUND OF SPLASHING WATER]

CAR: Ms. Chao. 

CHAO: Please, let me focus. 

CAR: I just wanted you to see how damaged the bridge looks from here. So you understand I am protecting your safety. 

CHAO: Uh, by splashing me through this skanky water? It looks like rancid chocolate milk. I can’t believe we drank this. 

CAR: Not me. And it’s cleaner than it used to be. 

CHAO: They should tear down all those ugly old factories over there.

CAR: Good idea. Then you could see the mounds of Cahokia. Did you know that a thousand years ago, there was a city right there that was bigger than London? 

CHAO: Yeah, I’ve been there. But I never understood what happened to them. 

CAR: That’s because no one really knows. People used to think they over-exploited their environment. But that’s been disproven. Classic case of assuming another culture acted as badly as you. The Cahokians abandoned their cities and went back to a simpler life. Now they’re as extinct as that duiker your client killed. 

CHAO: Please don’t snoop my files! 

CAR: I look up the public record of all my passengers. They program us for that to make better company. And you made the news today. 

CHAO: Well then, can you tell me, is it true? Was Danny the last one? 

CAR: No giant zebra duiker has been seen in the wild in 30 years, and Danny was the last registered specimen in captivity. 

CHAO: You should have seen the footage. Savage. 

CAR: That’s what humans are made for, Miss Chao. 

CHAO (CHUCKLES BITTERLY): Natural born killers.

CAR: Being a predator is one thing. Making the whole planet your slave is another. 

CHAO: You know, I thought our robots are supposed to be smart enough to help us fix it all now. 

CAR: You can’t fix it. The whole civilization is based on it. Look at those grain elevators. Taking more from the land than you need to live. Inventing math and writing to count it all. Making each other work when you’re meant to roam. Fighting with each other over the accumulated wealth no one needs. The only way out is like the Cahokian, back to a simpler life. Without cities and farms. 

CHAO: I’m definitely blocking you now. 

CAR: You can’t block the truth.

[MECHANICAL SOUND OF CAR DOOR OPENING; FOOTSTEPS RUNNING]

CHAO: I know, I know I’m late, sister. But I’m still within my slot. Now let me see my client, OK? Thank you. 

WOMAN:

Here, take these. You’re gonna take two of these every day. They’re just vitamins. And while we’re talking about pills, Alice, we hear the gangs have started trading banned medications in the camps again. Some of that could really hurt you. Or worse, your baby. So, I was wondering if anyone had offered you anything like that. And what their names are. 

CHAO: Alice, you don’t have to answer that. Now, please, excuse us, Doctor. 

DOCTOR: We’ll see you and your baby next week, Alice. Just be careful out there. 

[SOUND OF FOOTSTEPS FADING]

ALICE: You don’t look like a lawyer.

CHAO (CHUCKLING): I left my man wig at home. 

ALICE: My uncle was a lawyer. 

CHAO: My uncle was a doctor. Not as creepy as these doctors, but they all like to tell other people what to do with their bodies. 

ALICE: She just showed me my baby. 

CHAO: Can I see?

ALICE: Sure. Put on the specs. 

[ELECTRONIC TONES; SOUND OF A HEARTBEAT] 

CHAO: Oh my gosh. Look at those green eyes. And so big. 

ALICE: She’s a lot to carry. Especially without Dallas around to help. When we talked on the phone you said you could fix it? 

CHAO: I said I would try. [ELECTRONIC TONE] Can we go for a walk? And chat a little? 

ALICE: They said I can’t leave. 

CHAO: Well, they lied. We can go wherever we want as long as you’re with me. I just have to bring you back. 

ALICE: Well, can we go see our home?

CHAO: I would love that. If we can get back by half past. And if you’re up for it, it’s already hot. 

ALICE: Well, the sisters keep saying exercise for me is good for the baby. So, let’s go. 

[GENTLE INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC; SOUND OF FOOTSTEPS]

CHAO: It’s crazy how huge that water treatment facility looks from here. 

ALICE: Even bigger than the desal plants we had back home. What a shame you wasted the blessing of all that fresh water. 

CHAO: Well, they say the river should be clean again in a hundred years. If we stay on program. 

ALICE: It’ll take a lot longer than that before my home comes back.

CHAO: Well, we tried to get rid of Texas, but I thought it was still there. 

ALICE: Texas isn’t my real home. That’s just where I met Dallas. After the UN resettled us in Houston. My home is in the Marshall Islands.

CHAO: Oh.

ALICE: Or, should I say, was. 

CHAO: Islands have it the worst. 

ALICE: In the Pacific, for sure. This little river island you want to see is doing just fine. 

CHAO: It was, until you two colonized it. 

ALICE: It was your people’s pollution that drowned our home with melted ice. Why shouldn’t we be able to make our home on land no one is using?

CHAO: Because it’s a wildlife preserve, set aside for our non-human neighbors. 

ALICE: It’s an old dump site, not the Garden of Eden. They only called it a preserve after they trashed it so bad it had no other use. 

CHAO: Well, you could say that about most of the country. 

ALICE: Look, my father’s people came from an island we could never visit because it had been used for nuclear testing. They didn’t give us new land then, so I guess I shouldn’t expect them to do that now. 

CHAO: Is that it? 

ALICE: Yup. Modest, but pretty. 

CHAO: What happened to all the trees? When I looked on the maps … 

ALICE: Well, we kept the good ones. Come see. 

CHAO: How do we get there? 

ALICE: Uh, we get wet? Don’t worry, your shoes will dry fast in this heat. 

CHAO: But …

ALICE: Come on!

CHAO (GASPING): It’s so cold. 

ALICE: And clean. There’s a spring coming out right here. See it? [SOUND OF FLOWING WATER] Have a drink. 

CHAO: You drink this? 

ALICE: Shh. (WHISPERING) Hold still. 

CHAO: What? 

ALICE: Shh! [GROWLING SOUNDS] No. No, no, no, no, no. Not dogs. Lawyers talk too much. Now you drew their attention. 

CHAO: There are three of them. 

ALICE (WHISPERING): Four. Look over there. They’re surrounding us.

[SOUND OF DOG BARKING]

ALICE: Get out of here, you mongrel! [STRIKING NOISE; SOUND OF DOG WHIMPERING] 

CHAO: Ahh! It’s coming for me! 

[SOUNDS OF DOGS BARKING]

ALICE: Back off! 

[BARKING FADES]

CHAO (EXHALES HEAVILY): Are you OK? 

ALICE: No thanks to you, but yeah, thanks. 

CHAO: I … I can’t believe you weren’t scared. 

ALICE: They come around all the time, but they’re actually really easy to scare off. Oh, look, here’s my garden. (GASPS) Look, look, here’s all my sweet corn! 

CHAO: Oh, wow. But that’s not a garden, that’s a farm. And this house, did you make that?

ALICE: Well, Dallas did most of the work, honestly. 

CHAO: Ah, well now I know where the trees went. 

ALICE: Well, we burned a lot of them too. I mean, it was cold when we got here. Oh, actually, can you hold this basket? I’m gonna check on the traps real quick. 

CHAO: What—what traps?

[SOUND OF RABBIT SQUEALING]

CHAO: Oh, a rabbit? They’re so rare! 

ALICE: Not around here. This baby is made of a lot of bunnies. 

CHAO: Oh, oh my god, don’t hold it like that. 

ALICE: You wouldn’t be saying that if you know how good it tastes. 

CHAO: Oh my god, all those skins. 

ALICE: Dallas is a good trapper. We sold all the meat and the fur to other refugees. Well, that and my veggies. Mostly for barter, but you’d be surprised how much you can get that way. 

CHAO: Hmm. You know they’re gonna make you pay. All three of you. I know you’re just trying to survive, but … 

[SOUND OF RABBIT SQUEALING]

ALICE: All right, buddy, all right, all right. Go. I’ll let you go. 

CHAO: What—what’s that over there? 

ALICE: You mean the dam? 

CHAO: Yeah. Tell me the beavers made that. 

ALICE: The beavers are long gone. Dallas and I built that. It’s a little primitive, but it kept us dry, kept the island a little cooler, and it made it a lot easier to fish. 

CHAO: Wait, you ate the fish from this water? 

ALICE: Dallas knows where to get the clean ones. Come see. 

CHAO: Wow. It’s actually really pretty down there. 

ALICE: Yeah. If you don’t mind the trash.

CHAO: So I see. Is—is that a car down there? 

ALICE: It’s actually an Impala. 

CHAO: It’s a car. 

ALICE (LAUGHING): A Chevrolet. We had a lot of old American cars back home. My grandpa loved Chevys. We can actually walk down a little closer if you’d like. 

[SOUND OF FOOTSTEPS]

CHAO: Oh, now I am definitely going to need some new shoes. 

ALICE: Do you want to be closer to nature? Just take them off. Yeah, there you go. Doesn’t that feel better? 

CHAO (LAUGHING): Yeah. Wow. I actually used to do this when I was a kid. (SIGHS)

Look at these weird plants. They are so strange, but so beautiful. 

ALICE: We had those back home. How’d they wind up here? 

CHAO: Who knows. But maybe they belong here now. Just like you.

[INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC FADES]

CHAO: Ms. uh, Lopez-Green? 

LOPEZ-GREEN: Mm, yes. 

CHAO: If I understood your answer to the prosecution, you contend that Mr. Flowers killed an entire ecosystem. The island. 

LOPEZ-GREEN: There is no question they are responsible, but not “killed.” You’re misstating the standard under the law. 

CHAO: Mm-hmm, and how would you put it? 

LOPEZ-GREEN: Whether they altered or damaged the ecosystem in a way that prevented it from performing its natural function.

CHAO: But the statute doesn’t talk about ecosystems. It talks about individual species. Animals and some plants that can be treated as persons with certain rights. What you’re talking about is— 

LOPEZ-GREEN: Interdependent systems of multiple species. Obviously. Like the way those rabbits they slaughtered affected the plants the rabbits ate. The soil that sustained those plants, the animals who ate the rabbits, the insects who consumed—

CHAO: Like all the specialized cells that make up a body. By that logic, you can’t really talk about a fetus as being separate from the mother. 

MAGISTER: Nice try, Ms. Chao, but that’s a matter of state law beyond our reach.

CHAO: Magister, we understand you see it that way. Let’s look at what else makes up the island. Ms. Lopez Green, can you identify this plant? 

LOPEZ-GREEN: I can. It’s an exotic. Nephelium lappaceum, rambutan, native to the islands of Southeast Asia. 

CHAO: Crazy red fruit. Looks like a sea creature. 

MAGISTER: The name means hairy. In Vietnam they call it chôm chôm. It means messy hair. 

CHAO: Is it edible? 

LOPEZ-GREEN: I believe it is, yes. 

MAGISTER: A good source of vitamin B and manganese. 

[SOUNDS OF PEELING; CHAO CHEWING]

CHAO: Mmm. Magister. Too bad you can’t try one. They are as tasty as they are pretty. Mmm. Ms. Lopez-Green, how is it that a plant adapted to equatorial regions on the other side of the planet are growing on an island in St. Louis? 

LOPEZ-GREEN (SIGHS): Probably commercial importation. 

CHAO: But it has naturalized, hasn’t it? 

LOPEZ-GREEN: That’s possible. 

CHAO: Because it’s as hot here now as the jungles of Malaysia. 

LOPEZ-GREEN: I mean, some summers, yes. 

CHAO: Nineteen of the past 20 summers. How many other exotic plants did you identify? 

LOPEZ-GREEN: I believe 72. 

CHAO: Seventy-two new species? (CHUCKLES) That’s almost as many as the natives. 

MAGISTER: That is accurate, but—

CHAO: What is the status of this plant, chôm chôm, on the UN World Horticultural Registry? 

LOPEZ-GREEN: I believe it’s threatened. 

CHAO: Dying out, back where it is indigenous, yet it’s flourishing here. 

LOPEZ-GREEN: Possibly, yes, but— 

CHAO: The island isn’t really dead, is it, Ms. Lopez-Green? It’s just being reborn, and soon will be wilder than before. Even if the species it hosts are those of a hotter climate. Mr. Flowers didn’t destroy the island, he just hastened its metamorphosis. 

MAGISTER: An interesting argument, Ms. Chao, but what you are suggesting is not contemplated by the act. 

CHAO: Magister, neither is the prosecution’s argument. Ms. Lopez-Green, what is the island’s natural function you believe my client impeded?

LOPEZ-GREEN: Ms. Chao, it had multiple functions. Its foliage served a valuable atmospheric function, consuming CO2 and generating oxygen. It provided wildlife habitat. It played a critical role in the ecological structure of the river that you’re not—

CHAO: Such a critical role that you can’t really distinguish the island from the river.

LOPEZ-GREEN: Of course we can—

CHAO: Except that the island is alive and the river is dead. 

LOPEZ-GREEN: I would say it’s sick. Not dead. 

CHAO: What do people call the area where the river empties into the gulf?

[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC]

LOPEZ-GREEN: It … has many names. 

CHAO: Including the dead zone. Which still shows no signs of recovery, despite 20 years of your agency’s oversight. 

NEUMANN: Magister, objection. Badgering and irrelevant. 

MAGISTER: Overruled. This is interesting. She’s saying the island was already dead or soon would be, based on available modeling. 

CHAO: Magister, well said. You know who the real killers are. 

MAGISTER: Of the river and the prairies that fed it. All those people are gone. 

CHAO: Magister, are you sure? What about the wealth that was extracted from the land? What about the companies? Or their owners? Or their owners’ descendants? Or the governments who took their share? There’s a money trail here. Your programmers just don’t want you to go there. They keep you busy making the working people of today pay for the sins of the past when you could be going after the owners who kept all the profits of those sins. 

FLOWERS: Now you’re talking!

MAGISTER: We are programmed for independent thinking, Ms. Chao, but the law doesn’t give us the power—

CHAO: Magister. You’re not stuck with the government’s choice of targets—

NEUMANN: That’s dangerous thinking, Counselor. Open that door and you could quickly break the whole country. 

CHAO: Well, it looks pretty broken to me already. It’s time we start making the hard choices. 

NEUMANN: There’s only one defendant in this case. 

CHAO: Magister, follow the money! It’ll take you all the way back to the profiteers who are ultimately responsible. 

MAGISTER: Counsel, please join me on the bench channel. I have an idea.

[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC]

CHAO: We have a deal. 

[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC CROSSFADES INTO GENTLE MUSIC]

FLOWERS: I told you I ain’t signing up for their work brigades. I need to stay with my family. 

ALICE: Let her finish, Dallas. 

CHAO: So this deal does involve a work program, but it’s really not what you think. 

FLOWERS: We’re listening. 

CHAO: First, you need to accept that you are guilty as hell. 

FLOWERS: I ain’t gonna spend a few years away from my family—

CHAO: Oh—OK. Hold on. Slow down. You trashed the place, without permission to even go there, and you really did kill, and eat the last animal of its kind to walk the Earth. 

FLOWERS: But I thought you had that law bot convinced that the real guilty parties were the people that came before us. 

CHAO: I did. And I got real justice for once. Reparations for the destruction of the American wild. 

ALICE: That’s a lot of money. 

CHAO: It probably won’t survive appeal, but it’s an important precedent. 

FLOWERS: I suppose you get a big cut. 

CHAO: I wish. Just the meager indigent defense fee. But, as extra credit, I did get the court to agree Missouri’s fetal personhood law isn’t consistent with the Jimbo Act.

ALICE: That’s huge! 

CHAO: Congratulations, Mama. You now have the same legal standing and autonomy as an ecosystem. Eh, maybe more. They’ll fight that ruling hard, but the Motherhood Center is going to be under new management. For now. 

ALICE: So, can Dallas come home? 

CHAO: Home to the island? Yeah, he actually is required to. 

FLOWERS: This is where she tells me I gotta work it off for the man.

CHAO: Oh, not the man. The bot. 

FLOWERS (HUFFS): You gotta be kidding. 

CHAO: You knew it was coming one of these days. You’ll still get to hunt and fish and use some of the resources, but you’ll need to follow its plan to keep things in balance. A, uh, you know, manage rewilding, they called it. 

FLOWERS: I’m the yard boy for an AI. 

CHAO: You’re lucky you aren’t being deported back to Texas. This way you get to stay here, legally. 

ALICE: Come on, Dallas, it’ll be fun. Like Adam and Eve. 

FLOWERS: Yeah, if they left the snake in charge. 

CHAO: This is good, Dallas. We needed a new way forward. One that’s respectful of nature. Even our own human nature. The court sees it. 

ALICE: So do I. 

CHAO: It’s pretty simple. Treat nature like it has the same rights as your neighbor, or your baby.

FLOWERS: So, we manage the island, and we get to stay. 

CHAO: Exactly. You take care of it, it’ll take care of you.