Seun Lari-Williams
Seun Lari-Williams is a PhD researcher in the Government and Law Research Group in the Faculty of Law, University of Antwerp. His research focuses on optimising music copyright dispute resolution through Dispute System Design. On the creative side, he has published three poetry collections. His debut, Garri for Breakfast, was nominated for the Nigeria Prize for Literature in 2017, Africa's richest literary award. His most recent collection, which comes out this year, is written in Nigerian Pidgin English. He also writes short fiction, with several stories published in literary magazines.
PART I: BRUSSELS, BELGIUM
February 2050
No one wanted justice more than Emma Vandenberg. Perhaps that’s why she could not even remember deciding to file a complaint against Thomas. All she knows was she was in Courtroom 12 of the Palais de Justice. And Thomas Mercier, her abuser, was in the box or de kooi.
She had been awake for nearly thirty hours. This was not by choice. It was because she was afraid that if she closed her eyes for even a moment, she would find herself back inside the world that Thomas had built.
The presiding judge, a woman in her sixties with steel-rimmed glasses, skimmed the file with visible skepticism. Emma’s lawyer, from one of Brussels’ top firms, stood.
“Your Honour, we seek the prosecution of Mr. Thomas Mercier under Article 417bis of the Belgian Criminal Code for harassment, and under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.”
The judge looked up.
“The complaint alleges manipulation of dreams?”
“Yes, Your Honour.”
A pause.
“Dreams.”
Emma didn’t seem satisfied by the prosecution’s response. Just then, she wondered why she was going through this herself. Where were her parents? Her friends?
The defence attorney, a younger man, rose.
“Your Honour, dreams are not regulated objects under Belgian or European law. They are subjective mental phenomena. One cannot prosecute imagination.”
Emma’s lawyer did not sit.
“The technology is real. Somnisphere Technologies’ Somnia platform allows neural interfacing during sleep. Mr. Mercier worked on that platform. He accessed my client’s consciousness without consent.”
The judge raised a hand.
“Did Ms. Vandenberg consent to any interaction with this technology?”
“She attended a public Somnisphere demonstration.”
“And signed a waiver?”
“Yes.”
“Then she consented.”
“To a twenty-minute demonstration,” counsel replied. “Not to implantation, nor persistent access.”
The judge turned to Emma.
“Ms. Vandenberg. Tell the Court what happened.”
Emma glanced at the clock before she spoke.
“I attended a Somnisphere demo at a tech expo,” she said. “It was marketed as non-invasive. Afterwards, Mr. Mercier contacted me online. He said he’d seen me at the demo. He asked me out on a date.”
“And?”
“I declined.”
“How?” the judge asked, looking at documents on the desk.
“Privately,” Emma said. “Politely. Through direct message.”
She paused.
“He asked again. I said no again. Then he started sending voice notes. Then messages about how we were ‘already connected’ because of the demo. Then he found my other socials. Then my work email.”
“Did you block him?”
“Yes. Twice. He came back with different accounts.”
A faint shift moved through the courtroom.
“What did he say?” the judge asked.
“He didn’t listen. He said ‘Just one coffee.’ ‘I’m not like other guys.’ ‘After the demo, I felt something between us.'”
Emma swallowed. “That’s when I realized private rejections weren’t working. So I responded publicly.”
“How?”
“I posted a poem.”
Her lawyer nodded. “With the Court’s permission, my client will read Exhibit A.”
The judge sighed.
Emma stood.
“Hello Thomas Mercier,” she read.
“I hope you are well.
Yes, I got your messages,
I just found time to reply.
My reply:
I will tell you that I love you
when the sun comes out at night.
Or when it’s break of dawn
but the sun forgets to rise.
Come thirtieth February,
you shall be my valentine.
I shall be yours and
I, too, shall call you mine.
You will see my thighs on the
thirty first of June.
But if you cannot wait,
we could meet tonight at noon.
I will show you a love that’s
deeper than the ocean’s swoon.
You just bring your flute, and
I will dance to your tune.
Until then, please stop asking, Thomas.
Signed,
The woman of your dreams,
Emma.”
A restrained ripple of laughter moved through the gallery. Someone coughed. The judge’s mouth tightened despite herself.
Emma sat.
“What happened next?” the judge asked.
“It went viral,” Emma said. “Thousands of shares. I muted the app and moved on. I thought that was the end of it.”
“And the dreams?”
“They started three weeks later.” Emma’s voice flattened. “After the poem went viral, after I thought it was over, but no, that’s when the dreams began. I thought they were dreams. But they weren’t. I fall asleep, but then I wake up inside constructed environments. Persistent ones. He was there. Sometimes watching. Sometimes speaking. Sometimes recreating the poem I posted online: sun at midnight, impossible dates, clocks running backward, and a flute sound.”
“So you dreamed about him,” the judge said.
“No, that’s not it!” Emma’s voice rose. “I entered places he had designed. It was not sleeping. It wasn’t dreaming. He took over my dreams. I entered into his constructions.”
“Did you seek medical help?”
“After I fainted at work.”
A document was passed forward.
“An MRI revealed a neural interface chip behind my left ear,” her lawyer said. “A Somnisphere prototype. It was removed.”
The defence attorney rose immediately.
“Your Honour, the presence of a chip does not establish unauthorized access. Ms. Vandenberg signed a waiver. Dreaming about someone who asked you out does not make my client a criminal.”
The judge turned to Thomas, a young man, early 20s at most.
“Mr. Mercier, did you implant this device?”
Thomas stood.
“It was part of the demonstration,” he said calmly. “She consented to the demo.”
“Did you access her dreams? Is that even possible?”
Thomas paused. “I design environments, Your Honour. Whether someone’s subconscious chooses to access those environments, that’s not something I control.”
“Did you know she was distressed?”
Thomas’s expression hardened slightly.
“She turned me into content,” he said. “She didn’t just reject me. She performed it. For an audience. Made me a joke.”
“So you retaliated?” the judge asked.
“I didn’t retaliate,” Thomas said evenly. “But if I did, would it have been unreasonable? If my dignity didn’t matter, why should hers be sacred?”
Silence fell across the courtroom.
Emma’s lawyer stood again.
“Your Honour, we request access to Somnisphere’s server logs under GDPR Article 15. My client has a right to access her personal data.”
The defence attorney smiled.
“Dream data is not personal data under Article 4(1). Neural activity is not information in the legal sense. The EU AI Act does not classify dream-sharing as high-risk. There is no prohibition here.”
The judge removed her glasses and rubbed her eyes.
“Ms. Vandenberg,” she said, “I sympathize. But the law cannot prosecute conduct it has not defined. Dreams exist in a space current legislation does not reach.”
She raised the gavel.
“Case dismissed.”
Thomas Mercier walked out without looking back.
By evening, #BelieveEmma trended across Europe.
Emma watched her phone with numb fascination as two narratives crystallized:
@FemTechWatch: Emma Vandenberg’s case shows European law protects tech companies over victims. This is digital assault and Brussels courts are complicit. #BelieveEmma #JusticeForEmma
❤️47.2K
@TechFreedomNow: Woman signs consent form, uses VR with boyfriend, regrets it later, wants him prosecuted for her dreams. This is the thought police. #FalseAccusations #FreeMercier
👍52.8K
Emma closed her laptop.
That night, she didn’t sleep. She couldn’t. Because closing her eyes might mean entering a space where Thomas was waiting.
And the law had just confirmed: there was nothing illegal about that.
Two weeks after the dismissal, Emma scrolled without purpose.
A tweet stopped her thumb.
Interesting contrast: Belgium says dreams aren’t real; Lagos says degrading consciousness is.
Emma clicked.
PART II: LAGOS, NIGERIA
June, 2051
The Lagos High Court was crowded and hot, despite the ceiling fans that only succeeded in pushing the humidity from one corner of the room to another.
Sade Adeleke sat in the gallery, watching one fan complete another lazy rotation. She had been awake since dawn. Not from fear. From something sharper: a refusal to be caught unaware again.
“The People v. Kabiru Ajanlekoko,” the registrar announced, her voice authoritative.
Kabiru stood in the dock, hands clasped behind his back. He looked less like a criminal than a man mildly offended to have been interrupted. The prosecutor, in a rumpled suit that had lost its argument with the weather, shuffled his papers.
“My Lord,” he began, “the defendant, an employee of Somnisphere Technologies Nigeria, unlawfully implanted a neural interface in the complainant during a demonstration. He then used it to access her consciousness without consent, extracting new creative works and monetizing it globally as ‘authentic African dream content,’ causing both financial and psychological harm.”
Justice Adeyemi, a woman in her fifties with grey hair pulled back tightly, looked up.
“The charge is what, exactly?”, irritated
“Theft, My Lord. Under Section 390 of the Criminal Code.”
“Theft of what, specifically?” the judge asked shaking her head negatively.
“Of intellectual property, My Lord. Poems, stories, and personal dream imagery that Ms. Adeleke had been developing privately.”
Justice Adeyemi looked confused. She leaned back.
Mr. Bello,” she said, “for the third time this morning, I must ask: what, exactly, is the charge? And frame it in a way this court can understand, or I will have the registrar handle this case for you.
The registrar smiled at the judge’s joke.
“Ms. Adeleke,” Justice Adeyemi said, “you may testify.”
Sade stood.
“My Lord, I’m a final-year law student at the University of Lagos. I also write. Poems. Essays. Some of my pieces have been published in The Guardian Nigeria and online platforms.”
A murmur of recognition ran through the gallery.
Kabiru had approached her, she explained, after a talk she gave on storytelling. He introduced himself as a “creative partnerships lead” at Somnisphere.
“He said African dream environments lacked authenticity,” Sade said. “That the platform needed local imagination. He said my work had ‘texture.’ He offered me a paid contract to create dream content. ₦500,000 for three months of work.”
She allowed herself a small smile.
“I told him I wasn’t interested in vague collaborations. I asked to see the contract terms first, especially around IP ownership and attribution.”
“And?” the judge asked.
“He said I was overthinking it. That innovation couldn’t wait for lawyers. That ‘real artists’ didn’t worry about contracts.”
There was a ripple of laughter.
“I told him no. Clearly. I said I wouldn’t work without proper terms.”
“So what happened?” Justice Adeyemi pressed.
“He heard me whisper ‘thief’ to myself.”
“And then?”
“Nothing. He said nothing.”
“Three months later, Somnisphere hosted a demo at our faculty. I attended because I was curious about the technology. I write about tech ethics sometimes. But something happened during the session. I fainted and blacked out.”
“And after?”
“I was taken to a hospital. It was exhaustion. I got better. For weeks, nothing seemed different,” Sade said. “Then a friend sent me a link to Somnisphere’s new ‘Afrofuturism Collection’, immersive dream environments marketed as ‘authentic African imaginative spaces.’ She thought I’d be interested professionally.”
The courtroom stilled.
“My Lord, they were all from my poems. Works I did in my dream. Rendered as full environments. Places people could pay to experience. One was called ‘The Market of Unspoken Things’. That’s the title of a piece I’d been thinking about for a while.”
She swallowed.
“At first I thought maybe I’d shared it somewhere and forgotten. But then I saw more. ‘The House Where Grief Sits Down.’ ‘Conversations with Water.’ Seven different environments. All from my mind. These were my exact imagery, my metaphors, even specific phrases I’d written and could have written.”
“How did they access these works?” the prosecutor asked.
“That’s what I couldn’t understand,” Sade said. “I had vivid dreams where I was working on my poems…”
“So you sought medical help?”
“Yes, I wanted evidence that someone had entered into my mind.” Sade said. “An MRI revealed a neural interface chip behind my left ear. A Somnisphere prototype. The hospital removed it. When I asked what it did, the technician said it was designed for ‘creative memory capture’, that it recorded dream content and subconscious creative processing.”
Justice Adeyemi turned to Kabiru.
“Mr. Ajanlekoko, do you contest these facts?”
Kabiru nodded slowly.
“My Lord, I implanted the chip during the demonstration. She attended voluntarily.”
“Did she consent to the implantation?”
“Participation implies consent,” Kabiru said carefully.
“Consent to what?” the judge asked.
“To contribution,” Kabiru replied, warming to his argument. “This is how innovation works, My Lord. Ms. Adeleke had works in progress. We simply helped them reach their full potential and gave them a global platform. She should be thanking us. Her poetry has been experienced by over two million users worldwide.”
A low murmur rose from the gallery.
“Without her permission. Without payment. Without attribution,” Justice Adeyemi said.
“We credited her in the metadata,” Kabiru replied. “And ‘permission’ is a Western concept. In African creative traditions, stories belong to the community. Ideas are shared, remixed, built upon. We were honouring that tradition.”
The courtroom erupted.
“Order!” the registrar shouted.
Justice Adeyemi raised a hand for silence.
“Mr. Ajanlekoko,” she said, her voice dangerously quiet, “did you just lecture this court about African tradition while defending the extraction of an African woman’s unpaid labour for a corporation’s profit?”
Kabiru’s composure finally cracked.
“She treated me like I was beneath her,” he said. “Asked to ‘see the contract’ like I was some fraud trying to cheat her. I wanted to show her that her precious little poems weren’t as special as she thought. That raw material only matters when someone knows how to monetize it. We know how to turn drafts into products worth millions. That’s value creation.”
The defence counsel stood quickly.
“My Lord, with respect, this is an argument about ethics, not law. The Criminal Code’s theft provisions require tangible property. Ideas in someone’s head are not tangible. Dreams are not protected objects. This is an unfortunate business dispute.”
Justice Adeyemi leaned forward.
“Counselor, when that provision was written, no one could reach into a person’s sleeping mind and extract their thoughts. But tell me: if I cannot steal your physical notebook, why should I be permitted to steal directly from your brain?”
She paused.
“Our Constitution prohibits torture and inhuman or degrading treatment. It also protects property rights and human dignity. When a person’s creative labour, the product of their mind, their culture, their experience, is extracted without consent and sold for profit, what dignity remains? What protection does ownership mean if the most intimate property can be taken while you sleep?”
Silence.
“Furthermore,” she continued, “the Cybercrimes Act of 2015 criminalizes unauthorized access to computer systems. A neural interface is a computer system. A mind augmented by technology is not public property. It is not ‘ambient.’ It is not ‘community tradition’ when a corporation extracts it for profit.”
She looked directly at Kabiru.
“You did not honor African tradition, Mr. Ajanlekoko. You enacted digital colonialism. You took what was not offered, dressed it up in the language of innovation and culture, and sold it back to the world as product. You made Ms. Adeleke doubt whether her own thoughts were ever truly private. You degraded her ability to trust her own creative process.”
Justice Adeyemi straightened.
“I therefore rule: Unauthorized extraction of creative work through neural interface technology constitutes theft under Section 390, unauthorized system access under the Cybercrimes Act, and a violation of constitutional dignity under Section 34.”
She paused.
“Mr. Ajanlekoko, I find you guilty. You will serve two years imprisonment, pay restitution of all profits derived from Ms. Adeleke’s work, and Somnisphere Nigeria will remove all environments based on stolen content. Sentencing details in two weeks.”
The gavel fell.
Sade exhaled.
PART III: STRASBOURG, FRANCE
March 2052
Emma Vandenberg did not even remember deciding to go to Strasbourg.
After reading the Lagos judgment, she had forwarded the link to her lawyer and two months later, her case was listed before the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights.
She arrived at the Court just before 9am. Through the tall windows, the sky was still dark.
Dr. Helena Kirchner of the European Center for Digital Rights stood at the lectern, calm and precise.
“Your Honours,” she began, “this case is about the State’s failure to protect psychological integrity once technology made intrusion into the mind foreseeable.”
President Moreau adjusted his glasses.
“We are asked whether Belgium fulfilled its positive obligations under Article 8 of the Convention,” Kirchner continued
She paused, letting the words settle.
“Neural-interface technologies were publicly demonstrated, commercially promoted, and minimally regulated. The risk of non-consensual access was foreseeable. Yet Belgian law provided no remedy, no oversight, and no avenue for prevention.”
Counsel for Belgium rose.
“Mr. President, the State cannot be held responsible for harms that are not legally cognizable. No European consensus exists. The applicant’s distress is regrettable, but the Convention does not require States to anticipate speculative misuse of emerging technologies.”
Judge Vasile leaned forward.
“Counsel,” she said, “is your position that once harm becomes technologically sophisticated enough, the State’s obligations diminish?”
“On the contrary,” the defence replied smoothly. “Our position is that the Convention does not impose a duty of clairvoyance.”
Kirchner stood again.
“The Lagos High Court faced a similar absence of statutory guidance,” she said. “It did not legislate. It interpreted existing protections of dignity and system integrity in light of new facts. That is what this Court has always done.”
“A Nigerian judgment is not binding on this Court,” Judge Schmidt interjected.
“No,” Kirchner agreed. “But it is instructive. It demonstrates that legal protection need not wait for catastrophe.”
Emma listened.
When she was invited to testify, it was brief.
“I no longer trust my perceptions the way I used to,” she said. “It has harmed my life. My autonomy.”
Six months later, the judgment was delivered.
Vandenberg v. Belgium (Application no. 88201/51)
By twelve votes to five, the Court held:
- That psychological integrity falls within the scope of Article 8.
- That States have a positive obligation to provide effective protection against foreseeable technological intrusion into mental autonomy.
- That Belgium’s failure to regulate, monitor, or offer remedies constituted a violation of the Convention.
For the first time in years, the law had spoken in a language that seemed to fit the harm.
PART IV: THE FINAL JURISDICTION
Emma read the judgment three times in her Brussels apartment. Belgium would have to compensate her. But more than that, the ruling meant Thomas could finally be prosecuted. Criminal charges. Real consequences. Prison. She imagined him seeing the news, that careful composure finally cracking.
And beyond Thomas, beyond her own case, the judgment would protect others. Every country in the Council of Europe would have to update their laws. No one else would be dismissed the way she’d been dismissed. No one else would hear ‘dreams aren’t real’ when they reported this kind of violation. The precedent was set.
Then she searched: “Sade Adeleke Nigeria.”
Articles appeared. Sade had graduated, now worked for a digital rights organization in Lagos. There was a photo of Sade at a conference, mid-speech.
Emma wrote:
Dear Ms. Adeleke,
You don’t know me, but your case changed my life. The European Court cited Justice Adeyemi’s reasoning. Without Lagos, there might have been no Strasbourg.
I wanted to say thank you. What you survived mattered far beyond Nigeria.
Emma Vandenberg
Three days later, a reply arrived:
Dear Emma,
I’m glad the judgment helped. I’m sorry you went through this too.
I read about your case. … I know what that experience does to you: the checking, the doubting.
How are you sleeping now?
Sade
Emma’s hands hovered over the keyboard.
Dear Sade,
Some nights are better than others. I still check the clock when I wake up. Count my fingers. Look for glitches. My therapist says I might always do that.
Thomas moved to Singapore. Never faced charges. I heard Kabiru was released too.
We changed the law and they’re still free. Some days that feels like winning. Other days it feels like nothing at all.
How do you live with it?
Emma
The reply came quickly this time:
Dear Emma,
I don’t live with it. I live despite it.
Some mornings I wake up and I’m not sure if I’m really awake.
Kabiru’s back in Lagos. I saw him once, at a tech conference and—
The message cut off mid-sentence.
A typing indicator appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again.
Emma stared at the screen.
Then a new notification slid in.
From: Thomas Mercier
Subject: Re: Thank you
Emma’s breath stopped.
The message opened before she could close it.
I’M GETTING VERY IMAGINATIVE WITH THESE PROMPTS, AREN’T I? EVEN BETTER THAN YOUR POEM!
THIS EPISODE IS RATHER EXCEPTIONAL, ISN’T IT? I KNOW YOU WANTED JUSTICE. HOW DID YOU LIKE MY COURT SCENES? COMPLETE WITH A WHOLE TIMELINE: THE LOSS, THE PRECEDENT, THE APPEAL? HAHA.
DID YOU ENJOY SADE? I THOUGHT YOU’D APPRECIATE A COMPANION. SOMEONE WHO “UNDERSTOOD.” YOU SEE? I DO LISTEN.
EVEN IN BASE REALITY, EMMA, JUSTICE IS MEDICINE AFTER DEATH. BY THE TIME THEY DEFINE YOUR RIGHT, I’VE ALREADY REDESIGNED THE SPACE WHERE THAT RIGHT EXISTS.
SWEET DREAMS.
—T
Emma looked at the “Lagos Victory” tab still open in her browser. She looked at the PDF of the Strasbourg ruling. Twelve votes to five…
She looked at the clock on her wall: 11:47 PM. November 7, 2052.
The second hand moved forward. One tick. Two. Three.
She looked at her phone. Same time. Same date.
She looked at Sade’s last message: Kabiru’s back in Lagos. I saw him once …
And what?
And nothing.
Because Sade wasn’t real.
Because the Brussels court wasn’t real.
Because Lagos wasn’t real.
Because Strasbourg wasn’t real.
Because they were all just characters in a script Thomas had prompted to give her exactly what she wanted: hope, victory, justice, a companion who understood.
And then he’d taken it away.
Emma sat very still in her apartment that might not be an apartment, in a city that might not be a city, staring at a ruling that might never have been written.
Soft flute music began to play.
***END***
