Panopticon

Just Visiting

"Who do we remember?"

The old woman's speech rumbled on, her words shouted through the Atlantic wind. Her name was Lucille Charon. After inheriting a multi-million-pound business empire, she had styled herself as an entrepreneur, adding a myriad of experimental projects to her portfolio. This island, a slab of rock in the North Sea, was the newest addition. Panopticon. That's what she'd named it. She had brought them all there, one way or another. For this speech. For what would come after.

"If I asked you, for instance, who has been the most law-abiding citizen over the last century, could anyone answer?" Charon waited a few moments, smiling. "No, I thought not. You couldn't even guess. If I'd asked you to name renowned criminals, however, you'd have a whole host of answers. We remember those who break the laws. Those who seed chaos and fear. From Al Capone to Al Qaeda, we remember them."

As the rich woman spun her well-rehearsed lines, she surveyed her audience. A family of four, brought in to test her park's appeal, were already under her spell. That was good. The experts she'd brought in, to test its viability, looked less impressed. That was understandable; they'd been brought in to do a job, and they wanted to get it done. A man standing at the back, representing Panopticon's investors, also looked unconvinced. That was worrying. Charon continued.

"Can you name people who didn't participate in the Great Train Robbery? Those who watched the money pass, I mean, and left it in peace. The perpetrators of the Great Train Journey Without Incident, as it were. No, of course you don't. But criminals, their deeds and misdeeds, have a way of imprinting on our memories. From Ronnie and Reggie, to Bonnie and Clyde. If anything, as time goes by, their reputation grows. We remember them, and we even come to admire them. Do we root for Robin Hood, or his law abiding rivals? What of pirates, or Viking raiders?

"Oh, we might feel for the gazelle, but we worship the lion. It is the hunter we romanticise, and we soon forget its prey. The meek may inherit the Earth, sure, but they will build temples to the daring. You all know of Jack the Ripper, Guy Fawkes, or Blackbeard, centuries after their deaths. Tell me, then: what do they all have in common?"

She directed her questions to the family, as if this was all for their benefit. In reality, though, Charon was eyeing the investor. This charade with these guests was all a bid to impress the American in the suit. Without his stamp of approval, no matter how impressed the parents were, they would be the last to make the journey here.

"Famous," guessed the little boy, after a nudge from his father.

"Evil," his mother.

The old woman smiled "They're profitable, ladies and gentleman. Think of the London Dungeons, or the Tower. We always glorify criminals of the past, and we make a lot of money doing so. Meanwhile, prisons are overcrowded and underfunded! It was only a matter of time, I feel, before we took the next logical step."

At the mention of profit, the investor had perked up. He had introduced himself as Ted Durgan on the flight, his New York accent easy to place, but had then lapsed into silence. He was here to observe and assess, not to make friends.

The others, however, stood still. Nathan Shah, for example, was still not convinced. He was a security officer, not a profiteer. He had been flown in to ensure the park was safe for visitors, and didn't care whether or not it was exciting. Unless there was a real threat of someone dying from boredom, it wasn't his concern.

There were enough threats as it was. Nathan didn't buy the whole concept of prison-turned-theme-park. It seemed unnecessarily dangerous, for a limited thrill. Charon could talk all she liked about how only criminal excite us, but that wasn't true at all. We remember heroes, as well as villains, just not the bystanders. If the first group didn't still have their right to freedom, she'd have shipped them in as well. As it was, the British government had been looking to privatise their expensive and inefficient prison system, and Charon had been the right woman in the right place.