"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.
She'd gone for quality over quantity, and now held several of the country's most notorious serial killers. That was a great responsibility, but she'd also gained the right to do whatever she liked with them. We romanticise the lion, not the gazelle, and it is the former we look for in a zoo. It didn't take an expert like Nathan to realise the risks involved, but he supposed this only heightened the excitement.
Five hundred miles of icy sea separated the facility from London, and Charon had assured the Government that there was no chance of escape from her island. With that, they'd been satisfied, and her bid had been approved. Nathan was here to do the rest of the job. Whilst the inmates may be trapped on this island, they could still wreak havoc if they broke free of their chains. The tourists would be in danger. Nathan's job was to assess the risks of that happening, and then to lower them.
He didn't like the idea, but he didn't have to. Let the old woman waste her money! Let foolhardy tourists join her! This scheme was harebrained, but it wasn't hurting anyone. It was Nathan's job to make sure of that.
He'd started by assessing the crowd, today's potential victims. You can't fully protect someone, Nathan knew, without understanding their nature. He'd been studying his fellow guests, and he didn't like what he saw.
For a start, there was the family. They'd won some sort of competition, and would be the first to tour the park, but they shouldn't be there. If Charon had brought Nathan in, that meant she wasn't completely sure Panopticon was safe. It was understandable that she wanted to trial-run everything at once, getting feedback from all interested parties simultaneously. That was convenient and economical, but it wasn't exactly safe.
Besides the family and the silent Durgan (who also probably shouldn't have been there, but at least had the right), there were a couple of criminal psychiatrists. They'd been flown in to observe the convicts' health, and to ensure their mental and physical needs were being met. Nathan knew this because he'd sat next to them on the helicopter, and had therefore overheard their complaints.
One of them, an ageing black woman, hadn't wanted to come at all. Like Nathan, she thought Panopticon was wrong, the plan of a fool with more money than sense. She thought it was too risky, with the threat to health unnecessary for a theme park. Unlike Nathan, she was most concerned for the prisoners. She thought the park was demeaning, that treating human beings as zoo animals to be gawked at could lead to a serious decline in their mental health. If it wasn't for her younger colleague, she would never have come at all. She'd made that very clear.
It bothered Nathan that anybody could care more for the welfare of serial killers, monsters who had given up their rights, than for that of the innocents they threatened. But then this woman must have spent her whole professional life in the brains of these creatures, studying them with a mixture of disgust and fascination. She'd been marvelling at the intricacies of their psychological complexes for so long that she'd forgotten who they were. She'd forgotten what they'd done. She must have lost contact with the real world, with real people, a long time ago.
These scientists were trying to take the high ground, but to Nathan they stank of hypocrisy. If they were experts on these killers, they must find them enchanting. To choose this career, and spend years reaching the top, they must be amazed by the criminal mind, ever eager to study the next monster. They were just as bad as the tourists. Animals in a zoo, or works of art to be marvelled over, they still viewed these killers as wondrous objects and not human beings. Only Nathan, it seemed, could see the truth. He saw the convicts as people, not art, and that's why he feared them. He'd worked in prisons for decades. He knew just how deadly a person could be.
Nathan had started out as a regular security guard, protecting the contents of several buildings, gaining expertise. He'd then been promoted, and tasked with overseeing security as a whole. He'd never looked back. After reaching the forefront of his profession, he had specialised, and moved on to prisons. Once an expert at stopping people from getting into buildings, he now stopped them from getting out.
The latter was undoubtedly harder. When making recommendations to his employers, Nathan often compared his job to siege warfare. This was a battle of attrition, a constant, low-intensity conflict with one party holding a strong, static defensive position and the other attempting to breach it. He, and the guards he advised, faced a hostile army of convicts. Every day, they watched with a hundred eyes, just waiting for the slightest chance. Waiting for you to slip up. Houses are not constantly watched by burglars, and so home defence need not be watertight. Defending a prison is much, much harder.
Unfortunately, Charon seemed to agree with the psychiatrists. She'd invited one expert to check that the guests were safe, but had two for the criminals. Then again, she hadn't spent thousands to get the family here. Tourists are easy to come by. Interesting serial killers, on the other hand, are a thankfully finite resource.
To Charon, a woman of near-infinite wealth, this must have been a new experience. Here was a woman accustomed to buying whatever she wanted, in whatever quantity. Her audacity in lobbying Britain to sell off her criminals had come as no surprise. She'd taken over failing businesses, she'd bought this island, and now she owned human beings. After that, building the park had been easy.
Nathan hated to admit it, but he was impressed. From the helicopter to the entrance hall where Charon had given her speech, all of her buildings and equipment had been state of the art. From a security point of view, too, they seemed impregnable. To access the park from the helicopter park, and indeed vice versa, their host had to enter a complicated series of security protocols, which only he or her staff could bypass.
With the speech over, the old woman led her guests through a side door onto some rail tracks, where a fleet of small, sleek trains awaited them.
They boarded one, and it started immediately. With only one stop, Charon explained, there was no need for drivers. They were heading to what she described as the jewel in her park's crown: the Hub, a central tower. It was the one point from which all exhibits could be seen. A formidable pillar of steel and glass, the Hub was itself visible from some distance.
Nathan wasn't sure where to look. Their train passed through a forest of exotic plants, and a flock of peacocks roamed the sodden ground, perhaps searching for food after last night's rain. Charon had spared no expense.
As they settled down for another journey, Nathan was careful to sit away from the psychiatrists. With their excitable hostess busy charming the tourists and her investor, the security man was left alone to his thoughts. And, of course, to his fears. Nathan wondered what he'd gotten himself into.
He'd soon find out. The train arrived, and the party took a lift up to the second level, where three people were waiting: Charon's staff. A technician, a doctor, and a park guide. As their hostess introduced her crew, Nathan felt thoroughly underwhelmed. Was this it? The millionaire must have spent a fortune on this island, but she'd been unable to populate it. Perhaps even Charon's riches weren't enough to tempt people into so bleak a prison.
Nathan imagined living the rest of his life out here, isolated from the rest of society in what was effectively just the most central of the jail cells. Surrounded by killers. His career had hardened him to fear, but something about this desolate isle made him uneasy. The expert promised himself he'd get the job done as soon as he could, and then never return.
"Obviously, we will have more employees when Panopticon opens," Charon explained. "More vendors, entertainers, medical staff, and even some more technicians to oversee things. Given that it's just one family needing a guide, though, we'll be operating a skeleton crew for today."
"Can we not use that term?" The doctor raised his eyebrows. "If we're going into the killer's den, I'd rather not be referred to as a skeleton."
His joke elicited a smile from the guide, but the children's mother looked worried.
"It's not really dangerous, though, is it?" she asked, turning to Nathan.
"Don't look at me," he said, raising his hands. "That's what I'm here to find out."
The technician shot him a dirty look.
"No need to worry! It's all perfectly safe, of course." Charon smiled, but her reply was too late to be entirely reassuring. She nodded to the technician. "Come on, Henry. Let's show them how it works."
The technician, Henry, picked up a remote control and the room came to life. Panels along the walls lit up, displaying everything from video documentaries to interactive maps of the park.
"Henry here, full name Henry Pike, helped to design the system," continued their host. "He makes sure all these gadgets are working, and he'll also be serving as our all-seeing-eye in the sky. You know, he can see every inch of the island from these monitors. In fact, I suppose you could call him the monitor monitor!"
Charon looked at the family whenever he made a joke, sending a clear message that this friendly persona was for their benefit. Nathan, on the other hand, looked at the technician. Henry didn't seem happy at all with the present situation, and the security man wondered why. Perhaps, having worked hard to develop state of the art technology, he resented Charon's presenting of them as toys. Perhaps he expected a bit more respect. "This is Mr. Pike," his employer could have said, presenting him as a distinguished expert. He wasn't here to serve the public, and nor was he here to be the subject of their amusement.
It was Nathan's job to look for weaknesses, whether physical or human. Something told him he'd already found one.
"As you can see on the screens, we currently have almost forty inmates. They vary in their size, and they vary in their story. But make no mistake, ladies and gentlemen: these are all stone-cold killers. The average person walks past a murderer thirty-six times in their life. You'll do that in one day."
The panels showed live CCTV footage of three-dozen enclosures, and Nathan could just about make out their inhabitants. He had a question.
"What happens if you can't see them?"
"You mean at night?" Henry scowled, clearly unaccustomed to having his work scrutinised. "Obviously we have thermographic cameras to pick up the infrared heat signature. There's no hiding."
"Apologies, I wasn't clear. I'm not asking how you're able to see them. I'm wondering what happens if you can't. Do you have a contingency plan?"
"Here." The technician pressed a key, and the panels changed. The wall behind him became a giant aerial view of the entire island, littered with small red dots. "Each one of these is a prisoner. They all have tracker chips embedded in their arms, meaning we can see if they leave their designated areas. Which they won't."
Nathan nodded. This part, at least, seemed secure. The prisoners were monitored at all times, and could be easily tracked if they escaped. With that said, sending guests in was an entirely different matter. Nathan wasn't interested in watching an attack on screen; he wanted to prevent them. As far as he could see, all the cameras in the world wouldn't help that. These convicts, imprisoned for life in a country without the death penalty, had nothing to lose. They didn't care who watched them.
"Why exactly is that? I didn't notice any fences."
"That's the beauty of it. You see those bands around their necks? If any of our guests leaves their designated area, they receive an electrical shock. Nothing that would harm them permanently, you understand, but certainly enough to incapacitate them. The device also alerts us, so that we can send a team in to relocate them. Our cell walls are invisible, providing a 360-degree view of the inmates, but every bit as solid."
"Excuse me?" The older psychiatrist, the reluctant one, had raised her hand. "I couldn't help but notice that they're all in solitary confinement right now, with no two dots together. How often are they allowed to socialise?"
"I'm sorry?"
"When can they talk with each other? You do realise that social interaction is a basic human need, right? Isolation is a form of torture."
Henry shrugged and turned back to his screen; he wasn't paid to answer these sorts of questions. Or to be polite, for that matter.
"Hey, Dr..."
"Cole. Alexandra Cole."
"May I, Dr. Cole?" The guide was paid to explain these things, though she might have charged extra for condescension. "You can call me Kate. I thought I'd tell you a little bit about the people you're watching on those screens. You see, they're murderers. They have killed men, women, children, police officers, other criminals.
"They have no respect for human life, and no remorse for taking it. If you let them together even for a minute, one of them would walk away with blood on their hands. The other wouldn't walk away at all. Do you understand that? Now, Panopticon fully complies with all of the UK's human rights laws. If you think there's something missing from those laws, you should make your case to the government. Please don't bring it to us."
She looked to Charon, and she nodded her approval.
"Kate's right," she said. "Every security measure we have is necessary, either for the well-being of our prisoners or for the safety of our guests. While you're on that subject, Kate, could you introduce us to one or two of the attractions? Not everyone will be coming with you on the tour, but I feel it would ease understanding if everyone had some idea of what we're dealing with."
"Of course. Now, I've had some time to familiarise myself with all of our killers, and it's hard to tell you about just one. Some of them are fascinating, and hopefully I'll be able to explain why on the tour. For now, though, let's focus on one of the guys I think is really unique. A man we call The Hunter."
"Roland Peck is his real name, though he's gone by several. He started as a big game hunter. He'd poach lions and tigers for their pelts, so he was never a stranger to the wrong side of the law. I'm going to labour this point, because I think it offers an important insight into the killer's mind; please bear with me. Roland doesn't just enjoy killing. If he'd just wanted to end a life he could have gone fishing, or hunted rabbits.
"He wasn't after death, but glory. He never poached an antelope, because antelopes aren't big game. Roland took a certain amount of pride in killing apex predators. Perhaps he thought this established him on top of the pyramid, and enjoyed the feeling of power. Regardless, soon it wasn't enough. He wanted to move even further up the pyramid.
"Roland started killing human beings. In a way, the progression was logical: we're the ultimate apex predator, after all. He began hunting his own kind. The police think he set himself challenges, to keep it exciting. In the bush you have to wait and patiently stalk your quarry before you strike, and that's what this man did to us. He'd choose a seemingly random victim, we're still not sure how, and then he'd track them down and wait for the perfect moment. Roland wasn't motivated by hate, fear, or money. He just loved the thrill of the chase, and the satisfaction of its conclusion.
"Because the deaths were seemingly unrelated, and because he was so patient and thorough, it took us years to catch him. The police don't look for this kind of motive, so he wasn't really a suspect until they were lucky enough to catch him on camera. If it hadn't been for that stroke of good fortune, he could be out there now. We're still not sure how many victims he had."
"What about her?" The mother of the family, speaking with an Eastern-European accent, pointed to one of the more unusual screens. Whilst the other prisoners were on small screens in row, hers was bigger and in pride of place. A beautiful woman, she stared mournfully at the camera in a way that made Nathan feel uncomfortable. "Is she the most dangerous?"
The continued questioning of his system seemed to annoy Henry, who hadn't expected such a prominent place on the tour. Before he could snap a retort, however, the guide stepped in.
"Some would say the least," she said, and shot the technician a reproachful glance. "I suppose it depends on your criteria. Sarah Stone can cause a lot of death, because she only targets the vulnerable, but there's more to it than that. She's dangerous because she's so kind. She's friendly, polite, trustworthy. She does everything she's told. Because of her good behaviour, she was let out of her last prison. To the guards she seemed normal, well adjusted. On her release, however, she punished their mistake.
"They didn't understand her condition. You see, Sarah doesn't kill because she's angry, or because she enjoys it. She kills because she's broken. She had some children of her own, once, but they all died young. We think that's what did it. A perfectly functional human being in every other respect, she is nevertheless driven crazy at the sight of a child. Driven to murder.
"As with Roland, we still don't know how many she killed before they caught her, but we know she was charged with the murder of eight. That was the first time. In prison, surrounded by adults, she was a pillar of society. Her behaviour was so good, in fact, that they let her out early.
"It was only a matter of time, however, before she saw a child, and then she was triggered all over again. This time she hit five before being put away for good. There are a lot of killers on this island, and they all look the part. They're all visibly deranged, visibly hostile and cold. Not Sarah. She's dangerous, you see, because you trust her. She's gentle, she's charming, she's beautiful. You can't see the killer, only the innocent woman it comes to possess, and you want to give her another chance."
"I don't," replied the mother. The little boy had cuddled in close to her, and she was holding him tight. "You said we'd be safe here?"
"Absolutely." Kate smiled reassuringly, but Nathan could sense fear in the room. The family looked nervous, and so did Charon, although the millionaire was probably more concerned about the safety of her investment. With Henry still glaring and the psychiatrists whispering amongst themselves, it fell to the security man to get things moving. The family shouldn't be here. The sooner the civilians were out on tour, the sooner the professionals could talk, and the sooner they could all go home.
"I'm here to confirm it," he announced. "We can discuss the system all day, but you'll never believe it until you see it. That's the only way we can prove to you that it's safe. Go on the tour; it's what you came here to do, after all. Meanwhile, I'll be reviewing the system from up here in the Hub, and making sure you're perfectly protected. Watching you on these screens, demonstrating all the safety features in action, is also the only way for me to believe their efficacy."
Nathan hated to make the family his guinea pigs, but if there were any flaws would rather they found them today than when the park was crawling. Somebody had to be the first. Better three guinea pigs, under close surveillance, than a thousand let lose.
"Should I be staying for this review, Lucille?" Durgan spoke up.
"Not unless you want to, Ted. You've been over the blueprints a great many times, so mostly we'll be revisiting plans you've already approved. Besides, Mr. Shah is right; the main purpose of today is to demonstrate these things in action. As he's a specialist on his subject, as are our psychiatrist guests, I'm sure you'll accept their verdict, so there's no pressing need for you to be here. May I suggest, as an alternative, that you join our guests on the tour? The one thing you haven't really expected is the park itself. We've spoken a lot about what your investment has bought us, but you are yet to see it in the flesh."
"If you think that would be best."
Charon sighed, and Nathan almost sympathised with her. This was a difficult day for her to pull off, with so many people to please, and despite her best efforts the entrepreneur had left her investor unimpressed, her visitors scared, and at least one psychiatrist outraged. The day's success, and therefore potentially the park's, depended on all three leaving satisfied. For his host's sake, Nathan hoped that the tour was truly extraordinary.
"Okay," the old woman said, and she gestured at the guide and doctor. "Kate and Noel, you can escort our guests back down to the trains. I'll let you take it from here."
"Wait!" The young psychiatrist raised her hand. "I'd like to come."
"Emma? What are you doing?"
"I'm sorry, please excuse us." She pulled her colleague aside, and the others returned to the screens. "Alex, relax. You should come too. As has been said, there's only so much we can learn from up here, going over the plans. If I'm going to confirm that this system is ethical, I need to see it in action. Perhaps if you saw some of the prisoners, you'd understand why they need to be isolated."
"This isn't a lab, Emma. You won't be able to test their mental health, or ask them questions about how they're treated. Their assessments will have been done in a proper prison, before they arrived, and we can learn everything about their treatment from here in the Hub. We're here to decide if the plans are unethical in their nature, or if they're likely to do long term damage. At least, that's what you said when you asked me to come. I didn't realise you just wanted to go on the guided tour."
"I'm interested in the park, you know I am, but only as a psychiatrist. This is the first prison of its kind. It's completely new to both of us, and so the facts and figures can't tell us the whole story. I need to get the feel of it. For me, in deciding whether this is ethical, the relationship between the guests and the prisoners is key. Only by putting myself in a tourist's point of view can I see whether the convicts are being presented as human, or whether they're being objectified."
"Very scientific." She snorted. "You won't be able to assess the effects of the viewing, not on a tour. You'll just be contributing to them. We haven't even decided if it's safe, and you'll be participating in it. Or perhaps you've already made up your mind? Either way, you'll be giving tacit consent to this human zoo."
"I don't see it like a zoo, and you know that I don't. I'm sure Ms. Charon doesn't either. You're too cynical."
"Oh no, I'm sure Ms. Charon doesn't reduce these people as interesting exhibits. To her, they're so much more: profit-making livestock. That's why she's so concerned about their health, and that's why she's called us in. Does that make you feel any better?"
"Alex, these people threw their humanity away. They're killers."
"That's honestly what you believe?"
"Yes"
"Then enjoy your tour," she said, shaking her head. She turned back to Charon. "I'll still look at your plans, just hold on for a moment. I need to use your bathroom."
"That's okay, Dr. Cole, we can wait. Would you like Henry to show you the way?" Their host was clearly reeling from what had been said, and Nathan could hardly blame her. The security man had thought he'd been sceptical of the park's concept, but compared to Alex he was Charon's greatest supporter. An all-round positive review of this day was looking more implausible every minute.
"No." She practically spat the word. "I think I can find it for myself, thank you."
Alex stormed out of the room to silence, with the other guests not even daring to make eye contact.
"I'm so sorry." Emma's face was red.
"Please don't apologise, Dr. Feng! There's nothing for you to be sorry about. Your colleague's happiness is my concern, not yours! You enjoy the tour, and I'll see if I can't catch her before she returns. She's clearly got a lot on her mind, and I think it might help if she could talk to me in private."
"That's a great idea. I've tried to persuade her myself, but she has a lot of assumptions about you, and I think it would really help her accept the park if he could get to know the lady behind it."
"Well, it's certainly worth a try." Charon's charm offensive was working on at least one of her guests, it seemed. As before, however, Nathan could see her eyes darting back to the investor and the family. This was all an act, but their hostess was a poor performer. No good actress ever looks directly at their intended audience, not even for a second. It ruins the illusion. Charon's glances were swift, her mistake brief, but they were just enough for Nathan's expert eyes to spot. "Kate and Noel, the floor is yours. I'm counting on you to make this tour great!"
The guide smiled as she watched her boss leave, and then turned to the group before her. "I can't wait to start showing you around, but first I'm going to need to you all to sign one of these forms. Henry, do you have them?"
The technician, focused on his computer screen, pointed to a stack of paper on his desk. The doctor handed one out to each family member, as well as to Durgan, the investor.
"This is nothing complex," he said. "We just need you to sign this agreement saying it's not the park's responsibility if you're harmed on the grounds. You won't be, of course, but we need to do this for legal reasons."
"Don't I need one?" Emma looked puzzled.
"No, it was already in your contract for this job. We anticipated one of you might want to leave the Hub." Henry looked up from his screen, and grinned nastily. "You look surprised, Dr. Feng. Did you not read the fine print?"