Pax Britannia: Unnatural History

by Jonathan Green

  He paused before the solid steel door sunk into the three-foot deep wall behind him. The party of industrialists, steel mill owners, landed gentry and money men, leant forwards in anticipation, tightly-buttoned waistcoats straining against bulging stomachs recently filled from the lavish buffet laid on for their visit. "At this juncture I would like to remind you that you should be aware that a number of the inmates you will encounter here, and some of the techniques that we use to control them, can cause some distress to upstanding, god-fearing men of a sensitive disposition. But do not worry, you are not in any danger yourselves. Orderlies and wardens will be on hand at all times keeping our experimental subjects in their place."

  Colesworth turned the large round wheel-handle and with a squeaking groan the heavy vault door swung open. Two orderlies, both armed with electric goads - the associated battery packs needed to power them strapped to their backs - stood to either side of the entrance. The governor proudly ushered his guests into the vaulted space beyond.

  It was a huge room at the base of the White Tower, bustling with inmates and orderlies alike, although at first it was hard to tell the two groups apart. The prisoners all wore the same, drab, shapeless coveralls, grey and stained with God alone knew what. The orderlies' uniforms weren't much better. The prison warders looked just as brutal and violent as those they had been tasked with guarding.

  The party of visitors was standing at the edge of a balcony that ran around the circumference of the cell-vault. An iron-railed staircase descended to the dungeon floor ten feet below and a second rose up again to the walkway on the far side. Opposite stood another solid iron door. During the early years of Queen Victoria's reign, when the Tower had been open to public visitors, this space had been used to store elaborate displays of weaponry. Now its purpose was more like that for which it had originally been intended.

  Several of the governors' guests wrinkled their noses at the fusty damp and ammonia smell of the dungeon but all stared, transfixed by the shambling monstrosities before them. The longer they looked the easier it was for them to tell the incarcerated and incarcerators apart. For one thing, all of the prisoners had at some stage had their heads shaved. Some inmates still bore the nicks and scabs on their pallid white pates of the more recent attentions of a barber.

  And there was another distinguishing mark that all the prisoners here bore. Each man had a sturdy iron collar fitted around his neck. These metal braces held their heads up and the more observant amongst the group saw that the thin flesh at the base of the prisoners' skulls was pink and raw. As yet the governor's guests could not see a reason for these devices. Were they some form of punishment, identity markers, or did they serve some other, more sinister, purpose?

  Every now and again orderlies turned high-pressure hoses on the mewling and moaning inmates, dousing them with ice-cold water. This action provoked mixed responses from the party of visitors.

  "Is that really necessary?" one woman asked the governor.

  "Oh yes, madam," Colesworth replied, matter-of-factly.

  "But as far as I could see that poor soaked wretch there hadn't done anything to incur the guard's wrath."

  "Madam, if they are imprisoned here at her majesty's pleasure, then they have all done something and deserve whatever punishment is meted out to them. Would you not agree?" There were murmurs and nods of assent from the rest of the party and the busybody said nothing more.

  "Besides, a regular dousing reminds the prisoners of their place and of the price they must pay society in recompense for their misdeeds," Colesworth went on, warming to his subject. "These you see before you are amongst some of our most recalcitrant offenders, murderers and rapists - excuse me, ladies! - who, it has been deemed, can never be rehabilitated. It is the judgement of the courts that they should remain here for the rest of their natural lives. Just as it is our penance to care for them for that time." What the investors saw before them now did not look very much like care.

  "Excuse me, Governor Colesworth," a haughty-sounding gentleman said, "but might some of these godforsaken souls be classed as retards?"

  "Indeed, some of them are," Colesworth agreed, "which is why they have ultimately found themselves here. Gentlemen and ladies, there, but for the grace of God, go us all."

  Several of the party crossed themselves and again potential dissenters were hushed.

  "And it is the very nature of those incarcerated here that makes them such ideal subjects for Dr Wilde's work." The governor indicated a tall, stick-thin, lab-coated figure striding imperiously through the cavernous space beneath them; very obviously presiding demon lord of this outer circle of hell. Dr Wilde caught the eye of the governor and threw him a jovial salute. He bounded up the stairs to the balcony two at a time. Next to Colesworth he made the governor appear even shorter of stature and wider of girth.

  "Ladies and gentlemen, it is with great pleasure that I introduce Dr Cornelius Wilde."

  The looming doctor bowed at the middle, looking like a wheat stalk bending in a strong wind, and then sprang back up again. He looked every bit an experimental brain medicine specialist. His thinning blond hair was swept back from a widow's peak and he wore thin-framed round spectacles, which gave his eyes a slightly discomforting magnified appearance. The lengthened features of his face were all the more clearly defined by his gaunt, hungrily thin physique.

  "Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen," he said, with all the manner of a ringmaster about to introduce the star act. "Welcome to what I like to call our little cirque du freak." A titter of nervous laughter passed among the investors.

  "It is here that Dr Wilde is carrying out some of the most exciting research into behavioural adjustment taking place at this time," Governor Colesworth said proudly, beaming his ingratiating smile at the party. "Would you care to explain the purpose of your work here, Dr Wilde? I'm afraid the science of it baffles me."

  "It would be my pleasure," Wilde beamed. "Basically, ladies and gentlemen, here at the Tower of London maximum security prison facility, we have long been involved in finding a way to best rehabilitate those who find themselves on the wrong side of the law. But undeniably, for some, there has never been any hope of rehabilitation within normal, decent human society. That is, until now."

  Colesworth looked from the doctor to his guests and back again, simpering all the while. The ringmaster had his audience hooked.

  "You see that each of the inmates here is wearing a special collar?" The party nodded. "I am sure that intelligent men and women like yourselves will have wondered what they are for." More nods. "What you see before you is the most exciting advance in social rehabilitation and behavioural improvement this century. Those collars represent a quantum leap forwards in our understanding of the human brain." Here Wilde paused for dramatic effect. "And how it can be controlled."

  There were a number of audible gasps from the assembled economic elite.

  "At this present time we are carrying out final tests on the patented Wilde Mind Control Collar."

  "Can you elaborate as to how the collars work?" an industrialist asked, his eyes twinkling as he imagined the profit to be made from investing in this new project and securing sole manufacturing rights.

  "Well, obviously the technical details will only become available to the highest bidder," Wilde smiled, "but the principle of it is really quite simple."

  "But then aren't all the best ideas?" Colesworth simpered.

  His eyes aglow with unhealthy enthusiasm, Wilde attempted to explain to the group of laymen how the complex collar worked. "Most of what you see locked around each subject's neck is actually a battery power pack. The clever bit, the mould-breaking technical gubbins, is at the back. There an electrode enters the base of the skull, allowing electrical impulses to be sent directly into the cerebral cortex, thereby modifying the subject's behaviour. But I can see that I am losing you. As you said, Governor, the science of it baffles most people so I have prepared a brief demonstration."

  "Excellent,
excellent."

  "If you would care to follow me?"

  Wilde led the party around the edge of the chamber to the sturdy door on the opposite side.

  A warder armed with an electric prod prepared to open this second door but Wilde paused before it, halting the man's hand on the wheel lock.

  "What is it, Dr Wilde?" one of Colesworth's guests asked.

  "I should warn you, honoured guests, that some of you - if not all - may find what I am about to reveal a little, how should I put it, unsettling? I would completely understand - and I am sure that Governor Colesworth would as well - if anyone of you felt that they would rather leave the tour at this juncture."

  Colesworth looked anxiously from the trailing crocodile of investors to the charismatic doctor and back again, uncertainty writ large upon his face.

  The huddle of investors all stared at Wilde, transfixed in nervous, hollow-eyed anticipation, but not one of them asked to leave.

  "Very well then. I applaud your courage and tenacity. If you would step this way?"

  The party entered a much smaller, white-tiled room. An overpowering clinical smell of disinfectant masked a more deeply ingrained odour of bodily excretions and raw fear.

  At the centre of the doctor's lab was an upended steel gurney. Secured to it by thick buckle-locked leather straps so that he was almost vertical, arms held tight to his sides, was an ox of a man. The doctor's latest clinical subject had been stripped to the waist, revealing a torso that was a veritable historical account of his wanton life, a patchwork of livid bruises, tattoos and old scars. The restrained prisoner was being attended to by a pair of lab assistants and watched over by two more of the brutal-looking orderlies.

  As soon as Wilde entered the room, the inmate's muscles bulged as he fought against the leather straps and embarked on a blasphemous tirade of expletives that made the more sensitive among the governor's guests gasp in horror. One woman was on the verge of swooning in shock. "I'm going to rip your throat out and eat your heart, Wilde you bastard! Do you hear me?" the inmate screamed in a strong Glaswegian accent.

  "Gag him!" the doctor ordered sharply.

  As two orderlies pushed a thick padded gag between the prisoner's jaws, the startled investors could quite clearly see that the savage's teeth had been filed to a point so that they looked like sharp arrowhead flints.

  "Ladies and gentlemen, let me apologise for our subject's outburst. Unfortunately not all can appreciate the benefits of the good work we do here, least of all those of a criminal bent."

  Wilde strode past the captive inmate and, taking the goad from the orderly standing there, rammed the prongs of the device into the prisoner's ribs. The man's whole body jerked violently and the ammonia-stink of urine permeated the close atmosphere of the chamber.

  "Honoured guests, let me introduce Ramsey 'The Shark' McCabe. Serial killer, cannibal and downright nasty piece of work. A recalcitrant sociopath, with twenty-six murders, dismemberings and devourings to his name."

  The morbidly fascinated group fanned out in front of the gurney, so that all could see more clearly. 'The Shark' McCabe continued to thrash and fight against his restraints, causing the gaggle of investors to flinch and take a step back. But there was no way that he could free himself from the steel slab, and neither was there any chance of any of the party leaving now, for fear of missing what might happen to the brute next.

  "As you can quite clearly see, Mr McCabe is a brutal and violent man, who is serving multiple life sentences at this institution, with no chance of a reduction to his sentence and most definitely no chance of a reprieve. Isn't that right, Mr McCabe?"

  Wilde stepped up to the restraining table and indicated the collar fitted around the prisoner's neck. As he did so, McCabe twisted his head sideways, veins bulging in his neck as if he would dearly like to bite the doctor's face off.

  "You can also see that he has recently been fitted with a collar. Now, ladies and gentlemen, for the purposes of this experiment I am afraid that we must ungag the subject once more. You may want to cover your ears."

  Some kind of metal box of tricks, all dials and switches, and sporting a long aerial, had appeared in Wilde's hands.

  "Remove the gag," Wilde commanded. The governor's party watched in horrified fascination.

  As soon as the gag was off, the tirade began again.

  "Wilde, you shit, when I get out of here I'm going to rip off your head and sh..."

  Dr Wilde flicked a switch on his handheld device. The torrent of verbal abuse ceased immediately as McCabe fell silent, the inmate's eyes glazing over and his face taking on a slack-jawed, moronic, almost zombie-like expression. The assembled onlookers gasped.

  "Wh-What happened?" someone spluttered in disbelief.

  "Ladies and gentlemen," the ringmaster declared, as he came to the highlight of the performance, "the subject is now totally under my control. Isn't that right, Mr McCabe?"

  A frown flickered across the prisoner's face and then, his voice as emotionless as his expression, the Shark replied, "Yes, Dr Wilde."

  The party gasped again.

  "By using this handheld remote I can now coerce Mr McCabe into performing any action I ask of him. It is easier to control less developed brains, of course. Our initial experiments with dogs and monkeys paved the way for developing a mind control device that could be used on humans. Some of our more retarded subjects have proved most susceptible to control, and, believe me, gentlemen, in a place crammed full of backward hoodlums, subnormal rapists and psychotic murderers, we have plenty of those here."

  A nervous titter of laughter passed through the assembled group.

  "I don't believe it!" a rotund industrialist muttered, jowls quivering as he shook his head in disbelief.

  "Believe it, sir," Wilde countered. "In fact, let me prove it to you. What would you like to see Mr McCabe do?"

  There was a smattering of 'um's and 'ah's as the gathered voyeurs tried to come up with a suitable test now that the doctor had set his challenge.

  "Have him recite Mary Had a Little Lamb," a voice came from the back of the group.

  "Very well." The doctor turned to his docile subject. "Mr McCabe, do you know the children's rhyme Mary Had a Little Lamb?"

  "Yes, Dr Wilde."

  "Then recite it for our guests."

  "Mary had a little lamb, its fleece was white as snow," McCabe drawled, his Scots accent monotone and lacking any expression whatsoever, "and everywhere that Mary went, the lamb was sure to go."

  "Very good, Mr McCabe."

  The party of visitors offered a polite round of applause.

  "Make him stand on one foot," another man suggested.

  "Very well, but we shall have to release him from his restraints first," Wilde pointed out.

  There was a hesitant murmur of uncertainty from the group and some of the party took a step back as Wilde directed his assistants to undo the buckled straps.

  "Are you sure about this?" Colesworth hissed, suddenly at Wilde's side.

  "But of course I am, Governor. Have faith."

  Colesworth swallowed hard and took a step back, wringing his hands in anxiety.

  One by one the leather restraints were undone. The doctor's assistants moved aside, prison orderlies moving up to take their place, electro-goads ready just in case. McCabe just stood there, a good head taller than anyone else in the room, his great wrestler's form terrifying to behold.

  "Mr McCabe," Wilde said, turning a dial on his control box and depressing another switch, "if you would be so kind, stand on one foot."

  The prisoner robotically raised one foot so that he remained balanced on the other.

  Suggestion followed suggestion from the increasingly impressed investors. They watched as the cannibal serial killer rubbed his stomach whilst patting his head, childishly recited his ABC and the routine ending with a rendition of 'I'm a Little Teapot'. All the while the Shark remained as docile as a kitten.

  A spontaneous round of applause erupted from am
ongst the investors. Colesworth beamed like a Cheshire cat. Dr Wilde, one eyebrow raised in acknowledgement, kept his own counsel.

  "Thank you, thank you," Wilde said, taking a bow as he luxuriated in his audience's adulation. "But now, if you will excuse me, I have vital work to attend to."

  The show over and Colesworth assured of the investment he had so desperately been seeking, the ringmaster bid the audience of investors farewell. The party filed out of the clinical white laboratory, the governor asking if any of his esteemed guests would be attending the jubilee celebrations in Hyde Park the following day.

  Dr Wilde stayed where he was. He turned to one of his assistants.

  "Nash, have this one taken back to his cell," he said, throwing a sidelong glance at the subdued psychopath, "shock him hard enough to knock him unconscious and then you can turn this off." He tossed the collar controller to the man.

  "Yes, Dr Wilde."

  "And remember, Nash, I want the rest of the collars fitted by tonight." His previously crowd-pleasing tone had become pointedly instructional.

  "Yes, Dr Wilde," Nash acceded.

  Leaving his underlings to put everything into operation in his absence, Wilde left the lab through another steel door and entered his private office lit by one, lonely, naked light bulb. He shut the door securely behind him and sat down at an unassuming grey metal desk. The only thing remotely interesting about the desk was the teak and brass-finished box that sat on top of it. It looked like a considerably larger version of the control box he had used to demonstrate how the mind control collars worked.

  Wilde looked at the clock on the wall and then at his pocket watch, then at the clock again.

  Drumming his fingers in distraction on the desktop he gazed out at the smog-laden sky beyond the small barred window. The mauve and mustard clouds were criss-crossed by the sweeping beams of the Tower's searchlights.

  The Tower had been many things in its time - a royal palace, a menagerie, a museum, a treasure house and a tourist attraction - but now it was back to being a prison once more. As a prison it had put up many famous 'guests' including queens, kings and traitors. Now it was home to some of the most violent and brutal villains the empire had ever known - murderers, rapists and compulsive criminals the lot of them. In one wing were kept the most dangerous inmates, the clinically deranged psychopaths, the abusers, the schizophrenics, the mentally ill, those who, by rights, should not have been permitted to continue their godless lives. But that would all change soon enough, when the new order was in place. And for the time being, these very wretches were to form the vanguard of the most exciting scientific experiment in the last fifteen years.