Chapter Ten
The room was silent for the better part of twenty minutes, until Rob came back into consciousness. He brought his hand to the back of his head, wiped the blood off of his scalp, and stared at it in disbelief.
“The Elder Mr. Peerson, so good of you to join us again.” Dr. Meredith continued as though the previous events had not happened.
“In response to your inquiries, I will not be watching you masturbate, and you will only be spending one year within this particular experiment. And yes for your information, you can bleed within the confines of the experiment. Will there be any more questions from you today?”
Rob silently shook his head, no.
“Good,” Tonya said briskly.
“Once you complete your year of service in the space, you will be rematerialized. At which time, we would conduct a series of diagnostic tests designed to monitor changes in health, psychological wellness, and the predisposition toward engaging in a repeat offenses. During the test, we will be actively modifying a duplicate space in accordance with the 'bugs' that you find in this project. In this sense, your placement within our beta test will be moving both the company, and the technology forward toward a more functional rendition of our currently existing model.”
She glanced sideways at Henkleman.
“As for renovating the entire prison / industrial complex, that is more Mr. Henkleman's concern than my own. I am only interested in creating and maintaining a functional extra-dimensional environment.
It would be in your best interests to heed my commands, if ever I feel the need to issue one. I guarantee you, that I will not make such statements lightly.”
“You would be free to attempt to escape the prison, and as a matter of fact, you are encouraged. There are no barbed wire gates, or guards with weapons. You will not have a strict schedule to keep, though you will be required to complete certain tasks each day; your failure to do so will result in minor forms of punishment, up to and including missing meals, and the video log of your behavior broadcasted to millions through the internet.”
At the last statement she glanced at Rob with a single raised eyebrow, as if testing his resolve toward a public display of auto-eroticism.
“You intend to shame us into submission?” asked Matt, “Shame is pride's cloak.”
“A poetic reference to William Blake, I didn’t know you had an interest in subversive poets.” Mr. Hembleton
Matt's mouth formed a smug grin, and his posture appeared more confident than it had only moments before.
Dr. Meredith continued “If shame is not sufficient to enliven your conscience, then you are each free to resume your position on Death Row,” Tonya stated bluntly.
“As you have seen, you will be living together, and as such you will not be permitted to harm one another. Other than these basic guidelines, you will be free to spend your year as you desire, and for all constructive purposes, I wish you the best, should you choose this course of action.
“Choose?” asked John, a smaller voice separating him from the other prisoners, “I wasn't aware that we had a choice in the matter.
“You always have a choice,” Dr. Meredith remarked.
There was no quippy clause or comment here, only an intimidatingly authentic form of eye contact that established itself firmly between John and Dr. Meredith.
If John wanted to pull away, he felt like he couldn't have done so. There was something undeniably real about Tonya Meredith's gaze. There was no judgment, but a fierce form of expectation; a kind of calling out of personal responsibility within the person with whom she shared the eye contact.
Dr. Meredith breathed deeply, and motioned the men toward a dinning table at the side of the room. Theo produced bowls of soup and a few beers, and distributed them amongst the prisoners.
The guards took turns leaving, their positions, in order to treat themselves to a bit of sustenance; they would have to wait until after their shift had completed in order to drink though – especially in front of Henkleman.
“You mentioned the pan-opticon,” said John, between slurping mouthfuls of soup, “Are there going to be cameras everywhere?”
“It will be a bit more sophisticated than that,” Dr. Meredith responded, while cracking open a can of beer. “The entire system works holographically, and so we will be observing everything that there is to observe, simply because it is present. The entire field is active, and the data is streamed directly to us, run through a complier, and transposed into what you saw on the screen earlier.”
John nodded, and returned meditatively to his bowl of soup.
****
John Peerson was Rob's younger brother by two years. He did not always share his brother's appetite for hard drugs and women; as he was primarily a kleptomaniac and a hacker and had gotten in trouble with the police several years earlier for allegedly writing a program used to retrieve the contents of customer databases belonging to a series of department stores.
The stolen information included names, addresses, social security numbers, and credit card information. The consequences of the crime - identity theft, credit card fraud, and burglaries.
John was approached through a hacker forum that he frequented, and told that if he could write a program that could remotely breach network security and then implant itself as a data miner, they would buy him a new computer.
John's family did not have a lot of money, and he thought it would be a bit of a challenge, so he designed a program with the specifications stated by the contact. Two weeks later, the contact made good on his promise, and mailed John a $5,000 gift card to a major block store, which had coincidentally reported a massive customer database compromise earlier that week.
John told his parents he had won the card in a programming competition on one of his online forums, and he took a bus to the store; and filled out a specialized order sheet to have custom parts shipped to his house.
He bought the best products on the market, assembled them himself, and for the next week, enjoyed his new computer immensely.
One week later, there was a knock on the door, and two federal agents appeared before John's mother.
Initially, she thought that the officers were there to speak with her about Rob, but the agents asked to speak with John, and questioned him for several hours.
John's computer was confiscated as evidence of his participation in a massive data mining strike, which had collected the personal and financial information of over 20,000 people.
After months of stress, and court appearances, John was finally acquitted of the charges because he was a minor, and because they could not prove malicious intent; John's computer was returned shortly.
John turned eighteen shortly after his brother Rob came back from the county methadone clinic. He loved every minute of it, even though his brother had been gone for the better part of three years, only occasionally coming back to rip off pills from his parents bathroom, or beg for money to free himself from his latest source of trouble.
John had looked up to his older brother for much of his life, and they were close before Rob had gotten into his life on the street. Now that the two were home together, they caught up on each others lives, and John did his best to be present and available for his brother following the recovery period.
The peace lasted for a couple of weeks until John found his computer monitor was missing, and Rob was nowhere to be found. John kept it quiet from his parents, but in his heart, he knew that his brother had relapsed.
Rob came home later that night, and John confronted him. Instead attacking his brother, or getting upset, like John was initially predisposed to do, he asked him what he had spent the money on, and if he had any more.
Rob shot John up with a mixture of heroin and crack cocaine, and the two of them wandered to the bus stop, and rode down to the bay.
They got high four more times that evening, until their supply had completely run out.
Rob smiled, knowing that he had found a rip off partner at last.
Over the next few weeks, Rob and John stole and sold off, whatever they could from their parents’ house, ended up on the street back at John's old squat, and began to systematically rob every gas station in the city.
One particularly fucked robbery attempt ended with an arson fire, which destroyed the property, and killed an off duty cop, a school nurse and an attendant. The payoff had been huge, but they were only able to visit their supplier, and shoot up in a fast food bathroom before the police caught up with them.
John overdosed, and nearly died, and Rob used the restaurant as a bunker for a standoff with the police.
The restaurant was quickly flushed out with a few tear gas grenades, and no officers were injured.
The incident landed both of the brothers on Death Row after a lengthy and dramatic court session involving the linking of each gas station they had robbed, and the three murders.
Despite the emotional upheaval of John's hospitalization, sequential release, and the bitter tears of their parents, both Rob and John were stoic at the trial, and made no apologies.
As Theo walked around collecting bowls, before taking them over to the kitchenette, the prisoners’ eyes wondered. Some eyes following Theo. Some peering into empty beer glasses; wishing they were filled once more.
Matt made some comment about the last supper, and Henkleman cleared his throat and directed Dr. Meredith's attention to the watch on his wrist.
“All that is left is for you each to sign the final release forms, and we will begin your transfer,” stated Dr. Meredith.
“Can we ask questions?” asked Harry, causing the other four to turn toward Dr. Meredith once more.
“If I answered any of your questions, Mr. Pinchin, would it alter your decision at all?”
Harry paused for a moment, and then shook his head, no. After a moment of searching Dr. Meredith, he received only a sad smile, before the moment was interrupted by Theo, who had approached the doctor about some operational procedure.
The five prisoners dutifully signed over their liability release wavers.
“Like good little institutionalized lab rats,” Harry muttered to himself as he signed his initials on the bottom line of the waiver form, not even bothering to read the content that preceded the signature.
“I take care of my lab rats, Mr. Pinchin. The beauty of this experiment is that the responsibility of care rests with you, and not myself. It's called personal accountability,” said Tonya, matter-of-factly.