BROTHERS JAILED
By Dan Gunnarsson
There has been yet another domestic armed robbery in Basingstoke, the sixth one in as many months. Last week brothers Kevin and Marvin Lofthouse, were caught red-handed by police when they assaulted homeowners and demanded they open a safe, before taking an estimated £10,000 worth of jewellery. As this was their first provable offence, the brothers were sentenced to Aversion Therapy at Tier Three. Afterwards, as the law requires, they will have to repay all costs plus compensation.
Mal liked this time of day. The sun was just coming up over a sleepy London, the light catching the glass prisms of the skyline. He turned away from his view of the British Ecological Headquarters and the newly opened Cotton Exchange and swept his sonic mop in rhythmic motions across the floor of the police headquarters, his lanyard swinging in time with his movements.
Unlike the other hygiene operatives he didn’t listen to music on his phone, although he wore his earpiece so as not to look odd. This was his time of day for thinking and planning. While his body was fully immersed in the choreographed movements of cleaning, his mind percolated plans that Diros had been discussing – the bringing down of Janus Justice once and for all.
By the time Sarge had returned to the office the previous night, Bizzy had come up with another Tier Three project and Sarge, his frustration having abated somewhat, had accepted their meagre offering with some reticence.
Mal swept in and out of the computerised communication booths, thinking about the crime Diros was about to emulate. The crime itself seemed straightforward. At least no one would get killed. He’d been ambivalent about Begbroke’s death, but the woman… He hadn’t even known she was there until the burning-pork smell hit him as he’d climbed the stairs to check Bizzy hadn’t messed up the evidence. He’d felt a certain sense of shame that he’d been involved somehow, even though he hadn’t realised until it was too late.
Mal felt uncertain. It was easy to feel buoyed, inspired even, when Sarge built them up with strong words about mission and brotherhood and justice. But that poor woman who died, cremated in her own bed, that wasn’t justice. Bizzy hadn’t even seemed fazed by it. Before Remy left, he’d told Mal that Bizzy liked to do bad stuff for the sake of it. Maybe that was true. Something darker was emerging from Diros, something that scared Mal.
It seemed too big a problem for him to solve right now. He shook his head. A moral wobble, Layla would have called it. He would focus on the job in hand. Try to make sense of it later.
Mal took a spray bottle from the large pocket of his heavy-duty cotton apron and squirted it on a stain. He continued making his way slowly over to the corridor which led to the evidence room, the mop guiding him like a blind person’s stick. There were ten minutes to go before handover, so he’d have to act now, when there were less people around, less chance of getting caught. He paused in the corridor, leaning against the window for a moment as the last of the officers left to go downstairs to the briefing. He looked out across the Thames from the fifteenth floor, where the barges moved along the river like colourful toys, the people mere pixels, the glass and metal buildings shining like gold in the morning sun.
Grace walked along the embankment, watching the barges as they ferried early morning deliveries before the shops opened. A cool breeze swept across from the Thames carrying with it the smell of manure that lay in steaming piles on the road from the horses that pulled the wagons loaded with cargo from the barges. A collector with his shovel and cart moved along, sweeping up what the horses had left behind ready to be sent to the agricultural compounds. Nothing seemed wasted these days. The collector passed her, singing loudly to a song only he could hear in his earpiece. Moments later, she heard the clip clop of another horse as it pulled its cargo cart, dumping more manure in its wake.
Her mind oscillated between wondering where Remy was and figuring out how to fix Aversion Therapy. Creating empathy, chemically or otherwise, felt like a feat above her proficiency, but she had to keep faith that she could do it. Conrad’s team had created synthetic fear, hadn’t they?
It would take months, years even, to create a new drug from scratch, including research, trials and licensing. She’d have to swerve the usual procedures, but obviously Conrad didn’t always take the legal route. Remy would be caught sooner rather than later and it was imperative that she had treatment ready.
She decided her only option was to adapt the treatment that was already in place, try to turn it to her purpose. Building on an already shaky foundation didn’t give her much hope that the new treatment would be a hundred per cent effective, or even long-term for that matter.
She couldn’t worry about that right now.
Then she would have to prove her new treatment worked so that she could get Remy off the hook. Whatever happened after that… Well, she’d have to think about that later.
Mal looked around one last time and, seeing no one, swiped the door with his card and quietly slipped in. The hairs on his arms stood upright. It was like Christmas – a room full of evidence, some of which had been used already to prove an offender’s guilt, some waiting to be used to catch criminals, and some which, if you had the nous, could be used to frame others. It was like picking a suit from a rack in a fancy-dress shop. Who do you want to be today?
All the white boxes stacked up in the room were portals into other worlds of crime. Mal felt himself relax a little, his doubts melting away. Sarge was a genius – he’d have to be to have come up with something like this.
He studied his phone to double-check the information Bizzy had given him about exactly what to look for in the evidence room. If Sarge was the artist, Biz was the planner, and even though he pissed Mal off on a regular basis, Mal had to admit he knew his stuff. Biz had spent the previous night route-finding, alarm-checking, security system-hacking, and finding the best possible target.
Mal was aware of his place in the pecking order, but it didn’t detract from the excitement he felt being in this secret treasure trove. He smiled softly to himself, enjoying the knowledge that Bizzy couldn’t come here. Mal wasn’t as disposable as Bizzy sometimes suggested.
He found the number he was looking for. He took a pair of disposable gloves from his apron pocket and put them on. The books he’d read had taught him what would be the best thing to take, and sure enough, he opened the box and found hair samples and already-chewed gum in small plastic bags. He shoved them into the large pocket of his apron, replaced the box carefully and hurried out of the evidence room, mop in hand.
The Janus Justice building was almost empty apart from one or two eager interns and a few hygiene operatives. Deacon Security guards were positioned at the doors and a couple were doing the rounds outside. George passed a tin to Grace as he said goodbye after a nightshift. ‘My wife’s walnut, date and honey cake, Doc G,’ he said with a grin. ‘Always grateful.’
‘Your gratitude is going to end up on my hips, George!’ Grace said with a laugh. ‘You tell Louise thank you.’
He gave her a wave as he left.
The mood of the Aversion Therapy clinic seemed to change with the shifting light of the day – and whatever activity was going on in there. The sun had come up fully now and the early morning cast a cool light across the grey surfaces, giving a calm ambience. Grace had brought an organic vegan roll and a coffee from the bakery on the way to work, but both remained untouched on the workstation.
She turned her attention back to a set of brain scans in front of her. Flicking between screens automatically, the images already as familiar to her as her own reflection in the mirror, she felt a growing anxiety. She’d broken down the Aversion Therapy so that she could try to replicate and adapt it. An idea occurred to her. She didn’t even know if it would work. But that didn’t matter. She just had to convince Conrad that it would.
Emotions were caused by the body’s chemistry reacting to an external stimulus. Aversion Therapy worked by tricking the brain into feeling fear by getting the body to replicate the feelings, adrenaline, palpitations, nausea, shaking, sweating. Sensory information – the smell of fire, the sounds of screaming, the images on the screen – all caused the brain to begin transferring information, triggering autonomic responses. It was clear from the scan that the therapy had the required effect, because the amygdala and the hypothalamus were lit up. The Timorax drug, the hypnotherapy and the emotisonics all contributed to a symphony of fear so distressing that it induced trauma in the offender, which in turn prevented them from wanting to reoffend.
How the hell was she going to be able to produce a better therapy? At least with fear there were clear indicators to the body that something was wrong, and so those indicators could be reproduced. Fear was so much more automatic, so biological. How was she supposed to recreate empathy? Could she somehow bypass the real emotion and stimulate it in brain and body using chemistry? And if so, would that cause changes in the brain that would be visible on the scan, so she could prove it worked?
Her notes were rough, scribbled in a frenzy of study.
Empathy – UMBRELLA TERM!
Four types:
1) cognitive – understanding how the other feels – psychopaths HAVE THIS ONE – they use it to manipulate feelings in others – psychopaths HIGHLY manipulative. Usually the only type of empathy they have. There is NO EMOTION here. Theory of mind – seeing things from the other person’s viewpoint. Helps them predict how the person might react to their manipulation
2) emotional – feeling sorry for someone – you can feel the feelings they are experiencing
3) compassionate – you feel motivated to help the one suffering
4) somatic – mirror neurons – gives you a sensation in your body that you can understand – physically feeling something someone else might be feeling – like when someone stubs their toe – you can imagine it – THIS ONE!!!
All on a spectrum in each individual like a graphic equaliser
Low levels of education, poor upbringing, brain injury, drug use, impulse control CAN ALL AFFECT EMPATHY
She knew she couldn’t recreate all four types.
She didn’t need to.
She didn’t have the time or the knowledge to reconstruct a person to that degree. She’d have to stick to what she could actually manage to prove – it wasn’t going to be long-term and comprehensive. She just needed to show that a change had taken place in Remy’s brain and then Conrad would let him go.
There was a growing seed, a memory of a time she and Remy had tried an empathogenic recreational drug as teenagers. She couldn’t even remember the street name for it now, bunnies, maybe? That had given her strong feelings of empathy, hadn’t it? Was it possible to start the chain reaction in the brain so that, like with Timorax, they could produce a chemical shortcut to the real emotion? Or even just cause some reaction in the brain so that if she couldn’t actually cure Remy for good, it might look as though she had?
There was no doubt Aversion Therapy worked initially, but did it maintain the change long-term in the brains of offenders? Possibly for some, but not for others. That might explain why Begbroke and a few of the others had reoffended. If Conrad had followed procedure and the post-therapy follow-ups had been completed, Grace would know for certain. Maybe she could rescan the offenders and see for herself what had changed after the treatment. She turned to the computer and called up the records.
A few minutes later, Grace stood staring at the screens, a feeling of dread overcoming her. She wouldn’t be able to do follow-ups.
All the reoffenders were dead – the post office gang, the Payback members, Begbroke. Myriam had been murdered. Even Mikey Kilgannon would never wake again.
It looked as though they had all been silenced.