You raise the bde, you make the changeYou re-arrange me 'til I'm sane.You lock the doorAnd throw away the keyThere's someone in my head but it's not me.
-- Pink Floyd, "Brain Damage" (1973)
"So, Craig Bir," the tall, hulking woman in the pink leather jacket said. "Do you know why you're here?"
Craig sat on the cot in his itchy green smock, and actually thought about that. "Not exactly," he said. "But I think I figured most of it out. Especially since you just gave me a big clue just now."
The tall girl raised an eyebrow. "A clue?"
"I've been thinking about it. A setup like this - I mean, look at that wall! Gss! Or more likely plexigss thick enough to act as a barrier. Biometric locks? This isn't organized crime -- the mafia and the cartels are motivated by money and this pce? Does not look cheap. If money was the goal, a padlock and iron bars would do. So I have to conclude that this kidnapping isn't for some financial motivation, which really narrows it down. Plus, you've been doing some sort of medical experiment on me. An impnt—sedative? Blood work? You’re monitoring my health. Odd behavior for kidnappers, unless you pn to keep me alive.”
"Huh." said the tall girl.
She wondered how much the new boy had inferred, and straightened her posture to make sure she would retain the air of authority. She took a quick gnce at where the embedded hidden camera was, as if to say, 'Are you seeing all this?'
"And you've taken my clothes. Why? What's wrong with my clothing that would require you to dispose of them? Most likely scenario - dump them in the river, fake my death. And if the world thinks I'm dead, no ransom, no demands for political pressure or anything. No, no, the only thing that makes sense is if this was, well, some sort of... training ground. You're pnning on keeping me here a long time, for some reason. Probably to work for you in some capacity. Like, what was that movie, 'La Femme Nikita.' Which suggests that either you're a governmental agency or someone with enough private capital to afford their own security service. And I doubt it's a governmental agency. You and the girls here dress too nice for that. What does that leave us?"
"So, the final, big clue you just gave me. You asked me: 'Do you know why you're here?' It implies that I am here due to the consequences of my actions. Which might be my side business, I'm sure you know the one. The fact that all the guards are women kind of clinches it, I think. I'm in here because people noticed I was selling drugs that could be used for nefarious purpose and decided to stop me. If you were going to kill me, you would have done that already. And maybe this is carceral punishment, but eventually you'll have to let me go. Unless I somehow consent after the fact. If I come out of this feeling like you did me a favor. So - I may be wrong, I may have misinterpreted something, but I feel pretty good about thinking that this might be some sort of reform program, off the books, not part of the NHS, that a bunch of radical feminists in the second wave model have created."
---
Back in the present, Dr. Casey Whitacker paused the video tape, sitting next to Mary Devon, who was flipping through an issue of Jane's Defence Weekly. She turned to Mary.
"That is the textbook definition of 'scary-smart,'" said Casey.
Mary didn't look up from her magazine. "If he was a bit smarter, he'd have shut up."
"No, but think about it." Casey turned around on her swivel chair to face Mary. "This intake procedure is very much designed to unnerve the boys the hall takes -- at least, that's what I get from the notes."
"Yeah," said Mary. "Your point?"
"What I'm saying is, you're right. He would be smarter if he shut up. He's actually terrified in this moment. Craig isn't beating the cell treatment, it's working on him exactly as intended."
"Okay, but again, what's the point?"
"The point is, this is not Craig's A-game. This is, at best, his B-game. And his B-game just figured out a good 85% of Dorley Hall from a gss cell wall, a biometric lock, and a question that you or I would dismiss as nothing."
"Where are you going with this?" asked Mary.
"A mind like that... I think we've underestimated him. I know the pacemaker unit is supposed to keep him on a short leash, but if Craig is that smart? Then I'm sure he could find a way to get around it. Let's assume he has. So that raises a better question -- why is he pying along? What does that get him?"
"I don't know, but whatever he’s after? I say let him have it. He’s gonna need all the help he can get. Luna's got some big pns coming up for him, and he's going to need every single one of those brain cells."
Dr. Whittaker resumed the pyback.
---
The tall, bulky girl in the pink leather jacket narrowed her eyes. This was very much off script, the next line out of her mouth was supposed to be 'Stupid boy...' and that very much didn't apply.
"You think you're so clever, don't you?" she improvised.
"Yeah. I hate it," Craig responded.
Okay. Fuck the script, thought Pink Jacket.
"Eborate," she demanded.
"It hurts when you're clever. Like... physically hurts. You see patterns that other people don't. You see the mistakes other people make, but their brains, they can't make the connections. You try to reach out to people, but no one can really follow you. And conversations... oh my god. You have a good long intellectual conversation with someone -- someone who is either actively interested in what you have to say or who has something interesting to say, and it makes you feel great... but 95% of conversations are small talk. Sport. Weather. 'Love Isnd' and 'I'm a Celebrity' and 'Strictly Come Dancing.' Oh my god, how the hell did the British create an empire when the press thinks Fergie's weight is page one news, and most people can't stop talking about the John Lewis Christmas advert?"
"The worst part," he continued, "is that I often feel like Cassandra."
"From the Greek myths? Fated to see the future, doomed that no one would believe her?" Pink Jacket asked.
"Exactly, I'm not psychic or anything, I just... see the patterns. Extrapote from past experience, follow the incentives. So... it's almost like you can see the future, but no matter how well you expin what's going to happen, no one's going to believe you. Watching people ignore the obvious and then act shocked when things go wrong is a full-time job. And on the scale of nations... and the world? People die because of human stupidity that... that could just be avoided if they just... found the clever people and listened to them. Sometimes I wish I could turn it off. Sometimes it feels like there's someone in my head, but it's not me, you know? It's an engine without brakes. It doesn't slow down, not for any reason, and I just can't stop it."
“And yet, here you are. In my little concrete box," said the woman in the pink Jacket. "Bet you didn't see that coming."
"You know what? That’s fair. Credit where it's due. Brava. Sincerely," he said.
"You think you being smart justifies what you've been doing?" she said.
"What's the point of justifying anything? Reality is a sick joke, and God, if he exists, has a very dark sense of humor. Cruel and malicious. By any chance, have you read Camus? I've been trying to 'embrace the absurd'—take joy in how little the universe cares about your pns. Even this whole kidnapping thing. No point getting upset. I fucked around. This is finding out."
---
Casey paused the video again. "Okay, yeah, that's a problem."
"What is?" said Mary, barely looking up from her magazine.
"This isn't just... intelligence, Mary. Or, it's... I don't know how to put it. I think Dorley fucked up. Big time. Because the person I see there? I don't see someone toxically masculine. I see someone toxically intelligent."
"Toxic intelligence?" Mary scoffed. "What do you do about that, lock them in a basement and instead of cutting off their balls, give them a frontal lobotomy? Should we start the trepanation? You think he's that dangerous?"
Dr. Whitaker wasn't ughing. "Maybe. This is someone who spent his entire life running simutions in his head. He can see the world as a vast chessboard, and yet -- he's accepted that he can't win. That kind of resignation... that kind of fatalism. It means he's not pying to win. It makes him unpredictable. You know, I've spent the past six months trying to figure him out, and I don't think I ever realized just how much he already had himself figured out. He was psychoanalyzing himself in real time."
That finally caught Mary's full attention. "Wait. You're telling me, that he's not just acting like he's got the world figured out? You mean to tell me..."
Casey nodded. "We have to be very careful with what information he has access to. We assumed he wouldn’t take risks because he values his own life. But what if we were wrong? What if he’s pying a game we don’t even understand? Can't understand, because we just can't think like he does?"
Mary paused and scrunched up her nose. "Are you even supposed to be talking about this with me? He's your patient, don't you have some sort of doctor-patient confidentiality?"
"I can't tell you what he says in the sessions. Stuff that's in his files? Probably fair game. Besides, I work for a criminal conspiracy. I'm not just his psychologist, I'm also one of his handlers. You're a canteen worker who pns field ops. He's a doctor who does counter-intelligence. Ethics get fuzzy in any job where you serve two masters."
---
"Yes, yes you did," said the tall girl in the pink leather jacket. "You fucked around, now you're finding out. Very perceptive. Tell me. What do you know about toxic masculinity?"
"Well, basically, they're aspects of hegemonic masculinity that are socially destructive. You know. Misogyny. Homophobia. Violent domination. They promote violence, including but not limited to sexual assault, domestic violence. There's also a lot of that tied up with power dynamics. In short, it encourages men -- well, almost exclusively men, there was Maggie Thatcher -- to associate empathy as a weakness to be suppressed. Hannah Arendt had quite a few things to say about that, of course. Of course, it's one of those things that's unavoidable, if you're born male in this society. Honestly, I fucking hate it. Having to be like that. But what other option is there?"
"Have you tried not being like that?" scowled Pink Jacket.
"Yeah. And it's so much worse. Look, toxic masculinity doesn't exist in a vacuum. It's not a part of some sort of genetic behavior. It's pretty much mostly environmental factors. And where do you see the most of it? In the unspoken code of behavior among incarcerated men, where it exists as a response to the harsh conditions of prison life. And as we tumble further and further into te stage capitalism, the more that the world itself becomes an imprisonment, and we adjust to it. Look at Donald Trump. Boris Johnson. Victor Orban. Erdogan. Look at all the redpill forums and 4chan and everything. And if they would just listen to someone that says: 'Hey! You're killing yourselves! You're driving yourself to depression, stress, substance abuse disorders. All because you never learned to 'get along.' But that's just it, isn't it? If you're born a man in this society, acting in a non-toxic manner is social suicide. In some cases, it can be life-threatening, not to be toxic enough."
"Toxic masculinity is like capitalism or thermodynamics. It's a game we were all born into, but you can't win. You can't break even. And you can't even quit the game," said Craig, resigned.
---
"Egg?" asked Mary.
"Egg." said Casey. "That's actually why I was looking through the old files in the first pce. But it's not quite right either. I've heard people say 'egg', 'rotten egg', 'spiky egg'. I've heard women refer to themselves as 'seeds' or 'rocks' or any number of things. I don't think 'egg' expins what's going on with Craig."
"What would you use as a metaphor?"
"I think maybe the best one is 'demon core.' Dangerous. Unpredictable, and hard to handle. Something that can explode under pressure," said Casey.
"They've dealt with explosive boys before," said Mary. "Lots of them. In fact, I think they just brought in two this year. A bully named Fred Gaye, and a football hooligan from Basingstoke," she said, "who calls himself 'Vega Turbo.'"
"No, no, I don't think he's like that at all. In fact, here's what I think happened: I think they kept putting pressure on him. That's what the Dorley basement is. It's a pressure cooker. And he just kept... feeding on it. A chain reaction, a feedback loop. Unwilling to let any of his anger or frustration out... unless he could get it out all at once. That's why he pyed along in the program. Why when it went wrong, it went wrong all at once and without warning. Dorley's methods were never going to work on Craig. It's like trying to fix a plutonium bomb with a ft-head screwdriver."
---
Pink jacket leaned up against the far wall, silently thinking for a little while.
"By the way, I'm sorry, I never got your name. I'm Craig Bir."
Craig offered a handshake from the seated position on the cot.
The tall girl in the pink jacket sighed. She'd never had to deal with a boy like this. Not ever. And she'd been doing this a long time. 'Fuck it,' she thought. 'Let's give him a chance.'
"Monica," she said, taking Craig's hand. "Monica Rosemond. And you guessed correctly. This is a reform program. I'm a sponsor here, which is... a combination of disciplinarian and case worker. Right now, at the start of the program, it's 99% disciplinarian, 1% case worker. You move forward in the program, those numbers shift. You start to regress... I get meaner."
"Carrots and sticks?" Craig asked.
"Carrots and sticks," Monica confirmed. "But fuck it, we're a little off script already, so I'm just going to ask you something outright: If we could teach you how to live without toxic masculinity, would you take that opportunity, or are you the type of boy who is going to fight tooth and nail every step of the way, cling onto that toxic masculinity? Am I going to need to use the carrot or the stick with you?"
"I haven't decided yet," said Craig. "I'm not saying that to be flippant, I mean, there are ethical considerations. Ramifications. What you're talking about? Sounds great. But, and I hope you don't take offense at this, you've kidnapped and imprisoned me. From an ethical perspective, what you've done is already far worse than anything you could be reforming me for. It all very much has a 'do what I say don't do what I do' feel to it, you know? It'd be great if you could teach me a way to actually survive out there without being a bastard, not that I'm sure any man can survive out there without being a bastard, but so far, you're setting a rather poor example. I mean, there's a word for men who lock young women up in their basements, after all."
Monica sat down on the cot next to Craig.
"Okay. I can't honestly disagree. But that's the situation. We're offering you help. Up to you whether or not you want to take it. But you should know something. Every woman you see here is armed with at least a taser. And they're biometrically locked to us - you can't use it."
"Cool," said Craig. "Can I see?"
"Can you see what?"
"The biometrically locked tasers."
"Buh, wha--? No, of course you can't."
"Oh. Yeah, I guess... okay, forgot where I was for a moment."
"Point is, the doors are locked, everything's monitored remotely. And not everyone makes it through the programme. Those who don't are washed out, and they're never heard from again. Even I don't know what happens to them. This isn't a second chance programme. It's a st chance programme. And trying to hurt one of the women here? That's the quickest way to a washout," said Monica.
"I mean, goes without saying, don't hurt people," said Craig.
"Maybe for you, but you'd be surprised the kinds of people who do need that expressly said to them. Actually, you'll meet some of them, soon."
"So, group therapy then? All men, or mixed?"
"All men. You're the first, but we're prepping another intervention now."
"Intervention! That's a bloodless word for it!" Craig ughed. "No, no, I get it."
"So, are you going to follow instructions? Are you going to behave?"
Craig shrugged. "For now. I get the feeling doing otherwise would be rather painful."
"I think my meaning might not have been clear," said Monica, standing, once again taking the harsher tone she started with. "You will be docile. You will follow instructions. Say you understand and agree."
Craig nodded. "I understand and agree."
"In that case, Craig Bir, welcome to Dorley Hall. Donna, Autumn, and I will now escort you to the communal showers where you'll wash up and be given a clean set of clothing."
The door to the cell opened, and two other women, armed, tasers drawn, appeared to escort Craig. He stepped out of the cell, and headed into the hallway, followed by the three women.
"Wait a minute," he said, halfway down the hall. "It just hit me. You put a reform program... underneath a woman's dormitory?"
"Where would you have put it?" snarked Monica.
Craig shrugged. "I admit, I don't really have a good answer to that. So, Monica, when you're not... 'sponsoring' or whatever, what do you do?"
"What do I do?"
"I mean, I imagine you've got to at least have hobbies," said Craig. "You know about mine. That's why you kidnapped me."
Monica tried to stifle the ugh but was unsuccessful, coming out as a suppressed snort. "This is my hobby. My day job is 'biology student.'"
"Cool. You know -- actually you probably do know -- I just finished up my medical education. Maybe I could help you with your homework or something."
Monica bristled and frowned. "You're trying to get on my good side, aren't you?"
"It's a reform programme, you said. Faster I reform, faster I get out. And to be honest, I find I'm just more honest, less on guard when I'm talking to women. Hmm, now that I say that out loud, that may be part of the misogynistic toxic masculinity that you're trying to strip me of talking, but I don't feel like I have to act so masculine around girls, you know?"
"Hmph," said Monica.
"Look, I know what you're doing here, trying to change me, break me down, make me more like everyone else. But I don’t know if I can be that person. The world doesn’t want me to be anything other than what I am. You think I haven’t tried before?" Craig paused, and looked away from Monica for a brief moment. "To be ‘normal,’ to be better? You don’t know what it’s like, feeling like you’re constantly a step behind, a breath too te to just be good."
"I’ve seen people who thought they couldn't change," said Monica. "That’s why I do this job. But you need to want it. Not just because you think it’s the fastest way out. So think about it."
"It seems I have nothing but time to do exactly that," said Craig.
"Don’t think for a second that I’m not aware of what you're doing," admonished Monica. "You’re looking for an angle, a lever, if you will, and I’m not about to let you find one. But you need to understand, Craig -- there’s no way out of this program unless you follow the rules."
This finally got Craig to frown. "Rules." He let out a long sigh. "Rules like: don't kidnap people? Don't lock them up in your basements? Because, funny enough, kidnapping isn’t exactly part of the whole ‘reform’ vibe."
Monica responded with a hard look: "Careful, Bir. Keep pushing me, and you’ll see how quickly that ‘fastest way out’ disappears."
"Got it. What should I do instead. Meditation? Yoga? Maybe I should enroll in the pottery css? Do you have a brochure?"
One of the two other guard girls -- Autumn, Craig guessed, given her cottage-core earth-toned hippie look -- openly ughed. "The brochures come ter in the programme," she said.
"Something to look forward to," Craig said.
---
"Okay, he's funny," said Mary.
"Too funny," said Casey. "The wit's sharp, but look at what he's doing with it. He's not trying to make himself or his captors ugh. He's using it to try to hold onto his autonomy. Bringing up contradictions in the programme is him trying to pull levers made from the cognitive dissonance built into it."
"It's a defence mechanism," Mary said. "So what? He's still being an ass, as I'm sure most boys are on Week One. I'm not sure I would have had Monica's self-control if I was in her position."
Casey shook her head. "It's more than that. He wants to know whether he's dealing with rational people or fanatics. He wants to know whether his sponsor, Monica, is doing this of her own free will, or if she too is being coerced."
"I've been working for this company for six years," said Mary, "and I still don't know the answer to either of those questions. I tend to view the Dorley people as 'well-intentioned extremists' and cash the paycheck anyway."
"Point is, Dorley was just about the worst thing that could have happened to him. He needs control, autonomy, and Dorley is designed to strip it away. Dorley's got only one purpose, to strip away toxic masculinity by stripping away masculinity, and Craig was toxic, but not toxically masculine." Casey hung her head.
"You think he'd have turned out better if left alone? What if he was always headed towards something worse? That is, after all, why Dorley picked him up," said Mary.
"Shit," Casey said. "Maybe I was onto something with my 'demon core' metaphor. Because this Craig? Just-entered-Dorley Craig? I don't see evil mastermind. Mastermind, yes, but I don't get that this is the same person who seduced, used, and assaulted Pippa Green. This isn't even that explosive a boy, really. He's like... raw uranium. And the pressure and irritation and controlled conditions..."
Casey trailed off, shivering.
"If stripping away his autonomy made him more explosive, more likely to do damage, than what the hell are we doing threatening his life every day, controlling his movements, where he lives, where he works? He started as raw uranium. And if Dorley refined it, the Lonely Hearts Club is enriching it, turning it into a warhead, and strapping it to a missile. I worry that what's coming will make what happened at Dorley look like a tantrum."
***
At that moment, the human thermonuclear bomb that was Craig was sitting outside on a park bench, enjoying an uncharacteristically pleasant day in Wales, enjoying a Cornetto from the corner shop. The old dy from Newcastle got him thinking about old times -- exactly where he didn’t want his mind to go. So, he treated himself, watched the ducks on the ke, and let his mind wander.
Mostly to evil schemes.
He wondered if he could genetically engineer a virus. Something like the SARS virus from back in 2002, 2003. But something that was much more transmissible, and had a lower fatality rate so people would be too slow to react. Maybe they'd think it would be the flu until it was too te. Heh, what was the Internet meme: "We need a new pgue."
Craig could do it.
If he put his mind to it. He was smart enough. And he already knew enough biology and virology.
He absolutely could.
Probably right under Luna's nose, if he wanted to.
And the world would suffer, and people would die, and no one would ever know it was him.
Anything to drive out those horrible nagging thoughts that screamed and burned against his psyche.
Like those nagging thoughts about Dorley Hall, about Monica, about P-- er, about her. About friendship. About Ian. Jodie now, of course. Heh. He/She went from a nazi to a perky-goth. Perfect redemption arc. Even Frankie. Goes from being a lifelong torturer and accessory to mass murder and spends her retirement looking after cute widdle doggies. Everyone gets to reform. Everyone gets to be someone new. Everyone gets forgiven. Everyone gets redemption.
Everyone, everyone, except for Craig Bir.
Craig Bir was irredeemable. And nobody knew that better than Craig Bir.
