After the Civil War of 2029, the Government of National Unity set up the Special Security Group, SSG, who had almost unlimited powers and were permanently armed. There was no right of appeal against anything they did and any discussion of them was banned under the National Security Act of 2030.
After the Civil War of 2029, the Government of National Unity set up the Special Security Group, SSG, who had almost unlimited powers and were permanently armed. There was no right of appeal against anything they did and any discussion of them was banned under the National Security Act of 2030. Because of their dull green uniforms and vehicles, they soon came to be called The Olives. Anyone taken by the Olives ended up in one of the huge camps behind barbed wire. Sentences were unstated or open ended and, technically, were “Until such time as the offender has been re-educated sufficiently as to be integrated back into society”. There were camps on the Yorkshire Moors, in Cumbria and in the New Forest; there were almost certainly others but, of course, they were a state secret.
Melissa was sharing a house with two other girls from the university when the banging on the door came at 6am. All the girls struggled to wake up and get dressed and Jenny was the one to open the front door. About six Olives came crashing in and Melissa found herself pushed up against a wall to have her wrists zip tied behind her back.
All three of them were taken out to the van and some of the Olives stayed behind to search the house and confiscate any phones and computers for analysis. Anyone in their contacts lists would immediately come under suspicion.
The local Reception Centre was in an abandoned theatre and it was a model of efficiency. There were three “channels” inside the front foyer just like the ones in an airport and the girls were each put down a separate channel. Melissa never saw the others again.
Firstly, she was made to pass through a scanner which took pictures of her both inside and outside so there was no need for the old-fashioned body search and then a guard snapped white plastic bracelets around both wrists and one ankle. The bracelets were marked with a long number and a barcode. Any further gathering of information about her could now be done without her being present because all her details would be downloaded from the National Database and anything else could be typed in manually. Anyone could scan her barcode and see everything about her on their screen.
Next stop was a small enclosure where two guards stood on duty with the usual pepper spray to discourage any disobedience. Her zip ties were cut off.
Now the channel led into a large holding cage which had a row of six stainless steel toilets along the back wall. Women of all ages were sitting on the floor and Melissa found a place to sit down. There would be a separate part of the building for the men.
They must have been sitting there for some hours when a door at the end of the room opened and a group of guards began shouting at them to stand up. They were herded out of the door and into the cool air of evening. The light was just fading so they must have been in the holding area for all day. Three Olive trucks were parked outside the door and the women were made to climb the wooden steps placed at each truck and sit on the floor in the rear of the vehicle.
This was the drive to the camp. Melissa assumed they were going to the one in the New Forest but, of course, she was never told where she was going or, when she arrived, where she was. Hardly anyone spoke during the journey, they were all lost in their own hopelessness. As said previously, whatever happened at the camps was secret but there were plenty of horror stories. Melissa wondered why she had been arrested; probably someone had informed on her for something or other. A joke or a casual remark would have been enough.
Sitting on the hard floor of the truck meant that she was cold and cramped when she arrived. There was more shouting and the women were herded into single file for the walk from the truck and into the loading bay where overhead cameras were linked to facial recognition systems so each prisoner was logged in without a word being spoken. They found themselves in a large dining hall and they sat on long benches at wooden tables.
Inmates in red tabards brought identical food trays around on trolleys. Red tabards denoted trustees who did menial chores in the camp. A loudspeaker said that no talking was permitted and any inmate who was caught talking was given a swift blow with a club.
All too quickly the loudspeaker ordered them to stand and they were again herded into single file and escorted into a corridor with iron grilles on either side. The grilles were opened as the line passed and cameras recorded which inmate went into which cage before the grilles clanged shut.
This was the first time since 6am the previous morning that Melissa had a human conversation. She found herself a plastic mattress on the floor next to a young woman who said her name was Lucy. Lucy warned Melissa never to trust anyone in the camp because it was normal for inmates to inform against each other in the hope of a few release points. Stories could even be made up and the Olives would believe them.
It was an uncomfortable night and, at no time, was it completely quiet. They could hear the occasional shout of scream from their own cage and from the adjoining ones. So now Melissa knew what a normal night in the camp was like.
The next morning, as they filed through the narrow door out of mess hall and back to their cages, as Melissa approached the door, a buzzer sounded and the door slammed shut in her face. Another door to her left opened and she went through into another corridor as the door shut behind her. She was faced with a line of closed doors but one was open so she entered and found herself in a tiny space with steel walls. The door slammed shut behind her. There was a circular metal stool so she sat down facing a screen which was set into the wall. Melissa did not see a camera pointing at her but, of course, it would have been a tiny pinhole.
The screen lit up showing a middle-aged woman in Olive uniform. Later, the other girls told Caol that the face and the voice were computer generated as were the questions. The Artificial Intelligence knew her full record and every detail of her case and it generated questions to fill in any blanks and to lead to any of her associates who may pose a threat to “good order”.
“Who was the leader of your group?”
Melissa said she had no group and then her face exploded in agony as a jet of teargas came out of a small nozzle just above the screen.
The questions were incessant and there was never any discernable pattern but, of course, the AI was much better at keeping track than she was.
“Did she support the Government of National Unity?”
“When she wrote an essay last March what did she mean by, ‘the need for liberty’?”
It just stretched on and on and then, without any warning, the screen read, “You may now return to your accommodation”.
All the way back to her cage, doors opened as she approached and slammed behind her.
Interrogations did not have to happen after meals. At any time, in the cage, the loudspeaker could demand, “2873653 for interrogation” and an overhead spotlight would pick out the target. The AI logged exactly where each woman was on the floor. If the woman did not move, the Olives would appear and the spotlight would guide them to exactly the right place and to anyone protecting her.
On one occasion, Lucy went for interrogation and never came back. No-one made any remark because anyone doing so would probably be informed upon.
Each time in the interrogation room the face on the screen would be different and so would the voice but it was still the same AI which had a full range of facial expressions and voice intonations. If Melissa contradicted herself the AI would call her a liar and would know exactly on what date she had made the previous statement.
Responses to contradictions could vary just as with a human interrogator. It might gently ask her to explain her answers or it might scream at her not to treat the interrogator as a fool. Of course, there was always the tear gas to enforce any responses.
The system did not always lead her to an interrogation room. Sometimes the door which opened for her looked just like any other door but it led to a room with no screen or stool.
Then her “crime” would be read out to her. Perhaps asking unwanted questions or even failing to report a fellow inmate. Obviously, whatever was said in her cage or the mess hall was monitored and, if someone said something on which she should inform, the system waited for her to inform a guard or to mention it at interrogation. Failure to do so meant punishment and the equipment in the punishment room proved to be very versatile.
Sometimes the temperature would suddenly drop dramatically and she would find herself hugging herself on the hard floor desperately trying to maintain circulation and maintain whatever body heat she could. Of course, there was no escape until the door slid open. On other occasions electric elements hidden in the walls would heat the room like an oven. The walls themselves would be hot enough to burn and the air would be only just below the level where meat begins to cook. Melissa wondered if this was how executions were carried out. Everyone knew that some people did vanish and all they had to do was to freeze or boil a victim beyond their ability to survive.
If an inmate felt ill, she only had to say so and the hidden microphones would pick that up whereupon the AI would decide whether or not to follow up the concern. If it did take her request seriously, the loudspeaker would order her out of the cage and into an interrogation room where an artificial face with a white gown visible at the shoulders would ask medical questions. This could lead to medication appearing in the drawer or to a visit to a human doctor although that never happened in Melissa’s case.
Melissa worked so hard at not betraying anyone during her interrogations. She was asked detailed questions about all her family and anyone she had ever known. The AI had access to all her emails and contacts as well as all her college work and full lists of all her tutors and fellow students so it worked through the full list with a view to picking any who were not loyal to the Government of National Unity. Over many hundreds of hours, the constant questions and gassings began to break her down and she started to give names. The more names she gave – the more people she exposed to arrest – the lower her self-respect fell and it became easier to give more names; anything to avoid more pain.
The AI began to probe her willingness to work as a full-time informer on the outside. This was not spelt out in detail but the odd question on the subject would be inserted into a list of other questions. She eventually reached a point where she would betray anyone at all just for a chance to leave the terrible hell of the camp. She knew that, once she had sold her soul to the Olives, they would punish her ruthlessly for any failing or any attempt to hold back information or protect a loved one.
One evening when the women were beginning to settle down for another night of broken sleep the loudspeaker blared out her number and the spotlight settled on her. She was to leave the cage.
With no idea of where she was going, Melissa obeyed. Was this interrogation or punishment? Doors opened to lead her into the interrogation corridor and then a door which looked just like any other door slid open. She found herself, not in a tiny room but in a long corridor with a door at the end. The door slid open when she reached it and she was in an office area with an Olive behind a counter and two others standing guard.
The Olive went over her answers on the subject of becoming an informer and she was required to sign some forms. If she ever denied being an informer or tried to betray the state these forms would be published on the internet to be seen by anyone whom she had betrayed. The forms would also be used as her sworn contract and the penalties for breaking her contract to her new employers would be very severe. She belonged to them and they controlled her morals, her integrity, her loyalty.
She was put into a car and driven to the town where she would be inserted into society to begin her new life of betraying everyone whom she met and everyone who ever trusted her.
Melissa never tried to find out what had become of her two former housemates as that would be seen as disloyalty to the state. Of course, she never knew what happened to the women with whom she had shared a cage.
Isn’t it good to know that this could never happen in real life?