Xchange

by Stan Mason

  ‘I’ve got a right to know!’ retorted the prisoner irately.

  ‘You have no rights!’ yelled Preston bluntly. ‘You lost them when you were sentenced to life imprisonment! Now get out of here!’

  He nodded to the warder who led the angry prisoner from the room. Preston sat back in his chair thinking about the incident. The first exchange experiment had taken place and he was already facing an enquiry from one of his prisoners. What was going to happen when dozens of the men were transferred from the jail to undergo the process? The truth was bound to come out in the end despite all that Jordan had told them about secrecy. ‘Well,’ he thought to himself. ‘I’m a simple pawn in the game... the responsibility doesn’t fall on my shoulders. When the public find out about it, there’ll be hell to pay. Until then, I’ll play their game and do exactly what I’m told..’

  He removed a sheet of paper from his desk and began to compile a list of the names of prisoners eligible to be exchanged. It was like the one written at the time of the French Revolution for those aristocrats destined to be beheaded by Madame Guillotine. In this case, instead of wealthy people of rank and title, he listed those at the other end of the scale... murderers and the scum of the Earth who had taken the law into their own hands to satisfy their lust for killing. As he entered the names from the list to his computer, he became wholly saddened by the fact that these people had wasted their lives to become incarcerated in prison for the rest of their days as a result of one vicious crime carried out in a moment of rage. Seventy-five per cent of them were under the age of forty-five which meant that they would spend the best part of thirty years or more under lock and key as the guests of the monarch of the realm... cared for daily by the State. How did such people who were so lovely as children, end up serving a long-term sentence in Lancaster jail?

  It took Preston the best part of half-an-hour to prioritise the five hundred prisoners in the jail in a long list and he envied the other Governors, many of whom had only fifty to a hundred offenders who would qualify for exchange. As he sat thinking about the matter, the fax machine started to render a message which Jordan had sent directly to him. The Governor read it closely.

  “Governor Preston, Serious consideration has been given to Lancaster jail by the Government which has decided to close it down within a period of one year. All the remaining inmates after exchange will be transferred to other penitentiaries throughout the country. Priority has been granted to transfer ten prisoners at a time every week. Further instructions will be sent to you with regard to this exercise together with precise instructions concerning the dates when the operation will begin. You are requested to provide a list of prisoners with priority for the transfers and, as you have five hundred of them in your care, it will take exactly one year before all the inmates have undergone the process. I have arranged for a team of people to assist you with the transfer of prisoners each week so the presence of your warders or yourself will not be required to transport them to ASA Headquarters. You are not to discuss any element of this message with your staff except to tell them that Lancaster jail is closing down and all prisoners will be transferred to other penitentiaries. Signed A.D. Jordan, ASA.

  Preston read the message and then read it again to make certain that he understood every single aspect. Closing down Lancaster jail was a major move by the Government. It would attract the attention of the Press and the media but there would be no point in keeping it open if all the prisoners were to be the subject of the exchange process. However it would be very difficult to keep the experiment under total secrecy. Indeed, except for the few people who had been transferred, the process was relatively untested and the initial success had yet to be followed through. Clearly, the authorities believed that the lives of the prisoners were forfeit to the Crown and could be transferred to other people who deserved to extend their lives accordingly. The fact that Muswell had died of a severe heart attack did not seem to concern them although it was obvious that the strain of transference would have a harsh affect on the prisoners who dedicated their lives to the project. It was likely to happen quite regularly, reducing the number of inmates rapidly. However the Government was ploughing through uncharted waters and Preston recalled the comment by one of the Governors who had suggested that if the experiment went wrong there would be hundreds of Frankenstein monsters at loose in society. It was a horrifying situation to contemplate... people with estranged bodies roaming loose in public with perhaps all the evil intentions of murderers and serial killers. The world would be turned upside down in a very short space of time where no one would feel safe in their beds. After all, only a minimum of experimentation on the exchange process had been carried out by scientists. In real terms, the success of a few initial experiments had excited them so much that they insisted on pursuing the operation, intending to deal with any side effects as they occurred. The problem was that they kept any adverse incidents to themselves, preferring not to release any information that might affect the continuation of the project. This was a typical example of the Government which often forced industries and agencies to conform strictly to all the rules it laid down for them but excluded themselves from the rigour of proper practices. As an example, Preston reflected the problems of British soldiers when they went to war. They were often sent out without the proper equipment or the wrong rifles. Vehicles and aeroplanes were ill-equipped or ill-serviced. The Ministry of Defence always managed to wriggle out of such contentious issues, nonetheless they existed and the Government always explained away the deficiency without serious reproach by the public. Consequently he mistrusted everything new with which the Government was involved... and the exchange operation was particularly one of those experiments that he greatly mistrusted. Much to his dismay, he was under orders from the government agent, Jordan, and there was no option but to comply. No doubt he would be advised in due course as to what would happen to him personally in the future when Lancaster jail closed down. At lest he had one year’s grace before that happened.

  After he had advised his staff of the closure, morale at the jail fell to a very low level. All the warders demanded information on their future but the Governor was unable to tell them because he didn’t know himself. It was sufficient to feed fuel to the fire. However Preston insisted that the rules set out for the prisoners had to be adhered to strictly even though the inmates would be transferred from the jail week by week. Despite the fact that they would either all die within a short time after undergoing the exchange process or continue to live an aged life, their treatment at Lancaster jail would not be any more merciful.

  ***

  Exactly one week later, a team of ten men descended on the jail with orders from Jordan to transfer the first ten prisoners. The chosen men were taken from their cells without warning and led to the two large waiting vehicles outside the front entrance. As they were handcuffed and chained by the feet there was little that they could do to resist and they were bundled into the two vans and chained even further to the seats. Shortly, the two vehicles left for Lytham St. Annes to interchange their bodies with eminent people in politics, literature, the arts, medicine or in industry. As far as Preston was concerned, he now had only four hundred and ninety prisoners in his jail and he knew that losing them so quickly would bring its own repercussions. The inmates may have all been evil but they were anything but stupid. Without doubt, they quickly became aware that something strange was on the horizon... something most unusual... and it was happening to them. They had been sentence to life imprisonment which meant that they were incarcerated for the rest of their lives in a major security jail and yet they were suddenly being transferred elsewhere. None of it made any sense! Any move away from Lancaster jail would be to their advantage as they would almost certainly be sent to a prison where the rules were far less strict, however when they learned from the warders that the prison was being closed down, all kinds of suspicion came to the fore. It was far too much for them to accept. Their b
ehaviour began to change from passiveness to action and they started by making a great deal of noise., running their metal mugs along the iron bars of their cells which was prohibited and shouting abuse at the warders... something that would never have been allowed to happen but now the game was up!

  Preston could do little about the anxiety shown by the prisoners who anticipated that some fateful event was waiting for them after the transfers took place but they had no idea what it might be. They remonstrated further by going on strike, refusing to leave their cells, and disobeying the orders of the warders, but he was unable to do about it, hoping that normal activity would be established in due course. He was forced to bide his time realising that the number of prisoners would be run down to zero at the end of a full year. Within that time, there would be less inmates to care for on a diminishing scale. There was nothing more he could do than to administer the prison and await news of his own transfer, if indeed he was to be transferred and not face early retirement.

  The laboratory at Lytham St. Annes suddenly became one of the busiest places in the country. Not only were prisoners taken there from Lancaster jail but from many others as well. There was a schedule for the exchange process and the scientists carried them out in the correct order as quickly as possible. It soon transpired that the process was far too strenuous for the exchange as a number of prisoners died shortly after leaving the cubicle, having lost a younger body to be exchanged with a much older one, each from a cardiac arrest. This meant that the number of prisoners to be transferred to other penitentiaries was very much lower.

  Jordan seemed to be in his element. He was exchanging over twenty long-term serving prisoners each week... almost one hundred every month. The process was proceeding far better than he could ever have imagined. However the backlash was simply in the wings waiting to happen. After Tim Burton had been taken to the laboratory and exchanged with a Colonel in the Royal Fusiliers who had retired some thirty years earlier but was still an adviser to the Ministry of Defence, he found himself still healthy enough to mount a campaign. He knew exactly what had happened to him and, not surprisingly, he was furious at being aged far ahead of his time against his will. He was only forty years old and now he had become eighty-one. His mind was untouched and he decided to make a stand even though his body felt tired most of the time and he often wanted to go to sleep. He began to explain to the other prisoners what the Government was doing to them, beginning by undressing completely to show them the state of his body..

  ‘Look!’ he called out. ‘I have a white line around my neck. You can see the colour of my head’s a different one to my body. See the swollen abdomen, the wrinkles on my skin and the hanging flesh under my arms. And what about the varicose veins! I’m an old man having been put through some kind of scientific experiment. Someone else has got my body leaving me with my own brain! If they think they can treat me like this, they’ve got another think coming! But worst of all... it’s going to happen to you... all of you!’

  He began to demand that they resist the authorities in any possible way they could for fear of ending up like him. However it was beyond their power to do so. Nonetheless he was determined to react against every rule in the prison to which he was going to be sent. They had no right to treat him that way... or anyone else for that matter... and it was his intention to report the matter to the European Court of Human Rights. It wasn’t long before he had the support of all the other inmates to join him in his protest once they learned the truth. As far as it went, there was never any hope for them to relate the matter to the Press or the media but they made their resentment well known to those participating in the exchange process. From the start, the prisoners in all the long-term penitentiaries went on hunger strike long before they were sent to ASA Headquarters. This was followed by the refusal to leave their cells. At every opportunity they rattled their metal mugs on the iron bars of their cells regardless as to whether or not it had any effect. The warders were too few to deal with the antics of the prisoners, and they refused to become involved, while the Governors sat in their offices without doing anything to appease the inmates.

  The resistant continued for ten days after which many of the prisoners began to show some signs of weakness as a result of the lack of nourishment, Burton, from his new prison, urged them to continue the hunger strike in the hope that someone might realise the folly of their ways but it was a vain hope. High security prisons housing top-flight murderers were generally shunned by all those in authority. They were quite happy to leave the Governors in control without any interference whatsoever. It would have been different if capital punishment was in place and all convicted murderers were executed but that wasn’t the case in Britain. And then something began to happen to Burton which no one had expected. He started to think in military terms, very much like the Colonel from the Royal Fusiliers with whom he had been exchanged. He began to talk to the other prisoners as though he was their leader, the office in control of them. Words emerged from his mouth that he never believed he would ever utter, such as targets, aims, strategy and tactics. He recalled the technical exchanged he had been put through very clearly relating to the injection and being placed into one of the two cubicles. The full force of electricity had passed through the electrodes throughout his body at numerous points and he remembered being taken from the cubicle feeling very old and tired. His mind was still cute enough to recognise that he still had the same brain but that his body was weak and decrepit. Yet now he seemed to have matured in his mind and all thoughts of evil intentions had disappeared. Instead he had become a leader of men... a man of authority... albeit he was still in chains in a prison cell in Blackstock jail. Something had gone wrong in the exchange but he was not aware of any difference in his attitude at the time except that he was much more authoritative and seemed to have control of the situation from a command point of view. He couldn’t quite understand what had happened and presumed that the technical exchange had altered him from the neck downward. He was not to know that, by a chance default, the equipment had been overpowered and had provided him with more than just an old body.

  ***

  Colonel Tim Masterson, the ex-commander of the Royal Fusiliers, stood naked in front of a long mirror in his bedroom preening himself. He liked the look of his new body and inhaled deeply without the pain of arthritis from which he had suffered for the past ten years, He was fit and ready for duty, willing to continued his career without hesitation. It was an opportunity that he had never expected and he blessed the scientist who came up with the idea of body transference. However this was only the first part of the operation. He now had to convince the authorities that he should be returned to service despite the fact that, on record, he was eighty-one years of age. It was going to be no mean feat to influence them with regard to his newly-found youthfulness for they had no idea of the change in him and he was sworn to secrecy not to tell them. Without delay, he dressed and proceeded to the Headquarters of the Regiment to introduce himself to the Commanding Officer.

  ‘I’m Colonel Tim Masterson,’ he announced proudly. ‘You no doubt will recall my service with the Royal Fusiliers.’

  ‘I remember you well, Colonel,’ responded John Tyrell, the Commanding Officer. ‘Your reputation goes before you. Your leadership in the Falklands War is renowned to this day in the Regiment. How you managed to capture all those Argentinians is still discussed in the mess on occasion. What can I do for you, sir?’

  ‘I want to rejoin the Regiment as an active soldier,’ stated Masterson bluntly.

  There was a degree of silence as Tyrell stared at him in surprise. ‘You must be over eighty years old,’ returned the Commanding Officer. ‘How can you think of doing such a thing?’

  ‘Because my body’s taken on a second term of youth,’ declared the Colonel boldly. ‘I assure you that I can prove myself as any young soldier. I ask you to put me to the test.’

  Tyrell’s face was a pictur
e of disbelief. He had to deal with many strange requests during his long career but there was never anything like this. He paused for a while to consider the situation.

  ‘Do you realise what you’re saying?’ he challenged firmly. ‘Do you honestly think that you can match the ability of young soldiers and return to duty? I truly need to ask you whether you’re suffering from middle-aged crisis... no, I’d go as far to say old-aged crisis.’

  ‘Not at all,’ returned Masterson, completely unperturbed by the reaction which he had expected. ‘Let me prove it to you. Let the medics examine me and then check the results.’

  Tyrell stared hard at the face of the other man, observing all the wrinkles in his face and the pouches under his eyes before shrugging his shoulders in the belief that the Colonel had lost his mind. Then, with nothing to lose, he conceded and agreed for him to be examined by the regimental doctor.

  ‘As you’re so well known, sir,’ he went on, ‘I’ll concede to your request but I ask you not to raise your hopes too high. You may be disappointed.’

  He picked up the telephone receiver to make a call and then advised Masterson to go to the medical centre for the examination.

  After he left the office, the Commanding Officer shook his head in disbelief. He was certain that the Colonel would fail the examination and he shook his head as he considered that there was no fool like an old fool. The Colonel having failed the test would definitely not return to his office, however he was stunned the following day when a report was placed on his desk which commented that Masterson was fit enough to be returned to the ranks. The doctor examining him could find nothing wrong with his physique and commented that the only defect related to his eyesight whereby his eyes had become slightly myopic. Otherwise, remarked the doctor in his report, ‘Colonel Masterson is fit for duty.’