He set the coordinates and readied himself. The complex calculations spread on a screen before him and a high tone sounded
For Warren the past was a vast sheet of darkness, mired in crimes immemorial, each horror like a shining, vibrant, blood-red bonfire in the gloom, calling to him.
He began to see that at school. History instruction then was a multishow of images, sounds, scents and touches. The past came to the schoolboys as a sensory immersion. Social adjustment policy in those times was clear: only by deep sensing of what the past world was truly like could moral understanding occur. The technologies gave a reasonable immersion in eras, conveying why people thought or did things back then. So he saw the dirty wars, the horrifying ideas, the tragedies and comedies of those eras … and longed for them.
They seemed somehow more real. The smart world everyone knew had embedded intelligences throughout, which made it dull, predictable. Warren was always the brightest in his classes, and he got bored.
He was fifteen when he learned of serial killers.
The teacher—Ms. Sheila Weiss, lounged back on her desk with legs crossed, her slanted red mouth and lifted black eyebrows conveying her humour—said that quite precisely, “serials” were those who murdered three or more people over a period of more than thirty days, with a “cooling off” period between each murder. The pattern was quite old, not a mere manifestation of their times, Ms. Weiss said. Some sources suggested that legends such as werewolves and vampires were inspired by medieval serial killers. Through all that history, their motivation for killing was the lure of “psychological gratification”—whatever that meant, Warren thought.
Ms. Weiss went on: Some transfixed by the power of life and death were attracted to medical professions. These “angels of death”—or as they self-described, angels of mercy—were the worst, for they killed so many. One Harold Shipman, an English family doctor, made it seem as though his victims had died of natural causes. Between 1975 and 1998, he murdered at least two hundred and fifteen patients. Ms. Weiss added that he might have murdered two hundred and fifty or more.
The girl in the next seat giggled nervously at all this, and Warren frowned at her. Gratification resonated in him, and he struggled with his own strange excitement. Somehow, he realized as the discussion went on around him, the horror of death coupled with his own desire. This came surging up in him as an inevitable, vibrant truth.
Hesitantly he asked Ms. Weiss, “Do we have them … serial killers … now?”
She beamed, as she always did when he saw which way her lecture was going. “No, and that is the point. Good for you! Because we have neuro methods, you see. All such symptoms are detected early—the misaligned patterns of mind, the urges outside the norm envelope—and extinguished. They use electro and pharma, too.” She paused, eyelids fluttering in a way he found enchanting.
Warren could not take his eyes off her legs as he said, “Does that … harm?”
Ms. Weiss eyed him oddly and said, “The procedure—that is, a normalization of character before the fact of any, ah, bad acts—occurs without damage or limitation of freedom of the, um, patient, you understand.”
“So we don’t have serial killers anymore?”
Ms. Weiss’s broad mouth twisted a bit. “No methods are perfect. But our homicide rates from these people are far lower now.”
Boyd Carlos said from the back of the class, “Why not just kill ’em?” and got a big laugh.
Warren reddened. Ms. Weiss’s beautiful, warm eyes flared with anger, eyebrows arched. “That is the sort of crime our society seeks to avoid,” she said primly. “We gave up capital punishment ages ago. It’s uncivilized.”
Boyd made a clown face at this, and got another laugh. Even the girls joined in this time, the chorus of their high giggles echoing in Warren’s ears.
Sweat broke out all over Warren’s forehead and he hoped no one would notice. But the girl in the seat across the aisle did, the pretty blonde one named Nancy, whom he had been planning for weeks to approach. She rolled her eyes, gestured to friends. Which made him sweat more.
His chest tightened and he thought furiously, eyes averted from the blonde. Warren ventured, “How about the victims who might die? Killing killers saves lives.”
Ms. Weiss frowned. “You mean that executing them prevents murders later?”
Warren spread his hands. “If you imprison them, can’t they murder other prisoners?”
Ms. Weiss blinked. “That’s a very good argument, Warren, but can you back it up?”
“Uh, I don’t—”
“You could research this idea. Look up the death rate in prisons due to murderers serving life sentences. Discover for yourself what fraction of prison murders they cause.”
“I’ll … see.” Warren kept his eyes on hers.
