Chapter 1

 

My name is Roger Hamilton and having obtained a degree in physical education, I found a nice position working with a slave dealer, my job being to enhance the physiques of his slaves and so make them a great deal more marketable. I worked at this for a couple of years and then realised that I could do a lot better for myself if I took on the unruly sons of the top end of town who, without my intervention in their lives, might well end up as slaves themselves.

These days, children became adult at the age of eighteen but until they reached twenty-one, they are still the responsibility of their parents and particularly their fathers. The rules pertaining to children have once again swung back to the right and they are expected to be dutiful, polite, studious and good examples of young citizens. But there are always those who sneer at authority and think they can beat the system.

They can't, and when they fail, they are charged and upon conviction are sentenced to slavery for anything from ten years to life - and that means for the term of their natural life. Slavery is such a horrible outcome for anyone that this is usually enough to persuade the majority to toe the line. But as I say, there are always those and they seem to be mostly from the wealthier families in the capital cities of Australia, who think they can thumb their noses at their parents and the police.

And it is these, or rather the males amongst them, that I intended to correct before they committed an offence that would merit a sentence of slavery. When thinking through this project I originally intended to take females as well but then as I thought of the problems of the two genders mixing in the one group, I could see it would be better, at least at first, to start out with one only and as I favour males myself, I thought I might as well start with them.

I am now twenty-eight years old and as I specialised in gymnastics during my physical education course, I have developed a body that is both strong and ideally muscled to be able to physically overpower any of these young whippersnappers who might stand up to me.

You will be aware that those critical years between eighteen and twenty-one while a person is no longer a child but is still the responsibility of his parents, are fraught with risks for the parents for if he or she commits a serious offence, the parents are equally responsible under the law and could well be facing slavery themselves, particularly if they have been found wanting in the raising of their children.

In talking to some of these parents with difficult children, they assured me they would pay me very well if I was able to take their unruly son and turn him into a responsible, law-abiding citizen that they could be proud of.

As it happened, I came from that class myself, my father being one of Brisbane's leading businessmen but as his second son, I would not be inheriting the businesses and I didn't much like the idea of being subordinate to my elder brother which is why I enrolled in physical education, as sports and athletics are my forte. But the fact that I came from an old and wealthy family meant that I had a trust fund, set up by my grandfather and added to by my father that meant I not only had a very reasonable annual allowance but also access to funds if I wanted to branch into some other form of business.

Once I had graduated and begun work with the slave dealer, I left home and lived in at the dealership but then, having thought out my plan for myself, I went looking for a premises that would suit my new calling.

The first thing it would require of course, was a gymnasium containing the equipment used by gymnasts, that is, parallel bars, a horizontal bar, Roman rings, a vaulting horse, to name the principal ones. With these I would ruthlessly train my subjects to enhance their bodies and turn them into as near to perfection as I could manage.

This is because giving a person a pride in their physical selves goes a long way to creating self-confidence and I have discovered that very often, it is people who are not sure of themselves who put on a false bravado and start breaking the law in order to improve their self-image. Yes, I know it sounds ridiculous but I have seen it time and time again.

Secondly, I would be lecturing them on the reasons for the need for people to behave themselves vis-à-vis others and in the process require them to be able to discuss with me those same principles in a rational and sincere manner. I can see through guile instantly. This is not something I learned but was a gift I was born with and if I found one of my students attempting to fool me with false sincerity, I would be on to him like a ton of bricks.

You will be well aware that slavery has been the best thing that has hit this world for the last two thousand years. Particularly from the middle of the twentieth century and right through to the middle of the next one, care by one person for another whether it be family, neighbours, workmates, or just people he might meet in the streets has eroded to the point that no-one cares a fig for anyone outside of his own household.

And furthermore, the emasculation of the criminal justice system including its penal aspects has meant that criminals get away with murder and the jails are bursting at the seams and in any case totally ineffective in their primary role of correcting criminal activities. In fact, they came to be considered by the populace at large as schools for the begetting of more crimes once their inmates were freed.

But when the world authorities finally decided that enough was enough and got together, coming up with criminal slavery as not only a vastly more effective punishment for crime but also, because the slaves were now on open view to citizens, and their state blatantly obvious, the crime rate was halved almost overnight.

When I say state I mean that as opposed to the relative comfort of a prisoner in a jail, slaves were stripped naked at the point of sentence and were not permitted clothing of any kind for the period of their slavery. And to underline this state further, each newly naked prisoner, now a slave, was treated in a machine that permanently removed all of his or her facial and body hair so that they were now totally nude as they emerged from the machine.

This happened to them in every courthouse all over the world and from there they would be taken by one means or another to what became known as State Slave Centres (SSCs) from which they would then be sold on a weekly basis usually on a Saturday morning depending on the customs of that country.

Buying a slave involved responsibilities and we were all taught in schools from our earliest stages that to purchase a slave, you had to be able to work him or her for fifteen hours a day, seven days a week - no exceptions. And that work had to be labour-intensive. At least it did for the first year or so. If a slave had other skills such as bookkeeping, they might be employed at that work after the first year but they still had to work at it for fifteen hours a day, seven days a week.

Another responsibility that was even more onerous was that as his or her owner, you were totally responsible for their actions. They lost their citizenship at the time of sentence and for the whole period of their slavery. As their owner, you were therefore responsible for everything they did and you could use any means within reason to ensure that they didn't break the law or your rules.

Most owners used a rattan cane to punish slave malefactors, but some were quite imaginative in dreaming up other punishments. Electro-genital punishment is a favourite of many slave owners.

All of the above is relevant to my new role to prevent a young man born of a wealthy family and scornful of the rules of society from being caught out, charged and more than likely ending up as a slave himself.

What I had in mind was a taste of what faced him if he did indeed fall by the wayside however there was no such provision in the Criminal Slave Act that created the institution of criminal slavery and I therefore made an appointment to talk to the Minister for the new Department of Criminal Slavery, at that time John Maynard.

He gave me a sympathetic hearing and was very interested in my proposition as the problem of young people aged between eighteen and twenty-one was already causing problems in society as these young people were very well aware that their parents were as responsible as they were for their actions.

I put the proposition to him that the Act be amended by creating a class of citizen who might be called Slave Trainers and who would be licensed to 'correct' the manners of recalcitrant youngsters. I suggested that perhaps a parent could apply to a licensed Slave Trainer to correct such an offender for a specified period and I, or others like me, would have time to turn him around.

Failure to do so might well see him sentenced by a court to a period of one year as a real slave but that would be his only failsafe. After that he would probably end up as a slave for the rest of his life.

The Minister was most interested in my proposition and promised to have his department look into it forthwith. His Permanent Secretary escorted me out of the office and privately told me that he supported my ideas completely and would see that the Minister had every assistance in coming to the right decision.

I later learned that Minister Maynard privately called his counterparts in the other states of Australia and apparently received support from them, too. What I hadn't realised was that this anomaly in the system, that is this semi-limbo period between eighteen and twenty-one was causing problems in families and in society itself, particularly where the relationship between a father and his older children was not good and the latter could see that in their bad behaviour he and his wife were vulnerable.

What I was suggesting was a sort of halfway house wherein such young people would be treated as quasi-slaves, stripped naked, denuded and put through rigorous training, exercise and lessons designed to turn their thinking around. I now swallowed deeply and wondered if I hadn't created a can of worms for myself.

But when I had a call from the Minister's PA, asking me to call on him, I wasn't really surprised to find that they were already writing the amendments to the Act that would authorise what I had in mind and that as I was the proponent of the idea, I would hold License No. 1 and I would be charged with the duty of developing a program upon which they could base the Regulations that would need to be promulgated to give effect to the new amendments but that in the meantime I could experiment with all manner of ideas in order to come up with a system that would work in most cases.

I protested that this was a big ask and that I was a very young person to be given that responsibility but the Minister smiled at me and said he had every confidence that I would come up with the goods but that I could at any time liaise with the permanent secretary or any of his officers whom he designated to discuss with me the development of this idea.

In discussing it with my father, he told me he was very proud of me and that he doubted there would be too many people entrusted by a government department to undertake such a role outside of their direct control.

Anyway, as a result of this I went looking for my premises and found what looked like a perfect site outside of the CBD in the suburb of Yeronga. It was an old abandoned small-time factory with administrative offices at the front that included two residential apartments above them from which I could see the Brisbane River. The factory area was spacious and its roof a perfect height to suit the gymnastics equipment that was going to be so important to my training of my subjects. It would take a deal of cleaning up and adaption for my purpose but it wouldn't cost all that much and as I had obtained the factory for very little since it had been on the market for many years apparently, I was able to fund the whole project from my trust fund without interfering with its ability to support me independently of my father or any other employment.

But then my best friend became interested in the project. Peter Dickinson had been my oldest and best friend since our families were neighbours at Bardon, not far from government house. Like me, he was a second son and while his father was not a businessman, he was extremely wealthy and had chosen the life of an academic being professor of Business Studies at Queensland University. Peter, too, had a trust fund although it wasn't as generous as mine and he couldn't use it to help fund the project. I wasn't put out by this, though, as I wanted to keep the ownership in my own hands for the moment. We would be business partners but I would own the property.