Glory and Splendour:: Tales of the Weird Read online

  Junior had to compute the evidence, taking into account all social and economic factors, and then make an assessment as the only “tier of fact”, in a way that no human had authority to do. Using the most contemporary technology of mechanics at his disposal, the Father Judge had hollowed out a three-kilometre cubic area under the city to put together the most magnificent computer ever made. The machine consisted of fifty-eight million cogs, ranging in size from a quarter of a kilometre, to a tenth of a millimetre in diameter. Philosophers have argued that such a complex machine may contain consciousness, and radical thinkers even say some of the Judge’s personality may be subtly embedded between the links of those cogs.

  Attached to Junior were two typewriters to input information. Two lawyers sat in front of these and prepared to pedal while typing furiously. They were not powering the whole of Junior, only the chair. Many powerful coal factories are required to power the sprawling subterranean machine and thus he created employment for a tenth of the entire city’s workforce.

  When the magistrate finished his speech, Junior’s role began. The lawyers pedalled and Junior rose to life around the prisoner. Such was the friction in the cogs and wheels that despite their intense effort the chair moved slowly, as though in deep contemplation. The machine began to run its fingers over the convict’s flesh and bits of the chair rotated in and out of sight. Dozens of concave plates unfolded and sheathed the prisoner so that he was partially covered, his face completely so.

  “What is it doing?”

  I reluctantly whispered, “Well, every single movement the prisoner makes is monitored by the machine. It’s ingenious.”

  Because the machine has to monitor the accused, Junior cannot allow him to move, not even the tips of his fingers. All senses are blocked to stimuli, until the machine wants to sense his reaction to a chosen piece of evidence or to question him. Even his physical breathing must be somewhat sedated. It is natural to struggle under such a circumstance, but the forced stillness of the prisoner always comes across as tranquil. The machine can administer balms and injections to calm the prisoner, or alternatively give him a touch of something to sensitise him to the punishment.

  The chief clerk’s role was to translate all the machine’s technical wisdom into phrases a human can identify with. He was a little man in the latest fashionable black suit and cravat similar to my own. His skin was reddened from a heat rash and had the texture of an orange. His plump face told of an absolute devotion to speed and practicality. He was the bottleneck in the whole process and he knew it. I had seen this chief clerk before and knew how fast he spoke out of necessity. He faced the magistrate and bowed.

  “Junior requests vital statistics.”

  The magistrate took a two-second pause to cement his own importance and then nodded. The little man took a pack of prepared punch cards and fed them into the machine, supplying all the obvious information Junior always needs: the defendant’s name, the witnesses, the summons, the crime, the dates and so on. This was a repetition of what was fed in days earlier.

  The machine hesitated and then disgorged a four metre stream of paper. On it were instructions, but not a single letter of our common alphabet, rather a machine’s language. The little twitchy clerks, who had previously been inconspicuous, scurried out and gathered up the scroll jealously. They retreated back to a table and began busily translating it, like soothsayers bent over entrails. The chief clerk hurried them impatiently, and then, having approved the first part, ran up to the magistrate, bowed, and announced:

  “Junior requests a witness …”

  The witnesses were called and their statements typed into Junior, who replied with a stream of paper. He spat out shorter sets of instructions, only to be understood when cross-referenced with all previous instructions. The delay meant three or four lines of questioning needed to be kept up simultaneously, but of course this was little trouble for Junior. The machine wished to cross-examine the defendant.

  “Do you feel let down by society?” asked the chief clerk, but the defendant gave no response. This was expected and common. The defendant must certainly be able to hear and the machine knew the true answer by calculating a heart irregularity or a body temperature change. The machine does not eat lies.

  “Where were you on—”

  The machine gave a sudden angry jerk of one of its protruding limbs, creating a sensational grating noise. Melanie let out a squeak of shock, but I knew better. The chief clerk, who was used to such things, was not put off for long. He checked, out of curiosity, to see if the accused was injured or affected in any way, then carried on.

  “—the day before the incident?”

  Junior industriously printed more and more questions to satisfy the insatiable curiosity. He seemed reasonable in his questions. You always thought, “I wonder if …” and just then the machine would ask it. Many of the queries got spontaneous applause, much to the annoyance of the professionals present. You could see how Junior combined the adversarial and inquisitorial systems; occasionally you could hear the voice of the prosecution or defence echo through the printed notes.

  Melanie sagged under the dense industrial heat as the trial went on; however, at times she leaned forward enthralled, for more empathetic than academic reasons. I enjoyed the engaging spectacle all the more for my education, but felt sorry for her lowly upbringing.

  The judgement could come at any time, but I felt the trial was now reaching its climax. The lawyers kept pedalling despite the pitiless temperature and their exhaustion, but Junior stopped moving. The machine would now give his judgement upon the accused. No sentence would be pronounced; the chair would merely perform and release.

  The cogs began to reanimate and I could tell the machine was pulling together his destructive power. There was a thoughtful groan and some pieces of metal moved, to no immediate purpose. The punishment was so swift it made us all jump in our seats. I tried to see if he was still alive, but the machine gave him privacy. Melanie screamed and put her head to my shoulder.

  “You promised. You promised.”

  I quickly sought the silver lining. “He must be guilty.” I tried to quiet her because all the respectable people were looking.

  Junior seemed to be still for several minutes, then we realised he was caving in on himself with incredible slowness. The machine printed out a receipt for the criminal’s family to take home.

  On the train back, I made a valiant attempt at cheering her. I pointed at the view: Junior had decreed a regulation that all the power plants put chemicals in their smoke to make them bright and colourful. Each company had a trademark colour and at the right time of day offered an improvement on the fabled rainbows. Despite my efforts, she would not stop being critical of Junior, to the embarrassment of our fellow passengers. Melanie made no attempt to look at me when she spoke.

  “I can’t believe it. Didn’t you see how Junior didn’t even ask anything important?”

  “His mind does not work like ours. You can’t measure him on what a human would do because no human is logical. It’s best to move on.”

  “I’m really confused. Didn’t you think it was horrific?”

  “Don’t worry. That’s the textbook reaction.”

  I could understand her disappointment. When the Father Judge had built Junior, he was perfectly suited for the demographics. As the people thrived under his laws the population grew. Now it was overrun with waiting convicts and, of course, no one had the wisdom any more to put together a second machine. We had been six years waiting for the disappointment of the trial’s outcome.

  When we entered her apartment, the thin composure dissolved. She knelt face down on her bed in weeping and hysterics, squealing nonsense that barely contained a whole sentence. I waited; of the fragments I heard I refrained from correcting. I gathered much of it was based on her personal feelings toward the criminal.

  When she had emptied every thought she owned, her melting face turned, requiring my attention. “You just stand ther
e? You think he deserved that?”

  “I would not judge anyone,” I said tactfully. “But the system does, and has never been wrong,” I said truthfully. Questions wanting confrontation, not truth, filled the room with disjointed noise. I realised I had been a fool to indulge myself. I did not compound my mistake with more honesty, because it was healthier to humour her with false arguments. Over some hours I tried subtly to calm her, but she would not listen.

  “Why didn’t Junior question this witness? What relevance were the things it did ask … ?” She would not stop talking about this one trial. We went over the evidence again and again. She thought she could do better than Junior. It took hours to vent out all her rage and misery, until the squall quietened to resignation and sullenness.

  During the following days her emotive, but understandable response became calmer. She developed a useful curiosity about the machine and began reading my books. This new attitude led on to deep conversations about what cogs did what, how the underground labyrinth was set up and how the machine monitors itself. I was happy to mentor her. I deeply wanted to give her a chance to correct her broken schooling. She was a difficult pupil, but this was my territory, so here I had a deep supply of patience.

  We reviewed the technology of clockwork, the modal maths of cogs, the philosophy of ethics, the humanity of law, the politics of the administration, the history of the system’s origins, the logic of truth statements, the engines that gave power and the architecture that cradles it all. We went through every school of reasoning: the empirical, inductive and deductive and every mode of logic from the symbolic to fuzzy. She posed questions, some reasoned, some emotive. For most questions I had an answer and for the few I did not, I knew there had to be one.

  We even took the opportunity to study the similar food processing machine that was, of course, named “Senior”. Senior’s design was inferior to Junior’s sophistication, but it was built by the same company and as such the two machines had striking similarities. Senior’s job was simple, but enormous. It had to process all the sub-creatures and mushrooms to feed the entire city. It was the tallest building by far. If you stood motionless, you could sense how its grinder made the city tremble ever so slightly.

  The motives for Melanie’s study never escaped me: she believed the criminal was innocent and the machine had made a mistake. On this point I was happy to dispel any myth. She was playing games and wanted to prove her desired reality, no matter the evidence. This weakness took the outward appearance of occasional confrontations. It was unwise to bring this unconscious axiom to her attention; however, on occasions my frustration took hold. “Tell me honestly; is it that you believe the criminal to be innocent, or you want him to be innocent?”

  She tightened her lips at the question. “Tell me honestly, do you believe, or want Junior to never make a mistake? How do you know he can’t be wrong?” She asked that question yet again in identical words and emphasis as she had six times before.

  In my calmest voice I repeated the familiar information in a new way. “It is important to remember that Junior has two outlets: one is the Parliament, where the great powers query him on the law, and the other is in the courtroom, where he tries and convicts criminals. The Father Judge built him to never need repairs, but he also designed many safeguards. Junior is intended to monitor himself. The monitoring in turn monitors itself. Nothing is left to chance and nothing can ever change. Every month he prints a report to parliament that details the logic behind cases and gives the authority for repairs. To change the process, or Junior’s clockwork, one has to file an application through Junior, the highest tier of authority, and it is a testament to the Judge’s design that repair has never been needed. If there ever was a problem, which there isn’t, Parliament would know.”

  “I see.” The two words were saturated with dissatisfaction. I prepared for the pointless follow-up questions. Despite her confusion, I think even the half-knowledge of the monitoring helped to comfort her greatly. It meant the machine had never condemned an innocent, whether she accepted it or not.

  I bought Melanie a beautiful new book for her birthday, on how the personality of the Father Judge had positively affected the building of Junior. I found her in bed, sickly and feverish. When I asked what was wrong she tried to dismiss her condition, but her voice sounded deflated and my suspicions were instant.

  “Sorry, I need some time alone. I’m just a little unwell.”

  “What’s the matter?” I said, holding her. “What’s wrong? What can I do?”

  “Just tired … You just need to give me a little time to rest up.”

  Around her she had stacks of my books in which she had scribbled in the most childish and disrespectful fashion. I ignored this due to her state of health. My presentation of the new book did not seem to produce much joy. Over the week I saw her spiral downwards. She lost interest and confidence in the workings of the machine and when I tried to reaffirm her faith in Junior, she feigned unconvincing agreement. I took back my books and laboriously erased the criticisms she had scrawled, taking time away from much more useful occupations.

  I worried in case she was repeating past transgressions against me and it was her conscience that drained her spirit. I could see apprehension in her eyes whenever I entered her room. She never refused to see me, but I knew she was keen to be rid of my presence as soon as politeness allowed. I made many attempts to coax or gently force a confession, but she was clogged with her damaging secret.

  She let loose a thought one day: “Would it be possible to be tried by another means than Junior?”

  I turned to her, perhaps too sharply. I saw the terror in her features. “Why? Why would anyone want to?”

  “I just wondered. Of course not.”

  “If you have humans do it they would bias it with their mistakes and prejudices. Why would you ask that? Who wants to be tried, and for what?”

  I had played the game too strongly and she would give me nothing more but apologies.

  Slowly her logic gave way and in textbook paranoid fashion she began to talk of people acting against her. She refused to go out to any event, stayed in bed thirteen hours a day and still would not tell me why. I noticed she had a strange dread of the law. The only hints she gave to her malady’s root was some babbled nonsense about a fear for her life.

  Out of pure worry I broke open her drawer, while she slept, with the intention of reading her diary. The moral dubiousness of the situation was settled when I saw how deep her fantasy extended. I lost my ignorance of her warped nature. On the day of our visit to the courtroom she had written:

  “I have been crying all day. Michael is dead and all Pascal can say is how he must be guilty and explain how wonderful it is that Michael is dead. I don’t know what to believe. I feel so defeated. I saw that Judge that Pascal has always obsessed over. He was like some demonic black bat, spanning across the courtroom, festering in the boiling heat. His arms extended in awe of his own achievements. Both him and his Junior are not worth my Michael.”

  She then continued to descend into an unhealthy description of the punishment and her sympathies. She never mentioned the order the retribution would bring to society. I skipped ahead to her learning of the process. She kept a detailed log, cutting holes in our system with her rambling criticism and unfounded insults.

  I discovered that she had gone to visit those survivors who had been maimed by the machine:

  “As I came to the front of the queue the nurse took my ticket and showed me the vast warehouse, arranged in orderly fashion with display cases full of the reduced people. There was a storeroom for every year and within each one stretched the corridors of glass cabinets. Everyone got a three-metre cabinet and these were stacked on top of each other, extending in every direction into diminishing perspective.

  Each one was an educational exhibit with a little plaque underneath detailing their narrative. Sightseers clustered around the new exhibits, which were the best for news and gossip, but I prefer
red the quiet areas, away from the crowds.

  Junior had made peculiar choices on what was appropriate to remove, cut or twist for their crimes. Some were mostly whole and others I had difficulty understanding what I was looking at. They were worthy of pity and kindness.

  The hen-like nurses were tender to them, waiting on them hand and foot. They explained how anyone who had lain in Junior’s arms owed society nothing. They were not here as punishment, this was merely their new occupation, to school the society in the law, for which they received their modest salary. They now enjoyed a half celebrity status, because every crime was a little moral yarn, in which they played the leading role.

  I could not deny the poor creatures their desires to relate their stories. Every one of them was desperate to confess their crimes to me through the glass …”

  She had glued in a testimony, written in a sad, damaged scrawl, mostly illegible:

  “… I am a sinner, but put in a word to them Great Powers for me. Never lose your way …

  … Junior let me hear and I listened to someone saying how I had been of exemplary help to the authorities during my unfortunate case, and he gave me a pinch in reassurance. Then my hearing stopped and I just lay there while he looked into me …”

  A deep repulsion came over me as I read how Melanie had done the unthinkable. Driven by the sentiment to prove the criminal innocent, she had decided to do what no one else had ever done.

  There had long been a subconscious concern about Melanie. My peers had always given me caveats about my closeness to the girl who was “a little wrong”. Her parents had been extremists and fanatics. I do not like to share this, because I believe in the power of the individual and she did not choose that history. In many ways it was a relief that her parents died before Junior had a chance to talk to them, but they had already planted their root in her.