Judgement Read online

  Contents

  copyright info

  Title and Author

  Introduction

  Frontispiece

  Part 1

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Intercut 1

  Chapter 2

  Intercut 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Intercut 3

  Chapter 5

  Intercut 4

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Intercut 5

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Copyright © 2009 Fergus Bannon

  Cover design includes public domain images attributable to NASA/NSSDC.

  Detail of New York skyline taken from creative commons photo by William Warby.

  Cover design by Gary Gibson

  JUDGEMENT

  Fergus Bannon

  GOAT-FUCKING LIZARD-FACED NAZI SPOOKS FROM PERU

  An Introduction by Hal Duncan

  I may never have been a writer if it hadn't been for Fergus Bannon. I don't recall exactly when we first met, back in 199_, when I was a young student at Glasgow Uni, drawn into the seditious sphere of the GSFWC; but I know I was only an innocent lad at the time, newly arrived from the small town of Kilwinning, a wide-eyed naïf in my chicken-bone necklace and green face-paint. (Iraq War protest or one too many viewings of Apocalypse Now? You decide.) Just as one leather-jacketed, slouching renegade by name of Jim Steel took me under his musical wing, to open my ears to the glories of The Stooges, The Ramones, Radio Birdman and suchlike, it was one surgical-gowned, growling reprobate by name of Fergus Bannon who opened up my eyes, searing his scribblings on the inside of my skull -- right at the back, by the medulla oblongata, the snake-brain.

  (When I say "growling," by the way, I mean literally growling, his years as a bona fide seadog -- Norwegian trawler? African gun-runner? Chinese pirate? he never specified -- rendering his voice as rough as a barnacle-crusted boat. And when I say "opened my eyes," I mean literally opened my eyes. He said something about an experimental development of the Ludovico Technique that he needed "control" subjects for. I was young. I didn't realise what I was in for.)

  It wasn't long after the Mezcal Incident, I think. The Mezcal Incident itself isn't particularly relevant, though perhaps the fact that Fergus deemed the Glasgow University Union Beer Bar with its rugby-players and drinking games "fucking wank" affords some idea of his spirited personality; and maybe the way he led both Jim Steel and myself to the nearby Chimmi Chunga's, to drink Mezcal by the individual miniature bottle -- each with its own individual hallucinogen-saturated worm -- perhaps that gives a sense of the sort of influence he exerted on at least one impressionable young soul; and a sense of his infectious... lust for life might well be imparted if I tell you that, according to the stories told afterwards, even as Jim Steel ended up on stage with a band that night, Fergus was reputedly chatting up a female friend somewhat... advanced in years. So the story goes, at least; I was too busy waking up on a train in bloody Troon to bear witness to the events of that notorious night.

  So, how does all this bear on the birth of Hal Duncan as a writer. Well, there were the stories, of course, in the first place: "The Unusual Genitals Party"; "Burning Brightly"; "Binary", those twisted and twisting tales. But most of all there was the Experiment. I won't go into the details too deeply, save to say that one day Fergus told his fellow members of the GSFWC that he was looking for "control subjects" for a "scientific study" he was doing. It would involve being in a Machine for... oh, maybe an hour or two. It might be a little claustrophobic and... uncomfortable, as we'd have to be "secured" to prevent movements that would "fuck it up". There wasn't too much danger of small pieces of metal being propelled into the centre of our brains, he said. The noise might be rather... loud and discomfiting. But hey, we'd get to see what the inside of our brains looked like!

  Needless to say, I jumped at the chance.

  The Experiment was... an experience. You don't need to know much more than that, only that while we were being "stimulated" Fergus asked -- well, more demanded, really, in his usual colourful parlance -- that we focus all our attention on the stimuli presented us; and that in the periods of non-stimulation (oh, the blessed periods of non-stimulation!) we allow our minds to empty, to think of nothing at all, simply drift into the nirvana of nullity. He may or may not have used the term "blank slate". Either way, I do remember actually coming to feel quite comfortable in the Machine after a while. And the results he got with me as his subject were, he said, remarkable.

  When you're on the path to being a writer, a lack of confidence in yourself is one of the key obstacles. Along the way, at some point, one must find the all-important belief in one's abilities, the conviction that you can and will do it. Even the validation that one gets from friends and family, or teachers and tutors, even that may not be enough to inspire the lunatic faith required to take a lifetime's writing and burn every last motherfucking word of it while laughing maniacally, to start from scratch, reborn as a writer, knowing that you are indeed made for this. Being told you have talent is nice, but it don't always cut it. Fergus showed me -- with science! -- that I was, in his words, "a fucking freak of nature."

  Where the graphs and images of other subjects showed a degree of difference between "stimulated" and "non-stimulated" states, you see, my brain went from being "lit up like a fucking Christmas tree" to "no one fucking at home at all". The up-down, on-off results were, according to Fergus, so clear and so perfectly in synch with the sequencing of the optical stimuli -- and God, I can still see those stomach-churning stimuli now if I but close my eyes -- that no other scientist would find them remotely credible as anything but complete fabrication. Did he say "aberration" or "abomination" that day? I can't recall. But hearing that I had the ability to flick my brain on and off "like a fucking light switch," to go from overload to utter vacancy in 60 milliseconds flat... well, I knew then that the two mental states most critical to being a writer were open to me: I could be both crazy and stupid.

  There may or may not have been subsequent Experiments carried out by Fergus in the aim of harnessing such abilities in those of us he affectionately referred to as his "bald monkeys." These Experiments may or may not have involved other stimuli -- optical, audio, tactile, biophysical, pharmaceutical, psychological, even literary (Fergus being convinced that Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is best viewed as a neuroplasticity research study rather than "mere journalism".) These Experiments may or may not have integrated the Ludovico Technique with another Machine that Fergus referred to only as the "parallax viewer." My inability to confirm or deny such rumours may or may not be due to engrammatic imprinting, a behavioural control chip, the presence of a small explosive implanted at the base of my skull which Fergus still has the remote detonator for, or simply the ongoing danger of attracting attention from the various intelligence agencies Fergus refers to as "goat-fucking lizard-faced Nazi spooks from Peru." Or all of the above. One thing I can say for sure though: I may never have been a writer if it hadn't been for Fergus Bannon.

  Whether that's a good or a bad thing is, like the moral consequences of many of Fergus's actions, debatable.

  Hal Duncan is the author of the award-winning fantasy novels Vellum and Ink, published by Pan Macmillan in the UK, and more recently Escape From Hell! published by Monkeybrain Books.

  Angels and m
inisters of grace defend us!

  Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damn'd,

  Bring with thee airs from heaven or blast from hell,

  Be thy intents wicked or charitable,

  Thou com'st in such a questionable shape,

  That I would speak to thee

  - Hamlet

  And ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free

  - motto of the CIA

  PART 1

  Man

  At last, my perspectives newly minted and soaring free, I thought to ask: 'Where did you begin?'

  'Amongst strangers,' she replied, and I saw pain in her eyes.

  PROLOGUE

  The Amazon Rainforest, Brazil

  Eighteen days into the tour, six Indian villages trashed, and still Tomas wasn't allowed to carry a gun. That might not have been so bad if he didn't have to put up with Joao's relentless bullshit.

  'Then, out the corner of my eye, I see this fat Mura coming at me out of the jungle. I whip round and...!'

  Unexpectedly, Joao fired a burst from his M-16 at the nearest silk-cotton tree, and yelled with glee as a section of the emaciated trunk disappeared in a cloud of splinters. In the shocked silence that followed, all the soldiers looked up.

  The tree stayed upright at first, held in place by the tightly packed foliage of the forest canopy eighty feet overhead. Then it started to topple, its great grey-brown mass drawn inexorably downwards as the canopy gave way.

  Suddenly they were all running for cover, splashing and cursing as they went. Tomas stood frozen at first, then heard someone curse loudly from behind him. A hand grabbed a handful of collar at the back of his ragged jacket and yanked hard, dragging him backwards with bone-jarring force.

  The world telescoped into the kind of movie slow-motion Tomas had seen hundreds of times in the damp closely packed movie houses of Manaus. He could see some of the men, scattering like the fragments of a grenade: to his left, the red glow of Ernesto's cigar caught his attention, bobbing as the little man ran for cover. He was still biting down hard on the sodden remnant, too stubborn to relinquish it even as the top clump of foliage performed a slow, lazy swat, barely missing him as it crashed downwards, sending mud fountaining into the air.

  That final crash made the world snap back into normal time. Whoever had grabbed hold of his collar let go, and Tomas hit the ground, struggling for air, the searing pain in his neck where the collar had jammed up against it making him retch with every precious lungful. He lay there for a full minute, Ernesto’s voice roaring with indignant anger somewhere nearby.

  'Oh please, for God's sake, Ernesto,’ he heard Joao wail in response like the Indian women in the villages. ‘Don’t…please don't hurt me. I'm so sorry, please forgive me. It was an accident!’

  Tomas finally managed to struggle upright. Ernesto, he saw, had a knife to Joao’s throat.

  ‘I should cut you into a thousand pieces and shit and piss on every last damn one of them, you son of a bitch!” Ernesto barked at him. ‘How about we stake you out on the ground and let the jaguars fucking rape you first, huh? How’d you fucking like that, you stupid, cocksucking—“

  'Remember Senior Lisi!’ Joao screamed in response. ‘He’s my second cousin, he will be very angry if you hurt me! No contracts…no money!'

  Ernesto turned to look over at Tomas; he was frowning so hard that his thick black eyebrows met in the middle. The end of his cigar glowed, a plume of blue smoke billowing out from the corner of his mouth.

  'True?' he asked, as if Tomas might somehow have the answer, just because both he and Joao were the only two Brazilians in the squad.

  Tomas hesitated. Joao had often boasted of the relationship between himself and Lisi, the ranch foreman for one of their main paymasters. Lisi had foisted Joao on the Squad, claiming he could provide the local knowledge the ex-Contras lacked when they had first arrived in Manaus from Honduras. But Joao's knowledge had proven to be illusory. He had shown them the worst brothels and drinking joints, and wasted their time with empty bragging.

  And he kept making dumb mistakes, like with the tree.

  All eyes were on Tomas. He furrowed his adolescent brow as though trying to remember, but really wondering whether he could get away with lying.

  'Well?'

  Ernesto's voice was so hard and sharp it made Tomas jump. ‘It’s true, Ernesto.’

  ‘I don’t fucking care,’ Ernesto roared. ‘I’ll cut the little son of a bitch’s—‘

  ‘Enough,’ said Luiz, the Squad leader. ‘The kid’s telling the truth. Let him go.’

  ‘I could have been fucking killed—‘

  ‘No contracts, no money,’ said Luiz. ‘You heard him. Tomas?’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘He’s your responsibility from here on in.’

  Tomas felt his face redden at the unfairness of it, and his mouth opened to protest. But then he saw the look on Luiz’s face, and shut it again.

  Ernesto still held the knife next to Joao's eye. Using his free hand, he reached up for his cigar and plucked it out of his mouth, firmly grinding the glowing end out on Joao's forehead, a centimetre above his nose. Joao roared in pain and horror, struggling regardless to keep his head still. The boy at least had that much sense. Once he’d finished, Ernesto re-sheathed his knife and rose to his feet, leaving the sobbing Joao to tenderly probe his eye with the palm of one hand.

  Luiz shouldered his pack and waited while the rest of his men shouldered theirs, then led the way into the jungle on their original bearing. Tomas fell into line, and saw Joao hang back for a few seconds before reluctantly following, blood still dripping onto his shirt.

  Tomas felt no sympathy for the man, not after all the things Joao had put him through. But for the first time he did feel the faintest tug of respect. It had taken courage to stay and face Ernesto, rather than simply run into the jungle. Admittedly Joao couldn't have survived alone in the jungle, but even so...Ernesto was a savage. You never knew what he'd do next.

  Tomas' shoulders had become first chaffed, then callused by the faded green straps of his backpack. They were such heavy affairs that they caused much complaint amongst the men; the packs got lighter as time passed, once most of the Claymores had been laid, and some of the bullets and grenades used. Nevertheless, these sorties could each last up to thirty days, and even the minimal desiccated survival rations the men lived on weighed forty pounds at the outset.

  This had been the third and final foray of the tour. They had left their launch hidden in the jungle close to where the Araca and Demini rivers met, then made north up the banks of the Araca. Ten miles north of the fork they began their sweep. Almost all the Indians lived within five hundred metres of the rivers or tributaries, and the squad had been contracted to clear the next thirty miles of the East bank. Rather than risk skirmishes with the alerted Indians by retracing their steps to the river fork, they had cut across country with the aim of reaching the Demini and heading south.

  Trekking through the forest was a difficult business. The poor light reaching the forest floor kept the underbrush down and made the going easier, but the ground was marshy, with stagnant pools full of leeches, their surfaces swarming with mosquitoes. Luiz had hoped to minimise the time spent in the depths of the forest by following an unnamed tributary of the Araca east as far as it went: then they had cut southeast, hoping to meet a tributary of the Demini. They had been in the forest now for seven days, but had not yet found the tributary.

  Luiz planned that when they reached the boat, they would sail south along the Demini to where it met the dark, tannin-stained waters of the Negro. From there it was barely a five-mile trek to Mosero's ranch, and the two-hour flight to Manaus and civilisation. The squad were looking forward to two weeks of sleazy indolence before setting out once more, on a contract for a ranch further south towards Humaita.

  Tomas was weary, but still glowed with the excitement of his time with the men. They descended on the villages like angered gods, killing and m
aiming. They burned down the hovels and set mines on forest paths, leaving savagely mutilated corpses as warnings to the rest of the verminous Indians cluttering up the forest. Tomas warmed to the rancher’s vision of the future, of this oppressive jungle after the clearances and the burning, when all would be grassland save for herds of cattle being raised for Yankee fast-food chains; money would pour into the region, and it would become like the America of the cinema screen, a place of heart-stopping affluence. The rancher's campaign had given his own life a sense of form and meaning, and he had no wish to return to the torpid street-corner existence he had previously known in Manaus.

  His part in the campaign had been menial. He boiled the water, rehydrated the food, and performed all the other necessary but unpleasant duties the men would not perform themselves. He pulled off their sodden boots at night, and dusted their feet down with powders to kill the myriad fungi that thrived in this saturated world. Every night he would smear ointment on the inaccessible bites of the pium flies, and bandage cuts from the spiky palms and blade-grass.

  Despite all these efforts, Luiz did not trust him enough to let him keep watch during the night, and had refused him a gun. The men made endless jokes about Tomas shooting them in the ass during an attack, and played many silly and sometimes spiteful tricks on him. On the first night in the jungle they had dropped a snake into one of his boots while he was sleeping.

  He remembered how shocked he had been, not so much by the feel of the angry squirming thing under his foot, but by the men’s monumental indifference to his fate. They had not known whether the snake was poisonous or not. They had just wanted to see the look on his face. He came to regard this insight into the subterranean coldness in men’s hearts as his first real step to manhood.