Judge Anderson created by John Wagner & Brian Bolland.
To Marc - OK, so you thought the last one was all right. Hope you like this one.
A 2000 AD PUBLICATION
www.abaddonbooks.com
www.2000adonline.com
1098 7 65 4321
Cover illustration by Sean Thomas.
Copyright © 2006 Rebellion A/S. All rights reserved.
All 2000 AD characters and logos © and TM Rebellion A/S."Judge Anderson" is a trademark in the United States and other jurisdictions."2000 AD" is a registered trademark in certain jurisdictions. All rights reserved. Used under licence.
ISBN(.epub): 978-1-84997-049-5
ISBN(.mobi): 978-1-84997-090-7
A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.
JUDGE ANDERSON
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ANDERSON PSI DIVISION
It is the year 2126. Atomic war has decimated humanity, and the world is a bleak wasteland, inhabited by mutants and freaks. Most people live in vast, walled cities that keep the lethal winds and foul inhabitants outside at bay; after all, the cities have enough problems of their own to deal with. Boredom is endemic, unemployment is sky high and so is the crime rate, as the cramped Meg citizens strive to survive any way they can. As the population booms and tensions rise, the authorities know that they must use an iron fist to keep the teeming millions in check.
In Mega-City One, home to four hundred million, the Law is king. Justice is upheld by the implacable Judges - empowered to act as judge, jury and executioner - and intent on sending criminals to jail or an early grave. But a new threat is emerging. Radioactivity slowly works its insidious voodoo on the population, warping not just flesh, but also minds. People with dangerous talents stalk the shadows: telekinetics, pyromaniacs, telepaths and psychos. Some seek to use their talents for criminal ends and others try to hide them, fearful of recrimination. Whatever the case, in the eyes of the Law, they are all criminals, and they need bringing in!
It is Psi Division's task to do what the regular Judges cannot: deal with supernatural phenomena and hunt mutant psychics down! Its ranks are comprised of powerful telepaths and psychics, able to scan minds and psychometrically "read" bodies and crime scenes. Foremost in this elite cadré is Psi-Judge Cassandra Anderson: sassy, dedicated and hard as nails. Psi-flashes enable her to sense danger and near future events and she can even read the minds of the recently deceased. In the fractious, urban nightmare of the future, she'll need all her talent and tenacity not just to uphold the Law, but to stay alive!
ANDERSON PSI DIVISION
FEAR THE DARKNESS
Mitchel Scanlon
PROLOGUE
TANGENTS IN THE DEATH OF MORRIS WEEMS
It was a Sunday night. The Sabbath night. All along Flynt Plaza the pole-dancing bars, porn-u-likes and eroto-palaces were open and ready for business. Entering through the southside entrance off Hefner Pedway, Morris Weems pushed his way through the bustling crowds thronging to and from the lurid neon-clad shop fronts lining the edges of the plaza. Rising above the general hubbub he heard scattered snatches of the patter of the street-callers and the blare of the loudspeakers shouting out their wares.
"Dream girls! Holo girls! Real girls! Live girls!" On and on they went, droning endless variations on the same salacious theme. "Girls with girls! Men with girls! Men with men! Girls who were men! Men who were girls! Every taste catered for; every customer satisfied!" Before he had walked a dozen steps, Morris felt sick to his stomach. He was a pious man who in the normal run of things would have kept his head bowed, carefully averting his eyes so as not to catch sight of anything that might offend him. But tonight was no ordinary night. Tonight, he had to steel himself for a greater task ahead.
Tonight, he needed to see the face of his enemy.
Gazing around him as he moved through the crowd, Morris saw the whole broad gamut of Mega-City life played out before him. He saw sniggering juves pausing to gawk in teenage hunger at the shifting images on the holo-display windows with their luring promises of vice. He saw wrinkled eldsters hobbling from one business to the next, comparing prices as they calculated which form of damnation best fit their budget. He saw women exposing themselves with flesh-flaunting microskirts and plunging necklines. Men, their faces distorted and made monstrous in the fluorescent glare of streetlights, their expressions running from the desperate to the hopeful. He saw followers of some of the city's bizarre and innumerable range of crazes: obese fatties, so corpulent through overindulgence they needed belliwheels to move about at all; the so-called "flower children", shamelessly naked except for the blooms and foliage sprouting from the seeds they had planted beneath their skin; and most sickening of all were the uglies, self-mutilating fashion victims whose outer repulsiveness only served to mask a deeper malaise of the spirit within. Morris stared into the souls of his fellow citizens and saw sin in all its thousand nauseating shades. He saw corruption on every face and evil on every corner.
He saw a city beyond redemption, and he longed to see it burn.
Distracted by a glint of silver in the air above him, Morris looked up to see a Spy-in-the-Sky camera hovering directly overhead. He felt a momentary surge of panic, sure the machine had somehow read his thoughts, only for the robot flyer to rise once more to resume its surveillance of the crowd from elsewhere. Morris experienced a rush of relief; the eyes and ears of the Justice Department might well be everywhere, but they had no way of knowing what was in his heart. To all appearances he was no different from the thousand other citizens who milled around him - just another sinner, come to Flynt Plaza to wallow in the bitter seas of dissolution. With the relief there also came a familiar stab of anger at those he held most responsible for the cancer of sin that gripped this city.
The Judges had failed their people. As the self-appointed guardians of the Law, it was their duty to police morality. But despite a much-vaunted reputation for harshness, they seemed content to let depravity run rampant, allowing the city's smut-merchants and panderers to practise their trades with abandon. Flynt Plaza was only the most visible sympto
m of a more widespread and insidious disease. Sin was everywhere in Mega-City One. Morris saw it in the Tri-D game shows and the Megalot draws that encouraged avarice, in the celebrity-obsessed gossip-zines that promoted envy, in the unemployment payments that tempted the citizens to sloth. All about him he saw pride, gluttony, lust and wrath. He saw a city oozing sin from every pore. A stinking cesspool, ruled over by false Judges who refused to stem the ever-rising tide of filth. But, even in a city of the damned, Morris knew a single good man could make a difference. He knew he was that man, and tonight he would make his presence felt.
Stepping into a side alley just off the central plaza, Morris slowed his pace as he saw his target ahead of him: Blue Dreams Eroto-Palace, the winking neon sign read above the doorway. You Want It - We Can Help You Dream It! Pausing, he stood outside for a moment, eyes closed as he muttered a silent prayer. Upon opening them, he saw his reflection in the opaquely tinted plexiplast of the eroto-palace's windows. He saw the heavy black overcoat hanging stiffly from his shoulders, the outlines of his body under the coat seeming strangely broad in comparison to the gaunt features of his face. A shiver ran through him and he was not sure whether it was in fear or anticipation. He felt a moment's doubt, but the memories of all he had just seen and heard in Flynt Plaza served to shore up his resolve. Gathering himself, he breathed deeply of the chill night air and exhaled it in a long cleansing breath before moving purposefully towards the door. His decision was made. He had a calling. Tonight, he would take the first steps in a war to purge this city of sin - a war of fire, blood and retribution.
Tonight, Morris Weems would make a stand.
With a sibilant hiss, the automatic doors slid open. Advancing inside the eroto-palace, Morris saw two long rows of padded tables on either side, leading to the other end of the room where a bored-looking fat man sat behind a counter. Half the tables were in use by sleeping customers, their faces hidden behind the grey plastic masks of dream-machine helmets while dozens of subsidiary wires trailed from their bodies to monitor their vital signs. From the first, Morris was struck by how quiet it was. Flynt Plaza was a cacophony of competing voices, but here there was only the hum of machines and the occasional moan from a contented dreamer.
"What'll it be?" the fat man said, barely looking up from the computer terminal in front of him as Morris approached the counter.
"I... This is my first time," he replied, unsure how best to proceed.
Sighing, the fat man tapped at his computer keyboard before turning the screen for Morris to see it.
"How about this one?" he said, indicating a scene of half-naked women frolicking suggestively among the azure waters of a tropical paradise. "Beach Blanket Bimbos. It's a popular one with first-timers."
"Uh, I'm not sure," Morris said awkwardly.
"Hell City Hellions?" the man said, pulling open a drawer behind the counter to reveal neat rows of labelled data-slugs. "Sleazy School Girls? Boss Bitches A Go-Go? Wicked Nuns? Three Makes Fun? You name the title, we've got it, and we can adapt them to your preferences."
"Adapt them?"
"I mean we can reshape the specifics of the dream scenario. Say you want to go with Boss Bitches, but you got a thing for the Mona Lisa or that hot little number who does the weather on Channel One-Seventy? We can put them in, no problem. Course, Mona Lisa's cheaper - you want the weather girl, there's royalties involved. Image rights, you see. You do it with a celebrity, you got to pay extra, even in your dreams. But maybe you want something different? Something really special?"
"Special?" Morris asked, growing increasingly uncomfortable. "I'm not sure I know--"
"There's always something nobody's thought of," the fat man said with a shrug. "You want to dream about playing hide the carrot with a cartoon rabbit? We can do it for you. Although there's nothing really new about that one. Between you and me, it's surprisingly popular. Point I'm making is we can start from scratch, build the scenario however you want. Those made-to-measure jobs are pretty expensive though and this being your first time, you're probably better going off-the-peg."
Morris was stunned by all he had heard. It was even worse than he'd thought. As much as he had told himself to be prepared for anything once he stepped inside an eroto-palace, the wide vistas of sin on offer appalled him. He felt the urge to lash out, to gouge out the fat man's knowing eyes and wipe the disgusting half-smirk from his face, but he constrained himself. There was bound to be a panic button on the other side of the counter. He must bide his time and catch the fat man unawares. Tonight's work was too important to be compromised by a rash act.
"Maybe I'm coming at this from the wrong angle," the fat man said, mistaking Morris's silence for indecision. "Maybe you already know what you want, but you're too embarrassed to say it? You needn't worry, we get all sorts here. Look, you want to get it on with guys, pre-ops, animals? It's no skin off mine. Takes all kinds of freaks to keep the world on bouncing."
In the pocket of his overcoat, Morris carried two small but heavy energy cells in the knotted end of a sock. As he watched the fat man's face and tried to keep his own expression neutral, he felt his hand go to his pocket as though with a mind of its own. He felt it grip the club tightly, as he fought the overwhelming urge to strike.
"There is something," Morris said hoarsely, looking for an opening. "I have always been partial to inanimate objects..."
"Why didn't you say so?" the fat man said. "We've got them all. School of Hard Rocks, The Glass is Half-Empty, If There Ain't No Wood It Ain't No Good. Trust me, I think I got something here that's right up your alley."
Turning away, the fat man bent forward to unlock the lowest drawer beneath the counter. As he did, Morris noticed a palm-sized bald spot peering out from amid the thinning hair at the back of the fat man's scalp. He noticed it, and was pleased. It made the perfect target.
He had been right to be careful. Stepping over the fat man's fallen body, Morris noticed the dull metal gleam of a small object sitting half-hidden on a shelf below the counter: a handgun, slim and semi-automatic, kept within easy reach in case of trouble. Morris cupped the gun in his hand for a moment as he wondered whether he should use the fat man's own weapon to finish him off. He decided against it. A bullet would be too quick and easy a death. Better to let him burn with the rest.
Slipping the gun into his trouser pocket, Morris retraced his steps back to the front door and locked and bolted it from the inside. He spared a glance at the dreamers around him. His fears were swiftly allayed. For all the noise he had made subduing the fat man - the crack as the cosh split his skull, the crash as his body fell to floor - none of the dreamers had woken up. Lost in the sleeping worlds of their own private damnations, they might as well have all been blind and deaf. Checking the timer displays on each dream-machine, Morris saw he had at least twenty more minutes before the next dream-session ended. Twenty minutes before the first of the sleepers would awaken.
Twenty minutes would be time enough to do what was needed.
Reaching inside his coat, Morris pulled out one of the litre-sized plasteen bottles he had hidden there earlier. He was carrying twelve bottles in all, held in Velcro loops concealed within the coat's inner lining and filled with a liquid incendiary gel he had created by mixing synthi-oil, paint thinner and household detergent. Finding the right proportions for the mixture had been the tricky part, but courtesy of three weeks of testing, he was confident it would do its work well enough. Three weeks out of the four months he had spent preparing since he had decided to make his stand. Months spent studying, making calculations, experimenting and obtaining ingredients.
He had needed to be cautious, mindful that a single slip or an instant's carelessness could bring the Judges to his door. It was only now, past the point of no return and with his crusade about to begin in earnest, that he realised the time he had spent in preparation for tonight had not been a matter of weeks, months, or even years. Unknowingly or not, it had all begun much longer ago than that. He had been preparing
for this moment his entire life.
Taking the last of the bottles from inside his coat, Morris put it with the rest on top of one of the eroto-palace's unoccupied dream-tables. Retrieving a roll of electrical tape from his pocket, he fixed the bottles together in groups of three, arranging them in a tight circle on the table and leaving a small space in the centre. The circle complete, Morris stepped back to admire his handiwork and catch his breath. The firebomb was almost ready; all he had to do was add the explosives.
Inside his coat, the final piece lay waiting: a length of hollow plasteen tubing, capped at each end and packed tightly with a crystalline powder. Learning how to make a pipe bomb had proved to be even more of a challenge than mixing the incendiary - thanks to Mega-City One's strict anti-incitement laws, there had been no "how to" books or bomb manuals for him to rely on. Instead, Morris had been forced to turn to school texts on chemistry, physics and electronics, wading through endless reams of dry scientific theory in search of inspiration. Denied access to the exotic chemicals and more commonplace devices of bomb making, he had made do with creative alternatives. Skid-Away toilet cleaner, Coronary-Lite salt substitute and raw munce had combined to give him his explosive: a nine-volt energy cell, his wristwatch and some wires had given him his timer.
Fear the Darkness Page 1
