Judge Dredd: Year Two

by Michael Carroll

  “Help me,” he rasped, blood speckling his lips.

  “Where’s Rawlings?”

  The creep didn’t answer, just struggled around a string of sharp sucking breaths that suggested he wasn’t long for this world. Dredd put his hand over the Fury’s and leant down on the wound, causing a hiss of pain to issue forth. “Keep the pressure on that,” the lawman said. “You’re going to bleed out otherwise.”

  “Need a... gruddamn... ambulance,” the meathead spat out.

  There was an almighty crash from outside, and more rubble came plummeting to earth. Screams could be discerned beneath the throbbing, ever-present whine of the transporter’s engines, and it was growing darker, like the onset of a storm. Dredd’s nerve-endings had been fried by the day’s events, but even he could feel the hairs on his arms and the back of his neck prickling with the electricity building in the air.

  “You hear that?” the Judge asked. The Fury’s expression suggested that he did. “Right now we’re at ground zero—in a few minutes there’s going to be nothing left of Russ Meyer, Len McCluskey or much of Strickland itself. All any ambulances are going to do is pick up the remains. You want to be around to see tomorrow, you tell me where I can find Rawlings.”

  “What’s... happening...?”

  “Your glorious leader saying goodbye to the neighbourhood, is what. Quickly, tell me—where did he run operations from?”

  The crim coughed and closed his eyes tightly as a fresh wave of pain wracked his body. “On third,” he croaked finally. “Four-two-seven-seven.” He squeezed one eyelid open and fixed Dredd with a bloodshot stare. “You... call in the docs, get me... inta a hospital.”

  But the Judge was already striding quickly away, deaf to the cries for medical assistance. The el was obliterated, so he began to stumble up the stairs, blaster raised. He reckoned he could make it three floors.

  Dredd met minimal resistance. He’d kept the blanket and now had it wrapped around his uniform again, the helmet buried beneath the hood. He passed for any of the Meyer lowlife, some of whom were cowered in the corridors, eyes raised to the heavens as the sound of the descending ship grew louder and louder; they had more pressing concerns than molesting one more down-and-out, who staggered a little as he went on his way. Those that did challenge him—mainly Furies, the closer he got to the third floor—were summarily dispatched with single shots, the retorts easily lost in the roar of destruction outside. He had not much more than a couple of minutes left, he knew, and couldn’t afford any delay—the fate of thousands was at stake. Justice, in this case, had to be swift and ruthless.

  He hit the third at a run, muscles screaming, lights pulsing behind his eyes, but by now adrenaline was his sole fuel, overriding any physical limitations. Failure was not an option, he would not allow it. Equally, time would grant him no mercy, and he was aware that the two were about to collide.

  Was it a symptom of his addled mind that he thought he caught flashes at his peripheral vision? A ghost figure, with him in spirit. The harder he pushed himself, the more it tracked his steps. By now he suspected he couldn’t trust his shocked, fatigued brain, and refused to acknowledge it was there, even though he had the unaccountable feeling that it was looking at him as they moved together, smiling grimly, urging him to go further.

  Thundering down the corridor, he fired without pause or warning, dropping Furies where they stood before they had a chance to delay him. He threw off the blanket, no longer needing to hide who and what he was; indeed, he wanted the gang to witness the law descending upon them in these final moments, as powerful and unstoppable a force as the cargo vessel heading their way.

  He found apartment 4277 and shoulder-charged the door without hesitation, urgency lending him strength, drawing down on the expected occupants. But there was only one man facing him, arms folded, in front of a large picture window in an otherwise Spartan living space. Beside him on a rickety table sat a battered laptop, code streaming across its screen.

  “On your knees, Rawlings. Hands behind your head.” Dredd edged forward, blaster sighted on the chief Fury. He couldn’t have much more than sixty seconds left.

  Rawlings snorted. “What’s arresting me going to achieve? Huh? You’ve left it too late, bluejay. None of us are getting out of here.”

  “On your knees,” Dredd repeated, circling round to the laptop. “Now.”

  “If it’s all the same to you, Judge, I’d rather die on my feet. Considering what’s coming down on us, you’re in no position to order me to do anything.”

  Dredd crouched by the computer and plugged the zipdrive into one of the available ports, gun still trained on the gang leader. There was a sullen beep, and a new window popped up on the screen. “Get. Down. On. Your. Knees. Do it quickly.”

  “You deaf, Judge? I ain’t movin’.”

  There’d been worse last words. A fraction of a second later the picture window shattered and the wall around it crumpled like paper as the nose of the container craft came smashing through the block, bisecting Rawlings at the base of the ribcage, carrying away his upper half like a gruesome hood ornament.

  “Your choice, creep,” Dredd muttered, grabbing the laptop and hugging it to his chest, shielding it from the destruction as part of the ceiling and many of the apartments above came tumbling down in a shower of debris. The noise was intense, like the heart of a hurricane. Dredd remained crouched, feeling the wind tear at him and chunks of plaster patter his body, grey dust silting his skin.

  The floor shifted under his booted feet, and he cast a grime-encrusted eye down to see the entire floor tipping beneath him. He started to slip, his heels sliding and failing to find purchase; he threw away the gun, reached out, and the fingers of his left hand hooked around a door frame. Keeping the computer tucked under his right arm, he pulled himself up, away from the new cliff face, pieces of floor splintering and disappearing from sight. The cargo vessel continued on its trajectory with a bone-shaking rumble, and he watched it pass with his breath caught in his throat, so close to it he could see every rivet and bolt on its surface. The deafening racket of grinding rockcrete blended with the awesome drone of the turbines.

  Dredd looked around. The ship had taken out a corner of Meyer, leaving him clinging to a half-demolished supporting wall, the remains of the apartment ending just a few feet from where he was curled. Exposed girders creaked ominously, accompanied by fresh splintering sounds. It didn’t take a genius to realise that Meyer was unstable, and what was still standing above him could collapse in on itself at any moment. Either that or the floor beneath him would fall; it would be race between the two to see which gave up the ghost first.

  He pushed open the lid of the laptop with his elbow. The new directive was asking him if he wanted to talk to the craft’s A.I. pilot: the failsafe. His damaged right hand mashed the keypad, linking him in—typing proved impossible, so he activated voice command.

  “Mega-City cargo vessel”—he squinted at the filthy screen—“AR370, this is Judge Joseph Dredd. You are ordered to terminate your current flight path and revert to standby. Do you copy?”

  “Your order is noted, Judge Dredd,” came a metallic reply. “However, my programming states that I am to follow this terminal route. Unless I—”

  “I’m countermanding that programming,” Dredd barked, his voice rising. “You should be receiving new code that overrides all previous instructions. You will now do what I tell you, do you understand?”

  There was a pause. “I... can see that my programming is being rewritten, and I am no longer obliged to execute my current task. May I ask on whose authority you’re acting, as this is highly irregular—”

  “I’m all the authority you need,” the lawman shouted. “Activate standby mode now.”

  “Standby will necessitate the powering down of certain functions—”

  “Just shut down, you stupid drokking machine, before I put a bullet through your core!”

  “Okay, okay. Jeez.”

  The howl o
f the engines dropped to a low hum so suddenly that Dredd almost overbalanced, disoriented. The wind calmed, too, leaving a rare stillness. For a moment, all he could hear was the steady creaking of the girders as the half-destroyed block twisted on its foundations; then something shifted and the building started to lean precariously, a crack zigzagging through the rockcrete near where he crouched. He braced himself, a vertiginous feeling rising out of his stomach as the skyline swayed above him, and the floor disappeared out from under him. There was nothing left to cling to—what was left of the wrecked apartment was unfolding, dismantling. He was going to fall.

  He refused to let his fear get the better of him. He’d known that this was only going to end one way.

  Dredd heard turbines firing up again and dropped his head in frustration—the ship’s A.I. must’ve rebooted itself. Dammit, he thought he’d stopped it. When he looked up, he found himself gazing up at a hovering H-Wagon, its gantry lowered and a smiling Saunders leaning out from it, one hand clutching the stanchion, the other reaching for him.

  “Come on,” she said, the craft inching closer to the block to allow her hand to clasp his. “Let’s go.”

  She pulled him aboard, just before the back of the apartment chose that moment to crumble into the street. He glanced at the auto-container, which was now stationary, hanging quietly in the air. Saunders followed his gaze.

  “First time an A.I.’s been threatened into doing what it’s told, I bet.” She ushered him into the H-Wagon’s hold. “Do you scare everyone?”

  13.40 pm

  DAX WATCHED FROM some distance as the Judges’ vessel pulled away from Meyer, more of the block’s structure sloughing off like an eroding mountain. Great plumes of dust rose as rubble crunched into the sked. Cuffed to the holding post like this, she could do nothing but watch Strickland fall apart.

  Bonedog came over, seeing her shake her head. “What’s the matter?”

  “End of an era,” she replied sadly.

  The jay that had arrested her had left her here on an HP while he aided with the relief effort. She was small fry, she’d be processed eventually once they’d stopped shovelling ’crete. The badges would come back for her, and when they did the gang would split; until then, they’d stuck around to offer moral support.

  Bonedog studied her. “Why’d you do it, Dax? Why’d you give the bluejay the gun? You said yourself, don’t do nothin’ stupid.”

  She was silent for a moment. “I dunno. Compelled to, I guess. It felt like he knew I had it, and hiding it was pointless. Somethin’ I saw when he was lyin’ there an’ I first picked up the gun. I... I got the sense he’s pretty mean, that I don’t wanna get on the wrong side of him. Like, ever.”

  “Gonna be lookin’ at five years, min.”

  “Yeah.”

  He whistled. “Helluva time to grow a conscience, girl.”

  She laughed bitterly. “Couldn’t help it.” Dax scanned the sky, the H-Wagon just a dot in the distance. “The guilt got the better of me.”

  Ten

  14.16 pm

  BERTRAM GILPIG WASN’T, he believed, an immoral man. He empathised with the unfortunates in society, understood full well the hardships they faced—Grud knew he had to listen to them often enough in the monthly surgeries he endured as councillor. Life for many in Mega-City wasn’t easy: jobs were notoriously hard to come by, drug use was widespread, crime rates were rocketing; no wonder many of them felt angry and helpless, seeing the decades stretching before them with a sense of utter hopelessness. They had nothing to work and strive for, little in the way of creds; years of unemployment beckoned. Offspring could be born in block nurseries, educated in block schools, and spend the rest of their adulthood in front of the Tri-D before they made the final journey to Resyk. Who wouldn’t be pissed at the sheer futility of their existences? Gilpig got that, he really did, and he wished he could do more to help—but the metropolis was so vast and the citizens so numerous that resources were stretched to the limit. They were all survivors of a global apocalypse, waking up to a future in which much of the planet was uninhabitable. Things were going to be tough for everyone.

  No, he was all too aware of the challenges of the late twenty-first century, and liked to think he was sympathetic. If he was going to admit to any fault, it was that he was an opportunist. He saw chances to change things, improve the quality of life for many, and he took them—seized the fire, so to speak. Grand Hall red tape was legendary, and, yes, perhaps he did cut corners to expedite matters, but the people would appreciate the final result: the ends did indeed justify the means. The Strickland estate was a case in point—Justice Department seemed all too happy to let the district fall into ruin, effectively abandoning its residents, but Gilpig felt that was too short-sighted. It frustrated him, this lack of vision, and so he’d decided to nudge progress a little, take a hand in shaping the city’s landscape for the post-atomic age.

  The problem was you couldn’t build a better tomorrow without demolishing the old.

  All these justifications raced through his head as he hurried across the spaceport concourse, suitcase in hand. He’d had to pack light—speed was of the essence—and hadn’t even waited for Darlene to come home before fleeing the apartment; he figured he’d drop her a line once he was past Luna-1, explain the situation. Maybe they’d be reunited, but most likely not. He wasn’t going to shed any tears over walking out on twenty-four years of loveless, miserable marriage. This was probably the fresh start he needed: another opportunity he wasn’t shy in taking advantage of.

  More pressing was that he get off-world with the minimum of fuss. Dean Learner was thankfully very far from Strickland, but the reports of the disturbances were filtering back across city, news crews already on the scene and detailing the destruction. It was all going to blow back on him, he knew it. He’d hoped that Rawlings’ crew would have been able to quietly eliminate the Judge and retrieve the datastick, but evidently that had gone south quite spectacularly. He should’ve known better that to entrust a task of that magnitude to others—especially a bunch of dolts like the Russ Meyer Furies—but there was a limit to what a man of his standing could achieve on his own without someone there to handle the dirty work.

  ‘Dirty work’ made it sound so seedy. This was damage limitation. Force majeure. Gilpig had been placed in an unacceptable position, and events had spiralled beyond his control in his attempt to right it. He was a victim of circumstance, really; his best laid plans unravelled by misfortune and the actions of a badge who didn’t know when to just lie down and drokking die.

  He felt his grip on his suitcase handle tighten, aware his anger was resurfacing. He had to be careful—he had a tendency to vent when riled, as his staff could well attest. He didn’t want to draw attention to himself now when he just wanted to slip anonymously out of the city. All it would take is one rant at a jobsworth luggage-handler, and eyes would be drawn his way.

  He slowed his pace, willing himself to calm down, and considered finding a PF—to collect his thoughts, splash some water on his face, relieve his trembling bowels—but he didn’t want the delay. Nevertheless, he could feel the sweat on the back of his neck, between his shoulder blades, in the palms of his hands, and became self-conscious of his breathing. He couldn’t afford to panic, he had to act normal. Unsurprisingly, there were Judges stationed throughout the terminal, trained to recognise the signs of a man with something to hide; just their presence was enough to make the most innocent cits soil their Us over imaginary infractions. He pulled down low the baseball cap that he’d picked up on the journey over, and kept his gaze on the polished floor, counting the steps to freedom.

  Gruddammit, he thought, he didn’t deserve this kind of luck. If all had gone like clockwork. The residents of Strickland would’ve had a complete regeneration of their sector (it was unlikely they would’ve been able to afford to continue to live there, but still); his construction contacts would’ve been assured several years’ work; Rawlings would’ve had exclusive territ
orial rights to all drug distribution amongst those fancy new occupants with their disposable income; and he, Bertram Gilpig, would’ve been creaming a percentage from all of it. It was beautiful, and all down to a couple of well-targeted treemeat-freighter accidents. Everybody would’ve won, in the end, and limited casualties, he guessed. He should be rewarded for this kind of pioneering risk-taking, not reduced to scurrying away like a fugitive.

  He chose to pick up his boarding pass at the automated check-in machine, the better to keep a low profile. As it printed out his details, he glanced left and right at the crowds, envious of those greeting loved ones or embarking on holidays; they knew nothing of what it took to make the hard choices, to gamble everything. He looked forward to a clean slate far from Earth, where he too could appreciate such simple pleasures, and as he plucked the printed card from the slot, he felt it was within his grasp.

  Or it was until a gauntleted hand gripped his shoulder, gloved fingers pinning him where he stood, and he knew that future was about to be snatched away.

  16.02 pm

  JOE.

  Voices in the fog. He’d been here before: a warning of his imminent death.

  “Joe.”

  Dredd’s heavy lids slowly opened. Rather than the mirror-image he expected to see, an older man leaned close, benevolent eyes searching his face with genuine concern. It took a moment to put a name to the figure, his mind fuzzy, his thoughts struggling to coalesce. “Chief Judge Goodman.”