Judge Dredd: Year Two

by Michael Carroll

  “Welcome back to the land of the living, son. How do you feel?”

  Strange that he should be asked that question twice in less than twelve hours—he’d probably never hear it again in the next twenty years—and still he didn’t know how to answer it. “Sore,” was all he could muster.

  Goodman nodded gravely. “Meds say it’ll take the rest of the week for you to recover, even with an accelerated healing programme. You did yourself some serious damage.”

  “I wasn’t solely responsible.”

  The Chief Judge’s face broke into a smile. “No, you’re right. There may have been one or two factions at play. You did put yourself in the firing line, though.”

  “Only place a Judge should be, I would’ve thought, sir. What’s the latest on Gilpig?” Dredd tried to sit up in the bed, and for the first time became aware of the state he was in—his torso was encased in bandages, his right hand in a brace. Movement fired hot needles beneath his skin so he eased back down on the pillow. He touched his head and felt a hard dome encircling his crown.

  “Skull fracture,” Goodman explained. “Quite a bad one. The doc was worried there may have been some pressure on the brain. Could’ve affected your perception. Did you experience anything like that?”

  —You failed, Joe—

  “Nothing I couldn’t handle,” Dredd replied. “Gilpig?”

  “Local units picked him up a couple of hours ago at the spaceport, trying to flee off-planet. He’s in custody now, spilling his guts.”

  “The hack code...?”

  “We’re looking into that. SJS are conducting a top-down review of Tek-Div, seeing if they can plug the leak. Gilpig says he dealt with a middle man—it’ll be a matter of following the money.”

  Dredd nodded slowly, looking down at his hands. A killer headache was forming behind his eyes.

  “Joseph,” Goodman began, breaking the brief silence. “Saunders submitted her report. She’s suggesting you broke protocol.”

  The younger man glanced up. “When?”

  “You broke rank, entered Meyer in no fit state to enact judgement.”

  “I was trying to save lives.”

  “I understand that, son. But a Judge is more than a mere man or woman—they’re a weapon. The damage you sustained made you a potentially malfunctioning weapon. Perhaps you’re unaware how dangerous that could be.”

  “I was in control.”

  “So you believed.” Goodman softened his tone. “But judgement can be impaired. You... you should know that.”

  Dredd dropped his gaze. “I’m not Rico.”

  “That’s a matter of biological debate,” the Chief Judge said with a chuckle, which faded as Dredd stared at him. “But now you’ve got more to prove than anyone on the force. That the bloodline’s secure. That you’re street-ready. That you’re not Rico.” He smiled sadly. “You’re your own man, Joseph.”

  Dredd didn’t reply.

  Goodman turned to leave. “Oh, Control wanted to pass on some info. Apparently there’s been a lead in the organ-legging outfit you were investigating—Breyer in Sector 12 found a stash of limbs in a locker off Portman. DNA traces. File’s ready for you when you get out of here.”

  “Thanks.”

  The older man lingered by the door. He paused then said: “You’ll make it, son. You’re stronger than your brother.”

  Wasn’t that the truth.

  About the Author

  Matthew Smith was employed as a desk editor for Pan Macmillan book publishers for three years before joining 2000 AD as assistant editor in July 2000 to work on a comic he had read religiously since 1985. He became editor of the Galaxy’s Greatest in December 2001, and then editor-in-chief of the 2000 AD titles in January 2006. He lives in Oxford.

  ALTERNATIVE

  FACTS

  CAVAN SCOTT

  Mega-City One

  2081 AD

  One

  How Glamorous

  YOU WEREN’T SUPPOSED to dream using a sleep machine. That’s what the manual said. Ben Peck knew differently. Ben Peck knew that every minute in the snooze-tube gave him the freakiest drokking dreams he’d ever experienced. Really weird stomm: twisted, nightmarish images that made the aftermath of the nuclear war look like a teddy bear’s picnic. He couldn’t be happier when the buzzer sounded in his ears and he was pulled out of his artificially-induced slumber.

  Peck yawned, plucking the sensors from his temples, the pads reluctantly yielding their tacky hold on his skin.

  He swung his legs out of the sleep machine, the bedroom floor cold beneath his feet. Grud, he ached. These things were supposed to give you the equivalent of a full night’s sleep in ten minutes, reinvigorating body and mind. How come his body felt like it had done ten rounds with a cage fighter and his mind was shredded munce?

  Peck stood—his spine popping as he stretched—and trudged over to the grubby wash basin on the other side of the poky room. The faucet spluttered as he approached, the proximity sensor recognising his presence and providing a stream of piping hot water. At least that was the idea; Peck couldn’t remember the last time the water supply at Ron Burgundy Block had worked properly. Instead of a gush of steaming clear water, he was presented with a trickle of luke-warm liquid the colour of cold tea.

  He slapped his palm over the cut off. He could go without a wash tonight. He was going to get filthy anyway. Peck scowled at his reflection in the warped mirror above the basin. He looked even worse than his stomm-hole of a hab. Every now and then, Peck would be expected to tidy himself up for parties, mingling with advertisers and sponsors. When they found out he was an investigative journalist, their eyes would widen, their mouths dropping open.

  It must be so exciting.

  Do you go undercover?

  How glamorous!

  Walking back into the bedroom, he looked around for the shirt he’d dumped on the floor before crawling into the sleep machine fifteen minutes before. Oh, his life was glamorous, all right—if your definition of glamour was earning just enough to rent a flea-pit next to a slug rock band who played their ‘music’ turned up to one-hundred and eleven, twenty-four hours a day. He knew for a fact that the spugwits didn’t own a sleep machine, which either meant they went without shut-eye or somehow managed to sleep with that racket blaring out at them.

  Of course, if it wasn’t for his own sleep machine, he could afford a better place, but most of what MC-1 Today laughably called his ‘wages’ went on maintenance cover for his Somnus 3000. How else could he be expected to hold down three separate jobs, covering three different stories at once, and all so the mindless cits of Mega-City One could gorge themselves on 24-hour rolling news?

  It must be so exciting.

  Yeah, life was a real thrill.

  GRABBING HIMSELF A synthi-caf from the StarYuks concession at the skyrail station, Peck stood and watched a replay of last night’s Aeroball match between the Perry Tigers and the Swift Shakers. The long-standing rivals were knocking seven shades of stomm out of each other when the game was interrupted for a mayoral campaigning vid. Peck sighed, fishing his podphone out of his jacket. Chucking the empty StarYuks cup into an overflowing garbage grinder, he crammed the phone’s buds into his ears and tuned into the local newscast. A tinny voice filled his ears as the skytrain slid into the station and the carriage doors whined open. Peck allowed himself to be bustled onto the train with the crowd as he listened to the broadcast.

  “This is Judge Whistleblower,” the voice in his ears said, “telling you how it is, direct from Justice Central. The law sees everything; and I see the law.”

  Peck snorted as the train slipped out of Ron Burgundy along the rickety skyrail. Judge Whistleblower claimed to be a real jaybird, airing the Grand Hall of Justice’s dirty laundry in public; the computer-modulated voice was supposed to protect his anonymity. Peck was pretty sure that the spug was just a Jimp—a Judge impersonator—spouting whatever fantasies he’d read on anti-Justice forums. There was no way the Jays would allow one
of their own to leak sensitive information. Still, it made an entertaining diversion on train journeys.

  “It’s hot out there in the Big Meg, and getting hotter every day. Don’t blame Weather Council—it’s this mayoral election. Democracy always brings out the crazies. If Chief Judge Goodman had his way, the office of Mayor would be made illegal, but the Council of Five likes cits to believe they control their destiny. Why? Because otherwise the less-dormant would rise from their torpor and realise that there’s enough of them to make a difference. We’re talking wide-spread insurgency, maybe even revolution. The plans are already in place to combat a city-wide revolt, and trust me, they’re not pretty. Better that we continue to suppress any nutjobs stirred up by the election, so that crosses can be scrawled on ballet papers and Mega-City One’s pleb-heads think that their vote makes a difference—the three percent that turn out to vote, that is. What a drokking waste of time.”

  Peck hung onto the handrail, rocking with the train’s juddering motion as the city sped by. Whistleblower was right about that. Elections did bring out the nutters, both on and off the campaign trails. It was the only time of the year that he was glad not to be in the newsroom. He could imagine the poor schmucks running around, desperate to scoop the other channels, network executives breathing down their necks and threatening a sudden career move to the obituary desk.

  Still, perhaps obits would be preferable to his current assignment. The carriage had thinned out by the time they reached MegWest Terminal, the end of the line. Peck cut off Whistleblower’s paranoid blather and pulled the buds from his ears as he trudged down to the pedway. You needed your wits about you in Sector 187, especially this near the West Wall. Distractions around Sector 187 got you killed.

  Peck shoved the podphone back into his pocket, his fingers slipping easily into the knuckle-dusters he kept hidden for the final schlep to work. There were no slidewalks this far out. You kept your head down and your weapons concealed, and avoided eye-contact until you were safely at your destination.

  Peck’s heart was hammering by the time he made it to Dependicorp. A juve had dogged Peck’s heels all the way from the terminal, keeping a discreet distance. He was tall and lanky, with a hawk-like nose, pock-marked skin, black leathers and the ridiculous knee-pads that the kids seemed to be wearing these days. Peck had tried to lose the spug, but the juve had stuck to him like glue, matching pace with him when he tried to throw him off. At any minute, Peck expected a sonic-knife between his shoulder blades, or a cosh around the back of his head, but nothing came.

  As they approached Dependicorp Haulage Depot, Peck hurried through the sliding doors, only for the juve to slide into the lobby behind him. The reception was empty, Dependicorp’s security guard having sloped off for an illicit smoke or sugar-hit. Peck’s fingers tightened around his clandestine knuckle-dusters and he whirled around, facing his tail, who took a step back, eyes wide.

  “What’s your game, kid?”

  “Woah, it’s okay, man. I was just, er... just a little scared, you know. First time walking through this sector. You looked like you could handle yourself, so I hung near, just in case of trouble. Didn’t mean to spook you. I’m new, that’s all. Name’s Hyke. Hyke Masfield.”

  Hyke held out a hand, and Peck slipped off a knuckle-duster and gave it a perfunctory shake, identifying himself as Greg Weld, the pseudonym he was using at Dependicorp. “Good to meet you, Hyke.”

  It wasn’t good to meet him. Not today. Today, Peck was meeting with Kell Sanchez, the contact he’d been grooming for the last few weeks. The last thing he needed was a new friend, no matter how much Hyke wanted to fit in with his teammates.

  For all Peck knew, Hyke was a plant from the gang using Dependicorp to run a trafficking operation. Were the Valverde Boys onto him? He scratched his chest as the suspicion gnawed away at him. That damned fake tattoo he’d gotten had set off some kind of allergic reaction. His skin was red raw under his shirt.

  PECK LEFT HYKE waiting for his security pass at the front desk and got to work, stacking crates—imported from Mega-City Two—using an eco-lift hydraulic-suit. He didn’t see Hyke all morning, or in the cafeteria at lunch where Peck chewed his way through the worst pro-slab chilli he’d ever had the misfortune to shovel into his mouth. Perhaps the kid had been on the level after all. Paranoia was a killer in this business.

  The rest of the day went without incident, Peck counting the hours until the end of his shift. His work at Dependicorp done, he clocked off, then doubled backed into the depot instead of starting the walk to the skyrail station. Dodging the CCTV drones hovering above the yard, he crept out to the labyrinth of heavy-duty shipping containers, each larger than his hab. Checking off the serial numbers stencilled onto the sides of the containers, he found where he had agreed to meet Sanchez. A new delivery had shipped in that afternoon, seventy-eight crates of high-tech components that had just made the long haul across the mutant-infested Cursed Earth. He’d received a tip-off that the plasteen containers actually held dozens of muties bound for the workhouses and pleasure palaces of the undercity. If he was right, Sanchez was in on the deal, a middleman for Mega-City One’s burgeoning blight-slave trade.

  Peck had spent three months working as a doorman to expose a mutie meat-house in Sector 33. The depravity he’d witnessed—the indignities heaped upon the poor saps from the radlands, like they were less than human—still fuelled his nightmares.

  Peck glanced at his chronometer. Where was Sanchez? Had he got cold feet? Or had the Valverde Boys got wind of Peck’s plan?

  It was getting late. Too late. If he was discovered, it would be difficult to explain what he was doing hanging around the depot so long after he’d clocked off. But the news desk wanted the story tonight. Peck needed evidence, and he needed it fast.

  He couldn’t wait for Sanchez any longer. He would just have to break the story on his own. As a contingency, Peck had stolen a set of override codes from the foreman’s office, just in case. It was riskier than using Sanchez’s master key, but needs must.

  Glancing around, Peck made for the nearest container and entered his filched code into the keypad. The door opened, the internal lights flickering on to reveal boxes piled high inside the corrugated container. Peck listened, but there was no sound or movement in the crate. Convinced he was alone, he tried one of the boxes, but it was filled with mechanical equipment that matched the customs declaration back in the office: tray after tray of widgets and doohickeys, none of which meant anything to Peck. Everything was as it should be. No illegal immigrants. No muties.

  The next container was the same, and the next. The contents of the fourth gave him a start, the crate filled with naked mannequins that stared back at him with blank faces when he yanked open the door. Had his tip-off been wrong? But Sanchez had confirmed the plan. Had he set Peck up?

  There was noise from outside. Peck closed the container door, shutting himself inside. The lights died as soon as the lock clicked into place, and Peck felt a stab of panic. He hated shop dummies, and had ever since he watched an old British vid-show when he was a kid, where mannequins came to life and turned on humans. What was it called? Professor What or something.

  Telling himself not to be so drokking stupid, Peck listened. There was a crunch from outside, followed by a mechanical whirr: Finch, the night-watchman, with his cybernetic leg, a trophy of a block war between Hopkins and Schofield three years ago. Robo-limb or not, Finch was a solid wall of muscle. If he was discovered hiding in the crate, Peck wouldn’t stand a chance.

  The container door rattled as Finch checked the lock. In the darkness, Peck pushed his fingers through the knuckle-dusters and waited for the inevitable. Heard Finch cough… and then go on his way. He didn’t dare breathe until the sound of the watchman’s mechanical limp faded.

  He was running out of time. Peck fumbled with the catch and yanked at the door. It didn’t budge. Grud, had Finch deadlocked it from the outside? He tried again, and this time it slid open. Peck spilled out o
f the container and fought the urge to drokk his deadline and go home. One more container. He’d check one more container, and if he couldn’t find anything, he’d give up. He’d send a message to the news desk that the story was a bust, or at least try to get an extension.

  Peck moved to the next container on his list, entered the code and pulled open the door to reveal yet more wooden boxes—this time, not so tightly packed together. He sniffed. Sweat hung in the air, the sour stink of the unwashed.

  There was a scrape of leather against plasteen in the shadows at the back of the container. Someone was in there. A rat? Not unless it was wearing shoes. Of course, knowing the Cursed Earth, that was a distinct possibility.

  “Hello?”

  There was no response. Peck squeezed himself through the boxes, pulling out his podphone to activate the flashlight function. Light shone from the back of the handset, illuminating two figures crouched in the corner, a woman and a man, both mutant if the cyclopean eyes in the middle of their domed foreheads was anything to go by. They shrunk back against the plasteen walls, trying to escape the beam of light, the male throwing a malnourished arm over his partner to protect her.

  “I don’t want to hurt you,” Peck told them, raising his free hand in what he hoped would be seen as a friendly gesture. “I just want to tell your story. But we need to get away from here. You’re in danger.”

  They didn’t move.

  “My name’s Peck. Ben Peck. What about you? Can you tell me your names?”

  The pair stared at him with wide watery eyes, but didn’t answer.

  “It doesn’t matter, you can tell me later. Let’s get you out of—”

  Peck froze as both cyclopses suddenly looked past him. There was a click from behind, the tell-tale snap of a safety disengaging.