“Mr Truss?”
Jamie jumped, nearly regurgitating his last five burgers in shock. A kid was standing beside his booth, holding out a notebook and pencil, expectation plastered all over his freckled face. Jamie looked up at the lean woman who stood with a protective hand on the boy’s shoulder, and tried to keep the disgust from his face. She was all skin and bones, not an ounce of flesh on her. Disgusting.
“I’m sorry, sir,” she said, her voice a nasal whine, “but little Johnny’s a big fan.”
“A big fan of a big man,” the kid piped up, grinning a gap-tooth smile. “Can I have your autograph?”
“He watches the Flab-League all the time. You and your brother are his favourites.”
The mention of Oliver was like a punch to Jamie’s ample stomach.
“Yeah, where is Oliver?” the kid asked. “I have all your action figures, even the Battle of the Bloaters exclusives. They’re super-rare.”
Jamie glanced at the empty seat on the other side of the booth, where his twin brother would usually be wolfing down gallons of fried chicken ice-cream, their guts pressed comfortably against each other.
The specially reinforced bench was empty now.
“He... he couldn’t make it today,” Jamie managed to say, his voice thicker than one of Url’s megashakes. He went to reach for the kid’s autograph book, eager for the brat and his stick of a mother to leave him the drokk alone. His arms still ached from holding that snagging placard. At least the mother showed a modicum of consideration, grabbing her son’s book and depositing it into Jamie’s blubbery fingers. He scrawled an approximation of his signature on the paper, already having forgotten the kid’s name. It didn’t matter. Little drokker would be dining out on this for a month anyway. His pound of flesh given, Jamie shoved the notepad back into the boy’s hands and hoped they’d leave.
Fortunately, Cher-L reappeared from the kitchen, shooing the pair away and depositing the burger in front of Jamie, the bun encased in two inches of deep-fried batter.
She wheeled back and forth beside him, waiting. He peered at her, getting more than a little annoyed.
“Can I eat my meal in peace?”
“Awww, go on, hun,” the robot replied in a sing song voice. “Do the thing. You know I like it when you do the thing.”
“What am I, a performing walrus?”
Cher-L crossed her metallic arms. “You want me to tell Url you were mean to me? After he sponsored you and your brother for so long?”
Tears stung Jamie’s little piggy eyes. Why was everyone mentioning Oliver?
He saw his brother charging forward, ramming that Judge, the jay going down beneath his championship gut—and then the bullet bursting out of the back of Oliver’s skull. That’s when Jamie had run. Okay, ‘run’ was a stretch; he’d tottered to the car waiting to whisk the Truss Brothers to safety. Only Jamie had made it, and all because Oliver had got greedy.
Well, greedier.
“Hul-lo, Earth to fatso,” Cher-L trilled. “Come on, hun. Just one more time. For me.”
Jamie sighed, picked up the deep-fried burger and clacked his teeth together twice, activating the implant. His artificial jaw, installed at considerable expense by Url, stretched open, the hydraulics extending Jamie’s gob until he could swallow the entire stodge-burger in one gigantic gulp.
Cher-L’s tin-plated palms clattered together as she applauded. “So gross. It’s won-derful. Another?”
Jamie nodded, screwing his eyes tight so her optical-sensors wouldn’t register his tears. He listened to her wheel squeaking across the floor, remembering the day he and Oliver had checked into the Burger-Emperor’s Private Hospital for the Purposely Obese to have the implants fitted. Jamie hadn’t wanted to do it at first, but Oliver soon talked him round.
Oliver always talked him round.
“Jamie Truss?”
More Flab-Fans. What was wrong with these people? Why couldn’t they leave him—
Jamie’s hardened arteries almost burst as he opened his eyes. Two Judges stood in front of him; one older, with a greying moustache, and the other younger, wearing the white helmet and badge of a rookie.
“C-can I help you...” Jamie looked at the senior officer’s badge to find his name. “Judge Morphy?”
“You were at the Piper Rally this morning,” Morphy said. It wasn’t a question.
“No. I... I don’t think I was.”
“False testimony,” said the rookie. “Two years in the cube.”
Morphy barely acknowledged the sentence. “We saw you, and have vid-footage. You were there with the CPF.”
Jamie’s stomach gurgled.
“That was my brother,” Jamie admitted, guessing that lying would only make things worse. Wasn’t as though he could make a run for it. “He... persuaded me to come alone. I didn’t want to, but...”
The gurgle turned into a growl.
“But what?” the Judge pressed.
It was time to come clean. “We were paid to be there. To protest. We’ve never been members of the CPF”
“Conspiracy to incite violence,” the rookie said. “You just added another five years to your sentence, punk.”
Morphy raised his hand to silence the young firebrand. “Who paid you?”
Jamie shrugged—or he would have, if his shoulders could have taken the weight. “I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t. Jamie dealt with that kind of thing. We’ve... we’ve been overextending ourselves recently.”
The rookie looked down at Jamie’s gut. “That’s an understatement.”
“No, I mean financially. It’s these motorised belliwheels. They cost a fortune, and Url’s money only goes so far...”
The growl of Jamie’s stomach turned into a roar.
“You still hungry, son?” Morphy asked, as Jamie clutched his belly.
“No... I don’t feel too good, actually.”
The rookie sneered. “Guilt will do that to you.”
Jamie felt as though his insides were churning. Something was wrong. And there was a beeping somewhere nearby, like a muffled alarm.
“That your communicator, citizen?” Murphy asked.
Jamie burped. “No, I haven’t got one. Oliver always handled our calls.”
The beep was getting more insistent, as was the rumble from his tummy.
Judge Morphy pulled out a scanner, sweeping it over Jamie’s paunch.
“Explosive device!”
“Where?” the rookie said, pulling out his gun as if he could somehow shoot the bomb dead.
“In his belly!”
Jamie looked down at the rolls of fat that jutted out in front of him. “What?”
The Judges were already running for the exit, yelling for the other customers to clear the diner. Jamie tried to move, but his belly wheel jammed. So much for new technology.
The kitchen doors burst open and Cher-L whizzed out, holding his latest order on a tray. “What’s all the kerfuffle?”
“They say I’ve got a bomb in my belly!” Jamie told her.
Cher-L giggled, a high-pitched mechanical trill. “Oh, that. Url slipped the bomb inside your last burger. Think of it as a secret ingredient. Enjoy your mea—”
MORPHY AND LINT made it out of Url’s Diner with seconds to spare. The explosion ripped through the floating restaurant, throwing them into the air and shattering the anti-grav chutes still shuttling Url’s terrified patrons to the ped below.
Morphy grunted as he hit the ground, burning debris tumbling all around.
“You okay, kid?” he asked Lint, who was already on his feet.
The trainee offered Morphy his hand, but the Senior Judge swatted it away, trying not to wince as he pushed himself up.
With a sudden bleat of a siren, a Lawmaster drew up beside them, a helmet Morphy didn’t recognise in the saddle.
“Judge Morphy,” the new arrival said, glancing at Morph’s badge. “What happened?”
Morphy gritted his teeth as he turned to look at the carnage around
him, pain shooting up his leg. “Creep ate until he burst…”
Lint kicked the charred remains of Cher-L’s head in frustration. “And before we could get him to spill his guts, too…”
Thirteen
Dereliction of Duty
“DREDD, WE HAVE a 793.”
Dredd’s head snapped up as Control’s message came over the comm. A 793—violent death in the cubes.
“Which prisoner?”
“One of yours. Loreen Peston.”
Dredd took off at a run, bolting out of the infirmary. He was only half aware of Ruan behind him, keeping pace.
Even in his relatively short career, he’d lost cubed perps before, suicides mostly. And there were the punks who simply gave up, wasting away in the cubes. But a violent attack? That was new, at least for him. By their very definition, cubes were the most secure places in Mega-City One. No one could get out, and no one could get in. It shouldn’t be possible for prisoners to be attacked, especially by their neighbours, unless...
The thought turned his stomach.
Unless the attacker was a Judge.
Dredd saw the green shoulder pads of Med-Judges outside Peston’s open cell and skidded to a halt beside her door, a grisly sight greeting him the moment he entered the cube.
Behind him, Ruan gasped.
Loreen Peston lay on her back beside her bunk. Her face was barely recognisable, a mass of bruises. Her blood was everywhere, up the walls, on the floor, but that wasn’t the worst of it.
A daystick had been crammed into the dead reporter’s mouth, shoved so deep that, even from here, Dredd could see her jaw had cracked in two.
Dredd stalked into the confined space, Shepherd—the stocky Judge currently in charge of the Sector House’s holding cubes—looked up from his datapad. “You Dredd?”
“That’s what it says on the badge. When was she found?”
“Ten minutes ago,” Shepherd said, sounding bored. From the way his tunic strained against his bulk, it was clear he was a desk jockey who hadn’t pounded the skeds in many a year. “Spot inspection. The door was unlocked.”
“Shouldn’t that have set off an alarm?” Ruan asked from the doorway.
Shepherd shrugged, looking down at his screen. “Some kind of computer error. Tek are looking into it.”
“Doesn’t sound like you care one way or another.”
For the first time since they’d enter the cube, Dredd saw something like steel in Shepherd’s dull eyes. They fixed on Dredd, his wet lips thinning. “I’m not sure I like your tone.”
“File a complaint. I’ll be doing the same.”
“About what?”
“About your conduct.”
Shepherd’s face flushed. “Now look here...”
Dredd cut him off. “Vid-log?”
“What?”
“Regulations state that on discovering a 793, the first course of action is to check the vid-log. You have done that?”
“Of course I have. What’s your problem, kid?”
“My problem is someone murdered a perp in your custody. What does the log show?”
The duty Judge hesitated.
“Shepherd, who came into this cube?”
“He doesn’t know,” Ruan said, staring intently at Shepherd’s flustered face. “He’s embarrassed. Ashamed.”
“So he should be.”
Shepherd raised a finger to warn them off. “It’s not my fault. The vid skips.”
Dredd held out his hand. “Show me.”
“I’m filing the paperwork.”
Dredd stood firm. “Show. Me.”
Shepherd handed him the datapad, taking a step towards Dredd and lowering his voice. “Look, Dredd. I need to keep a lid on this. I’m...” Shepherd glanced up at the Med-Judges in the corridor outside. “I’m on report. There have been... misunderstandings recently, cube-heads not getting their rations on time, issues with sanitation.” He laughed, sounding forced. “Sanitation! Can you believe it? These people are the dregs of society, and some bleeding heart in the Grand Hall is concerned about plumbing? You end up in the cubes, you should expect some stomm, am I right?”
“Should you expect to end up dead?” Dredd asked, swiping through the footage on the screen.
“Of course not, but look...” He glanced down at the body. “You must have seen the Tri-D reports. This bitch has been trying to put the boot into the Justice Department for years. Way I look at it, someone finally shut her up. In my book, they deserve a medal.”
“Twenty years.”
Shepherd looked sharply at Dredd.. “What?”
“In my book, dereliction of duty gets you twenty years on Titan. Don’t make it worse for yourself. Hand yourself over to the Special Judicial Squad.”
“The skull heads? Just wait a minute—”
Dredd took a step closer, his helmet almost touching Shepherd’s nose. “You refusing to comply?”
“No, but—”
“Thirty years. Questioning the judgement of an arresting officer. Wanna make it forty?”
Shepherd looked to Ruan for support; Dredd could see the Psi-Judge’s reflection in Shepherd’s eyes. She had her hands clasped behind her back, her face neutral. She was staying out of this.
Clever girl.
Shepherd’s shoulders sagged. His stubble-strewn chin resting on his chest, the disgraced Judge trudged out of the cube a broken man.
“That was harsh, Dredd,” Ruan told him when Shepherd had gone.
“That was the Law. If Peston deserved to die, I would have pulled the trigger myself. She committed a crime, but she should have walked after serving her time. That’s justice. That’s who we are.” He pushed the datapad into her hands. “Here.”
She took the device. “What am I looking at?”
“Shepherd was incompetent, but he’s right. Footage jumps. One minute Peston’s on the bunk, the next her brains are munce.”
“What about the cameras in the corridors?”
Dredd crouched down beside the corpse. “Same deal. Someone’s covering their tracks.”
Ruan threw Shepherd’s datapad onto the bunk. “So where does that leave us?”
He pointed at the gore-smothered floor.
“What do you see?”
“Boot prints.”
“Correct. One size nine, one size eight, that’s maybe an eleven.”
“It’s not surprising. The place will have been swarming with helmets.”
Dredd tapped the floor, picking out a set of treads. “Not that one. That’s our killer.”
“How can you tell?”
He scraped his finger against the footprint and checked his glove. “Blood’s already dry. Prints are older; they were made when Peston bought it.”
“And the chances of a blood-stained boot being found in the vicinity are...”
“Miniscule. Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t look.” He turned to the Med-Judges still waiting outside. “You two. What are your names?”
The medics looked at each other in confusion. The elder of the two, a dark-skinned Judge with white hair, answered, “I’m Cooke. This is Wilmot.”
Dredd acknowledged the answer with a nod. “We need to search the Sector House.”
“Search for what?”
“Regulation boots, size 10, Loreen Peston’s blood in the tread.”
“You want us to do it?” Wilmot asked.
“You and anyone else you can find.”
“But we’re medical staff,” Cooke told him. “We need to take the body to Resyk.”
“You’re Judges. You need to do your duty. Look for the boot.” When they didn’t move, he added, “Now.”
Shaking their heads, the medics turned and left.
Ruan blew out. “Wow! Remind me to stay on your side when you make Chief Judge.”
“I have no interest in promotion,” he told her, turning back to the body. “Only justice.”
Bending down, Dredd gripped the daystick and yanked it from Peston’s mouth. Dislodged teet
h clattered across the floor as he turned the stick over in his hands.
“It’s seen a lot of service,” he said, examining the dents along the shaft, before checking the handle. “Serial number’s indistinguishable. No way of tracing it. Unless...”
He turned to Ruan.
“Unless what?” the Psi-Judge asked.
He held the bloodied stick out to her. “Unless you scan it.”
She held up a hand to stop him. “Sorry, not my discipline. I could put a call through, have Williams sent over. He’s good.”
Dredd wasn’t listening. He’d noticed something.
Handing Ruan the daystick, he crouched down, peering into Peston’s ruined jaw. Carefully, he reached inside her mouth with two fingers, drawing out a small plastic bag.
“What’s that?”
Dredd ignored Ruan’s question for now, ripping open the bag and opening the note stashed within, his gloves leaving bloody marks on the paper as he read.
Fourteen
Down Among the Dead
“WE LOOKING AT a serial killer, Dredd?”
He slipped the note into an evidence tube. “Two journalists, two bodies. Same message found on each. What do you reckon?”
Ruan looked down at the corpse.
“Think Shepherd was in on it?”
“You’re the empath. What did you sense?”
She sighed. “Boredom, mostly. Shepherd was ambivalent to Peston’s murder. Sure, he panicked when you questioned him, but there was nothing to suggest he was trying to conceal anything.”
“Other than ineptitude.”
“Correct. I get the feeling Judge Shepherd isn’t a man of hidden depths.”
“What else?”
“About Shepherd?”
“About the cube.”
She narrowed her eyes. “What about it?”
“Do you get anything from the room? Any… I don’t know… lingering emotions?”
“It doesn’t work like that, Dredd. I told you, I can’t read inanimate objects.”
“What about bodies?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Look, I’ve had some experience with you people…”
Judge Dredd: Year Two Page 28
