The Final Cut

by Matthew Smith

  I hop on a zoom for a brief ten-minute journey, avoiding a hostage situation on Clancy as some spugwit tries to negotiate his way out of the dump he's burrowed himself into. The Judges call this time of night the Graveyard Shift, when every nutjob and looney-toon seems to explode into violence simultaneously. You can feel it in the air: the anger, frustration and boredom looking for an outlet, spreading like a psychic virus, infecting others with its touch of madness.

  I alight at Freddie Starr Interchange and from there it's just a short walk to my destination. The building looms large over its neighbours, and even at this time of the morning it's extraordinarily busy. As I pass the off-ramp leading to the underground bike pool, two Judges come roaring out, one giving me the evil eye before they both speed off into the distance. I decide to avoid the main entrance - too many helmets, too many unnecessary questions - and instead find one of the many side doors, punching in a six-digit code on the keypad beside it that will grant me access. Once the voice-identification software confirms that I am who I say I am, the door slides open and I'm inside the Sector House. I take the empty service el' to the twenty-third floor and then it's a brisk jaunt along a nondescript corridor to Hendry's office.

  As usual, the anxiety hits me the moment I leave the street. Out there, it's my home, the buzz of the city is my lifeline, and amongst the cits, I pass unnoticed, a face in the crowd. Here, in this sterile environment, I'm the proverbial sore thumb. I feel strange and ungainly, like I've taken a misstep. I lock stares with whoever I pass, daring them to say something, to demand to know who I am, so I can turn this fear into something aggressive, but they seem to sense that I belong here. The shift happens before I'm aware of it; as soon as I enter this other world, my training takes hold and my posture grows more confident, my demeanour more purposeful. Something that was ground into me many, many years ago rises from the depths of my being and asserts itself. I lose the cowed, suspicious look of a Mega-City perp and transform myself back into a Judge.

  I rap on Hendry's office door and enter before he can answer. He glances up irritably from the papers strewn across his desk, then does a double-take of surprised recognition. I slump into a chair opposite him, noticing that he looks considerably older since the last time I saw him. The frizzy hair at his temples is greying and his forehead seems more lined than I remember, but this is the first time I have seen him in person for over six months.

  "Trager," he says evenly, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible. "To what do we owe this pleasure?"

  "Oh, you know me, Hendry," I reply. "Never been one for predictability."

  He smiles, a rarity for him, and offers his hand, which I shake firmly. Hendry's been my liaison since I first joined Wally Squad some twelve years ago, and in a job in which trust and deception are our stock-in-trade, there's no man whose hands I would more willingly place my life in. His knowledge and guidance has ensured that my cover has never been blown on any operation I've been involved in, and his three decades of experience on the streets before a recurrent leg injury forced him into taking a backroom role has enabled him to develop almost a sixth sense when it comes to pulling out an officer if the situation threatens to become compromised. Never a man to mince words, his seriousness is only matched by the respect he engenders in the rest of the department.

  "You haven't reported in for..." he checks his computer screen, "eight weeks, at least. We were beginning to wonder if you'd gone native."

  "The Danskys have spent the past month shifting a tonne of gear," I reply, amused at the thought of Hendry sweating over one of his officers disappearing. If he had truly been worried, I would've known about it, one way or another, probably with a couple of helmets pulling me in on a bogus charge. "That small block war over in Jim Carrey the other week? Half the ordnance was Sov-made. The Danskys shipped it in via a freight carrier bound for Luna-One. We offloaded the cargo when it was meant to be refuelling. So, as you see, they've kept me busy on one or two little errands like that."

  "Even so, some names and dates would've been nice," Hendry says sternly. "They're flooding the sector with firepower and it's about time we nipped their enterprise in the bud."

  "Hence the reason you see me before you this very night," I say, opening my arms wide and grinning. "The brothers are making a big buy off their Banana City contacts. They're bringing it in by boat, further details to follow."

  Hendry raises his eyebrows. "Big?"

  "It ain't chickenfeed, that's for gruddamn sure. These are guys they've worked with before and it seems they're getting it straight from Cuidad JD. Major players. We're talking one hell of a bust here."

  My superior sits back in his chair. "And you don't know the location yet?"

  I shake my head. "They're using some runt called Martinez to act as a go-between. He's getting back to them with the specifics of the meet. I should imagine the Danskys would want it fairly soon. Their stocks are running low and it's drokking hunting season out there."

  Hendry nods. "That would be Enrique Martinez. We got a file on him long as your arm. Worked as an informant for the Banana Cit Judges as well as fix-it man for the Conquistadores."

  "I got the impression the Danskys have a history with him. There was something else too," I add. "This piece of stomm Martinez mentioned something about antique torture devices he can get for them, alongside the regular weaponry. It seems the brothers have a specific buyer who collects the stuff."

  "Torture?" Hendry frowns. "You get a name?"

  "Drokkers wouldn't say. Fact is, soon as the greaseball piped up about it, the Danskys looked ready to just about drop a brick there and then. Whoever this guy is, the brothers - and let's not forget who we're talking about here - are scared of him."

  "Antique torture pieces," Hendry muses, looking thoughtful. "Not exactly a wide appeal..."

  "Exactly. And I want to follow it up. Go through with the deal. Find out what this sicko is doing with 'em."

  "Keep the bust under wraps, you mean?"

  "Yeah, total media blackout. Far as our nameless friend is concerned, let him think the buy went ahead as planned. I'll go ahead and meet him with the merchandise after the bust to find out what this character is up to."

  "You've got your teeth into this one, haven't you?"

  I smile. "You know me too well, Hendry. Yeah, I got a hunger to see it through. Curiosity is driving me crazy."

  "Sounds dangerous too. What you're saying makes sense and it's a lead we've got to follow, but don't push too hard. If this creep makes the Danskys have sleepless nights, then let's keep a level head."

  "Wilco, skip."

  Hendry studies me for a long moment. "How are you finding it out there, Trager?"

  I shrug. "Same-old, same-old. Perps are becoming more inventive and ruthless by the day, while the cits grow ever more complacent. It's a warzone at times, and I don't think it's a battle we will win. Trying to stem the tide of crime in this city is like trying to put out a raging inferno with a thimble of water. But there's nowhere else I'd rather be."

  Hendry taps his keyboard, glancing at the screen. "Your message drops have become increasingly erratic over the past two or three years. You're not enjoying it too much, are you?"

  "Gotta play the game," I murmur. "You of all people know that, boss."

  "Not at the expense of forgetting who you represent. What side of the Law you stand."

  "Is this some kind of warning?"

  "No, just some advice," Hendry says with an audible sigh. "You're a natural for this kind of work, Trager, and you get results. But remember you are a Judge. You have a code of honour to uphold and a duty to protect the citizens. I've never lost an undercover officer yet and I don't want to start with you."

  I hold up my hands and smile. "Hey, I'm the very dictionary definition of professional."

  Hendry meets my gaze and shakes his head. "Just keep your reports up to date. And get me the Banana City meet details asap. I don't want to mobilise helmets at short notice and risk blowing t
he op."

  "You'll know as soon as I do," I say, leaping to my feet and heading out the door.

  "Keep it clean," Hendry calls after me.

  "Don't I always?" I reply before returning to the street, where I belong.

  THREE

  When Dredd arrived at the Elizabeth Short construction site, it was teeming with life, like ants crawling over a carcass. Med and Tek Divisions had already established a base of operations, and there were a couple of helmets standing guard, regulating the inevitable rubberneckers who were craning to get a view of the crime scene. The Judges on duty saw him approaching and motioned him to pass with a curt nod.

  Arc lights had been set up, casting the area in an eerie, hard white glow and throwing stark shadows on the ground and walls. Dredd dismounted his Lawmaster and made his way to the hub of activity which had been covered by a tent; as soon as he entered he was hit by the heat of the chem-pit which lay at its centre. Rubber sheeting had been placed on its banks upon which there was an odd collection of bones wrapped in plastic, as if somebody had attempted to piece together several human bodies and found that too many parts were missing. Dredd saw a skull with nothing attached beneath the jawline, while next to it was what looked like a ribcage and a pelvis with a couple of femurs below it.

  A maintenance crew was at work draining the pit, the sludge steaming as it was sucked out by an industrial vacuum pump. They had nearly reached the bottom and it looked like the pit was giving up the last of its secrets, with a few more remains coming to light. At a rough estimate, Dredd reckoned it had held about fourteen bodies.

  A female Tek-Judge was crouching by the bones and writing notes. Seeing Dredd surveying the scene, she stood and walked over to him, introducing herself as Garrison.

  "What have we got?" Dredd asked.

  "Construction droids were working on the foundations of the block when they realised the chem-pit they were building over was leaking into the rockcrete. They decided to clear the pit and discovered it was filled with human remains."

  "Fourteen, at my count."

  "Well, we haven't fully established just how many we're dealing with because we're having to match DNA samples of every piece of bone we come across. And of course, that doesn't account for those that could've been in there for years and have simply vaporised. But yes, from our preliminary calculations, we're looking at something approaching that figure."

  "How long do you think they've been in there for?"

  Garrison studied her notes, frowning. "The scorch marks on the bones, caused by the chemical reaction, vary from one to the next, which suggests some have been in there longer than others. It seems whoever has been using this as a dumping ground has returned on more than one occasion. They could date back over a few months."

  "It'll solve some missing person cases, if nothing else," Dredd muttered. He strode over to the nearest of the remains. "Cause of death?"

  Garrison joined him, bending over to pick up a skull. It rolled inside its bag and left a black, sooty stain. "That's another variable. See the contusion here, just above the eye socket? That suggests a blow caused by a blunt instrument. Ragged tearing is a sign of a limb being either broken or amputated, which a few of them seem to have suffered. In one, the chest cavity was snapped open, the likely reason being to remove internal organs. Hands and feet have been shattered, which could've been done by either a hammer or a bullet. Teeth have been forcibly removed, sometimes leaving the root. Whoever murdered these people slaughtered each in a different way with a number of different weapons. And it's likely the majority of the damage was done before the victim was dead."

  "You don't think we're dealing with a serial killer then?"

  Garrison shook her head, replacing the skull on the sheet. "It doesn't fit with the profile. Pattern killers tend to stick to one method, and there's usually a recognisable similarity between the victims, whether they're young women, children or people of a certain ethnicity. I can see no correlation between these carcasses; they're a mixture of men and women, young and old."

  "Terrif. So we've got no through-leads and most of the evidence has gone up in smoke."

  "Get ready for some more bad news," Garrison said, grimacing. "I don't think we're dealing with just one person. I think we're looking at an organisation here. The number of victims that have been dumped - and I'm fairly sure they've been disposed of in groups of threes and fours, if I've got my timings right - suggests at least a two-man team. There may be more involved, if not in the actual dumping then in the murders themselves. The varying causes of death calls to my mind an orgiastic killing."

  "A cult?"

  "Possibly, though even ritual sacrifice tends to be fairly straightforward - just a quick knifing on an altar. This seems more measured and sadistic. They took their time with the victims, and covered their tracks well, knowing exactly where to come to dispose of the bodies."

  Dredd looked over the burnt and blackened remains of what had once been citizens of Mega-City One, thinking he couldn't possibly imagine the suffering they must have gone through before they ended up here. It certainly wasn't the first mass grave he'd been called to in his years as a Judge. Hell, it was a drop in the ocean compared to the landfill sites outside the West Wall containing the thousands of dead that had perished in Necropolis. But just when he thought he had the measure of this city's inhabitants, they would suddenly throw something up at him that was so despicable and callous it made him wonder if anything he did really made a difference. Justice Department did not hide the fact that it came down hard on lawbreakers, but it was debatable whether it worked as a deterrent. When perps could be so cold-bloodedly methodical as this in the act of murder, no laws could prevent it from happening. Dredd suddenly felt an overwhelming urge to bring in the guilty party more than ever.

  "Have Psi-Div been through?" he asked. Telepaths could probe the final thoughts of the deceased for latent images that could sometimes show the face of the killer, or the location of the victim's death.

  Garrison nodded. "He left just before you arrived. Couldn't get anything of any use as the bodies are all too far gone. Though he did say something about war..."

  "War?"

  "That's all he said. Just had a feeling of war. Nothing beyond that. He said he just had a 'psychic waft'."

  Dredd snorted. "Psi-Div as useful as ever. This whole case feels as if it could blow away like smoke in a second. We need some ID on those remains. Start chasing up the backgrounds of the victims, see if we can make some connections."

  "We'll do our best," Garrison said. "We're following up dental and hospital records and cross-referencing them with missing persons. We could get lucky."

  "Let me know as soon as you find out anything." The heat inside the tent was beginning to make Dredd feel uncomfortable. "The construction droids that called it in, are they still here?"

  "Outside. They've been making statements."

  He left Garrison to the task of placing names to the remains and walked out into the relatively cool night. Above him the skeletal framework of Elizabeth Short was silhouetted against the sky like it had been cut out of the darkness itself, the gentle wind whistling through its exposed beams. He headed off across the muddy expanse, passing a forensic team that was examining the soft earth.

  "Anything?" he enquired.

  "We've got tyre tracks, but unfortunately they could be any number of construction vehicles that may have come and gone over the past couple of days," a middle-aged, bearded man told him. He, like the rest of the team, was clad in gloves, boots and a white boiler suit, so as not to contaminate any potential evidence. "We'll run 'em through the computer, see if we can single out anything that looks unusual, or shouldn't be on the site."

  "Garrison thinks they were dumping the bodies three or four at a time," Dredd told him. "So we're looking for something slightly bigger than a ground car. Probably a small van, something that wouldn't draw too much attention."

  The man nodded. "OK, we'll keep an eye out fo
r anything that matches that description. We've also got footprints around the banks of the pit, but again these have been obscured to a degree by other sources, most notably the droids who made the discovery." He motioned to the three robots that were being interviewed by a Judge in a quiet corner, away from the main investigation. "They weren't very careful, I'm afraid. You know how clumsy mechanicals can be."

  Dredd strode towards the droids. He could see that one had been designed for wrecking, with a large iron ball hanging from its left arm, currently lying at rest between its feet. It was a good eight feet tall, with a wide, barrel-shaped torso, and it towered over its two colleagues, whose principal duties were not immediately obvious. One was squat and boxy and had a flatscreen face, with arms that had been fashioned into guns, probably to dispense nails or rivets; the third was the most humanoid, with a thin, spindly body. The latter was gesticulating wildly to the Judge that was standing before them.

  "You gotta believe us, we never did nothin'!"

  "Harrick," Dredd acknowledged, cutting the droid short. "What have our witnesses got to say?"

  "Plenty, though not much of it useful. At 9:45 pm they were working on the foundations of the block, securing the supporting walls. Call-Me-Kevin there," Harrick nodded to the wrecking robot, "was clearing some nearby rockcrete when he noticed a substance seeping through cracks in the bricking. He pulled out some slabs and discovered that the chem-pit had eaten away at the 'crete and was spilling through into the basement. He pointed this out to his two workmates, Geraldo and Robert here, and they decided to cement the rim of the pit to stabilise it before 'creting over it again."