"Keisha... I'm sorry, but I'm not stopping, not now. I'm not going to the cubes." He was impressed by the newly defined, steely resolution in his voice. Maybe his future lay in crime after all. He'd certainly descended into violence quickly enough, even going as far as to pistol-whip a woman. Perhaps this potential had lain dormant within him all along, and he was at last discovering his true calling. Whatever the case, it seemed he was set on a path from which there was no return. "The Judges are going to fly us out of the city, and once my safety is assured I'll let you go. Just stay calm and you'll have no reason to fear."
She studied him, her bloodied hand masking the lower half of her face, her eyes burning hot with fury and contempt. "They're not going to let you step on an aircraft. They'll have every spaceport in the area under observation, there'll be snipers to take you out the moment you try to board-"
"We're not going to the spaceport," he interrupted. "We're going to be picked up in more... neutral territory."
Even her anger couldn't disguise her curiosity. "Then where?" she asked, her brow furrowing.
In answer, he swung the car off the main slab and headed towards an unpaved, fenced-off area, roped with Justice Department "Crime Scene" markers. The gate set in the fence was locked shut, but Peat made no attempt to decrease his speed.
"Hold on," he said.
"Peat, what the hell are you doing?" Keisha screamed, but any reply was lost as the vehicle smashed through the gate, wire ripping shreds from the bodywork, the air filled with the cacophony of rending metal. Once they were through, the councillor struggled to keep control of the car, the wheels sliding on the soft earth beneath, the tyres torn from the collision. He stamped on the brake and it began to skid, threatening to tip over onto its side any second. In response, he steered into the swerve and directed the vehicle towards a mound of soil, bracing himself for the crunch. It hit the bank and shuddered to a stop, the two of them banging forward then back in their seats.
For a moment, there was silence, the only sound the quiet ticking of the engine as it cooled. Then Peat recovered his senses. He wrenched the door open, staggering slightly as he climbed out, then walked round to the other side and dragged a dazed Keisha from the car.
"W-where are we?" she asked, looking round at the excavated land and construction machinery in puzzlement.
The councillor couldn't resist a little theatricality. "Welcome to Elizabeth Short," he said with a grandiose flourish, motioning to the half-built block towering above them.
Dredd arrived at the site minutes later, following the trail of destruction. Swinging himself off his bike, he drew his Lawgiver and cautiously checked the battered car, its bodywork dented and scratched, the doors left hanging open. He noted the scuffed footprints in the mud heading away from the vehicle towards the block itself, and started to follow. The diggers and trucks stood silent within the shadow of Liz Short as they had done since the bodies were discovered. The only sound was the wind whipping over the tent the Judges had established to examine the remains, the tarpaulin ruffling and flapping in the breeze.
"Control, can confirm fugitive Peat and his hostage have abandoned vehicle at Liz Short construction site," he murmured. "I suspect they are in the building itself. Continuing pursuit."
"That's a roj. Units are rolling to surround the area. Will have Short cordoned off within the next ten minutes."
Dredd made his way into the rubble-strewn entrance hall, wondering where the councillor was likely to be hiding. He couldn't get very far because there was simply nowhere to go; the upper floors had not been built yet, plus the el' would not be working. Peat would have been forced to drag his hostage up the stairs. Dredd guessed that it wouldn't take Peat long to tire of the chase. He must know by now that he was cornered.
The Judge had begun to move up to the first floor when he heard the woman scream. He gauged it had to be several levels above him and began to run, taking the steps three at a time. With the block little more than a shell, the corridors he passed through often opened into empty air, exposed beams jutting out, semi-finished floors revealing the cabling beneath. On more than one occasion, he had to catch himself as the set of stairs he attempted to climb had no supporting wall and to his right was a drop of a couple of hundred feet. The cityscape stretched around him, the growing wind whistling off the scaffolding and swirling rockcrete dust. Dredd tried to ignore the realisation of just how easy it would be to lose his footing and plunge to the ground below, and continued his ascent.
Another scream, much closer, and Dredd doubled his speed, concentrating on throwing himself up the steps. At last he caught sight of Peat and his secretary standing on one of the rafters that poked out of the building, his gun held to her temple. The rafter was little more than five feet across, and there was nothing beyond them but the vertiginous descent to the streets.
"Didn't take you long to find me," Peat said as Dredd appeared before him.
"You were never going to escape us," the lawman replied. "Plus I had an idea where you might be heading." He motioned to his surroundings with his Lawgiver. "It always comes round full circle eventually. What did you hope to achieve?"
"Don't presume too early, Dredd. You try to arrest me, I'll blow her drokking brains out."
"You're not a murderer, Peat. You haven't got it in you."
"You think so? Are you prepared to take the risk?"
Dredd could see that the secretary had taken a beating; her nostrils were caked in blood and a livid bruise had swollen across her face. She looked understandably terrified, her eyes constantly darting either side of her to the dizzying drop. Maybe he shouldn't underestimate the councillor, he thought, as he was evidently quite capable of meting out acts of violence when pushed.
"You're going to get yourselves both killed if you stay out here," Dredd said, a conciliatory note to his voice.
"That's where you're wrong," Peat answered. "You're gonna order us up a hover-cab, just a small one, enough for the two of us and the robot driver. It's going to pick us up from here and fly us out of the city. Any attempts to stop me, she dies. Once my safety is guaranteed, I'll let her go."
"Only got your word for that."
"Then that's all you'll have to go on."
"I'm not in the habit of negotiating with creeps, Peat."
"Too bad, 'cause I don't see you have much choice. Not unless you want Keisha here to go splat."
"You kill your hostage, then what are you going to do? Hand yourself in? Jump?"
"Maybe. But imagine what the papers'll say about how Judge Dredd stood by and allowed an innocent cit to die. The very people you're sworn to protect. Won't do your public profile much good." The councillor jabbed the gun harder against her head. "Now get that gruddamn cab here."
Dredd radioed in the demand, then listened to the response. "It'll be here in a couple of minutes," he said.
"It better, or I'm gonna start getting impatient."
The Judge took a small step forward. "Seems to me, councillor, that it was always you that was worried about the press. You were always the one courting the media. They're going to have a field day with you after this."
"Yeah. Shame I won't be around to see it."
"You had quite the career, didn't you? Quite a celebrity. And you've thrown it all away protecting a madman. Was it really worth it?"
Peat didn't reply immediately. "You take your chances when you see them. I wasn't the only one covering for Erik. He's got plenty of friends in high places."
"Fixing to get him released from the kook cubes, wiping his files, and I'm guessing more than one of your Phoenix Campaign Blocks is built upon a body-dump. You were guiding Rejin's operation to the best rad-pits, then constructing over the evidence, weren't you? Half your rich pals are living on top of mass graveyards while you lapped up the fame and exposure."
"Where's this cab?" the councillor demanded angrily.
"And what about you, Peat?" Dredd continued, taking another step along the rafter. "You ever
get your kicks from a little torture-murder too?" The secretary looked at the lawman questioningly and Dredd played on it. "Didn't you know your boss had a sick little sideline, citizen? That he's partly responsible for the disappearance of an unknown number of men and women, all of whom had been tortured to death? Kept that council business to himself, did he?"
Control crackled in the Judge's ear. "Vehicle will be with you in thirty seconds. Stand by."
"Matheson, what the drokk are you involved in?" Keisha whispered.
"Tell her," Dredd said evenly. "Tell her what your friends get up to."
"Drokk you!" Peat roared and swung the gun from his secretary to bear down on Dredd.
At that moment, an H-platform piloted by a couple of Judges rose vertically and slammed into the rafter with a sharp clang. It was enough to knock the councillor off balance, and the lawman snatched hold of the hostage and pushed her onto the safety of the platform.
Peat lost his footing and stumbled, then slipped off the beam, his gun spiralling downwards, one arm snaking around the cold metal as he fell. He dangled precariously, yelping in panic, as Dredd inched along, holding out a gloved hand for Peat to pull himself up with.
"Quickly!" the Judge shouted at his colleagues as they lowered and positioned the H-platform below the councillor, then pulled him roughly aboard. Dredd swiftly followed, leaping onto it from the rafter.
He snapped cuffs on Peat, then spun him round and lifted him up by the lapels. "Now," Dredd snarled in his face, "you and me are gonna have a chat about your best pal Erik Rejin."
Peat's numbed, sandblasted expression cracked to give way to a tiny smile. "Y-you might want to t-think about your l-little friend too..."
"What are you talking about?"
"Your u-undercover friend. The one you've g-got inside Catalyst. I imagine he's in very s-serious trouble right about now..."
"How did you-"
Peat giggled. "That's classified."
"Drokk!" Dredd turned to the pilot. "Get us down now! I've got to get to Catalyst studios!"
THIRTEEN
I'm dreaming I'm flying over the city. I'm drifting on the breeze like a batglider, clipping the rooftops, twisting through the rockcrete canyons, my feather-light body reflected in a million windows, flashing silver in the sunshine. It looks so peaceful from up here, this heaving metropolis that I call my home, the meg-ways snaking through the sectors like fast-flowing rivers, condos rising like immense cliffs. It stretches for as far as the eye can see in every direction, the landscape a mass of buildings and pedways knitted together; a nest of humanity.
But as I float here, buffeted by currents of hot air, diving and climbing, enjoying the freedom and beauty of my surroundings, I realise the reason that it's so peaceful is that there's no trace of life beneath me. I'm all alone, without a skysurfer or a dog-vulture to keep me company, soaring over a deserted city. The thought of my isolation casts a shadow across my mind, souring the pleasure of my flight, and there is a crinkling at the corner of my brain that tells me something isn't right.
I decide to investigate closer, tumbling down into the gloom of the towering citi-blocks, searching for a sign of occupancy. After the cool, crisp taste of the air up above the furthest spires of the metropolis, down here it smells rank, like the liquefying underbelly of roadkill. The lower I go, the worse the stink gets, a putrid, cloying odour that seems at odds with the sparkling curves of the architecture. Nothing moves down here: no citizens walk the streets, the freeways are empty of traffic, shops, factories and offices are abandoned. The silence is oppressive, the background hubbub of a busy conurbation noticeable by its absence. Even the air is still, as if thick with disease. It coats the back of my throat and makes me gag.
I feel uneasy passing through these empty avenues, wondering what has happened to everyone, what has happened to my home. The darkness seems to be encroaching as I drift ever downwards, as if the buildings are closing in and blocking out the light, stopping me escaping. I decide I don't want to be here anymore. I want to be free, wheeling across the blue sky, leaving this decaying industrial wasteland far, far below me. I want to ascend back up to the heavens, but I can't. It keeps dragging me down, the atmosphere growing heavier, more stifling, to the point where I think I'm going to suffocate.
Then I spy something below me, gleaming pale white amidst the grey surroundings, and moving closer I can see it is a skeletal arm sticking up through the rockcrete from the centre of a square, bony fingers left grasping at nothing but air. I understand at last what has become of the inhabitants. This is a city of the dead, an enormous mausoleum under which the population rests and rots, returning to the earth. Paved over their remains, the metropolis endures, a tombstone for four hundred million people, it both conceals and commemorates the deaths that it clutches to its black heart.
My feet finally touch City Bottom, the darkness looming around me, and I can hear a faint noise cutting through the silence. It seems to be coming from beneath me, so I get to my knees, my ear pressed to cold stone, trying to discern the source of the sound. I close my eyes in concentration and realise that I'm listening to the wails of the dead rising up from their burial ground, weeping and moaning and screaming, trapped perpetually within the shadow of this great sprawling cemetery. It gets louder, as if the dead masses are travelling up from their deep abode to meet me, to claim me. I try to get to my feet, but the skeletal hand suddenly grabs my hair and grips me, vice-like. I panic, struggling to be free, but I cannot pull away from its grasp. The screams rise in pitch and the ground begins to split open, light rushing up, burning my sight, my name repeated over and over again...
"Trager." The word is punctuated by a slap across the face, and I'm pulled into consciousness like a newborn, kicking and mewling. Even though I'm awake, the vestiges of my dream still cling to me for the screams continue to ring in my ears. I open my eyes, trying to gauge where they are coming from, then I see they belong to Ramona. She's being held back by the companion of that meathead whose throat I destroyed and she's looking at me, her cheeks wet with tears, and she's struggling to reach out to me but the creep won't let her come near. Something about her face tells me I probably don't want to look in a mirror right about now. There's pity there, and a horror at what has been wrought on me.
The instigator of the mess that has been made of me is the one who called my name, and he's standing over me, his suit spattered with blood, his hands dripping. Vandris DuNoye. He seems slightly out of breath, but his smooth face and expensive haircut are unruffled. I can't quite decode his expression; it falls somewhere between hatred and the pleasure he'll get from exacting his retribution.
My memories of what happened prior to being strapped to this chair in the middle of an abandoned Catalyst soundstage start to filter through. I remember being caught in Rejin's screening room, of making a feeble attempt to talk my way out of the situation and not even believing myself, let alone convincing this lawyer spugger. I remember thinking that once they had me there was going to be little to stop my inevitable execution, and I fought back desperately, trying to recall my Academy training. I landed several satisfactory punches, and put one guy on the floor with a suspected broken rib, but I was shocked at how rusty I'd become, at how slow my responses were, at how long it took me to recover from every blow landed. Too much chemical indulgence had blunted my edge.
So here I am, the man in the chair, shortly to be the recipient of the pain that not long ago I had administered with a frighteningly eager hand. I've got a fair idea what they're going to do to me. The camera's set up on a tripod - I doubt they'll get Ramona to take the photos this time, so my moment in the spotlight is going lack a certain finesse - and the trolley's standing beside me, a smorgasbord of torture weapons laid upon it. Amongst them are several of the Banana City devices obtained from Talón an eternity ago, and in a nice slice of grim irony, my way in seems also to be my undoing. I take deep breaths. I don't want them to see just how scared I am.
"Back
to the land of the living, Mr Trager?" DuNoye asks me softly.
"Vandris, please, I'm begging you, don't do this," Ramona cries, still trying to pull free from her captor.
"Ramona," the lawyer snaps, turning his head in her direction. "I've asked you to be quiet. Your father is on his way down. He will deal with you."
She locks stares with me and I can see a conflict raging inside her. On the one hand, I've betrayed her and she drokking hates me for it: hates me for making a fool of her, for lying to her, for using her to get further inside the operation. That side of her would quite happily see me gutted and dismembered, the occasion captured in a series of graphic glossies. But there's a genuine stirring within her that means she can't stand by and watch me murdered. She broke free of her father's shadow for once to be with me, and that intimacy meant an enormous amount to her. For her, it was possibly one of the bravest things she had ever done. I'd got under her skin, and had been closer to her than anyone since the death of her mother.
DuNoye fixes his attention back to me. "It seems I was right to mistrust you, Mr Trager. I had my doubts right from the start, but... let's just say that your enthusiasm impressed me. Rarely do you meet someone with such a natural propensity for casual brutality. Of course, now that I know you work for Justice Department, it seems obvious."
There seems little point in continuing the charade. I cough, finding my voice. "How did you know?" My words sound slurred, unsteady, as if they have trouble leaving my lips.
"We have a little bird close to the Grand Hall of Justice," he says, taking no small delight in imparting the information. "He has access to all sorts of sensitive material." When he sees me bow my head, DuNoye adds, "No one likes to discover that their organisation has been infiltrated, do they, Mr Trager? You've compromised our operation, you've put us all at risk, including Mr Rejiin's daughter. You're a danger to us and you have to be eliminated."
The Final Cut Page 19
