by David Bishop
Nyon made sure Lleccas and Misch got out before preparing to go back for others. He realised how lucky they were to be housed so close to ground level. Getting down the smoke-clogged stairs had been difficult enough for them - what must it be like for those ten or twenty storeys up? Just as fortunate was his sibling Keno and her brood. The family of four had been visiting friends in Alien Town when the blaze started. They returned to find Robert Hatch on fire and Nyon's brood huddled outside.
Nyon looked at the upper levels of the building. The fire was clearly visible against the night sky, smoke and flames billowing out of most windows. The R'qeen tore a strip of fabric from his tunic and tied it around his face as a filter mask. Where were the Judges? Why hadn't Weather Control responded to the fire, and doused the sector with rain to help slow the progress of the blaze?
Nyon hurried into the lobby of Robert Hatch and back up the stairs. If nothing else, he might be able to help his immediate neighbours to escape. Nyon touched a three-fingered hand to the front door of the con-apt nearest the stairwell. It was cold, so the R'qeen hammered on the surface, shouting in Allspeak. "Gruchar, can you hear me? It's Nyon. You have to get out, the block's on fire!"
No response. "Gruchar, are you there? It's Nyon! Can you reach the door?" Still no response. Nyon leaned back and kicked at the door. The weak lock collapsed inwards with little resistance.
Inside, the arthropod from Andromeda IV was slumped against a white-hot wall, gasping for breath. Steam was rising from Gruchar's back where the alien was being cooked by the heat behind it. Gagging on the stench of frying skin, Nyon dragged Gruchar out into the corridor. "Can you make it down the stairs?" The arthropod nodded and began dragging itself away. Nyon moved onto the next doorway and found it open, the tiny room beyond empty. Next was Kehclow's con-apt. The door was ajar but the room was filled with flames. The gaseous entity was trapped on the other side of the blaze, pinned into a corner.
"Kehclow, come out. We've got to go!" Nyon shouted.
"I can't pass through the flames!"
"Why not?"
"Beings from the Bilal Cluster are flammable..."
Nyon looked around desperately. "Can you get to the window?"
"I had it sealed to stop myself sleep-floating. It's welded shut."
"Not for long," the R'qeen vowed. He ran into his own con-apt and retrieved an Aurillian Hope Crystal the size of his fist. Nyon hurried back to Kehclow who was fast running out of air in which to hover. The R'qeen hurled the crystal at the only window in the room but it bounced off uselessly.
"I had them specially reinforced," Kehclow explained, "to keep out burglars. I didn't trust anyone else here." The cloud folded in on itself. "I should have trusted you. Goodbye, Nyon." Flames licked up into the air, engulfing the gaseous entity. Kehclow died screaming.
Nyon stumbled out of the con-apt. By now the fire had spread into the corridor and was crawling up the walls. If he wanted to get out alive, the R'qeen would have to run through flames.
Riff Maltin was basking in the glory of his "construction droid running amok" exclusive when he heard about the fire. Channel 27's news editor had called the fledgeling reporter and offered him a permanent job, communicating via the small replay monitor on the hovercam. "Good work, Maltin. Keep feeding us visuals like that and you'll be famous within a week."
Riff had glowed at this praise but it was short-lived. "What we really need," the news director continued, "are some good human interest stories. Tug at the heartstrings stuff, show us the face of tragedy and terror."
Maltin was about to respond when a crowd of citizens poured out of nearby Oswald Mosley Block and began running down the skedway. "What's the rush?" Riff shouted after them.
"Fire at Robert Hatch!" one of the citizens responded. "Get your mushmallows, we're going to watch those alien freaks burn!"
"Yeah! Anyone here like barbecued vulture?" another of them joked.
Maltin turned back to his boss. "Sorry, but it sounds like a story-"
"Go!" the news editor commanded.
By the time Dredd and Miller arrived, Robert Hatch was a charred and blackened husk, burnt out from the fifth floor upwards. The smell of burning flesh and charred rubble hung in the air. A cloud of smoke created a haze around the streetlights nearby that still worked. A few fires still illuminated the middle levels of the citi-block but everything above that was ominously dark and lifeless. H-Wagons with water cannons had been brought in to extinguish the blaze but the response was too late to save most of the building's alien residents. A crowd of rubber-neckers had gathered around the smoking remains, held back by a Justice Department cordon. For those outside the barriers there was a carnival atmosphere, with plenty of laughing and anti-alien jokes doing the rounds.
"What do you call a vulture from Robert Hatch?" one of the bystanders shouted out.
"Well done!" replied another, to collective laughter.
Inside the cordon was another matter. H-Wagons with red crosses on their sides were clustered around the building as Med-Judges tried to help those lucky enough to escape the blaze. Their job was made harder by the rich variety of alien species that had resided inside Robert Hatch. Treatments appropriate for human burn victims could hardly be applied to creatures with chitinous skins, a hundred legs or no corporeal existence.
A pair of Tek-Judges was emerging from the burnt out remains of the building. Dredd suggested Miller talk to the Judges manning the barriers to see if they had heard anyone bragging about involvement with the blaze, while he quizzed the two fire investigators. Dredd waited until the Tek-Judges had removed their breathing apparatus before approaching them. The elder of the pair went into a coughing fit, trying to gasp in the old night air.
"Dredd - I'm on assignment to 87 for this graveyard shift."
The other Tek-Judge was a young black woman. "Kendrick." She indicated her partner, a heavy-set man in his forties still coughing heartily. "This wheezing bag of blubber is Osman."
Dredd jerked a thumb towards the remains of Robert Hatch. "Where did it start?"
"Basement. Could have been electrical. Whole block was a deathtrap waiting to happen. All the fire safety systems were broken or disabled. We'll be pulling charred remains out of there for hours," Kendrick said grimly.
"Could be electrical, you said. Are you thinking there's another possibility?"
Osman had recovered enough breath to answer. He gestured at the jeering crowd beyond the perimeter. "The aliens in this ghetto weren't exactly the most popular residents in the sector. There is no shortage of people wanting to torch this place."
Dredd nodded. "You found anything to back that up?"
Kendrick shrugged. "No obvious accelerants. If it was arson, it'll be almost impossible to prove and harder to trace." Osman began coughing again. Flecks of blood stained his chin. "Right now I need to get my partner some clean air," she said. "So if you don't mind..."
Dredd stood aside. As he did so, the Judge noticed a cluster of alien survivors gathered around a tall, blue-skinned creature. It seemed to be the dominant presence. Perhaps it could help identify how and why the fire began.
Miller found Stammers and Riley together at the barricades, talking with some of the bystanders. Stammers shared a joke with those beyond the cordon. "You'd think the vultures would be happy about the fire. Now they don't have to bother cooking their next victims!" Stammers howled with laughter at his own jest, not bothering to hide his amusement, even when Miller made her presence known. "Well, well, if it isn't the luscious Lynn. How's life with Old Stony Face, Miller? Can he still get it up?" Stammers formed his thumb and forefinger into a circle before thrusting his daystick back and forth through the gap.
Don't rise to the bait, Miller told herself. Don't give this drokker the satisfaction. She turned to Riley instead, pulling him away from the cordon. Once they were out of Stammer's hearing, she took off her helmet and asked Riley if anyone in the crowd had tried to grab the credit for the fire.
"Not t
hat I've heard, but Stammers talks enough for five people."
"All of it trash," Miller commented. "How can you stand having that jerk as your partner?"
"Somebody else turned me down, remember?" Riley looked at her intently. "That can still change, if you want it to."
She shook her head. "I left all that back at the Academy. It was a mistake, one that nearly cost me my badge."
"But that was different. We were-"
"No!" Miller realised she was shouting and dropped her voice before speaking again. "Look, keep your ears open, okay? Dredd thinks this could be arson, so anything you hear that's relevant, pass it on."
"Whatever. Far as I'm concerned, the ETs got what they deserved." Riley returned to his partner, leaving Miller silently fuming. Most of the time Riley was a good Judge, but his attitude to the city's alien residents sickened her to the stomach. She noticed Dredd approaching.
"Riley heard anything?"
"Nothing useful," she replied, surveying the crowd. "But if it was arson, I'm betting our firestarter is among the crowd. They'd want to see the show."
"Agreed." Dredd looked at the survivors again. "How's your Allspeak?"
"Why did the humans do this? What do they hope to gain from our misery?" Nyon asked.
Less than a hundred residents had made it out of Robert Hatch alive, from a total population of more than a thousand. A third of the survivors were still being tended to by the Med-Judges. The rest were gathered around the R'qeen male, huddled under blankets for warmth. A few of them clutched whatever possessions they had carried out of the burning building. Nyon had been the block representative for his species on the action group. Now he was emerging as a leader for all the survivors.
"Perhaps it was an accident?" Gruchar ventured. The arthropod always thought the best of everyone - a common trait among its kind.
Nyon's sibling Keno agreed with this. "We all knew about the problems with the turbolifts and the fire escapes," she said, hugging her three broodlings.
But Nyon shook his head, anger darkening his blue skin to indigo. "My broodling Misch has the gift of metema. She saw into the minds of those responsible for this atrocity."
"Misch has metema?" Keno asked Lleccas.
"We only discovered-" But the R'qeen female was interrupted by her pairling. Nyon was still convinced by his own theory about how the fire started.
"This was deliberate!" he thundered at the other survivors.
"What was deliberate?" Miller and Dredd strode towards the survivors, the female Judge fielded the question while her partner observed.
"This fire. You humans started it!" Nyon replied.
"You have proof of this?"
The R'qeen leader was going to respond but Lleccas stopped him, gently applying pressure to his arm. Nyon looked into her eyes and saw her concern. Then he turned to the Judge. "Nothing that you would believe."
"Try us."
Nyon shook his head. "We look after our own. We will see justice done."
Dredd stepped towards the R'qeen. "We cannot let you or anyone else take the Law into your own hands."
"If you believe you have been wronged," Miller said, "let us take up your case. While you live here, you are one of us and we look after our own too."
Nyon pointed at the charred, smoking citi-block. "Like you looked after everyone who lived inside this building? Where were your promises then? Hundreds of our kind burned alive while you humans watched, laughed and cheered!"
Lleccas spoke up for the first time. "Why do you humans attack us? We have done nothing wrong. All of us here are refugees. We may have different ways from yours but that is no reason to fear us. To hate us."
Miller hung her head, ashamed. "Not all humans are alike," she said.
Dredd looked around the rest of the survivors. "Unless you help us find those responsible for this crime, they may escape punishment. Is that what you want? You may not trust us, but we are your best hope."
Nyon picked up Misch and hugged her. "Then we have no hope."
Dredd stomped away from the survivors. Miller ran to catch up with him. "For the love of Grud, will nobody see sense?" he muttered darkly.
"You can't blame them for being suspicious," she said. "Humans haven't given them much reason to trust us."
Dredd nodded unhappily at the truth of the remark. "Until we get feedback from the PSU and the forensic team, there's not much we can do here. I'll call the sector House. No doubt Caine has a new assignment ready for us by now."
Miller noticed a silver hovercam floating at the edge of the cordon. She went over to investigate and found Riff Maltin leaning over a barricade for a better view. "What are you doing here?"
"Where the news is, I follow!" he replied. "Quite a blaze. I only caught the end of it but it was still good footage. Any hot tips you can give me? Cause of the fire, how many fatalities, that kind of thing?"
"Hundreds have just died in that building!"
"Yeah, what a break - and on my first day too!" Riff smiled happily. Miller clamped one hand over the lens of his hovercam, and at the same time her other hand grabbed him by the throat.
"Xenophobes call the R'qeen 'vultures' because they feed on rotting flesh, but stomm like you are the real vultures, feeding on pain and misery!" She threw Maltin to the ground. "Now get out of my sight, you little drokker, before I run you in!"
Riff protested to the bystanders around him. "Judicial brutality! You all saw that, you're all my witnesses. Judicial brutality!"
Miller glared at the crowd, which shrunk back. The citizens nervously hid their faces in the darkness. "Anybody here just see anything?" Miller demanded, but nobody spoke up. "Thought not." She sneered down at Maltin, and let the hovercam float free again. "I'd think twice before you shout judicial brutality, Maltin. The Justice Department does not look kindly upon citizens who make false accusations against its law enforcers."
"Miller!" Dredd was shouting to her from his Lawmaster. "We're needed elsewhere!" She nodded and strode back to her motorcycle.
"Where are we going?"
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," Dredd scowled.
"Try me."
"It seems we're providing extra security for an ugly pageant at Sid Harmor Hippodrome."
Miller smiled despite herself. "Grud on a greenie - what next?"
22:00
Carla Prins would have been considered one of the world's greatest beauties if she had been born at any other time in any other city on the planet. She had the physique and stunning good looks that would reduce most men to gibbering wrecks and sends bitter shards of envy and hatred through the soul of any woman she encountered. Carla was tall and slim, every part of her body in perfect proportion. The crowning glory was her face, with luscious lips, a cute upturned nose and eyes that hinted at pleasures beyond imagining. By rights Carla should have been celebrated and adored.
But Carla had been born in Mega-City One just three days after Otto Sump appeared on Sob Story. Sump was perhaps the ugliest man alive, with a face so hideous he had been fired from his job as rat scarer after protests by animal rights campaigners. Otto had then appeared on the tri-D hit show Sob Story, pleading his case before the Big Meg's viewers. The response was overwhelming and within days Sump became a billionaire thanks to all the donations he received. He was a cause célébre. He used this new-found wealth to launch a series of ever more bizarre business ventures, that cashed in on the citizens' mania for crazes.
In a metropolis where fewer than one in seven people had a job, boredom was a universal problem. The populace responded by embracing whatever outlandish concept caught its fancy. And millions of them joined in with every single fad. Sump Industries responded to that demand, most famously with its line of Get Ugly cosmetics. Such was the impact of Otto's first tri-D appearance that thousands of citizens wanted to replicate his appalling visage. Beautiful was out, ugly was in. The more pitiful your face, the more popular you were. Overnight the fashion industry was revolutionised: distorte
d noses, pus-riddled skin and unsightly facial hair became all the rage.
Otto had since died but his influence remained. Sump Industries continued his crusade to celebrate the foulest of features, smells and sights. The centrepiece of this campaign was the Miss Mega-City Ugly Pageant, an annual event staged at Sid Harmor Hippodrome to find the ugliest looking woman in the Big Meg. Unsightly juves from all sectors of the city competed against each other for the prestigious title and a lifetime supply of Sump Industries products like Pimple-On, Skank-Breath-U-Like and I Can't Believe It's Not Pus.
For Carla Prins, being one of the world's greatest beauties was of no use in such a city. Her incredible good looks and flawless skin had been the source of shame and humiliation all her life. At school, the other students had taunted Carla, calling her cruel nicknames like Spotless and Pretty. Each night she cried herself to sleep, praying for a pimple or cold sore to form on her face. But every morning the horror staring back at her in the mirror was the same; she was beautiful and there was nothing she could do about it. Too poor to afford any of the products that might artificially render her ugly, Carla retreated into herself and became ugly on the inside instead.
She made contact with other beautiful women and formed a pressure group - Pretty People Opposed to Ugly Stereotypes. PPOTUS developed its own constitution, registered as a political activist alliance and staged demonstrations. At first these were low-key affairs: they disrupted the ugly products department at Bloomingmacy's or painted the moustaches off billboard posters of ugly supermodels such as Caitlin Lichen and Sofia Dull.
