The car was stationary when he turned onto a boulevard between Len McCluskey and Russ Meyer blocks, idling. He radioed in his position to Control, then hit the siren, a single whoop that resounded between the buildings, far louder down here than it would be among the hubbub of the city proper: a piercing, mournful wail. He pulled alongside the driver’s side and tapped the mirrored window.
It buzzed down, and the meathead behind the wheel looked up at him impassively, a wiry, hollowed-out enforcer that had had cybernetic replacement surgery to his lower jaw, scar tissue stretching up to his right eye. Something had taken a chunk out of him at some point. Dredd felt his trigger finger twitch: he knew a dangerous creep when he saw one, and the guy was eyeing him with little fear. This was a career criminal—unlike the blissed-out organ-couriers, he’d have no compunction about killing. Just those first four seconds before either of them spoke was enough for Dredd to assess and strategise.
“Help you, Judge?” The voice was like gravel in a garbage-grinder.
“Turn the engine off, citizen.” Languorously, the creep did so. “Ask you what your business is here?”
“Just dropped off my client. I was asked to wait while he visited his associates.” He nodded beyond Dredd’s shoulder at Meyer, behind him. The Judge tilted his head, following where the driver had indicated: the block looked as dead and unforgiving as the rest.
“Your client?”
“Mr Gilpig.”
The name didn’t ring a bell. Dredd hadn’t been on the streets long enough to become familiar with all the underworld movers and shakers, though new ones could crop up overnight, especially if there was a power vacuum to fill. Local knowledge would come with experience. The Strickland estate was one area that was particularly hazy.
“And who’s he going to meet?”
The punk shrugged and smiled. “I’m just the ferryman.” He leant back and rested an elbow on the window frame with studied nonchalance that irritated Dredd as much as it was unquestionably supposed to.
“Out of the vehicle, citizen.”
He sighed and clambered from the car as Dredd dismounted his bike. He was bigger than the Judge has assumed; he had a good four or five inches on him, and what Dredd had mistaken for scrawn was lean muscle. He could’ve injured his face playing aeroball, he had the physique for it.
“Turn around, hands on the roof.” The creep slowly complied. Dredd patted him down, pulled a snubnose from a shoulder holster—“I’ve got a licence for that,” the driver said without looking round—and wrenched a wallet from his back pocket, which he flipped open, glancing at the ID within. “Control, what we got on a Buzz Calhoun, 1154/67 Emily Pankhurst?”
“In and out of the juve cubes: gang rumbles, mainly,” came the reply on his comm after a moment’s pause. “Did a five-stretch for assault, 2072. Received an extra year for knifing an inmate while inside—Bill Bigley, the Night Glider Murderer. No outstanding warrants, been clean since then.”
So much for the aeroball theory. Dredd tossed the wallet onto the car roof just beyond Calhoun’s reach, tucked the snubnose in his belt. “You know it’s illegal for a convicted felon to possess a firearm?”
“That’s not what the guy who sold it to me said. Anyway, Mr Gilpig insisted it was a, y’know... requirement o’ the job.”
“Ignorance of the law is no excuse. Neither is incitement.”
“Incitement?” Calhoun shot a look sharply over his shoulder.
“You drive a Foord Optimum down here onto Strickland, you’re asking to be jacked. That’s incitement to commit a crime, punishable by six months.”
“Hey, whaddya think I got the gun for? It’s a preventative measure. An’ who exactly am I meant to incitin’?”
“You think a set of wheels like this would go unnoticed?” Dredd had no doubt multiple sets of eyes were watching them from many different apartments right now. “I hadn’t come along, the natives would’ve stripped it in five minutes. Let me guess: Gilpig likes to make a statement, right?”
“I s’pose. I only worked for him for the last coupla months.” He tried to turn around and Dredd shoved him back against the car. “C’mon, man, gimme a break. I’m just a chauffeur; I drive the boss to where he wants to go. I ain’t doin’ no harm to no-one.”
“Which makes a change, regular cube-bunny like you,” the Judge remarked, then unhooked a pair of cuffs and slapped on them on Calhoun’s wrists, to which he groaned and swore under his breath. “A year for the possession with intent—let’s call it eighteen months, all in.” Dredd spun him around, his prisoner glaring at him. “Reckon I’d like to have a word with your employer, too, when he deigns to show his face.” The creep didn’t reply, just breathed furiously through his nose. “In fact,” Dredd added, “I’ve got grounds to conduct a search of your vehicle right now. You want to save me some time, let me know if there’s any more contraband inside?” No answer. “Well, then.”
Dredd yanked him to one side so he was standing next to the Lawmaster, hands bound behind his back, and walked around the front of the limo to the passenger door, which he threw open. It was spotless inside, the cream plastex interior buffed until it shone. He pulled out the glove compartment and a couple of drawers hidden beneath the seats, but they were conspicuously empty; it was if the car had just rolled off the factory production line. He remembered when he’d called in its registration it had come back as unlisted, which suggested it may well have been driven straight from a showroom. Untraceable, clean... Dredd didn’t like it.
“Keep everything spick and span, huh?” he said to Calhoun, who was watching him run his gauntleted hands along the dashboard and between the sun-visors. Dredd cast a glance at his prisoner then unsheathed his daystick and began to sweep it over the upholstery, poking the end into the soft padding at intervals. Nothing. “Let’s try the trunk.”
He strode to the rear of the limo and popped the back open. Same story: vacuumed methodically, spare tyre still gleaming. He prodded around, but couldn’t feel anything untoward. Except... the polished rubber betrayed a flaw—he caught a glimpse in the reflection, a tiny tear in the lining behind the lip of the trunk that he wouldn’t have seen otherwise. He reached in and felt a flap of material had come loose; he pushed deeper with his fingers and a small oblong-shaped object dropped into his palm. Holding it into the light, he saw it was a plain, unmarked zipdrive, the kind you could buy at any mega-mart. He twisted it between thumb and forefinger in front of Calhoun.
“Care to explain this?” The creep shrugged, and the Judge glanced again at the memory stick before placing it in one of his pouches. “The less you talk, the harder it’ll go for you. The teks’ll soon take it apart, make no mistake about that. Don’t think we won’t discover its secrets.” Calhoun just watched Dredd as he drew nearer. “Control—”
With frightening speed, the perp impossibly brought both bound arms over his head and lunged at the Judge, wrapping the cuffs around his throat and pulling tight. Dredd stumbled back and tried to shake him off, choking as the monofibre restrainers cut deep into his neck, but Calhoun was seemingly equally as strong as he was, capable of maintaining the pressure. Stars danced before his eyes, and raw panic flashbulbed in his head before the training reasserted itself.
Dredd slammed his elbow into his attacker’s midriff once, then again and again, until he felt the cuffs slacken slightly, then smashed the back of his helmet against the bridge of Calhoun’s nose. He toppled backwards, bringing Dredd with him as both men crashed to the ground. The Judge managed to get his hands under Calhoun’s and push upwards, easing his head under the creep’s grip, then swung round and delivered a piledriver blow to his jaw, his fist skating off the metal casing. The punk had the temerity to grin before lacing his fingers together and punching Dredd in the side of the skull; his helmet softened much of the blow, but there was still enough force to send him tumbling to the side. His ears rang. He hadn’t received a strike like that since his cadet days when a rubber bullet ricocheted off his
visor. Then, he’d spent several hours in the infirmary with concussion. Now, he was outside the training arena and fighting for his life with no available back-up.
“Control—” he started again, but Calhoun was up on his feet and brought a boot crashing down on the lawman’s head again, snapping his comm mic. All he heard was static, until it was broken by the unmistakeable crack of a rib buckling when Calhoun stomped on him a second time. He rolled, felt the snubnose in his belt, and reached for it, bringing it to bear before the perp punted it from his hand, the weapon skittering across the sked and into the shadows.
Calhoun grabbed hold of his own right hand with his left and twisted, his right arm detaching at the shoulder—it was cybernetic too, the joint popping clean from its metal housing. Gruddammit, Dredd thought, admonishing himself; he should’ve checked his prisoner more thoroughly. He’d screwed up big-time here. The creep put his foot on his right wrist and pulled, the hand unlocking so it was free of the cuffs. He advanced on the Judge.
Dredd drew his Lawgiver and fired from his sitting position; the SE slug passed though Calhoun’s abdomen, but it barely slowed him. He aimed for the head and pulled the trigger again, splintering a section of his metalwork. By that point, the perp was on him, his left hand closing over the gun, and thrusting it towards Dredd’s chin. His strength was incredible, like nothing the lawman had encountered before; pain shot through his arm as the bones in his fingers fractured, Calhoun squeezing harder until the Lawgiver was released from his grip. Calhoun flipped it and pistol-whipped the Judge repeatedly: muscles in his cheek tore and cartilage ground. Blood filled his mouth. Dredd’s left hand went for his boot-knife and stabbed it into the creep’s thigh, which was evidently still fleshy, as a crimson fountain followed when he pulled the blade free. Calhoun grunted, and Dredd drove it up to the hilt again, the rockcrete beneath them now slick with both of their blood.
The punk changed tactic and grabbed Dredd’s injured hand and wrapped it around the Lawgiver butt, threading his finger into the trigger guard. He pushed the barrel backwards, aiming it at the lawman, and fired: the first shot ploughed through his shoulderpad. Calhoun pushed further, and Dredd resisted with all his might, but felt his energy sapping. The second shot entered the shoulder just above his clavicle. He grimaced; he’d taken a bullet before, but never at such close range. His skin felt as if was aflame. Fear, very human and very real, rose up in him—these could be his last seconds on Earth. All that had been invested in him, those precious genes that were the building blocks of justice, was about to be rent asunder.
Here.
Now.
The gun barrel was centimetres from his carotid artery. It was game over if he didn’t act now. Dredd twisted the knife still sticking out from Calhoun’s thigh until his attacker roared, then, using his foot, flicked towards him the perp’s detached right hand, lying nearby. He snatched it up in his left fist, and slammed it onto the Lawgiver’s grip, relaxing his own as much as could even as he pushed up and squeezed the trigger. It was enough. The palm-reader detected an unauthorised user at the exact same moment that Calhoun realised what Dredd had done.
The bullet seared past his throat and the gun exploded between them, the perp taking the brunt of the blast. Calhoun was blown backwards, his left arm now a smouldering stump, his face shredded. Still, he was attempting to lever himself up. Dredd, vision swimming, barely conscious, crawled the couple of feet between them, retrieved the knife with a hard tug, and without a word drove it into the punk’s neck. Calhoun let loose a gasp, and was then silent.
Dredd knelt for a moment, swaying; then he collapsed onto his side and closed his eyes.
Three
11.02 am
JOE.
11.03 am
WHEN THEY’D HEARD the explosion, Dax couldn’t not check it out. It wasn’t, of course, the first time their walls had been rattled—something went off on Strickland, with varying degrees of seriousness, at least every month or so—but a good solid boom like that one had a magnetic attraction to her. Mohawked head would tilt upwards, brow furrowed, you could damn near see her ears twitch—she’d been known to pick up on a fireball blossoming three blocks away. She claimed she wasn’t a pyro—she certainly wasn’t any more likely to set something alight than the rest of them—but it had special fascination for her, definitely. She’d sit and watch the flames lick the sky until the jays arrived to put it out.
The rest of them had followed her lead as soon as she’d leapt up and crossed to the window; Dax was kind of their leader without anyone ever saying so. She just had the spark, spoke the loudest, probably was the smartest. The others—Bonedog, Sheema and Juice—stopped divvying out the tobacco they’d scored from the Monk and watched her press her face to the glass, before scrambling to their feet themselves.
“Badge down there,” she muttered as they joined her at her shoulder. “Looks like his gun blew.”
“Jeez,” Sheema breathed. “He dead?”
“He ain’t standin’, that’s for sure.”
“Bike’s still in one piece,” Bonedog said, eyes gleaming. “Furies are gonna be all over that in a micro-second.”
“C’mon.” Dax turned and headed for the door. “I wanna go see.”
“Could be it’s called in,” Sheema protested. “Helmets could be just around the corner.”
“Then we gotta be quick,” she replied from the other side of the doorway. They could already hear her boots slapping down the corridor toward the els. The three exchanged a glance, shrugged, and went after her, like they had a choice in the matter.
They caught up with her at ground level, spying on the scene from the corner of their block. Smoke rose from a second blackened figure splayed near the Judge, who looked very dead. The bluejay himself was lying in a spreading pool of blood, twisted over on his side, his helmet dented as if someone had taken a crowbar to his skull.
“What do you reckon?” Juice whispered.
“I reckon we strip the wheels fast as we can,” Bonedog answered. “Engine parts, ammo—all worth top cred.”
“Ain’t those things protected?” Sheema murmured. “Y’know... self-defence?”
Bonedog started to respond but Dax was already edging forward. Sheema grabbed her shoulder to pull her back, but she shrugged it off. She took another few steps, then seemed to stumble over something. She looked down, crouched, and picked up a handgun that had been obscured by the building’s shadow. Turning, she showed it to the rest of the gang.
“Holy drokk,” Juice exclaimed. “It loaded?”
Dax shrugged, flipped open the chamber, squinted inside then nodded.
“Holy drokk,” Juice said again, grinning. “Fun we can have with that.”
“Time’s wastin’,” Bonedog complained, motioning to move. “We wanna take what we can off that bike, we gotta do it now.” He started to follow Dax, but she’d turned back towards the Judge, sort of bending slightly to study him, waving one hand at Bonedog to stop him coming any closer. He paused.
Dax took another couple of steps, the snubnose still held her hand, now only half a dozen feet from where the prone jay was curled. She shuffled a little nearer then stopped dead when she saw movement: the Judge was breathing shallowly, the heel of one boot scraping on the rockcrete. She glanced back at her friends, redoubled her grip on the weapon, and just as she peered down once more the lawman rolled suddenly onto his back with a pained sound. Dax visibly jumped but stood her ground.
The Judge arched his back, and appeared to look straight at her; she couldn’t tell for sure because his eyes were hidden behind that shattered visor, but his head was now facing her, and in that moment she felt frozen, held within his gaze. His blood-flecked lower face scowled as if he was trying to say something, or he might simply have been struggling for breath. He was about the same age as they were, she realised. Still he regarded her, his left hand clutching a knife and flexing around the handle. Dax retreated slowly, then turned to usher the other three back towards the b
lock entrance.
“What the hell...?” Bonedog enquired testily, casting an eye over his shoulder at the scene, the jay now attempting to rise. All that primo scrap was there for the plucking, and the badge didn’t look like he’d put up much of a fight; Resyk fodder, most likely. He chose not to resist, though; he knew well enough not to argue with Dax.
“We wanna be somewhere else,” was all she’d say, tucking the gun into the waistband of her pants and pushing him through the door.
11.04 am
CONTROL OPERATIVE OAKLAND called her supervisor over, swivelling in her chair to watch as he threaded his way unsteadily through the banks of monitors. The hubbub was ever-present, rank upon rank of her colleagues on either side stretching from wall to wall of the vast room, all dealing with thousands of street officers’ requests for info, pleas for assistance, and detailing perps’ sentences before pick-up, so when he stood at her side she had to raise her voice to make sure she heard him. The white-haired Davidson—a contemporary of Fargo’s, now frankly showing his age—bent a little, turning his head so she spoke directly into his ear, a sanctimonious affectation that never failed to irritate.
“Had an interrupted communication logged at eleven ayem, sir. Been trying to return hails for the last two minutes, but no response.”
“The badge?”
“Joseph Dredd, sir. The system shows he’s red-flagged—any unusual circumstances to be reported, Chief Judge’s orders.”
“I’m aware of policy, Oakland,” Davidson replied testily. “What was his situation?”
“Radioed that he was investigating a suspect vehicle on the Strickland estate, Sector 9, at”—she scrolled down her screen—“ten forty-six. Then thirteen minutes later, a one-second burst of traffic. Fifty-seven seconds after that, another. He called in both times using his unique transponder; since then he hasn’t answered.”
Down and Out Page 3
