Rico Dredd: The Titan Years

by Michael Carroll

  So you act, because inaction is death, if not of the body, then of the soul.

  I chose to act. I weighed up the options and the possibilities and the risks, and even as Sears was saying the words “Governor Dodge will be informed of the truth,” I was starting to move.

  Four steps to the left, keeping watch on the marines. I couldn’t see their eyes behind those opaque faceplates, but I could read their body language: soldiers are trained to point their guns at the most obvious and immediate threat. Even when they’re officially not targeting someone, their guns will have a bias in that direction.

  All three of them had their weapons angled towards Armando. Understandable, because as far as they were concerned, Armando was the most dangerous person in the room. They clearly weren’t taking into account that the only reason he was in the room was because someone had captured him. A wise soldier should conclude that maybe the captor was a bigger threat than the captive.

  My step put me directly behind Kellan Wightman. His impressive height and build almost completely hid me from the marines’ view, and his mass was vital for my plan.

  I grabbed the back of his collar with my left hand, and his waistband with my right, and pushed hard.

  I’m not as strong as some prisoners, but I’m no shrimp. I pushed Wightman hard enough and fast enough that he didn’t even have time to react as he stumbled forward towards the marines.

  They took half a second to realise what was happening: a large prisoner was rushing at them.

  Another half-second to swing their guns in his direction.

  But that was all I needed.

  I pushed Wightman and dropped, ducked down to the side.

  The marines opened fire and their automatic weapons ripped twin tracks of five-millimetre rounds across his body.

  I hit the ground and lunged forward, crashing into the legs of the marine on Sears’ right.

  The marine went down, his gun still spraying the room—but I couldn’t let myself think about that. We both crashed to the floor and I reached up and snatched the handgun from Sears’ belt. Their armour was bullet-proof, I knew that, but at this range even a handgun could get through, if it hit the right spot: the elbow and knee joints... and directly under the helmet.

  Two shots into the underside of the marine’s jaw and the inside of his visor was red.

  But Sears was no slacker. He swung his automatic at me and would certainly have blown me away if Corporal Vine hadn’t slammed into the third marine—Malaki—knocking him against Sears. I swear I felt one of Sears’ rounds skim across my back.

  Vine ripped Malaki’s gun from his hands, but Sears was recovering, swearing as he again tried to aim.

  That was when Zera Kurya lunged at him and headbutted him square in the faceplate—that had to hurt—hard enough to knock him back out into the corridor.

  I still had Sears’ pistol: two point-blank shots to Malaki’s right knee and he was down, screaming.

  Then he slid into the room and I turned to see Corporal Armando dragging him in by the foot. “Get Sears!” Armando barked.

  Kurya threw herself after him, using my back as a springboard, and again crashed into Sears, slamming him against the far wall.

  I’d never seen Zera Kurya in action. I’d heard about her hand-to-hand skills, of course, but to actually watch her fighting was a unique experience.

  Sears had fifteen, maybe twenty, kilogrammes on her, was wearing full body armour and was armed. She had her fists.

  Her first punch cracked his helmet’s visor and knocked his head back. The second punch was aimed at his throat, and snapped his head forward again.

  A knee to the midriff, then she grabbed his right arm and hoisted him over her shoulder, slamming him face-first into the ground.

  She pulled the rifle from his grip, jammed the muzzle under the backplate of Sears’ armour and emptied the clip.

  By the time she straightened up, blood was seeping from every joint in his armour.

  Next to me, Vine was staring in shock. I could see she knew we’d done the right thing, but Sears and the others had been her colleagues, of a sort, and she’d already lost thirty-four others that day.

  “They’re going to kill us for this,” she said to Armando. “At the very least.”

  I said, “They won’t. They’ll never find out.”

  On Copus’s instructions, Sloane and McConnach started to remove the marines’ armour and take their weapons. That was when I realised that Malaki was dead too.

  I’d only shot him in the knee. Armando had broken his neck, barehanded.

  But still, the others were looking at me as though I were the monster, rather than the man who’d just saved them.

  Vine had Malaki’s assault rifle aimed at my face. “Hand over the gun, Dredd.”

  “Not a chance. I just saved all of your—”

  Armando snatched the gun from my hand before I even noticed him starting to move.

  Takenaga said, “Jovus, Rico... Wightman.”

  I said, “What? It had to be done. They would have killed all of us.”

  “You used him as a decoy.”

  I nodded. “I know. And if I hadn’t, we’d all be dead. Wightman was going to die anyway.” I didn’t see the problem. “You know why he was here, don’t you? He was an arsonist. Put the lives of millions of cits at risk in Mega-City Two. Four of them died. And he was absolutely unrepentant. You know that, Takenaga—you ran his counselling sessions!”

  Sloane said, “He was your friend.”

  I turned to him. “Doesn’t change anything. Wightman was scum among scum and you know that. Everyone knows that. He knew it. The only reason he wasn’t executed when they caught him was because they need strong drokkers like him in this place. Now, thanks to him, we’ve got a chance that we didn’t have before.” I looked down at Wightman’s mangled body. “There was no way we were all going to get out of this alive. So well done, Kellan. You became a hero at the last minute, even if you didn’t know you were going to do it.”

  I stepped back, away from the still-spreading pool of Kellan Wightman’s blood, and looked around at the others. “Are we going to spend the rest of the day debating the moral issues here, or are we going to deal with the actual threat?”

  Copus glanced around the room. “Three down. So that’s eight left, plus D’Angelo. Pity their armour is custom-made. Okay... Takenaga and Sloane, you’ll stay here, guard Kurya and Dredd. Lock the room behind us.”

  I put my hand out to stop him. “No. You don’t have the skills or the experience for this. We need to move fast and you’re wounded. It should be me, Takenaga, Kurya, Armando and Vine. Sloane and McConnach are too slow and too soft.”

  McConnach said, “Mister Copus, we can’t give guns to prisoners! Seriously, that’s insane! Look what this drokker just did to his best friend!”

  Copus stared at me through narrowed but unblinking eyes for a moment. “They’re not getting guns. But Rico Dredd has got a will to live that dwarfs any of ours—that’s what’s going to get him out of this. And we don’t have time to argue. You do this right, Dredd. Do we have an understanding?”

  “You can count on me, boss. You know that. I—”

  “Shut up. We’re not friends.” He turned to Takenaga, and jabbed an index finger at me. “This drokker gives you any reason to doubt him—any reason at all—shoot him in the head. You’re in command here, Kalai. Not him.”

  Takenaga nodded. “Acknowledged.”

  Vine handed a communicator to Copus and tossed one of the marines’ rifles to Takenaga. “The walls dampen the gunfire but they’ll be expected to check in soon. We need to move.”

  Thirteen

  VINE AND ARMANDO led the way, rapidly swapping positions as they made their way along the steel-walled corridor, checking each room as they passed.

  Takenaga followed, her bottom lip firmly clamped between her teeth and sweat on her forehead. I didn’t know much about her background before she left Hondo City, but I’d al
ways assumed she’d been a Judge. Right now, I wasn’t so sure about that. She did not look comfortable. She was holding the assault rifle like it was poisonous.

  Kurya and I held back. We’d each had similar training to the marines, but this was their territory, not ours, and we were unarmed. I intended to rectify that at the earliest possible opportunity, even though—as we’d already learned—a standard assault weapon wasn’t effective against the marines’ armour at much more than a metre.

  Ahead, Armando silently signalled the all-clear, and he and Vine moved on.

  Kurya gestured for me to go ahead.

  I said, “No, you next.”

  She shook her head. “You still have Wightman’s blood on you. Literally. I do not trust you.”

  “I’m unarmed,” I said as I moved on.

  “A weapon is not required for strangulation.”

  “Paranoid,” I muttered. Then, over my shoulder, I added, “I had no choice, Zera. They were about to kill all of us. You’d have done the same thing.”

  “I would not. You betrayed a fellow prisoner, Rico. If we survive this and return to the prison, you will have a target on your forehead like you have never known. You’ll be dead in a day.”

  “I don’t care,” I said. “I made the only logical choice.”

  “You could have picked one of the guards!” I’d never heard Kurya so close to losing her temper.

  Takenaga turned back and glared at us, mouthing the words, “Shut up!”

  We resumed following them.

  Kurya was right. I could have chosen a guard. Sloane was the obvious choice, except that while he wasn’t the only one who knew how to drive the bus—I could have driven it myself—no one else knew the way back to the prison.

  The next obvious choice was Copus, but the position was all wrong: he’d been sitting with his back to the wall. No way to get behind him.

  And Takenaga and McConnach were out for reasons of bulk, or lack thereof. It’s hard to hide behind someone smaller than you.

  So, yes, Kellan Wightman had died and that was sad on some levels; I’m sure that in most cases he would have had my back. But let’s not forget that he was an arsonist, and guilty of manslaughter. Not to mention a racist: he despised the Fornies—the Californian Secessionists—with a fervour usually reserved for the sort of preacher you see on Sunday morning TV broadcasting from a mega-church.

  He was not a nice guy, that’s what I’m saying.

  And it was also true that when, or if, we got back to the prison, word would get out about what I’d done, and my life would be a living hell. Every prisoner in the place was going to be out for my blood.

  Except, of course, that I was now the only person who knew where Wightman had stashed his barrels of booze. Alcohol can be a great bargaining chip if used wisely.

  Vine was crouched next to an open doorway, with Takenaga right behind her and Armando pressed flat against the opposite wall, his gun raised. Vine beckoned me closer, then whispered, “Corridor leads to the port stairwell... They’re waiting for us.”

  “You’re certain?”

  “Heard the crackle of a radio.”

  “Armando should hang back. I’m guessing that he’s the only reason they haven’t rushed us. Without him, the colonel’s entire project is a failure.”

  Then a man’s voice, far too close for comfort, said, “You got that right, Dredd.”

  Vine’s eyes widened, as I’m sure mine did too.

  The voice was coming from the other side of the doorway, no more than a few centimetres away. If the wall hadn’t been there, we’d have been leaning against each other.

  Armando called out, “Who are you?”

  “Lancaster. I’ve assumed command. I’m guessing that Sears, Malaki and Pohle are out of commission.”

  I said, “If you mean ‘dead,’ then yes.”

  “Sears was dumb to forget that the prisoners are former Judges,” Lancaster said.

  Vine said, “We have a situation here that can only end with all of your people dead, or all of ours. There’s no middle ground.”

  “It would seem so. Vine, this facility has already been compromised. If we have to, we’ll pull the plug on everything. We’ll write off Armando. Colonel D’Angelo’s not happy about that idea, but he understands. We’ve already lost so much. The sunk-cost fallacy can’t continue indefinitely. Sooner or later, you’ve got to admit defeat. He’s approaching that point now.”

  I said, “You don’t have to do this, Lancaster.”

  “In the marines we’re trained to follow orders without asking questions.”

  “In the Department of Justice we were trained to always ask questions.”

  “Is that so? Look where that’s gotten you.”

  Armando said, “So I surrender to you, and you kill everyone here, or we continue to hold out and you kill us all anyway.”

  “Oh, it’s—” Lancaster stopped, and we all heard footsteps approaching. “He’s here.”

  We held our breath for a few seconds, then heard Colonel D’Angelo say, “Enough. I don’t want to do this, but...” Something clicked on the other side, and the door silently and smoothly slid closed.

  Most of the door was thick synthiglass, certainly bulletproof. The colonel now stood behind it, looking in at us.

  “Door’s locked from this side. Former First Lieutenant Vine knows this base. She’ll confirm that there is no other way for you to reach us.”

  We all stood up, and he peered at us one by one, finishing with Armando. “You killed thirty-four people this morning, corporal. Thirty-four of your own colleagues.”

  Armando took a step closer to the door. “You’re the one who turned me into a weapon.”

  “Perhaps. But I’m not the one who pulled the trigger. You did that.”

  I said, “So we have a stalemate.”

  Colonel D’Angelo smiled. “Not really, Dredd. It’s not stalemate when one player holds all the cards.”

  “Cards? I was talking about chess. What the hell sort of game you playing?” I asked. I was standing beside and a little behind Takenaga, and she really was focussed on the colonel. “Whatever. Here’s my move.” Looking back now, it was shockingly easy to pull the gun from Takenaga’s grip and press its muzzle against the back of Armando’s neck.

  He jumped, as did everyone else except for the colonel.

  “You let us go or your experiment here is over forever.”

  “And when he’s dead, so are you.”

  “Right,” I said. “Now, that’s what I mean by a stalemate. Neither of us can make a move.”

  “Unless we change the rules.”

  I nodded. “Now you’re getting it.”

  “No, you’re the one who’s not getting it.” D’Angelo stepped to the side a little to get a better view of the corporal. “You don’t know why you went into a frenzy this morning, do you, Armando? You don’t know what it was that set you off.” Colonel D’Angelo took a long, deep breath and let it out slowly, and it seemed to me that he was coming to a decision about something.

  And then he said, “Doctor Riahi didn’t only modify your skin, soldier. She reprogrammed the primitive centres of your brain with something she called the Berserker Protocol. You automatically respond to two key phrases. One to activate the protocol, the other to dismiss it. Only Riahi and I knew those phrases.”

  “That’s what happened? She triggered the frenzy?”

  D’Angelo said, “She did. The CCTV footage of the attack is of low quality, so there’s no way to be certain, but I believe that Riahi wasn’t awake at the time. She was talking in her sleep.”

  Armando swayed, and looked as though he was about to collapse. “No. No, that’s not true.”

  “It is,” the colonel said. “You’re not a man anymore, Armando, you’re a weapon. You said it yourself. You’re a weapon, and you were triggered by accident.” He shrugged. “A misfire. Another failure of the design team. Or another lesson learned, if you prefer. But I do still want to bri
ng you in. It’ll be difficult without Riahi’s expertise, but we will attempt to adjust your programming so that it won’t happen again. At least, not so easily.”

  Vine called out, “If you can do that, then you can probably remove the programming too.”

  D’Angelo nodded. “That’s possible, but not what we want. Corporal Armando, we didn’t spend billions of credits just to end up with a man who used to be an unstoppable killer. You understand that, don’t you? Now, you will kill First Lieutenant Vine and your new friends here. And then we can clean up the last traces of this mess.”

  “I won’t—”

  D’Angelo said, “Unfettered Hematophagy.”

  I realised what the colonel was doing even before he had finished speaking the trigger-phrase.

  My gun was still pressed against the back of Corporal John Armando’s head. I pulled the trigger.

  I was still too late.

  Fourteen

  ARMANDO DODGED THE bullet. At point-blank range. It sounds impossible, I know, but trust me: I was there.

  I had the muzzle of my gun pressed against the back of his neck, at the base of his skull, and as I squeezed the trigger he moved to the left, spinning at the same time, flicking his left arm up.

  By the time the round exited the barrel, Armando had both moved out of its path and knocked my arm with his left elbow.

  As the bullet ricocheted off the wall next to the door, Armando jabbed the heel of his right hand into my sternum, and pulled the gun from my grip with his left hand. And I thought I’d been slick, when I’d grabbed the gun from Takenaga.

  I crashed back into the wall behind me, but I wasn’t winded or wounded—I wasn’t out of the fight yet.

  In the second or so it took me to recover, Armando had already disarmed Vine and was slamming my gun into Takenaga’s stomach.

  Armando tossed both guns aside, grabbed hold of Kurya’s arm and was pulling her around, putting her between himself and me. Clearly, in this berserker state, he either didn’t remember what had happened with Wightman or he didn’t care. A sharp, hard punch to Kurya’s face disoriented her, allowing him to manipulate her almost as though she were a plastic mannequin.