Swine Fever

by Andrew Cartmel

  "Just take up positions and be ready for anything." She moved to sit beside Theo, pressing herself snugly in the corner of the back seat with her right thigh pressed against the cool surfaces of the oxygen cylinders. The other two Judges, after much fussing, chose seats on either side of the wagon just in front of her.

  O'Mannion sighed. Through the bulletproof window next to her, she could see the pitted, oil-spattered concrete walls of the vehicle pool begin to drop away. The patrol wagon was lifting off the ground. It rose and then stopped a metre or so above the floor. There was a gentle rumble of acceleration and the concrete walls began to shift, floating past them as the bus surged forward.

  "I guess even a vegetable has some uses," cackled Darrid. He glanced back at the comatose prisoner in his white, high-tech coffin. O'Mannion gestured for Darrid to keep his eyes ahead. She surmised that any attack would be coming from that direction.

  Their bright orange patrol wagon floated under the harsh glare of the lights in the big concrete room, drifting above the oil-stained floor of the vehicle pool. Its shadow crawled forward, picking up speed and moving towards the three cruciform exit gates in the far wall. They were leaving the steel and glass sanctuary of Justice Central to fly out over the streets of the city. The four sliding sections of one of the gates began to groan open, revealing a mauve night sky and the white sizzle of neon beyond. A warm gritty wind blew in, spattering the windows of the wagon with particle pollutants. The vehicle rose gently up on the swell of the buffeting dirty air, then moved forward again.

  "Where are the Karst sisters?" said Carver. "Shouldn't they be here with us?"

  "They're on compassionate leave," said O'Mannion. "They've gone to the swimming pool."

  "The swimming pool?" asked Darrid.

  "It's therapy for her hand."

  "Therapy? Won't her hand rust?" said Carver.

  "No, she's got a special glove." To O'Mannion they sounded like two old women gossips.

  Darrid was saying, "Did you say her sister went too? To the swimming pool?"

  "Compassionate leave," explained Carver.

  "Both of them?" Darrid's moustache twitched with indignation. "I can understand sending the short, fat one. You know, the one with the metal hand."

  "Esma," said Carver in a tremulous voice.

  "Yeah, that's her. Never can shut up for a second," babbled Darrid. "Just can't stop talking. Loves the sound of her own voice. But anyway, I suppose she deserves some time off. She can go to the swimming pool and splash around and take it easy. I mean she lost the gruddamned thing twice. Had her hand ripped out of its socket with blood spurting everywhere. And it happened twice."

  O'Mannion wondered if Darrid would ever stop talking. The bus eased forward, leaving the safety of Justice Central to ride the dirty air over the dangerous streets.

  "But anyway, that other one," continued Darrid, "the tall skinny one who never says anything. Called Tit-Wrists or something."

  "Tykrist," said Carver in an offended tone. He seemed sensitive on the subject of the sisters. O'Mannion wondered idly if he had a crush on one of them. Or, she repressed a shudder at the thought, both of them. The wagon rose gently on an updraft and the glass canyon of the Mega-City dipped majestically on either side. The great cruciform gate was biting inexorably shut behind them like a slow, terrible mouth. The bus started forward at a smooth speed under Dredd's expert control.

  "Yes, Tykrist, that's the one," droned Darrid. "Why the hell are they sending her to the swimming pool? She didn't lose her hand."

  "She's providing emotional support for her sister," said Carver, offended again.

  "Emotional support?" shrilled Darrid. "What a load of hooey! If you ask me, deep down, all siblings actually hate one another. All this pretence of affection is just a cover for unholy blood-curdling rivalry."

  O'Mannion leaned forward. "Do you have any brothers or sisters, Darrid?"

  "No. I'm an only child, so believe me I know what I'm talking about."

  "Heads up," said Dredd suddenly on the intercom. "We have company."

  A lean shadow swung alongside the wagon, flashing past the window beside O'Mannion. It was a robot.

  In one of its attenuated hands, the robot was clutching a long, steel cable attached to a vehicle that was flying above them, shadowing the patrol wagon. The robot swung gracefully along the side of the bus, flicking past O'Mannion's window, then the next, and then the following window, which was beside Darrid's seat.

  "It's that robot again," said Darrid in a startled falsetto. For a man who had so recently been savouring the words "ambush" and "trap", he seemed disturbingly unprepared.

  In the hand that wasn't holding the steel cable, the robot was clutching a chunky black device or weapon of some kind. O'Mannion leaned forward to try to get a better look at it as the robot passed the window beyond Darrid's. It reached out and aimed the device. The window exploded inwards in a fine spray of glass particles.

  "Sonic shocker," said O'Mannion, but her voice was lost in the shattering of glass. The supposedly bulletproof pane had decomposed into fragments which were chunky and blunt and unlikely to injure. The robot swung through the hole where the window had been.

  "Oh my grud!" screamed Darrid, still trying to catch up with the situation. "The robot's coming in."

  O'Mannion was already rising from her seat, Lawgiver in her hand. The weapon was set for incendiary ammunition and would blow the robot into a neat heap of molten slag. O'Mannion took aim. At that very instant Darrid rose from his seat and wobbled jerkily around in her line of fire. He was wrestling with his own sidearm, trying to get it out of its holster. O'Mannion moved her gun to the left, tracking the robot, who was retreating back up the aisle towards the front of the vehicle.

  As O'Mannion's gun moved, so did Darrid, jerking right into her line of sight, again and again ruining any chance of a shot. She moved and Darrid moved once more, in diabolical synchronisation, yet again blocking her shot.

  And he was still struggling to get his own weapon out.

  On the other side of the wagon, Carver wasn't doing much better, having just risen from his seat and only just beginning to reach for his gun. The rookie and the old fool seemed to share equally sluggish reflexes.

  The robot was on the move, scuttling nimbly like a cockroach, heading towards the far end of the patrol wagon. There it would find the security hatch of the cockpit sealed and would be able to go no further. In fact, reflected O'Mannion, the robot would be trapped. Or at least it would be if she could get a clean shot at it. Darrid and Carver were still fumbling for their weapons as they moved away from their seats and crowded into the aisle, getting in each other's way. O'Mannion shouldered past them, pursuing the robot to the front of the wagon.

  The robot reached the sealed hatch of the cockpit and whirled with a ratcheting sound to face her. O'Mannion finally had a clean shot at the thing, but unfortunately it also had a clean shot at her with the sonic shocker. The gleaming device was absolutely steady in the robot's mechanical grasp. The robot looked at her with the precision optics of its eyes and began to talk in a pleasant, informative voice.

  "This instrument shattered the supposedly shatter-proof glass of your vehicle. That was when it was set on a diffuse beam. It is now set on a tightly focused beam which in turn is tightly focused on you."

  O'Mannion was embarrassed to realise that this was true, and the point was illustrated further by a hot purple dot on her chest. "At this range, a tightly focused sonic wave will have a devastating effect on the organs in a human body. In fact, in your body." The robot emphasised the word suavely, as though selling her a patent medicine.

  "So I would advise you to lower your weapon and simply allow us to go about our business."

  "Us?" said Carver sharply. He was standing just behind O'Mannion. "You mean there's more than one of you?" Close behind Carver, Darrid was still fuming and blustering.

  "Business? What business?" said Darrid. "What the hell is it talking about?"
The old fool had evidently already completely forgotten his briefing. "Why don't you just let me shoot the damned thing?"

  "Don't make a move," snapped O'Mannion. "I am your superior officer and I am telling you not to do a snecking thing unless I specifically advise you. Clear?" The purple dot was dancing in agitation on her chest. Didn't the damned old fool realise that a blast from the robot's device would cause all her organs to liquefy?

  "All right, all right. Clear," Darrid subsided querulously. "But what's this business the stinking thing's yapping about?"

  "I am here with my master to rescue my master's brother," announced the robot in its bright salesman's voice.

  "Master?" said Darrid. "What the hell?" The old idiot fell silent as a loud clanking from above announced that someone had landed on the roof.

  "That will be my master now," said the robot.

  Sparks began to fly from the ceiling at the rear of the patrol wagon. First sparks, then a steady circle of flame that lapped around in a swift dance. "He is cutting through the ceiling with his thermic lance," explained the robot, as if it was narrating an infomercial. The hot white circle of flame turned to magma and began to melt in molten blobs that fell in spatters to hiss on the scarred black floor. The bright light of the burning metal shone in fierce reflections from the smooth white surface of Theo Barkin's med-bed.

  A section of the ceiling about the size of a manhole cover came loose with a rush and fell clattering to the floor. Through the hole came a surge of night air followed by a blond young man with a black moustache whom O'Mannion recognised as Leo Barkin. He was wearing black combat trousers, a black T-shirt and numerous belts of ammunition. He was clutching a machine rifle in one hand and the glowing cherry-tipped rod of a thermic lance in the other. Waves of superheated air rippled and danced over the tip of the lance. O'Mannion wondered just how hot it was. Hot enough to cut through the armour of the wagon like a knife slicing cake.

  "That is my master," said the robot helpfully. Just then the hatch of the cockpit hissed open behind it and Dredd stepped through holding what looked like one of the chainsaws they'd used on the raid on Featherman's forest. Dredd promptly sliced the robot in half across the ribcage with a violent screaming of torn metal and a sudden black gush of machine oil. The robot flapped to the floor in two separate pieces. Dredd brought one boot down on a hideously flapping arm, then reached down and took hold of the sonic shocker.

  "It doesn't matter," said the robot confidently. "My master has full charge of the situation."

  "That's right," said Leo Barkin. "I am here to liberate my brother from the iron clutches of you fascist drokkers." He was starting on an obviously rehearsed speech. With one hand he was pointing his machine rifle at them while still holding the thermic lance in the other. The lance was clearly heavy because Leo moved to set it down on his brother's med-bed.

  "No, not there," said O'Mannion sharply. "Those are oxygen tanks."

  "What?" said Leo. But the enormously hot lance had already eaten into the nearest tank.

  "Get down!" yelled Dredd. He shoved Carver to the floor of the patrol wagon while immediately behind him, O'Mannion pulled down the struggling bulk of Darrid. They sheltered behind their seats as the oxygen tank blossomed into a bright bubble of superheated gas, then expanded in an explosive shockwave.

  The entire rear section of the wagon blew out into the night sky.

  The Barkin brothers went with it, tumbling from sight to disappear into the shadowed canyons of the Mega-City, bodies accelerating in free fall: Theo in his explosion-scarred med-bed, its severed tubes spilling fluid, and Leo still clutching his thermic lance whose glow lit their passage like a candle burning in the dark, until it finally vanished into the distance.

  The Judges rose from the floor and stared out at the windy ruin that had been the rear of the wagon.

  "Well, that went well," said O'Mannion.

  "My master has escaped," announced the robot, lying dismembered on the floor.

  "Your master is strawberry jam," said Dredd.

  "My name is Rootmaster," announced the scarred old boar proudly. "Since our little friend shows no inclination to introduce us." He looked at Porkditz and shook his head with ponderous sadness, a pendulous gobbet of mucus swaying precariously on the brass ring that pierced his snout. "But this little one has never shown proper responsibility, nor respect for his elders. He is nothing more than a dreamer, a waster, a foolish little shoat." Zandonella understood the term and the insult implied. A shoat was a young male, not yet fit for breeding.

  "On the contrary," Zandonella replied. "Porkditz is not a shoat but a proper boar. He proved that not more than a few squeals ago."

  The boar called Rootmaster waggled his head in disgust. His ears flapped audibly and the precarious gobbet of snot went flying off his nose-ring and splashed onto the floor. "Yes, he's been rooting at your hindquarters in his inadequate, juvenile way. I can smell the stink of his futile little pizzle on you. Just as I can smell that you are not a proper pure sow of the true flesh. You have the stink of the longghoul on you." He moved suddenly close to Zandonella. She flinched as the scarred old beast drove her up against the wall. Porkditz moved to attack him, then checked himself. He remained standing where he was, his head hanging down with shame. She could tell he was terrified of the older pig.

  Rootmaster sniffed at her, drinking in her scent with long, luxurious snorts from his scarred old snout. "Yes," he said. "You are possessed. A longghoul witch has possessed one of our beautiful sows. The true flesh is sullied by your presence."

  "Leave her alone," murmured Porkditz. The old boar wheeled on him, smiling a vicious smile.

  "At last he speaks," said Rootmaster. "Well, little shoat. What do you have to say for yourself?"

  "Nothing," muttered Porkditz. He kept his head hung low, eyes on the floor, refusing to meet the gaze of the old pig.

  "Nothing? Surely you have stories to tell, of your adventures among the longghouls?" He twitched his head around and looked at Zandonella. "What did he learn among you? Did he study your weaknesses? Did he find the vulnerable point for our attack? Was he plotting the strategy of a holy war?"

  Attack? Holy war? Zandonella felt her human personality surface again as her mind responded to these terms with alarm. There was something going on here that a Judge needed to know about.

  Porkditz lifted his head reluctantly and looked at the grizzled old boar. "No, I did nothing like that. I want no part of the cabal or their bloodthirsty plans."

  "Bloodthirsty! At last the shoat speaks worthy words." Rootmaster glanced at Zandonella and his eyes gleamed with the disturbing light of the true fanatic. "The cabal shall indeed drink blood. We shall launch our campaign of righteous war and holy slaughter and we shall do it with or without your help."

  "Without," said Porkditz. "I will not help you. I am not flesh of your flesh."

  "Clearly not." Rootmaster smiled at Zandonella. "Can you believe this little shoat is one of the greatest escape artists ever to grace our race? He avoided the slaughter tunnels and blood hooks and sped out of this nightmare place, out of this world of pain, to a better life beyond. His fleet trotters carried him into the outside world; the world of sunshine, the fabled place where pigs can live without being butchered and turned into meat." His eyes clouded with hatred. "Meat for the longghouls. The vicious slaughtering cannibals who take their brothers who run low to the ground and make captives of them, pen them and breed them, and then kill them and chop them and turn them into meat for their greedy mouths." Viscous ropes of saliva flowed from the boar's mouth. He shook his head as though waking from a bad dream and looked at Porkditz. "The Great Fates allowed you to escape into the outside world, and yet you did nothing to help your brothers in the cabal."

  "You are not my brothers. I want nothing to do with the cabal or your plans for vengeance."

  "Vengeance? Do you mean justice?" Saliva flowed from Rootmaster's mouth in a steady stream. "Justice and fit retribution for the milli
ons of intelligent swine who lived a short, hellish existence in the death farms before being brutally torn apart by the blades of the longghouls and being turned into what they call bacon, what they call sausages, what they call chops and ribs and hams and loins, but what I call my people. My poor, suffering brothers."

  "Your brothers, yes," said Porkditz. "But what of your sisters?"

  Rootmaster glanced at Zandonella. "Sisters?" he murmured. "What do you mean?"

  "The cabal is a brotherhood," said Porkditz.

  "The one true brotherhood. The only hope for swinedom. We shall lead pork-kind out of the years of suffering, and into the light of freedom." The old boar's rhetoric had the intoxicating passion of a true zealot. Zandonella herself was almost swayed by it.

  But then he said, "Females, of course, can never be part of it."

  "What?" snorted Zandonella.

  "See how she is infected by the diseased thoughts of the longghoul witch?" Rootmaster wiggled his head with satisfaction, his ears flapping. "A female of our species understands that she is the inferior. No sow could ever be part of the cabal and they know that. Their only duty is providing pleasure for the males and rearing young."

  "So when you say you're leading pigs to freedom," said Zandonella, "you only mean male pigs."

  "We shall take our women folk with us. They can continue to serve our needs."

  "That's very generous of you," said Zandonella.

  "Don't make him angry," begged Porkditz in a whisper.

  "You mustn't worry about me," said the old boar placidly. "I won't fly into a rage. There is no need. This is the happiest day of my fine, fat swinish life."

  "What do you mean?" said Porkditz. Zandonella could see that Rootmaster's peaceful demeanour worried him more than any amount of hostility.

  "You see, today is the day," crooned Rootmaster. "After long years of suffering, our revenge against the longghouls is finally at hand. Now it is their turn to die by the millions."

  "By the millions?" said Zandonella. Perhaps the old animal was insane. He certainly seemed to be talking nonsense. How could domestic animals, trapped in a slaughterhouse, threaten the mass murder of human beings?