by Neal Barrett
“I can do a Eee-Tee-Ay,” Link-Link said. “I g-got real good navigash’nul skills. I got cord’nuts in my head.”
“Right,” Fergie said. “See a Medik next time you’re in town. Fix you right up.”
Link-Link and Junior were leading him down a narrow passage through the ruined building. Link-Link carried a burning torch. Fergie wondered where they were going, but didn’t want to ask. What he wanted to do was get far enough away from the big spook himself and that lunatic with the muckin’ machete for an arm, get his bearings straight, lose these freakos and get the hell out of town.
He felt bad about Dredd. Not bad enough to stick around, for sure, and hey, Dredd had gotten him into this squirrel nest, you couldn’t forget about that. Better Herman Ferguson on the loose than hanging there with what’s-his-name and his oversized shiv, and the old guy with the speech defect. These two groons were bad enough, but those guys…
“So,” Fergie said, “we’re going where, out for some air or what? A quick tour’s fine with me, I don’t have to be back or anything. Man, it is great out here, you know? Away from the stinkin’ city lights. God is good! Glory to His name!”
“G-Glory!” Link-Link said.
“Snuk-snuk!” said Junior Head-Dead.
Fergie looked at Link. “No kidding, fella, you get to a doc sometime, they could fix up that little problem you got with the nose. I mean, no offense, you don’t mind me bringing up the nose, right? Like, the leatherwork’s attractive and all…” He squinted at Junior’s ears. “You people work with heavy machinery a lot? I was thinking, you know, industrial accidents, something like that? They got good safety gear, you take the right precautions this—huh?”
Link-Link had stopped. He held the torch up to Fergie and stared.
“Wh-what you talkin’ about, f-fixing what?”
“Just talking, okay?” Fergie didn’t like the guy’s look. Like someone had stepped on his foot.
Link-Link looked confused. “Can’t n-nobody fix nothin’ except Pa. Pa’s re-ordinated and—”
“Yeah, yeah, I heard.”
Link-Link grinned. “Pa says if I w-walk in God’s misery and pain, I can git the Holy Gouging when I’m fifteen. Mean Machine’ll git it next year, an’ I’m after that!”
Fergie’s throat went dry. All the meals he’d missed stirred a queasy soup in his belly. “You’re saying… nah, you’re not sayin’ that, like what I think you’re saying…”
“Pa’s got it all,” Link-Link said. “The whole B-B-Blessed Mutilation of God! Ears and eyes and nose sewed up, and his m-mouth, too. He’s the only Angel’s got that.”
Link-Link rolled his eyes, thrust out his arms and turned a circle twice.
“Lo, he hast s-sewed up his every wicked ori-fuss against the evil of the world. He h-has shut out sin and cast Satan aside. He hast b-b-become a pure abomy-nation of the Lord!”
Oh, shit, I am out of here…
“Look, I got some private hygiene stuff, and you fellas have plenty to do. If you can just point me outside—”
Link-Link kicked Fergie solidly in the rear. Fergie grabbed air and bit a mouthful of floor.
“Hey, hold on there! What the hell, guys?”
Link-Link straddled Fergie’s back, crushing all the air out of his lungs. Junior wound a piece of rusty wire around his hands, then looped the other end about his feet. Link took one shoulder and Junior took the other. Together, they dragged Fergie on his belly down the hall.
“Wait a minute,” Fergie said, “I’m a Believer. I’m a—I’m a Maggot of God, just like you!”
“That’s why we l-love you, brother,” Link-Link said.
“You got a weird way of showing it, brother.”
“Like you better’n him,” Link said. “Lot’s better’n that one… Don’t we, Junior?”
“Snuk!”
“Who? Who are we talking about here? Dredd? Is that who, Dredd?”
Link made a face. “He’s a agg-nasty or something. Ch-chock fulla sin!”
Link and Junior let go. Link flipped him over on his back. Fergie looked straight at a bed of hot coals. He looked at the heavy iron spit, and he looked at the thing that was crackling there, crackling red and black, juices hissing down into the fire. It took him a second, a second and a half, then the image took a clear and very definite shape in his head. It kept kicking out then kicking back in and it wouldn’t let go. It wouldn’t let go no matter what he did.
Fergie threw up. He didn’t have a thing in his stomach but his stomach didn’t care.
“Them Unbelievers,” Link said, “just d-don’t taste right, you know? It’s impure f-f-f-flesh is what it is.”
“Snuk-snuk!”
Fergie closed his eyes. “Now this is a gag, right? What I want you to do is tell me this is a gag. Dredd said that you guys—what you—I know he didn’t mean that you were—”
Junior kicked Fergie in the mouth. He grabbed his hair and pulled him closer to the fire. He drooled on Fergie’s head.
Link found a knife somewhere in his rags, reached out and sliced off something from the spit.
“Lo, the Unbeliever’s f-f-flesh is unclean, Lord, but a p-p-person’s got to eat.”
“I was lying,” Fergie yelled, “I don’t believe in anything, I mean, I don’t even believe enough to be an Unbeliever, what do you think of that? I mean, that is something you don’t want to mess with, man. I also got a skin condition. I got athlete’s foot, guys!”
“Glory!” Link said.
“Snuk!” Junior Head-Dead said.
“… biled ob be, troppin’ chu vrom duh skie endo by hans…”
“Pa says the Lord’s sure been good, says it’s a sign is what it is. Says the Lord has smiled on him, droppin’ you from the sky into his hands.”
“Why don’t you tell Pa to get the mush out of his mouth?” Dredd said. “You think God understands that crap? Even if He’s listening, He is sure as hell not listening to Daddy Dust-Bunny there.”
“Waaaaaaka-waaaaka!” Mean Machine’s eyes turned black with rage. His knife-arm swept out in a wicked arc. Dredd felt something like a breath of Arctic air across his chest. He forced himself not to look down. He knew he would see a line of red, a cut no deeper than Mean Machine wanted it to be. He did what he liked with that thing, and he did it with surgical skill.
“You bringin’ wrath and retry-bution down on yourself, Dredd.” Mean Machine shook his head as if he wished there were some way he could help. Pa Angel didn’t move. He was a scarecrow with darkness as a face.
“The Lord is fearsome in His gaze,” Mean Machine said. “He will smite you down and grind you under His heels. Your flesh will tremble with the terror of His ways…”
“You ever been in a rumble in Red Quad, pal? You don’t know shit about the terror of his ways.”
“Eeee-nuph!”
The Reverend Billy Joe Angel raised one filthy hand above his head, then lowered it slowly until it stabbed at Dredd.
“Vinits hib, sud. Vinits hib dow!”
Mean Machine glowed. “I’ll finish him, Pa. I surely will.”
“Dree, poi. You kun coe ub to dree.”
“Three? I can go up to… You mean it, Pa? Oh, Glory, I’m gonna do a Three!”
Mean Machine tapped the top of his mechanical head. His mouth fell open. His eyes turned to glass. His whole body shook; his arms and his legs jerked straight out like a droid on happy-oil. The copper squares on his face turned blue then red. He squealed like tires on a white-hot road, lowered his head and came straight at Dredd.
Dredd tried to twist aside but the crazy was moving too fast. His head hit Dredd in the gut. Dredd bellowed and gasped for air. The pain nearly took him. He shook his head to keep from passing out. The cords around his wrists had snapped tight at Mean Machine’s blow, tearing at the muscles in his shoulders and his chest.
Dredd knew that was it. He couldn’t take it again. The freako would break something vital and he’d bleed to death inside.
&nb
sp; Dredd forced his head up off his chest. He made himself smile through the pain.
“That’s it? That’s the whole bit? This is what you do?”
Mean Machine blinked. He stared at Dredd and then showed him a sly little grin. He was dumb, but he wasn’t as dense as Dredd had hoped. He knew the damage he’d done, knew what would happen when he came at Dredd again.
“That was my practice run,” Mean Machine said. “I got you sighted in good now.”
“Quit talking and do it, then,” Dredd said. “You’re starting to piss me off.”
It is not unusual that the facts concerning an historical event are often overshadowed by a more lurid, wholly distorted account. One could cite a number of cases where—at least temporarily—truth gave way to a more colorful version of a particular occurrence.
A good example is the true cause of the world-wide chaos of the middle- and late-twentieth century. War, famine, disease, and racial unrest were attributed by historians of the time to the clash of political movements such as democracy, communism, and the like. As every schoolchild knows today, the fact of the matter-dismissed as folly at the time—is that every event of any importance between the years 1908-1998 was carefully planned and executed by members of a single, tightly-knit family in the former European nation of Luxembourg.
While the name of this family has remained secret to this day, the name of their cabal is well known. It was called Der Zischen, which can be roughly translated as The Fizz. The reason behind the name becomes clear when it is understood that Der Zischen controlled the leaders of all nations, began and ended international conflicts at their will, and controlled the earth’s natural resources—all the while hiding behind the corporate structure of the world’s two leading carbonated beverages.
Only a handful of people were aware of this conspiracy at the time. Yet The Fizz managed to keep the entire world under its thumb for ninety years.
Closer to our own time are the myths that have sprung up about the inhabitants of the Cursed Earth. In the years of the famous Judge Dredd (circa 2139), videos produced and distributed through illegal channels often pictured the people of Cursed Earth as political dissidents, victims of “injustice,” or even “mental defectives” turned away from the Mega-Cities. Those scattered bands of people such as Culls, Boaters, Krazies, Dusteaters, Cutters, Zippers, and other groups mistakenly labeled as Outcasters, were in fact never victims of Society, but the very people who sought to bring about the destruction of the Mega-Cities themselves.
Who were the real inhabitants of Cursed Earth, and where did they come from? We can eliminate those persons loosely defined as “mentally or physically disabled.” Every Citizen of the Mega-Cities has always been entitled to free health care, including necessary genetic correction procedures to assure the elimination of those traits undesirable to contemporary Society.
It is true that even in the mid-twenty-second century medical personnel would still come across the occasional psychopathic individual or persons afflicted with a minor personality disorder. Such Citizens were quickly identified and given immediate, and effective, care.
The inhabitants of Cursed Earth were neither outcasts nor defectives of any kind. They were, rather, Citizens who expressed a keen desire to pursue a more solitary life outside the Cities—people who felt they would be better suited to an alternate lifestyle in a semi-hostile environment. Upon written request, such persons were processed, innoculated, and given free transportation to the Citygates.
While it is difficult to present an accurate picture of the many diverse groups who lived in that vast and challenging land that spans the continent from east to west, social studies indicate that while these groups experienced some problems adapting to areas offering little water, no arable soil, and ruinous weather, many persons learned to live reasonably pleasant, productive lives.
—History of the Mega-Cities
James Olmeyer, III
Chapter XIX: “Alternate Life-Styles”
2191
TWENTY-FOUR
Hershey had many fond memories of her days at the Academy—Unarmed Combat, Street Tactics, and the harrowing but always exciting Lawmaster Endurance Course. The one class she’d always dreaded was CCT—Cadet Computer Training. She wasn’t bad at it; she had finished in the top eighty percent.
It was the computer room itself that gave her the creeps. There was something about the place. It was too alien, too cold, too antiseptically clean for Hershey’s taste. The harsh, sterile atmosphere seemed hostile to human life. The constant, almost imperceptible buzz of a billion electronic bees told her, You don’t belong here… we do…
Hershey knew it was a ridiculous, wholly irrational feeling, and she had the good sense not to share such thoughts with anyone else.
It’s not any better than it was. Over a year on the street and I still detest this damn place!
Tiny lights winked at her from the walls, like animal eyes in the night. Tiny sounds chittered in the floor.
“Judge, you all right? You okay?”
Hershey nearly jumped out of her skin. “Of course I’m all right, Olmeyer, why wouldn’t I be all right? You know of any reason, Cadet, why I wouldn’t be all right?”
Olmeyer stepped back, withering under her glare.
What did I do? What did I do? It was always something, and most of the time he didn’t know what. Sometimes he didn’t even have to say anything. Sometimes he could offend just being in the same room.
“I’m—no, sir, uh, Judge. No reason at all. I’m certain everything’s fine, Judge.”
“Good,” Hershey said. “I’m pleased to hear it, Cadet. Shall we get on with it, now?”
“My station’s over there. Over near the end.”
Hershey muttered under her breath. She followed Olmeyer across the long room, past the cramped and numbered student cubicles. Hers had been, number thirty-seven. A number she’d never forget.
“I don’t know why it has to be so damn cold,” Hershey complained. “You could store meat in here. It could snow.”
“The machines like it cold,” Olmeyer said. “They prefer the—”
“Machines do not like anything, Olmeyer.” Her look cut him down a good foot. “Computers do not have the capacity to like or dislike. They function better under certain conditions and certain temperatures. This does not mean they like it that way.”
Olmeyer started to speak, then wisely kept his mouth shut. Judge Hershey wouldn’t want to hear that he felt his computer was friendlier and more responsible than most of the people he knew. She certainly wouldn’t want to hear that he’d programmed his station to speak in her voice when he wanted it to, to speak certain… personal phrases when they were alone. What Hershey would do if she knew that was grind him into a greasy spot on the floor.
Olmeyer took a seat at his station, pulled up an extra chair for Hershey from the cubicle next door. The screen came alive as he sat, coded to his presence.
Hershey nodded at the trick. “Very impressive, Cadet.”
“It’s not—I just… It’s a simple heat sensor is what it is. It’s coded to body weight, fat content, iris pattern, stuff like that.”
He cut himself short again. She was here, she was right next to him. He didn’t want to do anything dumb, he wanted to keep her there.
“I appreciate what you’re doing,” Hershey said. “I want you to know that, Cadet.”
“I’m glad to help, Judge, I—”
Hershey stopped him with a gesture. “I want to tell you again. This is a personal request. This is not official Judge business.”
“Judge Hershey…” He looked straight at her, one of the few times he’d managed to do that without turning to jelly. “It’s for Judge Dredd. You told me that. There’s no way you could keep me from helping if I can.”
“Yes, well…” Hershey cleared her throat. “I appreciate that, Cadet.”
She reached in the slim metal case she carried and handed Olmeyer one of the framed viewies of Dred
d she had taken from Dredd’s locker.
Olmeyer looked at it, then looked at Hershey.
“I want it identified,” she said.
“It’s Dredd. I don’t know the other guy.”
“I don’t want you to ID it. I want Central to tell me.”
Olmeyer nodded. He took the picture and slipped it onto a plate at the base of his computer. With a slight hiss, the viewie disappeared into the machine.
“Central, access Graphics Data Base.”
“Accessed…”
“Give me an ID, please.”
“Dredd, Joseph. Formerly Judge Dredd. Now serving a life sentence at Aspen Prison…”
“Keeps up to date, doesn’t it?” Hershey said beneath her breath.
“I want both IDs, Central,” Olmeyer said. “Give me the other one, please.”
“Scanning for identity… Unknown male… approximately two hundred centimeters tall… weight: ninety-five kilos… skin-tone: three-ten-nine-eight-seven-six… Further identification characteristics are—”
The screen flickered. The data vanished, replaced by the official eagle and shield of the Judges.
“This terminal has been disconnected from the main system for a systems check. You no longer have access to the system. Thank you.”
The viewie popped out of the slot.
“Uh-oh.” Olmeyer leaned back in his chair and frowned at the screen.
“What was that all about?” Hershey said. “That didn’t sound like Central.”
“It wasn’t. That’s a standard taped interrupt message that means ‘butt out, we don’t want you in here.’ ”
“Why? What did we do to set it off?”
“No way of telling.” Olmeyer stretched his fingers and pulled his chair up closer to the screen.
“Is that it?” Hershey said. “We’re through, we’re locked out?”
Olmeyer looked pained. “With all due respect, Judge, nobody locks out Olmeyer. Nobody. They shut the door, I climb in the window. They nail up the windows, I go in through the floor—”
