by Dave Stone
It also meant that there was no effective way to remove the cuffs tethering him to Efil Drago San.
"All right," he said. "What's the score? The Surgeon in Chief of the Psyko-Block has somehow been... corrupted. You have some kind of deal in place with him. That much is obvious, but what the drokk do you think you're gonna achieve?"
"Do you ever watch the holo-vids?" asked Efil Drago San, inconsequentially. "No? Well let me tell you, there's a standard scene in them, at least of late, where the noble hero finds himself in the fiendish power of the villain, at his very mercy and so forth, and so takes the opportunity to demand that he be told just what the hell is going on.
"The fiendish villain then says something along the lines of, 'Aha! Don't think you can get the better of me that way! You know as well as I do that the moment I gloatingly reveal my master plan - and am in the very throes of crowing about how nothing in the world can stop its realisation - something explodes, or several hundred soldiers rappel down the walls, or something else of that nature happens so my master plan goes effectively tits-up! So you shall die without hearing a word of my plans from me, so there!'
"It was a good joke once, I suppose, as such jokes go, but by the hundredth repetition is becomes inexpressibly wearisome. Just another inept bit of metatextual nonsense by some creator convinced he's being all knowing and metatextual rather than simply inept. And the plain fact is, it doesn't make a spot of difference. In any real life, things just don't happen that way. Events proceed along their course whether the villain of the piece reveals his fiendish Master Plan or not."
"Look, does this mean you're gonna drokking tell me what's going on or not?" said Dredd.
"It means," said Drago San, "that all things being equal, I do tend to enjoy the occasional gloat."
"Now you have to understand," said Efil Drago San "that one doesn't achieve the sort of position I had in Brit-Cit, once upon a time, without certain resources of defence in place. The rivalries between the Overlords can become a little... complicated, and it's always a good idea to establish fail safes and procedures for the time when one finds oneself on the outs.
"The so-called Sacred and Most Worshipful Order of the Star Chamber, for example, are pretty much an appendix so far as command and control of the Brit-Cit Justice Department is concerned. The Overlords use quite other avenues these days, since Sacred and Most Worshipful Order of the Star Chamber turned into drooling senile wrecks, but those basic procedures of command and control are still in place. All it took was for something to reactivate them.
"I was the source, in actual fact, of the bio-customised Stookie-glands that extended the lives of the Sacred and Most Worshipful Order of the Star Chamber so unnaturally long, longer than any other known rejuvenation-procedures allow - and, due to one thing and another I was instrumental in cutting off their supply.
"There was a standing arrangement, however, that if they found some way to make reparations for - well, for a number of slights and infractions we need not go into here - if they found some means of winning back my gratitude, there was a chance that they might get their access back. A whole new lease on life. Wouldn't that be lovely?
"Fortunately for all concerned - for anyone who matters, anyway - at least one of the Order still had sufficient lien on their faculties to notice that I was being held by Mega-City One. After they managed to impress that fact upon the others, of course, and repeated it enough so that they could at least halfway remember, all they could think of, in terms of what to do, was to revert to territorial squabbling and senile, mean-spirited spite. Demanding that I be returned into their jurisdiction, insisting on it even to the point of war - hence the procedural hearing we've all so recently enjoyed at such great length.
"Fortunately, again, I had... associates in place, here in Mega-City One, for just this kind of eventuality: people who could procure such allies as I might need in such an eventuality and ensure their absolute loyalty. The Wheems individual was one such subject, his loyalty ensured by means that are neither here nor there, but he was merely a way-station in my progress, as it were. Once in direct contact with him, I was able to direct matters so I ended up here, in the Psyko-Block, with the man who has for some unaccountable reason started to call himself Doctor Bob.
"The plain fact is that one doesn't have to change all that much to change the world - the world of one's adversaries, at least - completely. You just have to change enough so that situations and people are in a state and position to use if they ever become useful.
"There's a long and... well, you can't exactly call it honourable - tradition of it. Centuries back, your own country was infested by those who had a vested interest in global tensions, subjugating entire populations on the excuse of war or the immanent threat of it. Simple enough when the world was divided into two or three Power Blocs - and rather like the situation we have now, what with the Mega-Cities, the New Sov-Cities and Hondo-Cit. How times roll around again.
"In any case, the thing about that was that the whole idea of these Power Blocs fell apart, largely because the world was going through a phase where the people in it weren't quite as dumb as a bag of spanners, and couldn't impose quite such a patently venal interpretation on it. The people with a vested interest had to get creative, pouring massive funding into the training up of potential enemy factions - and, whoops, just when we needed a new enemy, that enemy turned up to commit their acts of terrorist atrocity.
"Suitably iconic acts of terrorist atrocity, I might add, that just happened to kill less American citizens, on a per capita basis, than they otherwise might have. The destruction of a building packed with foreign nationals, for example, as opposed to similarly famous landmarks, packed with Americans and effectively situated next door.
"You have not the slightest clue as to what I'm talking about, do you, Dredd? You really should look to reading up a bit, and wider. Or, indeed, reading at all.
"In any case, with a little bit of lowest common denominator jiggery-pokery, these vested interests managed to parlay what they called a War on Terror into what was, basically, a War on the Foreign. You see the beauty of that? Any squalid piece of opportunism that occurred to them, they could justify it in terms that they were grasping that opportunity in the name of protecting Citizen Joe Soap, his fat ugly wife and their appalling brood of incipiently diabetic offspring from the Foreigners. And the thing about 'foreign' is that you can define it as anything - from the people who leant you money you don't feel like paying back, to the people who would rather eat falafel than a Big Mac.
"But I digress. It's a habit, I must have mentioned before at some point, that I really should look into learning to curb.
"The point is, years ago, I set up some situations that might prove useful someday here in Mega-City One. Situations on another level entirely than oleaginous weasels like Wheems. I toyed with subverting and planting agents within the Special Judicial Service - but they were doing such a good job by themselves, and nobody trusted them in any case, so the whole idea was counterproductive.
"Then I chanced on the case file of a certain Robert Roberts, and you can tell by the name that this would be a person with certain issues. The same sort of issues a person might have when parents going by the name of Head decide to call their son Richard. Or when the erstwhile Hunts decide to call their son Michael. The best you can say about the parents of our Robert is that they gave him a stupid name out of the delusion that it was cute, rather than being actively malicious.
"In any case, in actual fact, our Robert was flunked out of Psi-Judge training with the express opinion that he belonged in what I believe you call the Kook Kubes. It was but the work of a few extremely bright people, who I employed back in the day, to change those recommendations to say that he belonged in charge of the Kook Kubes.
"That was all it took to set our Robert on the path to becoming the Psyko-Block Surgeon in Chief under a process of accelerated promotion. And, once he was established, he was able to give the small qui
rks of personality he had: megalomania and certain degree of control-compulsion, I believe; full rein. He's built up quite the little sinecure here; his own little world. And he's suitably grateful to me for giving it to him.
"As I said at the start, all it takes is a small change to create a situation of which I can take advantage. All I had to do was arrange and direct things so that I ended up here. And here I am. I do so love it when a plan comes together."
Drago San floated there, in a smug and somewhat boastful manner, as though he was waiting for applause.
"This is insane," Dredd said. "This plan of yours relies on all sorts of complications and coincidences. Nobody could plan that way."
Efil Drago San's face fell. "Have you been listening to a single word?" he said, a little snappishly. "I told you I don't plan. I set up situations with which I can improvise. If the Sacred and Most Worshipful Order of the Star Chamber hadn't set events in motion, well, something else would have occurred. Any number of other minions would have served just as well as Wheems. And as for ending up here in the Psyko-Block... well, let's just say that there are other possibilities, which I don't propose to mention, on account of the fact that I might want to use them someday.
"The point is," he concluded, with the smug grin back on his face, "that here and now, in actual fact, I win and you lose. What do you have to say about that, eh?"
"I say, again," said Dredd, "that what can you hope to drokking achieve?" He gestured, so far as his debilitation allowed him, in a general manner to take in the whole room and the entire Psyko-Block beyond it. "I go in, I don't come out, and the Justice Department is gonna notice. We'll land on the Kook Kubes hard and pull you down."
"I think you'll be in for a hell of a fight," said Drago San. "Our Robert has laid on some quite extensive external defences, I gather, since assuming control. I understand he has the capability of holding off the most heavily armed Justice Department forces indefinitely."
"A siege situation?" said Dredd. "That still leaves you stuck in here with no way out. You're no better off now than you were before."
"Oh, really?" said Drago San. "I've caused a bumper crop of inconvenience to the Justice Department and ended up with the run of this place. More than enough reward for my effort, I think. And besides, on the subject of being 'stuck here', I believe our good Doctor Bob is working on a little something in that department. Shall we go and see?"
The paraplegic floater rose and headed for the door, half-dragging Dredd as he stumbled to keep up.
"I thought the impellors on this drokking thing had been disabled," Dredd grunted.
"Along with everything else," said Efil Drago San, "my floater has some quite extensive self-repairing capabilities. Did I never think to mention that? Ah, well, it's always a good idea to save a few surprises for the end. Such as they are."
FIFTEEN
"Wherever God erects a house of prayer,
The Devil always builds a chapel there;
And 'twill be found, upon examination,
The latter has the largest congregation."
- Daniel Defoe
The True-Born Englishman
"Hey, and welcome to A Larder in your ReFAB! Hints and tips to get the most out of any old piece of stomm you happen to have lying around! Only here on Mega-City DataNet, Sector Seven, channel 4,379.
"Now as you can see, I've just driven my long-time partner Mica's head in with the flat end of a standard lamp! I don't know why. I just felt like it.
"Once the remains have decomposed sufficiently, of course, they're just the thing to ReFAB into tasty nutri-blocks containing all the proteins, carbs and trace-element minerals necessary to keep the human body in tip-top healthy condition!
"But for the moment, what the hell, it would be a positive crime to leave all that fresh juicy meat to go to waste while it's still on the bone.
"I'll be showing you how to prepare the choicer cuts later, but a personal favourite of mine is something you might not have thought of: boiled head stuffed with giblets! For this, you have to first remove the head from the carcass, using the dismembering implement of your choice. I prefer to use the trusty chainsaw, myself.
"And remember, if any of you out there are feeling a little bit squeamish about murdering your long-time partners, chopping them up with a big knife and eating them - just remember, hey, this isn't real. It's just a copy, so it doesn't really count..."
Barnstable Wheems knocked on the door to the strato-pad lounge currently occupied by the Sacred and Most Worshipful Order of the Star Chamber, then timidly opened it on receiving no response. The Brit-Cit Senior Judges, he saw, were staring blank and insensate into space, as though they were nothing more than programmed automata awaiting further orders.
All of them, that is, except for the one in a hairy-string pullover, who was looking frantically around and about himself, presumably in search of possible moles to strangle.
"Got any moles?" he asked Wheems, confirming the presumption. "I like strangling moles."
"No, ah, I have something I was told to deliver to you," said Wheems. "Something you've been waiting for."
He set his attaché case on a low table that, if this had been a normal stratoport lounge, would have supported racks containing data-wafer magazines extolling the concerns of those who were leasing this particular departure gate. As it was, it supported bound copies of The Laws and Statutes of Mega-City One - printed earlier that evening and therefore hopelessly out of date.
Wheems snapped the locks and opened the case, the contents of which had been classified as Evidentiary Resources for the hearing of Efil Drago San, and so had been allowed into the Hall of Justice on a basis of technical confidentiality.
The Sacred and Most Worshipful Order of the Star Chamber, as one, including the one with a penchant for the defenestration of small burrowing animals, gazed at the contents of the base, nestling in a slab of pre-cut foam, with a kind of senile awe.
"Is that... heh.... what I think it is?" said one.
"I suppose so," said Wheems, though he had no idea and cared less what the Brit-Cit Senior Judge thought it might be.
"WHUT?" bellowed the Brit-Cit Senior Judge with the ear-trumpet. "WHUT THE FELLER SAY?"
"He said," said the first, "that... heh... at last we have our reward. A down-payment on it, in any case." His face split open in what he might or might not have thought of as a joyful smile, but was in fact a leer of infirm glee. "Now, at last, we truly shall live forever."
In the Mega-City Psyko-Block, Dredd and Drago San - that is, Efil Drago San dragging Dredd behind him - left the holding cell and headed for the elevator that would take them up, again, to the chambers of Doctor Bob. The corridors were empty, as ever, and there was, as ever no reason for them to be anything else. Indeed, the simple fact that Drago San was out, and apparently able to move at will, was bad news enough.
There was a smell in the air like ozone. The walls seemed to buzz with accumulated static charge, the sense of it pulsing on the brain with an enervating pressure.
Dredd, for his part, in his weakened state and after realising that struggling was doing no good against the impellors of Drago San's floater, had gone limp to conserve what was left of his energy, taking his weight on his kneepads. His resources were so exhausted now that it was an effort to even speak. The only hope, at this point, would be for some new factor to occur and change the situation.
They reached the chambers of Doctor Bob to find that the situation had indeed changed - it had changed for the worse. As the elevator platform locked into place, Dredd hauled his head up to see the somewhat underdressed forms of Nurse Pebbles and Nurse Bambam, standing stock-still, their vacant faces turned to the form of Doctor Bob in a kind of mindlessly worshipful awe.
Doctor Bob, his dark form cradled in a crawling tracery of electrical tendrils from the emitters, was floating two feet from the floor, his arms akimbo. Around him the accumulators juddered and roared. His floating form rotated slowly, light from t
he emitters playing over his face, shifting and reforming it by some real-time variety of subsurface-scattering. His eyes were closed in what appeared to be, in the shifting light, a state of absolute serenity.
"My word," said Efil Drago San, loudly and jovially. "What a quite impressive degree of lift. Now, if we've all quite finished playing around, it's time we thought about arranging my final escape."
He raised the hand attached to Dredd by cuffs, the deceptive and disproportionate strength of his upper body lifting Dredd off his knees in a parody of a rag doll.
"And the first order of the day," Drago San continued, "is to cut this inconvenience off from me once and for all."
The slow rotation of Doctor Bob came to a halt. The flat black disks of his spectacle-masked eyes regarded Drago San and the captive Dredd impassively.
"Years," he said, simply and in a perfectly reasonable tone of voice.
"Years?" said Drago San, still all smiles and joviality. He merely wished for some expansion on what it meant for someone to go around saying "years" for no immediately apparent reason.
"Years, I spent," said Doctor Bob, "in Psi-Division Training, looking for the magic key that would unlock the things in people's heads and open them to me. Years of trying, years of failing, and when they found out I was pretending, they just threw me away."
There was no trace of bitterness or anger, just the flat tones of one coolly working on some interesting puzzle out loud.
"And how lucky that was for all concerned," said Efil Drago San. "It put you in the perfect position for me and my associates to give you a whole new life. Do you remember that, Robert? Who it was who gave you a whole new life?"
There had been a slight but marked shift in Drago San's manner, Dredd realised. Before, he had merely been talking with a subordinate, telling that subordinate what was going to happen next. Now it was as if he was being forced, however gently, to remind this supposed subordinate as to who, in actual fact, was in charge here.
