Kingdom of the Blind

by David Bishop

  The Judge kept shooting until he had exhausted the new clip in the machine gun. Only when the cacophony of gunfire had died away could the gurgling death rattles of Angry Sanderson be heard. Dredd crouched beside the body and gripped the head with his powerful hands. A single twist snapped the spinal column, killing the dwarf outright. "Two down - two to go," Dredd muttered. He threw the empty machine gun aside and began running.

  Behind the ejector seat Fincher was binding the wound to his hand. He had listened to the brutal efficiency of Sanderson's slaying. I've underestimated this Dredd, Fincher decided, we all have. If I'm going to take him out, I'll need an advantage; the element of surprise. Rather than hunt Dredd down, I'll let him come to me.

  Dredd emerged from the dust zone on to the nearest skedway, a deserted three-lane road. A sign for Harry Alan Towers Overzoom confirmed what Kara had said earlier. Dredd was at least twenty miles from his destination, with two unidentified bounty hunters between him and safety. Worse still, he was in an area of the Big Meg most citizens avoided after dark, and not far from the crime-riddled zone known as City Bottom.

  Lights flashed against the overzoom sign. Dredd swivelled round to see two vehicles approaching: a hefty purple mo-pad and a scarlet speedster. He stepped into the middle lane of the skedway, motioning for the oncoming motorists to slow down. Instead, the speedster accelerated past the mo-pad towards Dredd. The red car cut across the path of the other vehicle, forcing the mo-pad to slam on its brakes. Dredd held up his badge for the speedster driver to see but the car kept accelerating towards him. The anti-dazzle filter on Dredd's helmet enabled him to see past the speedster's headlights. The driver was a heavily tattooed woman, her face a gleeful grin of anticipation.

  "Drokk! One of the bounty hunters!" Dredd stood his ground until the speedster was almost upon him before diving out of its path. The vehicle shot past, its brakes squealing in protest as the driver tried to stop. Dredd ran to the mo-pad and pulled open the driver's door. A startled woman was crying behind the steering wheel. The mo-pad's interior was the same lurid purple as on the exterior, every surface upholstered with plush velveteen. The driver was wearing a catsuit of the same material, her hair dyed purple to match.

  "Did you see what that roadster did? It nearly took me off the road! I only finished paying off my mo-pad this morning and that kook nearly killed me!"

  Dredd glanced up the road to where the speedster had halted, just beyond the turnoff for the Harry Alan Towers Overzoom. The red car wasn't moving, but exhaust fumes from the tailpipe showed the engine was still running. "She was trying to kill me, not you," Dredd explained. "Ma'am, I need to commandeer your vehicle."

  "My mo-pad? W-why?" the woman stammered.

  "Justice Department business. I must reach the Grand Hall of Justice before midnight and I need your mo-pad to do that."

  "Well, I'm not sure... What if something happens to it?"

  "You will be fully compensated for any damage sustained by your vehicle, you have my word as a Judge," Dredd replied.

  "I don't know..."

  Dredd looked back up the road. The scarlet speedster had gone. He relaxed a little, the threat of another attack gone for now. Dredd rested a reassuring hand on the woman's shoulder. "Please, ma'am. I wouldn't ask if it wasn't important."

  The mo-pad driver bit her bottom lip nervously before nodding. "Alright. But you have to let me come with you. I've spent twelve years paying for this baby and I ain't letting it out of my sight for a moment."

  "Very well," Dredd agreed. "I'll drive, if you don't mind ma'am. That will allow us access to Judges-only bypasses."

  "Oh! Okay," she replied, clambering over to the passenger seat. "I've never been in the same vehicle as a Judge before."

  Dredd settled himself in the driver's seat and restarted the engine. "It shouldn't take us long to reach our destination," he said. "Then you can continue on your journey. Where were you headed, Miss...?"

  "Just driving, I guess, getting used to enjoying this baby. My name is Diana," the woman added. She turned to face Dredd, revealing the horrific scar tissue burnt into the other side of her face. "But you can call me Di."

  NINE

  No sooner had the mo-pad driven away than two female Judges approached on Lawmasters. The pair turned off the skedway onto the access road Dredd used to escape the dust zone. Within a minute they were parked beside the downed med-wagon.

  "Langenkamp to Control," one of them said as she got off her motorcycle. "Have found the missing med-wagon. Looks like there's been an incident here. I can see a corpse, the ejector seat has been fired from the vehicle and there's evidence of gunfire."

  "Acknowledged. Do you require back-up?"

  The lead Judge turned to her colleague. "Karyn?"

  The Psi-Judge removed her helmet, shaking out her mass of copper red curls.

  "Still got a splitting headache from what happened at Joe Chill," she muttered before closing her eyes. "Can't guarantee I'll be able to sense much." Karyn pressed her hands to her temples and concentrated, her face creasing in pain. "Several people unconscious inside the med-wagon. There was violence here recently. Blood has been spilled."

  "Sounds like we need Med-Judges, a meat wagon for the corpse and some forensic help from Tek-Division too," Langenkamp told Control. "No sign of Dredd. I'll keep this channel open." She drew her Lawgiver and began approaching the med-wagon. "Easy does it. Let's take this one step at a time."

  Karyn moved to examine the corpse. "A dwarf? What's he doing here?" She crouched by the body, passing her hands across the dead man's face. "He was angry, hunting someone. But they got the better of him. His death was swift, merciless. The killer was... Dredd?"

  Langenkamp had drawn her Lawgiver and was peering in through the broken cockpit of the med-wagon. "I can see the pilot and copilot inside. They're unconscious but no other obvious injuries." She sniffed the air escaping from the vehicle. "Can you smell that?"

  Karyn breathed in deeply. "Stumm gas. The med-wagon was probably hijacked in the air and brought down here. But by whom?" She saw a trail of blood leading past the med-wagon. The splashes of crimson led to the ejected pilot's seat. The Psi-Judge followed the trail to the chair. It was riddled with bullets on the side facing the med-wagon. "Someone took cover behind this when the shooting started." She touched a pool of blood on the ground. "They were wounded. Not fatally, judging by the amount of blood. The blood's still wet. This happened minutes ago, not hours."

  Langenkamp nodded. "That ties into the near miss with the med-wagon at St Peter Root. The dwarf, could he be one of the hijackers?"

  Karyn shrugged. "I don't know... I don't think so. What little I can glean from the corpse, there's nothing to suggest he took down the vehicle."

  A moan from the med-wagon halted their speculations. Inside, Karyn and Langenkamp found a female Med-Judge crouched on all fours, nursing a bloody head wound. She looked at the new arrivals with fire in her eyes. "Did you catch him?"

  "Catch who?" Langenkamp asked.

  "Dredd! He's the drokker who did this to us!"

  Dredd accelerated off the overzoom, easing the purple mo-pad into the slow lane of Peter Welbeck Skedway. In daylight this road was habitually choked with traffic, but now the evening crush hour had passed the going was smooth and untroubled. Dredd activated the vehicle's cruise control so he could strip away the remaining rapi-heal patches still attached to him.

  "What happened?" Di asked innocently. "You don't seem to have all your uniform. I thought you all carried those guns, what do you call them?"

  "Lawgivers," he replied. "It's still with my motorcycle, over at Southside Sector 41."

  "Isn't that where the-"

  "Yes."

  "Oh my grud! You were there?"

  Dredd winced as he tore away the final patch from his side. Blood was still seeping from the wound where a slither of shrapnel had cut through the reinforced synthi-kevlar of his bodysuit. "Yes, I was there," he replied grimly.

  Di held
up her hands in apology. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to pry. It's just... well, I lead a very quiet life. Meeting a real Judge, one as famous as you... It's a little overwhelming. Sorry if I'm babbling on and on."

  "You've had a shock. It affects different people in different ways." Dredd checked the cruise control was still doing its job. "What happened to your face?"

  Di grimaced. "My boyfriend. Ex-boyfriend, I should say. When I said I didn't want to marry him, he threw acid in my face. Said if he couldn't have me, he'd make sure nobody else wanted me."

  "Was he punished?"

  "Five years in the cubes. Should have been fifty."

  "Which Judge handled the case?"

  "Molloy, I think his name was - Sector House 87. Why do you ask?"

  "You've been very helpful. A lot of citizens would have kept on driving. I could look into your case, see if the Judge dealt with your perp too leniently."

  "That's very kind of you but..." Di let her voice trail off. "I'd rather forget about it, move on. I'm making a new life for myself."

  "Still, it can't hurt for me to review the file," Dredd insisted. "A Judge Molloy, you said? I've been stationed in Sector 87 several times, but I've never encountered a Molloy there."

  Di shrugged. "Maybe I got the name wrong. It was a long time-" She was cut off by a sudden jolt that jerked the mo-pad forwards. "What the drokk?"

  Dredd was peering at the rearview mirrors. "It's the scarlet speedster. She must have been following us, waiting for another chance to attack."

  "That slitch!" Di snarled. "She'll kill both of us!"

  Dredd frowned before checking his seat belt was firmly buckled. "Strap yourself in, ma'am." He slammed his foot down on the accelerator, retaking control of the mo-pad.

  "It's gonna be a bumpy ride."

  "You're sure about this?" Karyn was interviewing Callaghan while Langenkamp supervised the removal of the other crew from the downed wagon. The Med-Judge nodded vehemently.

  "Dredd hijacked us. He asked where we were going and I told him St Peter Root Hospital. After that he attacked me. When I came to he was leaving the med-wagon, carrying a daystick and other small weapons from our lock box armoury: some stumm gas grenades and a tranq gun." Callaghan was resting on a hover-stretcher outside the med-wagon, her eyes not moving from Sanderson's corpse on the ground nearby. "I heard him killing that man and then shots being fired. Dredd didn't give any explanation. It was like he was possessed."

  "I want to look into your memories," Karyn said. "See that the concussion you suffered hasn't scrambled what you're recalling. Is that okay?"

  Callaghan shrugged. "I guess. Go ahead."

  Karyn removed her gauntlets and laid both hands on the Med-Judge's head, reaching into her thoughts. The events of the past hour flashed backwards through her mind's eye, confirming what Callaghan had described. Karyn slowed the flow of memories down, then moved back and forth over them, focusing on the moments when Callaghan had been watching Dredd's face.

  "When you spoke with Dredd, was he paying attention to you?"

  "I guess. He was..." The Med-Judge paused, reliving the same moments Karyn was reviewing. "No, he wasn't. I didn't notice at the time, but he seemed distracted, distant."

  Karyn delved deeper into Callaghan's mind, freezing an image from her memories of Dredd lying on the hover-stretcher. Something small and round attached to his helmet had been catching the light at a certain angle, a translucent disc positioned close to one of Dredd's ears. The Psi-Judge could sense Callaghan's discomfiture and let go of her head. "Thank you."

  "Did you find anything?" the Med-Judge asked. "I still can't believe Dredd would attack us like that, it doesn't make any sense."

  "You're right, it doesn't," Karyn agreed. She signalled for Callaghan to be removed. Once the Med-Judge was out of earshot Karyn explained what she had seen with Langenkamp.

  "Could it be a mind control device?" the street Judge wondered.

  "I'm not convinced. It looked more like a tiny comms relay. Somebody could be using it to jam our attempts to contact Dredd. They could be feeding him instructions, lies, anything."

  Langenkamp nodded. "From now on, we have to assume Dredd is under hostile control and treat him as a rogue Judge. I'll tell Control. You see if there's anything more we can get from the rest of the crew."

  Tattoo Sue was enjoying herself again. When Dredd had escaped her by taking refuge in Di's mo-pad, Sue feared the worst. Di might be her lover but in the bounty hunting business they were still rivals. The tattooed woman was confident she could beat Fincher and Sanderson to the prize of killing Dredd, but Di was another matter. She was devious, cunning and deadly.

  The homing device attached to the Judge's helmet made it all too simple to follow him and Di safely from a distance. The signal would cease when Dredd was terminated, so Sue knew the chase was still alive. She couldn't understand why Di hadn't finished the Judge off yet. What was the stupid slitch waiting for? With every minute the mo-pad was getting closer to the Grand Hall of Justice. Perhaps Di was trying to lull Dredd into a false sense of security.

  Sue lost patience and decided to up the ante. She accelerated the scarlet speedster through the four lanes of traffic on Peter Welbeck and rammed into the back wheels of the mo-pad. It careered sideways, swiping a faster vehicle and causing a five-car pile-up before returning to its lane. Sue ploughed into the rear of the mo-pad again, exploding one of the slower vehicle's tyres. Flaps of rubbereen flew up into the air as the tyre shredded itself. Within seconds the mo-pad was lurching across the four lanes, sparks shooting out behind as it began running on a metal rim.

  It could only be a few seconds before whoever was driving lost all control of the mo-pad. Sue slammed on the speedster's brakes, her own tyres screaming in protest. The pile-up two miles back had cleared the skedway of other traffic, so she had an unobstructed view of what happened next. "Drokking hell," Sue gasped. "Get out of that one, Dredd!

  When the speedster hit the mo-pad for the second time, Dredd was ready for it. He kept a firm grip on the steering wheel, cushioning the impact and keeping the vehicle in its own lane. "You said 'She'll kill both of us!'," he shouted at Di. "How did you know that red vehicle is being driven by a woman?"

  "What did you say?" Di was screaming to be heard above the sound of the mo-pad's tyre shredding.

  "There is no Judge Molloy at Sector House 87, is there?" Dredd demanded.

  "No," Di admitted, pulling a small handgun from inside her purple catsuit and pointing it at Dredd. "Now hit the brakes and-" She was cut off by the mo-pad lurching sideways as the failed tyre was lost altogether. Metal screamed in protest as the hefty vehicle slid along on its rim. "Sweet Jovus," Di whispered.

  Dredd let go of the steering wheel and slapped the gun out of Di's hands. She unclipped her seat belt and dived into the foot well to retrieve the weapon. "You shouldn't have done that!" Dredd shouted.

  "Why not?" Di asked, smirking as she aimed the gun at her quarry.

  "Road safety: always buckle up in case of an accident," the Judge replied. He twisted the steering wheel violently to the right. The mo-pad tried and failed to make the turn before flinging itself into the air like a wounded animal. Dredd braced himself in the driver's seat as the mo-pad flipped through a somersault, the road surface ahead pin-wheeling around.

  The purple people carrier then slammed into Peter Welbeck, tearing up tarmac as the front windows exploded. It continued careering forward, nose buried in the road, the rest of the mo-pad still rearing up in the air. The skedway went into an abrupt curve ahead as it turned away from a spectacular vista over the shantytown known as City Bottom. The mo-pad was sliding directly towards the crash barriers and nothing could stop it.

  Tattoo Sue could see precisely what was going to happen next. She gunned her speedster's engine into life and roared down an offramp towards City Bottom. If Dredd survived the fall, she wanted to be the one to finish him off. Di would have done all the hard work, but I'll still get the credit, Sue
thought.

  "Control to all units! We've got a multi-car pile-up on Peter Welbeck, just after the onramp from Harry Alan Towers Overzoom. PSU reports more trouble further along the same road. Proceed with extreme caution!"

  The mo-pad thundered into the crash barriers. They had been designed to withstand a direct hit from mega-trucks travelling at full speed, able to displace the impact through hollow rubber supports and struts. But the mo-pad hit the barriers while still upended on its front. The bulk of the vehicle tipped over the top of the barriers, doing a slow roll towards the ten-storey drop on the other side. It was the crumpled carnage at the front of the mo-pad that halted the vehicle's progress. The gnarled metal got entangled with the barrier and left the vehicle dangling over the precipice, just a twisted scramble of chassis keeping it from falling.

  Dredd was trying to free himself when Di stirred beside him. "Road safety tip, huh?" she asked. Bruised and bloody, the bounty hunter was free to climb out through the shattered windscreen. But Dredd's seat belt buckle had been wrenched out of shape by the crash and refused to unlock. Di stood on the passenger seat and began pulling herself out. "Guess breaking the rules can have its compensations after all."

  Dredd grabbed her left leg as she passed him. "Where do you think you're going, punk?"

  "Let go of me!" Di protested. She kicked at Dredd's head and hands with her spare foot, trying to dislodge his iron grip. "Let go!"

  Dredd grabbed the other leg and held both of them fast. "You're not leaving me here," he snarled. "If this thing falls, you're coming with me!"

  The mo-pad suddenly slumped a few inches, metal screeching as the weight of the vehicle began dragging it downwards. Di looked up in alarm, watching the tangle holding them in place slowly unravelling. "Please, Dredd! We'll both die if this thing crashes to City Bottom!"