Dredd VS Death (22 page)

It was only after the roar of the weapon's fearsomely loud gunfire reports started to die away that Dredd heard the other sound coming from the corridor behind him: the loud, pounding tread of metallic feet, too heavy to be anything human, too regular and steady to be anything other than a droid. And not just any kind of droid.

War droids were supposed to be illegal in Mega-City One. Even before the Second Robot War, when crimelord Nero Narcos had used an army of war droids to try and overthrow the entire Judge system and install himself as the city's new ruler, the manufacture and ownership of any kind of combat-orientated robot unit was highly illegal. The Justice Department had its own war droid reserve resources, of course, although a scheme under the late Chief Judge McGruder's administration to make up the growing shortfall of patrol Judges by putting robot Judges onto the city streets had not met with success, Nevertheless, the private ownership of such droids was forbidden.

Such devices were still available elsewhere, of course. Asiatic mega cities such as Hondo Cit, Sino Cit and Nu-Taiwan did a roaring trade in war droid manufacture, and even in Mega-City there was always a thriving underground black market in war droid units still left over from previous conflicts, stretching all the way back to events as long ago as the early twenty-first century Volgan Wars. In fact, the ABC Warrior unit, dating from the mid-period Volgan Wars, was still highly prized for its combat abilities, even now more than a hundred years after its original construction, and there were those collectors and aficionados of such things who considered the ABC unit so durable and easily adaptable that they claimed they could still be in active service even thousands of years from now.

Dredd dived, rolling for cover, as the metal brute stomped up the corridor towards him, opening fire with its own inbuilt weaponry. Bullets ricocheted off walls and careened off the stone floor as the droid's weapons systems tracked Dredd, his speed and reflexes managing to keep him just that vital hairsbreadth ahead of its targeting sensors.

He dropped the M2000, knowing its high-calibre shotgun capabilities, although devastating against unarmoured human opponents, would be useless against a heavily armoured droid. The droid kept on coming, its thunderous footsteps cracking the stone of the floor. It was too big and heavy to be one of the sleek new Hondo-cit jobs had been coming onto the market in the last few years, and superior targeting programs on the Nu-Taiwan models would most likely have found him and vaporised him by now, so Dredd's best guess was that it was probably an old Sov Blok unit, probably even pre-Apocalypse War. The details didn't worry him; if they wanted to, the Tek-Judges could try and identify it from whatever scrap metal was left when he had finished taking care of it.

He came out of the roll, Lawgiver in hand, firing as he went. Armour Piercing shells ricocheted off the droid's armoured carapace, barely even denting the thick armour there to protect its CPU core. A Hi-Ex shell took care of the heavy spit-blaster mounted on one of its shoulders. Dredd was just about to fire a second shot to destroy the mini missile launcher on the droid's other shoulder, when it hit him with the auxiliary electro-gens built into its chest unit. Crackling lightning bolts of electricity filled the corridor in front of it, leaping from metal wall to metal wall, striking Dredd multiple times. The heavily insulated material of his uniform's bodysuit saved him from the worst of it, but the blasts still threw him several metres back, slamming him painfully against the corridor wall. His Lawgiver flew from his nerveless grasp, landing far away from where he fell.

He slumped to the ground, hearing the stone-cracking impacts of the droid's footsteps as it stamped forward to finish him off, its servo-motors growling in what sounded almost like eager anticipation.

Muscles cramped with pain from the effects of the electricity blast refused to respond. Dredd's vision swam, the heavy, deadening weight of imminent oblivion pressing in on the edges of his consciousness.

Get up, old man, he told himself. You're not out for the count yet, not while your city's still in danger.

The reminder was like a shock to the system. He was moving even as the droid's giant metal fist jack-hammered down towards him, pile-driving into the area of the floor where only moments ago Dredd's head had been resting. He scrambled away from it, reaching out for the nearest weapon which instinct and more than forty years of combat experience told him should still be lying right where its previous owner had dropped it.

The las-burner wasn't designed for combat use, and wasn't a particularly easy thing to operate, usually requiring a physically strong operator or even work-droid to wield properly. Its main purpose was to cut up dense materials like metal or reinforced plasteel. Perps had quickly found its uses when it came to slicing through inconvenient obstacles like vault doors and walls. It probably didn't say anything about it in the manufacturer's manual, but disabling maniac war-droids seemed to be another one of the multi-faceted tool's many useful applications.

In an impressive feat of strength, Dredd swung the heavy device one-handed, activating its power supply with a flick of his finger. The tool's las-beam instantly hissed into life, projecting several feet from its end, burning with a cold, clear light that made Dredd's eyes hurt, even through the polarised visor guard of his helmet.

The las-burner sheared through the armoured metal of the droid's right arm as if it was nothing more substantial than raw munce. The metal monster's hand fell to the ground with a loud clunk, twitching in distressed reflex, sparks and oily black hydraulic fluid spraying out from its severed end. The droid made a dull roaring sound that was either a mechanical expression of pain and anger or merely a change in the pitch of its servo-motor system as it shut down the flow of power and fluid to the damaged limb.

Dredd was moving again, rolling between the thick metal tree trunks of its legs as it swivelled round in search of him, trying to bring its remaining weaponry to bear on this one unexpectedly troublesome human target. Designed mainly for frontal assault, the droid was more vulnerable to attack in its more weakly armoured rear sections. Hefting the las-burner, Dredd quickly got to work on the backs of its legs, slashing into the joint-pistons and power cables there.

Hamstrung, with both legs disabled, and bellowing in impotent mechanical distress, the three and a half metre tall droid pitched forward onto its face, with a crash that reminded Dredd of the sound of a conapt building or small-sized city block being demolished.

It lay there, emitting strange mechanical growls as its servo-motors whined in protest, flailing its one still-functioning limb about the place in futile protest. A few more brief seconds' work with the las-burner put paid to even this much activity from it. Dredd walked away, leaving the now-deactivated weapon buried deep into the fused slag that had been the droid's CPU unit.

Icarus had been surprised how easy it had been to track Dredd's progress through the complex by the sound of the gunshots alone.

First had come the loud and intense sounds of several different guns firing at once, as Dredd encountered and dealt with the main groups of Icarus's security detail at the main entrance points to the lab. After that, the gunfire had become more sporadic as it crept closer to where Icarus was and Dredd penetrated further into the complex, encountering the occasional wandering vampire or small pocket of Death cultist resistance. Amidst these had come the odd explosion, the sounds of those also coming progressively closer as Dredd methodically destroyed lab after lab, wiping out years of Icarus's research into longevity and various possibilities for sustaining life after death. It didn't matter, Icarus knew. He already had everything he wanted from his research, and it was coursing through his veins now, changing his mind and body in ways that puny, mortal intellects like Dredd's could never imagine.

The last explosion had come about half a minute ago, no doubt caused by Dredd laying waste to the lab just down the corridor, where the vampires' blood serum food supply was produced. If that was the case, then by Icarus's calculations he should be entering the...

Right on cue, the lab doors obediently opened in response to the Justice Department override device's command. Dredd walked in, his Lawgiver aimed at Icarus. Apart from the two of them, there wasn't another living soul in the lab.

"Dick Icarus? Fun-time's over, creep. You're under arrest."

"Really? On what charges?" Icarus's tone was casual and breezy, his voice deliberately raised to distract Dredd's attention away from the faint pounding sounds on the incubator vault door on the wall to the side of them.

"Don't get cute, punk. So far tonight, you've been responsible for the deaths of thousands. Grud knows how many more are going to die before we take care of the things you've unleashed on this city."

"Aren't you even going to ask me why?" asked Icarus, glancing down at the weapon he'd left on the desk top beside him. It was only an arm's reach away. All he had to do was-

"No need. You'll tell us everything we need to know soon enough, as soon as we get you into an interrogation cube," promised Dredd. "Why you did it, what you know of the Dark Judges' plans, any more little surprises you had planned for us. You won't hold anything back for too long. We've got interrogation techniques that'll make you tell us things you didn't even know you knew, and that's even before we bring in the Psi-Judges to go creeping around inside your mind."

"I did it because I want to live forever, and because the Dark Judges have the power to grant me that wish." Icarus was almost shouting, as much to drown out the sounds from behind the vault door as from the sense of rising excitement he felt within him. The moment was so close now, so close...

Dredd wasn't impressed. "So thousands have to die to feed your sick fantasy that the Dark Judges will give you eternal life? Grud alone knows how you managed to convince anyone to let you out the kook cubes, Icarus. The only wish the Dark Judges are ever going to grant is a death wish. You'd have to be completely insane to ever think you could make a bargain with those things."

Dredd was walking across the room towards him now, reaching into a belt pouch for the handcuffs to secure his prisoner. The noise from the vault door finally drew his attention. He paused, glancing suspiciously over at the door.

"What you got in there? More bloodsuckers?"

Icarus knew it was now or never. "Why don't you see for yourself," he screeched, making a grab for the weapon on the counter.

It was a good choice of weapon, he thought. A Flesh Disintegrator, instantly recognisable to someone like Dredd, and instantly lethal to anyone on the receiving end of its organic matter-destroying field. Icarus had had cause to use it several times before, in dealing with difficult-to-control lab specimens infected with some of the early versions of the retrovirus, and he could happily attest to its deadly capabilities.

He knew he wouldn't be able to grab the weapon, pick it up and fire it before Dredd could fire his own weapon. But then, as Icarus reminded himself, that was something he didn't have to worry about.

His hand was barely on the weapon's grip before the first Lawgiver shot punched into him, followed by two more in the space of a heartbeat, all three closely hitting in a tight cluster over his ribs. Icarus felt his heart explode, torn apart by the bullets' paths through his body. He had wondered many times what this moment would be like. His knowledge as a medical research scientist and his experiences from studying death in all its many forms over the last eight years suggested to him that it would all be quick and refreshingly pain-free. His knowledge and practical experiences had lied to him, he now knew; being shot dead hurt, and seemed to take much longer than you would reasonably expect.

A tremor passed through him. The formula coursing through his bloodstream seemed somehow to realise the fact of his imminent death, and was reacting accordingly. Icarus felt it release some its strength into him, and he began to rise again to his feet, still clutching the disintegrator weapon, still bringing it up to bear at its target.

Dredd, caught by surprise by the fact of the nondescript-looking scientist's unexpected reliance, almost hesitated for a moment.

Almost.

Three more shots ripped into Icarus, hurling him backwards, knocking the gun from his hand. The scientist sank to his knees, blood pouring out of him. In spite of the pain from his torn-apart innards, he still managed to look up at Dredd and smile.

"Me, I know I'm coming back. For you, though, this is the end of the line."

He fell dead to the ground, Dredd at the same time spotting the small remote device held in Icarus's other hand. Icarus's hand had squeezed around it at the moment of death, activating it, and now the vault door on the far wall was sliding open. An alarm blared in warning, and over it Dredd could clearly hear the excited snarls and ravenous growls of the things behind that door.

They poured out of the vault: vampires, maybe a hundred or more of them, naked and newborn, hungry for blood, keen to start killing and spread their retrovirus further.

When they had joined the Church of Death and volunteered to undergo Icarus's retrovirus transformation process - a "rebirth into a glorious state beyond life and death", he had promised them - they had imagined that they would become natural-born predators, with nothing to fear and none strong or brave enough to stand against them. They were wrong.