Fear the Darkness (11 page)

"No go, Broph." Judge Elvins returned from questioning the perps. "If there was an inside man on the heist, the creeps ain't talking."

"Call Control and have them booked in for in-depth interrogation back at the Sector House. And get graveyard shift to schedule the mart's owner and staff for crime swoops later tonight. Might shake something loose."

"Check." Elvins's hand went to his radio. "Pat-Wagon's already on the way for the perps, and Resyk's been notified about the stiffs. I make it 11.53. What say we get some lunch while it's quiet? We could go to that hottie stand you like so much."

"The precinct's food court is closer." He tried to keep his face neutral. "Anyway, I'm starting to get sick of hotties. You know how it is. Too much of a good thing, I guess."

Night. Melinda was sleeping. Trying not to wake her, he slipped out of bed and dressed without turning the lights on. Citizen clothes. In the two months since their first night, he had learned to be careful. He parked his bike in a different location each time and walked to the basement in Robert Mitchum Block to change out of his uniform. Then he walked to her apartment, keeping an eye out for tails. He had even bought a hat so the Justice Department's spy-cams wouldn't see his face. Precautions. He went off-com four or five times a week now. An hour here, an hour there. Stolen moments. Somebody might get suspicious.

"Billy?" Finding his side of the bed empty, she stirred and began to wake. "You want me to put some synthi-caf on before you go?" Her hand moved to the light switch beside her. "I went to the buy-mart today and got the kind you like-"

"No! Don't touch it!" He ran to the bed and grabbed her hand.

"What is it?" She was startled. "Billy? You're hurting me-"

"The curtains are open." He let go of her hand. "Remember I put anti-glare strips inside the windows to block out the Justice Department's cameras, so we wouldn't have to keep the curtains closed all the time? They only work in the dark." He saw blue eyes in the darkness, frightened. He felt ashamed. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you, but we have to be careful."

"I understand," she said.

Morning. Inside the Sector House. Standing in front of his locker getting ready for his shift.

"So, there's the perp." Elvins took his helmet from his own locker and pushed the door closed. "Three o'clock in the morning on Chandler Pedway, carrying a Tri-D player. No receipt. Tries to tell me a friend of his had just given it to him for his birthday. When I ask him this friend's name, he tells me he forgot it."

"Lying To A Judge. You gave him extra time for that?" It was as much a statement as a question. He found he was barely listening. Distracted. Thinking of Melinda. Looking forward to tonight.

"Sure. Another six months. But that's not the point. Thing was he'd stolen the Tri-D all right, but it actually was this guy's birthday. Guess that's what made him think up the story. 'Many happy returns, creep,' I told him." Elvins paused. "You okay, Broph? You seem like you got something on your mind."

"You know us old farts. Always staring into space, remembering the good old days." He lied so often now it was second nature. "Sign of encroaching senility, probably." He smiled. "What's the matter, rookie? You starting to think the old dog can't cut it no more?"

"I've got no worries on that score, Broph." Elvins laughed. "Seriously though, you know there's nobody I'd rather see backing me up when things go perp-shaped. With that in mind, got a tip on a sugar deal going down tonight. Twenty kilos, uncut. You up for a stakeout?"

"You know I am. Just name the place and time."

"The Fatty Freddie's Burger franchise on Thompson and Spillane. Stoolie says the buy's supposed to be happening at 22:00. We should probably make sure we're in position an hour earlier, just to be on the safe side."

"Check. I'll meet you on Spillane at 20:55 and we'll take it from there. You call in any other backup?"

"You're kidding, right?" Elvins smiled again. "This is Brophy and Elvins we're talking about here. The toughest tag team this side of the Universal World Ultimate Wrestling Alliance Federation. The bust hasn't been made yet that we couldn't handle. Long as I got you covering my back, nothing can go wrong."

Night. The Sector House morgue. The sound of his own footsteps echoing behind him. A sick feeling in the pit of his stomach.

"I thought you might be coming down." Med-Judge Henderson looked up from a body stretched out on the slab. "I was just about to begin the post-mortem. He was your rookie, wasn't he?"

He could not trust himself to answer. He felt ashamed, weighed down by guilty secrets. Secrets. He had fallen asleep at Melinda's apartment. It was 21.45 when she had thought to wake him. By the time he reached Bob Mitchum Block to change into his uniform, it was too late. The call had already gone out over the airwaves. "Code Ninety-Nine Red. Judge down at Fatty Freddie's Burgers, corner of Thompson and Spillane."

Judge down. The words were like a dagger in his heart.

"Bullet in the back of the head." Henderson indicated a gaping wound. "I haven't dug it out yet, but from the size I'm guessing it's a stump slug. One of the perps must have got behind him. Makes you wonder what the hell he thought he was doing, going in there without backup..."

Midday. The hottie stand. Driving in off the meg-way, he saw the parking lot was empty. Melinda was behind the counter. Getting off his bike he pulled out his daystick and walked towards her.

"Billy?" She looked at him in confusion. "What happened? I haven't heard from you in weeks."

"You are under arrest." His voice was emotionless. Judge to perp. "Two years for Breaching Penal Code seventeen, Section two."

"Billy?" Her mouth fell open. "What's the matter with you? Is this some kind of joke?"

"No joke. That extractor vent is a health and safety violation." He pulled a pair of handcuffs from his belt and threw them on the counter. He didn't want to touch her. "Put those on."

"Billy? Why are you doing this?" Her face was ashen. She reached out towards him. "It's me... Melinda-"

He hit her hard, jabbing the end of his daystick into her stomach. The air exploded out of her as she fell to her knees. He jumped the counter and stood over her as she lay sobbing on the floor. His hand was shaking.

"Don't make this harder than it has to be." He grabbed the cuffs from the counter and dropped them beside her. "Put those on. Now."

"But you said you loved me." She looked up at him. He saw blue eyes crying.

"Shut your face!" The sight of the tears spilling down her cheeks fuelled his rage. "You ever breathe a word of that to anyone and you'll be sorry." He felt his own tears burning beneath his helmet. "No one will believe you. They'll put you in a psycho-cube for indefinite observation." Tears of shame. "If you tell anyone, I'll hear about it. I'll come and get you. I'll have to you put in the cubes for life. I'm a Judge. I can do anything to you I want. You understand me, you bitch?"

"I understand," she said.

Night. Bad dreams. Him and Melinda. Him and Elvins. Elvins's death. The last day at the hottie stand. Melinda crying. Blood seeping from the wound in the back of Elvins's head. Sometimes in his dreams he was there at Elvins's death, paralysed and unable to stop it. Other times he dreamt of killing Melinda, beating her with his daystick until all that was left of her face was a bloody pulp. Dreams and memories. Memories and dreams. Sometimes it was a wonder to him he ever slept at all.

The Sector House. He had worked a double-shift, then come back for his mandatory eight hours' natural sleep. He woke one time too many. He had risen from bed and sought out conversation, anything to keep the dreams from returning.

He had found a group of Judges standing gossiping outside Judge Hass's office. Keller. Chung. Jurgens. Mattski. Pelleto. Whitby. He had listened to them talk, not offering much in the way of comment, just glad of the company, glad of anything that kept the night at bay.

The lights went out.

A power cut. He heard the voices of the others around him. Expressions of surprise. Bad jokes. Complaints. "Justice Department must've forgot to pay the power bill," someone said. The others laughed. Then, closer, as though from right beside him, he heard another voice.

William Brophy.
The sound, a barely audible murmur.

William Brophy.
A strange voice, malign and knowing.

William Brophy
. A whisper, in the darkness.

It is time to be judged...

"Anderson!" He heard another voice. Shouting. More insistent.

"Anderson!" A light, burning through his eyelids. A hand at his wrist, checking his pulse. The sound of other, more distant voices raised in panic.

"Anderson!" This is wrong, a voice said in his mind. This is not who I am. I'm not a man. I'm not William Brophy. I'm...

"Anderson!"

She opened her eyes. She saw concerned faces in the darkness. A torch beam shining blindingly in her eyes. Confused, she wondered where she was. It came flooding back to her.
Brophy
. She had been deepscanning Brophy.

"Anderson?" Med-Chief Rodriguez breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank Grud. For a minute there, I thought you weren't going to snap out of it."

"I was so close," she said. The words reeled out of her, uncontrolled. "Brophy, he had a lover. An Unjudicial Liaison. Another Judge died. Guilty secrets. He felt ashamed. And then he was outside Hass's office. He heard a voice, whispering to him in the darkness. I was so close. So close. Why did you have to go and bring me back so-"

"Anderson," Rodriguez's voice was calm and patient. "Look around you. The lights went out three minutes ago. There's been another power cut, across the entire Sector House. Just like the last time."

"The last time?" She was still confused. Groggy. Looking around her she saw only darkness.

"Anderson! Don't you understand?" Rodriguez grabbed her shoulder, trying to make her focus. "It's happening again."

SEVEN

CITIZEN QUEEG

For Jeffrey Queeg it was the end of another long and dispiriting day, a day little different from all the thousand days before it. It had certainly begun like all the others.

6:00am. He had been woken by the buzzing of the alarm by his bedside in his thirty-ninth floor apartment in Charles Whitman Block.

6:10am. He had eaten his breakfast: plasti-flakes, synthi-caf and a dry piece of munce toast.

6:30am. He had showered, shaved and brushed his teeth.

6:59am. He had left the apartment, careful to lock the door behind him.

7:00am. Time to find a job.

"Too old," the manager at the Juve-Mart said. "Too young," the Personnel woman at Life Experience Counselling told him. "Too dumb," the Recruitment Facilitator at Applied Computer Ultra-Dynamics sneered at his résumé. "You're kidding, right?" the guy at the pole-dancing place said, refusing to even let him audition.

Just another day. With unemployment running at over eighty-seven per cent, finding a job in Mega-City One was hard work. Yet, day after day, Jeffrey pounded the pedways in search of a salary and a sense of fulfilment. He queued. He filled out forms. He attended interviews. He begged and pleaded, only to find doors slammed shut in his face everywhere he applied.

Another day. Followed by another evening, just like all the evenings before it. He had arrived home at 7:54pm, wincing as he passed the apartment next to his and heard the booming bass lines reverberating from inside it. Experience had taught him that once his neighbour Kowalski started playing loud music on his quad-sound, it could go on for hours. He considered ringing the Judges to complain, but he thought better of it. Kowalski was a big man with a temper. Even if the Judges took him to the cubes, he would be back and Jeffrey would have to live alongside him. It was better just to try to make the best of it. Anything for a quiet life.

As he opened the door, Jeffrey had learned his day had taken an unexpected turn for the worse. He had been burgled. The apartment window had been forced open and all his most prized possessions had been stolen. The not-quite-yet-antique tiepin collection his father had left him. His Tri-D slugs, including the rare complete first season of "You've Been Fingered". The talking leprechaun figurine he had picked up on his vacation to the Emerald Isle. His best kneepads. Recovering from his initial shock, Jeffrey had noticed the message light blinking on his phone. It had been an automated message from the Justice Department, telling him property believed to belong to him had been found in the possession of a recently arrested bat-burglar. If he wanted to reclaim it he was to report to his local Sector House with all relevant receipts and paperwork, bringing enough money to cover a twenty-five credit fine for negligence. Of course, he had headed off to Sector House 12 at once.

Ten hours later, Jeffrey found himself still sitting in the waiting area opposite the Sector House's check-in desk. By his watch it was 5:52am. Ten hours. He might as well have been there forever. Jeffrey had heard the wheels of justice could grind slowly, but he couldn't help but feel there were limits to what a citizen should be expected to put up with. Enough was enough. He refused to endure this shabby treatment a moment longer. Driven beyond all restraint, he resolved to make a stand. He wanted his property back and he wanted it now.

Advancing on the bullet proof screen of the check-in desk, Jeffrey fixed one of the Judges behind it with a steely glare and made ready to demand his rights.

"My name is Jeffrey Queeg," he said. It seemed better to establish the particulars as swiftly as possible. "My apartment was hit by a bat-burglar last night and I've come here to reclaim my-"

"Take a ticket." Without looking up from his computer screen, the Judge nodded toward the ticket dispenser beside the counter. "Wait until your number's called, then come back to this desk with your documents and you'll be told what to do next."

"I don't think you understand," Jeffrey said. "I already have a number."