Judge Dredd (14 page)

“We’re not in combat,” Griffin said irritably. “Tell that toy of yours to stand down!”

Rico looked past Griffin. His pupils swelled and turned gold. The woman stepped out of shadow into sight. She was tall, dressed in something blue that captured a million shards of light. Her mouth was wide and red, her eyes slightly tilted where the dark hair tumbled past her cheeks to her breasts.

“I know you,” Rico whispered. “I remember you . . .”

“Yes, you do,” the woman said. “You remember me.” Her voice was a breath of chilly air. She rewarded Rico with a smile.

“You’re Ilsa Hayden. The bitch who testified before the Council. You told the Judges I was insane.”

“And therefore innocent of your crimes,” Griffin added.

“I was simply trying to help,” Ilsa said.

Rico’s eyes burned. “You
insulted
me. You made me look like a—a mental degenerate. I knew exactly what I was doing. I did then, and I do now.”

“Really?” Ilsa took a step toward him. One small motion with more silent meaning, more blatant sensuality than Rico had ever seen.

“You might want to reconsider your . . . state of mind, friend. You might need to call on my help again.”

Griffin watched them. They stood well apart, but he could feel the struggle between them, the invisible lines of tension, the hunger and the need. He forced himself to repress a smile. Ilsa was the gift he had hoped for, the control he needed to keep Rico stable, to use him, to keep the howling psychopath inside this creature from emerging and destroying them all. Ilsa could do that. The raw, animal smell of this woman could bind him tighter than the strongest chain.

“Miss Hayden has been a loyal supporter of this project for some time,” Griffin said. “She has watched over it, kept it alive for me. I’m certain you’ll find her experience . . . invaluable, Rico.”

Rico didn’t blink. “I’m most grateful. I’m sure I can use all the help I can get.”

“We have our work cut out for us.” Ilsa swept one hand about the room. “The equipment’s been dormant for some time. It won’t be up and running without a complete retrofit. I’ve made some notations for you. This should give you some idea.”

Ilsa handed him a thin computerpad. Rico nodded, studied the figures quickly. He frowned, then looked up in alarm.

“Are you certain this is entirely correct? Yes, of course you are.” He turned on Griffin like a snake. “Inducers, nitrogen coils, nano-pumps . . . Hell, is there anything you
don’t
need? Why don’t we just nuke the place and start over again!”

He looked at Ilsa. “You’ve kept the project alive, have you? With what, glue and tape?”

“With what I had to work with, Rico.” If his words had offended, she didn’t let it show. “There was never any intention of bringing the project up to working status until we were ready. We saw no point in that.” She raised an eyebrow at Griffin. “Perhaps you should explain.”

Griffin nodded. “Ilsa has kept me apprised of her needs all along, Rico. I’ve had the necessary equipment marked for our use. From hospitals, government facilities, research laboratories . . . everything slated for different destinations, different names. It’s all there, all ready.” He smiled at the two. “If I set things in motion, when can you be on line?”

“If you can really deliver all this,” Rico said, “tomorrow I’ll have the place working.”

“We can begin to
think
about bringing the project online in a week. No less,” Ilsa broke in.

They looked at each other, neither willing to waver. Griffin read challenge, resentment—and curiosity as well. Together they could do it. Working with each other, in spite of each other. The attraction between them was the heat that would light a fiercely burning fire, a fire that would change the world, mold it the way Griffin knew it had to be.

“On-line won’t mean a damn thing if you can’t get into Central’s Janus files,” Rico said. He flexed his fingers and ran one hand across his jaw. “They’re still security-locked. If we can’t pry the data out of there . . .”

“Leave Central to me,” Griffin told him. “You have plenty to do until then. None of this, down here, will be effective if you don’t stir up the Citizens in the street. Ilsa has some good suggestions in that area, too. I’m sure she can help.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Rico said. “I don’t need any help.”

“Oh, I see.” Ilsa shook her head, a gesture that tossed a wave of dark hair over one eye. “I thought you said he was the best, Griffin. I’m afraid I overlooked that evaluation somewhere. All I see is a petulant child.”

“Look, you—” Rico’s eyes flashed.

“Please . . .” Griffin raised a palm in peace. “Let’s not bicker now, all right? We are all committed to the same goal, ending the squalor, the inefficiency of our world. Replacing it with a new, ordered society.”

Rico’s frown faded. He looked at Griffin and laughed. It was a sudden, abrupt sound that shattered the silence of the room.

“You’ll get your
New Order,
Griffin. We’ll take care of that, won’t we, sweets?” He winked at Ilsa, then turned and whistled at the robot warrior looming dark at his back. “Let’s go, Fido. Daddy’s going to find you something to bite.”

I
t sounded like a wind-up bee, a tiny
clut-clut-bzzzt!
in his ear. Griffin stopped dead, jerked around and stared back down the tunnel. The shadows were empty, no one was there.

Of course there’s no one there, you damn fool. No one but you!

Nerves, he told himself. That maniac and his antique killing machine were enough to give anyone the jumps. Ilsa Hayden was no paragon of mental health, as far as that was concerned, but compared to Rico . . .

“Yes, Griffin here. What is it?”

He spoke softly, almost a whisper. The micro-circuit in the silver threads of his collar scrambled his words, then released them in the clear, at any destination in the world.

“Captain Aachen, sir. Judge Hunter Search and Abort, Squad Seven. Sir, we’re at a wreck site. Old Ohio Sector—”

“What!”
Griffin felt a cold blade twist in his gut. He knew the answer, knew he had to ask. “What
wreck
are we talking about, Captain? Don’t waste my time, damn you!”

A half-second pause. A little less confidence in the veteran officer’s voice.

“Aspen Shuttle, sir. The one with—”

“—with Judge Dredd aboard,” Griffin finished. His voice was deadly calm, assured. “Is he dead or alive? I want positive ID either way. No guesswork, Captain.”

“Nothing yet, sir. We’re going through the wreckage now. I’m getting a picture on-line for you, Chief Justice.”

“About time, too,” Griffin said. The Officer was doing his job, but it never hurt to shake a man up when you could.

A holo sphere blinked into life at Griffin’s eye level. It rotated slowly, giving him a complete view of the area. The wreck was a black, twisted metal shell. It had scooped out a shallow groove in the parched earth, plowed a hundred meters and stopped.

He’s dead,
Griffin told himself.
No one could live through that.

The Judge Hunter Squad was going about its work with practiced care. Men moved through the smoking debris, using barcode scanners to check the ID tags of the dead. Griffin wrinkled his nose. He could almost smell the oppressive heat of the Cursed Earth, the unforgetable odor of burning flesh.

“Sir . . .” Captain Aachen stepped into sight, his visor raised to show a man with scarred features, a broken nose, gray eyes squinting against the harsh light. “The shuttle was struck by an unidentified weapon from ground level. Two-thirds of the craft exploded at once. We’ve spotted some pieces twenty, thirty clicks out. There are sixteen casualties here but no sign of Dredd. Two men alive. One guard and a prisoner. We are presently—”

The officer turned away for a moment, frowned, and looked at Griffin. “Chief Justice, we’ve found tracks leading away from the wreck site. At least . . . half a dozen men. I am assuming Dredd was one of the survivors, sir.”

“No.”

“Sir?”

“No, Captain, he was not. You are clearly in error.”

Captain Aachen nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“I repeat. Joseph Dredd did not survive the shuttle crash.
No
one survived the wreck. Is that clear, Captain?”

“Yes, sir. Perfectly clear, sir. Will there be any further—”

“Griffin out.”

The tin bee in his ear pinged once. The bright holo winked like a bubble in the sun and disappeared. Griffin quickened his steps. His throat was dry as the Cursed Earth itself, and he felt the sting of sweat on his chest.

“Damn you, Dredd,” he said to the dark tunnel walls. “You’d better be dead. You’d better be in
Hell!”

Captain Aachen made his way back into the wreckage. The odor was strong enough to gag a hooker-droid, but he’d smelled the dead before. The prisoner who’d survived was nearly dead. A minute, maybe two, he’d be gone. A Medik was squatting over the guard. Aachen waved him away. He looked down at the man. The Medik had cleaned his face and set a compress against the ugly cut on his head.

“Thanks,” the guard said. He showed Aachen a weary grin. “I’m grateful for your help. Glad you guys showed up.”

Aachen brought the blunt-nosed pistol from behind his back.

“No problem,” he said.

You have got to be out of your mind, Hershey. Plain stupid—totally out of your mind . . .

She stood in the shadows of the lockers, held her breath and listened to the sounds of the dead half of the night. How could the silence make so much noise? She could hear the sigh of air in ventilator shafts, the hum of the elevators in the walls. A drip in the shower was a fullblown waterfall.

Hershey looked at her watch. 0210. Two minutes and a life-time since she’d stolen a look before.

A voice at the far end of the room. Another, and a laugh. A locker slammed, shattering the quiet of the room.

“Go home,” Hershey whispered. “Your shift’s over, guys, get out of here.”

Footsteps echoed down the corridor. A door whispered shut. The locker room was silent again. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Dredd’s locker was 30914, two aisles down. She was grateful for the synthetic flooring that dampened her steps. You could stomp on the stuff and never make a sound.

So why didn’t they put it on the ceiling and the walls? Why didn’t someone think of that?

The lock was a simple magnetic, easy enough to open if you knew how, and every Cadet who’d gone through the Academy did. It was something you learned about the second day of Break & Enter, Basic B & E. The locks on the individual lockers were a courtesy, not a security measure. No Judge would even dream of violating the privacy of another Judge’s space.

Yeah, right. No one but you, Hershey . . .

Towels. A spare helmet with an awesome dent on the side. She knew where Dredd had gotten that. Brass polish. Boot polish.
Really,
Dredd. She couldn’t resist a smile. Still a Cadet at heart.

Something swung on a gold chain at the rear of the locker. Any Judge would know it on sight. A valor award. For outstanding heroism. And what did
that
get you, Dredd? What does it mean to anyone now?

Her eyes blurred and she wiped her sleeve across her face.
Damn it, no time for that. It isn’t going to help . . .

She spotted it on the floor of the locker, behind a combat issue boot. A bullet had taken a bite out of the heel. A half-inch higher and Dredd would have a limp.

It was a black slipcase, half an inch thick, with something inside. She drew it out and held it to the light. A cheap viewie, from the quality of the picture, probably a frame from a home video. A young couple. The woman was holding a baby.

“Baby
Dredd?” Hershey shook her head. “Didn’t think you were
ever
a baby, pal.”

She looked at the viewie a moment longer, held it, reluctant to put it down. A little too . . . what? Not too thick, too
heavy
by an ounce or two.

Turning the picture over, she slid her thumb along the rim. The frame popped open. Another image inside. Two men, mid-twenties, in Cadet blues. Graduation day at the Academy, couldn’t be anything else. One of the men obviously a younger Dredd. The other . . . who? Enough like Dredd to be related somehow.

Hershey frowned, studying the picture again. Not a relative, that couldn’t be. Joseph Dredd didn’t have anyone, any life at all outside of the Judges. And even
that
family had finally rejected him, tossed him aside. Now he didn’t have anyone at all.

F
ergie knew he was alive. Everything hurt too much to be dead. His mother had been a closet Churcher. She told him when you died all you did was go to sleep for a while. When you woke up again, you were somewhere real nice. This wasn’t it. This wasn’t nice at all. This was like really,
really
bad and bound to get worse. You could tell by the ugly-looking goons who were squatting by the fire. Fergie didn’t think they looked right. People you wouldn’t want to know. That, and the hoods. The other thing his mother had told him was don’t ever talk to a man who wears a hood.

What the hell were they doing over there? Snorting and sniffing, rooting through the junk they’d salvaged from the shuttle. Whatever
that
might be—whatever had come down in one piece.

His hands and arms were numb. They were up above his shoulders somewhere but he didn’t look to see. If he didn’t move—ever—the groons might think he was asleep or maybe dead. Dead would be good. You’re not going to kill a guy, you think he’s maybe already dead.

“Herman Ferguson
. . .”

It was only a whisper, but Fergie nearly jumped out of his skin.

“Don’t talk to me, Dredd. I’m not here. You want to talk, talk to somebody else.”

“You’re not making sense, Ferguson. There isn’t anybody else. Get control of yourself.”

Fergie risked a look without moving his head. Dredd was half a meter to his right, hanging from his hands, his legs dangling free. Glancing up a little farther, he could see the crossbar where their hands were tied. The building around them was a ruin, incredibly old. The ceiling above was caved in. The night was unbelievably dark. The stars were colder and brighter than Fergie had ever imagined they could be. You didn’t see a black sky and stars in the Mega-Cities. In the Cities, it was never really night.