Neal Barrett - Judge Dredd

“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.”

It 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.