Neal Barrett - Judge Dredd

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.

Fergie 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.

“Listen,” Fergie whispered, “don’t you tell me to get control of myself, Dredd. Don’t you tell me a thing. It’s your fault I’m in this mess. If I ever get out of here—”

“You won’t.”

“What?”

“It’s against my nature to give up, Ferguson. Understand that. Given the chance, I will give a good accounting of myself. If at all possible, I will take several of these lawbreakers with me. Aside from that, it’s pretty reasonable to assume we have little or no chance of escape. Especially if they are who I think they are.”

Fergie felt his throat go dry. “And who—who would that be?”

“Angels,” Dredd said.

“Angels? Like in—”

“No. Like in Angels of Death. God’s Maggots. Painers. Dirt Chokers.”

“God’s Maggots?” Fergie looked at the fire. “What the hell is this, Dredd—no, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know, I don’t want to hear this. I don’t want to—”

Someone screamed. It was a high-pitched, terrible sound that echoed through the ruins and seemed to last forever.

“Oh shit, oh shit,” Fergie moaned.

“They’ve got somebody else,” Dredd said. “There were other survivors of the crash.”

“I don’t care about anyone else. Screw ’em. I care about me.”

“That’s a bad attitude. That’s a typical lawbreaker outlook on life, Ferguson.”

“Yeah? Well, that’s normal, see? I’m a career criminal, Dredd. Not a really big-time criminal, but that’s what I do. I wire robots, I rob public droids. I can get inside nearly any electronic device. I did time for that, okay? I am not supposed to be here now. You got me into this mess!”

“You said that.”

“I said it again. What are you going to do about that? Arrest me? Good. Please do.”

The scream cut through the night again, then abruptly stopped. Fergie closed his eyes.

“Hey, Pa! We got wakies over here!”

Someone else laughed. “We b-b-better. Pa’s flat runnin’ out of sinners.”

Fergie opened his eyes, sucked in a breath and didn’t let it out. There were three of them. Ugly. Tall. Short. Skinny. Fat. Their hoods were thrown back across their crooked shoulders. One had a face like a toad. His nose was sewn shut with leather thread. He was scarcely wider than a stick. He had enormous green eyes. The hair on his face and head was scorched black and his skin was burned raw. This one still had a nose, but his ears were sewn shut.

It was the third one that made Fergie want to throw up his lunch. If he’d had any lunch that’s exactly what he’d have done. The groon had a patchwork face, alternating squares of copper and flesh like a nightmare checkerboard. One arm was real. The other was a dull metal stub. There was something mechanical protruding from his head, but Fergie couldn’t make it out.

“Hey, how ’bout you?” The creature caught Fergie looking and grinned. “I kinda like you, man. I surely do.” Something blurred, something hummed, something silver and gold sprang out of the metal stub. Something long and sharp touched Fergie’s crotch. It trailed up to Fergie’s belly and traced a narrow line. Fergie had to look. Why did I do that, he thought, why did I have to look? It was the longest blade Fergie had ever seen. They didn’t make any blades longer than that.

“I think I’m going to like you good,” the man with yellow eyes said. “Real, real good. What you think of that?”

“Whatever you do, don’t show them fear,” Dredd said.

“Yeah, right.” Fergie felt something roll over and die in his belly. “Thanks, I’ll remember that, Dredd.”

“Dredd. Did you say Dredd?”

Yellow Eyes cocked his head and studied Dredd. His eyes went bright when he spotted the Judge tattoo.

“Blessed be, Pa!” He turned and called into the shadows. “We got us Judge Dredd hisself!”

The two other freakos jumped up and down. Something walked out of the dark. Something tall and gaunt in bug-eaten rags, something that smelled before it even got near. It shuffled past the fire, tapping its stick on the ground. The others stepped out of his way. He stopped, sniffed the air, then turned his head up to Dredd. His features were masked by the filth-encrusted hood.