Neal Barrett - Judge Dredd

Fergie looked at him. “I’m stupid, remember? I’m a habitual offender.”

“Right. But you’re smarter than Junior Head-Dead anytime. Come on, get up. Let’s go.”

“No way, man.”

“What’s wrong?”

“What’s wrong?” Fergie stared. “Are you kidding? Wearing that pot on your head all these years has baked your brains, Dredd. You’re going to get me killed. You’re—oh, God, look at that!”

A fireball roared out of the vent, a tongue of flame thirty feet long. Fergie felt the heat on his face, smelled the charred remains of a million garbage cans.

Dredd waited until the flames died down, then walked up to the edge of the vent, keeping close to the wall. “Do what you want,” he said. “I’m going in, I’ve got things to do. There’s a maniac loose in Mega-City.”

“There’s another one loose out here,” Fergie said. He looked at the darkening sky, pleading with whoever might reside up there.

“Great time I’m having. I’m out of Aspen, I got a new life ahead, right? Wrong. I’m crashing in a shuttle. Cannibals think I’m the catch of the day. Now I got fireballs up my ass. And I owe it all to you. Thanks, Dredd.”

Dredd looked at him. “Me? You’re blaming me?”

“Of course I’m blaming you. If you hadn’t arrested me on false charges, I wouldn’t be here in the first place.”

“That’s faulty logic. That’s lawbreaker talk, that’s—”

“Yeah, I know. It’s the criminal mind.” He glared at Dredd. “Well, that’s it. I’ve had it.” Fergie slid to the ground against the wall. “I’m sitting right here. Someone arrests me, fine.”

“All right.”

“Or until you apologize, Dredd.”

Dredd looked at him. “Until I what?”

“Don’t look at me like that. You heard what I said.”

“You’re mentally impaired.”

“Okay.”

“The Law doesn’t apologize, Ferguson. Do I have to remind you of that?”

“So? You’re not a Judge anymore. I gotta remind you of that?”

Dredd looked tired. “Ferguson, what difference does it make? What if I was sorry, which I’m not. This is going to change your life or what?”

Fergie brought himself to his feet. He looked at the dark horizon, he didn’t look at Dredd. “I’ll bet you’ve never said the words in your life. Not ever. You owe it to me, Dredd.”

Dredd cocked his head and looked at Fergie as if he’d just dropped in from Mars.

“I’m supposed to say… exactly what?”

“ ‘I’m sorry.’ That’s it. That’ll do fine.”

“I’ll review your case, Ferguson. I will take the circumstances into consideration.”

The vent belched flame again, then retreated in a veil of foul smoke.

Fergie thought about that, then a smile spread across his face. “Review. Review is okay. Review is good. I’ll accept that. That’s a start, it’s a—huh? Dredd!”

Dredd picked him up by the waist and tossed him into the chute.

“Go, Ferguson! Thirty seconds—run!”

“No!” Fergie turned and started back. Dredd was right behind him. He stiff-armed Fergie in the back and sent him sprawling down the chute.

“Twenty-eight… twenty-seven… twenty-six…” Fergie said.

“Stop counting, droog,” Dredd shouted. “Move!”

“Twenty-two… twenty-one… twenty—where was I? Dredd, I’m going to fry!”

“Right. I’ll make sure you don’t.” Dredd racked a shell into the chamber of Fargo’s gun. Fergie looked over his shoulder, saw the weapon pointed at his head.

“Okay, okay, I’m running!”

Fergie heard a low rumble, then a tremor he could feel through his boots, a thunder so deep it shook the walls. Something flickered far ahead. Something bright and red. The sight nearly stopped his heart. The fireball, coming right at him… God, he couldn’t be that slow, he still had time!

“Damn you, Dredd! You were wrong!”

“Maybe it wasn’t thirty seconds,” Dredd said behind him. “Maybe it was something else.”

“Oh, shiiiiiiit!”

Dredd suddenly stopped. He reached out and grabbed Fergie’s collar and jerked him to a halt. Fergie stared. Dredd shoved him against the wall. He braced himself and fired the Remington at the floor of the chute. He pumped the weapon again and again. Fergie felt blood in his ears. Through a veil of dirty smoke, he saw the twisted grate at Dredd’s feet. Dredd kicked it with his boot. Kicked it again. The grate gave way with a clatter and vanished in the dark.

Dredd shouted in Fergie’s ear. Fergie couldn’t hear, but Dredd’s gesture was perfectly clear. Fergie jumped into the dark hole. Half a second later, he saw the fireball roar overhead, felt the awful heat, smelled the hair burning on his head.

Fergie flailed his arms in the air. Hit something soft, plowed through it and didn’t stop. Struck bottom on his knees, came up hacking and spitting black ash. Felt Dredd’s boots hit his back and went down again.

A dim light, from somewhere to the right. Dredd rose from the dark, his face black with soot.

“I’m alive,” Fergie said. “Hey, you are, too. How about that? We’re both alive!”

“Right. I can see that.”

“Dredd?”

“What?”

“Review’s okay, like I said. I mean, I’ll accept that. If you wanted to, you know, if you wanted to do any more, like actually apologize…”

“Forget it,” Dredd said. “I must have been out of my head. Let’s get out of here. I’ve got work to do.”

“You admitted you got it wrong.”

“I did what?”

“You said maybe it wasn’t thirty seconds. You said it was maybe something else.”

“So what?”

“So it wasn’t thirty. It was maybe thirteen.”

“It wasn’t thirteen.”

“You don’t know, you don’t know that. It might have been twelve.”

“Shut up,” Dredd said.

He shut out the fury, turned it aside. Cast a blind eye to the carnage, to the chaos, to the oily smoke from the city’s funeral pyres. A sky-lite bus had hit a barge head on, two-thousand feet above White Quad’s famous Crystal Dome. The explosion rocked the heights of the city. Twisted shards of molten metal, plastic, glass, and body parts ripped through the Dome, tearing, shredding, bringing razor-death to the naked fun-seekers below.

He ran down the alleyway behind Two-thousand-twenty-third Street, Fergie close behind. There were screams from the street, the sound of breaking glass. A looter with dragons tattooed on his face raced by with a holo set.

Now and then he saw Judges. Some of them were holding back the crowds. Some of them were dead. He used all the courage at his command to keep from jumping in to help, to fight beside his friends. He knew he couldn’t do it, that he had to stop Rico if he could. Besides, he was a fugitive. Even men who knew him might kill now.

That hurt. That hurt a lot. Almost as much as watching the people of the city tear his world apart.

Getting into the Hall of Justice wasn’t hard. Every veteran Judge knew how. Fergie didn’t want to come. Stay outside, Dredd told him, go anywhere. Fergie kept quiet after that.

The Judge in the locker room turned, startled. It was clear that he recognized Dredd. Dredd hit him carefully, a point below his neck. The man sagged. Dredd eased him to the ground and began stripping off his uniform. It wouldn’t quite fit, but that was fine.

“Oh, hell, why not?” Fergie rolled his eyes. “What else can they do to me? I’m dead already. They catch me, they can’t kill me twice.”

“Don’t count on it,” Dredd said.

THE SETTING: