Neal Barrett - Judge Dredd

“We’ll take care of you, sir. I’ll get Mediks on the way—”

“Captain, never mind that. Get Dredd! Kill him!”

“Sir—”

“I’m not badly hurt. Do it now!”

“Yes, sir.”

The officer hurried away. Griffin waited until his footsteps echoed down the hall. He stood and walked to the black table. He looked into McGruder’s dead eyes. He touched her with his finger, then drew a red smear across his chest. Word would get out that he was wounded, that he wouldn’t even let the Hunters stop to give him medical care. He smiled at the thought. He could picture them, at dinner, in their barracks. It was pleasant to imagine the things they might say.

Dredd tore through the anteroom, stopped to jack a shell into the chamber of the Remington pump. He could hear the Judge Hunters in the Council Chamber, Griffin’s ragged shout.

He listened a moment, then stepped into the hall. Two Hunters turned and stared. Dredd squeezed the trigger twice. The blast thundered off the walls. Dredd ran without looking back. Someone yelled. Bullets whined off the stone floor.

Dredd rounded the corner and stopped, searched the dark hall.

“Ferguson! Damn it, where are you?”

Fergie peeked out of a closet. “What the hell did you do in there, Dredd? You got all the groons stirred up again. Everybody’s after me, right?”

“Come on, get out of there.” Dredd grabbed a handful of shirt and jerked Fergie into the hall. “Stay close. Don’t stray off anywhere.”

Fergie looked pained. “Where have I heard that before?”

The end of the corridor narrowed. There were doors on either side. Dredd moved quickly, opened the third door and shoved Fergie in.

“Where are we?” Fergie said. “What are we doing, Dredd?”

“Shut up,” Dredd said.

The room was almost dark. Dredd knew he couldn’t risk a light. A faint glow came from the skylight, reflecting the brightness of Mega-City outside. The light didn’t matter. He knew every corner of this room in the dark. It was the Academy Training Center, and it was as familiar as his own bedroom.

He passed a table stacked with weapons and locks and stopped at the gleaming black machine. He felt a slight catch in his throat at the sight of brushed chrome and stainless steel, at the metal black as night.

“What is it, why are we stopping here?” Fergie looked nervously across the room. “We don’t have time to be doing any shopping now, Dredd. We’ve got company dropping in.”

“The Mark IV Lawmaster. State-of-the-art. Double sixty-fours, rapid-fire.”

“Yeah, yeah, great.”

“Get on.”

“Do what?”

“Get on or stay behind. Your choice.”

Dredd threw his leg over the broad leather saddle. He ran his fingers swiftly over the panel keys imbedded in the black steel dash. Red lights blinked in a line. Dredd punched the ignition. The lights turned green. The big engine came to life and roared.

“You coming or not?”

“Huh-uh, not me.” Fergie backed off. “I don’t think so, man. You enjoy yourself. Give me a call—”

The door to the room exploded in a burst of broken glass. Gunfire whined past Fergie’s head.

“Let’s go , what are we waiting for, haul it out of here!”

The engine climbed up the scale, wailing like a demon, howling like a lost soul. Fergie wondered briefly where Dredd intended to go. What was he going to do, charge for rides around the room? Would the Judge Hunters care, would they stand around and clap?

The floor shook. Something caught fire. Dredd slammed his palm down hard. The Lawmaster’s black fenders whirred, folded up, and disappeared. Two ugly snouts appeared in their place.

“Side arms—FIRE!” Dredd said.

The Lawmaster buckled. White flames blossomed from the twin sixty-fours. The far wall exploded, loosing a geyser of glass, brick, and assorted debris. Fergie stared at the large, gaping hole, at the towers of Mega-City that suddenly appeared, at the diamond-bright lights as far as the eye could see.

“You’re kidding, right?” Fergie gripped Dredd’s arm. “You’re not going to do that. Nobody in their right mind would do that…”

AERIAL MODE—AERIAL MODE—AERIAL MODE…

“What?” Fergie closed his eyes. “No way, man.”

“Work-work- work! ” Dredd said between his teeth. “Work, you son of a bitch!”

The Lawmaster’s engine sputtered, howled. The big machine trembled, pitched forward with a gut-wrenching burst of speed and roared through the hole in the wall.

Fergie screamed.

Gunfire followed the Lawmaster into the night.

“Please-work-please-work-please-work…”

The broad wheels sucked up into the frame. The lights on the console went wild.

AERIAL MODE—AERIAL MODE—AERIAL MODE ON-LINE—AERIAL MODE ON-LINE…

The engine changed pitch. The Lawmaster banked gently in the air.

“All right!” Dredd shouted. He pounded on the dash.

“Yeah-yeah -yeah!” Fergie yelled.

The engine sputtered. Died. The Lawmaster fell like a stone.

AERIAL MODE MALFUNCTION—AERIAL MODE MALFUNCTION—AERIAL MODE MAL—

“Do-it-do-it-do-it!”

The Lawmaster tumbled dizzily toward the ground. The towers of Mega-City flashed by in a sickening streak of lights. Fergie yelled in Dredd’s ear. Dredd tore at the controls, punching every button he could find. Lights turned red-green-blue-yellow-white.

The wind spread Dredd’s skin flat against his face, opened his nostrils, pressed his lips against his teeth…

MALFUNCTION…

MALFUNCTION…

MALFUNCTION…

MAL—

AERIAL MODE ON-LINE—AERIAL MODE ON-LINE…

The engine came back to life, the most beautiful sound Dredd had ever heard. Safety rockets exploded beneath the Lawmaster, lifting it on a stable column of superheated air. Dredd twisted the control bar gently to the right. The Lawmaster jerked through four gears, and screwed itself in a dizzy circle through the night.

“What the hell are you doing!” Fergie wailed.

“Relax. I’m trying to get the feel of this thing.”

“What, this is your first time? Don’t tell me that, Dredd, I don’t want to hear tha—uh-oh!”

“What?”

“Company. Hunters on our ass. Two of ’em—three.”

“Great. Just great. Hang on.”

Dredd squeezed the control bar and gritted his teeth. The Lawmaster protested, stood on its tail, and shrieked straight up. Dredd left his stomach a thousand feet below. The bottom of a skyway appeared up ahead, blotting out the night. Dredd yanked the big machine aside, saw the startled face of a taxi driver flash by.

Fergie was babbling in his ear. Dredd risked a look back. The Hunters were good. Right on his tail.

“Here, take it,” he shouted. He ripped the Remington’s strap from his shoulder and passed it back.

“What?”

“Cover our rear. Hold those bastards off.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“I never shot a gun in my life!”

“What the hell kind of criminal are you, Ferguson?”

“I’m a nice criminal. I rob droids. I steal things. Just little things. I don’t do guns, man, I never—”

“Shoot, damn it!”

Fergie closed his eyes and fired. The muzzle flashed and the stock slammed into his shoulder.

“I missed, I knew I’d miss…”

“Again!”

Fergie pulled the trigger. Nothing happened.

“It doesn’t work anymore. I think the batteries are down.”

“You’ve got to pump it, you moron,” Dredd yelled. “Get a shell in the chamber.”

“I knew that.”

“Ferguson…”