Neal Barrett - Judge Dredd

They were together, Ilsa and Rico, at the far end of the lab. They turned as he entered. The thousand eyes of the computer cast dancing shards of color about the room. The big robot stood silently behind Rico, only its ruby glow visible in the shadows.

“Dredd got away from the Hunters,” Griffin told them. “Took some good men with him, too. Bastard’s got nine lives.”

“Not to worry,” Rico said. “Little brother won’t get in our way.”

Griffin stared at him. Rico looked bored with the whole thing, a man thinking about an afternoon nap. Damn you! When this is over… when you’re not useful anymore…

“Well, I’m glad you’re so confident,” he said aloud. “I’m pleased to hear we have no problems at all, Rico.”

“Not with Dredd, we don’t.” Rico made a note on a comm-board and passed it to Ilsa. “He’s going to be seriously outnumbered quite soon. Current figures please, Central?”

“Current figures, Council Judge Rico… The new DNA sample has been multiplexed as ordered… Gametes are dividing.”

“New—” Griffin turned on Rico. “New samples? What the hell’s going on here, Rico? I didn’t order any new samples.”

“No, but I did.” Rico grinned at Griffin’s expression. “That DNA in there was thirty years old. Sooner or later, you have to clean out the fridge.”

Ilsa laughed, the sound of silver bells. Griffin watched as she leaned in against him, watched her slide her hand down the length of his arm. He knew at once. Knew what had happened between them. It had all gone wrong. It was Rico who had seduced the woman, not the other way around, not the way he’d planned.

“You dare to do something like that? That sample was created with the greatest of care for the—” Griffin stopped, the cold chill of realization constricting the muscles in his throat. “What—what did you replace it with, Rico?”

“Uh- oh,” Ilsa said. She buried her laughter in Rico’s sleeve.

“Oh, my God, no. You didn’t!”

“Please!” Rico looked hurt. “You should be congratulating me, Mr. Chief Justice. I’m going to be a father.”

“You don’t know what you’re doing,” Griffin told him. “The sample has to be pure of defects or the accelerator will form mutations. That’s what happened before!”

Rico laughed aloud. “That’s why Dredd’s so ugly.”

“No!” Griffin stepped into his path, his fists clenched at his sides. “It’s you, for God’s sake, Rico. You were defective—your copies will be even more defective!”

Rico’s eyes blazed. “You’re lying, Griffin. All you are about is control. Your control. But the Janus Judges won’t be the puppets you want. They’ll be my brothers. Who do you think they’re going to listen to? You, or me?”

Griffin closed his eyes a moment. “Ilsa, you’re with him on this? You can’t be. You know better, you know what he is.”

“I don’t think you’ve ever understood the full potential of this… opportunity, love.” She let her fingers rest on Rico’s chest. “This project needs vision. Not politics.”

“No, this can’t happen.” Griffin shook his head. “It can’t.”

“I’m afraid there’s not much you can do about it, Chief Jus—”

Griffin took a quick step to one side, braced his feet and whipped a small pistol from his tunic.

“No, not again,” he said. “No more like you!”

The robot’s arm came out of nowhere, wrapped a flexible steel tendril around Griffin’s arm. The weapon clattered to the floor.

“Get it… off of me, Rico!” Griffin’s eyes were wide with fear. “Get… it… off!”

The robot snaked another arm around Griffin’s arm and lifted him off the floor. Griffin tugged at the tight bands of steel, kicked his legs in the air.

“Rico, for God’s sake… please!”

Rico shook his head sadly. “You never understood me, did you, Griffin? I’m alive, I’m real. I’m not something you made to carry out the trash.”

“Central… override!” Griffin strained against the robot’s grip. “Help meeee!”

“Request is denied, Chief Justice. The ABC War Robot is not linked to my main processor.”

“You need to keep up with the times,” Rico said. “Look away for just a tiny minute, technology passes you by.”

He watched the man dangling helplessly above, looked at his eyes, at the terror in his face. He felt a sense of completion, a great sense of peace.

“Fido, tear off Chief Justice Griffin’s arms and legs, please. Save the head for last.”

They left the Lawmasters behind a rubble-strewn wall half a block away. Dredd wasn’t sure what kind of sensors Griffin might have above-ground, but he saw no reason to take any chances now.

Hershey caught up with him, peered over his shoulders into the near-darkened street. Dredd held a scanner in his hand, watching the line of green static dance across the tiny screen.

“Dead ahead,” Hershey said. “Right?”

“Down there.” Dredd thumbed shells into the Remington, racked the slide to bring number one into the chamber.

“Looks like you guys have got everything under control,” Fergie said. “I’ll watch the Lawmasters. Nobody’s going to get past me.”

“I might need you down there,” Dredd said. “To help shut down the Janus system.”

“I knew you were going to say that. I knew it.”

Dredd looked up. The street looked much the same. The debris from the block war had been scraped up and hauled away, but no one had bothered to fix the lights. In the glow from the faraway heights of Mega-City, he could see the broken profile of the Liberty Lady’s face, embedded in the ancient brick wall. One sad and empty eye, part of a cheek, a piece of a heavy brow. Higher in the wall, the suggestion of a hand, a rusted torch. Dredd looked away, studied the scanner, and led his group inside.

The building had been closed for repairs, then forgotten. It was hard to guess how many years ago. Dredd walked through the empty hallways, following the scanner’s electric glow. A concrete stairway led to a cellar below. Water dripped from old ceramic pipes. Something squealed ahead, scuttled off into the dark.

Fergie stopped. “What’s that?”

“We’re down in the lower levels,” Dredd told him. “What’s the problem? You said you had friends down here.”

Fergie didn’t answer. He kept close to Dredd. He wondered what the creatures ate down here. Where would they find any food? He decided not to think about that, decided that he might not like it if he knew.

Dredd stopped. Ahead was a concrete wall. “The scanner says the source of the power surge is straight ahead.” He nodded at the solid wall. “Right there.”

“My Lawgiver might blast through it,” Hershey said. “But I doubt it. If it did, everyone in Red Quad would hear it.”

“Forget it. Got to be some other way.”

Fergie let out a breath. “People, just move aside, will you?” He shook his head at Dredd. “I’ll bet you locked yourself in the bathroom when you were a kid, right?”

Fergie pressed his palms against the wall in a dozen places, walked down the entire width, and started over again.

“It’s an old-fashioned pressure lock. Fifty, sixty years ago. The Hush-O-Door. Big rage back then. Known in the trade as ‘The Burglar’s Delight.’ Nobody’s been dumb enough to use one since.”

He bent down and touched the wall again. “Dealer sold you the software. You set the gimmick up, picked your own contact point. Most groons put it two, three inches above the floor. Like a good break-and-enter man would be too lazy to squat a little, right?”