Neal Barrett - Judge Dredd

In the Third Millennium, the world changed. Climate… Nations… all were in upheaval. Humanity itself turned as violent as the planet. Civilization threatened to collapse.

And then, a solution was found. The crumbling legal system was merged with the overburdened police, creating a powerful and efficient force for the People. These new guardians of Society were given the power to dispense both justice and punishment. They were police, jury and executioner. They were…

…the Judges.

Herman Ferguson ran as fast as he could.

Fergie had been running all his life. Running from his father, from his brothers, from the law. From outraged victims of this scam or that. Now the streets were full of blood, and he was running again. He shut out the howls of the dying and the rattle of gunfire and didn’t look back. Lead stitched the side of the building, pitting the grimy brick wall. Fergie wrapped his hands around his head as razor-sharp shards of stone stung his neck and sliced his cheek.

He ducked into the alcove and slammed his hands flat against the rusty metal door, praying it wasn’t locked. The door issued one protesting squeal and gave way. The stink in the entry was strong enough to gag a goat. The floor was ankle-deep with garbage, broken bricks, old foodpods, and several items Fergie didn’t care to think about.

The elevator shaft was a black and open wound. Fergie headed up the stairs. He glanced once more at the address on his card:

RED QUAD

BLOCK Y

HEAVENLY HAVEN

SUITE 666

The stairway was worse than the hall downstairs. He stepped on something that squealed. Something darted up the sooty wall.

Fergie gasped for breath as he passed the second floor. Aspen Prison offered cons athletics, but he didn’t have the physical bearing or the right attitude to be a jock.

He rested on four. Took it easy up to five, and ran up to six. The hall was empty except for trash. The building was old as Time. The thick walls sucked up every sound. If gunfire still raked the streets, the noise couldn’t reach him up here.

Garbage shifted down the hallway to his right. Fergie went flat against the wall. A battered foodkart rounded the corner and headed his way. Its wheels were out of line, and it wobbled like his father used to do when he tried to find his way back home.

“Delicious and healthful rationpaks, piping hot and ready to eat… delicious and healthful rationpaks, piping hot and re—”

Fergie stepped out of its way. He passed number 662… 664…

Number 666 was a door smeared with the usual unintelligible graffiti, but Fergie didn’t care about that. Instead, he felt a great sense of relief. He hadn’t actually been alone for six months—no space, no privacy, just a couple of thousand mean, hairy sons of bitches who’d kick you to death for entertainment, or slide a rusty shiv into your heart.

“All right,” Fergie said. “The Fergie is home, the old Fergo is by himself!”

He turned the knob and stepped inside. A man with a scar-covered face and purple ears jammed a pistol up Fergie’s nose.

“Hey-hey, what we gots here? You a Judge spy, little man? ’Zat what you bes, you bes a muckin’ spy?”

Fergie blinked and stepped back. There were two other men in the room. They howled with laughter at Purple Ears’ remark. They’d never heard anything funnier in their lives. They stood by an open window. They gripped enormous weapons in their hands. Now Fergie could hear the crowd below. Weapons. Window. Crowd. Fergie felt the hair creep up his neck. All the slaughter down there was coming from here. In 666. In his room, which he didn’t really want any more.

“All right,” Fergie said, “I’ll tell you what, I can see what’s happening here. What it is, I got the wrong room. Hell, I probably got the wrong building, you know? I am always doing that.” He grinned at the three maniacs. “So I’ll just run along, I’ll leave you guys to your—”

“You hold it, droog.” Purple Ears stepped in his path. “You don’t bes goin’ anywheres, okay? You hear ’em down there? It’s a block war, man!”

Purple Ears’ companions cheered. One had two rows of Shiny hyponeedle teeth. The other wore a metal jacket he’d made from tin cans. A dead mouse hung from the lobe of each ear.

“Yeah,” said Needle Teeth, “if you l-live here, if you’re a R-R-Rezzie, you gotta stand up fer your block.”

“You gotta,” Metal Jacket added. “You don’t and you’re a—”

“—a neek,” Purple Ears finished.

“Yeah, you don’t, you’re a n-neek.”

“That sounds bad,” Fergie said.

“It is, man.”

Metal Jacket grinned and pointed a dirty finger at Fergie’s chest. “He don’ look like no Judge spy to me. I don’ guess he bein’ big enough for that.”

“Or smart ’nough, neither,” Purple Ears said. He winked at Needle Teeth. Needle Teeth showed Fergie a hideous grin. Fergie noticed the deep scars that covered Purple Ears’ face were actually words—two words carved over and over again, words that Fergie wouldn’t want his mother or his sisters to see. He wondered if Purple Ears had any idea that both of the words were misspelled. Fergie had no intention of being the one to break the news.

“Let’s go, Haven!” Metal Jacket shouted out the window. “Heaven-ly Ha-ven, all the way!”

Needle Teeth gave a blood-curdling cry and loosed a burst of automatic fire into the crowd down below. Smoke filled the room and empty cartridges rattled on the floor.

“Hey, you guys, stop that!” Fergie was appalled. “You’re killin’ people down there!”

“Yeah, you noticed, huh?” Purple Ears grinned and snapped off a dozen rounds with his automatic pistol. “Block war! Block war! Pour it on ’em, droogs!”

Metal Jacket joined in. The noise of his big black-and-copper weapon ripped through Fergie’s head. It was loud—but not loud enough to drown out the screams from far below.

“Damn it, you got to stop this,” Fergie cried out. “I’m on parole. They catch me with you morons my ass is back in Aspen again!”

No one could hear him. Fergie knew he had to do something. People were getting slaughtered down there, and though he didn’t really know his new neighbors that well, blowing them all to hell was the wrong thing to do—especially if the Judges blamed him for having a bunch of crazies in his room, and with his luck, that’s exactly what they’d do.

Fergie threw himself at Purple Ears and grabbed for his gun. A small voice told him it was a stupid thing to do. And, as it always seemed to happen, the small voice warned him half a second late. Purple Ears turned and looked at Fergie swinging on his arm, looked at him like he couldn’t believe this stupid neek was there. Then he whipped the butt of his pistol around and whacked Fergie firmly on the jaw…

It was close to sunset outside, but it was always high noon in the harshly-lit corridors of Mega-City’s Hall of Justice. The building was a towering fortress made of rough black granite that seemed to eat the light. The familiar shield and eagle of the Judges was carved in massive relief above the outside entryway.