I mean, there was this one time, we got a girl about your age and – (He breaks off.) Well anyway. I’m just saying. Save the last bullet for yourself.
ANDERSON
If I do, I’ll save the second to last for you.
Kay smiles to himself.
She’s made a mistake. By attempting to show that she isn’t getting rattled, she has in fact shown that she is.
KAY
Sure.
Beat.
So – you’re a mutant.
Anderson says nothing.
KAY
Most you poor fuckers get three stumpy arms. Or no arms. But I guess you lucked out. You fit together pretty well. (Beat.) Psychic. It’s so fucked-up. I mean, I’ve heard talk about your kind. But it’s sort of hard to believe it’s real …
Beat.
Like – what am I thinking about right now?
Anderson turns and gazes at him evenly, determined to show he can’t get to her.
ANDERSON
You’re picturing a violent sexual liason between the two of us in a pointless attempt to shock me.
Kay raises his eyebrows.
KAY
You’re good. (Beat.) But I wasn’t trying to shock you. If I’d been trying to shock you, I’d have thought of this.
Anderson suddenly winces at the image he dropped on her.
Then – snaps.
She lashes out with her fist.
Catches Kay full in the face, and drops him.
ANDERSON
What are you thinking about now?
Through bloody and busted lips, Kay looks up at her and smiles.
He might be bleeding and cuffed, but the victory in this encounter is his.
INT. ATRIUM ⁄ LEVEL SEVENTY-SIX – CONTINUOUS
Dredd turns a corner.
Ahead, he can see the ringed balcony around the atrium.
Directly opposite, on the far side of the atrium, three miniguns are being positioned on the balcony rail.
Each with six rotating barrels, electric-driven, air-cooled, firing six thousand rounds a minute.
Behind the machine guns are Ma-Ma, her Bodyguards, Caleb, and his men.
In his hand, Caleb is holding an object that looks not unlike an iPad, with a camera lens on the back.
Cut to:
Citizens on the balcony facing the miniguns, seeing the weapons being set up.
We pick up a Dad, standing in the doorway of his flat.
DAD
… Oh shit.
He runs back into his apartment, locks the door, scoops up his Kids and runs to the back of the apartment, where he and his Wife tip over the kitchen table in a desperate attempt to create cover.
Cut to:
Dredd. Seeing Ma-Ma.
DREDD
… Damn.
Cut to:
Ma-Ma. Seeing Dredd.
She smiles.
MA-MA
Fire.
Cut to:
INT. LEVEL SEVENTY-SIX MASSACRE – CONTINUOUS
Dredd.
Sprinting back down the corridor.
As the miniguns open up.
Cut to:
The line of apartments opposite getting raked with bullets.
Cut to:
The interior of an apartment, belonging to the Dad, and Mum, and their Kids getting shot up.
Cut to:
Anderson’s face. She is seeing all this. Feeling all this. Hearing a massed choir of screams.
Cut to:
Ma-Ma and her gang. On the balcony.
One of the Minigun Shooters yells over the roar of noise:
SHOOTER
We’ve lost him!
Ma-Ma grabs Caleb.
MA-MA
Get that fucking thing working!
Caleb works the controls on the iPad.
Suddenly, the screen lights up.
Ma-Ma snatches it from Caleb’s hands, and holds it up.
Reveal – on the screen, a thermal image of Caleb.
MA-MA
Nice.
She swings the iPad round to face the opposite wall of the atrium.
Then uses a side control to enlarge the image.
A thermal image of the opposite flats appears.
We can see through walls and doors. We can see the thermal shapes of the people in the flats. Cowering, running, crawling, lying dead.
We can see hot spots where the bullets have impacted.
And then –
as she scans across –
the unmistakable silhouette of Dredd. Running.
Ma-Ma jabs a finger.
MA-MA
There!
The three Minigun Shooters open up again, concentrating their fire where she points.
Cut to –
Citizens on the North quadrant balcony, stunned, terrified, watching as the West quadrant is annihilated.
Cut to –
– the iPad screen.
On it, we see Dredd turn round the corner of a corridor.
Meaning he is now running parallel to us, rather than away.
Cut to –
– Ma-Ma. Still holding the iPad in one hand, she knocks one of the Shooters out of the way and takes control of a minigun herself.
Directing the stream of bullets …
Cut to –
– the thermal iPad screen.
As the line of white-hot bullets rakes across the flats, pursuing Dredd, dropping the silhouette shapes of the citizens as it moves.
Among them, we see a Mother trying to reach her Child. A Man cowering against a wall.
All cut down.
Then the line of bullets reach Dredd.
Cut to –
– Dredd impacted by rounds.
Knocked sideways.
But saved by his armour.
He manages to get to his feet and run again. Turning a corner.
Cut to –
– Ma-Ma. Looking at the screen.
She can see bodies, and wounded, and scorched bullet marks. But no Dredd.
MA-MA
Where the fuck has he gone?
CALEB
You have to change the range.
He reaches over and presses a button.
The range changes –
– moving forwards through the quadrant.
And Dredd is picked up again.
Running away from us.
MA-MA
Love it.
Cut to –
– Dredd, sprinting toward the elevator block.
Seeing Anderson look around the corner at him.
Shouting to her –
DREDD
Get back!
– as bullets break through his line of cover, and drill the air around him.
Dredd scrambles to shelter behind the elevator block, with Anderson and Kay.
Cut to:
INT. ATRIUM ⁄ LEVEL SEVENTY-SIX – CONTINUOUS
Ma-Ma’s face.
Looking at the screen.
The thermal image of Dredd, Anderson and Kay, crouched in cover.
MA-MA
We’ve got them trapped! Concentrate the fire!
Cut to:
INT. LEVEL SEVENTY-SIX MASSACRE – CONTINUOUS
Dredd, Anderson and Kay, hiding behind the wall –
– which immediately starts to erode under the hail of bullets.
The block isn’t going to last long, and there is nowhere left to run.
Either side of them, the space is being perforated. It feels like they are in the last bit of cover in the quadrant, and it is eroding fast.
Then – on the wall opposite them, taking the full force of the rounds – a single point of bright light appears through the smoke and dust.
Dredd sees it.
Lifts his gun.
DREDD
Hi-Ex!
The setting on Dredd’s gun changes.
Dredd fires at the single point of light.
And the high explosive round blows a massive hole in t
he wall, through which bright light floods through.
Cut to –
– the thermal image, suddenly bleaching out by the heat of the explosion.
MA-MA
What the fuck?
Cut to –
– Dredd. Shouting.
DREDD
GO!
Anderson runs for the light and runs through.
Dredd follows, driving Kay ahead of him, running into the light.
And as he goes through, cut to –
EXT. PEACH TREE BLOCK ⁄ LEVEL SEVENTY-SIX – NIGHT
The exterior of Peach Trees.
Dredd and Kay have exited into thin air.
The brightness is revealed as the floods that illuminate the skatepark at night. Dredd has blown a hole in the side of the building.
They start to fall –
– but not fifty storeys to ground.
Only a couple of metres – to the skatepark.
Where the Skaters stand, awestruck, as, just above them, tracer fire rips through the hole in the side of Peach Trees.
Cut back to:
INT. ATRIUM ⁄ LEVEL SEVENTY-SIX – CONTINUOUS
The three miniguns.
Which, one by one, run out of ammunition.
The roar of gunfire is replaced by ratchet clicks as the smoking barrels keep rotating for a few moments.
Then come to a stop.
Leaving silence.
With the flare of explosion dissipated, Ma-Ma scans with the iPad where Dredd and the others had been sheltering.
On the screen, the ground area glows with the crumpled bodies of the people who had been caught in the line of fire.
Wounded crawl along the ground.
A young child stands alone.
Cut to –
– Caleb. Staring across the atrium at the destruction opposite.
CALEB
I think we got ’em.
Cut back to:
EXT. PEACH TREE BLOCK – CONTINUOUS
Wind clearing the smoke on the outside of the building.
Revealing the night view of Mega City One.
And Dredd, Anderson, Kay and the Skaters in the skatepark.
Anderson gazes at the adjacent buildings. A surreal sense of the city before them, continuing its normal life …
… as Dredd’s radio suddenly fuzzes into life.
CONTROL
(over radio)
Responders in vicinity of block Tom Frame. Small-arms fire reported in shopping zone.
Dredd reacts.
DREDD
The comms are back.
Dredd lifts his glove to speak into his radio.
Control. Do you read me?
CONTROL
(over radio)
Affirmative.
DREDD
10-24 on my GPS. We need immediate assistance.
CONTROL
(over radio)
Copy, 10-24. Your location is showing as Peach Trees, Sector Thirteen. Confirm.
DREDD
Confirm. Be advised, blast door defences have been triggered.
CONTROL
(over radio)
Can you hold your current GPS?
Dredd glances over the ledge at the precipitous drop.
DREDD
Negative. If they come for us, we’ve got nowhere to go.
CONTROL
(over radio)
Copy that. Back-up is on its way. Just stay alive.
INT. LEVEL SEVENTY-SIX ⁄ CORRIDOR – NIGHT
A blast door raises –
– revealing Caleb and five Heavies on the other side.
HEAVY
No way they survived.
CALEB
They’re not dead until we find them dead.
At Caleb’s feet, an extremely badly damaged body is resting.
Or part of them anyway.
INT. REMAINS OF WEST QUADRANT – CONTINUOUS
Caleb and his men step into the rubble of what was the West Quadrant of level seventy-six.
In the hanging dust, they can’t see more than ten metres ahead of them –
– where a glowing band of light shows where the exterior wall once was.
Half poking through the rubble at their feet are the mangled remains of the people and families who have been slaughtered.
They fan out, keeping their guns raised.
INT. REMAINS OF WEST QUADRANT – CONTINUOUS
We are looking back at Caleb and his men as they cautiously move forwards.
So we see what Caleb and his men don’t.
Barely visible through the dust, a dark shape appears fleetingly behind them.
INT. ATRIUM ⁄ LEVEL SEVENTY-SIX – CONTINUOUS
The dust cloud is slowly drifting into the atrium from the wreckage of the level seventy-six West Quadrant.
Ma-Ma watches.
Various noises drift from the darkness.
Suddenly, out of the dust cloud, into the thin air of the atrium, a body is ejected.
It’s Caleb.
Screaming, as he starts the fall down to the ground level.
Reveal –
– Ma-Ma watching, as Caleb drops out of sight.
Silence.
Then, out of Ma-Ma’s mouth, a howl of rage.
INT. ATRIUM – CONTINUOUS
Ma-Ma’s howl seems to echo down the atrium, reverberating through the entire building.
INT. LEVEL 125 ⁄ CORRIDOR
The sound of Ma-Ma’s howl is becoming mingled with another noise.
Not a howl of rage. A scream of pain.
We close in on the source of the scream.
Which turns out to be Kay’s mouth.
And he’s screaming, because Dredd is propelling him down the corridor of a service level, with his wrist twisted behind him in a nasty-looking pressure hold.
Anderson follows behind.
Something in Dredd’s manner feels different. In his body language, the speed he’s moving, his total lack of concession for Kay’s pain – he’s not fucking around.
They reach the Level 125 Primary School.
The entrance door is broken off its hinges.
Inside, it is a burned-out shell, long abandoned.
Dredd stops.
DREDD
This’ll do.
INT. ABANDONED PRIMARY SCHOOL ⁄ CLASSROOM – CONTINUOUS
Kay is thrown inside.
Landing hard, face first. Unable to break his fall because his hands are cuffed behind his back.
Dredd jams the door to the classroom closed.
Then turns to Kay.
DREDD
Your gang locks down the whole block. Massacres an entire quadrant of men, women, children. Just to take out two judges. Sound like overkill to you?
Dredd plants a brutal kick in Kay’s ribs.
Anderson reacts.
DREDD
Tell you what I think. If we’d executed you in the bust, Ma-Ma would have let us walk out of here.
Dredd reaches down, hauls Kay up, and slams him against a wall. Jamming his left hand into Kay’s neck.
DREDD
What she doesn’t want is you taken back to the sector house and interrogated. Because she’s afraid of what you might say. (Beat.) That’s got me curious.
With his right hand, Dredd hooks Kay in the torso.
On Anderson again, as Kay doubles up. Drops again.
DREDD
Spill it.
Kay spits blood out of his mouth.
KAY
Fuck you.
On Anderson – reading Dredd. Realising where he’s about to go –
– as Dredd’s lip curls down.
ANDERSON
Sir!
Dredd hesitates.
ANDERSON
If you leave it to me, he doesn’t have to talk.
Cut to:
INT. ABANDONED PRIMARY SCHOOL ⁄ CLASSROOM – CONTINUOUS
Kay is kneeling on the floor, with his hands plasti-cuffed behind his back.
<
br /> Anderson is standing opposite him, looking down.
Dredd is watching.
KAY
What are you up to, bitch?
Anderson doesn’t respond, except to close her eyes.
And as she does so –
– Dredd and surrounding walls of the abandoned apartment melt away.
Leaving just her and Kay alone, in a dark, undefined space.
INT. UNDEFINED SPACE – CONTINUOUS
Anderson opens her eyes again.
Kay looks around.
The walls and substance of the space are constantly shifting, never quite resolved.
KAY
What the –
ANDERSON
Welcome to the inside of your head.
She glances around.
Kind of empty.
Kay looks a little weirded-out.
KAY
I don’t know what fucked-up mutie shit this is, but if I wasn’t cuffed, I’d –
ANDERSON
(cuts in)
You aren’t cuffed, if you don’t want to be.
Kay frowns.
Cut to his plasti-cuffed hands.
Exploratory, he pulls his wrists apart …
… and the cuffs fall away, as if they were never there.
A beat.
Then Kay stands.
Puts his hands in front of him.
KAY
Huh.
He smiles nastily.
My head. Do what I like.
ANDERSON
Sure.
Kay reaches out with his hand –
– and Anderson’s weapon suddenly springs out her holster, into his waiting palm.
Immediately, without any delay or ceremony, he lifts the gun, and fires a volley of shots at point-blank range into Anderson’s face.
And when the last muzzle flash has faded, and the smoke has cleared, Anderson stands before him, just as before, unscathed.
ANDERSON
Thinking about hurting me doesn’t actually hurt me.
KAY
Oh. Yeah. Point to you.
He tosses the gun.
Except – there is that thing. That thing we already established.
ANDERSON
What thing was that?
KAY
That I know how to freak you the fuck out.
When we cut back to Anderson, her uniform has vanished – leaving her completely naked.
KAY
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