by David Bishop
"Con-apt 729, Oswald Mosley Block."
"How many people live at that location?"
"What the drokk does that matter?" Conchita exclaimed. "My daughter is missing! I need your help to find her."
"Citizen, we have a procedure we have to follow. If you deviate from that procedure, you will only exacerbate matters."
"Fine, whatever! Four people live here: myself, my daughter Kasey, and my two sons, Dermot and Ramone."
"How old are your sons?"
"What does that matter?" Conchita demanded.
"I am assessing the background circumstances, to ascertain whether a crime has actually been committed."
"My sons are both seventeen. Happy now?"
The Judge looked at Conchita with exasperation. "Citizen, I must ask you to desist with this aggressive, sarcastic tone, otherwise I shall have to report you for making abusive vidphone calls."
"For the love of Grud, my daughter is missing! I don't care if you make me dance naked in front of the Halls of Justice, I just want my daughter back!"
"I must ask you to calm down or I will be forced to terminate this call."
Conchita fought back the urge to smash her fist through the vidphone screen. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry - I'm just worried about Kasey, that's all."
"That's perfectly understandable. How old is your daughter?"
Conchita's mind went blank. "Eight? Or nine? I'm sorry, I'm so stressed I can't remember right now. I think she had a birthday recently..."
"Eight or nine, that's fine. I'll cross-check against our records. And how many days has she been missing?"
"Days? You think I'd wait days before reporting my own daughter missing? What kind of mother do you think I am?"
"Citizen, I must warn you again. Persist with that tone and I am required to recommend your arrest. Now, how many days has-"
"It's hours, she's been missing one or two hours."
The Judge sighed. "What about your sons, do you know where they are right now?"
"Not exactly," Conchita admitted. "They went out a few hours back. I'm expecting them home any time."
"But you haven't reported them missing?"
"Of course not! They're juves, they can look after themselves. Kasey is just a little girl."
"A girl who has been missing less than two hours." The Judge had stopped taking notes of what Conchita was saying. "I'm sorry but the Justice Department only investigates missing persons cases where the citizen has been absent for at least twenty-four hours."
"What?"
"Your daughter has been gone for less than two hours. For all you know, she may be with her brothers or her father."
"Her father is dead!"
"Nevertheless, the length of her absence is not sufficiently serious to warrant a response from the Justice Department at this time."
"Not sufficiently serious?" Conchita could not believe what she was hearing. "But she's gone and-"
The Judge was no longer listening to her. "In fact I would be within my rights to file a complaint against you for wasting our time with this call."
"No, you don't understand-"
"Bearing in mind the circumstances, I have decided not to do that."
"You've got to be drokking joking!"
"May I suggest contacting your daughter's friends to see if she has gone to visit them? Also, try getting in touch with any relatives nearby."
"We don't have any relatives in the city!" Conchita protested.
"Be that as it may, we cannot action your call until at least twenty-four hours have elapsed since you last saw your daughter. There are four hundred million citizens in the Big Meg. If we tried to investigate every person that had been missing for a few hours, we would never be doing anything else."
"But she could be dead by morning! Anything could have happened to her. It could be happening to her right now!"
"As I said, please wait-"
"No! I will not wait! If the high and mighty Justice Department is not willing to help one of its citizens, then I will have to help myself!"
"I must warn you against taking the Law into your own hands. The Department will not look kindly upon-"
"Drokk you and drokk your Department!" Conchita screamed, slamming her fist through the vid-phone screen. Sparks flew from the monitor and shards of glasseen embedded themselves in her raw knuckles but Conchita did not notice the blood dripping from her hand. She walked out of her con-apt to the corridor where the Citi-Def representatives from the levels directly above and below were waiting.
Kevin Amidou was from the seventy-third floor. A portly gun nut, he always dressed in camouflage with a black bandanna tied around his sweaty brow. "So what did they say?"
"Call back when she's been missing twenty-four hours," Conchita replied, her rage subsiding into a numb determination.
"But that's ridiculous! She could be anywhere by then."
Conchita nodded grimly. "We can't wait that long." She reached into the pocket of her trousers and pulled out a tiny red card encased in plastic. Conchita snapped the plastic in half, releasing the card from inside. "I'm mobilising the rest of the squad."
"Are you sure that's wise?" the other Citi-Def member asked. Mikell Fields was a cautious man in his fifties, pallid of skin and attitude. He wore old-fashioned metal glasses hooked over his prominent ears. "We're only supposed to be called out in the event of a city-wide emergency. After what happened outside the lobby-"
"I don't care about that!" Conchita hissed. "My daughter is missing and the Judges won't do a drokking thing to help. So we're going to find her ourselves."
She marched to a sign on the corridor wall marked CITI-DEF ALERT STATION. Beneath it was a slot in the wall just big enough to take the card in Conchita's hand. She rammed it inside and a red light began flashing overhead. "As leader of Oswald Mosley Citi-Def, I hereby summon the squad into action. We meet downstairs in ten minutes!"
The Med-Bay in Sector House 87 was at ground level, just below the check-in area where Judges brought perps for processing. Dredd was walking past the front desk on his way to the turbolift when a familiar voice called out. "Dredd? I didn't know you were working out of here!" He turned to see a black Judge entering the building, dragging an unconscious perp. The new arrival's name was clearly visible on his eagle badge: GIANT. The two Judges had known each other for more than a decade. Giant often worked undercover for the Wally Squad but tonight he was clad in a Street Judge's uniform.
"Pulling a graveyard shift," Dredd explained. "Who's your friend?"
Giant had reached the front desk and rested his perp against it. The unconscious prisoner was a muscular woman clad in strips of PVC with enough body piercings to set off every metal detector in the sector. Tattoos across the knuckles of her hands spelled the words BADD BLUD. "Her name's Big Bad Bertha, small-time muscle angling for a place in Jesus Bludd's crew."
"Not very talkative."
Giant smiled. "She popped a fistful of amp when I tried to arrest her. Took three of us just to beat her unconscious. The other two are still being treated at the scene by Med-Division."
"You getting anywhere infiltrating Bludd's crew?" Dredd asked.
"Nope. I've yet to find anyone who's even met Bludd, let alone someone who can tell us anything about him." The Big Meg's criminal underworld had been going though one of its bloodier phases with different gangs trying to assert their authority. The fall of crime boss Nero Narcos several years earlier had left a power vacuum and Jesus Bludd was among those who had emerged with plans to take Narcos's place. Unlike most of his competitors, Bludd was smart enough to keep a low profile, letting his crimes do the talking while others preferred to cultivate a cult of personality. As a result, getting an undercover operative close to Bludd was proving unusually difficult for the Judges.
"Stick with it," Dredd said. "Everyone makes mistakes. When Bludd makes his, you want to be ready."
"Natch. Heard you've been having problems with the Sector Chief here?"
Dr
edd grunted. "Word spreads fast."
"No secrets in this job," Giant replied with a smile. "Where you headed?"
"The sleep machines in Med-Bay. Been a long night and I don't think it's over yet. See you on the streets." Dredd strode towards the turbolifts, while Giant presented his captive to the Desk Judge.
"Let's make this snappy," Giant suggested. "You don't want my friend here waking up before we get her inside a cube."
Kasey and Misch had chosen a room with a large picture window looking out over the city. The interior was still unfinished, with discarded materials from the rest of the con-apt piled against a wall. The two girls used these to build a lean-to by the window, their playhouse hidden from the door by the rest of the building supplies. Misch pulled a small globe from her pocket. She carefully placed her right hand's three fingers in a triangular shape on the side of the globe. It began to glow, gentle lights coming alive inside.
"That's beautiful," Kasey gasped.
"It's the only toy I saved from our old con-apt," the R'qeen girl explained. "Now watch this!" She whispered a few words in her native tongue and the globe began to float in the air, shooting beams of coloured light around them.
Kasey watched, entranced. "I wish I had a toy like that," she said wistfully.
"You can keep it, if you want."
"I'd like to," Kasey admitted, "but it's your only one. Anyway, my mom would never let me have anything like that." The human girl looked away, ashamed. "She doesn't like aliens."
"I know. She seems so angry."
Kasey shivered, remembering the earlier beating. "Let's talk about something else, okay?"
Misch nodded hurriedly. "Why don't we-"
A hammering at the front door silenced her. "Open up!" an angry voice shouted from outside.
"Who's that?" Kasey wondered.
The banging resumed, with more shouting. The two girls could hear movement and a voice from another room in the con-apt. "That's my broodfather," Misch said, standing up. "You better stay in here. I'll see what's going on." She went to the doorway and peered out into the main room.
Nyon was pulling a robe on as he walked to the front door, the broken arm hampering his movements. After tying the robe together, Nyon opened the door. Three humans clad in Citi-Def uniforms pushed past him, storming into the con-apt. "What are you doing?" Nyon protested in Allspeak. "You have no right to come in here!"
One of the squad members, a wiry man clutching a laser-blade, pushed Nyon back against the door. "Shut your hole, ya alien freak! We got every right! My name's Billy-Bob Jolie and I'm the Citi-Def representative for the ninety-ninth floor of this block. Now you aliens may be too dumb to know any better, but Citi-Def members like us can go pretty much wherever we please. Ain't that right, boys?" The other two nodded their agreement. Satisfied, the leader sneered at the R'qeen patriarch. "Now, where is she? And speak English this time - none of your offworld mumbo-jumbo, blue boy!"
"Where is who?" Nyon asked in halting English, struggling to understand what the intruders were saying.
"Where's the girl? Not one of your vultures either. She's a human girl! Her name's Kasey Maguire and she was seen coming up here!"
"There are no human girls here," Nyon protested. "There is just myself, my pairling Lleccas and our broodling, Misch. Now, leave before I call the Judges!"
Billy-Bob punched Nyon in the midriff, winding the R'qeen. As he slumped to his knees, Lleccas emerged from the bedroom, still pulling on her clothes. "Nyon? What is happening here?"
"Lleccas! Go back inside!" Nyon shouted.
But one of the other humans had already grabbed the R'qeen woman and pushed her back into the bedroom. "Let's see what you've got hidden in here, you blue-skinned slitch!"
"Lleccas! No!" Nyon shouted. He tried moving towards the bedroom but Billy-Bob thrust the laser-knife under his throat.
"One more move and I'll take great pleasure in gutting you, boy!" Billy-Bob jerked his head at the remaining human in the main room. "Aaron, you check out the other rooms in this place."
Misch hurried back to the lean-to where Kasey was shivering with fear. "Three men. They're looking for you!"
The red-haired girl nodded. "Don't let them find me. If my mom knows I've been visiting you, she'll-"
"Shhh, it'll be okay," Misch said, giving Kasey a hug. "I'll send them away."
"How?"
The R'qeen child remembered what her broodmother had said before, about being able to push weaker minds. "I think I know a way."
Dredd was growing visibly frustrated. He had come to the Med-Bay for ten minutes on a sleep machine, but had spent fifteen minutes answering questions from a pedantic droid. It was now examining his medical records, having got his permission to download them from Justice Central. "Good, good," the mechanoid said as it studied the files. "Glad to see you haven't been overusing the sleep machines. Some Judges abuse the system. Just because a short stint is equivalent to a good night's bed rest, doesn't mean you should substitute one for the other. The human mind is a tricky creature, it needs to dream just as much as it needs rest. Take the case of-"
"Are we done with the preliminaries?" Dredd demanded.
"Well, yes, I suppose so," the droid replied petulantly. "But there's no need to snap. These procedures exist for a reason. You're new to this sector house, so I am obliged to go through the-"
"I said, are we done?"
"Yes, we're done. Machine six is waiting for you," the robot said, gesturing down the corridor. "Just place all non-essential items into the holder so they don't interfere with the-"
"I know the drill," Dredd growled, stomping away.
The droid sighed. "No pleasing some people!"
Dredd sat on the edge of the sleep machine, a long silver bench with a matching cover hanging in the air above it. He removed his utility belt, boot knife and Lawgiver, dropping them into a bin beside the machine. Finally, Dredd took off his helmet and rested it atop the other items. He swung his legs up on to the bench and then lay down full length, resting his head against a small pad. "I'm ready," Dredd called to the droid. "Activate the-"
"Control to Dredd!" The metallic voice issued from a speaker above the sleep machine. "Please respond immediately. Control to Dredd, please respond immediately!"
Grumbling beneath his breath, Dredd sat up again and pulled on his helmet. "Dredd to Control, go ahead."
"Reports coming in that the Oswald Mosley Citi-Def has illegally mobilised itself and is harassing some of the residents in that block."
"Acknowledged. Haven't you got any units nearer the scene that can respond? I was about to have a sleep machine session."
"Sector Chief Caine requested you attend personally, says you have a particular interest in this block."
Dredd's shoulders sagged. "Terrif!" He collected his belongings from the bin beside the sleep machine and stood up, wrapping the belt around his waist again. "Am responding now. Should be on the scene within fifteen. Dredd out!"
He marched past the droid on his way back out of the Med-Bay. "Excuse me, Judge, will you be back later to complete your session?" the robot asked. Dredd continued on his way, an angry snarl his only reply.
"I'll take that as a maybe," the droid decided.
Aaron Pressland was not the brightest member of Oswald Mosley Citi-Def by any recognised method of measurement. A mighty bear of a man, his vocabulary was limited, his general intelligence was even less and his ability to think sadly underdeveloped. But Pressland did have two key qualities that made him a valuable member of the squad - he was utterly loyal to the block, especially his neighbours on the ninety-eighth floor, and he was not afraid to kill.
During the dark days of the Apocalypse War back in 2102 he had murdered three Sov-Block soldiers single-handedly while defending the honour of Oswald Mosley. The Chief Judge had pinned a medal on Pressland's chest and pronounced him one of the bravest civilians in the Big Meg. The fact that he was also one of the dumbest was neither here nor there. So Presslan
d was not afraid when he found an R'qeen girl blocking the entrance to an unfinished bedroom in the penthouse con-apt. "Step aside, freak!" he bellowed at her.
The alien child did not flinch. Instead she smiled, revealing row upon row of teeth hiding inside her mouth. Creepy, Pressland thought, it looks just like... It looks empty inside this room. The Citi-Def member shook his head. He thought he could hear a voice inside his mind, talking to him. But it wasn't his own voice, it was somebody else's.
That's right, the voice replied. I'm your guardian angel.
"What the drokk?" Pressland said, banging a fist against the side of his head. "What are you talking about?"
You remember during the war? So many times you could have been killed. I was there to save you.
"Who are you?"
I'm your guardian angel. You believe me, don't you? Misch pushed with all her might, trying to convince the slow-witted human.
Pressland shrugged. "I guess so."
Good. Now, let's have a look in here.
Misch stood aside and let the squad member step into the unfinished room. Pressland began to wander about the space, peering into corners and lifting building materials aside for his search. He was getting closer and closer to the lean-to. Misch touched Pressland's hand, startling him.
"Hey, what are you-"
Don't worry, there's nothing to be afraid of.
"I'm not afraid!"
Of course you aren't. You're big and brave. You fought in a war.
"That's right!"
Now, when you look inside that lean-to, all you will see is an alien girl.
"An alien girl?"
That's right. Are you ready?
"I guess so."
Then have a look.
Pressland bent over and peered through a gap at the inside of the lean-to. Kasey pushed herself away from him, terrified at being discovered. Pressland found himself smiling at the girl before standing up again.
Now, what did you see?
"Just an alien girl, like you said."
Exactly. And that's what you'll tell the other men, yes?
"Yes," Pressland replied, turning to leave the room. He stopped at the door. "Will I always have a guardian angel like you?"