“He still looks like shit with sprinkles on,” Maze said.
Winstanley laughed. “True. I did say it was only the most cursory of treatments. But the odds of him surviving the next twelve hours are, I believe, now significantly better. The blood-loss has at least stopped.”
“Don’t expect any gratitude,” Dredd responded.
“I wouldn’t dream of it. My experience of Justice Department is not one of politeness and appreciation.”
“Your accent—you’re from Brit-Cit.”
The older man nodded. “Sought a future across the ocean in 2069. Big-city life appealed.”
“In other words, the heat was closing in on you, and you skipped town. What made you end up in this cesspool of a sector?”
“Poor career choices, I’m not ashamed to admit. But what’s the saying? ‘It’s better to rule in hell than serve in heaven’? Some kingdoms just aren’t blessed by their looks.”
“Something to be said for being at the top of the dungpile,” Dredd replied, taking a step forward, his legs still feeling wobbly. Jeperson bristled, preparing to step between the Judge and his boss, but Winstanley didn’t seem perturbed in the slightest. They were in a kind of makeshift lab/workroom. Beyond the door, Dredd could see living quarters, where other goons were shifting merch or cleaning guns. “I figure you must’ve been here long enough to be itching to escape the slums, to take your business up a level. Let me guess: you control the drugs and insurance rackets for at least the four-block area. Too much competition to be solely running crime in Strickland. But you need an edge, an advantage—something that’s gonna finally let you break out, if you ever want to progress beyond lord of the dump.”
Winstanley raised his eyebrows. “Eloquent and perceptive, Judge. You’ve got quite the serious head on those young shoulders. I rather think it must’ve been something of a tough call to have given yourself over to me as your one chance of getting out of here alive.” He cast an amused eye towards Maze. “I knew Maze here couldn’t have been instrumental in apprehending you; she’s more than likely helping you in exchange for her own rewards. But still, walking willingly into the lion’s den, not knowing what awaited you... you must’ve felt you had no options left. That your one chance out of here other than in a bodybag was to make a deal with the Devil.”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” Dredd grumbled.
“Oh, yeah? I haven’t thought twice about putting a bullet in a bluejay’s heart in the past,” Jeperson snarled. His bravado did little to challenge Dredd’s first impression of him as a small-time oaf. “You’re lucky you weren’t whacked on the spot.”
“Indeed,” Winstanley said. “The forces of law and order aren’t traditionally very popular around here.”
“Whoa, whoa,” Maze interjected hurriedly. “Thought it was agreed he was an asset. Justice Central will pay more for a live cop.”
“Justice Central won’t negotiate at all,” Winstanley replied. “They’ll string us along till they secure our location and set a drone on us. Or drop a nuke on the whole district.”
“They’d do that?”
“Any excuse to raze Strickland to the ground.”
“They’d sacrifice one of their own?”
“Like I said, they won’t give an inch—and he knows that.” Winstanley jerked a thumb at Dredd. “Juves like him, they’re indoctrinated into the Department, brainwashed into giving their lives to the law. They know no single individual is greater than the system, and will walk into the fire to protect it.”
“But he’s valuable leverage, a bargaining chip. Why put him in the auto-doc if he’s that disposable?”
“I didn’t say I didn’t want him around—at least for the next hour or so. We do have an opportunity before us, one we can use to our advantage.” Winstanley addressed Dredd. “You’re right, Judge. I want out of this...” He cast around, searching for the word. His quarters were comfortable and functional, but Dredd guessed the Brit wanted the trappings associated with status. “...quagmire,” he said finally. “And you have brought the means to do so.” He slid one hand out of his pocket and held up the flashdrive. Dredd must’ve been so out of it when he and Maze had arrived that he hadn’t even been aware it had been removed from his belt pouch. She must’ve told them it was there; he guessed it went a long way to stopping Jeperson putting a bullet in him. “Do you know what’s on it?”
“Enlighten me.”
Winstanley chuckled. “Marcie?”
He tossed it to the engineer, who blithely caught it one-handed, plugged it into a nearby computer terminal and hit a few keys. A string of numbers scrolled past on the black screen. Dredd cast an eye at them: they looked like dates, times and codes.
“Recognise them?” the older man said.
“Some kind of delivery schedule,” the Judge murmured, the stream of figures flickering against his visor. One he picked out among the many—today’s date, June 16th, alongside the time 13:37.
“That’s exactly what it is,” Marcie answered, leaning against the monitor, tapping the glass with a finger. “Shipment times. The codes denote the cargo and the transport ID.”
“Shipments from where?” Dredd asked.
“The Cursed Earth. Automated container craft bringing in munce stock, treemeat, synthi-derivatives from the outlying farms. There’s no crew, just an A.I. pilot taking each ship on a round trip; deliver to the city, then the flight-path is programmed for the next destination. They’re in constant motion, arriving every six hours or thereabouts.”
“How do you know this?”
“Marcie’s my on-staff tek expert,” Winstanley said. “I... recruited her from Eastside U. I wrote off her gambling debts in exchange for her coming to work for me. She’s digitised my entire client base.”
The woman smiled, but looked away when she saw Dredd studying her.
“But we’re not just talking solely a delivery schedule, are we?” continued the crime lord.
“No,” Marcie replied, tapping a key so the numbers froze. “The memory stick seems to contain a program that allows you to hack into any given transporter and remote-access its directives. You can control it, fly it to wherever you want, even set it to self-detonate, should you wish. Essentially a massive back-door security lapse in the A.I. that whoever wrote the program must’ve been aware of.”
“Does it work?” Dredd asked.
“We haven’t yet put it to the test,” Winstanley responded. “All in good time. Right now, though, I’m more curious as to how you acquired it. Because I seem to recall the name Bertram Gilpig being mentioned.”
“Who is he?”
“I’m surprised you haven’t encountered him before. Maybe they don’t let you baby Judges rub shoulders with the great and the good. He’s a perennial thorn in my side, let me tell you.” Winstanley started to pace, hands behind his back. “Gilpig’s a councillor; he’s on the zoning committee for Meg South West. Planning, construction contracts, he’s got his greedy fingers in all of it, as well as the inevitable kickbacks. He’s been pushing for regeneration of Strickland and the surrounding areas for years.”
Dredd was studiedly ignorant of city politics; he saw it as what those at the top occupied themselves with while he got on with what he did best: breaking heads on the street. Of course, there was no shortage of criminals in the corridors of power either, and they would eventually cross his path when necessary—but that was his sole experience of politicians and their ilk. It tended to colour your opinion somewhat. “What’s stopped him?”
“The displacement problem. Too many cits with nowhere to go if they rolled in the demolition droids. As much as I’d imagine Grand Hall would like to see this place sealed in rockcrete and forget it ever existed, they haven’t got room for all the poor dinks that make it their home. City’s at capacity as it is; it’s more convenient to keep them living in squalor, where they don’t have to worry about them.”
“I thought you were keen to escape this... what did you call it? Quagmire?
”
“In my own way and under my own steam. Right now I’m beneath Justice Central’s radar, which suits my business, and a regeneration project would bring all sorts of attention that I could do without.”
“So you’ve been instrumental in blocking any motions, presumably.”
Winstanley smiled. “Let’s say I’ve been putting my faith in the right people to see sense.”
Dredd grimaced. Corruption at the highest level: so many of them could be bought off. The uniform was inviolate, unimpeachable—their code was rigid and morally uncompromising—but put civilians in positions of authority and they buckled under the temptation. “So, Gilpig,” he said. “Not a local boy.”
“Good Grud, no. He’s resident over in Dean Learner, south of Central—which begs the question, what was he doing down this way?”
“I found the zipdrive hidden in the trunk of his driver’s car. Gilpig himself was in Meyer—I would assume he was in the process of delivering it, or talking terms before it was handed over.”
“Meyer is Furies turf—Jeb Rawlings’ crew. If Gilpig was dealing with anyone, it’d be him.”
“Selling on the means to hijack food shipments... for what? A cut of the profits?”
“Plenty here in Strickland going hungry. It’d be a poke in the eye for Grand Hall if the sector gained control of the distribution of imports, however briefly.”
Dredd wasn’t convinced. “From what I’ve heard of the councillor, he doesn’t strike me as the philanthropic type. Whatever he’s doing this for, I seriously doubt he has the good of the people in mind.”
“He’s certainly concerned about retrieving the memory stick, given the efforts the Furies and the MC are going to. This was no minor street deal. He’s put a target on a Judge’s head—that could have significant repercussions, if he’s not careful.” Winstanley nodded at Jeperson, who pulled a handcannon from his waistband and levelled it at Dredd. “His only chance of surviving this, career-wise, and not spending the rest of his life in a cube, is if you’re dead—with you as a corpse, no-one knows of his involvement.”
Jeperson grabbed Dredd’s arm and hauled him towards one of the adjoining rooms.
Winstanley patted Maze on the back. “He will be our bargaining chip, my dear,” he said, “but not with Justice Department. We let Gilpig know Dredd is alive and in our hands, and we’ll have the sneaky little bastard in our pockets.”
“What about the hack program?” Marcie asked.
“Oh, we’ll be making use of that. Who’d have thought black-market treemeat would be my ticket out of here?” He shook his head, chuckled, then started to follow Jeperson. “Why don’t you make a start, Marcie, on bringing our first container online?” he called over his shoulder. “Oh, and Greening?” Another lieutenant appeared from the living area. “Escort young Maze back downstairs.”
“Hey, wait,” the woman protested as she was manhandled towards the entrance. “I was the one that brought him to you, convinced you that protecting him was a good idea—”
“And I’m grateful, honestly,” he replied, as she disappeared through the door, struggling. “But events have overtaken all of us. Best you sit this one out. I wouldn’t want you to get hurt.”
13.05 pm
JUSTICE DEPARTMENT WAS rolling.
Cits on the Strickland estate tore themselves from their Tri-D sets, paused their illegal activities, put aside their trashzines, and found a window to watch as the pat-wagon rumbled down the main drag. The wagons were distinctive, with their low roar and the dull, bass-heavy vibrations that rattled the window glass as they passed, and only the most committed career criminals didn’t feel a primal fear at the noise. Nothing sounded quite like Judges on the move. It was a sound to make you stop what you’re doing to double-check your innocence; if the jays were out in force, then someone was in their sights, and you better make damn sure it wasn’t you.
A Judicial presence on Strickland wasn’t unknown, but few could remember ever seeing the heavy mob hitting the sked in quite this fashion. There were at least a dozen Special Tactics officers on board, fully armed and armoured, Lawrods slung over their shoulders. A co-pilot swung a high-calibre machine-gun lazily on its pintel, casually sweeping the blocks the vehicle was passing. Retribution, raw and terrible, rolled off the Judges in waves, merciless and brutally efficient. Even those with nothing to hide ducked out of sight and prayed that the pat-wagon wouldn’t stop at their door. All mouthed a brief word of thanks to Grud when it carried on its way.
One thing was certain: Grand Hall didn’t mobilise the ST division unless it wanted to drop a whole heap of stomm on an individual. When the eagle struck, it came down hard—few were left standing in the aftermath.
13.06 pm
JEPERSON FORCED DREDD into a wooden chair at gunpoint and bound his hands. The muscles in his arms protested, poorly-knitted bones popped out of joint, and a surge of pain almost brought unconsciousness crashing down on him again.
For a second his mind retreated to another hard chair, in the centre of a bare interrogation cell. It was an Academy exercise, fellow cadets performing the role of the SJS. Rico was one of them, trying to break his clone-brother, force him to confess to an imaginary misdeed. Dredd was resolute, unwavering, his heart rate—his tutors told him later—steady as a rock. Rico had tried to push ever harder; was it hindsight that was colouring his recollection, or did Dredd detect a streak of bitterness in his sibling, an urge in Rico to see his twin crack? It should’ve been a warning sign, if it was there at all, but the simulation was stopped before Rico could go too far. Dredd could see him now, leant over him, pushing him to breaking point: a mirror image, berating his own reflection.
Then the chair softened and the face became Perrineau’s, asking him how he felt about destroying his clone-brother’s life. As the therapist spoke, the seat grew softer, becoming liquid, until he felt himself merging with the cushions, unable to move or look away. He was trapped, paralysed.
A sharp sting brought him back to his senses, Winstanley standing over him. He backhanded him across the face again. “Need you conscious, son,” he remarked. He motioned to Jeperson, who now held a small vid-camera and was training it on the Judge. “We’re going to send a short message to Councillor Gilpig, let him know his future lies in our hands.”
Jeperson edged closer with the camera, near enough to Dredd that he clearly saw the shards of plastic embed themselves in the jelly of his eye when the bullet smashed through the casing and out the other side of his skull. Winstanley managed a half-turn before the second shot caught him in the throat and he went down on his knees, hands clamped to his neck, trying to hold back a crimson fountain. A third slug hit him in the chest and put him on the ground for good.
Marcie stepped cautiously into the room, glancing at both corpses to make sure they were dead. She finally met Dredd’s enquiring gaze. “Wally Squad,” she said flatly. “We need to get the hell out of here right now.”
Seven
13.07 pm
“ARE YOU FIT to stand?” she asked, slicing through the restraints around his wrists.
“I’ll make it,” Dredd replied, accepting her hand and letting her help him out of the chair. His legs felt leaden, tightness cramping around his calves and thighs, but he hobbled forward, determined not to let it slow him up. He bent and took Jeperson’s gun from his body, trying to hold it in his haphazardly repaired right hand, but he could barely bend his forefinger into the trigger guard without the tendons twitching unhappily, so he resorted once again to his left. It wasn’t his strongest, and he missed the support the double-grip gave him, but he’d manage.
“We have to hurry,” she said, already heading out the door. Dredd followed, casting an eye back at Winstanley one last time, lying on his back in a spreading pool of blood, mouth set in a rictus of disapproval as if he’d been denied the chance to prove himself. Too late now to escape McCluskey, the lawman thought; now it’s your tomb.
In the main living area of th
e crime boss’s apartment, further corpses littered the carpet and furniture. Winstanley’s men had been dealt with ruthlessly: single bullet holes to the skull, mainly. The undercover officer had been busy.
She picked her way over the tangle of limbs towards the main entrance. “This isn’t anywhere near the total of his workforce,” she remarked without turning back to address Dredd. “We’ll need to hurry. I don’t want to get cornered up here, trying to explain a massacre.” She pulled the flashdrive from her pocket and held it up. “There’s also the question of this. A closer inspection of the files revealed that they were incomplete.”
“Incomplete? Then—”
“Smart money says the Furies already have half the program. Gilpig held back the rest for some reason—maybe to make sure they didn’t double-cross him. Either way, that’s why they’re so keen to get their hands on this.”
“Can they do anything with the files they have?”
“Not sure. Possibly. What’s on here looked like a lot of failsafe commands. If they bypass those, we could be in trouble.”
“Damn.”
“I hear that. Talking of the program, I did a practice run on the hack code, and... I don’t think this is about hijacking shipments. It couldn’t get me into the A.I. core and allow me to take control—but from what I saw, I think once transmitted, you could shut it down from the outside.”
“Shut down the A.I. pilot...” Dredd caught up with her and grabbed her arm. She turned to face him.
“Ship comes tumbling down,” she replied flatly. “C’mon, we gotta go.”
“This tek-knowledge... How sure are you? What’s your name, actually? I figure Marcie’s part the cover.”
“Saunders. Erin Saunders.” She brought her right hand up to her forehead in a cursory salute. “Been with Wally Squad nearly five years; computer science a specialty. I’m eighty per cent sure I’m right—I wish I wasn’t, ’cause we’re going to be in a world of stomm otherwise.” She opened the door to the corridor outside the apartment and poked her head out, beckoning for him to join her once she was sure the coast was clear. She crossed to the el, jabbed the call button. “This is our best shot. Winstanley has made sure the stairs from the upper mid-levels are impassable. If we’re lucky, we can ride the express near enough to the ground floor.”
Judge Dredd: Year Two Page 19