Her eyebrows shot up at his words. “Us people?”
“…but I’m no expert. I need to know what you can do. You scanned McKenzie...”
Realisation dawned on Ruan’s face, her mouth dropping open.
“McKenzie was alive.”
“So was Peston, not that long ago. Can you do it, or not? Can you read her mind?”
“The mind of a dead woman...”
“Yes or no, Ruan?”
“Yes, but...”
Dredd stepped aside, indicating the corpse. “Proceed.”
“It’s not that easy, Dredd. A living brain is one thing, but necrotic tissue, that’s something else”
“You’ve done it before?”
“Yes, but I don’t like to.”
“There’s a lot of things about this job that I don’t like, but I do my duty. I expect you to do the same.”
Her eyes like boot knives, Ruan turned to shut the cube door.
“Is that necessary?”
“If we’re going to do this, I need total silence. No distractions.”
There was no we about this. Dredd knew he was pushing Ruan, but didn’t care. He watched as she circled the body, kneeling at Peston’s head. Again, her gloves came off, but this time the Psi-Judge hesitated before touching the journalist’s waxy skin. Dredd was about to clear his throat to hurry her up, when Ruan’s fingers made contact.
At first there was nothing. The psi knelt, her head bowed, face impassive. Then she flinched, her lips parting. Dredd crossed his arms, forcing himself to remain silent. He couldn’t imagine what she was experiencing, nor did he want to. A vein throbbed blue on Ruan’s temple, sweat breaking across her brow.
She muttered something under her breath, too quiet for him to make out.
“What was that?”
“Stern,” she repeated, her voice wavering.
“Who was Stern? Peston’s attacker.”
“Not a person. Something that meant a lot to her.”
“What do you see?”
“Shadows. She’s been gone too long. She...” Ruan’s voice trailed off. She’d hunched forward, inches from Peston’s mangled features. A bead of sweat splashed onto the dead woman face to run down her cold cheek like a tear. “She was angry... angry at you...”
“At me?”
“You arrested her… and then...”
Another pause. Longer this time.
“And then what, Ruan?”
“Then... triumph. She thought she was going to win... to come out on top. Optimism. Ambition and... fear. Sudden, sharp, terrible fear. A door opening, the scrape of a boot...”
Ruan cried out, as if struck. Dredd took a step forward.
“Pain,” Ruan gasped. “Repeated, over and over. One blow after another. Helpless... unable to fight back...”
“Against who? Who did this?”
“Green boots. Blood. Blood everywhere. My blood. Stop hitting me. Why won’t they stop hitting me? Hurts so much.”
Ruan cried out in agony. Dredd took a step forward.
“Okay, Ruan. Break it off.”
“Can’t stop them hitting me.”
“Ruan!”
“Can’t stop them—”
Without warning, the Psi-Judge pitched forward, slumping over Peston’s body.
“Ruan!”
Dredd knelt beside her, rolling her off the corpse. Her eyes were closed, her mouth slack, Peston’s blood smeared all over her tunic. Dredd felt for a pulse.
Nothing.
He jumped to his feet and threw open the door.
“Code 99 Red,” he bellowed down the corridor. “Judge down.”
Returning to her body, Dredd started CPR, pumping her chest with interlocked fingers. Behind him, Med-Judge Cooke barrelled into the cube.
“What happened?”
“She’s not breathing”
The medic shoved Dredd out of the way. He got to his feet, stepping back to give Cooke space to work.
“Cardiac arrest,” Cooke reported as Wilmot ran into the cell. Dredd watched as the pair worked in unison, Cooke unzipping Ruan’s jacket, Wilmot attaching circular sensor-pads onto the psychic’s bare skin.
Cooke touched a smart-device he wore around his wrist like a cuff, the sensor pads emitting a low-pitched whine that rose in intensity at the Med-Judge’s command.
“Charging... and clear!”
Cooke jabbed at his cuff, and Ruan’s body bucked. When she made no other movements, Wilmot resumed compressions.
“Anything?” asked Dredd.
Cooke shook his head.
“Again,” Wilmot barked, kneeling back.
“Clear.”
The pads delivered another charge, but again Ruan didn’t respond.
“She’s gone,” Dredd concluded.
“Not yet,” Cooke insisted, grabbing a hypospray from a pouch on his belt. Priming the device, he slammed it onto Ruan’s chest, directly above her heart. The injector hissed, and Ruan’s eyes snapped open. She gasped for air as Cooke swept a scanner no bigger than Dredd’s thumb over her body, checking her stats on his cuff.
“Is she okay?” Dredd asked.
“Do I sound okay?” Ruan wheezed.
“What happened?”
She looked up at him through sweat drenched air. “Now do you see why I don’t like reading the dead?”
Fifteen
Strength and Weakness
“WHAT IN GRUD’S name did you think you were doing?”
Chief Judge Clarence Goodman’s eyes bored into them, furious and fiery. Dredd kept his own gaze on a point just above the Chief Judge’s greying hair, not out of defiance, but respect.
Ruan stood to attention beside him, her back ramrod straight. The Psi-Judge had looked like death after they’d been summoned to the Grand Hall, her pallor as leaden as her eyes were pained. But her transformation as they’d entered Goodman’s presence had been remarkable; all signs of weakness were banished in an instant.
Dredd liked that. Perhaps there was more to this woman than he’d first thought.
“A prisoner had been murdered—” Dredd began.
“I know she was murdered,” Goodman snapped. “I’ve read the report, and agree with your assessment of Judge Shepherd. However, to coerce Psi-Judge Ruan into performing a mindscan post-mortem—”
“With all due respect, sir,” Ruan cut in, “there was no coercion. I acceded to Judge Dredd’s request. It is as much my responsibly as his, if not more.”
Goodman sat back in his imposing chair, the light gleaming on his chain of office. “Is that so?”
Another surprise. Not many people dared interrupt Clarence Goodman.
“I understood the risks involved. Judge Dredd did not.”
“And yet you proceeded anyway.”
“It was my duty... sir.”
Goodman steepled his long fingers, considering them both in turn.
“Do you understand why you are here, Dredd?”
“I... we did not follow correct procedure, sir.”
“You did not. Reading a corpse requires special dispensation from Psi-Division. Do you know why?”
Dredd shook his head, annoyed at the gap in his training.
Goodman turned to the Psi-Judge. “Care to complete Dredd’s education, Judge Ruan?”
There was no pleasure in Ruan’s voice when she spoke: “When connecting to dead brain tissue, there is a risk that the Judge’s own cerebellum will mistakenly conclude that it too has died.”
“Thereby shutting down the Judge’s vital organs. Lungs, heart, central nervous system, all gone, like that.” Goodman snapped his fingers.
“I was not aware of that possibility,” Dredd admitted.
“Furthermore,” the Chief Judge continued, “it opens the practitioner to forces from outside our plain of existence.”
“Sir?”
“According to Psi-Division, the world we experience is only the tip of a particularly perplexing iceberg. There are realities beyond our compre
hension, populated by entities beyond our nightmares. These beings would do anything to gain a foothold on our territory. All it takes is one mistake, one error of judgement, and the floodgates could open.”
Again, Ruan chose to chip in. “With all due respect, sir, I am trained to—”
Goodman slammed his hand on the desk in front of him, rattling the golden pens that had signed every executive order since he had deposed President Booth.
“Was I talking to you, Judge Ruan?”
“No, sir. I just thought—”
“You are not here to think, but to listen.”
Ruan fell quiet, a sensible precaution if she didn’t want her career to end standing in front of this desk. Goodman let the silence reinforce his authority before speaking again, his voice abruptly calm again.
“Well, Dredd?”
Joe didn’t flinch. “I take full responsibility, sir. I insisted that Judge Ruan conduct the scan without fully understanding the implications. I accept any punishment that you see fit.”
Goodman didn’t respond, but instead let his grey eyes linger on Dredd before switching his attention back to Ruan.
“Judge Ruan, you are to report to Psi-Div, where you will be assessed for any lasting damage to your abilities or psyche. Until cleared for duty, you are hereby removed from active service. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir,” came the clipped reply, although Dredd heard a catch in Ruan’s voice.
Goodman nodded. “Dismissed.”
The Psi-Judge didn’t look at Dredd as she turned on her heels and marched out of Goodman’s chambers.
The gilded doors slid shut behind her and Goodman sighed, his hands resting on his desk, fingers interlocked.
“Dredd—” he began, but Joe didn’t give him chance to finish.
“Sir, I believe taking me off the case would be a mistake.”
“Is that right? And do I often make mistakes, in your opinion?”
“No, sir. However—”
“However, you presume to tell me my business. A Judge who—while he has the unique advantage of breeding—has only served for, what? Eighteen months? Twenty?”
Goodman’s words stung. Breeding. A reminder that Dredd was an experiment, from the man who had—until now—championed him all the way.
“Twenty-two, sir.”
“Would you like to sit in this seat, or wear this chain around your neck?”
“No, sir.”
“No?”
“I do not possess the required experience, sir.”
“Exactly. So remember your place, Joe. You’re a good Judge. You could be one of the best, if you wound in that neck of yours. You rub people up the wrong way, even people on your side.”
“With respect, sir, I’m not—”
“Dredd, if you’re about to tell me that you’re not here to make friends, then I suggest you shut up before I bust you back to rookie.”
Dredd bit his tongue. “Yes, sir.”
“No one’s asking you to make friends, but you need to play the game. I know you think that you’re the embodiment of the Law, and not without justification, but the Law is more than one man. Different departments, working together. Hand in hand. That isn’t weakness; it’s strength. I don’t need lone guns. I need people who can play their part. Can you do that, Dredd?”
“Yes, sir. I...” he paused, articulating a word that did not come naturally. “I apologise.”
Goodman held up a hand. “Then, let this be the end of it. Look, I’m not expecting you to become the life and soul of the party, but I need you to learn respect, not just for the Law, but the people around you. I commend you for taking responsibility, and I understand exactly why you did what you did, but you need to consider the consequences next time.”
“Understood.”
“And, for the record, I agree with your assessment. Taking you off the case would be a mistake. A prisoner has been murdered in their cube. It’s bad enough that we’re having to cope with this ‘Judge Whistleblower’ madness, but now this? I want you to find what links the deaths of these two journalists. Find out who did it, but for Grud’s sake, be careful. The press will be all over us like a rash. The last thing I need is for them to pick up on dissension in the ranks. Have I made myself clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Glad to hear it. I look forward to your report.”
Goodman turned to the computer on his desk, activating the screen to signal that the meeting was at an end. Keeping his head high, Dredd strode from the Chief Judge’s office without looking back.
He had work to do.
Sixteen
Double-Zero
ISIAH MORPHY WAS frustrated. He was frustrated with the investigation, frustrated that Jamie Truss had been blown up before they could get to the bottom of who’d paid him to protest at Piper’s rally, frustrated that, with both Truss brothers now dead, the case had grown cold. The Teks were swarming over the wreckage of Url’s Diner, searching for evidence, but Morphy wasn’t holding out hope. He’d already had Lint check the makes and models of the robo-chef and waitress, but, other than the fact that they worked at the diner, there was nothing to link the explosion to them, or to the other acts of robo-terrorism rocking the Meg. They had no reason to kill Truss, especially as he had publicly stood up against Piper’s anti-robotic policies.
Above all Morphy was frustrated that his body ached as much as it did. Yeah, so he’d jumped eighteen feet from a floating burger joint, but in the past, he would have picked himself up, dusted himself down and got on with the job. Today, it was all he could do to put one foot in front of the other. The Meds had given him a clean bill of health, save for a few cuts and scrapes, but he felt every bruise across his tired body. He’d seen the way the Med-Judge had looked at him when he’d pushed himself from the medi-bed. How they all looked at him. Morphy was being assessed even as he assessed his rookies. How long would it be before he was offered a cushy desk job—or took the Long Walk, the last hurrah for Judges too long in the tooth to handle the rigours of Mega-City One?
“You sure you’re okay, Judge Morphy?” Lint said, as if he could read his thoughts. Perhaps he should recommend that the rookie be transferred to Psi-Division.
Morphy picked up his pace, forcing himself to stand just a little taller. “Nothing a few minutes in the sleep machine won’t cure.”
Lint snorted. “Good luck with that. The number of glitches those things have suffered recently... The Department needs to invest in new equipment rather than just patching up the old models. Have you seen how many workmen we’ve had trooping through the Sector House this last week? If they put more money into judicial support rather than supporting pointless elections...”
“We’d have more problems on our hands. As long as the electorate are distracted by politicians, they’re not waging Block Wars. Politics has its place, son. Never forget that.”
Lint argued his point, but Morphy stopped listening. He was looking ahead, where a young Psi-Judge was waiting in the corridor; waiting for someone they all knew.
“Dredd,” the woman said, as Joe stomped in her direction.
“We’ve nothing to say, Ruan.”
She stepped in front of Morphy’s former rookie. The kid had guts. Joe was like a cyber-mastiff; once he’d picked up on a scent, no-one got in his way. Right now, though, he was forced to stop.
“I think we do. Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For taking responsibility. You didn’t have to do that.”
“I ordered you to make the scan.”
“Ordered? Dredd, you asked me, and I said yes.” The girl’s voice had shifted from grateful to piqued in one sentence; impressive even by Dredd’s standards. “You may get off by ordering around medics, but you’ve no authority over me.”
“Is everything alright here?” Morphy asked, approaching the pair.
“Judge Morphy,” Dredd acknowledged, taking in the damage to both Morphy’s and Lint’s uniforms. “What hap
pened?”
“We had an argument with a bomb.”
“Robo-agitators killed a suspect,” Lint cut in. “Blew up a floating diner.”
“Suspected agitators,” Morphy corrected. “But we’re fine.” He turned to introduce himself to the Psi-Judge. “Judge Morphy, and this know-it-all is Lint.”
Morphy couldn’t help but notice the way Lint’s eyes swept up and down the woman’s uniform. “Never met a psi before,” the Rookie said, flashing a lop-sided smile.
Ruan’s eyes turned to ice. “Think of me that way again, and I’ll remind you of your oath of celibacy… with extreme prejudice.”
Lint’s face flushed. “I-I didn’t... I mean, I wouldn’t...”
“Consider yourself warned,” Morphy said, filing the encounter for his report. A wandering eye or, in this case, mind, wasn’t enough to fail a rookie—Grud knows enough Senior Judges still struggled with abstinence—but it would have to be noted. “Apologies, Judge...?”
Dredd answered for her. “This is Judge Ruan. We worked together earlier today.”
“And I’m guessing it didn’t go well.”
What Morphy could see of Dredd’s face was an impassive mask. “What’s done is done. Now, if you’d excuse me...”
“Not heading towards the sleep machines, Dredd?” Morphy asked. “You must be at the end of your shift.”
“No time,” Dredd called over his shoulder as he took his leave. “I’ve a killer to catch.”
“Should we report him?” Lint asked, as they watched Dredd stalk away.
“For what?”
“Not complying with the required sleep machine rotation. Regulations state—”
“That in pursuit of a case,” Ruan interrupted, “a Judge may forgo a sleep cycle if necessary.”
“Unless by doing so they put themselves or others at risk,” Lint pointed out, irritably.
“You think Dredd’s a risk, Ruan?” Morphy asked.
The dark-haired woman shook her head. “I don’t know what to think about him,” she admitted. “Most people are an open book to me...”
She glanced at Lint.
“But not Joe?”
“I’ve never met anyone so shut down. Usually, there’s a glimmer of emotion, but Dredd...”
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