The Cold Light of Day

by Michael Carroll

  A new twist this year was a split in the route in Sector 235: the two branches of the fork were the same length—six-hundred and sixty-seven kilometres—but the right branch looped wildly and skirted close to some of the nicer-looking city-blocks in the hopes that potential overseas tourists might be tempted to change their opinions of the city, and the left branch traversed a string of elevated highways, rising and falling in what the organisers promised would be a majestic fashion.

  The contenders were free to choose whichever route they preferred, and already this was the subject of much speculation among the commentators—and, Goodman was certain, the bookies.

  Gambling on the Mega-City 5000 was illegal, of course, and as such was a great source of revenue for the Justice Department. Goodman’s accountants had run the figures. If betting on the race were legal, the Department could expect to recover slightly over a billion credits in taxes. But by prohibiting gambling, the Department could keep any and all funds seized by the Judges from back-room bookies. Already, over a hundred bookies had been marked for later investigation. The accountants estimated a haul of somewhere north of two and a half billion.

  Below, the mechanics and support staff had vacated the starting grid, and now one hundred and eight bikers were mounted on their machines, engines humming, eager for the green light. The favourites were at the rear of the cluster, and by tradition they would take the first few hundred kilometres at an easy pace to give the newbies a chance. Not that it would make much difference in the long run: everyone knew that the winner would be either a Spacer or a Mutie. They had the best bikes and the most experience.

  A voice in Goodman’s earpiece said, “Sir? Ready when you are.”

  “Got it, thanks.”

  He stepped up to the podium and put on his best “I’m-a-nice-guy-and-you-can’t-help-liking-me” smile. “Citizens of Mega-City One...” A deliberate four-second pause. “Welcome...” A two-second pause, then, louder, “To the Mega-City 5000!”

  The roar of the crowd was almost deafening, and Goodman took a small step back, hamming up his reaction.

  “We’ve got some fine racing ahead of us today, folks!” Goodman continued. “So enjoy the show, cheer for your favourites, and... let the race begin!”

  Green lights flashed, a siren blared, and the air was filled with the screech of tyres and the cloying stink of burning synthetic rubber.

  Goodman peered over the edge of the platform in time to see the participants slowly wending their way along the street, skirting around some poor unfortunate whose UniMagno’s only tyre chose the exact wrong moment to develop a puncture.

  Fifteen hours to the finishing post, Goodman said to himself. He knew that some of the Judges had their own wagers—cash free, he hoped—on the outcome. Not on the race itself, but on the number of citizens who’d die today. There was always at least one spugwit dumb enough to be dared by his pals to scale the barriers and dart across the track. Or a skysurfer trying to make a name for himself by buzzing the bikers. Or someone wearing a bat-glider who was under the impression that the minimum height restrictions only applied to other people. Or an idiot in a city-block who’d lean too far over the balcony rail to get a better view.

  As he descended the steps, he reminded himself that people are, individually, fairly smart. Collectively, however, people are morons. What was that equation again? He asked himself. The collective IQ of a crowd is the average IQ divided by the number of people present. Sounds about right.

  Yes, some people would die directly because of the race, but on the other hand, the city was home to close to eight hundred million people... On the average day, three citizens would choke to death on the plastic toy in their morning cereal. It didn’t make one damn bit of difference how big the manufacturers made the animated “Choking Hazard!” warning on the box. There was always someone too utterly stupid to notice that their spoonful of small, light-brown Synthi-Flakes also contained a large pink plastic turtle.

  In his years as a Judge, Goodman had seen some spectacularly stupid deaths, like the woman who starved to death after she locked herself inside her open-topped sports car, or the guy who was convinced that the “throwing the kids into the deep end of the pool in order to teach them to swim” method might just work for human flight.

  As Goodman strode toward the waiting Justice Department H-wagon, a young reporter broke free of the press enclosure and darted toward him, recorder extended. “Chief Judge, Chief Judge! Dan Dandahn, Screaming Tweenie Weekly, Channel Minus-One—Do you have a few words for our viewers?”

  Goodman stopped, and turned toward the camera floating a few centimetres above the reporter’s shoulder. “I do.”

  “Great!” The reporter tapped the camera. Beneath its lens a small display showed the InstaFeedback approval rating: the number was climbing up from forty-one per cent. “Kids, I’m with Chief Judge Clarence Goodman! Chief Judge, what would you like to say to our viewers?”

  The Chief Judge glowered into the camera’s lens. “Listen carefully, kids... We’re watching you. Break the law, and we’ll know about it even before you do.” He leaned closer and the reporter took a step back. “If you’re ever unsure whether what you’re about to do is illegal, ask yourself this: would I do it if there was a Judge standing next to me? If the answer is no, then don’t do it.”

  The camera’s screen showed an approval rating of sixty-two per cent. Not too shabby, Goodman thought.

  The reporter muttered, “Uh, thanks... Can I ask you what you think of the latest trends in—”

  Goodman grinned at the camera. “Hey, kids. Here’s something else for you. I’ve not made an arrest since I became Chief Judge. You want to see me take down a perp?”

  The approval rating shot up to eighty-four.

  “Fantastic!” the reporter said, quickly looking around. “Who’s the lucky perp?”

  Goodman grabbed the man’s shoulder. “You are. You climbed a Justice Department barrier when you left the press area. Barriers are there for a reason, creep. Five months in the cubes.” Goodman signalled to a street Judge, who rushed over, grabbed the reporter by the arm and started hauling him away.

  “Incredible!” The reporter shouted. “Kids, this is Dan Dandahn reporting to you live from his own arrest by the Chief Judge himself! I can’t begin to tell you what an honour this is!”

  Goodman took a last look at the camera before he boarded the H-wagon. The approval rating was now ninety-eight per cent. I can live with that, Goodman said to himself.

  Three

  SEAMUS “SHOCK” O’SHAUGHNESSY allowed most of the other bikers to pull ahead of him. Some of the first-timers shot out in a mad dash to take the early lead, but the seasoned riders held back. The Mega-City 5000 wasn’t about who’d started well, but who crossed the finish-line first.

  Shock was leader of the Spacers, and it had been three years since a Spacer had won the race. Last year and the year before, the Mutants had taken first place. Shock was determined that was not going to happen again.

  To his left, riding parallel and noticeably not paying him any attention, was his counterpart in the Mutants, Napoleon Neapolitan, last year’s winner. For months the media had been whipping up a storm about the rivalry between Shock and Napoleon, chiefly fuelled by the teams’ own publicity departments.

  Now it all came down to today. Napoleon was by far the bookies’ favourite at three-to-one-on: a citizen putting down three credits would win one. Shock was at five-to-two-on, slightly more attractive odds for the punters. The big money was on the independent riders. Gavin Sable was the public’s golden child, known to be a dependable but inexperienced rider. Most of the bookies were offering twenty-to-one-against on Sable. Shock had heard of a man in MegWest who’d sold his apartment and almost all of his belongings to raise one hundred thousand credits. He’d put it all on Gavin Sable in the hope of winning two million.

  By the end of the race, that man was going to disappointed as well as broke and homeless. The winner of this
year’s Mega-City 5000 would be either a Mutant or a Spacer. They had the numbers, and they had the skill.

  The Spacers and the Mutants had been rival gangs since before the atomic wars, their history pre-dating Mega-City One by decades. Initially, there had also been another two major biker gangs vying for control of the east coast of America, but the Angels had been hunted down and wiped out by the Highwaymen after a long and particularly bloody feud, and then in turn they’d been destroyed by the Mutants and the Spacers working together.

  But that alliance had been tenuous at best, and had only lasted a few years. No one remembered what had sparked the current animosity—the original antagonists had been killed long ago—but they all understood that the gangs were enemies.

  Since the rise of the Judges, all of the city’s biker gangs had drastically curtailed their activities. The Spacers and the Mutants had, separately, officially “gone legit.” They hired publicity agents and lawyers, marketing people and managers. They presented themselves as family-friendly clubs and associations—the Mutants once successfully sued a news channel that had referred to them as a gang—and they held membership drives and charity runs. They turned up to protest the closing of hospitals, and to support liberal politicians. They made a lot of noise about unfair treatment whenever one of their members was arrested, unless there was no doubt the member was guilty, in which case they publicly thanked the Judges for rooting out the “undesirable elements that give the rest of us a bad name.”

  But in the shadows, the gangs were as vicious and territorial as ever. They used knives to settle scores, because bullets made too much noise and were too easy to trace. They dealt drugs and weapons, they carried out hits for hire, they ran protection rackets and gambling dens, kidnapped children of wealthy families, organised riots at public gatherings, fenced stolen goods, grabbed citizens off the streets and smuggled them out of the city and sold them into slavery.

  The general public knew little of that. Most of the citizens of Mega-City One regarded the Muties and the Spacers in the same way they regarded enthusiasts of other hobbies, like the Judge-spotters and the sky-surfers, the fatties and the hair-collectors and the cereal-commercial re-enactors.

  DREDD’S LAWMASTER PURRED to a stop outside the Funex Eaterie in Bevis Wetzel Plaza. Already, ten Lawmasters were present, and as Dredd climbed down from his bike, a med-wagon rose swiftly into the air, the flashing red and blue lights competing with the glow from the neon sign above the diner’s door.

  The three Judges standing outside the diner glanced at him as he approached, then turned back to resume their conversation.

  Dredd didn’t care for that. Two Judges had been murdered: these men should be on full alert, not squandering their time in pointless speculation. He strode up to them. “What’s the situation?”

  Judge Perry—an older man, somewhere in his late thirties, with grey stubble on his chin—looked him up and down, sizing him up. Dredd liked that even less. “Dredd. Sector Chief wants you. Inside.”

  The diner’s doors opened as Dredd stepped up to them, and a med-Judge pushing a laden body-slab ushered him inside. “Took your time. Mendillo’s in the kitchen.” The corpse on the slab was draped in a standard-issue body-sheet—red, so that the blood didn’t show if it seeped through—but it was clear from the outline that much of its head was missing.

  The inside of the diner was a slaughterhouse. Blood dripped from the ceiling fixtures, covered the walls and windows in intricate arcs, was smeared across the tiled floor and the plastichrome furniture, and ran in thick rivulets down the glass display stands. To Dredd’s right, three teams of med-Judges were frantically working to save bullet-riddled citizens, while around them forensic teams photographed and scanned every square centimetre. Dredd quickly counted the bodies and the gaps in the blood-pools: at least fifteen citizens dead. Possibly more: one corner booth was splattered with a collection of body parts that could have been three or four people.

  A Judge noticed him looking toward the corner and said, “Concussion grenade, probably. Very little shrapnel, just hyper-compressed air. The grenade explodes in front of the target and directs the blast back. Anyone in the line of fire within about four metres is shredded.” The Judge shook her head. “We’ve retrieved five thumbs from the mess already, so that’s at least three victims with that one shot.”

  “Where would a citizen get hold of a shell like that?”

  The Judge shrugged. “Beats the hell out of me. They haven’t been manufactured since the war, and they’re pretty unstable. That’s why no one makes them any more: they have a tendency to spontaneously explode all on their own. I remember back in ’71, when I was assigned to Texas City. A guy found a dozen of them and thought they’d make nice paperweights. He gave them out to his friends. Man, that was messy. Four of them exploded on the same day. We thought it was a terrorist attack. Took us ages to track down the rest of them.”

  In the diner’s kitchen, Sector Chief Daniel Mendillo looked on as another Judge was interviewing a young woman. She trembled as Dredd entered, and tugged tighter on the blanket around her shoulders.

  “He came in shootin’,” the witness said. “I never bin so scared in my life!”

  “Can you describe him?” the Judge asked.

  Dredd said, “She can’t. She’s lying. Opportunist, hoping for air-time on the networks or compensation from the diner.”

  Mendillo—a short, stocky man with grey hair and heavy bags under his eyes—turned to face Dredd. “What?”

  “Perp didn’t come in shooting,” Dredd said. “Positions of the bodies, fallen shell-casings and bullet-holes in the walls show that he was already inside before he opened fire. He shot his way out of the diner, not in. Suggest you book her for obstruction and order a psych-eval.”

  The interviewing Judge took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Listen, kid, don’t tell me my job, okay? I’ve been doing this since before you were born. Witnesses often confuse the order of events. She—”

  “You seen the room out there?” Dredd asked. “Perp had two weapons besides the grenade. One with large calibre rounds, explosive tips. Probably a point-seven-six recoilless. Standard mag contains ten rounds. Used that first, took head-shots. When he ran dry, he switched to a high-velocity handgun. Gut-shots, chest-shots.”

  “I don’t see what any of that’s got to do with the veracity of the witness’s statement.”

  “There’s no blood on her,” Dredd said.

  Mendillo sighed through gritted teeth. “Stomm. He’s right. Get her out of here, Carney. Just... Just throw her out. There’s more than enough to worry about without having to book her too.”

  Judge Carney took the woman by the arm and wouldn’t look Dredd in the eye as he manoeuvred her around Dredd toward the doorway.

  Mendillo began, “Dredd, this concerns you because—”

  Dredd interrupted. “Hold it.” He turned and called after Judge Carney. “The other way, Carney. Take her out through the back. Don’t contaminate the crime scene any further. And if you want my advice”—this was directed to Mendillo as much as Carney—“if you’re not going to charge her, you’ll put her somewhere secure until the scene has been released. The networks pay well for early inside scoops.”

  “Do it,” Mendillo said. “Thirty-six hours at least.”

  Wordlessly, Carney led the woman out through the back door. Dredd and Mendillo watched them go, then Mendillo said, “Just want to check. You’re Joe, not Rico?”

  Dredd nodded.

  “Good. I called in Judge Amber Ruiz to head up this investigation—she’s on the way—and she requested you. You answer to her. Understood?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Mendillo took another deep breath, then exhaled quickly. “All right. Here’s the situation. Judges Collins and Pendleton were on patrol nearby, responded to the shooting. Perp took them both out. They were good Judges. Knew them personally: Pendleton and I were in the Academy together. So I want this drokker found. I do
n’t care what it takes. Got that?”

  “Understood.”

  “Ruiz will fill in the blanks. Until she gets here, touch nothing and keep your mouth shut.” He moved toward the door, then stopped and looked back. “And stay clear of the other Judges. Don’t do to them what you just did to Carney. They’re pissed enough with you as it is without you showing them up and making it worse.”

  Dredd stiffened at that. “Sir?”

  Mendillo ran his hands through his greying hair. “Ruiz will explain... Look, I’m not blaming you. I’ve been a Judge long enough to know how things sometimes go down. But we lost two of our own today. That generates its own special kind of anger, and angry Judges make mistakes.”

  From the doorway of the diner’s kitchen, Dredd watched as the forensic team and med-Judges went about their work. Occasionally, dark glances were thrown in his direction, but he refused to let that bother him. Instead, he concentrated on their work and resisted the urge to point out errors.

  One of his classmates at the Academy, Judge Hunt, had for a year or so enjoyed a lame running joke: “Joe’s the only cadet who’d report himself for infractions.” That came to an abrupt end when Dredd reported another cadet for fooling around with a Lawgiver: the cadet had pulled his gun on Hunt, pretending to arrest him for “being a total dweebo.” Their tutor had reprimanded the cadet, taken the Lawgiver from him, and subsequently found that the cadet had forgotten to remove the live ammunition from the gun after target practice. One accidental squeeze on the trigger, and Hunt would have been on his way to Resyk. That had been in year three at the Academy, when the cadets were eight years old.

  Now, Dredd counted three minor errors by the Judges investigating the crime scene. They were mistakes that, in all likelihood, wouldn’t make any difference to the case, but it was all Dredd could do not to point them out. One tech-Judge was so focussed on his work that he didn’t notice he was standing on a fragment of shell-casing. In the doorway, a street Judge was looking into the diner, watching the proceedings, instead of keeping an eye on the street, and just outside, Judge Perry—the older man who’d confronted Dredd on his way in—was unconsciously opening and closing one of his belt-pouches as he talked to his colleagues, an indication of agitation and nerves. Judges were trained not to display such signs: perps could pick up on them.