by David Bishop
"Sector Chiefs do not have authorisation to view such data."
Caine smiled. "Let's say I have a few friends in the Chief Judge's office, a fact you would do well to remember." She referred back to the screen on her desk. "According to one report, you had an un-judicial liaison with DeMarco."
"She developed an emotional attachment to me. She subsequently resigned, recognising her feelings were incompatible with being a Judge."
"Well, that's one interpretation." Caine shut down the files before leaning back in her chair, fingers forming a steeple in front of her face. "I've also spoken to a few other former Sector Chiefs who have had experience of your methods, Dredd. Don't think you'll be able to pull the same tricks here."
"What do you mean?"
Caine gestured to the thousands of buildings beyond her office window. "This is my territory, Dredd, and you won't take it away from me. I've heard all about how you turn up, start playing the big man, claiming you are just rooting out corruption whereas all the time you are usurping the authority of those above you in rank."
"I have no interest in usurping anyone," Dredd snarled. "I only care about upholding the Law and-"
"Yes, yes, we all know of your lifelong dedication to the Law. You've made no secret of having turned down the chance to become Chief Judge."
"I felt I could better serve the city-"
"By staying on the streets? Perhaps. But perhaps you prefer the role of kingmaker, choosing the new chief judge and pulling their strings from behind the scenes. It's no coincidence that Hershey's first experience of law enforcement was under you. How far under you, I wonder?"
Dredd slammed a fist on the Sector Chief's desk. "If you're suggesting-"
"I'm not suggesting anything but I seemed to have hit a nerve!" Caine smiled triumphantly. "Now hear this, Dredd. I have no time for grandstanding Judges who only want glory. The sooner you're out of my sector, the better. Do I make myself clear?"
Dredd leaned forwards to confront the Sector Chief. "I don't care what kind of inferiority complex you're nurturing, Caine, or what paranoid delusions you seem to be suffering from. I'm just here to uphold and enforce the Law. But if you repeat any of these baseless allegations outside this office, I will personally ensure you suffer the consequences. Do I make myself clear?"
The Sector Chief stood up abruptly. "You have your orders. Now get out of my face and out of my office." Caine pointed at the door. "Dismissed!"
Miller had just stepped under the shower when two male Judges walked into the ablutions area. In the lead was Stammers, a heavy-set figure in his early forties. He paused to leer at Miller as she soaped herself down. She had an athletic physique toned by more than a decade as a Street Judge, but her generous breasts always attracted too much attention. "Looking good there, Lynn."
"Keep your eyes to yourself, Eustace," she replied, making no attempt to shield herself from his gaze. Unisex showers and changing rooms were standard in sector houses. Since no Judge was permitted to have a sexual or romantic relationship, it had been decided gender segregation was an unnecessary luxury. The idea was fine in principle, but could still create problems with undisciplined officers like Stammers.
"Nobody calls me Eustace!" Stammers raged, his right hand balling into a fist. "You little slitch, I oughta-"
Miller squared up to him, ready to parry any blow and strike back. But Stammers's partner Riley stepped between the two adversaries, keeping them apart. He was the same age as Miller, with a youthful face. "Step back, Stammers! You've already got two formal warnings on your sheet. Start a fight with another Judge and Caine'll have to bounce you out of here!"
Stammers continued to push towards Miller for several seconds before his rage subsided. "I wouldn't waste my effort on the likes of you," he snarled at the naked woman. "Doubt you could handle a real man, anyway."
"If you meet any real men, send them round and I'll find out," Miller replied with a smile.
Riley shepherded his partner away. "Come on, Stammers. We're due on patrol. Now."
Miller blew them a kiss goodbye before returning to her shower. "Stomm for brains," she muttered when they had gone.
Lleccas came home to find her broodling unconscious on the floor. The R'qeen woman dropped her bag of groceries and rushed to the child's side. "Misch! Misch! Are you all right?"
The girl stirred in her broodmother's arms. "You're home early..."
"Never mind about that. What happened to you?"
Misch frowned, her head still pounding. "I can't remember. I saw two men across the skedway. They seemed angry. I was trying to reach them-"
"Reach them? What do you mean, reach them?"
The alien child realised she had said too much. She sat up, one hand rubbing her temples where the throbbing pain felt worst. "Sometimes, if I concentrate, I can sense what other people are thinking or feeling."
Lleccas looked hard at her daughter. "Can you tell what I'm thinking?"
"That I'm in trouble?" Misch suggested, smiling weakly.
Lleccas rolled her eyes and gave the child a hug. "How long have you had this gift?" Misch shrugged. "It's called metema, the ability to look into the souls of others," Lleccas explained. "My broodmother possessed it, and her broodmother's broodmother had it too. Metema usually skips a generation but I was beginning to think you did not have it."
The child was unsure what to make of this news. "Is metema a good thing?"
"It can be but you must use it sparingly, especially now when you're still so young. Later, when you've grown, you may be able to persuade weaker minds into doing what you want. But this is a powerful gift and should never be used unwisely. Some R'qeen have died from pushing themselves too far. That's why you were unconscious when I came in. It's the body's way of protecting you."
Misch nodded. She thought she understood but it was a lot to take in. At least she wasn't in trouble. Then the alien child recalled what she had seen inside the minds of the two humans. "I think something terrible is going to happen," she whispered.
Dredd strode into the sector house garage to find Miller waiting for him astride her motorcycle. His own bike was nowhere to be seen. "Where's my Lawmaster?" he demanded.
"Just coming!" Tek-Judge Brady emerged from behind a crumpled H-Wagon, pushing Dredd's motorcycle. "I've given it a new set of tyres, recharged the laser cannon and restocked the ammunition panniers. You're all set."
Dredd glared at the mechanic. "And you are?"
"Tek-Judge Terry Brady. Used to be a booster for the Doug McClure Runners, until you set me straight."
Dredd took the Lawmaster from Brady and mounted it. "Thanks for the assist. Good to know I've got a few friends in this place."
"Anything you need, just let me know," the Tek-Judge added eagerly.
Dredd nodded before turning to Miller. "Ready?"
She gunned her engine into life. "Let's go!" she replied and peeled out of the garage. Dredd followed, accelerating quickly to catch up with her. Once they were riding side by side she activated her helmet radio. "Looks like you've got a fan in the garage!"
"Unlike Sector Chief Caine," Dredd replied.
"She's twitchy," Miller said. "Rumours of a reorganisation have been floating around for weeks. Scuttlebutt is Caine's going to be shifted sideways into administration or become warden of a work camp in the Cursed Earth."
"Why? She's still in her forties, physically active..."
"That's the question everyone's asking. Caine's under pressure and she's been looking for someone to take it out on. You're it."
"Terrif." Dredd switched channels. "Dredd to Control. I am starting graveyard shift in Sector 87 with Judge Miller. Anything for us?"
"Control to Dredd. Nothing at this time. Begin street patrol."
Riff Maltin had always dreamed of seeing his name in lights. He wanted to be famous more than anything else, with the possible exception of being rich like those billionaires living on the exclusive Ridley Estate. If he had to choose between the two,
Riff favoured being rich while he was alive and famous in death. Ideally, he wanted to be rich and famous simultaneously but figured one would tend to beget the other. He had opted for finding fame first and letting the credits roll in later. There was no need to be greedy, after all.
There was only one major problem stopping his quest for fame; Riff Maltin had few obvious talents. He couldn't sing, couldn't act, and was useless at popular spectator sports like skysurfing or shuggy. He couldn't write, couldn't dance, and didn't have any unique or even unusual physical characteristics that might help him stand out from the crowd.
Of course, you could buy a distinguishing feature. Everybody in the Big Meg remembered the case of Citizen Snork, a fame-hungry teenager who paid to have his nose enlarged to an enormous size. It led to all sorts of trouble and strife, but it did achieve Snork's goal of grabbing the headlines. Riff contemplated a similar route but quickly realised the impediment to such a path - he wasn't wealthy enough to finance such an endeavour. It was just another example of how riches and fame went hand in hand.
Riff was despairing of his quest for the immortality of fame when he saw something intriguing on the tri-D. He had just been watching the grand final of the house cleaning competition Mop Idol when a newsflash cut into the broadcast. It showed an on-the-spot report from a street journalist in an attempt to free alien superfiend Judge Death from captivity. Sadly for the journalist, she died live on air, having wandered into the crossfire between Judges and the Death cultists trying to free their figurehead.
Afterwards, the tri-D invited anyone willing to take up this dangerous occupation to audition for the job. There was no pay on offer, just the chance to make a name for yourself - if you survived long enough. Riff was already dialling the auditions number before the programming returned to the window cleaning eliminator section of Mop Idol. Finally, among the millions of channels offering an inane selection of trivia masquerading as entertainment, here was a chance for Riff to find the fame he so desperately wanted!
At the audition, Maltin's naked ambition and raw enthusiasm won him a tryout, despite his lack of experience or expertise. After thirty minutes of training he was sent to the stores department to collect all the essentials for life as a street reporter: a badge with the words NEWS MEDIA on it, a handheld microphone and a hovercam. This last item was a small silver globe fitted with a camera, a transmitter and a tiny hover-engine to keep it floating two metres off the ground. Riff asked what special privileges the NEWS MEDIA badge earned him.
"None," replied the bored droid handing over his equipment at Channel 27. "But it does contain a homing beacon."
"Great! So, if I should be kidnapped or get lost while on the streets, you'll be able to alert the Judges to where I am?"
"Yeah, right," the robot replied. "The homing beacon is so the hovercam always stays within five metres of the badge. If you get kidnapped or lost, we'll be able to get our equipment back. Trust me, the hovercam is worth a lot more to Channel 27 than you are."
This news had perturbed Riff temporarily, but he soon pushed such worries aside. He was ready for glory. The channel's news editor had heard a whisper about trouble being expected in Sector 87. Maltin got the first zoom available and positioned himself just a few blocks from the sector house. If something bad was going down, it would be the Judges who responded. Riff planned to follow them to the scene of the crime. Wherever that might be. Quite how he was going to keep up with them on foot was another matter, but the would-be journalist decided to worry about that later.
In the meantime he decided to grab some vox pops from the locals to assess the mood on the pedways and skedways. Riff had never heard the term until his audition for the street reporter job. "Vox pops - vox populi, you dolt!" the news editor had snarled. The blank look on Maltin's face had obviously shown he needed more of an explanation. "It's Latin. Means the voice of the people. Man on the street interviews. Ever seen one of them?"
Riff checked his reflection in the metal surface of his hovercam. His black hair was slicked down close to the scalp, his eyebrows were bushy and luxurious and pimples surrounded his thin-lipped mouth. Maltin looked like a simp and he knew it. But that will be my secret weapon, he told himself fervently, I'll be able to get the stories nobody else can, because I don't fit the glamorous image most citizens have of the news media. Satisfied with his rationalisation, he took a firm grip on the microphone and approached the nearest man on the street.
"Good evening, my name's Riff Maltin and you're live on-"
"Drokk off, spugface!" The burly citizen shoved Riff aside and kept walking. Maltin picked himself up and decided to try again. A grey-haired eldster was approaching on a Zimmer-Skimmer, her kindly face offering more hope.
"Excuse me, madam, but I'm a street-"
The handbag connected brutally against the side of Riff's head, sending him sprawling. "Keep away from me! I'm a granny with attitude and I ain't taking any stomm. You hear me, sonny?"
Maltin nodded weakly as she zoomed over him. Once she was gone he sat up. Never judge by appearances, he told himself. Getting back to his feet, he saw a middle-aged woman walking towards him. She was twitching and mumbling to herself. There was a line of drool hanging from her mouth. In normal circumstances Riff would have stepped aside and let her pass, or even crossed the skedway to avoid her. But after two rejections he was determined to get an interview, no matter what. The would-be journalist stepped into the woman's path and rested one hand gently on her shoulder.
"Excuse me, citizen. May I have a moment of your time?"
It was only then Riff noticed the kitchen laser she was clutching.
"A lot of construction underway in this sector," Dredd noted as he and Miller passed a building site. The half-formed tower was illuminated by massive arc lights suspended from industrial hover pods. A cluster of tall metal droids was slotting together the framework for a new citi-block. Each robot stood nearly twenty metres tall, equivalent to a six-storey building. Their human controllers were visible in glasseen domes positioned inside each droid's chest.
"Part of a sector-wide rebuilding programme," Miller told Dredd via their helmet radios. "We got hit pretty hard by a meteor shower last year, damaged more than a third of all structures. Construction company called Summerbee Industries picked up most of the contracts by under-bidding their competitors. The deals were all sanctioned by Justice Central."
"They're using Heavy Metal Kids," Dredd noted, gesturing at the building droids. "I thought they had been superseded by more reliable models."
"That's how Summerbee undercut the opposition," his partner responded. Their exchange was cut short by a crackle of static.
"Control to all units, Sector 87. Report of a female futsie running amok near the corner of Merrison and Currie!"
"Miller to Control. Dredd and I'll take it, we're less than a minute away!"
"Look, lady, I just wanted a few quotes. Nothing complex. You don't need to overreact like this. Just say no and I'll go away..." Riff swallowed hard, a task not made easier by the Q-Tel Kitchen Laser held at his throat. Try as he might, Maltin couldn't help recalling the tri-D advertising slogan for the product. Apparently it sliced, diced and julienned vegetables in seconds, whatever the drokk "julienning" was. Riff made a silent pledge to find out if he ever got away from this crazed citizen.
"Cut you up... It's the only way... Only way to be sure... This is tomorrow calling, see... Slice and dice, twice as nice... Meat, meat, dead meat... hanging from the branches of the petrified forest," the woman replied.
Riff felt the woman's drool running down the back of his neck. She had been sniffing at his scalp for more than a minute while swiping backwards and forwards just in front of his neck. "Fascinating, really quite fascinating. You could probably have a lucrative career as a writer coming up with bon mots like that. Have you ever thought of sending them to a publisher?"
The woman just gurgled, her spare hand creeping down inside Riff's u-fronts to clasp his testicles. Ri
ff lost the power of speech momentarily, such was his surprise. He only regained the ability to talk when he saw the two Judges roaring towards him on Lawmasters. "Sweet drokking Jovus, thank you," the fledgeling reporter whispered.
"Praise be his name," the woman responded, squeezing tightly on Maltin's scrotum. He winced, tears of agony brimming in his eyes.
The two motorcycles stopped at a safe distance and both Judges dismounted. They had Lawgivers in their hands but were not yet taking aim. The male law enforcer took the lead, walking slowly towards Riff and the gibbering citizen. "Citizen! Drop that weapon and step away from the simp!"
"Hey! I'm not a simp!" Riff protested. "I'm a journalist!"
"Whatever," the Judge responded. "Do as I say and nobody gets hurt."
"Cuts and peels, but it never says hello... Cuts and peels, but it never says hello... See what it does to flesh..." The woman released Riff's testicles and flung out her arm. Burnt into her arm were the number four and the word REALITY. "Needs to cut more now... Needs to cut this one all up..."
Maltin could hear the female Judge calling in the case to Control. "Definite case of future shock. Woman seems to be obsessed with her kitchen laser. Futsie is holding another citizen hostage." After a few moments the Judge nodded and then joined her colleague. "Med-wagon's on the way. If it gets here in time, that'll take her to the psycho-cubes."
Riff didn't like the sound of that. If it gets here in time? What if the med-wagon didn't get here in time? What would happen to him? His first day on the job was not going well so far. His only compensation was that the hovercam had been capturing all of this and transmitting it back to Channel 27. If he did die in the next few minutes, the broadcast might still grant him a fleeting moment of fame in the day's news summary.
"Cuts and peels," the futsie muttered. "Juliennes too, they were right about that... Right about that... My husband, he didn't know what juliennes was. Tried to tell me it was a clear broth, the fool - so I showed him... Slice and dice, slice and dice... He's in shreds all over now..."