Down and Out

by Matthew Smith

  “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 McClu
skey, the lawman thought; now it’s your tomb.

  In the main living area of the 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.”

  “Can’t we call in aerial assistance, have an H-Wagon pick us up from this level?”

  Saunders shook her head. “Take too long. Like I say, I don’t want to be here now my cover’s been compromised. I’ve contacted Control. Special Tactics is heading this way; they can extract us, providing we make it to the sked in one piece.”

  “They’re sending Tac-Div into Strickland? Someone at Grand Hall trying to start a war?”

  “Apparently Goodman signed the order. Looks like you’re too valuable to write off.”

  Dredd considered this. Was it him they wanted to retrieve, the Judge they’d forged; or was it the DNA, the blood, too precious to end up in the hands of others? Were the two separate at all? He never felt more like a construct, the property of Justice Department, than he did when the-powers-that-be turned their eyes on him. Chief Judge Goodman was taking a personal interest; maybe it was the tragedy of Rico, the desire to avoid further embarrassment, the unwillingness to waste potential. It was both reassuring and concerning: would he ever be allowed to stand on his own two feet? He resented being made a special case on the basis of his genes. He didn’t need protecting. His failures should be his own, they would inform his future career—if, that is, he still had one, he thought, noting the patchwork of injuries his body had become.

  The el dinged, the doors slid open, and a surprised-looking henchman who’d evidently just been down to the nearest Shapiro’s on a hottie run had a moment to register the two figures standing in front of him before Saunders shot him in the face. She wasted no time, hauling the corpse from the car, ushering Dredd into the lift and hitting the ground-floor button.

  “How long you been part of Winstanley’s outfit?” Dredd asked once they started to descend.

  “Just over a year.”

  “It true he recruited you from Eastside U?”

  “That’s where I was placed. The gambling thing was part of the lure. Sector House has been trying to get someone on the inside since the Brit’s been making a name for himself in Strickland. My handler created quite the backstory for me—had to be convincing if it was going to work.”

  “Feel like I ruined your op.”

  “Wasn’t your fault, you weren’t to know. Choosing between pulling you out and keeping my cover ain’t no choice at all.” She looked him up and down. “What the hell happened to you, anyway?”

  “Just having a bad day. Comes with the territory, I guess.”

  “You’ve not long got your full eagle, am I right?”

  Dredd nodded. “Second year.”

  She rolled her eyes. “It’s a learning curve.”

  “And then some.”

  The el shuddered, then bounced to a stop, creaking on its cables. Saunders instinctively looked up. “Oh, drokk,” she whispered. “That doesn’t sound good.”

  “Fault?”

  “Or someone’s stopped the el. Could be my little bullet party upstairs has been discovered earlier than I hoped.” Dredd glanced at her. “Winstanley’s men have access to another el on the north side,” she explained. “That’s why we had to get out of there fast.” The car juddered again, tipping slightly. “Think they might be trying to disconnect it, blowing the cables.”

  “Would they know it was us?”

  “The boss-man’s quarters were CCTV’d to the hilt. Anyone checking the feed would’ve seen which way we went. I didn’t have time to disable it.”

  “Give me a boost,” Dredd instructed, pointing to the maintenance hatch in the ceiling. Saunders nodded and laced her fingers together, and the uniformed Judge stepped into her hands, reaching up for the hatch. It resisted at first, until he sharply elbowed it free of its hinges and pushed it aside. He got an arm through and pulled himself up; he struggled a little, but gritted his teeth and tried not to vocalise the pain from his midriff.

  “You okay?” she enquired.

  “Been better,” he muttered, holding a hand to his side where the bullet had entered. Felt like something new had ripped. He looked around, saw the doors to a level they’d just passed several feet above him to his right. The el suddenly lurched, and a cable whipped down the shaft. He stepped back quickly, jerking his head out of its way as it struck sparks from the grey metal walls. The car was now tilting sharply; they really didn’t have much time before it became a literal express all the way to the bottom. If this was a more modern block, it’d have foam safeguards in place at the base, anti-grav emergency protection ready to kick in. McCluskey was a pre-war wreck, of course, with none of those features. It was unlikely it had graced an inspector’s report for the last fifteen years—which meant the standard of repair must’ve seriously deteriorated all over. Still, there would be some safety measure from the original build...

  It was pitch black in the shaft, but he scanned the walls with infra-red and saw the panels scored by decades of rust, the scrapes left by the plummeting cable that had gouged out holes in the metal. He sighted his gun just below the bottom corner of the el and pumped the trigger, punching deep impact craters into the side. He then scrambled back to the hatch and put his arm through, indicating Saunders should grab hold. She jumped, and used her feet against the el doors to push herself upwards. Dredd grunted as he pulled the undercover officer onto the lift’s roof. His muscles screamed, but she was through.

  “This is going to hurt,” he breathed as they both stood on the sloping lift.

  “More than it already is?” she replied, noting a fresh bloodstain blossoming on his uniform.

  “Yeah. Be ready to jump on my mark. The angle the el’s at, the moment it drops it’s going to collide w
ith the shaft wall.”

  “Where are we going to be?”

  “Heading through the wall. It’s going to be split-second, so don’t hesitate.”

  “What’s on the other side of the wall?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  The lift trembled, then jolted downwards just as a tremendous bang echoed down the shaft. The bottom edge of the car smashed through the rusted panels Dredd had shot, leaving a gaping rent.

  “Now!” Dredd ordered and grabbed Saunders’ arm, throwing the pair of them off the el and through the tear in the wall as the car continued its fall, pinballing off the walls. The lawman felt the ragged edge of the hole slice his back but he flung out his left hand and found purchase, his fist closing over a rung. For a moment he took the weight of them both and nearly lost his grip

  you failed, Joe

  but Saunders clung on too, her feet scrambling, finding a lower rung to secure herself. They hung, motionless, panting, listening to the roar of the el as it plunged towards the ground floor. An almighty crunch followed, the whole shaft reverberating.

  “How... how did you know this access ladder would be here?” she asked at last.

  “I guessed.”

  She laughed despite herself, a short bark of hysterical relief, but there was a catch in Dredd’s voice that was concerning. She could barely see him in the dark, but he clearly hadn’t come through it unscathed. He’d warned it was going to hurt. She felt like she’d torn a ligament herself.

  “You ready to climb?” she heard Dredd say.

  “When you are.”