"I am pleased to hear it," said the voice from the tank. "I would appreciate a change of water, or better yet, to leave this tank altogether. It is filled with an uncomfortable quantity of my own excrement after that high-speed chase."
Zandonella knew what was coming as soon as they called her to the morgue. She went without delay but there was a constant, sickly tremor in her solar plexus. The morgue was a gleaming circular room with walls and floors of polished steel. A shallow trough ran all along the circumference of the burnished walls. The entire place was designed for easy cleaning.
A number of metal autopsy tables stood in the middle of the floor. Only one was occupied at the moment, and Judge Dredd and Judge O'Mannion stood beside it. Zandonella approached with trepidation. The corpse on the table was of a middle-aged man with a muscular build and long, black hair combed carefully to try to conceal a large bald spot at the top of his head. This vestige of vanity seemed heart-rendingly pathetic on the naked corpse. He had a livid gunshot wound just below his sternum, the burn marks and powder residue indicating a mortal wound made at extremely close range. Someone had simply put the gun to his chest and fired.
"This is Delbert Tance," said Dredd. "Licensed chauffeur and light vehicle operator. He does a lot of work for visiting diplomats. Today he was supposed to be driving the Cetacean Ambassador."
"Until somebody put a bullet in him and took his place," said O'Mannion. Zandonella remembered the smoked glass on the blue limousine. Behind that glass had been an assassin, hijacker and kidnapper.
"The way we've pieced it together," said Dredd, "he was killed at the limo company's garage and his body concealed in a locker. Whoever did it then proceeded to steal his vehicle and collect the ambassador from the airport. There, they were met by the other limos and the preliminary escort of Judges. From the airport they drove to the rendezvous point, where we joined them."
"Which is also the point where the platform began to collapse," said Zandonella, remembering the crumbling support pillar and Dredd's unbelievable feat in rescuing thousands of people. "That's quite a coincidence," she said.
"It was no coincidence," said O'Mannion, who seemed immune to anyone's irony except her own.
"They wanted a diversion to disrupt the escort," said Zandonella.
"Correct," said Dredd. "Forensics has determined that a charge of plastic explosive was placed on the support pillar to be remotely detonated when they saw us drive underneath."
"A neat plan," said O'Mannion. "And they probably think they've got clean away, with the ambassador as their captive." She smiled her witchy smile and looked at Zandonella. "But they weren't reckoning on the likes of you."
Zandonella swallowed and tried hard to settle the queasy feeling in her stomach. Here it comes, she thought.
O'Mannion turned to Dredd. "We Psi-Judges have all kinds of skills, but Zandonella here is really something special."
"I understand she can help us trace the perps," said Dredd. "Thanks to her ESP."
O'Mannion smiled. "Not ESP but PNE. And this is a scenario perfectly suited for her. A PNE is a possessive necro-empath. This means that if she touches human remains, say a murder victim," O'Mannion nodded at the body on the table, "then she can project her consciousness into the person physically closest to them at the time of death. Usually the killer."
O'Mannion turned and looked at Zandonella. Dredd was looking at her, too. "Well, get started," said O'Mannion.
Zandonella stepped forward and put her hands on the cold flesh of the corpse...
The Cetacean Ambassador splashed from one end of the swimming pool to the other half a dozen times in quick succession before rearing up with his cheerfully smiling bottle-nosed face above the surface and crashing down, splashing the humans who were all standing beside the pool watching the show.
Leo looked furiously at the water dripping off him. "Try that again, Flipper, and we're going to turn you into sushi..."
"He can't hear you," said Theo.
"In point of fact, he can," said the robot. "Not only can he hear you, he can understand you and also reply." Even to Blue Streak, the robot seemed to possess a pain-in-the-ass, know-it-all tone.
Theo turned on the robot and said, "But his translation device is attached to his..."
"Tank thingy," supplied Blue Belle.
Theo nodded. "That's right. And he isn't in the tank thingy any more."
The robot managed to sound almost smug as it replied. "The cetacean has a translation receiver and transmitter surgically implanted in his body."
"In other words," said a voice from behind them, "I can hear you and you can hear me." Streak and the others spun around, startled.
"It's coming from the empty tank," said Streak.
"Or rather, from the control panel at its base," said Mac.
"The tank isn't empty," said Belle pedantically. "It's full of water. And dolphin shit."
"And I am over here," said the voice from the speaker at the base of the tank. They all turned to stare again at the smiling dolphin that was looking at them from the swimming pool. "You might say I am throwing my voice."
"The cetacean is making a pun about ventriloquism," said the robot.
"Shut your metal face," said Theo. "And somebody explain to me why we've got this dolphin here."
"Touching on that matter," said the cetacean, via his remote speaker, "could you kindly explain the circumstances of my abduction? I am somewhat confused. I was expecting to be at an embassy reception right about now, eating considerable quantities of snow crab."
"The circumstances?" said Theo. "I killed your chauffeur and hijacked your limo and brought you here."
"But why?"
"It's quite simple, boys," said Mac. He glanced at Belle and made a little bow. "And girl." Streak could have killed him right then. "We're all in the meat business. And our friend splashing in the pool here has come to the Mega-City on a mission of vital importance to that business."
"You don't mean the dolphins are going to muscle in on our trade?" said Streak.
"On the contrary," said the voice from the empty tank. "My people would never sully their fins or snouts with that bloody, filthy criminal commerce."
"Ha! That shows how much you know," said Leo. "It's not criminal any more. The mutant pig business is entirely legit now. The Council of Five says so. The Judges even have to protect pork vendors instead of closing them down."
"That may be so," said Mac gravely. "But boys - and girl - that may all be about to change."
"What do you mean, change?" asked Belle.
"I mean no sooner have we become legitimate tradesmen - and women - than our dolphin friend here has come to the Mega-City to try and put us out of business."
"What the hell?" said Streak. "I'm only just getting used to not being a criminal, and now you tell me I'm going to be one again?"
"Pretty much," said Mac. "If our dolphin chum here has his way."
"Well, I don't like it," said Streak. "I don't like it at all. Let's gut the fish."
"The mammal," corrected Belle.
"No need to get hot under the collar, son," said Mac. "We're doing everything in our considerable power to stop it happening. That's why I had Theo here kidnap the ambassador."
"Theo kidnap him?" said Leo. "You make it sound like he did it all by himself. Who set the explosives on the pillar? Who detonated it? Who distracted the Judges?"
"A much needed distraction at a critical moment," said the robot in a whining, prissy voice. Streak was getting annoyed just listening to it, and he had nothing to do with the damned thing. So he was hardly surprised that the other brother turned to the robot, his face turning red.
"Who asked you, metal face?" he said.
"Leave Boyard-27 alone," said Leo.
Theo's face grew redder still. "Why don't you just-" Suddenly, he fell silent.
A sensation of falling. Like walking down a staircase and putting out your foot for the bottom step, but the bottom step isn't there.
A moment before, there had been a person with emotions and memories and a personal history. Someone called Belinda Zandonella reached out her hands in a brightly lit morgue and touched the cold flesh of a corpse.
Then there was nothing. No step at the bottom of the stairs. No person called Zandonella. Just darkness.
Just darkness and loss of identity and a sensation of falling and sudden cold...
And then the falling stopped and she felt the hot sensation of connection.
Suddenly, Zandonella was standing in an echoing tiled room with a swimming pool at one end. Splashing in the water was a strange inhuman shape. A dolphin. She had found the Cetacean Ambassador. Her heart leapt in her chest.
Except it wasn't her heart. It wasn't her chest.
She was in a new body, looking out through new eyes. There were people standing around her: three men, a woman, and a robot.
They were all staring at her.
EIGHT
Her strange heart thudded violently in her strange chest. Sweat flowed out copiously over a body that wasn't hers, yet was. It was a man's body. Zandonella looked down at her hands: large, powerful male hands with scars and dark hairs writhing over the thick knuckles. She took a deep breath. She had to calm down. It was always like this after a jump. It was the most dangerous time because of the utter disorientation. Who was she? Where was she?
Zandonella had jumped into a new body, subverting and displacing the mind of its owner, like a bird taking possession of a strange nest. The personality of her victim was still here, but buried deep in the electrochemical processes of the brain, overwhelmed and dominated by her own personality.
This was the most dangerous time.
She mustn't let the others suspect anything. She had to act normally. But what was normal for this new body, this new person? She had to fight off the urge to panic. Be calm and take control. She looked at the ugly, gnarled male hands that now belonged to her. She told herself that the others wouldn't notice anything. She wouldn't let them.
Zandonella looked up at the men and the woman and the robot. She recognised them now. They were the perps from the factory farm over the municipal dump: Mac the Meat Man, the tattooed couple, the robot and the blond brother.
Which suggested, by process of elimination, that she was the other brother, the black-haired one. She wouldn't know for sure, though. Not until she got a look in a mirror. She couldn't worry about that now. They were all staring at her.
They were all expecting her to say something.
Zandonella realised that there were words waiting to be said. At the tip of her tongue, as the saying went. She spoke the first words that came to mind.
"You don't just like that robot," she said. She had no idea who she was saying it to or why she was saying it, but the phrase hung in the forefront of her mind, inherited from the personality she had just displaced.
"You love it," she said in an unfamiliar, ugly voice. "Why don't you kiss its metal ass?"
Then the words ran out, like a buffer in a computer emptying. She had nothing more to say. That was all the dark-haired brother had left behind for her. She had used up his thoughts. Now his head was full of her thoughts.
But it was enough. The others all relaxed.
She was one of them. They had accepted her. They were ignoring her. The tattooed girl was turning to Mac the Meat Man. "How do you know all this?" she said. "How do you know what the dolphin plans to do?"
"Yes, that is an interesting question," said a disembodied voice. Zandonella turned around to see the empty cylindrical tank from the limousine. There was a loud speaker fitted to the base of it. It was the translation unit, of course. It was the Cetacean Ambassador talking. "How did you know of my diplomatic mission?"
"I pay off the right people," said Mac proudly. "They keep me informed. I knew all about your visit and the topics you planned to discuss because they impacted on my business." He looked at the other humans. "Our business," he corrected. "And now that that business has become legal, it was more urgent than ever that we stopped you."
"Why not just kill him?" said Zandonella. It was a risk asking a question like that. But she had to start talking sooner or later, and she wanted to know the answer. She just prayed that it was something the dark-haired brother might legitimately ask. "Why kidnap him?"
"Dolphin-nap," giggled the tattooed girl.
"That's a damned stupid question," said the blond brother, with a thick note of contempt in his voice.
"Not at all," said Mac. He turned to look at Zandonella. She tried not to flinch under that bright beady gaze. No matter how many times she did this, she always felt that someone would spot the impostor, see her lurking there in a stolen body. But Mac just smiled at Zandonella hidden deep in the black-haired brother, and suspected nothing. "That's a good question, Theo."
Theo. Good. At least she knew what her name was now.
"Another question that also interests myself," said the disembodied voice from the tank. Mac turned and glanced at the dolphin frolicking in the pool.
"I try to avoid killing," said Mac.
"Ha!" snorted the tattooed man.
"Except where absolutely necessary," said Mac. "It's wasteful. I hate waste. At my factory farms I don't waste the pigs. Not a particle of them. I use everything but the squeal, as the saying goes. And I'm working on voice-activated slaughter technology that will make good use of the squeal, too. So I thought if we had a chance to talk to our aquatic friend here, we might be able to come to some sort of arrangement."
"I still say we should just kill him," said the blond brother. "Kill him and chop him up. We could do a side line in fish meat."
"The thing is, Leo, if we do that," said Mac, "the cetacean community will just send another representative."
"So what?" said Leo. "They'll send him, we'll get him, and turn him into fish meat, too. It'll become a thriving side business."
Zandonella had heard enough. She'd checked her pockets and found a vid-phone. She began moving away from the others and surreptitiously slid it out, activating the picture messaging and text facilities. She worked quickly and smoothly. No one was taking any notice of her...
Except for brother Leo. He was staring at her. "Who are you texting?"
"None of your damned business," said Zandonella. She was getting the hang of the brothers' relationship.
O'Mannion was in the med-unit at Justice Central with Zandonella's comatose body when Dredd came in.
"We've got a signal from Judge Zandonella," he said.
O'Mannion couldn't help glancing at the sleeping body lying in the med-bed at her feet. Of course, that wasn't Zandonella, even though it looked like her. It was just an empty shell, a vessel into which Zandonella's mind and personality could be poured, and from which it could be drained away again at command - at O'Mannion's command.
O'Mannion suppressed a pang of primitive fear. She was a hardened and experienced Psi-Judge, but even she found PNE a little spooky. But she faked a casual smile and kept her voice sardonic and unconcerned as she spoke to Dredd. "Really? Already? Good for her. What has she got for us?"
"Sent an image from a vid-phone, along with a text message. From the image we've managed to identify the location where they're holding the Cetacean Ambassador." Dredd checked his Lawgiver. He was clearly eager to start shooting at something. Dredd was reliable and got results, but his approach tended towards the linear.
As if sensing O'Mannion's sardonic assessment of him, Dredd looked up from his weapon. "I came here because I thought you would want to join us for the bust."
"It's not a matter of wanting to," said O'Mannion. "It's a matter of having to. Unless you want to look after this vegetable yourself." She nodd
ed at Zandonella's comatose form lying on the med-bed at their feet.
"What do you mean?" said Dredd. "She's not coming with us."
"She is. Zandonella's body has to be brought into physical contact with the person she's jumped into. That's the only way she can get back into her own skin. Of course, we could wait until you bring all the perps back here and then do the transfer." O'Mannion smiled. "But things have been known to go wrong in the past. It's better to do the switch as soon as possible. Did she send an image of herself - of the body she's in?"
"Affirmative," said Dredd. "A three-time loser called Theo Barkin."
"Good. Circulate the picture to all of the Judges who are coming on the raid. Tell them that despite all appearances, that knuckle-dragging thug is actually our own delightful Judge Zandonella and must be treated as such."
Dredd nodded. "I'll instruct them not to shoot her."
"That would be nice," said O'Mannion.
Mac the Meat Man stood at the edge of the swimming pool looking down at the dolphin lolling in the water, sleek belly upwards, smiling its fixed smile at him. "You can see our position," said Mac.
"Indeed," said the disembodied voice from the dolphin's tank.
"We've only just put our business on a legal footing and then you come along, threatening everything."
"That is indeed an accurate summary of events."
Mac got down on his knees so he could be closer to the dolphin floating happily in the pool. "Please," said Mac.
"Don't beg," snarled Leo. "It's not dignified." He had his revolver in his hand and he was clearly twitching to use it.
Zandonella checked her own weapon, a sawn-off pump action shotgun. It was no Lawgiver, but it would do and she'd use it if she had to. She wondered what it would be like to shoot her own "brother". But of course, the shooting wouldn't stop there. She glanced covertly at the tattooed couple. They were equally armed and dangerous. And the robot: she'd seen what he was capable of, blasting away at them in the pig farm even though he'd been cut in half. Now here he was, rebuilt as though nothing had ever happened to him, and looking more deadly than ever.
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