Sweet Justice

by Gaiman, Neil

  ‘Monk,’ she said aloud, as the Scream grew...

  She had found the place on Omar’s Grid-Vid. Monk had called in a few minutes earlier with a report of more Juve Abuse. They were throwing fire-bottles at Judges again. Monk was going to clear them off. That was in Enderby Square. Three streets away from Enderby Square was a place called Burgess Block.

  ---ESS BL---

  Every traffic noise now seemed part of the Scream. How could she have been so blind? In the distance she saw the tall grey building that was Burgess Block. She recognised it from her dream. The Scream grew louder, more terrible, like a living thing. Only now she knew that the Scream was not coming from the woman.

  The Scream was coming from Judge Monk.

  A CHINK OF LIGHT

  ‘Filthy, stinkin’ juves! Don’t you think we’d like to get our hands on that maniac?’

  The back of Monk’s hand struck one of the juves across the face. The juve fell, then scampered to his feet and ran off with his brothers.

  ‘Foul-mouthed brats. Chucking bottles... You shoulda seen what I’ve seen!’

  The three juves ran down the alley into the arms of their mother. They were all around the age of ten.

  Monk lumbered after them, clumsily drawing his gun. The mother, pulling the children close to herself, saw the Judge and started backing away. Until she felt a cold wall touch her shoulders.

  A chink of light glinted on Monk’s helmet’s visor and he saw his father, lying dead in the dining room. He saw the Alphabet Killer’s victims, lying dead in some foul alley, and he saw these filthy juves and their mother, cowering before him. And somehow it all seemed to be the same thing. Somehow they were all to blame.

  The blood pounded hot and wild inside his head as he moved closer and raised his gun. It would be good to shoot them, to blow them away. It would be good to hit back, to avenge his father after all this time...

  ‘Monk!’

  As Monk turned, Anderson drove her fist into the side of his neck, just below his left ear. It was a blow that, delivered correctly, would bring down the biggest man.

  ‘Why did you hit me, Anderson?’ Monk asked, smiling.

  Then he fell over.

  Later, Anderson sat back and relaxed. The Scream was gone from her mind now. Things were back to normal – or at least Mega-City One’s equivalent of normal. Monk was in a Psycho-Cube. He’d never be a Judge again, but at least he wasn’t up for murder.

  ‘All those years putting on the Tough-Guy image, scared of showing the slightest weakness, took their toll. Something had to break, though Monk couldn’t see it,’ said Anderson. She was in C.J.’s office with Omar, Dredd and the Chief Judge herself.

  ‘But,’ said Omar, ‘Monk’s subconscious mind knew. It had a pre-cog of what was going to happen, and it tried to get help, to stop Monk committing murder. So it contacted Anderson...’

  ‘Yeah. Monk must be a latent Psi himself,’ said Anderson. ‘Only I misread the Scream at first. Thought it was the terror of being murdered, not the terror of being the murderer. And that description of the candles threw me. Didn’t think that the Alphabet Killer might have seen those old Birthday Butcher movies...’

  Dredd clonked his large boot onto the floor, preparatory to standing. He snorted.

  ‘Another cry for help, huh?’

  Anderson smiled.

  ‘A scream for help, actually. And you shouldn’t be so sure of yourself. You saw what happened to Monk... and you know what the boys used to say about him...’

  ‘What did they say?’

  ‘That he was tough as Old Dredd... How tough is that, Joe?’

  DIARY OF A MAD CITIZEN

  By Alan Grant, 2000 AD Annual 1986

  ‘Hey You, Joe Normal! Reckon Future Shock Couldn’t Happen to You? Well, You’re Wrong! It Can Strike Anyone at Anytime, I Know... I’ve Been Thereeee!’

  January 19th 2107

  Something very peculiar happened today.

  I rose slightly earlier than usual, to catch the Kenny Kark Morning Spectacular on my holo-vid before venturing out on my weekly jaunt across city to Orinoko’s. I’m not really very fond of Kenny Kark – to be frank, he makes me sick – but watching his show every week adds to my sense of occasion. It helps make my Thursdays special.

  I compounded the feeling of celebration by having an extra bowl of Tokyo Joe’s Synthi-Soy Soyflakes. ‘Not a single natural ingredient’ it says on the packet. I seem to remember my mother telling me that when she was a kid they had real soy soyflakes. She...

  But I don’t want to talk about my mother now. I don’t want to talk about Kenny Kark, either, except to note that his last guest was a fat lady who’d had her face biosculptured into that of a goldfish. I reckon she has star quality, and if betting wasn’t illegal I’d bet my kneepad she makes it big before the end of February.

  On second thoughts, I wouldn’t bet my kneepad. I mean, I still think fatty’ll strike it rich – but my kneepad’s far too precious for me to risk it on the fortunes of fishface. Not precious in a financial sense, you understand – it’s just a plain black number with faded diamante GOG lettering, and although it’s 17 years old now it wouldn’t fetch more than a couple of hundred creds on the Classique Pad Market. But it’s worth a lot more to me; me and that pad have seen 17 years worth of life together, hard times and worse times. And like they say on the Brain Tape ads: ‘The tapes cost 100 – but memories are priceless.’ How true (although I’ve seen Brain Tapes discounted to 59.90 on the Block Mall).

  As the Kark Show ended, I pondered my next move. The journey from my apartment door to the lift is without doubt the most dangerous part of my weekly odyssey. That’s not to say that the rest of the trip is without its dangers – the Uptown/Downtown Zoom Underpass Pedway, for instance, was voted Top Mugger’s Haunt in a recent phone-in, and the crumbling chem-pools along the Reclaim Zone are always claiming innocent victims. However, it is a Justice Dept. statistical fact that 50% of all criminal violence is inflicted either within the victim’s home, or between his home and his Block Exit.

  When I tell you that I live in the Gary Coleman Block, you’ll understand my apprehension. Gary Coleman Juves are reputed to be amongst the nastiest, foulest and toughest in the city. I sometimes wonder if they’re waging some kind of vendetta or holy war against me, so numerous have the incidents become. But I suppose it makes statistical sense: there are 58,000 people living in Gary Coleman, and it stands to reason that some of them are going to be pestered more than others. And when you consider that dozens of families never leave their apartments, that must lower the odds even more in favour of any particular individual being chosen as a target.

  I peered out through my door’s Exterior Viewer. The corridor appeared to be empty. A good omen. I unlocked and unbarred the door’s triple-security locks and slid out into an alien world. The walls are hidden under a constantly-changing sea of graffiti, chief amongst which are various Juve boasts: GC JUVES RULE, SLINKY KILLS TOASTIES, POWER TO THE SUB-TEENS! and the like. Of course, there’s a fair smattering of adult slogans, too. It’s a funny thing about graffiti – no matter how fast the Block scrubber squads work, they never seem to be able to keep up with the scrawlers’ prolific output. Even when Citi-Def post round-the-clock sentries, the graffiti still appears, almost as if it grew there of its own accord. Now, I paused long enough only to record the fact that someone had scrawled NITCHY IS A FINK in large day-shine letters all over the door, then sprinted for the lifts at the end of the corridor.

  As if on cue, Juves appeared just as I punched the call button. I’m not afraid of 11-year-olds, of course, not even when there are a dozen or so of them; but all the same, they can be pretty unnerving. They lounged against the Block wall, scuffing their Mock Doc aggro boots noisily. Not one of them said a word. They all just stood there, glaring at me.

  I ignored them. I’m used to this treatment: everybody in Mega-City One is. Citizens glare and glower at other citizens wherever they happen to be – though not if
there’s a Judge around, I hasten to add.

  The Juves were obviously unhappy that their glares had failed to bug me. An older boy with a blue-painted face lashed out in my direction with a heavy boot – then stopped his kick just before it struck my leg. None of them laughed, though several sneered provocatively.

  I pursed my lips and began to whistle beneath my breath. Stay nonchalant, that’s the best motto. Don’t give these louts an ounce of satisfaction!

  ‘OW!’ I gasped as something small and solid struck me sharply on the back of the head.

  ‘You young devils!’ I snapped. ‘Which of you threw that?’ None of them moved. They continued to lounge and glare as if I hadn’t even spoken. I felt like shaking them by their stupid shoulders, but wisely refrained. Assaulting a minor is a very serious offence. Of course, assaulting an adult is a serious offence, too – but it would be my word against ten of theirs. ‘OW!’ Another missile cracked against my skull. But thankfully, before they all decided to join in, the lift arrived.

  It was empty, except for one Juve with a single 30-centimeter-long spike of rigid, plasticated hair. The point of it stabbed my ear painfully as he squeezed by me.

  Thankfully they didn’t follow me into the lift. I don’t think I could have endured their malicious taunts all the way to street level. I breathed a sigh of relief – and it was then I noticed that the STOP button had been depressed for every single floor from mine down. All 88 of them. Evidently the work of my spiky-headed attacker. But why?

  I found out on floor 88.

  As the doors slid open, I was deluged by a shower of garbage. The perpetrators, of course, were Juves – whether the same ones who’d menaced me upstairs, I couldn’t tell. What’s the difference? They’re all the same anyway!

  I punched the Close button and fended off a final missile as the doors hissed to. It didn’t require a genius to figure out that I was going to receive more of this treatment... all the way down to the street.

  By the time the lift reached the bottom, I resembled not so much a decent, law-abiding citizen as a walking muck heap, cleverly constructed over a framework of painful bruises. I am not ashamed to say that I was whimpering.

  My journey across the city wasn’t exactly pleasant, but compared with my descent in the lift it was a doddle. I arrived at Orinoko’s Lunchette in Sector 44’s Avenue of Poloypropylop. I was afraid the waiter wouldn’t serve me, I was in such a state; but happily, he recognised me under the filth and bade me enter with his usual good-natured gusto. Wouldn’t surprise me if I was his best customer – after all, I’ve been coming here every Thursday lunchtime for 17 years now.

  I ordered my usual – soypfel strudel and a big jug of synthi-caff – and settled down by Orinoko’s big front window. Normally I’d scan the faces of the passing crowds with rapt attention, hoping that maybe today... maybe today I’d find the face I’d been looking for all these years.

  But the 88 peltings I’d received at the hands of those surly, sinister Juves had entirely spoiled my mood. I sat there, a muck-encrusted 40-year-old with a heavy heart and no prospects... just another big city loser... a man who couldn’t even find his own dear mother...

  There, I’ve said it. Mother’s the reason I come here every week. It’s in the hope that one day she’ll come in here, just like she did every Thursday back in the old days, and say in that lilting, laughing voice of hers: ‘Mockola for me and a freezipop for the brat.’ We were happy together, Mom and me; why, when dad died in the big Space Port disaster back in ’86, we hardly even noticed. Times were hard, but me and Mom were together, and that was always enough for me.

  But as I got older, we started to grow further apart. When I finished with my unemployment courses, Mom insisted that I become independent, move out, set up house on my own. I guess she wanted to live her own life, taste a little freedom for a while. But she was my mom, for Josh-sakes; I couldn’t leave her.

  So my Mom did the next best thing: she left me.

  It was a few days after my 23rd birthday. I’d been out on a cheap-shot trip and picked up this great GOG kneepad – yes, the very one I wear to this day. I came rushing into the house, yelling to Mom to look-see the new pad. My voice echoed around an empty home. Mom had packed her clothes – and everything that wasn’t bolted down – and vamoosed.

  I was distraught. I asked the neighbours if they knew where she’d gone – most of them didn’t even know who she (or I) was. The Judges were neither helpful nor very sympathetic. ‘Look, pal – we got enough to do fighting crime without busting our guts to find a lady who’s “abandoned” a 23-year-old!’ as one of them so forcefully put it.

  The only hope I had was Orinoko’s. Mom used to come here every Thursday after her Principal Fondomics work-out; I’d come over from the apartment to meet her, and she’d tell me about those mysterious exercises she learned.

  I checked with her Fondomics instructors, but they were only vexed that Mom had split without paying her overdue tuition fees. So I took to hanging out in Orinoko’s at that same time every Thursday, in the faint hope that one day she’d come back. And she never did...

  I felt a tear dribble down my cheek, pushing a small heap of muck before it. I didn’t even try to wipe it away. What was the point? Insulted and beaten up by Juves; unemployed and unemployable; friendless and alone; a man whose own mother had deserted him. Who cared if I cried or not. Who gave a mutie’s curse?

  ‘I do, Pizmo.’

  The voice was low, throaty – the sort of voice they used to advertise hi-class clinics. A friendly voice. It seemed to come from under the table. I looked down, expecting to see maybe a television set or a lurking dwarf.

  ‘No dwarf, Pizmo,’ the voice said. ‘It’s me. Your kneepad.’

  January 20th

  I broke off rather abruptly yesterday. I needed time to absorb the implications of that amazing incident. Finding that my kneepad could talk wasn’t all that big a deal; I mean anybody who watches holovision (which is everybody) sees a dozen equally amazing things in their living rooms every week. A talking kneepad isn’t really more surprising than a dame with a goldfish face, or men like the fatties who can eat a tonne of food at one sitting.

  No, what amazed me was the fact that my kneepad cared. And even more – it cared about me.

  I started to ask it how come it had never told me this before, but the kneepad cut me short. ‘I can’t talk here,’ it said. ‘Someone might overhear. Let’s go home.’

  So we did.

  Back in my apartment the questions I was bursting to ask came pouring out. ‘Why did you never speak before? What’s your name? Does it hurt when I kneel on you?’

  The kneepad ignored them. ‘For the past 17 years,’ it began, ‘I have been studying humanity from the vantage point of your left knee. My studies have now reached an end. I have formulated a conclusion – and from your point of view, Pizmo, a very grim conclusion it is.’

  A little shiver ran up my spine. ‘Wh-what is it?’

  ‘Simply this: that you, dear Pizmo, are the victim of a city-wide agreement which has resulted in you becoming a victim for all and sundry to persecute at will.’

  I could hardly believe my ears. ‘This is incredible!’ I gasped. ‘It’s like you’ve been reading my mind. I’ve often wondered what I did to deserve a life like mine: no job, no prospects, plagued by sinister Juves, a man whose own mother...’

  ‘Yes, yes, Pizmo,’ the kneepad put in impatiently. ‘I know all that. The question is – what are you going to do about it?’

  I shrugged helplessly. ‘What can I do? Like you just said – everybody in the city’s against me. The only place I might get help is in foreign parts – like Texas City, maybe, or Brit-Cit. But there’s probably a conspiracy to stop me leaving town – and besides, I have no money.’

  ‘You’re too negative, Pizmo,’ the kneepad told me. ‘Adopting a more positive attitude would be of immense benefit. Yes, I think that’s where we’ll start...’

  It talked on in
to the evening. I have a feeling that my life is going to take a sudden turn for the better.

  January 21st

  On the advice of my kneepad, I have taken up Hari-ip-Slip, the ancient Oriental art of self-defence through Positive Posturing. From a basic ten or so slinky body movements, I am constructing a dancing defence that will leave those Juves speechless.

  I had a lengthy chat session with my kneepad – it refuses to be called GOG; evidently that’s its designer’s name, not its own. It made a rather startling suggestion: I might not be the only victim of this sinister conspiracy. There may well be thousands – even millions – of other citizens like me, living in lonely torment, completely unaware of kindred souls nearby.

  We also discussed extra-sensory perception. As a result, I am conducting an experiment: for 10 minutes every hour I am focussing my thoughts and beaming them telepathically to the city at large. If there are others like me they will hopefully respond.

  January 22nd

  Spent today in bed, worn out. I suppose it was the exertions of last night’s mental telepathy. My kneepad is hanging on the chair, but it hasn’t said a word all day. I suppose that intellectuals are moody, even in the kneepad world.

  January 23rd

  In complete contrast to yesterday, I feel fantastic! I am convinced that I have had a telepathic reply to my mental messages. When I wakened this morning, in that warm hazy space between dreams and living, I heard a voice say quite distinctly: ‘I am Mrs Gorp, your next-door neighbour. I am like you.’ My kneepad got quite excited when I told it. ‘It figures, it figures,’ it kept saying. ‘You see, Pizmo, I’ve been thinking: it’s possible to extend my theory to include everybody in the whole city!’