by Gaiman, Neil
I knitted my brows. Somehow, that didn’t seem scientific to me. But the kneepad rushed on: ‘I mean – what if every citizen, all 400-million-plus of them, is just the same as you? To wit: lonely, afraid, no job, no future, no money, persecuted by Juves... they wouldn’t all have been abandoned by their mothers, of course, but a lot of them might be.’
‘But if we’re all the same, who’s behind the conspiracy?’ I asked.
‘Who do you think?’ the kneepad said. ‘Who’s the common factor in all the equations? Who persecutes everybody?’
Like all great truths, it was so simple that I wondered how I hadn’t thought of it myself. The Juves. Of course –it was the Juves who were behind everything!
January 24th
We’ve hatched a plan. We’re going to alert the entire city to the conspiracy, but gradually, so as not to tip our hand to the Juves prematurely. I have been delegated to make contact with Mrs Gorp. I left my apartment at noon, after ascertaining that the Juves were nowhere in sight. I puzzled for a moment over NITCHY BLACK BLOO, which someone had scrawled on my door. Some secret Juve code perhaps?
My push on Mrs Gorp’s bell was light but confident. Her voice rasped suspiciously from the answer-grille in the doorframe: ‘Whoozit? Whadyawant?’
‘Pizmo Nitchy, Mrs Gorp. From next door. We met at the Block-fest a couple of years ago.’ I bent closer to the microphone and lowered my voice. ‘I got your telepathic message. We have a lot to talk about.’
There was a long, long pause. Then a new voice – a man’s – blared in my ear: ‘Lizzen, weirdo! I count ta ten, I open da door. Ya still there I tear ya legs an’ make ya eat ’em!’
‘Obviously her husband isn’t as advanced as she is,’ my kneepad hissed. ‘I suggest we return to base and revise our plans.’
My kneepad soon hit on another scheme: ‘Letters to the vidzines – that’s the answer. If we get enough printed, the citizens’ll soon get the message. Of course, the Juves might see the letters, too. But that’s a chance we’ll just have to take.’
It was risky, but I consoled myself with the fact that not many Juves can read. Of course, not all that many adults can either. It took me an hour to compose a document setting out my discoveries and theories, including a masterly analysis of my main Juve Conspiracy ideas.
(I had better record here: I am not trying to take credit away from my kneepad when I say ‘my’ discoveries and theories. The kneepad itself insisted that I delete all reference to it throughout, on the grounds that it had no right to disturb the status quo of the kneepad world over what was essentially a human problem. I asked it what it meant.
‘If citizens at large found out that your kneepad can talk, they’d want to know why their own kneepads can’t.’
‘Well – why can’t they?’
‘Oh,’ said my kneepad, ‘most can. It’s just that they choose not to.’)
January 25th
Spent the entire day composing letters to newsvids, vidzines and holovid shows, including one to Kenny Kark. My kneepad thinks Kark might be a Juve spy, but I’m not so sure. He’s pretty tall for a Juve.
January 26th
Thursday again. Time for my weekly trip to Orinoko’s – but the usual fear of going out was absent this morning. As soon as I reached the lift, the Juves arrived on schedule. They launched into their usual glare and sneer tactics – but this time I glared and sneered right back. I elbowed one of them aside and lounged against the wall, looking as contemptuous as possible. This is all part of the Hari-ip-Slip method. 60% of all Juves will shuffle off if treated like this.
Not a Juve shuffled. I knew this meant they had accepted my challenge to their challenge, and events were now likely to escalate. No matter. I have surprised even myself with how well I have mastered the martial art.
So when the first Juve aimed a blow at me, I was ready. I swayed back out of his reach, causing him to lose his balance and strike one of his bald associates on the head. The bald Juve snarled – and hauled a cosh from a pocket in his zipporak.
All hell broke loose. I ducked the cosh with a Snaking Weave, combining it with a sideways Dragon Slide that took me out of range of the fists that tried to smash me from behind. A Juve closed in from each side, one wearing a studded Knocknux, the other swinging a short stave. I did a double Dodge-Duck on the spot, and the stave hit the knux kid full in the mouth.
That’s when I made my mistake. I should have executed a Backward Long Slither and worked myself away from them. Unfortunately, I paused long enough to titter about the Juve who’d been hit.
It was my undoing.
A dozen hands grasped at me, pulling me down. A hard, bald head cannoned into my stomach, winding me. I tried to summon up the strength for a desperate Leaping Lizard – but it was too late. I was submerged in a sea of boots and fists and swinging sticks...
I don’t know how a Juve gang decides when its victim has had enough. I’m glad they do, though. As suddenly as it had begun, the whole melee was over. The Juves disappeared along the corridors, and I was left to pick myself up, rubbing my wounds, feeling dazed and a little sick.
‘You... okay, kneepad?’ I looked down. Horror of horrors! My kneepad – my mentor – my saviour – was gone.
It must have been ripped off in the struggle, and the Juves had carried it off – no doubt to torture and interrogate. Despair spread through my veins like ice water. It was all over. Without my kneepad, I was nothing. It had been my only friend – had kept me sane and relatively cheerful through this black time. I would never see it again.
Dejected, dispirited, I slouched back into my apartment. The scrawl on my door had been changed to NITCHY BOKS GREE, presumably during the fracas, but I didn’t pay it a second thought. I knew in my heart there was only one way out of it for me now.
I opened my living room window and clambered up onto the ledge. It was a long way down to the ground: 89 storeys. Nobody could possibly survive that drop. I took a deep breath, closed my eyes and prepared to jump...
‘Hold it, Citizen!’
I whirled, to see the impressive figure of a Judge framed in my living room doorway. ‘Attempted suicide is a serious offence.’
He took a step towards me, but I waved him back. ‘I’m sorry, Judge. I’ve never broken the Law before, but I... I just can’t go on. Without my kneepad to tell me what to do, there just doesn’t seem any point. I’ve no-one to talk to any more.’
‘Hold on a second.’ The Judge spoke quietly into his wrist-communicator, then a voice blared up from the street below.
‘Pizmo!’ it cried. ‘Pizmo!’
I leaned out a little and, fighting the dizziness, looked down. On the street below I could make out the shapes of a few Justice Dept. vehicles, and the tiny figures of some Judges.
‘This is your kneepad, Pizmo!’ the tinny voice went on. ‘Don’t jump! I’m safe! The Judges found me. Come on down and claim me back!’
I turned back to look at the Judge in my doorway. ‘That doesn’t sound like my kneepad,’ I told him.
‘It’s speaking through a megaphone, Pizmo,’ the Judge replied. ‘Makes ’em sound a bit funny.’ He stepped further into the room, and stretched out a gloved hand. ‘Come on now. I’ll take you to your pad.’
There were tears in my eyes as I allowed him to take my hand and lead me out to the lifts.
January 29th
Of course, it was a trick. They hadn’t really found my kneepad at all. It was another Judge hollering through the loudspeaker. They were very nice to me, though, if a trifle brisk. They brought me here, to this Justice Dept. Psychiatric Cube where XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXCENSORED BY ORDER OF CHIEF JUDGE MACGRUDERXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX.
February 9th
I’m cured now, the medics tell me. I can go home soon. They’ve been encouraging me to keep up my diary. They say it makes a splendid hobby, and a good hobby is more than half the battle against the possibility of further bouts of Future Shock. So I think I will stick at it.
I watched the Kenny Kark Spectacular this morning on the Cube holo. Funny how Kenny doesn’t seem to be half as nauseous as he used to. If gambling wasn’t illegal I’d have won that bet too – the goldfish woman was his star guest. She’s evidently Number One in the Musi-Charts with a thing called Ant Egg Salad.
February 10th
I’ve decided I won’t bother going to Orinoko’s any more, looking for Mom. The Judges traced her for me – she married an alien and moved back to Alpha Centauri with him. So I don’t suppose she’ll be coming to the Mega-City for her Thursday lunchettes. Perhaps she’ll write to me.
Looking back, all that stuff with the kneepad seems like a dream, like it all happened to some other Pizmo Nitchy, not me. I mean, kneepads don’t have any vocal cords, so how could it speak? (They don’t have brains either, so it couldn’t have been communicating telepathically.) And how could a kneepad know all about things like Juve conspiracies? It never told me that. Still, I can’t help remembering something I imagined my kneepad said: ‘Most kneepads can talk. It’s just that they choose not to.’
I wonder why?
JUDGE ANDERSON: EXORCISE DUTY
By Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning, Judge Dredd Annual 1991
The Mavis Riley Home for the Debilitatingly Bewildered lies in the quiet Western districts of Mega-City One; five stories of pale, pink, pastel windows gazing out in quiet contemplation. It is a calm place, serene and tranquil, seemingly untouched by the City’s contaminating turmoil. But today the polyester curtains are twitching at the sound of visitors on the pedway below. It’s not the hushed tones of visiting relatives that echo through the antiseptic Hospitality Zone, but the heavy thump of marching feet. Judges!
‘I’ll only be a few moments,’ Anderson said tersely to her four companions. ‘You guys can wait in the Sympathy Suite.’
Judge Pyke, who had been with the squad for only a few weeks, sneered as she strode away. ‘I heard Psi Division were highly strung, but she’s got her corn rations wedged somewhere painful.’
‘Clamp it, Pyke!’ growled Judge Warner. ‘It’s Anderson’s private business.’
‘It troubles me. I sense heavy angst in Anderson and it’s clouding her normally pure aura,’ said Judge Lutz, the squad’s new empath.
‘When you’ve been with this unit a little longer, my dear,’ said the massive Judge McKern, setting a plump fist reassuringly on the little empath’s shoulder pad, ‘you’ll learn that we always stop by here when we’re on Exorcise Duty in this sector.’ Lutz smiled timidly at the team’s mountainous telekinetic.
‘Suppose we’ll have to wait then,’ mumbled Pyke, as he flicked through a dog-eared copy of Which Sedative? from the coffee table.
‘Is Thorne in his Iso-Cube?’ inquired Anderson as she strode purposefully down the corridor, accompanied by the Home’s Well-Being Monitor.
‘Environment, you mean?’ replied the droid, its servo units straining to match Anderson’s pace.
Anderson ignored the correction as she continued to ignore the muzak emanating from the droid. ‘And how is he?’
‘He’s as happy as a sandboy, as pleased as punch, as nice as pie... he hasn’t a care on his mind!’
‘He hasn’t got a mind,’ replied Anderson acidly.
They came to a halt by a padded shutter. ‘I’ll just open the door,’ said the droid. ‘It’s in passive mode.’
‘Locked, you mean.’
‘We don’t like to use negative terms here at the Mavis Riley facility,’ said the droid. ‘When stress and trauma get you down, and your face just isn’t smiley, never fear, relief is near, book in at Mavis Ri–’
‘Shut up,’ said Anderson as the door slid open.
‘Such a sad case,’ reflected the droid. ‘And so inexplicable.’
‘Haven’t you read his diaries?’ said Anderson, stepping past the droid into the cell.
From the diary of Gregory Thorne:
‘...May 12th: When I got home from work today, I got a message from God. It was just a quick word to say that the Antichrist would soon be in the neighbourhood, and could I keep an eye out for him. He’s given me a list of signs to look for and said that when I’ve ticked them all off, he’ll give me some further tips on how to save the world from an eternity of damnation. I found the first sign straight away – a beast rising out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns and on the horns ten crowns – that couldn’t be easier. I’m working on it...’
June 6 – 5.25pm
They rode out of the city, five riders ahead of the storm. The burning headlamps of their Lawmaster bikes cast jagged shadows across the blasted wasteland of Reclaim Zone #13. Even now, years after the Apocalypse War, a charnel smell hung in the wind. Anderson signalled her Spook Squad to halt as the brooding grey structure of the half-finished Geo-Stability Tower rose before them. Seven massive support columns rising from a gash in the landscape, lifting ten vent-capped geothermal conversion chambers into a thunderous sky. It was here that warheads had split open the very flesh of the planet. It was only structures such as these, whose tectonic anchors were embedded deep below, that kept in check the tidal fury of the magmatic seas that boiled close to the surface.
‘Re-cap please, Troughton,’ said Anderson.
The young Judge accessed his bike’s terminal. ‘Zone #13 rehab program contracted to Ideal Block Inc. This is the final stabilising tower to be constructed before work begins on the residential areas. Work currently at a standstill due to a series of bizarre industrial accidents and unrest in the workers’ compound. Cause may be residual psychic energy left over from the conflagration. Psi Squad investigation required.’
‘What was this place before?’ asked Judge Stokes. ‘Empathically, I’m not reading much.’
Troughton shot her a grimace. ‘Neutral Zone mediplex. Ninety thousand civilians cremated in a nanosecond, thanks to a stray nuke.’
‘Any speculations, McKern?’ asked Anderson.
The big man was lost in the shadows. ‘Sounds like a casebook Revenant Node. A concentrated mass, representing thousands of souls traumatised in the same moment. Could mean we’re in for a busy night.’
Judge Warner shook his head in mock sadness. ‘You really suffer for your art, don’t you? Psi Division always makes a meal of things. If it was up to us regulars there would be a lot more hard graft and a lot less agonising.’
‘While you and Troughton ride shotgun on this team you’ll keep your opinions to yourselves,’ Anderson retorted. ‘These souls deserve respect and consideration, not brute force.’
‘The workers’ compound is just ahead. We’d better make tracks – Neill the I.B.I. rep has requested assistance nine times in the last hour,’ Troughton observed.
‘I sense... persistent jackass,’ groaned McKern.
‘I was right,’ he whispered to Anderson, as Neill scurried toward them in the lobby of the workers’ compound.
‘About time!’ he snapped. ‘Do you have any idea of the seriousness of the situation? Work ceased three days ago. I.B.I. are facing interest charges in excess of nine trill. Phoenix Block is over budget and behind schedule. What do you intend to do about it?’
Anderson shrugged. ‘Not my problem. We’re here to locate paranormal disturbances.’
‘And when you do?’
‘Once I’ve located the problem telepathically, Judge Stokes, our empath, will categorise and contain it, allowing our telekinetic, Judge McKern, to expel it from this dimension. Problem solved.’
‘And what do the other two do? Chant and burn incense?’
‘They’re here to support us in more... physical encounters,’ said Anderson.
‘We break heads,’ added Warner drily.
‘I don’t care what you have to do,’ Neill raged. ‘Just make damn sure you do it quickly. This place is falling apart around my ears. I’ve got four thousand discontented construction workers and their families refusing to pick up tools or step out of the compound over some superstitious crem about demonic forces
and walking dead! I’ve had nine workers injured in clumsy accidents that are gonna cost me a spitload of creds, and another three flash-fried yesterday when their work cradle fell into the magmatic vent, for reasons that will no doubt become painfully clear in an expensive negligence suit. Now if this is because I’m playing host to the Devil, show him the damn door so we can get on with our work!’
Anderson turned her group with a sigh. ‘Okay team, you know the drill. Exploration, exculpation, extradition! Stokes, what have you got?’
The petite empath frowned, shaking her head.
‘A headache? Sorry, Cass. It’s a psionic blank as far as I can sense, just like outside.’
Warner snorted. ‘Drokk! You said it, it’s a wild ghost chase! All we need is an H-Wagon and a crime blitz. What’s needed here is a liberal dose of work ethic, not exorcism.’
Exasperated, Anderson turned toward the window, gazing grimly out as though the night sky might help her. Above the massive Geo-Stability Tower, a full moon glowed crimson through a pall of exhaust fumes. Anderson felt a slight tremor... like a whisper, as though someone was speaking. It took Anderson a moment to realise it was herself.
‘“And the moon became as blood...”’
‘What did you say?’ asked Warner.
Anderson ignored him and put her hand to her temple. ‘There is something here after all,’ she said. ‘And I don’t like it one bit.’