01.Dredd VS Death
Page 22
Despite the gravity of the events they had been discussing here at the Council meeting today, Hershey still had to fight to suppress a slight smile as she answered Ramos's query.
"The Meds tell me Dredd is still undergoing speedheal treatment. I'm sure, however, he'll be looking forward to catching up on his paperwork and submitting a full written report to the Council when he returns to active duty in a few days' time."
"But, Dredd, you can't leave the med-bay yet! You've got to give the speedheal time to take full effect, and the Chief Judge's office said that they were to be informed before-"
Dredd's only response was a trademark menacing glower as he hit the activate switch and the elevator doors slid shut in the face of the panicking young Med-Judge.
Riding the elevator down to the Sector House motor pool level, Dredd activated his helmet radio. He was immediately immersed in the non-stop flow of comms data that was the strangely comforting background buzz to the daily life of every Street Judge in the city.
"Item: suspected mob blitz reported, Tony Soprano Skedway..."
"Item: riot by Human League anti-droid agitators in progress, Robot of the Year Show. Riot squad in attendance, Judge Giant commanding..."
"Item: multiple vehicle pile-up, Mo Mowlam Megway. Extra meat and med wagons required urgently. Sounds like a real mess down there on Mowlam..."
"Item: Justice Central reminds all units that there's a full moon tonight. Expect an increase in futsie crimes and general psycho activity. Additional kook cube space has been allocated for tonight's quota of loon-related arrests..."
Dredd flexed the muscles of his gun-hand as he listened to the litany of item reports. The speedheal treatment had been a perfect success, reknitting the broken bones in the hand in almost record time, and the Meds had assured him there was no nerve damage, but the hand still felt slightly stiff and unresponsive to Dredd's own hyper-critical sense of self-judgement. What might seem more than good enough to anyone else was more often than not completely insufficient for the exacting standards Dredd set for himself.
What he needed, he decided, was something to give him a chance to test his combat responses and Lawgiver-handling skills under real combat conditions.
"Item: block war flaring up at the Minogue Conapts. Looks like Kylie and Dannii are renewing hostilities again. Units already at the scene requesting Senior Judge assistance."
The elevator doors opened, and Dredd walked out to where the vehicle pool Tek-chief had a fully fuelled and ammo-loaded Lawmaster already waiting for him.
"Control - Dredd. I'll take command at the Minogues. I'm on my way."
His brethren at times fought and raged against the even more restrictive confines of their new place of imprisonment, but Death remained still and silent, content for the time being to merely observe the conditions of the barriers and wards that held them in check, and study the minds of their human jailors.
Slowly, imperceptibly, the thinnest, most invisible tendrils of his psychic aura crept out to explore the limits of this new place and of the living minds that inhabited it. He was patient, never rash or greedy, and his slowly expanding knowledge of all that was happening around him passed beneath the psychic perceptions of the batteries of Psi-Judges who were there day and night to keep watch over him and his brothers.
There were possibilities even here, Death sensed. Dim and remote they may be right now, but Death was patient in a way in which his still-living jailers were not, and after all he had all eternity to wait and plan, if need be.
"Patience, brothers," he consoled the others, whispering to them in a voice so quiet that it existed at a level never even suspected by the living. "One day we will be free again, I promise, and then our great work will begin again."
On the other side of the dimensional void, in the empty silence of Deadworld, something stirred amongst the jumbled litter of ancient bones that was all that remained of the original victims of the Dark Judges.
Death had been wrong when he had thought he had seized control of an empty vessel when his spirit had flowed in to take possession of Icarus's retrovirus-mutated corpse. Some vestige of the body's original owner had lingered, remaining trapped and helpless within the prison of its own dead flesh, powerless to intervene as the Dark Judge had claimed that same flesh for himself.
That same remote vestige had survived the destruction of its body, but in being freed from that dead flesh, it found it had merely exchanged one prison for another, larger one. It wandered the far reaches of its new prison, receiving no response to its increasingly frantic entreaties for help.
Dr Dick Icarus, aka Vernon Martins, had achieved his wish at last. Here in the empty, still spaces of Deadworld, he would live forever, lingering bodiless and alone for all eternity, with nothing but the dead bones to hear his whispered, begging pleas to be granted the oblivion he now so desperately craved.
THE END
Table of Contents
Introduction
Other titles
Indicia
Title Page
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen