Judge Dredd: Year Two Read online

  Joe had started walking the next day. He’d crawled over to a low plastic table—one of those ones with geometric holes and matching brightly-coloured blocks—pulled himself up, and began walking. He never fell, not once. It was as though Joe had learned from his brother’s mistakes and avoided making them himself.

  Where Rico led, Joe followed. That’s how it had been throughout their years at the Academy. But it wasn’t that simple, Goodman knew.

  Rico had been the first to learn how to talk, but Joe had been the first to learn when to talk.

  Rico had been first to challenge the Tutors on contentious points of law, but his brother had been the first to offer feasible solutions.

  They were cloned from the same source, but they were far from identical.

  As the Chief Judge’s shuttle descended toward the Hall of Justice, that thought was his only comfort. They’re not the same man. They have embraced different aspects of their father, even though neither of them realise that.

  The investigation was going to turn over a lot of rocks that the Department would rather stay hidden, Goodman knew. Rico was guilty; there was no doubt of that. But the investigation wasn’t really going to be about Rico. On the surface, yes, but beneath that... There would be questions raised about not just the validity of clone Judges, but about the competence of the people who had supported the cloning programme.

  When he pulled the trigger, Rico Dredd hadn’t just murdered that citizen Virgil Livingstone. He’d painted a target on the entire Department, and Grud knew that it was already riddled through with more than enough holes.

  As Chief Judge, he was in the unique position to understand exactly how everything worked. Sure, from the outside, the Justice Department of Mega-City One was a solid, implacable force, but that was an illusion. When you got right down to it, the Department was made up of people, and people are fallible.

  All of them. Every Judge had skeletons in the closet. Hell, even Fargo’d had them. All it would take was the right push at the wrong time, and those closet doors would come crashing open, disgorging their damning contents into the laps of their enemies.

  If Joe Dredd isn’t clean, Goodman thought, if he has a single speck on his ledger, that’ll destroy the cloning programme and everyone who supported it. It could rock the foundations of the Justice Department. And if we fall, the rest of the city will fall with us.

  Two

  IN THE CHIEF Judge’s office, Goodman sank deeper into his chair and read Joseph Dredd’s case history.

  On the whole, the Judge-cloning programme was not regarded as a major success. The initial idea was flawed, Goodman thought. Judges aren’t grown—they’re built. A fifteen-year stint in the Academy was what made a Judge, not an artificial womb filled with Morton Judd’s chemical soup.

  Sure, the accelerated growth had been a boon, but Judd’s ultimate plan—to create fully-grown Judges already programmed with everything they’d need to know—was a very long way from bearing any fruit.

  Goodman recalled telling Judd, “There are too many things that can go wrong. You’re hurtling down a skedway at five hundred kph, then the slightest pot-hole can send you careening off-course. Slow and steady. That way, you actually reach the end of the road in one piece.”

  The sealed records listed hundreds of failures before the first viable infant had been pulled from the vats. Judd’s people had begun crowing like they’d just beaten Grud at his own game, but Fargo himself had cut them off. He’d looked down at the child and said, “This isn’t a Judge. You made a baby. Any pair of horny teenagers can do that, and with far less time, effort and money.”

  The programme had continued, of course, because Fargo had had faith in Judd’s vision. More vats, more embryos. The failure-rate dropped significantly, the accelerated growth continued to improve. The process reached the point where the subjects could be removed from their vats, rinsed down, measured for a cadet uniform and shipped to the Academy of Law within a day.

  But they still had to be trained to be Judges. There was no way—yet—to accelerate that part of the programme.

  Goodman had discussed this with Fargo and the other senior Judges many times. “The cloning programme saves us a little over four years from new-born to Judge... And this is assuming that at least some of the cadets will actually make it through the Academy and onto the streets.”

  The source DNA was no guarantee of a good Judge, even if that source was Fargo himself.

  But the Dredds had been exceptions, no doubt about that. Right from the start, they had shown aptitude for life at the Academy.

  Goodman instructed the computer to bring up some old video-footage of Rico and Joe. The first file showed them at six years old, receiving their first Lawgiver training.

  Rico and the other cadets were excited at the thought of handling a firearm with live ammunition—their practice weapons were barely capably of raising a bruise at point-blank range—but Joe, as always, had been impassive.

  On screen, to the amusement of the watching tutors, Cadet Wagner giddily ran around the room with two of the scaled-down Lawgivers, pretend-shooting at everything in sight. He arrested a chair for loitering and a door for “opening and closing without a permit.”

  Young Rico picked up his own gun and immediately began fake-shooting at his fellow cadets: “Drop it, lawbreaker! Blam-blam-blam! You’re down, Ellard! One through the heart, two through the head!”

  While the other cadets had fun as they played with the guns—which the tutors encouraged, because a Judge should be comfortable and familiar with his or her Lawgiver—on the edge of the room Joe wasn’t taking part. He had placed his gun into his boot-holster and just observed the others. But now, as Goodman watched, Joe crouched, drew and aimed the gun in one swift movement.

  Goodman sat back. He reversed the video-clip and watched it again. Then he checked the video’s time-stamp. The first time Joe Dredd ever drew a gun. Six years old... And he was as fast then as I was in my prime.

  He skipped to the next video clip. Seven years old, simulated combat, live but non-lethal ammunition. This was a kidnap-rescue scenario, based on a real case where a gang of perps had kidnapped an entire school-bus full of nine-year-old girls.

  The cadets steadily made their way through the mocked-up tenement block. Rico took charge. He silently instructed Gibson and Joe to advance through the darkened corridor, which they took one doorway at a time, leap-frogging each other, always keeping the cadet ahead covered.

  A door opposite them was pulled open, and Joe immediately turned, aimed and fired, his low-impact round striking Judge-Tutor Semple square in the protective face-plate.

  Semple called out, “All right, simulation over—shut it down!” The lights went up and the cadets gathered around the Tutor.

  Semple raised the face-plate and looked down at Joe Dredd. “Perfect shot, Dredd. But poor judgement. Anyone want to tell him why?”

  Cadet McManus said, “Sir, Joe fired instantly. Didn’t wait to see whether you were a victim or a perp.”

  “Correct,” Semple said. “Dredd, there was no way you could have known. A Judge can not endanger the life of a citizen unless—”

  Rico interrupted. “Sir, Joe made the right call.”

  Watching the screen, Goodman smiled at that. Rico always stood up for his little brother.

  “How so?” Semple asked, a weary, resigned tone in his voice.

  Rico turned to Joe.

  Joe said, “Sir, the tallest of the kidnapped girls wouldn’t even reach up to your shoulder. I could see instantly that you were an adult.”

  “I could have had one of the victims in front of me, as a human shield,” Semple said.

  “I aimed high, shot you in the face. If it had been a victim who’d opened the door, my shot would have passed over her head.”

  “What if I’d been carrying the victim? Holding her up so that her head was on the same level as mine?”

  Joe said, “Sir... You clearly had a gun in your right hand.
If you’d been carrying a victim, your left arm would have been occupied.”

  “So?”

  “Then how would you have opened the door?”

  Goodman closed the video-clip and stood up. Even now, he knew, a hundred Judges were pouring over every aspect of Joe and Rico’s careers. Reports were being compiled, statistics analysed, old prejudices dusted off in preparation.

  Rico had been doomed by his own actions, as he should be. But Joe... Guilty by association, that was the approach some of the investigators were taking. They’d start with the assumption that Joe was dirty and do their damnedest to prove it.

  Goodman’s initial comment on the early reports urged caution: “Yes, Rico and Joseph Dredd come from the same stock, but a blacksmith can forge an iron ingot into both a dagger and a horseshoe. Same source, different outcomes. You don’t destroy the horseshoe just because the dagger was used in a crime.”

  Some of the investigators had thanked Goodman for his input, and carried on with the investigation regardless. If they couldn’t prove Joe’s guilt directly, well, Joe and Rico were genetically identical. In the year they’d been on the streets there was certain to be at least one suspicious situation where there was no way to tell which was which.

  Between the time Virgil Livingstone was killed and Goodman arrived at the scene, he’d already heard from three other members of the Council of Five, two basically saying “I told you so” and the third not-so-subtly suggesting they keep the mess under wraps: “This is ammunition for the fourth estate. If we don’t keep a lid on this, they’ll tear us all down.”

  Goodman’s response to the latter had been firm: “Justice needs to be seen to be done. As far as the media knows, the investigation will be completely transparent.”

  As far as the media knows. Goodman mused on that thought as he stared out at the city. There was an unspoken understanding between the media and the Judges. They don’t push us, we don’t push back. There were times when someone in the press uncovered possible corruption in the Justice Department, but Goodman had learned that it was generally more effective to bribe their way out of the situation than use threats. And bribery could take so many different forms... A juicy piece of celebrity gossip could give a news outlet much higher ratings than the story of a Judge who’d turned a blind eye to his mother’s unlicensed stamp-collection. A quiet word to the right sector controller could see a journalist’s kids transferred to a better school. Sometimes all it took for a story to be buried was a hint that a network’s rivals might find themselves hampered on the way to the site of the next newsworthy crime.

  Every now and then one side or the other would test the boundaries, but it had been a long time since anyone had gone too far.

  This, though, was different. The citizens loved a good corruption story, and once the press got their teeth into it, there wasn’t much the Department could do to encourage them to let go.

  Legally, the Department could shut down any story citing the standard public safety clauses, but they could only play that card so often before the press decided that the gag orders were an even bigger story, the old ‘What are they hiding?’ angle.

  That was when the individual threats came into play. And in the few cases where even that didn’t work, there was always the perennial stand-by: the hostile takeover of the media company by one of the Department’s shell corporations.

  Goodman looked out at Mega-City One, built on the scorched bones of the east coast of America, and he knew—everyone knew, on every side, whether they admitted it to themselves or not—that this was a dictatorship. It had to be. It was the only way to stop the city crumbling under its own weight.

  The Justice Department always gets its way.

  The citizens could rant, and resist, and even riot all they wanted, but ultimately it would make no difference. Even the loudest protest is a whisper in a thunderstorm, Goodman told himself. And we’re the thunder.

  DREDD’S QUARTERS IN the Hall of Justice were deep in the bowels of the building, a windowless three-metre-cube. It held little more than a narrow, rarely-used bunk, basic washing facilities, and a small pull-down desk-and-chair combination, at which Dredd was now sitting as he read his law-books.

  He looked up as the door opened, and SJS Judge Gillen entered.

  “Searching through the books for a loophole, Dredd?” she asked.

  “No. What do you want, Gillen?”

  “Your brother’s a murderer.”If she’d hoped to provoke a response, Dredd didn’t oblige.

  “You watched him gun down Virgil Livingstone and you did nothing to stop him. That makes you an accessory.”

  Dredd closed over his book. “Incorrect. Don’t try to goad me into anger, Gillen. That’s beneath you.”

  She sat down on the end of the bed, pulled off her helmet and rested it on her knees. “You don’t have much respect for the Special Judicial Squad, do you?”

  “I understand the need for the SJS. It wasn’t so long ago that you offered me a job. I assume that offer has been rescinded.”

  Gillen nodded toward Dredd’s law-book. “Open the book at random. Go on.”

  Dredd opened the book.

  “The Law, volume eighteen,” Gillen said. “Page?”

  “Three-twenty-four.”

  “Three-twenty-four,” Gillen said. “The importation of dried vegetable goods with particular emphasis on the risk of using said goods’ natural sugars to create alcohol.”

  “A good memory doesn’t imply a good Judge. You have a point?”

  “My point is that I know the law, inside-out.” Gillen ran her gloved hand over her close-cropped hair. “It’s one of the reasons I’ve been appointed by the investigation committee to uncover evidence of your guilt. And I’ve been granted any and all powers necessary to do so.”

  Dredd nodded.

  “Nothing to say?”

  “I’ve never broken the law. That’s going to make your job a lot harder.”

  “Dredd, I don’t think you understand what’s happening here. There are factions in the Justice Department who are anxious to put an end to the cloning program, and Rico has given them the only excuse they need. Some among them are even arguing that you’re not truly human, that you don’t have the most basic of human rights. Those particular Judges are not even talking about the investigation. They consider it fait accompli that the two of you will be terminated.”

  “And what do you think?”

  “My opinion is that you’re an unknown element, and in the SJS our job is to shine a light into the darkness. We are going to trace every second of your life from the moment you left the Academy. Same with Rico. The slightest hint that you knew what he was doing, and that’s it for you. Game over, no second chances.”

  “If I had known, I would have arrested him sooner.”

  Gillen pushed herself to her feet. “That’s exactly what I expected you to say.”

  “So what now?” Dredd asked. “I’m sequestered here until it’s time to present my defence?”

  “No. You don’t get to present a defence. The investigation will take place without your involvement. It’s also been decided that you won’t be called as a witness against Rico, because there’s no doubt of his guilt. Chief Judge Goodman, in his wisdom—or folly; I’m not yet sure which—has concluded that your skills would be put to better use on the streets. You’re going to be tucked away in a sector you’ve never visited while the investigation takes place. You will be partnered at all times by a senior Judge who is known to us and is considered above reproach. Any attempt by you to interfere with the investigation, circumvent the law or to leave the city without authorisation will be considered confirmation of your guilt.”

  Gillen slid open the door. “Your transport is leaving from the eastern H-pad in thirty minutes. I suggest you use that time to gather your personal items and put them in storage, because the odds are you won’t be coming back here.” She looked around the small room. “Dredd, do you even have any personal items?”
>
  Dredd indicated the law-books on his desk. “I have these.”

  Judge Gillen pursed her lips and nodded slightly. “All right. In that case, the transport leaves in five minutes.”

  Three

  SECTOR 198 WAS known to many locals as ‘the Sweats.’ It was the only sector in Mega-City One bordered on three sides—north, south and west—by the Cursed Earth.

  As the Justice Department transport approached the sector, the pilot—a fifty-year-old woman who’d spent much of the journey quietly singing to herself—looked over her shoulder at Dredd and the other young Judge sitting next to him, and asked, “So, what’d you two kids do to end up here?”

  She turned back to the controls and said, “Must have been bad, whatever it was. I’ve been a pilot for four years, and I’ve ferried a lot of Judges just like you to this sector.” A calculated pause. “Haven’t yet brought one home.”

  She glanced back again. “That should tell you something. See, what happens is that they get Judges like you two who’ve wet the bed or whatever, and they stick them here because it’s as rough as a gravel enema down there. This sector burns through Judges like matches in a rainstorm, you know what I’m saying?”

  “I’ve read the reports,” Dredd said.

  The pilot laughed. “Kid, you’re going to learn pretty quick that reports are only words on a screen. They can’t convey the true experience, y’know? The nuances, the flavour of a place. In this case, the flavour is a subtle blend of adrenaline and formaldehyde. You get me?” She pointed out through the cockpit glass. “That out there is a lake of piranhas and you’re a prime cut of steak.”

  Dredd said, “You should focus on piloting the craft. Failure to give your full attention to a vehicle under your control is a serious offence.”

  “You think I don’t know that? I’m a Judge too. And I could fly this pram with my damn eyes sewn shut, boy.” She snorted a laugh. “You are not gonna last long in the Sweats, if you want my opinion.”