Rico Dredd: The Titan Years Read online

  We were in the lobby of the small block, and the victim—twenty-two years old, attractive in a cheap kind of way—was curled up in an armchair nursing her injuries. She was being taken care of by one of her colleagues, who was appropriately dressed, though the nurse’s outfit was far too small and much too shiny to be practical.

  Joe said to Madam Ozelle, “You can’t remember what he looks like, but you might recognise him? I’m not buying that. Withholding evidence is a crime, citizen. Let’s go through it again. Do you know the assailant?”

  “No, I do not.”

  I noticed the hesitation in her voice—and I knew that Joe’d spotted it too. I asked her, “Why didn’t you report the assault?”

  “We don’t want any trouble, Judge. Sometimes it’s best to say nothing.”

  “Well, you’ve got trouble,” Joe said. “Six months, failure to report. Call it in, Rico.”

  “Joe, that won’t help anyone.” I stepped closer to the woman. “You know the assailant. But you’re afraid of him. You run this place?”

  She nodded, clearly trying not to swallow audibly.

  “But you’re not the owner.”

  Joe said, “Registered owner is Forest Patterson Dechant, aged fifty-five. Resident of Umesh Benison Block. Three priors, all for assault.” Joe had checked out the place on the ride over: he was good at remembering details like that.

  “So he’s the one,” I said, still staring at Madam Ozelle. “All you have to do is press charges and Dechant’s looking at a minimum of two years for assault.”

  The girl on the armchair said, softly, “And then he’ll get out.”

  Joe asked her, “How many times has he hit you?”

  Her voice even softer, she said, “This is the first time. But about every couple of weeks he goes after one of us.”

  “Habitual,” I said. “Your testimony is enough to warrant detention on suspicion. Joe?”

  Joe nodded. “You finish up here. I’ll take him in.”

  When he left, Madam Ozelle turned to me. “We’re still not going to press charges against him, Judge.” She gave the young woman a nasty look, then added, “Bad as Dechant is, we need him. Our clients know what he’s like. They treat us as well as they do only because they’re scared of him.”

  “Your input is no longer a requirement, citizen.” I nodded to the injured girl. “Her statement is enough. Joe will encourage a confession out of Dechant.”

  “It’s not just that... The other houses around here, well, most of them have a Dechant of their own. It kind of goes with the territory. As soon as they learn that he isn’t around, they’ll come here, start trying to poach my girls. And not by offering them a bigger cut. More like, ‘Come with us and you won’t get maimed.’”

  “Not really my problem, citizen. You need to hire better security.”

  That night, four thugs engaged by a rival brothel showed up, armed with obvious intentions and hidden guns. They barged through the place, kicking open doors and scaring the clientele.

  Until they kicked open the wrong door. The door that had me waiting behind it.

  The first guy was a bruiser. Fifty years old, ex-military. Knew how to fight and an expert at intimidation. I punched him in the throat, slammed my boot into his left knee as he staggered back, finished him with an elbow to the solar plexus.

  The other three were no fools: they were already running before the bruiser spewed his guts onto the room’s cheap carpet. They were maybe ten metres from the stairs leading down to the building’s main entrance. They didn’t make it.

  They didn’t know I was a Judge. I was off-duty, wearing civilian clothes. All they knew was that they’d got their butts handed to them by someone a lot younger, smarter, stronger and faster. They wouldn’t be coming back.

  First thing I did, after I hauled the thugs out of Madam Ozelle’s place and watched them crawl, limp and bleed their way back to their crappy pick-up truck, was pay a visit to the brothel that had hired them.

  I made it plain to the man in charge that his actions would not be tolerated in future. Four broken fingers and several shattered windows later, he was very much in agreement with me. And then, when he realised I was a Judge, he offered to make “financial reparations”: a thousand credits not to arrest him.

  I brought the money back to Madam Ozelle. She said, “But you should keep it. You earned it.”

  “Judges don’t need money,” I told her. “Use it to pay for the repairs, and to clean up.”

  The woman regarded me for a few seconds. “But... you won’t always be a Judge. You’ll need money when you retire, won’t you?”

  That caught me off-guard. I had never considered that one day I might no longer be a Judge. I realised that it was actually possible that at some point in my future—assuming that I wasn’t killed on duty—I might decide to just quit.

  In all my years in the Academy of Law, I don’t think that I had even once asked myself, “What would I like to be, if not a Judge?” Judging was all I had been trained for, all I knew. I was Judge Rico Dredd, the best of a new breed of Judges. Mega-City One’s finest. And I enjoyed being a Judge. Hell, I loved it. It was intense and relentless and unbelievably dangerous.

  But was it forever?

  Judges who quit are usually forced out by injury, or, in a small number of cases, old age. Either way, they just can’t cut it any more. They’re given a choice: teach at the Academy, work behind the scenes at Control, or take the Long Walk. That last one’s a death sentence: they’re supplied with guns, ammo and rations, and sent out to dispense justice in the Cursed Earth, or the undercity, or the Black Atlantic.

  I’d always been aware of those options, but, now that I thought about it, I realised that I didn’t like any of them. I couldn’t see myself half-blind or maimed, limping through the corridors of the Academy and yelling at the cadets, or sitting behind a wall of monitors operating the spycams and guiding younger Judges through arrests.

  Nor did I want to end up as some emaciated, self-righteous nomad choking on irradiated dust, trying to bring Big City Law to a decaying town where the wiser inhabitants have long since bought themselves a copper-cased ticket to oblivion.

  Still, I didn’t keep the money. I’d nowhere to put it, for a start. Judges don’t have bank accounts.

  Madam Ozelle said, “Well, you need some sort of reward. That’s only fair.” She turned to one of the girls. “Amber?”

  Three

  IT WAS WHAT the psychologists called my “inevitable slide into corruption.” A couple of nights a week I’d check on Madam Ozelle’s place, just to make sure everything was in line. Yes, I usually spent an hour or so with Amber or one of the other girls while I was there, but that was just a bonus. The real reason I was there was to keep the peace.

  And keeping the peace sometimes meant dispensing the violence. The owner of another local establishment took exception to the situation—she didn’t like the idea of a brothel where the employees got to keep most of their own money—so I had to sort her out, too.

  Ambrosia Cropper. Mid-sixties, face like something that would turn even a marine biologist’s stomach. She came crashing in to Madam Ozelle’s place with three sons and four grandsons, all armed with rockball bats, steel knuckles and a pair of ancient sawn-off shotguns. One of her sons said, “We’re takin’ over!” and that was the last thing anyone ever heard him say, apart from the screams, and they didn’t last long. That’s what you get when you’re stupid enough to pull a gun on a Judge. I left the rest of them alive, but nursing a good collection of fractures, breaks and dislocations. Cropper and I came to an understanding: she’d treat her own girls—and boys—better, and she’d donate a quarter of her take to Madam Ozelle. In return, I wouldn’t arrest her and dismantle her entire operation.

  I arranged for Madam Ozelle to hire three new security guys. They weren’t the smartest, but they were smart enough to know that they should keep their heads down, and never mention my involvement to any other Judges. I made
it clear to them what would happen otherwise.

  Two were ex-military, both dishonourably discharged for “unruly conduct unbecoming a member of the armed forces.” In other words, they had a tendency to settle disputes with their fists. That was why I chose them. In a place like that, you want the bouncers to quickly gain a no-nonsense reputation.

  The third guy we hired was Evan Quasarano. He was still only seventeen, but even at that age he was bigger than me. He was a good brawler, and scared enough of me to follow orders. And he knew the streets and the sort of vermin who slithered through them.

  It was not a nice part of the sector. On patrol, we’d encounter more—considerably more—dust-heads and drunks than sober citizens. Some of the older Judges ran a weekly book on who’d find the most bodies. Apparently, the Resyk truckers used to fight over the routes through the area, because their bonuses depended on the number of stiffs they brought in.

  The district was home to low-rent data hackers and unlicensed medicians, document forgers and counterfeiters, bootleggers and head-wreckers. There were gambling dens, black markets and mobster hideouts.

  My job as a Judge was to clean it up, but of course that was impossible if I only played within the rules. For years, Judges had patrolled the sector without making a dent in the crime levels, because in a place like that, if citizens see a Judge coming, they suddenly lose their memories and their ability to speak and even the most highly-feared local ganglords become beatified.

  So my approach was to take the fight to their level. Be seen as one of them. Pretty soon, everyone who believed they were important got to know my name. Judge Rico Dredd can be bought, that’s what they learned. I’d bust a backroom bookie, scare the crap out of his punters, and he’d beg me to let it slide. A stuffed envelope would somehow find its way into my hands, and I’d let him off with a warning.

  Because what’s the point in imprisoning a guy for something that—let’s be honest here—is mostly a victimless crime? I send him to the cubes, that costs the city at least sixty thousand credits a year. But if I leave him with a warning, make it clear to him that his actions will only be tolerated to a point, then he’s out there still running his little games and keeping his punters too busy to get into any real trouble. If someone’s spending his day playing nine-card wallaby or making half-cred bets on snail-races, then he’s not murdering his wife or heading to the bank to make a shotgun withdrawal.

  Same with the gangs and the mobsters. I got to know them, explained to them that if they kept their heads down, they got to keep those heads. The mobs controlled the district’s protection rackets. I didn’t like that, but I tolerated it. It’s hard enough for the average citizen to afford insurance; the big, reputable companies won’t insure anyone who doesn’t have much in the way of assets. But the mobs didn’t care about background credit checks and payment histories. Say there’s some corner-store owner who’s plagued with kleptos, vandals and gangs of flash-mobbing juves; well, there’s no way he can afford real insurance. But he pays the mob a couple of hundred each month, and they take care of him. They make sure that the local thugs and spug-heads understand that the store is off-limits. The owner mightn’t like paying protection money—and sure as stomm stinks, he doesn’t want to ever miss a payment—but he’s in a better position than he would be otherwise. He doesn’t have to replace stolen or damaged stock, and no-one’s going to ram-raid his store if the consequences involve lead pipes and kneecaps.

  The mobs ran the loan-sharks, too, and it was pretty much the same deal. Sure, their interest rates were exorbitant, but it was the only way the average citizen could get hold of some quick cash.

  What I’m getting at is that most mob-run districts actually have less crime, and are a lot safer, than they would be if the Judges ever managed to get rid of the mobs. The mobs bring order. It might not be the kind of order we’d like, but it’s better than chaos.

  So the mob-bosses got to know me, and I made sure they didn’t step out of line. I didn’t tell them outright what I was doing, because that wouldn’t work. You can’t go up to a guy like Sparks Petrosky and start laying down rules: you’d end up occupying several widely-spaced buckets. So you get him thinking that you’re working for him.

  I’d meet Petrosky about every ten days. Sometimes he’d point the finger at someone causing trouble in the district, and I’d arrest the creep—had to keep my numbers up; I didn’t want Justice Central figuring out what I was doing—and that would make things better for everyone. Now and then, I’d have to confront Petrosky about his own guys being too heavy-handed, like if maybe they came down too hard on a guy who owed them money and he wound up dead.

  I’d tell him, “Justice has to be seen to be done, Sparks. So you hand over one of your boys—someone low on the totem pole, if you want, I don’t care who—and I’ll put him away for a five-stretch for involuntary manslaughter.” Petrosky would quibble, but eventually I’d get my way.

  I guess, from an outsider’s point of view, what I was doing probably did look like corruption. But the Council of Five and the Chief Judge weren’t out there on the streets with the rest of us, wading through the filth. They sat in their polished throne-rooms with their unblemished uniforms and made decisions about the lives of ordinary citizens they’d never met.

  Well, I’d met those citizens. I lived among them. I protected them—from outsiders and from themselves—and I understood what it meant to be a Judge. Every decision we made affected people’s lives. We gun down an opportunistic burglar, that’s one creep off the streets. But what about his family? Suppose he was stealing because it was the only way he could make enough money to keep them fed and housed? The official system treated the symptoms, not the disease.

  My way was better. I’ve always believed that, always will. I consorted with criminals because they’re people too. It’s just human nature to covet what we don’t have. The solution is not tighter laws, but a clearer demonstration of consequences. Education, not incarceration.

  I was among the people I’d been trained to Judge, not above them. Working with them, not against them. The other Judges were lion-tamers where I was a shepherd, if you see what I mean. And if I made some money on the side, so what? It didn’t distract me from my job. If anything, the money was an incentive to keep going. Each credit was a token that proved I was going in the right direction.

  I HAD MY guys on the streets keeping an eye on things. They told me what was going down with the gangs and the solo low-lifes. That’s how I got word that Judge Kenner had been snooping again.

  Kenner was coming into the sector when I wasn’t around, talking to people. Asking them about me. But he hadn’t approached me directly, and that’s what worried me.

  So I had Petrosky’s hackers check him out, see exactly what he was up to. Turned out I was right to worry: Kenner was building a case against me, trying to find solid proof that I’d gone off-book. I had the hackers check out Kenner’s arrest record, too... His numbers were down; he’d spent so much time investigating me, he was neglecting his beat.

  That wasn’t good. Even if Kenner himself couldn’t find any evidence—and I’d covered myself pretty well—then it was only a matter of time before someone else in the Department wondered what he was up to. If they investigated him, that would lead them to me.

  I couldn’t let that happen. Ernest Kenner was a good Judge, but he was old-school. He was rigid in his understanding and application of the Law. One of us had to go, and I didn’t plan on it being me.

  Besides, he’d already been a Judge for a long time. He was hitting forty; his best years were probably behind him. A Judge gets old, he gets slow. Starts making bad decisions. Like investigating a younger Judge when he should be spending his time dealing with real perps.

  I took a pragmatic approach and weighed up the options. I could stop what I was doing and toe the line—though that wouldn’t be easy, what with everything I’d already set in motion—or I could retire Kenner. In the long run, he’d be just
another Judge. He’d make a tiny difference to the city as a whole. But me, I was poised to make a huge difference.

  It wasn’t an easy decision, but it had to be done. I contacted Kenner—off the record, of course—and let him think I was Joe. Told him, “It’s about Rico.”

  “What about Rico?” he asked.

  “I’m not sure, sir. He... He seems just different, these days. And I’ve been hearing things... Rumours about excessive violence. Complaints about his off-duty behaviour.”

  The old fool agreed to meet me to talk and see what we could do about the situation before the Department had to be brought in.

  I had to do it. It was him or me.

  We met at the old turnpike at the edge of the atomic wastelands. The radiation from the rad-pits interfered with the public surveillance cameras, and made radio transmissions difficult to track.

  Kenner showed up on time. Strode toward me with his hand extended. “Joe.”

  “Wrong.”

  I didn’t shoot him. Bullets can sometimes be traced, and even when they can’t, the fact that he’d been shot would immediately steer the investigation in a direction I didn’t want it to go.

  So I put him into a rad-pit.

  Kenner didn’t die quickly, or quietly, and I regret that. I didn’t want him to suffer. Despite everything that’s been said about me, I’m not a cruel man.

  My spies told me that he was reported missing a day later. The Public Surveillance Unit tracked his movements through the city right up to the edge of the wastelands, and a week of pit-dredging turned up what remained of his body.

  Petrosky’s hackers wiped Kenner’s file on me. He’d never logged his suspicions, never spoken to anyone. There was nothing to tie his death to me.

  I was free and clear.

  Four

  I GOT MY own apartment. Not unusual for a Judge. It got me closer to the action, set me deeper among the people.