The Cold Light of Day Page 3

  As he watched, another Lawmaster pulled up, stopping the required distance from the doors. Judge Ruiz dismounted and greeted Perry and the others with a nod. She removed her helmet as she strode through the doorway.

  Dredd was pleased to see Ruiz take a moment to examine the scene before she entered fully—even looking up, as Dredd had done, to check the ceiling—then she carefully stepped around the gore as she made her way toward him. Ruiz was thirty-four, average height with a strong build. She kept her head shaved and her face clear—some other female Judges looked like fashion models from the neck up: trendy hair-styles, make-up, even ear- or nose-rings

  “Joe Dredd. It’s been a few years. I heard you got the full eagle. Never doubted it. How have you been?”

  Dredd wasn’t quite sure how he was supposed to answer that. “I’ve been a Judge” didn’t feel like the right response, but nothing else came to mind. He resorted to, “A little confused as to why I’ve been called here, and why some of the Judges seem to think I’ve done something wrong.”

  “Mendillo didn’t tell you?” Ruiz asked. “No, of course he didn’t. Never was comfortable with confronting other Judges with bad news.” She smiled at that. “You mightn’t think it to look at him, but when he was on the streets, he was one of the toughest Judges in the city.”

  “What is this about?”

  “Down to business. Of course. You haven’t changed much, have you?” She stepped past him into the diner’s kitchen. “Close the door behind you... All right. Joe, the perp has been identified as Percival Chalk. That name mean anything to you?”

  “I remember him.”

  “Good. Then you’ll remember how long his sentence was.”

  “Five years. Some thought it a little harsh at the time, but as I recall you backed me up on that.”

  Ruiz set her helmet down on a chair, then crossed her arms and leaned back against a work-counter. She stared at him. “I did. So you remember how long ago that was?”

  “Five years and two months. So Chalk served his time and now he’s turned to murder?”

  “Right. But we don’t yet know why. That’s what you and I have to find out.”

  Dredd nodded slowly. “And Sector Chief Mendillo wants you to take the lead because you were the only Judge present when he was first arrested. Where do we start?”

  “We start by getting something straight. What happened five years ago... Well, someone screwed up, and scuttlebutt is blaming you. Word is spreading that Chalk is a Judge-killer and that’s down to your mistake.”

  Dredd considered that. “I’m not aware of making any mistakes.”

  “They’re saying that your judgement was flawed.” Ruiz kept her eyes fixed on him, not blinking. “Do you understand what that means, Joe?”

  “I understand. And I deny the accusation. My judgement was sound.”

  “That’s what I thought then,” Ruiz said. “Now, I’m not so sure.”

  The Cursed Earth

  2075 AD

  Four

  “HOT-DOG RUN” WAS the informal name given to out-of-city excursions by cadet Judges. They were intended to get them used to working as a team, handling their Lawmasters over difficult terrain, and dispensing instant justice: aspects of judging that they were taught at the Academy, but lessons were no substitute for actual experience.

  The year-eleven cadets, under the supervision of Judge Amber Ruiz, undertook a gruelling two-day ride—seventeen hours each day on the bikes—deep into the Cursed Earth south-west of Mega-City One.

  Night had fallen by the time they reached their destination: the outskirts of Eminence, one of the many ruined-and-rebuilt pre-war towns that still blighted the landscape of what was once North America. Judge Ruiz ordered a dismount. “Town centre’s ten kilometres west. We camp here for the night. You know what to do.”

  The sixteen-year-old cadets arranged their Lawmasters in a circle, facing out: the bikes’ sensors would alert them of the approach of anything larger than a rad-rat.

  Cadets Hunt, Wagner and Gibson were assigned to prepare the rations, while Joe and Rico Dredd took first patrol on the perimeter.

  Once they were out of sight of the others, Rico said, “Hold up a sec, Joe.” He turned his back on his brother, unzipped the fly on his uniform and emptied his bladder into the darkness. “Ahh... Man, that feels good! Nothing better than peeing in the open air, right?”

  “Sure,” Joe said.

  “What about you? You’ve got to be bursting.”

  “I’ll wait until you’re done. Can’t both be distracted at the same time.”

  When Rico was finished, Dredd took his turn at relieving himself.

  “So what’s this about, you reckon?” Rico asked as they resumed patrol. “We here at random, or has Ruiz got something planned?”

  “Guess we’ll find out soon enough.”

  “Yeah.” Rico stopped, and put his hand on Joe’s arm. “Smell that? Woodsmoke. Not more than a day old. We’re not alone out here.”

  “I know. Saw fresh tracks in the dust a few kilometres before we stopped. Three vehicles. Thread impressions were deep, the edges clean. That means—”

  Rico finished for him: “New tyres. Which tells us they’re probably not muties. Muties never have anything new. The vehicles are from the city.” He walked on. “Guess we could always ask Ruiz what’s happening.”

  Joe followed after his brother. “She won’t tell us until she thinks we need to know.”

  “True.” Rico turned around to face Joe, walking backward ahead of him. “How do you think we’re doing? Overall, I mean. Not just here.”

  “Okay, I figure.” Joe shrugged. “We’re still top of the class.”

  “Guess we have Daddy to thank for that. Good genetic material.” Rico slowed to let Joe catch up with him, and they continued walking side-by-side. After a few minutes, Rico said, “Ever wonder why they made two of us? I’m thinking it was one of those eggs-in-one-basket things. Better to have two of us in case one dies.”

  Joe said, “I don’t think about it much. We are who we are. Although...” He paused.

  “Although what?”

  “I sometimes wonder if maybe we’re not the only two. If they could make two, why not four? Or eight? Any number?”

  “Maybe they did, and we’re the only two who survived.”

  “Or maybe there’s others and they just haven’t told us about them,” Joe said.

  “Could be,” Rico said, then shrugged. “I’ll tell you this, bro... I am not going to be a carbon copy of anyone else. I’m going to be my own man. Way I see it, Fargo’s DNA is a foundation, not a blueprint. You get me?”

  “Sure, yeah,” Joe said, though he didn’t have much enthusiasm for the subject. Sometimes, yes, but not now. Not when they were on duty. He stopped walking and pointed to the ground, almost invisible in the darkness. “Feel that?”

  “Asphalt under the sand,” Rico said. “Cracked and melted. So what?”

  “So the sand is thinner here. Something’s displaced it.” He stopped, unclipped the flashlight from his belt, and crouched down. “Get down here, in front of me. Shield the light in case anyone’s watching.”

  When Rico hunkered down, Joe switched on the flashlight. “More tyre-tracks. Very fresh. Deep, too. Wide wheel-base... Wide enough for a ‘71 or ‘72 Chameleon. Vehicle of choice for heavy-duty work in the Cursed Earth. Unladen weight is, what, about two thousand kilograms, right?” Joe turned and looked at his own footprints behind him, then ran some quick mental calculations. “Depth of the impressions suggest it’s carrying at least another two thousand kilos. That’s twenty-six, maybe thirty people... But you wouldn’t easily get thirty people onto the back of a Chameleon. Whatever their cargo is, it’s heavy.”

  “Hmph,” Rico said. “You actually worked that out in your head? Joe, you’ve got to get a life.”

  Joe switched off the flashlight and stood up. “Heading out of town. So... new tyres, vehicle’s four years old at most, heavily laden. Scaven
gers.”

  “You reckon?”

  “Best guess.”

  “Makes sense,” Rico said. “These old towns hold a lot of treasure, if you know where to look.”

  “We should mention this to Judge Ruiz.”

  “Figure she already knows.”

  AT DAWN, THE cadets woke. Joe and Rico had had four hours’ sleep—more than enough to keep them going for the rest of the day.

  As they were consuming their morning rations, Ruiz said, “Pudney and Slate, you stick with the bikes. Run a full diagnostic on every one of them. And do them consecutively—couple of years back a bunch of cadets in your position decided to run all the diagnostics at once, to save time.” She paused. “The good news is that one of them actually survived the attack that they didn’t see coming.

  “Gibson and the Dredds, you’re with me, and we’re on foot. Hunt and Wagner, you’re joining McManus and Ellard on perimeter. Comms are patchy out here, and we don’t know who’s listening in—only use the radios if you have no other choice.”

  Cadet Gibson said, “Sir, if someone’s listening, they won’t be able to unscramble the signals. We use a 9-7-5 encryption matrix protocol. It’s impossible to crack that without the keycodes.”

  Ruiz gave him a withering glance. “Anyone?”

  Hunt said, “If someone is listening, doesn’t matter whether they can understand what we’re saying. They’ll know that we’re here.”

  “Exactly,” Ruiz said. She looked around at the cadets. “Eminence is home to at least three hundred muties. They’ll mostly steer clear of us if they know we’re coming, so we leave them alone unless they present an immediate danger, and that’s highly unlikely. The danger we are facing is a band of gun-runners. Our sources tell us they’ve been stockpiling weapons in preparation for smuggling them into Mega-City One.”

  “How many perps?” Joe asked.

  “Exact number is unknown, but we can expect at least ten perps present, possibly a lot more. Any more questions?”

  Everyone looked at Joe. He didn’t disappoint them. “What’s the source of the intel?”

  “Local informant,” Ruiz said. “The gun-runners have been making their exchanges in Eminence for the past three years. They assemble here every few months, and when their deals are done they celebrate. They run riot through the town. The inhabitants are sick of it—life out here is hard enough as it is.”

  Rico said, “Figure our best approach is to wait until the deal is done. Easier to pick them off when they’re drunk or stoned.”

  “Disagree,” Joe said. “Gun-deals on this scale will have the weapons crated until the money changes hands. We stop them before the deal. Afterwards, we’ll be facing perps who are drunk and armed.”

  “Joe’s right,” Ruiz said. “Anything else? No? Good. Hunt, go find McManus and Ellard, brief them. The rest of you, stay alert. You are not in the Academy now. There are people—and things—out here that can and will kill you without hesitation. You kill them first.”

  Mega-City One

  2080 AD

  Five

  DREDD AND RUIZ stood on either side of the door to Percival Chalk’s apartment. It was an old building, constructed in the late twentieth century, one of the few of its era still standing in the city. A crumbling, damp relic of the days of plasterboard and timber, of breezeblocks and mortar.

  Ruiz raised her Lawgiver and quietly said to Dredd, “If he’s here, perp’s likely to be wearing armour. Set to AP.”

  Dredd shook his head. “Disagree. Walls are thin—armour-piercing rounds would pass straight through.”

  Ruiz considered that. “Good thinking. Standard Execution rounds.” She rapped on the old wooden door with the butt of her gun. “Judges! Open up! You’ve got ten seconds!” She waited a cursory two seconds before nodding to Dredd. “Do it.”

  The left side of the door showed half a dozen locks: Dredd took a step back and lashed out at the right side of the door with his boot, putting all of his weight into the kick. As he’d figured, the door’s heavy locks held, but the hinges—just steel plates screwed into the wooden doorframe—gave. The door crashed inward.

  Even before the splintered door crashed onto the thin, faded carpet inside, Dredd launched himself forward, spun in the air and landed on his back in the centre of the room, Lawgiver clenched in his right hand.

  “Empty,” Ruiz said from the doorway. “Figured as much.” She looked down at Dredd as she stepped over the fragments of the door. “What sort of a move is that?”

  Dredd rolled onto his side and pushed himself to his feet. “Situation like this, perps don’t expect to have to shoot down at a Judge.”

  He looked around the small apartment. The room was no more than five metres square, and contained nothing but a narrow, unadorned bed, an old sinkstove and, against one wall, a rack of empty cupboards with the doors long since removed.

  “Doesn’t even look lived in,” Ruiz said. “We’re not going to find much. What do you think? The parole board secured this place for Chalk upon his release, and it’s the address he used when registering for welfare. He probably never showed up.”

  “He was here.” Dredd sniffed the air. “Cheap deodorant.” He leaned over the bed’s bare mattress and inhaled. “Reasonably fresh—didn’t sleep here recently.”

  “So he was staying with a friend. Unlikely he could have afforded a hotel or flophouse.” Ruiz looked around once more. “OK. Call it in.”

  Dredd activated his helmet’s radio. “Dredd to Control.”

  “Control. Go ahead.”

  “Send a forensic crew to my location. I want a deep clean, full DNA sweep.” He turned in a slow circle as he talked, taking in the entire apartment. “I want the IDs of everyone who’s been in this apartment in the past two months.”

  “Wilco, Dredd. Despatching a team to you now. Be advised that traffic restrictions will delay their arrival.”

  Ruiz asked, “So what’s your reading on this, Dredd?”

  “Used the place for mail and storage, maybe,” Dredd said. “He carried two guns at the diner. The handgun could be concealed anywhere, but the point-seven-six recoilless is a lot harder to hide.”

  A voice from the hallway shouted, “Hey! The drokk’s going on here?”

  Dredd turned to see a well-dressed, middle-aged man come to a halt as he stepped through the doorway.

  “Oh.” The man’s face drained of colour. “Great. Judges. What’s... What’s the problem?”

  “Identify yourself,” Dredd said.

  “I’m Zeddy. Zederick D’Annunzio. I own the building. I live in the penthouse. I heard the noise and...” The man looked down at the door. “Who’s gonna pay for that?”

  “What’s your relationship with the tenant of this apartment?” Ruiz asked.

  “Who, Chalk?” D’Annunzio shrugged. “Just business. I’ve never met the guy. He was an ex-con, like about half my tenants. The deal was set up by the parole board. He leaves the rent money in an envelope under my door, first of every month. Always on time, too, unlike most of the spugwits in this place.” He smirked. “Heh, got a funny story about that, actually. This one time—”

  “You know where Chalk is now?” Dredd asked.

  “Uh, no.” The man shrugged again. “Like I said, never met him. It’s like that a lot around here. Like, the guy directly upstairs? Been here gettin’ on for three years, only met him twice. They keep to themselves. Lotsa ex-cons are like that, y’know? A few years in the cubes screws them up so much they just kinda shut down when they get out. Like, they become institutionalised, is that the word?”

  Ruiz said, “Just answer the questions, citizen. Do you know whether Percival Chalk had any contact with the other tenants?”

  “Couldn’t tell you, Judge.” D’Annunzio took a step back and narrowed his eyes. “Wait... What, is he dead or something?”

  “Not yet,” Dredd said.

  Ruiz said, “You’re about to be audited, citizen. We’ll need to see all of your rentbooks
and tax receipts.”

  The man’s face sagged. “Right. That’ll be tricky. See, you know how it is. There’s taxes and there’s taxes, right? I mean, I’m no shirker—I pay my way. But sometimes when it comes to people like this guy, who pay in cash, sometimes I kinda...” He stopped, took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “How much trouble am I in?”

  “More than enough. Your tenant Percival Chalk is wanted for multiple homicides, including the murder of two street Judges.” Ruiz moved closer toward the owner, passing in front of the window. “Any information you can give that might aid in the apprehension of—”

  Judge Ruiz was falling forward even as Dredd reacted to the slight crack from the glass in the window.

  He grabbed her arm and jerked her toward him, dropping at the same time. “Sniper! Down!”

  Zederick D’Annunzio said, “What?” and there was a second crack from the window, and a crimson bloom appeared in D’Annunzio’s thigh. He dropped to the floor, screaming.

  Dredd flipped Ruiz over, checked the wound. The bullet had pierced the Judge’s back, just below her right shoulder-blade. “Straight through.” He activated his helmet radio. “Dredd to control. Judge down, my location. Immediate assistance required. Sniper, most likely on the roof or upper floors of the building opposite. Get spy-cams on that location. Am about to engage pursuit.” He reached out and grabbed hold of D’Annunzio’s collar, dragged him over to Ruiz. “Citizen on site will administer first aid to Judge Ruiz.”