The man slid another shell into his gun. He reached into the open package and retrieved two items Miller hadn’t been close enough to see. One was a small photograph of Mega-City newscaster Vardis Hammond. The other was a pocket-sized badge embossed with a familiar eagle and shield. A name was engraved on the badge. The name read RICO.
Rico looked at the two dead guards then dismissed them from his mind. He took three steps to Miller’s body and kicked the corpse soundly in the head.
“Keep it to yourself,” he said softly. “I’m back…”
NOTE: While every reader will be familiar with the life and legend of Judge Dredd, there are few historically authentic records of his actual words. The following is transcribed from a partial audiotape of a lecture given by Judge Dredd at the Academy of Justice. No date is given, but from the equipment described, it would seem this event took place circa 2139.
JUDGE DREDD
This is the Lawgiver Two. Twenty-five round sidearm with mission-variable voice-programmed ammunition. Pay attention. Signal Flare!
[A flare explodes in the target area.]
JUDGE DREDD
Yours, Cadets, when you graduate… if you graduate. Now, I don’t have to tell any of you what this is. But I will, because you are Cadets and you don’t know from nothing even if you think you do.
[Nervous laughter.]
JUDGE DREDD
This is the Mark IV Lawmaster, improved model. With onboard dual laser cannons, vertical take-off and landing flight capacity and five hundred kilometer range.
[NOTE: An evaluation of the background sound at this point would indicate that maintenance personnel have set the machine in motion at this time. Apparently, the Lawmaster then rises in a hovering mode for five-point-seven seconds. At that time, the drive unit fails and the Lawmaster drops heavily to the floor.]
JUDGE DREDD
Yours… if they ever get it to work.
[Judge Dredd walks to another location in the classroom. A Cadet coughs in the background.]
JUDGE DREDD
All of these things are nothing, Cadets. Nothing but toys. End of the day, you’re alone out there in the dark, all that counts—is this.
[The sound of a book dropping heavily on a table.]
JUDGE DREDD
This is the book. This is the Law, And you will be alone when you swear to uphold these ideals… For most of us there is only death on the streets… or, for those few of us who survive to old age, the prouder loneliness of the Long Walk into the unknown of the Cursed Earth, to spend your last days taking the Law into the Outlands…
There are medically-disabled Judges and there are dead Judges. There are retired Judges who have taken the Long Walk. Do not ever forget, Cadets, that there is no such thing as a Judge who has set aside those vows you will take… Class dismissed.
[Except for background noise, the tape ends here.]
ELEVEN
The barge wasn’t made for beauty. It was three blocks long, solid and black, and built like a slag-iron whale. The Mega-City wall-lock opened like a dark and empty eye; the barge shuddered down through the night and poked its pitted nose inside.
In the amber light of the lock, the rusty hide of the barge seemed afflicted by ugly metal warts. The drive-rings in its belly pulsed in alarming shades of blue. The docking engineer frowned at the rings, glanced at his watch and cursed beneath his breath. It was 0610 and Clydo, his morning relief, was late. If the barge’s rings went totally out of sync—which they very well might, from the way they looked now—a white ball of fire would appear in the wall. He’d be a vapor, and Clydo would get another roach in his record for being late.
The barge finally whined into silence and the lock took hold. The massive craft creaked and moaned. A portal came open with a hiss of dirty steam. A crewman stepped out, rubbed a sleeve across his face, and nodded at the guard.
“Two loads from the prison factory in Hold Number Nine. One from the mines in Six. Prisoner mail in Two.”
The guard looked up from his computer tablet. “No prisoners comin’ back?”
“Just dead ones.” He nodded back into the dark. “Families probably glad to get rid of ’em, now they gotta bury the bastards.”
The crewman stalked off. The guard stepped past him into the dimly-lit hold. Fifteen body bags were strapped to the deck. Each had a yellow plastic tag stapled to his chest. Each bag was stenciled: ASP.
The guard leaned down to check the names. When he first got the docking assignment, it bothered him to get near the bodies. Like he told his wife, it was spooky as hell in there, like a Saturday holo show where the zombies and stuff came to life. He had been on the job eight months now, and the bodies didn’t bother him any more. They didn’t look like zombies, they looked like black bags with dead guys inside. Which proved you could get used to anything if y—
He heard the slight crinkle of plastic and jerked around. One of the body bags sat up, and the hair stood up on the back of the guard’s neck. He reached for his weapon, then stopped, and threw back his head and laughed. He knew what had happened and he knew who it was that’d pull a crazy stunt like this.
“Okay, I’m scared, all right? Get the hell out of there, Jak!”
A pinhole slit appeared in the black body bag. A laser beam thin as a needle touched the guard between the eyes. The guard looked surprised. There might be a punch line to this, but he was too dead to wait around and see.
Rico stepped out of the body bag and smiled at the guard.
“Home, sweet home,” he said.
The lights were always on. The streets were always wet. Everything in Mega-City was above Redtown, and everything above dripped down.
Rico ignored the hungry eyes, the men and women who offered him a peek at their sorrow and their souls. He walked past the crowded taverns, past the holo-kill parlors where every kiss and cut was good as life, and every crime was real.
On a video screen, he saw Vardis Hammond silently mouthing a replay of the city’s block wars. Rico winked at the image and rolled his eyes.
The sign outside said: GEIGER’S BAZAAR. The jittery neon offered SURPLUS PAWN FAXO TOOLS VOUCHERS CASHED.
Everything nobody wanted hung from the ceiling and the walls. Rico made his way through the maze. In the rear of the store a fence guarded better merchandise.
Geiger himself looked up and blinked. A cigar dangled from the side of his mouth. His face was long and narrow, his eyes bright gold, like a predatory bird that only hunts at night.
“We’re closed,” he said.
“No you’re not,” Rico said. “You’ve got a package for me. Codename Lazarus.”
The pupils in Geiger’s eyes shrank to tiny points. “Gimme a second,” he muttered, and disappeared.
Rico waited. He timed Geiger. He was back in twenty-nine seconds. Not too long.
“Nice place,” he said.
“It might look like junk to most people, but there’s stuff in here that’s real antiques. Valuable stuff, man.”
Rico nodded at a row of metal men in shadow behind the security fence. The tall figures looked hollow, like toy soldiers some giant had cast aside.