Junior kicked Fergie in the mouth. He grabbed his hair and pulled him closer to the fire. He drooled on Fergie’s head.
Link found a knife somewhere in his rags, reached out and sliced off something from the spit.
“Lo, the Unbeliever’s f-f-flesh is unclean, Lord, but a p-p-person’s got to eat.”
“I was lying,” Fergie yelled, “I don’t believe in anything, I mean, I don’t even believe enough to be an Unbeliever, what do you think of that? I mean, that is something you don’t want to mess with, man. I also got a skin condition. I got athlete’s foot, guys!”
“Glory!” Link said.
“Snuk!” Junior Head-Dead said.
“… biled ob be, troppin’ chu vrom duh skie endo by hans…”
“Pa says the Lord’s sure been good, says it’s a sign is what it is. Says the Lord has smiled on him, droppin’ you from the sky into his hands.”
“Why don’t you tell Pa to get the mush out of his mouth?” Dredd said. “You think God understands that crap? Even if He’s listening, He is sure as hell not listening to Daddy Dust-Bunny there.”
“Waaaaaaka-waaaaka!” Mean Machine’s eyes turned black with rage. His knife-arm swept out in a wicked arc. Dredd felt something like a breath of Arctic air across his chest. He forced himself not to look down. He knew he would see a line of red, a cut no deeper than Mean Machine wanted it to be. He did what he liked with that thing, and he did it with surgical skill.
“You bringin’ wrath and retry-bution down on yourself, Dredd.” Mean Machine shook his head as if he wished there were some way he could help. Pa Angel didn’t move. He was a scarecrow with darkness as a face.
“The Lord is fearsome in His gaze,” Mean Machine said. “He will smite you down and grind you under His heels. Your flesh will tremble with the terror of His ways…”
“You ever been in a rumble in Red Quad, pal? You don’t know shit about the terror of his ways.”
“Eeee-nuph!”
The Reverend Billy Joe Angel raised one filthy hand above his head, then lowered it slowly until it stabbed at Dredd.
“Vinits hib, sud. Vinits hib dow!”
Mean Machine glowed. “I’ll finish him, Pa. I surely will.”
“Dree, poi. You kun coe ub to dree.”
“Three? I can go up to… You mean it, Pa? Oh, Glory, I’m gonna do a Three!”
Mean Machine tapped the top of his mechanical head. His mouth fell open. His eyes turned to glass. His whole body shook; his arms and his legs jerked straight out like a droid on happy-oil. The copper squares on his face turned blue then red. He squealed like tires on a white-hot road, lowered his head and came straight at Dredd.
Dredd tried to twist aside but the crazy was moving too fast. His head hit Dredd in the gut. Dredd bellowed and gasped for air. The pain nearly took him. He shook his head to keep from passing out. The cords around his wrists had snapped tight at Mean Machine’s blow, tearing at the muscles in his shoulders and his chest.
Dredd knew that was it. He couldn’t take it again. The freako would break something vital and he’d bleed to death inside.
Dredd forced his head up off his chest. He made himself smile through the pain.
“That’s it? That’s the whole bit? This is what you do?”
Mean Machine blinked. He stared at Dredd and then showed him a sly little grin. He was dumb, but he wasn’t as dense as Dredd had hoped. He knew the damage he’d done, knew what would happen when he came at Dredd again.
“That was my practice run,” Mean Machine said. “I got you sighted in good now.”
“Quit talking and do it, then,” Dredd said. “You’re starting to piss me off.”
It is not unusual that the facts concerning an historical event are often overshadowed by a more lurid, wholly distorted account. One could cite a number of cases where—at least temporarily—truth gave way to a more colorful version of a particular occurrence.
A good example is the true cause of the world-wide chaos of the middle- and late-twentieth century. War, famine, disease, and racial unrest were attributed by historians of the time to the clash of political movements such as democracy, communism, and the like. As every schoolchild knows today, the fact of the matter-dismissed as folly at the time—is that every event of any importance between the years 1908-1998 was carefully planned and executed by members of a single, tightly-knit family in the former European nation of Luxembourg.
While the name of this family has remained secret to this day, the name of their cabal is well known. It was called Der Zischen, which can be roughly translated as The Fizz. The reason behind the name becomes clear when it is understood that Der Zischen controlled the leaders of all nations, began and ended international conflicts at their will, and controlled the earth’s natural resources—all the while hiding behind the corporate structure of the world’s two leading carbonated beverages.
Only a handful of people were aware of this conspiracy at the time. Yet The Fizz managed to keep the entire world under its thumb for ninety years.
Closer to our own time are the myths that have sprung up about the inhabitants of the Cursed Earth. In the years of the famous Judge Dredd (circa 2139), videos produced and distributed through illegal channels often pictured the people of Cursed Earth as political dissidents, victims of “injustice,” or even “mental defectives” turned away from the Mega-Cities. Those scattered bands of people such as Culls, Boaters, Krazies, Dusteaters, Cutters, Zippers, and other groups mistakenly labeled as Outcasters, were in fact never victims of Society, but the very people who sought to bring about the destruction of the Mega-Cities themselves.
Who were the real inhabitants of Cursed Earth, and where did they come from? We can eliminate those persons loosely defined as “mentally or physically disabled.” Every Citizen of the Mega-Cities has always been entitled to free health care, including necessary genetic correction procedures to assure the elimination of those traits undesirable to contemporary Society.
It is true that even in the mid-twenty-second century medical personnel would still come across the occasional psychopathic individual or persons afflicted with a minor personality disorder. Such Citizens were quickly identified and given immediate, and effective, care.
The inhabitants of Cursed Earth were neither outcasts nor defectives of any kind. They were, rather, Citizens who expressed a keen desire to pursue a more solitary life outside the Cities—people who felt they would be better suited to an alternate lifestyle in a semi-hostile environment. Upon written request, such persons were processed, innoculated, and given free transportation to the Citygates.
While it is difficult to present an accurate picture of the many diverse groups who lived in that vast and challenging land that spans the continent from east to west, social studies indicate that while these groups experienced some problems adapting to areas offering little water, no arable soil, and ruinous weather, many persons learned to live reasonably pleasant, productive lives.
TWENTY-FOUR
Hershey had many fond memories of her days at the Academy—Unarmed Combat, Street Tactics, and the harrowing but always exciting Lawmaster Endurance Course. The one class she’d always dreaded was CCT—Cadet Computer Training. She wasn’t bad at it; she had finished in the top eighty percent.