Bolo and Pierce were entering the alley, hugging opposite walls, Lawgivers off-safety, suit-lights on blind. The other members of the squad waited, holding their breaths. Suddenly, a high, whirring sound cut through the silence of the dark. Landdale and his men turned on their heels as one, fingers on the squeeze. The landcar wheezed to a stop, scant milliseconds before the Judges would’ve opened fire and turned it into a blossom of superheated gas.
Landdale put his rage on hold, stalked over to the squat vehicle, and yanked open the door.
“All right, groon-breath,” he said, “haul it out of there. I want to see ten empty digits dancing in the air.”
The man stepped out. He was a small man with a face as round as a pie.
“No need for alarm, Judge. I’m not armed. My name’s—”
“I know who you are.” Landdale lowered his weapon in disgust. “You’re that sum-bitch on the video. What are you doing here, Harold? This is a potential crime scene.”
“Harrow. Duncan Harrow with the news,” Harrow corrected. “I ran the scales, follow the little blips, the little lights. I look and listen in. That’s how I get the news. I was down in Yellow Quad, got the Six-Oh-Three, possible Armed—”
“I know what it is, mister.” Landdale glanced down the alley, then back to Harrow. “I got an interdiction in progress here. You get your ass back in that vehicle now. Turn it around and go quiet-like back the way you came in.”
“Huh-uh. I don’t have to do that. I’m a certified journalist. I have every right to be here.”
Landdale raised his visor. His eyes were hard as flint. “I’ll tell you what you got. You got every right I tell you you got. So far that isn’t even one.” He poked the muzzle of his Lawgiver between Harrow’s eyes. “Now you turn this piece of crap around and git.”
Harrow took a deep breath, ready to tell this uppity Street Judge who he knew in what high places, and decided that really wouldn’t help. This was a man who’d been around a while, and likely had a broad understanding of resisting arrest.
“Yes, sir,” Harrow said. “You got it, sir.”
He wound up the window, turned the car in a quick circle, and disappeared down the block.
Landdale watched him go, muttering under his breath. He didn’t like the video or anyone on it. They said whatever they wanted to, even something bad about a Judge. Landdale was sure it was video people behind that awful business with Fargo and Dredd. Things like that shouldn’t happen. The Judges ought to take care of their own. And if something did happen, groons like that Harold guy shouldn’t be allowed to stand in front of a camera and crow.
He thought about the groon. He thought about his hair. If he remembered, the guy didn’t have any hair. He had hair on the video, he didn’t have any hair now. Maybe that was a rule. You had to have some hair on top, you were on the video. You were off, you could do whatever you wanted to. So why not wear it all the time? Landdale wondered. Guys like that, who’s to say what they might do?
“Nothing, nada,” Polo said into his visor-comm. “Zero plus two up here.”
“That’s a double,” Pierce said. “I got junk and bad smells and that’s all.”
“Okay, squad, standard line-and-stagger, let’s move it in,” Landdale said.
The Judges began their sweep. They were pros, and they kept the chatter down to a word here and there to let Landdale know what was going on with every man. Nothing happened. The water dripped steadily from the city up above. The alley was thick with murky poison air.
“Up here, team,” Bolo said suddenly. “I’ve got potential lifeforms, Sarge.”
“Shit,” Pierce put in, “how can you tell? It’s bums, Sergeant. Scummos and vags. We’ve landed in Maggot City, guys.”
Landdale walked up toward where Bolo and Pierce were shining their lights. Colter was up there, too, Rodger and Workman on Landdale’s right.
Landdale shook his head at the pitiful sight. Judge Pierce was right. These miserable creatures were human, but only because you couldn’t classify them as anything else, not without offending some other group like earthworms or slugs. They shuffled away, squealing in fright, turning their sallow faces from the light, ducking beneath their ragged hoods.
Landdale made a mental note to tell Dispatch what he thought of their Armed Robbery in Progress report. There was something in progress here, all right. Like lice. “All right, get ’em out of here, move ’em out.”
“Where, Sarge?”
“What?”
“Where you want us to put them?”
Landdale recognized the voice. Colter again. The guy was a pain, had to have an answer to everything. Landdale wondered if the droog would notice he was still a corporal when he retired, and maybe wonder why.
“I don’t care where you put them,” Landdale said. “They’re here. Take them somewhere that isn’t here. Bolo, you see another alley up there?”
“Got nothing but alleys up here, Sarge.”
“Fine. Put ’em up there.”
What is wrong with these people? Landdale thought. I got to do everything? I got to tell them to wash their hands before dinner, I gotta—
“Sarge—something up here. Pierce, Workman, cover me…”
“What is it, Two, what’ve you got?” Landdale caught the urgency in Bolo’s voice, a man shifting into second gear.
“Don’t know… Something wrong, over there. Give me some more light, Rodger. You—come out of there. Now. Put your hands up high and—yaaaaaaak!”
Bolo’s voice went dead. Landdale heard static and then that was gone, too. Pierce or Workman or someone screamed. He couldn’t tell who. A Lawgiver chattered, lighting up the dark. A visor light went out.
Landdale snapped off his beam and went low, keeping to the wall. No use calling on the comm. Bolo was dead, out of it for sure. Maybe the other guys, too. What happened up there?
Someone breathing hard… no, chest wound. Sucking air. Landdale took a cautious step forward. His boot found something soft. One of ’em, no way to tell who.
Don’t stay here, get out, get help. No one’s going to blame you for that…
“Sarge! Oh my Gaaaah…!”
“Shut up, can it, whoever that is!”
The spot went on, turning dark into light. Landdale’s visor darkened, compensating for the blinding flare. Not a visor light. Too damn bright. Too—
He saw it, a fraction of a second before he fired, big son of a bitch, copper and steel, muckin’ feet as big as a car, shiny stuff blinking in his gut, awful red eyes…
Landdale squeezed his trigger and didn’t stop. A beam of blue light sizzled along the wall above his head, slicing through brick like fat, hissing through Senior Sergeant Landdale from his visor to his crotch.
THIRTY
Ilsa lowered her hood and sniffed the air.
“It smells dreadful here. Really unpleasant, dear.”
Rico smiled. “Well, that is the point, isn’t it? Drama. Horror. Death. Really dreadful smells. A theatrical event.”
“It’s all of that,” she said.
Rico glanced over his shoulder. The massive robot stood silent, light from the still glowing fires in the alley dancing on its mirrored hide.
“Come on, Fido. Be a good boy, and Daddy will get you a very nice bone.”
THIRTY-ONE
“This is Tommy Waco with the news…
“Bear with me, if you will, ladies and gentlemen. There are—there are times when it’s difficult to do a journalist’s job in the professional and objective manner in which that job should—and must—be performed.