Judge Dredd

FORTY-ONE

Rico walked away from Dredd, turned, the shimmering pods at his back.

“Look at them, Joseph, your brothers. In a few hours they’ll be born. An endless supply of perfection. Now we have a choice: to create a race of robots like Fido out there or a race of free-thinking people and call them humans.”

“You’re diseased,” Dredd said. “You couldn’t control yourself; what makes you think you can control them?”

Rico studied him a long moment, then looked away, up toward the swarm of glittering lights overhead.

“Why did you do it, Joseph? I’ve thought about it all these years. Why? Why did you judge me?”

“I didn’t have a choice. You killed innocent people.”

“Only as a means to an end, brother. You’re forgetting that.”

“That’s a lie you tell yourself. It was a massacre. Murder. You can’t call it anything else. You betrayed the Law.”

Rico laughed. “I was your blood, your brother. The only family you ever had. You sent me to my death and you talk to me about betrayal?” He jabbed his finger at Dredd. “You are the traitor, brother, not me! Do you want to be a slave all your life, do what you’re told to do, Joseph? You have the choice now. Them… or me!”

“You haven’t given me any choice. I have to stop you, Rico. If you want to stop me, you’ll have to kill me.”

Rico looked sad, then let his expression slide into a grin. “Well, I can certainly accomodate you, brother. But there’s no hurry, is there? Fido…” Rico looked past Dredd, through the great door of the Janus lab. “Bring Judge Hershey in here, then tear the bitch’s arms and legs off.”

Dredd didn’t move. “Don’t do it, Rico.”

“Or you’ll what, Joseph? Arrest me?” Rico’s eyes blazed. “Take this one too, Fido. Crush them. Let’s make some Judge soup!”

“Rico…” Ilsa stepped toward him.

“Stay away from me. Do as I say, Ilsa.”

Rico’s voice was calm, almost a gentle whisper. It scared the hell out of Ilsa.

The giant robot clanged through the doorway, scraping its metal hide. It dragged its bad foot. One red eye looked off a good twenty degrees.

Dredd saw Hershey in its grip. Hershey looked down. He tried to read her eyes. Something… not the way it ought to be.

“Take him,” Rico said. “Do it now.”

The robot stopped, whirred. Its blunt head swiveled on its hydraulic neck. A heavy foot stomped against the floor. It turned, then, dropped Hershey from its grasp, raised its hand and slammed Rico in the chest.

Rico cried out in surprise, staggered back, and fell. Ilsa ran to him. The robot moved in a blur, plucked her off the floor and threw her to the ground.

The robot turned on one heel, its broad back to Dredd. Dredd stared. Fergie was hanging on the monster’s metal back, his hands buried in an open slot. Dredd caught a glimpse of the controls—blinking lights, tangled coils of wire.

“Dredd, over here!”

Hershey tossed him the Remington. Dredd racked a shell in the chamber, turned and fired at Rico.

The weapon’s blast echoed through the domed room. Rico darted for cover, grabbed his Lawgiver and squeezed off half a dozen shots at Dredd on the run. Dredd went to his knees, aimed at Rico and fired. Rico disappeared in the maze of blue pods.

From the corner of his eye, Dredd saw the robot lurch, run headlong into a solid wall.

“Fergie, what the hell are you doing!”

“I’m not doing—anything,” Fergie cried out. “This—damn—thing—wants to drive by itself!”

The robot staggered, beat on the wall with its head. It stumbled, clattered dizzily across the room, reached up to slap the tormenter off its back.

“No way, you tin-headed freak!”

Fergie thrust his whole arm into the robot’s back, jerked out a tangle of flashing wires. The robot went berserk. It’s head turned completely around. Blue fire sparked from its eyes and ears. It bashed itself against the wall, ripping Fergie loose. Fergie yelled and hit the ground hard. The robot took two jerky steps and toppled on its face. Smoke billowed from its chest.

“Watch it, Dredd!” Hershey called from the shadows by the big door. “The woman’s off to the right, by the wall somewhere. Rico’s back there.”

Dredd saw her, bent low near the tall accelerator. She nodded toward the forest of blue fluorescent pods.

Hiding with your brothers… yours, not mine.

Dredd kept low, moving quickly behind the fallen robot. Fergie was on his back. He looked up and offered Dredd a weary smile.

“You okay, Ferguson? Take it easy, now.”

“I’m—I don’t think I’m too good…”

“You’re going to be fine, all right?” Dredd looked at his face, at the blood soaking the front of his shirt. Ferguson was right: he wasn’t too good at all.

“You—never got to say it, Dredd.”

“Never got to say what?”

“Hey, you know, man.”

“Yeah, I do.” Dredd drew in a breath. “I… I made a mistake. I’m sorry I misjudged you, Ferguson.”

“And you’ll never arrest me again.”

“I’ll—okay, I’ll never arrest you again.”

Fergie grinned. “All right, man.”

“Take it easy.”

“I’ll do that, Dredd. What I think I’ll do, I think I’ll just—sorta…”

Fergie closed his eyes.

Dredd grabbed his shoulders. “Ferguson? FERGUSON, YOU TALK TO ME, DAMN YOU!”

Dredd let him go. He clenched his fists until blood came to his palms, felt the fury begin deep in his belly, felt the fire race through his veins.

“RIIIIIICO!”

He screamed out the name, grabbed the Remington, came to his feet and ran toward the blue pods.

“Come out of there. Come out of there, Rico!”

He was driven by a rage he could scarcely contain, an anger that blinded him to caution and reason, a hatred that could only focus on Rico’s face, Rico’s laughter, Rico’s silver eyes.

He stalked through the eerie blue light, through the maze of glowing pods. Rico’s spawn surrounded him, a company of ghosts, their coral lips open, their flesh unearthly white. A man, slim and unborn. He lifted pale arms above his colorless flesh, and seemed to mock him with a smile.

“Rico!”

Dredd squeezed off two shots. A crystal pod shattered, the clone blew apart in a blossom of pink and white.

“Rico, I’m coming for you. I’m coming…”

A hail of gunfire came at him from the dark. Dredd turned, went to his knees, firing back in a wicked arc. Incubators shattered, spilling slippery flesh to the floor. One of Dredd’s shots hit a tall accelerator, a black-and-silver column at the heart of the Janus lab. Lightning crackled along the tower, snaked to the top, then exploded in a blinding fireball, showering the pods with comets of molten steel.

The incubators cracked. A flood of thick amniotic fluid hissed in the terrible heat.

Dredd saw him, then, as the computer burst into flame. Rico ran. Dredd fired, blowing a hole in the console, blinding a thousand red eyes.

The fire would keep Rico busy a minute, a minute and a half. Dredd broke into the open, keeping low, heading straight for Rico’s hiding place. Rico caught him there, raised up and raked his path with automatic fire. Dredd cursed and scrambled for cover, lead tearing the heel off his boot.

Where the hell was Hershey? She had gone after Ilsa hours—no, only minutes ago. Time was playing its tricks again.

Another incubator exploded. Blue fire webbed the walls, sizzled the concrete floor. Dredd saw the flames beginning to burst from the equipment on the far side of the lab. Getting hot in here. Going to get a hell of a lot worse…

Rico laughed, a high-pitched, grating sound that set Dredd’s nerves on edge.

“Central, hatch the first set of clones,” Rico shouted. “On my command—now!”

“Rico, don’t do that.”

“The cloning process is not finished, Chief Justice Rico. The clones will be only sixty-three percent complete.”

“I don’t care if they’re pretty or not. I want the damn clones now!”

Central’s voice droned in answer, but Dredd didn’t hear. Something exploded down below with the roar of a blast furnace, spewing a ball of yellow fire up through the floor. The place was going up; it couldn’t last long.

Hershey, where the hell are you!

Hershey knew the woman was there, somewhere in the maze of piping, the bundled strands of cable and wire. She cursed her luck, letting Ilsa slip away from her into the damn maintenance area at the back of the lab. Not her best move of the day, she decided. Rico and Dredd were ripping the Janus lab apart. She could already feel the heat, see the flames licking at the pods. When that firestorm got back here, with umpty-zillion volts of power droning above her head—that, and pipes full of oxygen, nitrogen, God knew what…

Ilsa moved. Hershey heard her, then saw a slim shadow scramble by only two yards away. Hershey came to her feet, then threw herself into the dark. Ilsa cried out, twisted, and swung a heavy wrench at Hershey’s head. Hershey drew back, winced as the wrench caught her shoulder, sending a numbing pain down the length of her arm.

Ilsa laughed. “Judge bitch! Keep away from me!”

“I wouldn’t get near you on a bet,” Hershey told her, “but duty calls, friend!”

Hershey feinted to the left. Ilsa swung her weapon again. Hershey jerked aside, balled her fist and hit Ilsa solidly in the belly.

Ilsa gasped, stumbled, reached out, and caught herself. Hershey caught the beginning of a smile on the woman’s face, tried to pull herself away, knew there wasn’t any time.

“ ’Bye, honey,” Ilsa said. She kicked out hard, a vicious blow with plenty of power behind it.

Hershey nearly went under. She felt something break, fell back. She turned on her heels and saw the incubator coming, covered her face with her hands.

Crystal shattered, raining on her back in a rush of bilious fluid. The thing flopped out, slick as a fish, its head lying inches from Hershey’s. Hershey stared, felt the hairs creep up the back of her neck. The thing made a strangled noise in its throat, tried to pull itself erect on boneless flipper arms. It came at Hershey on its wet, bare muscle, pulsing veins clinging to bare bone. It looked up at Hershey. A bubble came out of its mouth. It sighed once, dropped with a sickening sound.

Hershey got to her feet, felt the sharp bite of pain on her ribs. She looked around for Ilsa. Ilsa was gone. Black smoke was creeping across the floor. Hershey was sure she couldn’t go back the way she’d come. And there was nothing but dead and smelly mutants up ahead.

Damn it, there is absolutely nothing about this in the Regs, not even anything close.