Vernon Hass
.
As he opened the door and stepped into the dark hallway, it seemed to Hass that he heard a voice whispering his name. The voice was low and quiet, barely audible. Tightening his grip on his Lawgiver as he advanced down the corridor, Hass moved the beam of his torch from side to side as he attempted to see whether anyone was hiding in the office doorways. Nothing. Shaking his head to clear it, he told himself he was hearing things. A stress reaction, no doubt; quite understandable given the ordeal he had been through in the last few minutes. Moving on, Hass advanced towards the sector chief's office. Finding Franklin's door ajar, he pushed it open and stepped cautiously inside.
Inside, he no longer needed the torch - the large window set into one side of the office wall meant the office was bathed in daylight from the sun outside. Then, Hass saw the body lying face-down on the floor behind the desk, blood seeping from a head wound to soak into the carpet. Hurrying towards the body and turning it over, Hass saw it was Franklin. The old man was dead, the bloody marks of what looked like a dozen different stab wounds gouged into his face and chest. Appalled, Hass glanced up from the body and noticed that the comm terminal on the Sector Chief's desk had been smashed to pieces. So much for his idea of calling Justice Department. Suddenly, looking back down at the body, Hass saw there was something clutched in Franklin's hand and realised the killer must have inadvertently left evidence identifying himself behind. It was a Judge's badge - presumably pulled from the killer's uniform in the course of the struggle. As Hass levered open the dead man's fingers and revealed the name on the badge, he realised the murderous chaos engulfing in the Sector House was perhaps even worse than he thought.
The badge belonged to Deputy Sector Chief Grimes.
"We heard shots." Standing on the other side of the inner cage door that led into the Sector House Armoury, Quartermaster Judge Stein motioned to his men to open it. "And what sounded like an explosion. But with all the comms down, we had no way of finding out what was going on."
"The Sector House is under attack by terrorists," Deputy Sector Chief Grimes said. Waiting until the door was opened, he stepped swiftly inside the Armoury. "It's not entirely clear how many of them there are yet, but effective immediately I want the Armoury sealed and put on lockdown until the crisis is over."
"The power's out," Stein said. "Until it comes back on again, the electronic locks are out along with it." He nodded towards the Armoury's heavy plastisteel outer doors. "The only reason we were even able to let you in was because we already had the blast doors open to move some ordnance. If they had been shut when the power went out, we'd have been trapped in here. Anyway, even if the power comes back on again, I need a direct order from Chief Franklin before I can go to lockdown."
"Franklin's dead." Grimes's face was impassive. "I'm in command now."
"Dead?" Stein seemed shocked. "How?"
"Right now that's hardly the issue, Stein." Grimes's voice was stern, severe. "Have your men lock the cage door and barricade it. As of this moment, we are under siege - it is imperative the Armoury does not fall into enemy hands. And tell your men to be careful. Some of the terrorists are dressed as
Judges
."
"Yes, Deputy Chief."
Watching as Stein turned away to bark orders to his men, Grimes made a careful and surreptitious headcount of the total number of Judges inside the Armoury with him. Including Stein, Grimes counted six men in all - the usual complement for the time of day. For several minutes he watched their labours in silence as they began to stack crates of spare body armour, daysticks and other non-explosive equipment behind the cage door as a makeshift barricade. Then, once he was satisfied that the barricade was sturdy enough for his purposes, he called to Stein and beckoned for the Quartermaster to come over and join him.
"I notice you and your men seem to be equipped with non-standard sidearms," Grimes said, nodding down towards the pistol in Stein's boot holster.
"It's a safety measure." From Stein's expression, it was clear he was surprised to hear Grimes focussing on such minutiae at a time of crisis. "When the men are on Armoury duty, we replace their Lawgiver Mark Twos with Berredas - semi-autos modified to fire plastic ammo designed to expand and remain within the target. It means if we have to discharge our weapons inside the Armoury there's less chance of a stray shot hitting munitions crates and setting off an explosion."
"I see," Grimes said. "In that case, let me see your weapon." When Stein seemed hesitant, he added, "There are an unknown number of hostiles inside the building, Stein. If we're going to be facing a fire fight, I want to be reassured you and your men's guns are up to the task."
"Actually, Deputy Chief, I was just about to order the men to break out the Lawgiver Mark Twos and Widowmakers." Complying with Grimes's instruction through the long habit of following orders, Stein pulled his gun from its holster and handed it to his superior grip-first. "As long as we can keep any attackers outside the Armoury, over-penetration shouldn't be a problem."
"Good thinking," Grimes said. Taking the proffered weapon and inspecting it, he noticed it lacked a self-destruct charge. He pointed the gun at Stein's face. "Oh, and Stein? That's twice you've called me 'Deputy Chief'. I told you, I'm the Sector Chief now."
He pulled the trigger, blood splatter hitting him as the bullet struck home. As Stein's body collapsed before him, Grimes turned the gun on the other Judges and cut them down before they could react. Then, as the last Judge fell to the floor, Grimes advanced over to them and began to kick the bodies to make sure they were dead. Coming to the last man, he heard a low groan.
"Why...?" The dying Judge whispered a faltering and despairing question.
"The man who controls the Armoury controls the Sector House," Grimes said as he squatted down beside him. "It's a truism they teach at the Academy, though I doubt any more than one in a hundred cadets ever really gives much thought to what it means. I knew I would face opposition once I decided it was time to take up my rightful position as Sector Chief. Justice Department, the Council of Five, Chief Judge Hershey: I see now they are all against me. Especially Hershey. Bitch probably realised if she didn't destroy my career I'd end up taking her job off her one day - that's why she appointed that hatchet-faced dyke Meryl Coolidge to steal the position that should have been rightfully mine. It's a conspiracy, you see. Hershey, Franklin, Coolidge, Anderson, SJS Judge Hass: they are all in it together. Or, at least, Franklin
used
to be in it. He's not anymore. Not since I killed him."
Seeing the wounded Judge staring up at him in dumb incomprehension as though he thought he was crazy, Grimes sighed and pressed his pistol against the man's head.
"Never mind," he said, carefully extending the open palm of his left hand and placing it beside the barrel to make sure this time he would not be hit by any more spatter. "Let's just say I found myself forced to make a command decision. A Sector Chief needs to be decisive."
He pulled the trigger again, watching as the frightened look in the Judge's eyes gave way to blank emptiness as the bullet tore into his brain. Now he was Sector Chief, it seemed almost a shame to Grimes that he was forced to kill the men under his command. But he had to do it. He had known from the first that Stein and his men would be unlikely to support him. And anyway, they had all been
sinners
. Even now, Grimes was not quite certain how he knew that, but he was sure it was true all the same.
"They should have just made me Sector Chief years ago," he said to himself wistfully. "If they had only done that, none of this unpleasantness would have been necessary."
Standing, Grimes took one last glance at the bodies of the men lying around him. He felt a sudden sadness at what he had been forced to do. His reign as Sector Chief was barely fifteen minutes old, yet - including his predecessor, Franklin - he had been forced to kill seven men already. Shaking his head, he dismissed the emotion. As he turned to begin dragging the corpses of the dead Quartermaster Judges out of the way, it occurred to him, sometimes the old adages were true. You could not make an omelette without breaking open a packet of synthi-egg. Besides, to be a Sector Chief you needed to be strong. And really, there was no difference between having the inner strength to order men to their deaths and shooting them yourself.
Sometimes, killing people was what being in command was all about.
FIFTEEN
IN THE MIDST OF CRISIS
Souls. Screaming. Terrified. They flowed towards him from every part of the Sector House. Feeding him. Giving him sustenance. From his hiding place in the darkness Uriel could feel himself growing stronger as second by second, minute by minute, more souls came to him in shrieking, frightened waves. He felt his powers wax ever more broadly, escaping the narrow confines of the building around him to extend out into the wider city nearby, claiming the adjoining areas on the periphery of the Sector House block by block and street by street. He no longer needed to sit in the head of a single proxy. He had dozens, even hundreds of followers now - the number grew larger every minute - united to do his bidding in a crusade against sin.
Growing fat and bloated on stolen souls, Uriel's influence could now be felt across the entire sector. And with every act of retribution, every instant of judgement, every death, another soul was made ripe and ready for him. Each one of his followers, his agents, served as a collector. With every death of a sinner at the agent's hands, another soul was gathered. Then, when the agent himself died - whether through the action of other sinners defending themselves, or simply because Uriel had told the agent to end his own life - the soul of the agent and every other soul he had gathered came rushing toward Uriel in a surge of power. It was a virtuous cycle. He invaded minds and made men his puppets, then through the deaths of those puppets he accumulated the power to make yet more puppets to kill for him in their turn. And more, and more, and more.
One became two. Two became four. Four became eight. Death by death, body by body, soul by soul, his power grew geometrically. Deep inside him though, Uriel knew the cycle was not yet complete. No matter how many souls he feasted on, savouring the taste of human emotions as he snuffed out another life and annihilated every trace of its existence, the hunger inside him was not abated. It was not satisfied. He was still missing something. He needed more power. More lives. More souls. More. More. More. Anything to finally sate the hunger burning within him.
More. He needed more. He was a shadow in every mind - an invisible psychic presence, spreading out across Sector 12 and bending its citizens to his will. Still it was not enough.
He was hungry.
He needed more.
Then, abruptly, Uriel felt a sudden disquiet as he felt a distinctive psychic signature moving toward the centre of his power. He recognised it at once. It was the psi-bitch! She was a threat to him. All the more so while the cycle was yet to be completed. And, feeling her draw nearer, Uriel resolved to destroy her once and for all...
"Anderson to Central Control!" Bringing her bike to a halt on the forecourt outside the Sector House, Anderson pulled the radio unit from her belt and moved towards the building with her Lawgiver at the ready. As she advanced towards the Sector House she heard the occasional shot - some from inside the building, and some from the distance elsewhere in the sector. Pausing for a moment to gaze around her, she realised the streets in the immediate vicinity of the Sector House were deserted. In Mega-City One, that was the most unnatural thing of all. In a city of four hundred million people, the last thing you expected to see approaching midday was empty streets. It was unsettling. It was like the entire Sector had abruptly become a ghost town.
Maybe they all know something you don't, Cass, she thought to herself. Whatever's going on here, it's something bad. Could be you're the only person in the Sector without the common sense to get inside and stay out of the way.
"Central Control responding, Anderson." Given the eerie quiet of the streets around her, Anderson found it was a relief to hear Control calling to her over the airwaves. Pushing up the volume of her radio to better hear the controller's voice through the hiss of static, she noticed the sound of it seemed distant and indistinct as though the signal was having problems getting through. "We have your location as just arriving on the scene at the Sector House. Confirm?"
"That is confirmed, Control. Things look pretty grim. The area around the Sector House seems to be completely deserted, while looking at the Sector House itself I can see smoke from multiple fires burning on levels four, six, eleven, fifteen, and the comms-array on the roof of the building. Occasional gunshots, both from inside the building and outside at other unidentified locations across the sector. Also, whatever's going on, there's no sign of there having been any attempt to evacuate the Sector House. Looks like everybody's still inside, which leads me to believe things must be pretty bad in there. Requesting medical support, fire fighters and further Judges as backup. Over."
"Acknowledged. Fire-teams and med-teams are already en route to your location, along with backup. Be advised though, their ETA currently stands at twenty minutes. Over."
"Twenty minutes?" Anderson was shocked. "Not wanting to be seen to be complaining for the hell of it, Control, but you realise there are people
dying
here? Request you contact the responding units at once and tell them to get a skedding move on."
"No can do, Anderson." It was hard to be certain through the static, but it sounded like the controller was as frustrated at the situation as she was. "The assigned units are already responding to incidents elsewhere in the sector. We have reports of multiple homicides, riots, assaults, arson attacks, futsies on the rampage - you wouldn't believe the shitstorm that's blown up in Sector 12 over the last few minutes. It's like the whole sector's going to hell on a handcart. The Central Regional Commander has been on the line with the Chief Judge, requesting extra units be seconded from other sectors so he can send tac-teams in via H-Wagon to try and restore order. So far it's no go on that score though. There's been a mass break-in of mutants from the Cursed Earth on the West Wall earlier this morning, and right now all available units are being used to contain it."