Abruptly, he heard the thud of something striking the window from inside, the sound making him jump. Again it happened, and he saw the window shake. Morris wondered if some unforeseen effect of the fire was about to make the window explode, catching him in the blast. Then, as the window shook once more, the smoke cleared enough for him to see the cause.
It was the fat man whom Morris had knocked unconscious and left to die in the fire. Head and arms haloed in flame, he beat against the window with his fists, pleading for escape as Morris stared at him blankly. Finding no answer, the fat man began to throw himself bodily against the plexiplast, trying to break through the window by sheer force of will. Taking a step backwards in case by some miracle the fat man actually managed to smash his way through, Morris moved his hand to the gun in his pocket and waited. He had often tried to imagine what it must be like for a man to die by fire. Now, he found he had the opportunity to see it for himself.
Then, incredibly, weakened by the fat man's frantic blows, the plexiplast started to crack. At last, with a final superhuman effort, the fat man leapt head first through the window to land facedown in the alley. Taking the gun from his pocket and tightening his finger on the trigger, Morris prepared to shoot the man in the head and be done with him. But as he aimed, he realised it was not needed. The fat man was dead already, as evidenced by the spreading pool of blood. Looking closely, Morris saw a jagged piece of plexiplast embedded in the fat man's neck. For all his desperation, the fat man had simply exchanged one death for another.
But even as he gazed down at the man's lifeless body, Morris felt a strange new inspiration run through him. Before he knew what he was doing, he was squatting down by the corpse and dipping his hand into the blood. Next, moving over to the wall, he began to write on it, feeling the rough surface of the plascrete under his fingertips mix with the warmth of the blood that covered his hand.
It is not enough to simply bring retribution to this city, he thought. I should leave a message. Something to let all the other sinners know I claim this act and that I will be coming for them all in time.
He was halfway through the message when he heard the scream. Looking at the letters "J", "U", and "D" written in blood on the wall before him, at first he dismissed the sound as nothing more than the cry of one of the dying customers caught inside the blazing eroto-palace. Until it occurred to him that the direction of this scream was different. It had come from
behind
him.
Whirling as he heard another scream, Morris saw a man and a woman standing in the alleyway, their faces aghast. For a moment, he stood staring at them, the dead man's blood still dripping from his fingers. Coming round, he did the only thing he could. Something that, Morris now realised, he should have done long ago.
He ran.
"Control to any unit vicinity Larry Flynt Recreational Plaza! Firebombing at Blue Dreams Eroto-Palace. Suspected perp reported fleeing scene in direction of Raymond Pedway. Available units please respond."
He had just taken down a gang of wreckers working the skedways when the call came in to him, the bike radio on his Lawmaster crackling as the calm yet urgent tones of Sector Control broke through the static. Chaining the last of the surviving perps to a holding post, Judge William Brophy strode quickly to his bike and patched his helmet mike into the local Sector frequency.
"Acknowledged, Control," he said, mounting the bike and revving its engine into noisy life. "Judge Brophy responding. ETA to Raymond - two minutes. Request Pat-Wagon to Skedway Twenty-Twelve, off Gibson Junction. Three perps for pickup. Also notify Resyk there's two more for disposal."
"Received and understood. Fleeing perp is described as gaunt-featured, wearing a black overcoat with matching kneepads. Control out." The radio fell silent as Brophy pointed his bike in the direction of Raymond and gunned it down the skedway. Another tangent, moving inexorably towards its destination.
He heard the screaming first. Not the shrill cries of individuals in pain, but the collective animal moans of a crowd in panic. Hearing it coming from further down the pedway ahead of him, Jard stopped in his tracks, got a firmer grip on his satchel and wondered whether he should hold on to see what was happening or just turn and get the drokk out while the going was good. The fact he even paused at all was a mark of how much he had riding on the decision. If he was going to move the gemstones he needed to meet his buyer in Flynt Plaza by midnight. It was a strictly one-time proposition: the buyer had been nervous enough that if Jard did not make this meeting, there was not going to be another one. It was no show, no go. Jard nearly wet himself as he heard a Lawmaster siren shrieking its way closer and realised he should have had the sense to run while he still had the chance.
It's too late to run now, he told himself, aware of the sweat soaking through his collar. Damn Judges! If you run, they always figure you for being guilty of something. Got to play this like I'm John-Q-Innocent-Drokking-Citizen and hope it's not me they're after. Of all the drokking luck.
Clutching the satchel to his chest like he was cradling a baby, Jard stepped to a safe place at the side of the pedway and waited to see whether his dreams were over. Ahead of him, as the siren grew louder, the crowd seemed to flow and shift with a mind of its own as frightened citizens saw what was coming their way and decided to make themselves scarce. Through a gap in the crowd, Jard saw a gaunt man in a long black overcoat running towards him with a Judge on a Lawmaster bike in hot pursuit.
Stupid drokker, Jard thought. Why don't you just give yourself up and let the rest of us go about in peace?
Realising there was no way he could outrun the bike, the perp pulled a slim semi-auto from inside his overcoat and started shooting at the Judge behind him. The shots did not even come close, although Jard saw a woman behind the Judge fall screaming to the ground with blood gushing from her throat. In response, the Judge drew his Lawgiver pistol and fired it in a single fluid motion, the bullet hitting the perp in the small of the back and sending him stumbling sideways across the pedway. With a dawning sensation of horror, Jard realised the dying perp was heading right for him, his spasming limbs carrying him towards a collision.
Jard tried to move out of the way, but it was too late. Seemingly in slow motion, the perp fell into him, a flailing arm inadvertently tangling in the strap of the satchel and ripping it from Jard's grasp. Appalled, Jard watched as the satchel went flying into the air, the flap pulling open and spilling the gemstones inside it onto the plascrete to land beside the body of the fallen perp. Jard heard a strange voice screaming in outraged disbelief as a thousand broken dreams fell glittering to the ground. It was his voice, he thought distantly, as he realised the sound would only make him seem even more guilty. But it did not matter. The way his luck was running, the Judge had no doubt seen everything. What was more, he was probably already calculating just how much cube time Jard had coming to him. As he watched the Judge bring his bike to a halt and come striding towards him, with a sinking heart Jard realised this was the big one. A repeat offender, the only way they would let him out of the iso-cubes this time was as an eldster. Always assuming, of course, they ever let him out at all.
Maybe if I get lucky they'll tag me as an obsessive/compulsive type and give me a pre-frontal, he thought, though it gave him little by way of comfort. Least that way I won't be able to count how many years I'm serving.
"You, stay where you are!" the Judge said, pausing to prod a menacing finger in Jard's direction, before kicking the fallen perp's gun away and kneeling to check his pulse. "I'll deal with you in a minute."
So much for tangents, thought Jard bitterly. Looks like maybe they ain't such a good thing after all.
Morris Weems was dying. Confused, his mind reeling at the realisation that these were the last moments he would ever know, he lay on his back on the pedway feeling the heat drain from him as he bled out the remains of his life onto the plascrete. Around him, the shapes and shadows of the world were growing fainter and less distinct. He was fading - all that he was, or had been, or would be, diminishing by the second. Where other men might have felt a sense of resignation, where they might have felt peace or even contentment, Morris felt only rage.
The world grew so dark that to Morris it seemed as though the darkness was consuming him, stripping away all he was and leaving nothing behind. He raged against that darkness. In fear he struggled to speak, to call out, to give some kind of voice to his despair, but he could no longer move or talk. All those things he had once taken for granted were now denied him. He was alone, blanketed in endless darkness and far from the light. Crushed, suffocated, drowning. Until, at last, summoning his final reserves of strength as his body grew finally cold, he screamed out. Not with a scream that could be heard, but with a scream of the mind. A scream of the soul.
Drawing on all his rage and pain and fury, Morris screamed into the darkness.
In the darkness, something heard him and whispered back.
ONE
BEATING THE DEVIL
Fifteen years later.
As far as Psi-Judge Cass Anderson could see, her current situation had all the makings of a first-class nightmare. She was in the Undercity deep beneath Mega-City One, moving through the lightless, debris-strewn streets of a ruined subterranean city populated by mutants, cannibals and monsters. She was hunting a crazed group of devil-worshippers who had abducted a little boy and were no doubt even now preparing to sacrifice him to their unholy god. And just to add spice to the proceedings, her only backup was a young Street Judge named Whitby who had become as twitchy as a rookie since they had left the comforting neon brightness of the Big Meg behind. Still, all else considered, she had to admit things could have been worse.
If this really had been a nightmare, and not just a particularly bad day at the office, she probably would have been naked as well.
"Grud, but it's quiet down here," Whitby whispered from beside her, the telltale tremor in his voice loud enough for Anderson not to need her powers to tell her he was scared. "Too quiet. The whole damn place gives me the creeps."
"Think of it as just another street," Anderson said. "No different from the streets topside. Remember, this is a hot pursuit. We need to stay sharp and keep it tight."
"I hear you," Whitby said, the beam of his torch moving to reveal more of the shadow-haunted ruins around them. "Just like topside. Sharp and tight. Check."
With that, he fell silent. Walking alongside him, Anderson could feel the fear coming off him in waves. It's the surroundings that do it, she thought. Tell a Judge like Whitby you want him to single-handedly put down a mass brawl in the roughest, most perp-ridden bar in the city and he won't bat an eyelid, but take him into the Undercity and he'll be as skittish as a newborn colt.
Anderson had to admit Whitby's anxiety was not entirely misplaced. She had been in the Undercity before, on more occasions than she cared to count, but no matter how many times she saw the same desolate wasteland of empty crumbling buildings and cracked deserted streets, it remained an unsettling experience. The Undercity was all that was left of the pre-Atomic landscape that had preceded the mega-cities. They were the fossilised relics of the cities of a bygone age, plascreted over and left entombed and forgotten beneath the foundations of the world that had replaced it. It was easy to think of the whole place as a giant cemetery. The graveyard for an entire era. A city of the dead, and it looked as if some of the dead were moving.
"Contact," Whitby said, the barrel of his Lawgiver following the torch's beam as it picked out shadowy, misshapen figures moving stealthily through the rubble. "I count four, maybe five. Holy Grud, they don't look human. What in the name of hell are they?"
"Hold your fire," Anderson told him. "They're just troggies. Cannibals, descended from the people who got trapped down here when the Big Meg was built. The Undercity's full of them. Don't worry, they're only dangerous in large packs. The ones we can see are probably just a family group who heard us coming and got spooked into moving. Trust me, they're probably more scared of us than we are of them. Now, keep it down, I'm trying to concentrate."
Coming to a halt as Whitby stood nervously watching the shadows, Anderson closed her eyes and tried to blot out the distractions of her physical surroundings. Instead, she went deep inside herself, calling on the talents that had been both blessing and curse to her ever since she was a child. She cleared her mind, slowly opening it up to the strange frequencies and uncertain modulations of the unseen world around her - the psi-flux, they called it. A shifting, endlessly fluctuating realm of pure, raw energy that existed within every corner of the physical universe, yet was paradoxically outside both space and time. From the telepath to the telekinetic to all the psi-shades in-between, it was the mysterious force that gave every psychic their powers. In her years in Psi Division, courtesy of the lectures of visiting physicists, philosophers and no small number of Tek-Judges, Anderson had heard dozens of theories as to the precise nature of the flux.
Some said it was the accumulated psychic residue of all the sentient beings who had lived, were living now, or ever would live in the cosmos. Others called it the Source and Wellspring of All Creation: the vital force without which the universe could never have come into existence. To the more religiously minded, it was the Breath of the Divine.
To Anderson, such theories were, at most, a matter of minor academic interest. All she knew was she had felt the presence of the psi-flux around her every moment of her life - long before she had ever heard it given a name. Whatever its mysteries, it was enough to her that she knew how to make use of it. Now, she needed to use it to help her find a missing child.