Judge Dredd

2191

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.

It was the computer room itself that gave her the creeps. There was something about the place. It was too alien, too cold, too antiseptically clean for Hershey’s taste. The harsh, sterile atmosphere seemed hostile to human life. The constant, almost imperceptible buzz of a billion electronic bees told her, You don’t belong here… we do…

Hershey knew it was a ridiculous, wholly irrational feeling, and she had the good sense not to share such thoughts with anyone else.

It’s not any better than it was. Over a year on the street and I still detest this damn place!

Tiny lights winked at her from the walls, like animal eyes in the night. Tiny sounds chittered in the floor.

“Judge, you all right? You okay?”

Hershey nearly jumped out of her skin. “Of course I’m all right, Olmeyer, why wouldn’t I be all right? You know of any reason, Cadet, why I wouldn’t be all right?”

Olmeyer stepped back, withering under her glare.

What did I do? What did I do? It was always something, and most of the time he didn’t know what. Sometimes he didn’t even have to say anything. Sometimes he could offend just being in the same room.

“I’m—no, sir, uh, Judge. No reason at all. I’m certain everything’s fine, Judge.”

“Good,” Hershey said. “I’m pleased to hear it, Cadet. Shall we get on with it, now?”

“My station’s over there. Over near the end.”

Hershey muttered under her breath. She followed Olmeyer across the long room, past the cramped and numbered student cubicles. Hers had been, number thirty-seven. A number she’d never forget.

“I don’t know why it has to be so damn cold,” Hershey complained. “You could store meat in here. It could snow.”

“The machines like it cold,” Olmeyer said. “They prefer the—”

“Machines do not like anything, Olmeyer.” Her look cut him down a good foot. “Computers do not have the capacity to like or dislike. They function better under certain conditions and certain temperatures. This does not mean they like it that way.”

Olmeyer started to speak, then wisely kept his mouth shut. Judge Hershey wouldn’t want to hear that he felt his computer was friendlier and more responsible than most of the people he knew. She certainly wouldn’t want to hear that he’d programmed his station to speak in her voice when he wanted it to, to speak certain… personal phrases when they were alone. What Hershey would do if she knew that was grind him into a greasy spot on the floor.

Olmeyer took a seat at his station, pulled up an extra chair for Hershey from the cubicle next door. The screen came alive as he sat, coded to his presence.

Hershey nodded at the trick. “Very impressive, Cadet.”

“It’s not—I just… It’s a simple heat sensor is what it is. It’s coded to body weight, fat content, iris pattern, stuff like that.”

He cut himself short again. She was here, she was right next to him. He didn’t want to do anything dumb, he wanted to keep her there.

“I appreciate what you’re doing,” Hershey said. “I want you to know that, Cadet.”

“I’m glad to help, Judge, I—”

Hershey stopped him with a gesture. “I want to tell you again. This is a personal request. This is not official Judge business.”

“Judge Hershey…” He looked straight at her, one of the few times he’d managed to do that without turning to jelly. “It’s for Judge Dredd. You told me that. There’s no way you could keep me from helping if I can.”

“Yes, well…” Hershey cleared her throat. “I appreciate that, Cadet.”

She reached in the slim metal case she carried and handed Olmeyer one of the framed viewies of Dredd she had taken from Dredd’s locker.

Olmeyer looked at it, then looked at Hershey.

“I want it identified,” she said.

“It’s Dredd. I don’t know the other guy.”

“I don’t want you to ID it. I want Central to tell me.”

Olmeyer nodded. He took the picture and slipped it onto a plate at the base of his computer. With a slight hiss, the viewie disappeared into the machine.

“Central, access Graphics Data Base.”

“Accessed…”

“Give me an ID, please.”

“Dredd, Joseph. Formerly Judge Dredd. Now serving a life sentence at Aspen Prison…”

“Keeps up to date, doesn’t it?” Hershey said beneath her breath.

“I want both IDs, Central,” Olmeyer said. “Give me the other one, please.”

“Scanning for identity… Unknown male… approximately two hundred centimeters tall… weight: ninety-five kilos… skin-tone: three-ten-nine-eight-seven-six… Further identification characteristics are—”

The screen flickered. The data vanished, replaced by the official eagle and shield of the Judges.

“This terminal has been disconnected from the main system for a systems check. You no longer have access to the system. Thank you.”

The viewie popped out of the slot.

“Uh-oh.” Olmeyer leaned back in his chair and frowned at the screen.

“What was that all about?” Hershey said. “That didn’t sound like Central.”

“It wasn’t. That’s a standard taped interrupt message that means ‘butt out, we don’t want you in here.’ ”

“Why? What did we do to set it off?”

“No way of telling.” Olmeyer stretched his fingers and pulled his chair up closer to the screen.

“Is that it?” Hershey said. “We’re through, we’re locked out?”

Olmeyer looked pained. “With all due respect, Judge, nobody locks out Olmeyer. Nobody. They shut the door, I climb in the window. They nail up the windows, I go in through the floor—”

“I think I’ve got it, Cadet.”

“Huh!” Olmeyer’s fingers blurred across the keys. “Keep me out. Are you people kidding? There—Graphics Analysis coming up…”

The screen blinked. A picture of Dredd as a baby swam into view. Dredd and his parents. The same picture Hershey had found in his locker.

“Olmeyer, you’ve analyzed the wrong picture,” she told him. “It’s the other one, you droog!”

“I—I did?”

“Of course you did. I want the one of Dredd and the man with him at graduation.”

“Yeah, right.” Olmeyer studied the screen a long moment. “If that’s the wrong picture, Judge, why does the computer keep telling me it’s a fake?”