Judge Dredd

“Halt! You have ten seconds to surrender. Ten… nine…”

“Dredd, take it easy,” Hershey said, “it’s a servo-droid.”

“… Make your selection, please. Insert your card in the slot…”

Dredd took one step forward and shoved the barrel of his weapon half a foot into the slot.

“… Make your select—oh, shit!”

The front of the robot came totally unhinged. Boxy foodpaks in drab shades of gray, brown, and mildew-green spilled onto the floor. Half a second later, Fergie tumbled out of the back. He blinked in the unfamiliar light, staring at Hershey and Dredd like an animal caught in the woods.

“Listen,” he said, “I know what you guys are thinking, but that’s the way it looks… I mean, that’s the way it is but it’s not the way it looks—”

Dredd grabbed Fergie by the collar, lifted him straight off the floor and slammed him hard against the wall.

“Wuuuuh, listen a minute, okay?” Fergie’s teeth rattled. He kicked his feet and grabbed at empty air.

“Mega-City Municipal Code One-Deuce-Niner-Six. Willful sabotage of a public droid. That’s six months, Citizen. Let’s see your card.”

“Come on, give me a break, Judge—Judge—” Fergie stared at the eagle and shield an inch before his eyes. “Judge—Dredd? Oh, my God…”

Fergie’s card fluttered out of his hand. Hershey snatched it out of the air. Snapping a scanner off of her weapons belt, she slipped Fergie’s card through the narrow slot once. A holo cube blossomed into life. Magenta words crawled across its face:

FERGUSON, HERMAN D.

MEGA-CITY 2, L.A.

SENTENCE: ASPEN PRISON

TIME SERVED: SIX MONTHS, THREE DAYS

PRISONER NUMBER: ASP-900764

CHARGES: TAMPERING OF CITY DROIDS…

COMPUTERS… CASH MACHINES… ROBO-TAXIS

RELEASED: MEGA-CITY 1, SENTENCE COMPLETED

Dredd scanned the rest of the message, and shook his head in disgust. “You got off of the shuttle this afternoon. You haven’t been out of jail five hours, Ferguson.” He turned to Hershey. “He’s a habitual. Automatic five-year sentence.”

“What!” Fergie turned white. “Five years? No, no way. Look, I didn’t have any choice. Those droogs were in my room. They hit me on the head. Come on, look at my head. Will you look at my head, just look at it, okay? What was I supposed to do, jump out the damn window!”

“It’s legal,” Dredd said.

“It’s suicide,” Fergie shouted. “It’s six floors down!”

“Case closed. Five years.”

“Wait a minute!”

“I’ve got a question,” Hershey said. “How did you do that?”

“How did I do what?”

“Work that food droid. That’s a highly complex electronic device. Only a trained, skilled professional could possibly do that.”

“Yeah? You’re kidding.” Fergie grinned. “What you do is you cross the yellow wire with the blue wire. Unless you got a Model E, then you gotta—uuuk!”

Dredd let go and Fergie dropped to the ground. “You have just made a confession, Citizen. Duly dated and recorded.” He nodded at a Street Judge standing in the hall. “Take this person away. Next shuttle back to Aspen Prison.”

The Street Judge walked up to Fergie. Snake-locks whipped around his wrists.

“I am telling you, I didn’t have any choice. I didn’t do anything!”

Fergie’s voice echoed down the hall. He dragged his heels, plowing two clean furrows on the floor.

“You think that’s good, the foodkart stuff?” he called out to Hershey. “You ought to see me with a Poker- droid!”

“Gambling devices are illegal,” Dredd said.

Hershey wiped her hands along the sides of her uniform. “The guy’s scared to death, you know? He might’ve been telling the truth. He’s just a scam artist. He’s not going to be hanging around with crazies, Dredd.”

Dredd shook his head. “I’ve heard every sad story in Mega-City, Hershey. What did you expect him to say? Lawbreakers are liars. Liars are criminals. Criminals must be punished to the full extent of the Law.”

Dredd gave Hershey a curious look. “These are all things you know as well as I do. Why do I get the feeling you do not clearly understand what I’m saying? You are familiar with the Articles. You know the Legal Code.”

“I am completely familiar with every aspect of my work, Judge Dredd.” She snapped down her visor to mask her eyes. “I do not need you or anyone else to tell me how to perform my duty!”

“I’m pleased to hear that, Judge Hershey. Thank you for clarifying the matter.”

“You’re welcome, Judge!”

Hershey stalked off, taking careful measured steps, keeping her back straight. She was determined not to betray her feelings in front of Dredd again. Damn the man, she thought, is there anything inside him, any soul, anything behind those armor-plated eyes?

There had to be. Every person had something in his heart—some small light of understanding, some connection to the rest of humanity. Even the filth who’d slaughtered those people in the street and murdered Briscoe. It was hard to imagine them as members of the human race, but they were. And Dredd, as far above their kind as the towers of Mega-City were above Heavenly Haven… Dredd was human, too.

Downstairs, Hershey stood in the night and looked out over the ruined neighborhood. The street was a combat zone. Broken glass littered the ground, and the tenement walls were blackened by fire. The bodies of the victims had been hastily removed, and maintenance trucks were spraying down the street. By first light, the place would probably look better than it had in years.

She could hear the wail of sirens in the night. There were fifty million people in Mega-City One. Fifty million packed into three hundred twenty square miles. A hundred and twenty years before, a city with another name had stood here. That city had held eight-million people, and in the same three hundred twenty square miles!

Crime had nearly overwhelmed the city then, and there had been no Judges to keep the vast and lawless population under control.

If we ever lost the upper hand here…

Hershey shuddered at the thought. Maybe she was wrong and Dredd was right. Maybe they couldn’t afford to understand… maybe there was no way to let their guard down. Article One, carved on the high wall at the entry to the Hall of Justice read:

FIRST THERE IS THE LAW.

It was something Dredd understood. That there was no other way. No other means to assure that civilization survived.

Maybe I’d better think about that instead of feeling sorry for some miserable little groon in a foodkart. Maybe I’d better think about how to stay alive…

She walked out into the street and studied the burned and twisted mass of metal that had been her