Judge Dredd

FOUR

The thin blanket was spread in the corner on the hard plastic floor. The room was totally dark. He lay perfectly still, feet together and arms at his sides. The temperature was set at forty-four degrees. Though he wore no clothes, the cold didn’t bother him at all. Heat and cold were subjects he never thought about.

He knew other people were concerned with such things—they liked to be comfortable, they liked to eat and sleep. He did not understand these feelings. Sleeping and eating were necessary for the continuance of life. Like breathing and pumping fresh blood from the heart. These were not pleasures, they were actions of the body. Some were automatic. Others were performed with intent.

He did not discuss these thoughts with the people he knew. He did not ask himself why he didn’t feel like everyone else. What difference did it make? What people did was important. Not what they thought. People could think about anything they liked. There were Laws that governed what they did.

Drawing himself erect, he began the set of exercises he performed every day. It was a hard, rigid routine, one that pushed his body to its limits, took him to the fine, exquisite edge of pain, and sometimes far beyond.

When he was done, he walked across the small room in the dark and stepped into the shower stall. Needle sprays at thirty-four degrees assaulted him from the walls, the ceiling and the floor. The shower lasted exactly three minutes, then the fans clicked on and blew him dry.

Back in his room, he punched on the harsh ceiling light. His few possessions were in a drawer built in the wall. A food dispenser was just above the drawer. There was nothing else in the room. No table or chairs. No video screen, no music, no books. Nothing but the blanket on the floor. The room was eight by ten. His position entitled him to much better quarters. He didn’t understand why anyone would need more than this. What for? No one ever came here but him. He didn’t know why people went to other people’s rooms, but they did.

He wasn’t hungry, but he ate. He punched the green button that would send him the proper daily nourishment for his age, sex, and current health assessment. The food dispenser blinked, and his meal popped out. The pellets were compressed into the shape of a chocolate bar. The color keys were off, and the chocolate bar was blue. It didn’t taste like anything at all.

He dressed quickly and quietly in skin-tight black underwear. There was a clock set in the wall but he never looked at that. He always knew what he had to do. He always knew when. His only regret in life was that his body required these minimal periods of rest, refueling, and care. It was four hours wasted every day. They were always out there, whether he was on the job or not. There were thousands of them—the killers, the rapers, the druggos - belly - gutters - head - hackers - sex - choppers, and the screaming maniacs.

In a rare display of emotion, he clenched his fists and let a cry of rage escape his lips. It wasn’t anger at them—he had no feelings at all about the citizens of Mega-City who broke the Law. When they crossed that fine line, they were subject to arrest, judgement, imprisonment, or instant execution, depending on their crime. It was his job, his duty, his purpose in life to see that these actions were properly done.

The fury he felt was not for them but for himself—for the hours he was not allowed to do his job, for the crimes being committed at that very moment he didn’t know about—and, though they were few—for the times he had pursued a lawbreaker and failed. Each day he promised himself he would push himself harder, that he would bring the cause of justice another step closer to the goal he knew was impossible to reach. Most of all, he promised himself that he would never fail again.

He drew the shutters back from the one narrow window in the room. The sun had disappeared behind the great wall in the west. The galaxy of Mega-City sparkled like a hundred-million stars. He turned away and faced the wall. He pressed his palm against the black plate of carbon and a panel slid away. The armored suit was black as space, so black it seemed to drink in all the light. The heavy gauntlets lay on a shelf. His boots were on the floor. Resting in its holster was the Lawgiver, the deadliest handgun in the world. In the left boot was a blue-steel knife. In the belt of the dark armored suit was a daystick and a cluster of studded mini-grenades. A visored helmet hung just above the collar of the suit.

On the left breast of the armor was a shield-and-eagle badge. Every Judge in Mega-City wore one, from the Street Judge to those trusted few who sat in the high, vaulted chambers of the Hall of Justice. Every badge was the same, and each was engraved with the name of the Judge who had earned it, and sworn to wear it proudly for life. The blood-bones, the clutchers, and the slicers feared every Judge in Mega-City, every chrome-and-cop-per badge. And every scummer who prowled the dark belly of the city prayed that he would be the one that fired the bullet that pierced the badge that bore the name of Dredd…