Dredd VS Death (19 page)

No, Fergus was much happier where he was. Sure, he had to cross two sectors to get there, taking three zoom train interchanges and a hover-bus journey to do it, but any job was better than no job, he figured.

He had been employed as a living mannequin at the Ryder Mega-Mall for the past three years. Some people couldn't handle the job, having to stand still for eight hours a day, minus lunch-breaks, but Fergus adored it. It got him out and about amongst people, and he enjoyed being the centre of attention, as passing shoppers stopped to check out what he was wearing, and gangs of juves pulled faces and made gestures at him through the glass, trying to make him move or react. He was good at it too, able to come up with some truly novel and dynamic poses and hold them for hours at a time, able to look good in whatever they required him to model each day, and skilled at really selling the product, tailoring the intensity and excitement of his pose to whatever it was he was supposed to be modelling.

The mall management moved him around a lot, but most of the time he spent his work days in the window displays of shops like Kneepad-U-Like, Mosgrove & Thung and Ugly Kid Joe's; solid, respectable, middle-of-the-marketplace chains found in every mall and shopperama all over the city.

Of course, what he really dreamed of was a move up to the top tier: the prestige gigs working in the window displays of high-class retail outfits like Sump Couture, Khaki-a-Go-Go and Military Junta. All the mall's mannequins took home the same pay cheque amount at the end of the week, but the mannequins in those particular stores were still rated a cut above the rest. They got to put on the most daring, imaginative and outrageous poses - poses that the traditionalist management of family orientated stores like Mosgrove & Thung would never approve of - and in the staff canteen they always sat at a table of their own, never mixing with the other mannequins. All the other mannequins hated them, of course; all the others wanted to be where they were.

Fergus was pretty sure he was getting close to that dream now. His posing work a few weeks ago in the "Give Me Victory, or Give Me Death" window display of Harv's Sports Gear & Armoury had been the talk of every mannequin in the place. Better still, while he had been standing there in the display, dressed in a Juggernaut strip and holding a copy of the Inter-Meg Smashball trophy aloft in one hand and the blood-dripping, severed head of one of his shop dummy opponents in the other, he had seen none other than the assistant display arranger from Sump Couture sidle past the outside of the shop, clearly sent to check out his work on the sly.

Yeah, Fergus was pretty sure that he was on his way up, and that soon enough it would be him there in the window display of those places, modelling all the latest in high-Meg fashions.

Assuming, that was, that he didn't get eaten by rampaging hordes of zombies in the meantime.

They were everywhere in the mall. Where they came from, Fergus had no idea. What they wanted, though, was clear enough. Trapped there in the Cursed Earth safari-wear display outside Ronnie Radback's, he had watched as at least half a dozen people were eaten alive right there in front of him. He was wearing the latest in anti-rad fashion and had a machete in one hand, swinging it in frozen motion at the head of the giant fibreglass ant coming out of the ground in front of him, but the weapon was useless, as fake as the cardboard rad-counter in his other hand, so all he had to depend on to keep himself alive were his wits and his Grud-given abilities as a living mannequin.

On the plus side, he knew he could remain in this pose for hours yet. The zombies were everywhere, milling all around him, one or two of them even brushing against him, but as far as he could tell, they were simply too dumb to realise that he was flesh and blood, and not the inanimate object he appeared to be.

On the minus side, his display partner today was the new kid, the girl who had just started last week. Fergus hadn't been happy with being paired with her. Her stance ability was all wrong, she had no idea about dynamic posing, her muscle control was sadly lacking - and now, to top it all, she was probably going to get him killed and eaten.

She was playing his wife in this display, cringing in fear before the giant ant model while showing a very customer-pleasing amount of leg and cleavage, as Fergus, the intrepid Cursed Earth explorer, strode forward to defend her. She didn't have to fake that frozen look of terror on her face anymore, but she was visibly trembling in barely contained panic, and her skin glistened with a clammy fear-sweat. She couldn't take much more of this, and when she screamed, tried to run or even just moved, the zombies were going to realise she and him were there amongst them.

They could hear screams from all around, echoing through the cavernous space of the multi-level mall, along with all the snarls and moans of the zombies as they fell upon the terrified shoppers within the place or fought amongst each other for some of the choicest scraps of meat. There were security droids hovering around the place, spraying the zombies with knock-out gas or zapping them with stunner shots, although as far as Fergus could see these attacks were as much use against the things as the stern cease-and-desist warnings issued by the droid units. The droids were designed to take legal, non-lethal action against shoplifters, pickpockets, juve troublemakers, loiterers, buskers and mimes, but apparently their programming didn't cover eventualities like zombies invading the place to eat the shoppers.

Incongruously, in amongst all the carnage, the mall's auto-ads kept on running, broadcasting out their hard-sell messages to terrified shoppers and the roaming packs of zombies that were hunting those same shoppers.

"Important new Mega-Mall research by top scientists has proved that buying things may actually boost your immune system, clear your complexion, improve your eyesight and sex drive, and even significantly reduce cholesterol, so get those creds out, shoppers, and spend, spend, spend! Your continued health and well-being may depend on it!" boomed a tannoy announcement, as a gang of juves in the ground level vid-arcade pulled out their illegal las-blades, preparing to go down fighting against the zombies now crowding into the place.

"Grot Pot! When a snack's this cheap, delicious and easy to prepare, who gives a drokk about nutritional value?" suggested the Grot Pot dispenser machine at the entrance to the level one drop-tubes, unaware that most of its customers were being attacked and eaten by ravenous zombies.

"Take two bottles into the shower?" squealed a holo-ad projection of a near-naked female model in the main foyer, looking down blindly on a pack of zombies tearing apart a screaming family of Fatties. "Not me! With Otto Sump's new Sham-Poo, I just stink and go!"

"Tired? Stressed? Bored of a lifetime of endless unemployment and poor-quality leisure time?" asked a wandering hov-unit, trying to sell its ads to the corpses strewn along the main concourse. "Why not take a vacation in our new Cursed Earth holiday work-camps? We promise back-breaking hard labour, brutal overseers and the best protection from the surrounding hostile mutie tribes that money can buy!"

"Brit-Cit! Where outdated tradition, and useless pomp and ceremony still reign triumphant! And all of it just a quick trip away through the Black Atlantic tunnel!" boasted another hov-unit in a typically snooty Brit-cit accent, as it followed its rival in the holiday ad business along the same concourse.

The hov-units weren't going to be doing much business amongst the shoppers tonight, but they seemed to have attracted the attention of the zombies, and a group of the things were shambling along the concourse behind them, drawn in by the sound and movement generated by the devices. Which meant, Fergus knew from long days watching them go round and round, that they were coming straight towards him and the girl.

The girl gave a whimper of fear and shifted slightly.

"Don't move! Just let them pass us by!" Fergus hissed urgently through gritted teeth, knowing it was probably not going to do any good. She was too far gone, and probably going to start panicking any second.

The hov-units were past them now, still blaring out their ad messages. The zombies were only a few metres behind them. The girl moved again, and gave a stifled scream. The slight sound or movement was enough to catch the attention of at least one of the creatures. It looked round towards the display, studying the two immobile figures there with its dead, blank gaze. It took a step towards them, and then another one-

There was a loud, shocking report of a gunshot. The zombie fell one way, most of the contents of its skull went the other way, propelled out in a gory spray by the bullet that had just passed clean through its head.

More gunshots rang out, felling more of the creatures. Some of the shots lacked the fatal headshot accuracy of the first and instead hit the zombies' bodies, making the creatures dance and stagger under the impact of multiple hits. Fergus heard the pounding of heavy booted feet coming towards them along the concourse. Like any other citizen of Mega-City One, he recognised the sound immediately. Unlike many of those citizens, though, he thought it was the happiest sound he'd heard in his life.

Thank Grud, the Judges had got here at last.

Six of them came pounding along the concourse, gunning down zombies as they went. The bullet-riddled shape of one of the creatures picked itself back up off the ground and threw itself snarling at the lead Judge. Without breaking stride, and while gunning down another undead freak at the same time, the big Judge simply grabbed the zombie as it attacked him and hurled it over the side of the concourse, sending it crashing down onto the roof of the luxury Foord Falcon grav-speedster on the Mega-Mall prize giveaway promotional stand on the ground-floor concourse, three floors below.

The big Judge turned round, and Fergus recognised him from his voice even before he saw the name on the badge on the Judge's chest.

"Spread out," Dredd commanded the other Judges. "Two-man teams. Secure the exits on this level and check for any cits that might be hiding around the place. Remember, if it's moving but it hasn't got a pulse, shoot it in the head."

Dredd paused, glancing round at the two immobile mannequin figures. "And you two can quit playing possum. Danger's over now. Clear the area, citizens. That's an order."

With the mall's entrance and exits secured, and with the bulk of the surviving staff and shoppers who had been in the place when the zombie attacked now safely evacuated, the clean-up op could begin. No zombies could get out of the mall, and the only thing that was going to be coming in through its doors were more and more Judges, so Dredd didn't think there was much more of a problem here, and gladly relinquished command of the situation to a Tac Watch Commander from Sector House 57.

That the situation at the Ryder Mega-Mall was no more or less under control didn't exactly please Dredd. It had been nothing more than an annoying distraction from his main duty, and it wasn't even over yet. Reports were coming in of more zombie attacks in the area around the iso-block as the creatures spread further out into the sector, although it seemed as if the main concentration of the things had been trapped here at the Ryder Mall. Now all that was left to do was a tedious but necessary mopping-up operation throughout the rest of the sector to prevent the zombie contagion spreading any further.

Judges were flooding in from all the adjoining sectors now, adding to the available manpower. By all accounts, there were almost as many Judges as surviving perps inside Nixon Penitentiary now, and Giant reported that the situation there was well under control. The remainder of the vampires and any zombies that had remained in the building were now confined to just three levels in the prison's lower sections, and Justice Department heavy weapons teams armed with flamer units were already on their way to remove their polluting presence for good from the prison.

Two problems down, but what was by far the biggest issue was still unresolved. The Dark Judges were still out there somewhere and every minute they remained free, the danger to every living person in Mega-City One increased accordingly.

"Control - Dredd. Any update on the Dark Judges?"

"Negative, Dredd. We've got Anderson and half of Psi-Div scanning for them, and so far they've come up with zip. No reports of any sightings coming in either, and every slab jock in the Department is out there looking for them. If Death and his pals are out there, they're managing to keep a real low profile."

"Give 'em time, Control. Maybe they're planning something, but they'll turn up sooner or later. When that happens, all we can do is start following the trail of dead cits."

"Wilco, Dredd. Chief Judge says she wants you and Anderson together on this one. We're sending an h-wagon to pick you up."

Dredd considered the situation for a moment. He was no longer needed here, and he and Anderson together had proven themselves in the past to be the best weapon Mega-City had against the Dark Judges, but too many unanswered questions still remained.

Someone had created the retrovirus that had given birth to the vampire and zombie creatures.

Someone, possibly that same someone, had carefully planned the attack on Nixon Pen that had allowed the Dark Judges to escape.

The members of the Church of Death were no different from the fanatical kooks who filled the ranks of at least a dozen other similar illegal crank-cults, but someone had organised and funded those creeps, turned them into a weapon to be used against the Justice Department at the crucial moment of the Dark Judges' escape.