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Authors: Mitchel Scanlon

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BOOK: Sins of the Father
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Straining her ears to home in on the sound, Anderson was led past a row of dented munce bins and a broken conveyor belt to an area where the factory's right wall turned a corner and opened out into the even broader expanses of what she guessed was the old main production line. Ahead, she could see a vague light. Drawing nearer, she saw it was coming from a metal staircase leading up to a second-storey gantry. Partway up the staircase, on a half-landing where the stairs turned back diagonally on their way to the gantry, she could see a man cradling a baby.

It was Lucas Verne.

Careful to avoid noise and stay to the shadows, she moved closer. Verne had hung a porta-light on a hook over the staircase railing, and as he paced back and forth on the landing with the baby in his arms Anderson saw the glint of a knife in his right hand. The perp seemed agitated, as though wrestling inwardly with some weighty dilemma.

Keeping them in her line of sight, Anderson advanced quietly toward the stairway until she reached a point where Verne was well within range of her Lawgiver. Given the fact he was holding the baby, it was clear she couldn't use a stun-shot to subdue the perp. According to the warning guidelines issued by Justice Department with the Lawgiver Mark Two, a stun-shot intended to disable an adult contained enough electrical amplitude to kill a child - never mind a three month-old infant. Equally, even as she switched the ammunition selector on the gun's magazine to allow it to fire standard execution rounds, she realised any attempt to kill or wound Verne would be just as risky. The staircase landing he was standing on was at least five metres above the ground. If she shot Verne and he dropped Garret Cooley, the fall would likely kill the baby. It seemed the safest course would be to try to persuade the perp to surrender.

An idea occurred to her. If she could surreptitiously perform a telepathic scan on Verne without his knowledge, she might gain insights that would make it easier to talk him down. At the same time he was obviously volatile, while the scan would cloud her awareness of the physical world and interfere with her ability to respond if he suddenly tried to harm the child.

She needed backup. Fast.

Bryson
. Sending out a telepathic summons, she felt the presence of the street Judge's mind on the other side of the factory.
I need you here now! I've found the perp. He's on the landing of a staircase by the north-east wall. Get over here as fast you can, but keep it quiet and make sure you stay out of sight
.

Affirmative on that
, Bryson responded. There was a pause.
Yeah, I can see a light up ahead. I should be there in two minutes
.

Up on the landing, the perp had abruptly stopped pacing. Forewarned by a sudden sense of disquiet, Anderson gently eased the flashlight from her belt and crept towards the foot of the staircase. Her instincts told her the perp had reached some kind of decision. She saw a movement in the hand that held the knife as Verne brought the blade closer to the baby's throat. Bryson was still at least a minute away.

For better or worse, it looked like she would have to deal with the situation on her own.

"Anderson, Psi Division!" Stepping out of the shadows she turned the flashlight on, training the beam on Verne with her left hand as she aimed her Lawgiver at him with the right. "Lucas Verne, you are under arrest! Drop the knife and put the baby down. Now!"

In response Verne stood motionless, his knife still hovering near the child's throat. Spotlighted in the glare of the flashlight, his eyes wild, his hair and beard in disarray, he looked the image of an Old Testament prophet. His brow creased in thought, he stared at her in silence.

"Did Grud send you?" he said at last. "Are you His angel?"

Awaiting her reply, Verne fell silent once more. The baby had stopped crying, as though waiting for her answer in the same state of expectation as his captor. Briefly, Anderson wondered whether she should try to play to the perp's delusions. But the stakes were high and she had no way of knowing how Verne would react. If she claimed to be an angel would he surrender, or would it make him more likely to harm the child? She decided her best course of action was to follow the procedures they had taught her at the Academy Of Law. Command the situation. Bark out orders. Don't give the perp time to think. Make it clear compliance is his only option.

"Drop the knife! You are under arrest! Put the baby down and step away from him! Do it! Now!"

"Are you an angel?" the perp was persistent. Her commands, and the fact she was pointing a gun at him, did not seem to faze him. "Is this a sign? Did Grud send you to save the child? Did He send you to stay my hand?"

Stalemate. It was as though the perp hardly registered the danger of the situation, as though the real world had less weight to him than whatever psycho-drama was playing out inside his head. There was a glassiness to his expression: he wore the unresponsive thousand-metre stare of the confirmed fanatic.

"Did Grud send you?" he asked her again. "Are you an angel?"

Anderson didn't like the way this whole thing was going. It felt like the perp was building up his courage, his emotions slowly burning, getting ready to explode in a violent crescendo at any moment. The knife was barely a centimetre away from the baby's throat. Conflicting strategies warred within her: should she try to talk him down, play along with madness, or take the shot and pray for the best?

She saw movement at the periphery of her vision. It was Bryson. The street Judge was on the other side of the staircase. He had worked his way behind the perp, his Lawgiver raised to aim up at Lucas Verne as he moved to take a position just below the landing. Verne had not noticed him yet: he had eyes only for Anderson.

"Are you an angel?" the perp demanded. He was growing impatient, and Anderson realised the time for a decision was fast approaching. Whatever she was going to do, she needed to do it quickly. "Are you an angel? Tell me."

Bryson
, she contacted the street Judge telepathically. She kept her eyes on the perp, wary of any sudden movements.
I need you to advance until you're standing directly below the perp. And holster your weapon. You're going to need both hands free
.

What are you planning to do?
, Bryson asked her. But she had no time to answer him. On the landing, his back turned to Bryson and still unaware of the street Judge's presence, Lucas Verne was becoming angry.

"Are you an angel?" he shouted, his body shifting in ill-concealed agitation. As he moved, his knife inched closer to the baby's throat. "Tell me! Tell me now or-"

"I'm an angel, Lucas," she said, silently hoping she could play the role right. "My name is Cassandra. Grud sent me with a message for you. He says the baby is not the Messiah. You don't need to hurt hi-"

"Liar!" Verne roared at her. "You're a liar! Grud didn't send you! Do you think you can fool me?"

He lifted the baby in his arms, jostling the child awake. Disturbed, the baby resumed his crying.

"Do you think I don't know that this is the true Messiah?" Verne was raving now, spittle flying from his mouth as his words rebounded in harsh echoes from the walls and machinery around them. "You think I don't know what that means? Billions of people are going to die. The Apocalypse is coming, and I'm the only one who can stop it! Me! Lucas Verne! It's up to me to save the world! I see that now!"

"Lucas!" In an attempt to get the perp to snap out of it, Anderson shouted his name. It was like his thought process was a freight train bearing down on its destination. She had to try to derail it. "Listen to me! You don't know what you're-"

"No! I won't listen!" the perp shrieked at her, his eyes gleaming in mad zeal. "You're not an angel - you came here to trick me! But I know what's really going on! I understand everything! I see it all! It's time now! It's time to save the world!"

The knife moved in the perp's hand to press against the child's throat. The baby cried. Anderson screamed.

"Lucas! No!"

Running out of options, she did what she had to.

She took the shot.

 

It happened in slow motion.

Her shot hit the perp in the chin, a red flower of blood exploding from the crown of his head as the bullet angled upwards. The perfect killshot: Verne was dead before he knew it. The knife dropped from his hands. His body slumped against the metal banister behind him. Anderson held her breath.

She held her breath. As Verne fell back against the railing, his body twisted. The baby slid out of his arms and over the side. Verne collapsed onto the landing. The baby was crying.

She held her breath. The baby was falling in mid-air, wailing. His body turned in the air as gravity pulled him towards the factory floor. Below him, Bryson was waiting with his arms held open. Anderson felt a bead of sweat run down her neck.

She held her breath.

 

"Nice catch," she said afterwards.

"I can't believe you did that!" Bryson's face was aghast. He held the crying baby cupped in his hands as though the child were made glass. "Drokk! What if I'd slipped or..."

"You didn't." Moving towards him, she inspected the child in his arms. Pulling open the baby's pyjama top, she lightly pressed a finger to his chest. The heart was beating a strong, rapid rhythm. She checked the tiny limbs, the neck, the ribs, the head. There didn't seem to be any fractures. "I'll admit, it was a gamble. But we'd run out of options. You saw what the perp was like - there was no talking him down. If I hadn't taken the shot when I did, he would have cut the kid's throat. At least, we were able to save one life here - even if we couldn't save two."

She glanced up at Verne's body on the landing, blood dripping from his head wound and seeping through the gaps between the stairs to fall onto the factory floor. Even now, she regretted the fact she had needed to kill him.

"I'd have taken the stun-shot if I could have," she said. "But I couldn't. Not without running the risk of killing Garret Cooley."

"Control to Anderson!" Abruptly, the radio unit on her belt burst into noisy life. Without consciously realising she was doing it, she had already automatically switched her radio back on the instant the crisis with Verne had passed. It was habit as much as anything: when you were a Judge in Mega-City One, the end of one crisis inevitably merged with the beginning of another.

Turning away from Bryson and the baby, she took the call.

"Anderson receiving, Control. Over."

"We've been trying to get through to you for nearly half an hour," the dispatcher said testily. "You're supposed to notify us if you go off-comm."

"Exigent circumstances, Control. A hostage situation. I'm free now though. What's up?"

"We had a call from Psi Division," the reply came back. "They want you over at Omar House ASAP."

"Acknowledged. Tell them I'm on my way. ETA: thirty minutes. Anderson over and out." She placed the radio back on her belt.

Omar House was the headquarters of Psi Division. A summons there, especially one pulling her away from her normal duties, likely meant that there was trouble brewing.

"I have to go," she told Bryson. "Psi Division business. I assume you can handle things from here on in?"

"Handle things? You mean..." Bryson's face was a picture of spluttering outrage. "Anderson, you can't just leave me here... holding the baby?!"

"Street Division training doesn't include how to change diapers, I take it?" she smiled wickedly at him. With the crisis passed, she could not help having a little bit of fun at the street Judge's expense. "Don't worry, I'll put a call in for Med-Judge backup on my way out. In the meantime though, a word to the wise about babies. I hear the best way to stop them crying is by singing to them."

"Singing..?" Bryson took the bait - hook, line and sinker. "You can't be serious!"

"Hey, I'm no more an expert than you are." Shrugging, Anderson turned away and began to head towards the factory forecourt. "But you're probably going to have to wait at least fifteen minutes until the Med-Judges get here. If you want to spend all that time listening to a baby crying, it's up to you."

She was nearly at the factory door when she heard the first sounds of singing behind her. Bryson didn't have much of a voice - and, even if his voice had been better, she got the impression he would have had a hard time holding a tune. Still, as the faltering strains of the street Judge's chosen melody followed her across the building, Anderson was forced to smile. Given the choice of lullaby, she would have liked to stay longer and hear the whole song, but she was needed elsewhere.

"Well, I'll tell you what I want, what I really-really want!"

"Tell me what you want, what you really-really want!"

"I wann-ah! I wann-ah! I wann-ah! I wann-ah! I wann-ah..."

It was funny really, but she would have never expected a street Judge to be a fan of classical music.

FOUR

 

RIDING SHOTGUN

 

"You have requested a floor in the restricted access zone," the elevator told her. "Please insert your building keycard and enter your personal identification number if you wish to continue."

Suppressing a yawn, Anderson pulled the Justice Department override card from her utility belt and pushed it into the keycard slot. It had been a long night, and she was tired. Her original double-shift had ended two hours ago, but it had now been extended into a third eight-hour segment. After riding over to Omar House, she had been giving a new assignment. A homicide at the Franz Kafka Office-Plex in Sector 45. The victim had been killed on the two-hundredth floor, but so far the elevator seemed unwilling to take her any higher than one hundred and ninety.

"Thank you, Judge," the tone of the elevator's voice changed after she inserted her card. It almost purred. "You are now cleared to progress." She felt a vague sensation of movement as the elevator began to rise.

The override card was standard issue: as much a part of a Judge's regular arsenal as the Lawgiver and daystick. It allowed Judges to override locks and gain access to any building or vehicle in the city. Removing the card, Anderson yawned once more. Before leaving Omar, she had been able to grab a few minutes in a sleep-machine or Total Relaxation Inducer. In theory, ten minutes inside a TRI was worth the same as a full night's sleep. In practice, Anderson had always found sleep machine sessions to be a poor substitute for natural rest. Admittedly, she no longer felt as mind-numbed and weary as she had when she had entered the machine, but she felt none of the freshness and new perspective that a few hours' real sleep would have given her. Instead, she currently felt like three day-old, re-heated munce.

BOOK: Sins of the Father
10.94Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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