Psykogeddon (17 page)

Drago San sighed again. "The upshot is, fight as you will, there is absolutely no way you can wriggle out of taking the consequences for killing the Contessa Trixi von Paddlepatch-Wuffleton with a big knife... with the extra twist, in fact, that you will be the only person in the entire world who believes that you didn't do it. Even though you know that you actually did."

Drago San regarded Wheems with reptile-eyes. "That is what will happen if you don't get out there and say precisely what I need you to say. I leave it up to you to decide whether it's worth it or not."

"I'm Danni Consart, this is
Mega-City News
- plugging fact into your news-hole like we were pretending it was a penis made out of news and we were doing sex!

"Coming up on channel 17,412, Big Dan Ratersnap and his Cavalcade of Country Pickin' Glee, sponsored by Whimslowe Shirts, the only shirt to wear if you feel the sudden need for a shirt. But first, hot news that could change the very face of the Big Meg forever!

"It seems that the Lady Slocombe of Shangri La Towers hab-block has lost her cat - that's her animal companion of the feline persuasion, apparently, and not any kind of euphemism at all. Not exactly all that hot in the ole news stakes, you might be thinking, but you'd be thinking wrong.

"Seems like the old biddy is so desperate to get her small domesticated animal back that she's offered a reward of half her fortune - that's the order of seven hundred million creds - no questions asked. This has prompted a large number of citizens to turn up with anything from a stuffed child's toy to an Undercity para-rat scavenger spray painted tortoise-shell brown over its more usual fluorescent green.

"The area immediately around Shangri La Towers, Sector Nine, has now been declared an official No-go Zone until the riots are brought under control and the bodies, together with various inextricably-lodged feline forms, are hauled away.

"In other news, new developments in the trial of Drago San mean that it looks like dragging on for hours yet. Live feeds are available if you want, but for the moment, we here at
Mega-City News
will be providing up-to-the-minute animated artists' impressions of what might ultimately happen to the prisoner if a gang of Janie-crazed Lesbian shok-punk chicks were to storm the Hall of Justice and start opening fire with a Screaming Meatgun.

"Big Dan Rattersnap, coming next, after these important messages."

"Having received instruction from my client," said Wheems, when the various personnel attendant to the hearing had at last been reassembled, "I should like to present further reclaimed evidence that I believe is pertinent to the case in question..."

Backflash: 01: 28: 2125

In the fungus jungles of Boranos, Dredd became aware of a change in Drago San's tone. The constant litany of bad-tempered muttering had become, by this time, little more than background noise. Now the specifics of what Drago San was saying percolated through into his conscious mind.

"I mean," Drago San said, "it's not as if the chap didn't have better things to do, like shooting jaywalkers in the knees or some such."

It was a large part of a Judge's nature that he or she did not rise to the bait of insults and slander. If they did, after all, they'd never be stopping and things would rapidly escalate out of control.

To the extent that he allowed it to be, however, the rumour that he went around shooting jaywalkers in the knees purely for the hell of it was a sore spot. It had never actually happened, but it was one of those urban legends that never seemed to die.

"What did you say?" he growled.

"I was merely going to say," said Efil Drago San, "that if you hadn't come all the way out here in the first place, in your needlessly obsessive hunt for this so-called Justice of yours, then we would neither of us be in our present sorry circumstance."

"You'd have preferred to be left where you were, would you?" Dredd said. "They were going to hang you for selling poisoned foodstuffs, eventually."

"There is that, I suppose," Drago San admitted. "People around these parts tend to be more... forthright in these matters than those of the Mega-Cities. No bad thing, in my opinion. I'm all for it. Keeps the population down, if nothing else."

"No bad thing until it comes to
you
, you mean," growled Dredd.

"But of course. Suffering and misery and shrieking bloody death are just the very ticket, until it comes to me. I'm happily hypocritical in that respect and I've never pretended otherwise. Whereas
you
, Dredd, are simply a hypocrite."

"What did you say?" Dredd asked. Drago San was just trying to needle him - but he was getting drokking tired of these continual snipes.

"You heard me. The truth is that this Law you serve has, in the end, nothing whatsoever to do with crime and punishment - as you know full well. In the end, it's a system of expediency. It changes by the day, reverses itself on a credit and then attempts to justify itself in terms of keeping order."

Yet again, there was the sense of Drago San's taunts striking slightly too close for comfort. There was not a word of truth to them, but yet again they could be twisted to fit the facts.

"There are two billion people in Mega-City One," Dredd said. "Two billion potential creeps and perps. Measures - harsh measures, sometimes - must be taken to keep them in control."

"And
control
is the actual point," said Drago San smugly. "That's what you want - in just the same way you tried to control Puerto Lumina.

"You could have gone all out to organise resources so that every one of your so-called citizens could have a life worth living, or frankly taken measures that would... shed the surplus population. Instead, you took the weasel way. Isn't it lucky that a job riot occurs, just when those possessing obsolete skills become unnecessary? Isn't it fortunate that a hab-block war occurs just at that point where the overcrowding in those particular hab-blocks becomes problematic?"

"That's not how it works," Dredd growled. "You drokking know it. Things flare up and we have to deal with them. The only way to deal is hard. We do what we have to do and no more."

"Oh, yes," said Drago San. "These things flare up. You do what you have to - no other choice - and so your hands stay clean. Tell me, Dredd - have you ever, perchance, heard of what they call the Big Lie?"

"Objection!" This from SJS-Judge Slithe, who had leapt from his seat as though it were wired to the power-grid at the mention of these words. "The use of that term is derogatory and entirely inappropriate for a public forum!"

"Come now," said Barnstable Wheems, looking for all the world as if he was entirely in command and control. Of the situation and himself. "The Big Lie - there, I used the term again - is common knowledge in Mega-City One. And it is common knowledge, also, that the procedures and processes that went under that name are no longer in place. Unless you're telling me," he added meaningfully, "that these procedures and process are still being used...?"

"Nothing of the sort," said SJS-Judge Slithe, hurriedly. "I'm merely saying that there are secondary and supplementary aspects to what was quite erroneously called the Big Lie - without having any direct relationship, whatsoever, of course - that might be damaging to city-state security if made public." He indicated the floating news-service microcams. "I merely ask that we have the chance to vet the information contained in this evidence until we see where it leads."

Chief Judge Hershey thought about it. There was always the possibility that the evidence for the defence might drop a bombshell, but she couldn't quite see where. Then again, of course, the point about dropping a bombshell is that, nine times out of ten, the people it lands on never see it coming.

On the other hand, the Special Judicial Service obsession with secrecy for its own sake never failed to stick in her craw.

"I think we'll risk it," she decided at last. "The point about city-state security, as I understand it, is to keep potentially harmful information out of the wrong hands - and if it's already in the hands of someone like the defendant then I'd say that horse has bolted.

"Besides..." she glanced pointedly at the news-service microcams. "What with several thousand channels out there, with anything from
All Nude Hydroponic-vat Makeovers
to
Xenomorphic Hentai Slash
, I doubt there's anyone out there watching who's awake enough to care."

"What are you talking about?" Dredd said. The casual mention of the Big Lie had caught him off his guard.

Drago san snorted. "Give me some credit. The biggest secret of the Mega-City One Justice Department - and so, of course, everybody knows. Everybody who matters, anyway. The blanket tranquilisation of entire Sectors, keeping the population quiet and down..."

"That was ended," Dredd said. "That was ended years ago-"

"Oh come now, Dredd. You know as well as I do that it still occurs sometimes. In special circumstances. Without anybody actually mentioning it."

Drago San paused for a moment, thoughtfully. "Then again, could it really be that you've bought into the official line? Hook and sinker? Like a blind spot that has you failing to see the perfectly obvious even when it's right under your nose? Has it never so much as occurred to you that your 'explosions of mass-violence' still occur
precisely
when and where someone, or something, decides that they should be? Something to think about, in any event."

Dredd was lost for words. This distortion of the way things were was so basic, so fundamental, that for a moment he did not know what to say.

"Be that as it may," said Efil Drago San. "We're getting somewhat off the point, which is this: I'm a killer, Dredd. I glorify in it, and I've never so much as pretended otherwise. What I have
never
done is to set a killing up so that I can sanctimoniously pretend that it was necessary or right."

Act III: Walking through Walls

"
In science - in fact, in most things - it is usually best to begin at the beginning. In some things, of course, it's better to begin at the other end. For instance, if you wanted to paint a dog green, it might be best to begin with the tail, as it doesn't bite at that end. And so-"

"
May I help oo?" Bruno interrupted.

"
Help me to what?" said the puzzled Professor, looking up for a moment, but keeping his finger on the book he was reading from, so as not to lose his place.

"
To paint a dog green!" cried Bruno. "Oo can begin wiz its mouf, and I'll-"

"
No, no!" said the Professor. "We haven't got to the Experiments yet. And so," returning to his notebook, "I'll give you the Axioms of Science. After that I shall exhibit some Specimens. Then I shall explain a Process or two. And then I shall conclude with a few Experiments. An Axiom, you know, is a thing that you accept without contradiction. For instance, if I were to say "Here we are!", that would be accepted without any contradiction, and it's a nice sort of remark to begin a conversation with. So it would be an Axiom. Or again, supposing I were to say, "Here we are not!", that would be-"

"-
a fib!" cried Bruno.

"
Oh, Bruno!" said Sylvie in a warning whisper. "Of course it would be an Axiom, if the Professor said it!"

"-
that would be accepted, if people were civil," continued the Professor, "so it would be another Axiom!"

"
It might be an Axeldum," Bruno said, "but it wouldn't be true!"

"
Ignorance of Axioms," the Lecturer continued, "is a great drawback in life. It wastes so much time to have to say them over and over again. For instance, take the Axiom, 'Nothing is greater than itself'; that is, 'Nothing can contain itself'. How often do you hear people say, "He was so excited he was unable to contain himself"? Why of course he was unable! The excitement had nothing to do with it!"

"
I say, look here, you know!" said the Emperor, who was getting a little restless. "How many Axioms are you going to give us? At this rate, we sha'n't get to the Experiments till to-morrow-week!"

"
Oh, sooner than that, I assure you!" the Professor replied, looking up in alarm. "There are only," (he referred to his notes again) "only two more, that are really necessary."

"
Read 'em out and get on to the Specimens," grumbled the Emperor.

"
The First Axiom," the Professor read out in a great hurry, "consists of these words, 'Whatever is, is.' And the Second consists of these words, 'Whatever isn't, isn't.' We will now go on to the Specimens. The first tray contains Crystals and other Things." He drew it towards him, and again referred to his notebook. "Some of the labels - owing to insufficient adhesion-" Here he stopped again, and carefully examined the page with his eye-glass. "I can't read the rest of the sentence," he said at last, "but it means that the labels have come loose, and the Things have got mixed..."

- Lewis Carroll

Sylvie and Bruno Concluded

TWELVE