Swine Fever Read online

  "They haven't been able to find a sample."

  "What? All that stuff that spilled out of the container? Some of it must have fallen somewhere."

  "It did, but it was licked up."

  "Licked up? By cyborg pets?" The latest craze in cyborg pets had led to synthetic dogs and cats that ate and defecated with such alarming authenticity that several new public hygiene laws had to be introduced and rigorously enforced.

  "Well," said Carver, "by cyborg pets and also, er, their owners." He glanced over her shoulder and Zandonella turned to see Dredd standing there, holding a pale blue sheet of plastic. She recognised it as a report facsimile from the pathology lab.

  "No blood," said Dredd, "but a number of pieces of scorched meat fell onto the crowd in Tyson Stadium where they were promptly devoured."

  "Devoured?" said Zandonella, feeling faint.

  "Judges on the scene managed to retrieve a few pieces intact and they've now been analysed."

  "Human?" asked Carver. There was almost a hopeful note in his voice.

  "No," said Dredd. "Pig. Mutant pig."

  TWO

  The small hairy Judge from Tek-Division kept looking at Zandonella's legs, which annoyed her. Not least because it was practically impossible for anyone to determine the shape of Zandonella's legs under the regulation fat padding and armour that were standard issue for a Judge's uniform. Nevertheless, the hairy young man from Tek-Division, Judge Turan by name, kept trying, peering gamely at her legs as he offered his report. "Preliminary analysis confirms what Judge Dredd's FAU told you at the CS."

  Zandonella shook her head in silent exasperation. Turan was the sort of technician who loved to make everything more technical. And it all had to be official-sounding. Acronyms were his lifeblood. CS meant crime scene, FAU a Forensic Analysis Unit - a needle-nose pliers and glowing ping-pong ball arrangement that Dredd had applied to a bleeding hunk of meat found in the refrigerator at a crime scene that morning. Zandonella had been there, looking over his shoulder when he found the pork, an unexpected bonus at the scene of a routine domestic double-homicide. An obscenely fat man called Denzil Whitelaw and his equally obese wife had killed each other fighting over who got the last pork chop.

  "Genetic comparison established to a certainty of one in fifteen billion," chattered Turan, "that this sample of tissue, as found in the DOA's kitchen, came from an animal closely related in lineage to the animal that provided the sample you apprehended as the result of your recent HSAP."

  "HSAP?"

  "High-Speed Air Pursuit."

  Zandonella remembered a ball of pink flame in the purple night sky, twisted blackened wreckage falling from that sky, fragments of scorched meat raining down on Tyson Stadium. "And what exactly does closely related in lineage mean?"

  "The animals came from the same family group. The same litter, as it's called."

  Strange word, thought Zandonella. Litter. As though the groups of baby animals were merely garbage, to be discarded.

  "They were in fact, siblings," said Turan with satisfaction.

  "So what you're saying is that the pork from the fatties' homicide came from the same source as the stuff in the exploding airship."

  "To a very small statistical possibility of error, as I said, approximately one in fifteen billion, it did in fact, indeed match the Whitelaws' sample, yes. That is indeed what I said, yes." Turan smiled at her, swallowed nervously and cleared his throat.

  He was evidently finally finishing his report, a report that he could have sent just as easily - more easily in fact - over the computer. But Turan had insisted on coming down in person to the mess hall in Justice Central where an off-duty Zandonella had been trying to enjoy her quiet meal between tours of duty.

  Turan smiled and cleared his throat again. It's coming any moment now, she thought with glum resignation. The smile was beginning to stiffen on Turan's face as he nerved himself to take the plunge. If he clears his throat again, thought Zandonella, I'm going to scream.

  "You know, I happen to have observed you several times on the firing range in recent times when I was getting in my MQ of HTS..."

  By which he meant his monthly quota of hologram target shooting.

  "And I was firing my Lawgiver," babbled Turan, "and I must say..."

  "Yes?" said Zandonella, in the most chilly voice she could muster. He was looking at her legs again.

  "What a fine shot you are and what a great addition to the Psi-Judges you are and, and, and..."

  "And?"

  "And I was wondering if perhaps sometime you and I, we, that is, perhaps the two of us together, could have together, well, have a meal."

  "A meal?"

  "Yes. We could for example purchase something from the vending machines right now." Turan glanced wildly around at the munce dispensers that lined the walls of the canteen. The food substitutes provided by these mechanisms were as disgusting as they were cheap, and accounted for the chronic gastric offensiveness of all the Judges who used them as a mainstay of their diet. The notoriously flatulent Carver was a good example.

  The coloured lights on the dispensers gleamed with the same flickering uncertainty as Turan's desperate eyes. "I'll pay. My treat."

  "NIYL," said Zandonella.

  "NIYL?"

  "Not in your lifetime." Zandonella turned away from Turan. She had noticed Judge Dredd entering the room. He was now approaching down the blue-tiled length of the canteen, his tall figure striding between the rows of silver tables. At these tables off-duty Judges tried to look at him without staring. They were watching a walking legend and they knew it.

  "Isn't lifetime two words?" said Turan. "Shouldn't it be NIYLT?" Then he saw Dredd approaching, and beat a hasty retreat, hurrying out the rear entrance of the canteen, no doubt heading back to the Genetic Analysis unit.

  "Fraternising with Genetic Analysis?" Dredd said.

  "Not fraternising, sir, although that buffoon-"

  "That buffoon is a fellow Judge," snapped Dredd. But Zandonella could have sworn that there was a fleeting undertone of something that had sounded suspiciously like amusement in his voice. "What did he report?"

  "Judge Turan confirmed your hunch, sir. The meat came from the same source. The same group of animals."

  Dredd nodded grimly. "In that case you had better get down to the Armoury."

  "The Armoury sir?"

  "I suspect we're going to need some heavy weaponry for the next phase of this investigation."

  "Another one of your hunches, sir?"

  "And take Carver with you. I don't trust him to find the Armoury on his own."

  "Yes sir. Sir, can I ask why we're still on this assignment?"

  "Still on it?"

  "Well, judging by the resources that the department is throwing at us, they're taking this investigation pretty seriously. For a bunch of black market meat, it's commanding some senior personnel." Like you, she thought. "And why would an experienced street Judge like you be stuck with a rookie like me?"

  Dredd looked at her. She couldn't read that grim face. "Justice likes to use rookies on really dangerous assignments," said Dredd. Was there still a hint of amusement in his voice? "No point risking the lives of more valuable seasoned officers." He turned and walked away, past the bilious lights of a bank of malfunctioning munce machines. Zandonella couldn't decide whether he was joking or not. She followed him.

  Outside the canteen they went their separate ways, Zandonella sighing as she set off in search of Carver, reminding herself once she found him to take separate elevators down to the Armoury. She didn't want to be sealed in a small metal cubicle for any length of time with Carver and his malfunctioning exhaust pipe.

  In the corridor to the Armoury, Judge Dredd caught up with Zandonella and Carver. He had two more rookie street Judges with him, both young women, though of dramatically differing height and build. "These are the Karst sisters," said Dredd. "Judge Karst, E and Karst, T."

  "Esma and Tykrist," said the smaller, plumper Judge co
nfidingly to Zandonella as they fell into step on the long corridor that led to the Armoury. "I'm Esma and that tall drink of waste fluid there is my sister, Tykrist." The lanky girl nodded lugubriously at Zandonella and Carver. "She's the shy one," continued Esma. "I'm the outgoing, vivacious one."

  "Why have they sent you on this assignment?" interrupted Carver in a hissing voice which clearly he intended to be a whisper. "This is our assignment. We broke the case open." Zandonella found herself strangely pleased to hear Carver use the word "we". She realised that in the bloodshed and violence of the past few days a bond had been forged between herself and the other rookie. She had become a comrade in arms with this ill-smelling young street Judge. And now he was jealously defending what he saw as their territory against the newcomers. Personally, Zandonella felt the sisters looked promising, and she would welcome having more women on the team, as long as they weren't anything like Psi-Judge O'Mannion.

  Esma Karst was looking at Carver with contempt. "Well, they obviously felt you needed the assistance."

  "More cannon fodder," said Zandonella. "And very welcome too." She smiled at the Karst sisters. If they were going to all serve together on a dangerous mission like this, they would have to form a rapport and all pull together. Carver would do well to realise that.

  "What do you mean, cannon fodder?" asked Carver in genuine puzzlement.

  "What's that terrible smell?" said Tykrist.

  "Quiet, all of you," said Dredd. "I believe Psi-Judge O'Mannion has a briefing for us."

  Zandonella looked up to see her commanding officer standing in front of the huge vault door of the Armoury. It rose twenty metres into the air, a seamless, monstrous gate that formed a gleaming silver cliff of reinforced steel. The Armoury was one of the best-guarded divisions in Justice Central. Heaven help the Mega-City if any of its more psychopathic denizens managed to get their hands on the experimental weaponry that lay beyond these doors, sleeping in dreadful readiness in the Judges' special arsenal.

  O'Mannion's silver hair was reflected in a bright burnished zigzag on the monstrous doors behind. Her sardonic smile was a slash of red on her pale, vulpine face. She stood with hands on her hips, legs braced wide in an attitude of defiance. "You're late, Judge," she greeted Dredd. "We were supposed to rendezvous here for weapons familiarisation two and a half minutes ago."

  "Sorry to waste your precious time, O'Mannion," snarled Dredd. "Next time I'll let you round up the rookies and I'll take the briefing with the Council of Five. Now what have you got to tell us?"

  "Well, the Council is taking very seriously indeed the matter of this contraband meat."

  "Why?" said Esma.

  "Why?" O'Mannion turned to Dredd. "Who is this?"

  Dredd grimaced. "Judge Karst, E."

  "And why does she feel she has the right to question the Council's ruling?"

  "All I meant," said Esma, "is that it's just meat, for grud's sake. Just like the stuff they grow out in the Cursed Earth on Sausage Tree Farm."

  "Well that shows how much you understand, Judge Karst, E." O'Mannion turned her withering bitter-coffee eyes on the unfortunate Esma. "It is absolutely not like the farmed meat. It couldn't be more different."

  "How so?" said Esma.

  "It doesn't grow on bushes programmed with animal DNA."

  "What do you mean?" asked Carver; as always, he was struggling to keep up.

  Psi-Judge O'Mannion rolled her eyes and then went on to explain in the simplest possible terms. "It contains no plant DNA. Sausage Tree Farm could not possibly be the source."

  "Then where did it come from?" persisted Carver. "If meat doesn't come from genetically modified plants then where do you get it?"

  O'Mannion smiled indulgently. She seemed to forget her impatience, as if she was suddenly glad to share her specialist knowledge. "It grows on an animal."

  "Really?" said Tykrist and Esma in a simultaneous chirp.

  "In the past all meat was grown on animals," said Zandonella, who was an avid viewer of the History Channel.

  "Really?" said Esma. "That's sick."

  "It's awful," said her sister.

  "It's disgusting," agreed Esma.

  "Not to mention unsanitary, unhygienic and possibly lethal." O'Mannion looked at Dredd. "If this meat didn't come from Sausage Tree Farm, then where did it come from? Possibly some tainted source in the Cursed Earth. We don't know."

  "And we can't take chances," said Dredd.

  "Precisely. That's why the Council wants all trade in this potentially dangerous meat of unknown origin stamped out." O'Mannion went on, but Zandonella was by now hardly listening. It was a standard, motivate-the-troops pep talk.

  O'Mannion finally said something interesting and Zandonella started listening again. "We don't know where this meat comes from and we don't know its long-term effects on human beings. If we're not careful we might be facing a public health crisis like the great American BSE epidemic of 2017."

  Carver and the Karst sisters stared blankly at O'Mannion, but Zandonella knew what she was talking about, thanks again to the History Channel.

  "Only about fifty million people were wiped out in that," added O'Mannion cheerfully. She could afford to be cheerful. On the scale of Mega-City size populations, fifty million souls was just a drop in the bucket. "It was nonetheless considered one of the first great public health disasters of the twenty-first century. And we don't want any repetition of it."

  "So we shut these meat dealers down," said Dredd, putting an end to the lectures and turning to the vast vault door that sealed off the Armoury. Zandonella felt her pulse quicken at his words, and at the rock steady tone of determination in Dredd's voice. It was the voice of a man who knew his job and intended to do it, and she felt sorry for any perps who got in his way.

  "Now let's look at the weapons we're going to use for the job." Dredd stepped closer to the door. With O'Mannion at his side, he moved to an oval screen recessed in the steel door at waist level and began to punch in code words on a keypad. After a moment he stepped aside and let O'Mannion type in her own entry code. Access to the Armoury always required at least two Judges with top security clearance to be in attendance.

  O'Mannion smiled with satisfaction as she typed. "Right. That's almost it. We should be cleared for entry any moment now..."

  But just then the lights in the corridor went out, to be replaced a split second later by an eerie amber glow. The milky light from the entry screen also suddenly went out and the oval portal that covered it snapped shut. O'Mannion cursed as she snatched her fingers back from the keypad, the descending steel cover almost slicing them off.

  "What's happening?" said Carver. The red glow etched an expression of surprise and confusion on his boyish face. Then he said something else, but his words were lost in the sudden high-pitched whooping sound that Zandonella remembered from drills during her cadet days.

  "Intruder alert," she said, turning to look at Dredd, who simply nodded in confirmation and drew his Lawgiver from its holster.

  "You mean someone has broken into Justice Central?" shouted Esma, her voice echoing violently in the sudden silence as the alarm cut off and the strange amber glow faded. The white lights returned in the corridor, coming smoothly back up to the usual level of illumination.

  "Does that mean they've been caught?" said Carver.

  "No," said Dredd. "It means that every Judge in the vicinity is assumed to be aware of the danger and to devote all their attention to finding the intruder until the all-clear is sounded." He moved off down the corridor, his gun held ready.

  "Where are you going?" said O'Mannion.

  "To find the dirtbag who has entered Justice Central without due authorisation." Dredd was heading rapidly back in the direction they had come from.

  "But how do you know they aren't heading here?" called O'Mannion. "Maybe they're trying to break into the Armoury."

  "Now it's locked down, they won't be able to get in," said Dredd, his voice fading down the corridor. "Even we c
an't get in."

  A few hundred metres down the corridor the group caught up with Dredd again. He had paused in his swift striding to talk to Judge Darrid. The moustached veteran seemed agitated. "I could have stopped him."

  "Him," murmured Dredd. "Are you sure there's only one intruder?"

  "Sure," said Darrid. "I was in the Waste Processing section when the dirtbag arrived."

  "Waste Processing?" Zandonella said. Darrid looked at her. There was something furtive in his eyes and she wondered why.

  "You know," he explained haltingly. "Where they have the floating platforms taking the garbage cans away from Justice Central and bringing the empty cans back?"

  "What were you doing there?" said O'Mannion, echoing Zandonella's own puzzled, unspoken question.

  Darrid's corrupt face flushed pink. "Official departmental business," he said.

  "Like heck," said Carver in Zandonella's ear. "He goes there to check out the kitchen waste. That's where the old boy gets his meals. And doesn't have to pay anything for the privilege."

  "You're kidding," murmured Zandonella. No wonder he'd looked furtive. He'd been eating garbage.

  "No," said Darrid. He'd overheard them. "He's not kidding." He kept his eyes down as he spoke and wouldn't meet her gaze, but his face was flushed with anger. "A lot of the old veterans eat for free that way. What's wrong with it?"

  Eating food thrown away from the departmental canteen, rejected meals, scraps from trays? Zandonella's stomach heaved. As hard to believe as it seemed, there were Judges with worse eating habits than Carver.

  "Anyway," said Darrid, "I was there when one of the hover skiffs arrived. They're robot piloted, you know. No humans on board. They just plug into the docking port outside Waste Disposal and they load the empty waste cans in like bullets into a magazine. The cans are transported back into the building in position, ready to receive the next load of garbage, and-"

  "What happened?" said Dredd tersely.