Judge Rico had gotten used to feeling pangs of emotion that were not his own. He was one of Judge Dredd's clones, and for some inexplicable reason, this meant that he was involuntary privy to Judge Dredd's emotions.
Flashes of anger and disbelief, for instance, when the democratic terrorist group Total War had detonated atomic bombs in Mega-City One.
Searing rage, when Acting Chief Judge Sinfield had caused the death of a Judge.
Gut fear, when Vienna had been kidnapped by the Sovs.
Spikes of pain, signifying times when Dredd caught a bullet or a particularly vindictive physical blow.
When Rico had twigged on to the origin of these feelings, he started to make further observations about the exact nature of this strange psychic link with his clone-twin.
He learned that he only picked up sensations when they were particularly intense. Joe Dredd's quotidian feelings of anger, frustration or contempt did not surface on Rico's radar.
Proximity, too, was another factor. When Rico had been working in the mutant townships and Dredd was in the Meg, miles apart, Rico had noticed that their sympathetic bond had attenuated to almost nothing.
In all events, Dredd was of fairly Stoic temperament and he did not make it a habit to broadcast especially colourful emotions through their psychic link if he could help it. Dredd's usual mode was to repress his emotions. He seized each feeling as if they were perps, locked them away in the dark depths of his iso-cube heart. And as Dredd became more and more alert to his emotional exposure to Rico, he only constructed bigger and stronger walls around himself.
So when Rico walked into Council chambers, he was downright surprised at the strength of the emotion that hit him.
Dredd stood in the room alone, gazing out the huge plastiplex windows. The sun was setting. Light receded from ravaged city blocks. Shattered, crumbling and burnt, it would be more apt to call them husks. Mega-City One, as they had known it, lay before them dead, gutted and cold.
The older Judge's posture was stooped, his head sagging slightly. He had abandoned any semblance of rigid discipline and indifferent authority.
A tsunami of despair and guilt deluged Rico.
"Thank you for seeing to Vienna. I..." Dredd's voice trailed off, little more than a husky, tired whisper. He didn't turn to face Rico.
"It was no problem. You had other things to deal with." Rico shifted uneasily.
"I relocated her to a safe block."
"Good," said Rico.
Dredd continued to stare at the remnants of the city. There was a pregnant silence, but interposed between the two Judges was a thick, almost tangible tension. Rico could sense shame and remorse and frustration, all tumbled together, underlined by a ubiquitous, relentless current of despondency. An internal but faltering struggle to impose control.
"Mutant volunteers have been deployed to Sectors 25 to 50," said Rico, trying to steer Dredd's thoughts towards a more productive topic. "Reports are that the clean-up is going at a rapid pace. Meg-East is projected to be cleared within eight months."
Dredd did not respond. Seemed not to notice, or care. "If I hadn't given the order," he murmured, almost imperceptibly.
There was no context to Dredd's statement. But Rico intuitively knew the meaning. Because he was Dredd. And Dredd was him.
And he knew that Dredd was referring to the moment when Dredd had decided to cause the Total Annihilation Devices to detonate on East-Meg One during the Apocalypse War. The event that had caused the Sovs, three decades later, to strike back. Bringing them where they were today.
Rico hesitated, and then said softly: "You had no choice."
"I always had the choice."
It was easy to blame yourself, with the benefit of hindsight, Rico thought. It was easy to believe that you should have, that you could have taken a different path, chosen a different destiny for yourself and for your nation.
Rico had often pondered what he would have done had he been in his clone's position. Down in the Sov missile silo, finger hovering over the button that would spew death, wipe an entire unwitting population of innocents from the face of the wretched planet.
And Rico had come to the conclusion, each time, that he would have done the same. What other choice did he have? How could he have negotiated with the likes of someone like War Marshall Kazan? He wouldn't listen to reason. There was no chance of a peaceful settlement. 400 million Mega-City cits were already dead. At this point, it was Mega-City One or East-Meg One and Rico would have sacrificed the latter every time.
But would Rico have done differently had he had the benefit of hindsight? Had he known that the fateful moment would set off this inexorable cycle of violence – had he known would befall Mega-City One – the reduction of the population to 50 million.
No citizens even crying and moaning in the streets. No sound, no stir, for the mounds that piled the thoroughfares were already dead
Rico had wrestled with the problem over and over in his mind, before he realised that it was pointless. What was the point of running through the counterfactuals, the what-ifs? What was done was done. It couldn't have been helped.
Rico was Dredd. But at the same time, he was not Dredd. He could get an idea of how Dredd was feeling, but he could never grasp the full picture of what the old veteran was going through.
These thoughts ran through Rico's mind. He refrained from verbalising them.
After all, he knew Dredd knew it, too.
A sense of loss had been tightening his chest. Some of it the old man's. Some of it his.
"You did what you had to do," Rico eventually said, mirroring Dredd's well-known phrase.
"Perhaps." Dredd watched a dark brown cloud languidly roll across the tip of a half-collapsed block. What seemed like a few minutes passed. "If only we had done it right."
Rico knew that Dredd, now, was referring to their handling of the Chaos Bug situation.
Unspoken: If only the Justice Department had heeded his advice in dealing with the East-Megs, with Borisenko. If only Dredd hadn't lost their respect and trust.
If only... if only.
Rico didn't really know how to respond. All he said was, quietly: "No use to dwell on it."
Dredd turned to face Rico for the first time. His face was completely shadowed, although the craggy contours of his scarred chin were still perceptible. Wrinkles were etched deeply in his skin; seemed even more pronounced in the dim lightning. Made him seem even more ancient than his age.
The older Judge's shoulders were slack, his frame bowed: seemingly burdened by the weight of the dead, all 350 million souls. His restless fingers alternatively squeezed and released the pitted daystick lashed to his utility belt.
A man who was built on the concept – the carefully crafted illusion - that he had control. Control over others, control over himself. Without that construct, he was nothing.
But it was the inevitable fact of life that one did not, really, have control. It was the human condition that life was stomm, and then you died.
What if Dredd hadn't lost the respect of the Justice Department? What if Dredd's words had been heeded? Even then, there was still no guarantee of certainty. Dredd still wouldn't have had the guarantee of preventing the death and destruction.
There was no such thing as true control. Rico knew it, and knew Dredd knew it. But he knew that neither he nor Dredd would willingly discard that comfortable fiction that both men had control over their lives and the lives of others. So they would have to deal with the inevitable feelings of culpability when they fell.
Flashing in Rico's mind: visceral scenes of citizens collapsing dead. Blood blossoming from torsos. Sticky, near-black blood streaming from eyes and nostrils. Stink of blood and pus and bile filling the air, mingled with the smell of cordite. Relentless cracking of Lawgiver pistols and the rasp of respirators. Stumbling over detritus, over bodies.
Flashes from Dredd's experiences during the thick of the Day of Chaos. Five days ago. The culling.
The sensations quickly faded, repressed. Dredd made no outward acknowledgment that it had happened save for the tightening of lips, a subtle expulsion of breath.
Rico felt surprise, and quickly repressed it too, hyperaware of the porousness of the barrier between himself and the older man at the moment.
"Getting old," the septuagenarian Judge said. Unspoken: Apologies. Let's never speak of this again.
Usually, Rico would treat this type of remark as an invitation to rib the old man about his age. This time, he said: "Have some time left in you yet." We still need you.
"Yes," Dredd conceded. "Time enough to salvage the remains." Dredd straightened up, lifted his head; resumed the usual stiff, stony exterior. Rico was relieved when Dredd's voice slipped back to its usual commanding tone. "Concentrate on rounding up droids, employ them to full capacity. Check on Vienna in the next few days. See if she is managing."
"Yes, sir."
Silently, Dredd exited the room. Rico gave him a few seconds, and then followed.