Angel's Mercy

by ThePsiFiles

"The Angel stalks the streets, hunting down perps for Judge Death". A multiple homicide brings Anderson back to Mercy Hospital, a place that looms large in her childhood, and she is forced to confront her own weaknesses as she is taken on a dark journey into the self by an old acquaintance and new enemy. Can Cornelius and Quartermain save her from herself?

1. Baptism

A/n : Detailed author's notes for this story appear at the end of each chapter. General notes about my "Dredd" fanon setting (and links to inspiration pictures etc.) appear on my profile.

This story takes place in late September, about two weeks after "Bee-Movie".

The initial inspiration for this story was a short piece of description / history in chapter 12 of Rhinne's "Shielded", as well as some of the scenes following. I spoke with Rhinne and she was very positive about my using some of her imagery and ideas in a story here – that is why she appears as "Med-Judge Rhinne". To be clear, my stories and Rhinne's are not canonical for each other, but I was inspired by them. You do not need to have read her stories to understand mine, but you should read them and review them, because they are very good!

If you enjoyed this story (and even if you didn't) please review – even if it is just a "good fic / bad fic" review (although more detail is nice). Without reviews, I don't know if I am writing things people want to read, or what needs to be changed or have more of / less of for future stories.

I have a very simple rule – if you leave a review for me, I will leave a review for you. I don't care what sort of stories you write, or even if I am familiar with the fandom – I will leave a review.

Angel's Mercy

Prog 1 : Baptism

The Judge braked as quickly as he dared as he drove into the downpour, his lawmaster's terrain-sensitive electro-rubber instantly molding itself from slicks to precision-tailored rain tires. "Weather Control," he said tightly, briskly scrolling through data on his HUD – there was no rain planned or requested, "unexpected heavy precipitation sector nine my GPS – are you aware?"

"We are aware, Judge." Weather Control's reply was immediate and brusque. "MetModNet is experiencing no malfunctions, the board is green." Abruptly, the communication cut.

The Judge turned to his partner, driving like him at now-cautious speeds, blues-and-twos wailing, late-night traffic getting out of their way as they responded to the call. "I guess it's just raining, Sir," she offered blithely.

He shook his head. "It doesn't 'just rain', Cadet," he told her. "Not in this city – stay sharp."

She smiled, her sensuous lips twisting beneath the helmet. "Yessir," she murmured. She might be green as raw munce, but even she knew that – to a Judge – rain was a warning sign.

In the teeming-horror of Mega City One, a purely-artificial human-termite mound sustained by technology and hubris within and atop radioactive ruins, weather could not be left to chance. Trapped between the windswept Cursed Earth and the storm-tossed Black Atlantic, hundreds of millions of people and the masses of industry required to support them were squashed into a space insufficient to support half that number. Exhaled breath, belching chimneys, run-off from the factories all poured themselves into the shattered environment – an ecosystem still reeling from the Atomic Wars three decades before, and entirely unable to process the waste and pollution naturally.

Nature tried, of course – it was less than a generation before bacteria evolved specifically to eat nuclear waste, plasteen-slag, and the rest. With worms and beetles and all kinds of vermin feasting on them an entire ecosubsystem based on humanity's garbage soon sprang up. But, as was always the case in the megacity, technology solved the problems it created; resyk, the sewerage and water-processing systems, and – of course – Weather Control.

Technically speaking, the array of satellites, sensing- and seeding-drones, atmospheric temperature and humidity management stations, deep-sea controls and a host of other technologies were called 'the Meteorological Modification Network' or MetModNet – but everyone, even the Department, called it 'Weather Control'. The intent was to blunt excesses; to keep the most destructive storms, heatwaves, typhoons, monsoons and hurricanes outside the boundary wall, to direct enough rain to the water reclamation plants in the Appalachian Mountains south of the city, and to make sure that what precipitation did fall on the streets was clean, decontaminated, and not actually a rain of mutated rad-frogs (as had, as weather control never tired of explaining to the laughing citizens touring their facilities, happened more than once before). Most often, rain inside the city was light, sporadic showers, between 11PM and 6AM – intended to clean the streets, keep the dust down, irrigate what few patches of greenery remained or had been planted.

But there were times when it was not, when a Judge would place a call to Weather Control and the met-men would get to sit up and focus, perhaps calling shift commanders at home, certainly reaching for keys and unlocking the covers of rarely-used switches and controls.

There were many weapons the Judges could bring to bear against a riot or demonstration – diplomacy was, perhaps surprisingly, often used and effective. A line or wedge of black-and-bronze officers, with weapons ranging from daysticks and shields, through semi-powered riot armor, all the way to riot foam, stumm gas, sonic cannons, urban tanks and even heavy artillery and air support was inevitably deployed. But the first and best option, taught by every single Tutor in Urban Pacification 101, was to call in the Department's most reliable and effective officer – Judge Rain.

No matter how important the cause, how eager the demonstrators, how crazy the riot, a siling, torrential downpour of cold water dampened the ardor of the most hard-core protester. The instant the Judges suspected a riot or illegal (or undesired) demonstration, they called Weather Control and the heavens opened; a localized cloudburst that lasted as long as needed and only affected the immediate area, that drenched the streets and soaked perps to the bone, sending them scurrying and shivering back home. If they did think to take preemptive precautions, well – the six-month sentence for 'brandishing an umbrella or other device intended to guard against precipitation in a public space without a permit' was another useful weapon in quelling riots.

As effective as it was, heavy rain very quickly became associated in a Judge's mind with riots, with battle, with highly-strung nerves and the need to have eyes in the back of your head to stop it getting blown off. When rain dripped from your armor, it was a fair bet blood wouldn't be far behind – if you were lucky, the downpour might last long enough to clean the worst off.

As a Cadet, Quartermain hadn't experienced an actual riot, and although the Academy's training reproduced them with startling fidelity – using live ammunition and sprinklers in the ceilings of warehouses mocked up like actual city locations – she didn't have a more seasoned Judge's instinctive response to rain. But she could understand her patrol partner's – okay, supervising field-trip Tutor, if you wanted to be technical – wariness at the unexpected downpour.

For the past two weeks, Cornelius had been leading Quartermain on standard ten-hour bike patrols. In the aftermath of the city-wide chaos caused by the Lord of the Flies' demands, sector chiefs had needed all the tires on the streets they could get and never refused help. He was a good partner and better mentor, and Quartermain had to admit she was enjoying it. She hadn't made too many egregious mistakes (certainly nothing that would have got a Rookie an automatic fail, or a Cadet expelled) and Cornelius seemed at least middling-pleased with her work. It was, she was coming to realize, one thing to Judge in the squad room or even during a single engagement; it was quite another to keep that focus and performance through ten-hour shifts six days a week.

They reached the rain-slick plaza in front of their destination and pulled off the road to drive through the empty expanse of poured rockcrete slabs gleaming with blue-white reflections. The square was ringed with faux-iron street lamps, most of them burned out – what illumination there was came from the full moon revealed and obscured by scudding gray clouds. The lawmasters' headlights cut a long white tunnel through the haze, individual raindrops sparkling like falling jewels. As they drove across the plaza towards it, Cornelius studied the building and recalled what he knew of its history.

The Mercy Judicial & Civil Medical Center – usually called Mercy Hospital and popularly known as Angel's Mercy after the statue standing just outside the main entrance – had been built twenty-five years before; part of the great project of rebuilding and infrastructure expansion after the destruction of the Atomic Wars and the mass immigration and forced relocation to Mega City One from the Cursed Earth and elsewhere. The popular movement of the time for administrative buildings had been Judicial Brutalism, and the building showed all the hallmarks of that architectural style; it was massive in character even though not particularly large (a single central tower of a score-or-so of storeys, flanked by two wings with about a dozen floors apiece), fortress-like (even down to the monstrous portcullis at the front of the tower) and with a predominance of exposed, rugged rockcrete construction. The northern wing of the building – to the right of the main entrance as you were looking at it – had its dark blue-gray facade leavened with heavy horizontal striping in sandstone-tan. The southern wing had been decorated – as was common in Judicial Brutalism – with an oversized eagle of justice. It had once been gilded – or at least sheathed in anodized aluminum – but as Mercy fell into disuse and disrepair the scavengers came calling, stripping away the metal sheeting to reveal the rotting, rusting skeleton underneath. Some attempt had been made, before the hospital was finally closed, to cover the wounds with tarps, but now – five years later – the result was pitiful to see. Ropes and cables had frayed and snapped, and great sheets of black plastic, leathery with nearly a decade of filth and wear, flapped in the wind on the skeleton of the wings like the membrane of a bat. With the golden feathers ripped away, the eagle's head was scrawny and angular, its eye empty sockets staring blindly south.

Mercy had been built as a showpiece medical center, intended to provide cutting-edge treatment and services to citizens and Judges alike in an attempt to build good-feeling between the Department and those they policed. For the first few years the plan worked well – Mercy was at the forefront of medical research and development, performing groundbreaking procedures and saving untold thousands of lives. Its reputation for excellence as well as the opportunities for research and study meant the best and the brightest doctors applied to work there.

Perhaps it was its success that was its downfall – as a model medical facility, the Department discouraged (if not outright forbade) turning patients away, regardless of their ability to pay for increasingly-expensive treatment. Budgets became tighter, forcing corners to be cut. The best doctors left, those who remained sometimes had ulterior motives for staying. Soon, what had once been the foremost medical center in MegEast and the preferred destination for the richest patients was avoided by anyone with decent insurance and only patronized by those with no other choice. Exactly what had happened after that Cornelius didn't know – but, judging from the carrion-stripped appearance of the ruined building, it was a fair bet the hospital had eventually been closed, the city's scavengers descending on it an an orgy of rape and pillage, ripping and tearing everything of value out of it and selling it on the black market within hours of the doors shuttering.

All in all, it was a depressing, cadaverous end for what had once been a preeminent research and teaching hospital. Like so much in this Grud-forsaken city, what had started out bright and promising and shiny ended in ruin, decay and squalor – if not outright crime and depravity. Like all condemned buildings it would be filled with gangbangers and tappers, pimps and hoes, cookers and pushers with their narcofabs and hit-houses. It would take a squad or two of Judges to sweep it clear, gathering evidence for sentencing and execution. And then they should tear the thing down and 'crete over the wound and let the city heal.

They reached the main entrance – the portcullis was a faux detail, a lattice of iron-effect plasteen bars looking half-raised. The actual doors were underneath – shattered and broken, their once-pristine white now dirty ivory, they looked like a mouthful of twisted teeth. The statue stood a few yards in front of the doors; wings outstretched and sword held aloft, it was a colossal angel, a gigantic muscular nude in white plasteen, gleaming in the bikes' headlights. The top of its pedestal was level with Cornelius' chin, but even without that the figure would have been half as tall again as he was. The carving was harsh and sharp, each muscle cut and defined with anatomical precision, the face an expressionless mask of terrible beauty.

There was no graffiti on the statue – surprising, perhaps, as the facade of the building, the statue's plinth and even the pavement itself was sprayed and vandalized with tags and more complex designs. But the statue was untouched.

At least with paint; rain had washed the statue mostly clean of the thick coat of blood that must have plastered it not so long ago, but puddles and pockets of crimson still remained in the crevices and the monstrous planes of plasteen muscle shone with a faint pink flush as if the creature had been working out.

Cornelius glanced at Quartermain as they studied the grisly tableau – three broken and mangled corpses, limbs hacked and torn off, one cut completely in half, lay at the base of the statue in a discarded tangle, with a fourth figure impaled on the angel's upthrust blade, its back arched against the quillons of the sword. All four of them were naked, their clothes nowhere to be seen. Quartermain's face was set, her prominent lips compressed into a thin line, but she was holding it together. The corpses were pale, lying in a spreading pool of bloody water. There was something wrong here, and it took Cornelius a moment to realize – the plaza was deserted, eerily silent and still. Even on a rainswept night, outside an abandoned facility like this, a multiple homicide should have drawn gawkers and rubber-neckers, a crowd to keep back – but there was nothing and no-one except . . . "Med-Judge Rhinne?" he asked the woman in justice-blue fatigues with her back to them. "Got your call."

Rhinne actually jumped as she turned. "Oh!" she exclaimed, surprised. "I didn't expect anyone to . . . that is, thanks for coming." It took Cornelius a moment and another few words to place her accent. She studied them closely. "You're not sector nine, are you?" she realized.

Cornelius shook his head. "Psi-Division – John Cornelius, Cadet Jacqueline Quartermain. What's the deal?"

"Michelle Rhinne, I'm the administrator here." The Med-Judge was maybe fifteen years older than Cornelius, perhaps a little more – it was difficult to tell with the rain and her porcelain regularity of feature. She was handsome, with beyond-black hair and almond-shaped eyes almost as dark. There was a staccato sophistication to her accent – it had been smoothed over by years of Mega City One service, but it was definitely Hong Tong. "Four victims, male, adult. Three have suffered gross traumatic dismemberment of acute aspect and attendant haemorrhage leading to hypovolemia and ultimately exsanguination. The fourth has suffered superficial abrasions and ecchymoses as a result of antemortem blunt trauma, in addition to a transfixing traumatic injury passing transversally between the eleventh and twelfth thoracic vertebrae causing spinal cord transection and severe trauma to the viscera."

Cornelius didn't quite smile. "Not really the question I was asking, doc," he admitted. He gestured at the impaled victim's intestines strewn over the angel's wings like macabre garlands. "That have a technical name?" he asked.

Rhinne seemed unaware of the gentle mockery. "The removal of elements of the gastrointestinal tract is called evisceration," she said shortly. "Based on the blood splatter it was done antemortem."

"Our killer has a flair for the dramatic," murmured Cornelius. "But I meant; why didn't you expect a response? I know things are bad but . . . a quadruple homicide? That should get some kind of attention." Rhinne gave a ghastly shrug.

"Sector nine doesn't care," she said. "Off the record, I think they welcome it – all of the victims are criminals."

"These aren't the first killings," realized Cornelius – it wasn't a question. Rhinne shook her head.

"It's been happening on and off for the last five years," she explained.

"Since the hospital closed?" he asked.

Rhinne's well-made face demurred into a frown. "'Ceased to accept new patients and was taken off the triage and ER registers'," she corrected him sourly.

"Ah." Cornelius nodded – he might not appreciate the details of the politics, but he could understand they were there. "And that's why you're 'administrator' here, Med-Judge Rhinne, right? If it's closed, it becomes sector nine's problem – but, until then, it's MedDiv's responsibility, not theirs."

Rhinne nodded. "I guess someone's got an in with the heavy-bronze," she admitted. "It's been kept on our books even though the building's a deserted ruin. I run a clinic out of a field-station over there." She gestured towards the edge of the plaza – there was a much-battered MedDiv trailer sunk wearily on failing suspension and punctured tires lurking almost at the edge of the circle of sight the rain allowed. "I do first response, urgent care, patch up slidewalkers after their pimps slap 'em around, detox the odd tweaker." She shrugged and gave a weak smile. "I try to help."

"How frequent are the killings?" asked Cornelius.

"Oh," said Rhinne, "two, three times a month?" She ran a hand through her sopping hair, a very-slight tremor in her fingers betraying the constant horror she endured. Only now, as they caught the light, did Cornelius notice the strands of silver-gray riven through it. "Always criminals – gangers, mostly, but there've been a few cold-cases that got solved when forensics matched a vic to evidence from a crime scene. I put the reports in but . . . well, like I say, SectComm isn't bothered so long as it's perps getting sliced up."

"All the vics left like this?" Cornelius asked. "On and around the angel?" She nodded. "Hmm." He turned to Quartermain. "What do you make of it, Cadet?"

Quartermain had been staring at the angel like a neopagan child looking up at a Christmas tree, but now she stirred herself, crouching down and craning her neck to look at the tattoos decorating the corpses' skin. "Vics are color-cut," she said, "made men. I'd say this was a vigilante or cleaner, dealing with rivals on his gang's turf. He's sending a message, posing them around the statue like this. Avenging angel and all that." She looked up at Cornelius, who nodded approvingly.

Rhinne's gaze was fixed on the statue's grotesque gorgeousness, the harsh planes of its perfect face, the terrible beauty and threat in its fearsome build and upthrust blade. "I always thought it was odd," she remarked, her voice faraway. "Such a brutal figure – the sword, the stance. I would have expected something . . . lighter for Mercy, you know?"

Cornelius smiled. "You don't read the Bible much, do you, doc?" he asked. She glared at him with narrowed eyes.

"Don't have much time for subversive literature, or fairytales," she said coldly.

Neither Cornelius nor Quartermain looked offended, although that was due to long practice. "Well," he said easily, "if you did, you would know angels aren't all sweetness and light." He turned and looked up at the gigantic figure looming threateningly over them, the rainwater cleansing, the victim impaled on the sword. "Imagine what such a creature must be like – at the service of love and justice, but always with one wing dipped in blood. Heh." He laughed, realizing. "I suppose some of us have the imagining easier than others." He turned to Rhinne, taking in her disbelieving look. "You know that every time an angel appears in the Scriptures the first thing he says is 'be not afraid'?" he told her. "You can call 'em what you want, but angeltales are not about fairies."

"Every time but one." Cornelius turned and looked down at Quartermain, who explained. "'Be not afraid' is the first thing they say every time but once, Sir – you know which one?"

Cornelius smiled. "You're testing me, Cadet?" he asked. She shrugged. "The Annunciation, La Madre de Dios. You got surveillance of the plaza?" he asked Rhinne. She shook her head.

"There's a localized EM dampening field over the hospital itself," she said. "Tek can't explain it, not that they've really tried. Get much closer to the building and your electronics go haywire and shut down. There isn't much coverage at the best of times – vandalism. I installed a couple of cameras on my clinic, but whenever there's a homicide they fritz out – they come back up afterwards."

"What a coincidence," said Cornelius in a voice that suggested exactly the opposite.

Rhinne rolled her eyes. "It's related to the deadzone, has to be," she opined. "Whoever is doing this doesn't want to be seen – so he uses some gizmo to mess up the cameras. He probably keeps it inside the hospital, turns up the power or whatever. It must mess with Weather Control, too – that would explain the rain."

Cornelius and Quartermain shared a look. "'Explain the rain', Ma'am?" the Cadet said – both a question and a request.

"Every time there's a homicide . . . it rains," Rhinne said simply. She shrugged. "Like I say, it's probably . . ."

Quartermain shook her head. "Another coincidence?" she asked. "Sorry, Ma'am – but I don't buy it. The imagery fits, Sir," she told Cornelius. "Rain washing clean, either to purify the killer of his guilt, or as a symbol of the 'forgiveness' the sinners' deaths represent. Meterokenes have been documented – the rain's likely an accidental manifestation of his subconscious desires."

Cornelius wasn't about to presume anything. "You have reason to believe this is a psi, Cadet?" he asked. "Over and above the fact you requested we patrol in sector nine today?" he clarified before she could speak.

Quartermain blushed as red as her hair, the rain cold on her cheeks, but she smiled nevertheless. "Well, if that was anything more than coincidence, it was subconscious, Sir," she admitted. "But, actually . . . yes." She crouched by one of the corpses. "You done autopsies on the vics, Ma'am?" she asked. Rhinne shook her head.

"Not on these, no . . ."

"But others?" Quartermain gestured at faint tracks of some sticky pink residue leaking from eyes, nose and ears; it hadn't washed away as easily as the splattered blood. "That's cerebrospinal fluid," she said. "There was intracranial bleeding, together with a thickening of the fluid. Let me guess," she asked Rhinne, demonstrating her own solid grasp of medical terminology, "the other vics showed the same pathology, together with inflammation of the myelin sheath protecting the axions and haemorrhaging throughout the spinal column's capillar net?"

"Yes," said Rhinne, amazed. "How did you . . . ?"

"Aftermath of psionic assault," Quartermain told Cornelius abruptly. "Trauma didn't kill these creeps – oh, it killed their bodies," she assured Rhinne in the face of the Med-Judge's blustered objections, "but they were already dead when that happened. Our perp fried their brains, sucked the life right out of them. This is a psi-crime, definitely our beat."

Cornelius nodded, lifting his wrist. "Cornelius to Aegis," he said. "Put Cassie on, can you? . . . I need you at my GPS . . . that's right, there some problem? . . . ASAP . . . you can put down in the plaza, don't come over the hospital itself – EMP deadzone . . . see you soon, Cornelius out." Rhinne rolled her eyes.

"You don't need to bother yourselves!" she exclaimed. "I didn't expect a response – I only log the reports because I have to. Meat wagons will be here tomorrow morning – or the next day – to clean 'em up. They'll go to resyk."

"Four people are dead," said Cornelius sharply, "and Grud-knows how many more before. Perps or not, they deserve more than just being shoveled onto the conveyor. I'm a little drokking pissed sector nine haven't treated this more seriously – they don't care 'cause it's perps getting slabbed? That's negligent at best – vigilantism is a crime, regardless of the target. What happens if this creep starts taking out innocents?"

"Oh, you don't need to get them involved!" Rhinne was almost pleading. "Judge Gibson knows – the hospital's part of his beat, he's chief of alpha shift. I don't want him to . . ." Her voice trailed off, unwilling to say more.

"You don't want him to what, doc?" Cornelius asked. She hung her head and remained silent. Cornelius nodded slowly as the credit-chip dropped. "You wanna talk about the gitaskog in the room? Gibson's written this off as the ravings of a crazy because you told him the angel was doing the killing, right?"

She shook her head furiously. "No!" she said emphatically. "Absolutely not – I never said that. But . . ." Once again, she scrubbed through her hair with a trembling hand. "The wounds on the bodies are consistent with the sword – I mean, it could be a lot of other weapons, too . . ."

Quartermain looked from the brutal butchery lying at her feet to the angel's sword and back again. "Such as?" she asked, not unreasonably.

"Mil-grade vibroaxe and an exo-suit?" suggested Rhinne, a little desperately. "And the armor could be mocked up like the angel, too – that would explain . . ."

"Powered weapons in the middle of a deadzone?" countered Quartermain. She gestured at the perp impaled on the statue's blade "And what about that? That wound killed him – it wasn't postmortem, you said so yourself. The point of that sword's seven yards off the deck if it's an inch – how'd he get up there?"

Cornelius gestured her to silence. "The perp being dressed like an angel would explain what, doc?" he asked. "The witnesses you've got which say the angel killed 'em?"

Rhinne threw up her hands. "They're spugging spark-heads! Amped to the eyeballs on dope!" Exasperation made her discard her precise medical terminology. "Their testimony isn't worth jack – who knows what they saw?"

"But I'm willing to bet their testimonies are consistent," Cornelius pointed out – Rhinne's silence showed he'd hit the mark. "So, you reported the killings, Gibson responded, you gave him the information and he thought you were crazy?"

Rhinned nodded. "I'm not sure I'm not," she admitted. "It's absolutely insane – but nothing else fits . . ."

Cornelius was sympathetic. "Don't worry, doc," he assured her, "I'm not saying the statue animated and killed them, but at the very least, someone's going to a lot of effort to make it look as if it did. All the evidence points to a rogue psi; a vigilante frying perps' brains, making tweakers hallucinate, screwing around with Weather Control. That's our beat, what I draw a pay-check for." He looked down at Quartermain. "Nicely done, Cadet," he said.

She shrugged modestly. "I do some of my best work when I don't mean to, Sir," she quipped.

Rhinne gave a weak smile – it was hard to tell if the water in her eyes was rain or not. "Thank you," she said with feeling. "It's been a bad five years – that's how long I've been here, since this place quote-unquote 'closed'. This was never a good part of town, but it's gone to Dok since then."

"Perps moved into the building?" asked Cornelius, looking warily up at the blank, empty windows. He would have expected them to look like hundreds of sightless eyes, staring down at him, unseen watchers behind them – but they didn't. He felt the weight of scrutiny, but it seemed to come from the behind the half-raised portcullis; a single, malignant attention. He shivered and shook himself – the bleak surroundings, the disquietingly-deserted plaza and the grim baptism of torrential rain was getting to him.

Rhinne shook her head, drops of water scattering from her hair, actually smiled. "You don't understand," she said. "Everyone's terrified of this place – they give it a wide berth. Scavengers stripped the outside, of course, but very few were brave or crazy enough to go in. No-one even crosses the plaza unless they have to – only the most desperate come to my clinic. I've requested transfer a couple of times, but . . ."

"And the killings," said Quartermain. She flicked her head upwards. "You have to deal with this, every week or two."

"I can handle the blood, the death," Rhinne said. "I'm a Med-Judge – I'm used to it. But . . ." She looked at Cornelius. "Like you say – there's no explanation that make sense and doesn't sound insane. The first time I reported it, I thought something would be done – but Gibson just laughed; said I was loony as the hobos. I have to report each homicide, but I know they don't take it seriously – I might as well be one of the crazies, whispering that the angel stalks the streets, hunting down perps for Judge Death."

There was thick, rain-soaked silence that – had this been a vid-drama – would have been punctuated with a crack of thunder and a bolt of lightning. As it was, only Quartermain wasn't actually surprised there wasn't such a blast of pathetic fallacy. "What?" asked Cornelius flatly.

Rhinne looked at him askance. "You don't know?" she asked. "You don't know," she realized.

"Don't know what?"

"What happened here – Rindón, the experiments?"

Cornelius shook his head. "I know this place was built twenty-five years ago – it was a good hospital for a while, but the budget wasn't there. Went downhill after that."

"That's true," admitted Rhinne, "but there was more. MedDiv didn't want to lose Mercy – they'd invested too-much into it. About seventeen years ago, they made Med-Judge Fausto Rindón administrator – doctors weren't sending citizens here unless they had to, but that didn't bother him."

"He was on the take?" asked Cornelius. "Dealing dope, what?"

Rhinne smiled. "Wish he was," she said. "Dunno that he wasn't, actually, but that wasn't the problem. He had patients – the Department sent Judges here for treatment, of course, but he was also doing a lot of . . . research." The weight of euphemism was heavy in her voice. "This was the mid-80s; the children conceived and born shortly after the war were entering puberty – there were a lot of . . ." She glanced at Quartermain, embarrassed.

"Divergences," the Cadet said firmly.

Rhinne nodded. "The Department wanted – needed, really – information, and we had so little. He really drove a lot of that – he was . . . very good. Dedicated, hardworking – good with the kids," she said with a bizarre little shrug. "Used to give them candy, had them call him 'Uncle Fausto'." She gave a sickly smile. "Loved twins. Really, really liked twins." She shuddered. "Like I say, he conducted a lot of . . . research."

"Experiments." Cornelius' voice was flat and final as slabs falling into a pit. The horror admitted, Rhinne nodded.

"We didn't know," she assured him. "I mean – the Division didn't know; I wasn't here for most of it. I came from Hong Tong on the transfer program back in '92, and I wasn't in a position to . . ." Cornelius' gold-flecked gaze didn't waver as her justifications stammered to silence. "There were rumors," she said, "and certainly more deaths than there should have been. The place got an evil reputation – people started calling it 'Judge's Mercy' – you know the term?"

Cornelius nodded. "Killing a fatally-wounded individual to spare him the pain," he glossed for Quartermain. "Not officially Department approved."

"They called Rindón 'Judge Death'," Rhinne explained. "The Division investigated, but I think people didn't want to face it – the information he was getting was useful, it was easier to . . ." She sighed. "It was easier for us to ignore it, to keep sending . . . divergences there." she said.

"You didn't know," said Cornelius, not unkindly.

"Maybe we should have done," admitted Rhinne. "We cut his funding, but didn't remove him. That didn't help, of course – maintenance went to Dok. There was a fire in the north wing, an outbreak of a drug-resistant pathogen in the south; officially, two of the levels are still quarantined but . . ." She shrugged. "I don't have much to work with."

"So what was the straw that broke the robomule's back?" asked Quartermain acidly. She seemed less-willing to dismissively forgive than Cornelius. "How come Uncle Fausto's not handing out his sweeties to all the little mutie boys and girls?"

"Cadet . . ." rumbled Cornelius warningly.

Quartermain dipped her head in apology, but Rhinne looked guilty too. "SJS stepped in," she explained. "Their chief – the guy before Cal – was injured, wound up in Mercy. He never came out. Rindón had him committed; psychosis. His shrinks worked on him, but . . ." She shrugged. "I think it did more harm than good."

"So SJS took an interest," said Cornelius. "Who led the investigation?"

Rhinne cocked her head, trying to remember. "I dunno," she said eventually. She jerked her thumb at her trailer. "I think I've got copies of the files in the clinic – they're restricted in the DB, but you can look if you think it's relevant. Anyway, yes – SJS got involved, conducted an investigation. It ended with a shootout – Rindón was killed."

"And Cal became head of SJS?" asked Quartermain. Rhinne nodded.

"He was Judge Timor's deputy," she said. "Goodman restructured the Council, moved MedDiv off and put SJS there. When Judge Tiberius was killed in '98, the Chief Judge made Cal DCJ – he'd done sterling work trying to sort out the mess."

"But Mercy didn't close?" asked Cornelius.

Rhinne rolled her eyes. "Like I said," she snorted bitterly, "someone's got an in with the heavy-bronze. Gibson probably – he's a golden boy. Wasn't he part of the Rose Garden class of '79?"

"So are two of my friends," said Cornelius shortly. "Good year."

Rhinne sighed. "I'm sorry," she said. "You're trying to help and I'm . . . bitter, I guess. I shouldn't take it out on you." She lifted her head and looked over at the statue and its grotesque decorations. Without conscious volition, the three of them had moved away from it. The blood was all-but washed away now, and the rain was slowing to a mere drizzle, a bracing dampness in the air. Puddles still splashed at their feet. "I should have taken you into the clinic," she apologized, "got you out of the rain. Let's go have a 'caf or something." Cornelius shook his head.

"Waiting for Cassie," he said. "Want her to see this. Anyway," he said with a wry grin and a glance at the two women, "I'm sure we've all got sins that could stand to be washed away."

As he spoke, the sky cracked overhead with a sonic boom as Manta decelerated, the monstrous shield blocking out the smeared city light reflecting from the low-hanging gray clouds above. For an instant, it looked like a black hole punched through to the empty nothingness of space – a hole with the bright stars of running lights twinkling at the edges. Cornelius and Quartermain shielded their faces from the buffet of jetwash and steam as Manta descended on its four columns of screaming exhaust, broiling hot gasses vaporizing the puddles and scorching the dampness from the air. Rhinne just stood, slack-jawed and amazed, as the massive craft settled with agonizing slowness on the plaza. The rear door clanked open and a solitary figure came down the ramp toward them, walking through and haloed by the back-lit fog and steam.

She was wearing a flimsy plastic rain cape, but she wasn't paying attention to it – the wind blew it open, the hem crumpled so it actually poured water into her collar. She didn't speak, instead stepping blindly forward, looking past the statue with its festoons of blood-drained meat hanging from it as if it were neither relevant or even there, her eyes focused on the building itself.

Cornelius broke the silence. "Cassie?" he asked uncertainly. She started and turned towards him, her blank face cycling into recognition. "This is Med-Judge Rhinne, she's the administrator here. We've got a multiple homicide – we think it's a psyker vigilante, killing perps. Rhinne was just bringing us up to speed on the med-center – we can . . ."

She gave a distant smile, her eyes faraway and focused on something far past him. "No need, John," she said. "I was a patient here."

A/n : As I said, this was inspired by Rhinne's excellent work in "Shielded" and her chapters set in Mercy Hospital. She was very open to my being inspired by this, and she helped with both the description of Judge Rhinne (she said she wanted to look like Michelle Yeoh – well, who doesn't? Woman is gorgeous!) and also some of the medical terminology. Rhinne's work is an inspiration, and our stories are NOT canonical for each other.

The reference to the "Rose Garden class" is something I am working on for "The Return of Rico" - Dredd and the Chief Judge talk about it. It refers (minor spoiler, but it's history / backstory) to the assault on the White House that deposed President Robert "Bad Bob" Booth. The idea is that something went down in the Rose Garden – big fight or something. Haven't decided what. People saved each others' lives there. Judge Gibson (also mentioned in "Highway Don't Care") is a comic character, a classmate of Dredd (both Joe & Rico). Cornelius's other friend who is part of the '79 class is Tutor Novak (specifically said to be Dredd's classmate in "Aegis").

People familiar with the comics will absolutely recognize where I am going here – and people familiar with mid-20th century European history will be able to see the parallels. I debated about trying to make it subtle . . . and then said "Drokk that". It's 'Dredd' – it's not a subtle medium. Names like "Fausto Rindón", "Judge Timor", "Judge Tiberius" (not to mention the explicit reference to "Judge Death"!) are hardly subtle things.

Anyway – comments, reviews etc. welcome! The box is right below – just type what you think!