The air was acrid and hot. Even though Mega-City 1 had a strict pollution and littering law, the city still seemed to feel caustic. Papers fluttered alongside the road as Judge Dredd sat, mounted on his Lawmaster. The motorcycle was quite a beautiful piece of machinery, and well capable for any situation. He gripped the handles, as he peered through his helmet's visor. It thankfully blocked out most of the sun's rays, and his body was sweating underneath the heavy armor. He scowled, "Control, on scene."
"Affirmative, Judge is on scene."
His eyes scanned the street and the numerous shops jutted up on the sidewalk. People walked about, hoods up, minding their own business as usual. He dismounted and walked through the various people walking by. It wasn't a very crowded part of town, but at night, the streets were alive with partiers and boozers.
A small crowd gathered around "Foster's Fine Jewelry", and the Judge stopped behind them.
"Step aside, citizens."
The gawking people looked behind them and quickly parted so he could get through. He walked into the jewelry store, which was slightly cooler than the outside. Its glass counters were shattered and tables knocked over.
"Judge Dredd! Look at dis, man! Meh whole beezness is en shambles! Not a damn ting taken! What ees the meanin of this?"
Dredd looked at the business owner, a tall black man wearing a fine suit, his long hair in dreadlocks. He had large rings on every finger, and paced back in forth. The Judges eyes went back to the room and looked around. He stepped over a large amount of broken glass and walked behind the counter, taking the scene in.
Mr. Foster grumbled as the Judge said nothing, and he nervously continued his pacing. His dark eyes darted around the room, looking at the judge and the rest of his shop.
This was very odd, Dredd thought. A whole jewelry store, full of expensive jewelry and yet, he claimed nothing was taken. He walked back to the center of the store, careful to not disturb anything, and knelt down, his eyes noticing a small glint underneath a pile of junk cardboard boxes. Dredd lifted the boxes up and cocked his head in curiosity. His gloved fingers picked up a rather large ring. He frowned.
"Is this yours?" He stood up, turning toward Mr. Foster. The gawking citizens stared from outside the entrance to see what the Judge held.
"What ees dat?" Mr. Foster said quietly, staring at the ring. He moved his hand closer to touch it. The store owner licked his lips nervously and started to sweat.
Dredd stepped back, as Mr. Foster invaded his personal space and dropped the ring in an evidence container. It was a large red and gold ring. It was very familiar to the Judge. In fact, it should be to all Judges. They received it after graduating the academy. Only a handful of Judges ever wore them, and out of that handful, most were Judges who had a taste for embellished items, or were fresh on the street.
"I require all video feed from the past six months that you have on the interior and exterior of this building. Will you comply?" Judge Dredd asked, looking back at him.
"Course, Judge. I jus wan dis guy caught!" Mr. Foster exclaimed. He licked his lips again. "Perhaps I should old onto dat ring, Judge, I might have ovahlooked it…"
Dredd ignored the owner once more, "Anyone threatening you or your business?"
"No, man, I have only hoppy customehs." Mr. foster said, smiling. He revealed three golden- capped teeth, and laced his finger together. "Any ideas on who da perpetrator ees?"
"Mr. Foster, as a citizen, you have a right to file a complaint at the Hall of Justice. If you choose to exercise this right, the Hall of Justice will contact you with any information as soon as it emerges. " Dredd stated firmly, placing the small container in a pouch on his belt. He turned around and walked through the broken glass door and the citizens parted ways once again.
"Wait a meenit, Judge! A complaint, man? Dat ees all? Wat about dis mess!" Mr. Foster shouted, his hands pointing to the remnants of his store. He couldn't believe it! His store was destroyed and he expected him to file a complaint! "Wat about da ring? It's my property!"
Dredd stopped and looked at the distraught man. He turned his head and stared at a group of robots that were picking up trash and paving a section of the road across the street. "The construction and clean-up squad is available for your use at any time." He said, and stared at Mr. Foster for sometime, making the store owner unnerved. "As for the evidence, it will be returned, once we clarify its origin."
With that, the Judge walked to his Lawmaster and straddled it, the engine igniting on voice command. His bike roared to life, and he rode away relaying to control he was off scene and heading to HQ.
He needed to get to his office pronto. A vandalized jewelry store, with nothing taken, and a Judges academy ring found at the scene. The whole situation was odd, so for now, he kept everything to himself.
Dredd sped through traffic and pulled into the gated compound of The Hall of Justice. He dismounted his bike, and walked across the paved lot full of Lawmasters, with Judges walking around getting on duty, and coming off. He strode through a secure gate into the entrance of the giant skyscraper that made up HQ.
Climbing up a number of stairs, and up a few elevators, he made it to the floor that held his office and he quickly walked toward his office door, hoping his assistant wouldn't notice.
"Judge Dredd, Those files on Peach trees! They still need to be turned into the Chief! I only have half of them! And those incident reports 5 and 12 haven't been signed, and you have four messages from Chief Hershey!" The brunette exclaimed, pushing her black rimmed glasses farther on her nose.
She quickly got up from her chair as he said nothing, and tried evading her, but she blocked his getaway, "Sir, a-and that's not all!"
Dredd frowned and sighed angrily, resting his hands on his hips. He listened to his assistant ramble on about how he was causing her to have a mid-life crisis because of his poor paperwork habits. That's why he was assigned an office assistant anyway. The Chief made it clear that paperwork was a necessary evil and there was no escaping it. Not even The Judge Dredd could escape it. It all still applied. So, he got himself an assistant to do the majority of it. Apparently, she couldn't manage her menial, non-hazardous job of paper filing.
There were four Judges offices on each office floor, and in turn, four assistants. The interns slouched in their chairs, busying themselves with filing, signing, printing, etc. making it look like they were busy, when in reality, each one was eavesdropping on their conversation. The assistants would always have their lunch break together and it wasn't the first time that poor Jessica Shoker had to pester and pull teeth out of Judge Dredd to get one little paper out of him.
"Ms. Stoker-" Dredd began, but was quickly interrupted.
"I-it's Shoker, Sir. Jessica Shoker. I've been your assistant for six months now…" She stammered, still blocking his office door. She walked toward him with papers in her hand, "And Chief Hershey sent these back, they didn't have footnotes, and you forgot the claim numbers at the top of half of them."
Judge Dredd felt the beginnings of a headache, and snatched the papers out of Shokers hands. The young assistant stepped aside quickly, and raised a finger in the air, "One more thing, sir! The Chief Judge wants to see you!"
The door slammed shut before she finished her sentence, and the blinds shut in a very angry fashion. Shoker looked around the office and sat down, straightening out her blouse and pushed her glasses once again, up onto her nose. She exhaled sadly and looked up at the office clock. "Six more hours…"
Inside his office, Dredd tossed the pile of papers to the corner of his desk. He would deal with them later. Though, it seemed when he said that, he tended to forget about them. He sat down in his office chair and he pulled the ring in the container out of his belt, and set it down on his desk. The computer turned on by his voice activation and he touched the screen, looking into controls database.
First, he wanted to know who had been at the jewelry stores location in the past month on duty. That would be a sensible place to start. He leaned back in his chair and let the computer skim through data entries. He stole a glance at the pile of papers for Peach Trees on the floor and clenched his jaw.
Snatching them up, Dredd stared at them. For one instant he felt compelled to finish them, but as soon as he touched the paper, it was as if all determination at an attempt to do it, was sucked out of him. He grit his teeth and reached over his desk for a pen, slowly clicking it.
Half an hour later, he finished the last of the Peach Tree papers and chunked his pen down on the desk. He looked up to the screen, and noticed Mr. Fosters video feed had in fact been handed over and there were three entries on the screen from controls database. He touched the screen, as it produced the original radio report, and it showed three different Judges had been in that store.
Fosters Fine Jewelry: 454 Harden St W
Call#278564
Time: 13:00
Report: Robbery in progress.
Responding Judge: Judge Juarez
Call#3478564
Time: 2315
Report: Homicide
Responding Judge: Judge Sanchez
Call#657243
Time: 1242
Report: Burglary
Responding Judge: Judge Dredd
Interesting.
For three judges to be at the same location in the past month, was unheard of. In all of Mega-city 1, they could only report to 6% of crime reported. And no less than three judges seemed to have stumbled on the same location in one month. He tapped the screen and minimized that window, opening the video database. He pressed a key and Mr. Foster's video feed to his jewelry store played on the screen.
He stared at the screen as the footage played. He would fast forward, rewind, pause, play; and took note on some curious things. On the day that Mr. Fosters jewelry store was robbed, Judge Juarez responded to the call. He watched the video closely as he fast forward it, and from what he could tell from the time stamp, it was a few days later that the homicide occurred. The video seemed to glitch for a second and then Judge Sanchez emerged on the video, responding to the call. They interacted, and the body was taken away. He fast forward it to today, and no glitches were seen as he saw himself appear on the screen.
Even more interesting.
The Judge told the computer to reverse the video, and stopped it to just before the glitch. The time was stamped 23:00, then the glitch, then the time appeared at 21:15.
Dredd closed that window and opened up the departments database to claims and read all the claims on Fosters Fine Jewelry, and found none.
He rubbed his slightly stubbled chin and stared at the screen. Apparently Mr. Foster had not wrote any claims whatsoever. Every citizen is required to make a claim for homicide or any felonies committed on their property for record keeping and backtracking reasons. If it's a lesser crime, than its up to the citizen if they wish to make a claim, but if a felonies committed and a claim was not made, that itself is punishable for six months iso-cubes.
Perhaps he needed a chat with Mr. Foster again. He told the computer to erase the history and shut off. It shut down and he stared down at the simple ring, and his thoughts wandered.
Burglar breaks into the store, that day Judge Juarez responds. Three days later, homicide. Judge Sanchez responds, and there's a glitch in the video feed. Someone was covering up something, and Judge Dredd was going to get to the bottom of it. He rubbed his jaw again and looked at all of the paperwork.
Dredd scooped up the Peach Tree papers and shuffled them into a neat pile, stacking them to his left. He re-typed up the paperwork that the Chief sent back with a loud red pen scribbling over all of the mistakes apparently she claimed he made. Not organized, Need footnotes, failed to write claim numbers, littered his paperwork. He frowned and pounded on his keyboard and printed the new documents.
An hour passed when he was finally finished. Dredd stacked the papers neatly in a pile and seemed satisfied. He thought for a moment, and then reached over for his stapler. He started stapling papers to their respective papers meticulously. Then took labels, and wrote the claim numbers on the labels and stuck them onto each paper. He shoved each packet of papers in individual sleeves, and then ripped open his desk drawer to find manila folders, and crammed each sleeve into a manila folder. Dredd then took the pleasure of rooting around in his desk for some stick-ez tape, and taped the folders on all sides.
To think she thought he wasn't organized. Judge Dredd was finally satisfied with the paperwork. He swiped the container that held the ring into his hand and replaced it in his belt.
Grabbing the pile of manila folders and the papers left from Peach trees, he opened his door, and walked out into the open room and plopped the Peach tree paperwork on Shokers desk.
"Here's the rest of yesterdays paperwork, I'm heading over to the Chief's office. When you're done, I want you to pull the files you have on Fosters Fine Jewelry. Keep it to yourself." He muttered, and quickly walked off toward the elevator.
"Oh wait Judge Dredd, what about Incident report 5 and 12?"Shoker stood quickly, but his retreating form had already disappeared inside the elevator.
"Oh my…" She exasperated. She dropped back in her seat and frowned. "Four more hours…"
And, heres the second chapter! Reviews are lovely! You should send one my way. Id like to hear feedback! Third chapter is on the way.
