A.N.: Thank you to all those who reviewed, and special thanks to those who aren't registered on here, so I couldn't thank them "personally" (especially you, Alrisha). Quite some emotional responses. Wow. Didn't expect Gradgrind to be so popular. I hope this means I did something right, his role in the comics is tiny, and I wanted to him to be more than just "that Judge with the beard who dies in the battle". The general consensus seems to be that you love the chapter but hate me, right? ;-) Well, I hope you'll forgive me after this chapter...


9. The Dying of the Light

Black smoke hung over the battlefield. Among the mutants from the mountain clans, there were no survivors.

If this had been a story, Morgar would have been the last left alive, instead of being killed inside the tank, and he and Dredd would have duelled amid torn bodies and burned-out jeeps, and finally the hero would have conquered the villain, and all would have been well.

If this had been a story, Robert Gradgrind would still be alive.

Anderson sat in a corner with her arms wrapped around her knees, watching Dredd doing what had to be done. Apparently a fallen Judge's helmet, vest and Lawgiver, as well as the complete comm unit from his glove, had to be returned to the Armoury. Gradgrind's badge lay on the tactical table, chipped by a bullet at one edge and still soiled with dried blood; Anderson's stomach clenched whenever she looked at it. A log entry had to be made, a report had to be filed, and finally Dredd had to speak to Judge McGruder in person, which made his dark mood even blacker, a cloak of deep charcoal mist enshrouding her sense of him. Anderson listened to the curt dialogue without truly taking in what was being said. When the connection was severed, Dredd remained standing at the console, leaning on the back of the pilot's chair with his forearms, his head lowered. Had he ever taken off his helmet since the battle had ended?

Quietly Spikes sat down on the floor beside her. "He said I could call him Bob," he told her. "Just this morning. Thing is, I never did. And now I never will. And I feel bad about it. Like a chance I missed. Turns out this great guy's been hanging around with us, but I only just realised, and I never got to call him Bob... Does this even make sense?"

Anderson merely nodded. She knew what he was trying to say, without having to rely on what she was sensing, but she feared that if she opened her mouth, she would start crying. Fighting back tears was hard enough already, and she did not want to cry in front of the others, she refused to. She was a Judge, and Judges did not cry.

Patton cleared his throat. He was seated at the table, opposite them, his elbows on his knees. "He has a wife and children," he told them quietly, his eyes flickering to Dredd's back. "He said so last night. I mean, of course he never was married officially, but it's pretty much the same thing. His little girl enrolled at the Academy last year."

"You know her name?" Dredd asked, without turning around. Anderson had not expected him to be listening.

Patton hesitated. Did he think Dredd would voice his disapproval now? She could have read the engineer's mind, of course, but Patton and Gradgrind had become friends during those last few days, and she feared touching another grieving mind would only multiply her own sadness. "Sophie," he answered finally. "The girl is called Sophie. Don't know her last name."

"Then find her, and take care of her family. It's the least we can do for him." Turning on his heel, Dredd punched the button that opened the door rather harder than necessary and leapt out into the sunlight.


They buried Gradgrind beneath the metal tree, in a crude wooden coffin decorated with green branches. It seemed the settlement's entire population had turned out to attend the ceremony, including plenty of people who had never even met him. Already they referred to him as their saviour, firmly convinced that he had died for them. Strictly speaking, Dredd thought, this wasn't exactly true, but at least they would honour a fallen Judge's memory. It was more than some other Judges got.

If he and Anderson had died in Peach Trees, he would have been remembered for sure, but who would have cared about the girl? Just another dead rookie to worsen the statistics a tiny little bit, just another badge among the rows and rows of badges of those who had given their life for the city. Died in a drug bust, 2094. Chief Judge Goodman and a precious few others would have mourned the loss of a fascinating asset, but who else would have cared? Who else?

At least Gradgrind had died on the battlefield. It probably was the way he had wanted to go... or was it? Maybe he would rather have died of old age, in bed, encircled by his secret family, proud to have watched his children follow in his footsteps?

What was it with older Judges and their lax attitude towards regulations in that aspect? Sure, plenty of young Judges disregarded the jokingly so-called monastic code too, it was the most frequently broken rule of all, but normally it was a casual thing, and preferably committed with each other, for reasons of ease and availability. But for some reason, older Judges tended to be more... extreme. Did they start feeling lonely after a while?

Sitting cross-legged beside the open grave, Spikes was playing a mournful tune on his guitar, one Dredd did not recognise, but some of the locals apparently did, for they were humming along. Patton stood nearby, his head lowered. Opposite him, the Tobler boys stood to attention, their backs ramrod straight, in an identical pose, each with his white cadet's helmet under his right arm, expressions blank. Still they looked shaken; it had been the first time they saw a comrade die. Dredd doubted he and Rico had looked much different when Judge Kinnison was shot down beside them, their first time on the street as cadets.

Since then, he had seen many more die, and still it made him angry and bitter to witness a good man or woman's death, but this was just the way it was. Judges died on the job. Some grew old and left active service to serve in the administrative ranks or teach at the Academy instead, and some chose the Long Walk when their time came, but many, so very many died young, leaving behind nothing but their badges to decorate the walls of the Hall of Heroes.

Anderson kept to him closely, and she had given up the effort of hiding the tears trickling down her cheeks. Did his presence comfort her? Why would it, when it had been no good to Gradgrind either? Of course, the veteran's blunder had been his own, and he had known the risk he was taking, but still... no matter if, viewed objectively, there was nothing one could have done differently to change the course of events, one always found his mind searching if there wouldn't have been one thing, one tiny thing one should have done to prevent the stroke of fate. In this instance, Dredd half blamed himself for not insisting on performing that foolish stunt himself. From a rational point of view, of course Gradgrind had been better suited to it, but all the same...

Beside him, she sobbed quietly, her shoulders shaking. In time she would learn.

Oh, damn it. He could not simply stand there and watch her cry, so close to him and yet all alone with her grief. Gingerly he placed an arm around her shoulders to offer her reassurance; it was not that he was uncomfortable with physical contact per se, but rather that the circumstances put her in a vulnerable position and therefore gave touching her a certain intimacy he was not sure she would welcome. However, as soon as she felt his touch, she wrapped her arms around his middle and nuzzled her head against his armoured shoulder.

Well... She seemed to welcome it a bit too much. A Judge wasn't supposed to put on such a public display of affection, not in any situation, but this time, just this once, he decided to let it pass. The girl was devastated enough already. Patton looked over at them, and he gave him a glare, though the engineer probably didn't recognise it as such because Dredd's helmet obscured a good part of his face.

"He's getting his commendation," he told her, for lack of something better to say, but unless he was mistaken, it only made her cry harder. Had he not known her better, he would have judged her completely unqualified for the badge.

Beside the grave, Spikes played Don't Fear The Reaper.


By the time they were ready to leave, it was late afternoon already. But the water tanks were replenished, their rations enriched by other things than synthetic nutrients – a most welcome change, Dredd had to admit to himself –, and Patton had once again done a full check for damage.

Anderson had spent some time with the boy, Morris, once more, doing whatever it was psychics did. Poking around in everybody's heads, possibly, including his own. He felt his lips twist with distaste at that. Though he liked the girl, more than he would ever have expected, he did not want her to read his mind. There were things in there not even Hershey – his oldest and closest friend – knew about, and she never would, if he could help it.

Finally all were assembled again to bid their hosts good-bye. Novar had many words on Gradgrind's demise, but Dredd managed to leave him in Patton's care after a little while – which, in turn, left him for Morris. The boy, about to set out with some others to return those mutant cows they had been able to catch, formally thanked him for visiting and thereby giving him the chance to meet Anderson, and Dredd did his best to keep even his thoughts polite. He just wanted to be gone from here, to make as many miles as possible before nightfall and then keep going. He did not want to speak to anyone any longer, not about Gradgrind, not about anything.

But just as he turned to leave, the boy suddenly touched his arm. His odd pale brown eyes seemed to be finding his own despite the dark-tinted visor. "There are things you have been neglecting for far too long," he said quietly. "The dam will break when you meet a woman with a freckly face, and you will hate yourself for it." The narrow eyebrows drew together above his close-set eyes, and before Dredd had the chance to snarl at him, he added, "You will be whole again. But a winged shadow will lie over you, because one... one walked free."

Prophecies? A jumble of prophecies? Had the boy been dreaming, or did he have some other way? Or was he just making it up? Either way, this wasn't of much use to him. "What do you mean?" Dredd demanded. Not that it really mattered, he supposed.

Morris smiled at his feet awkwardly. "I can't tell you, I'm afraid."

"All he gets is moments," Anderson explained, before Dredd could comment on the general usefulness of foresight in his experience until now. "Images. Much like my dreams."

"Well, I guess I'll have to find out, then," Dredd remarked. One walked free? Far too many walked free in Mega-City One. And when wasn't he in danger? Something with wings was new, though. Were there mutants who sprouted wings? He strongly doubted it.

He was laughing to himself bitterly when he got back into the Landraider.


They pressed on until after nightfall, when they reached another overhanging rock formation in an irradiated stretch of desert devoid of life. With plenty of water to spare, they took turns cleaning themselves up at the tiny shower in the back of the Raider Truck. Dredd went last, after the twins, who went in at the same time and sang a duet under the shower that painfully reminded him of his own lack of vocal skills, and after Spikes, who took forever and then spent considerable time styling his hair into his trademark spikes again – as if he weren't about to go to bed. Suppressing his annoyance cost Dredd some energy, yet once the lukewarm water flowed down over his skin, he was able to relax and calm himself. It wasn't the pleasant hot shower he usually took after a long duty shift, but it served to make him feel a lot better, even about the events of the day.

Upon his return to the Killdozer, freshly shaved, his hair still moist and with his wet towel loosely wrapped around his waist, he found Anderson not curled up in her blankets already, as he had expected, but leaning on the console uncertainly in shorts and t-shirt, expecting him. "Can we talk?" she asked, with an equal amount of awkwardness and determination.

"I suppose so," he said. Small chance of escaping in here. Especially since he had once again neglected to prepare a change of clothing. There was little that escaped his memory, except such practical detail sometimes. Underwear. Locate underwear.

She inhaled audibly. "I'm sorry about my behaviour earlier today," she announced in a rush.

"Forget it." Yes, just as he had feared: still in the Raider Truck, in his bag in the storage compartment. What was she referring to, her emotional outburst at the funeral? Probably. He did not want to go rummaging through the compartments barefoot and clad only in a towel. Well, not that it was necessary, his old track pants were stuffed into the Killdozer's upper holding rack, along with his blankets. There was no need to wear anything under them.

"I realise it wasn't behaviour fit for a Judge, and I won't do it again."

"Fine." He re-tied his towel before he fished his things down from the wall rack, just in case. Those towels had a nasty habit of slipping when one moved around too much. "Go to sleep, why don't you?" He threw the blankets down on the floor opposite hers, then pulled on his track pants before he discarded the towel, hanging it over the rail above the cargo hold to dry. Anderson's damp towel was hanging there already in the light of the small lamp above the engine control panel, washed-out blue with what had once been narrow yellow stripes, most likely, beside his standard-issue white one. One might almost consider it an antiquity, from the way it looked. Had she brought it along from her former home? Had it been given to her by her parents, now long dead?

"It's just..." she continued, ignoring his suggestion, "it's... there is something you need to understand, sir. Something I feel... something I felt today, when Gradgrind..." Here she broke off, and Dredd assumed she was wiping her eyes, judging from what he saw from the corner of his eye while spreading out his blankets. Sleep would be marvellous. "I can see people die. You know, like... I can feel them leave their bodies. I can feel them... leave."

It really wasn't what Dredd wanted to hear right now. What good were the psychological after-effects of the shower when she brought up again what he was trying to banish from his mind for the night, or at least for as long as he was awake? For in his dreams the day was bound to come back to haunt him, in one way or another. But it was her. This probably was what she needed to find rest tonight. So he sighed, righted himself and turned to face her. "And it bothers you?" Well, obviously. Really smart of you, Joe. "Was it like that at Peach Trees, too?"

"Yes, but it wasn't that bad. I didn't know anyone. And... I wanted them to die. It made it easier. It... it actually felt good," she finished in a small voice, not meeting his eyes.

She made no move to come to him, so he went to join her at the console. "Yeah, sometimes it feels good. Don't beat yourself up over it. We're not perfect." The plasteen floor was cool beneath his bare feet, but the air inside the Killdozer still was stuffy and warm like during the day. Despite it, Anderson had her arms wrapped around herself as if she were cold.

"The first one," she said after a pause. "The perp I executed." He nodded to indicate that he remembered – of course he did, though the man's face had dimmed in his recollection; it was an unimportant detail – and she continued, "When I shot him, there was a flash, like a flash of light, but not quite, and then something poured out of him in a rush and faded. It was... I was stunned. I felt it like... like something yanked away from my hands. And the world grew a little darker around me. The ones before him, I didn't really notice with them, I guess I was too high on adrenaline, I hardly realised... But I was focused on him, and I could feel it. Almost physically."

Yes, she had looked stunned, he recalled, but he had expected no less. "Most rookies freeze up after their first conscious kill, you know. Some even before it. It's something we have to learn. After a while it gets easier." She might have a particularly hard time getting used to it, but he knew more than one Judge who hated carrying out executions to the day. She would not be the only one by far.

She raised her head to give him a small smile, but he knew that right now she doubted it ever would. "What was it like for you?" she asked.

"Oh, that was a long time ago." When he closed his eyes, he saw it all as if it had been yesterday, the chaos in the streets, the violence, the panic, the blood. War. A baptism by fire of a scale few Judges had gotten, and the youngest to be armed and sent out to the street up to date, six children, all clones, assigned to a Senior Judge in pairs. He heard the gunshots, the sirens, the screams, smelled the smoke, once again felt his heart pounding in his chest. "It was kill or be killed. We didn't even have time to think about it." Was she trying to watch the scene play out in his mind? He wished he had a way of knowing.

But to his own surprise, he found that her potential trespassing did not anger him anymore. True, it bothered him, it gave him a sense of involuntary loquacity, just as if he kept talking and couldn't stop of his own volition, not even if he clamped his mouth shut and pressed both hands over it, which made him feel awkward and also vulnerable in a way he had rarely experienced before. And the mere thought that she might be seeing what flitted through his mind automatically brought forth those things he least wanted her to see. Being near her could turn into an exercise in iron self-control, where his stray thoughts were concerned. But no, it did not anger him any longer. There was a faint trace of irritation, but no anger. Not anymore.

By now she most likely knew a fair amount of very private little facts about him anyway.

Alright, that did annoy him a little.

She had lowered her head again, though if he saw it correctly in the dim light, she was gazing up at him through her lashes. "Sorry I asked, sir. None of my business."

So she wasn't reading his mind after all. He felt somewhat bad about wrongly suspecting her. "No, it's fine. But another time. It's a long story." Surely she did not need to hear this now in order to help her. It would confuse her at best, shock her at worst. What she truly needed was rest, and tomorrow the world would be a little brighter. And eventually she would become used to the darkness, and then, one day, find she had made it her own.

Maybe that was what she needed to hear. But it was hard to put into words, so much harder than his first time on the streets as a child. "Look, I didn't lie when I told you it gets better. But odds are, you'll carry something with you. We all do. This city, this life, they'll try to bring you to your knees and then swallow you whole. But when you're down to the very deepest point... this is when it gets easier. If you make it your own. So it can't break you anymore." Her eyes were wide in the shadows, gazing up at him wonderingly. Most likely this had made no sense to her at all. He sighed. "What I mean is..." How to say it? He was not used to speaking of his emotions. "Oh, forget it. I can't possibly make sense to you." But maybe she would feel better because he had tried. Maybe.

Anderson tentatively reached out, and when he did not withdraw, she touched his cheek, cautiously, very gently. After a moment she said, "I know what you mean."

"What did you just –" Of course, some kind of psychic thing. What else had he expected? That she was hitting on him?

Why would he even think such a thing? She never would. Not Anderson. The girl was far too proud of her accomplishments, her newly gained rank, to ignore regulations so soon.

Her fingers lingered for a little while longer before she pulled away. "Physical contact. It helps me with the mind-reading, in a way. If I want to just brush the surface, that's the easiest way. It comes to me all by itself then, if I just listen."

At first he wanted to snarl at her for doing it without a warning, but he reined himself in just in time. When she had reached out for him, he had had a warning. He had just chosen to view it in a different context, horny idiot that he was. It seemed the reunion with the one woman he had spent a night with years ago had kicked his physical needs into overdrive. And Anderson probably knew by now what kind of thoughts frequently invaded his mind recently. It surprised him that she was not avoiding him already.

Then he noticed that she was biting her trembling lower lip, and the rising anger was swept away by a wave of... what was it? Protectiveness? How come he had formed an attachment to her so fast? All his other bonds, few as they were, had grown with time, and he was fiercely protective of those few friends. Why did he include her already? Not that it mattered. She was in pain, in a kind of pain he could not possibly fathom, and he was ashamed he had ignored it at first, instead of being there for her. Right now his rank as her superior officer was temporarily suspended. What she needed was a friend.

Later on he could not have said who made the first move. There was a moment of awkward hesitation, of fear of bridging the gap, but then she was there with him, her arms around his middle, her cheek resting against his upper chest, and he wrapped his arms around her in turn. And he was fine with that.

Her breath was getting slower and steadier; he could feel its warm tickle against his skin. After a while she started talking, in a small, trembling voice at first, but it too got steadier eventually. "I could feel him out there. Gradgrind. I could feel him cry out. And then... I spoke to him. For a moment. He heard me, too. But there was nothing I could do. I couldn't hold him. He left this world. I saw him leave, and I don't know where he went. I tried to follow, but I couldn't. There was… something. A boundary between worlds, Morris said. He says he can go beyond, if he concentrates really hard. But I failed. I couldn't help him."

"He died," Dredd reminded her gently. "There was nothing you could do."

"I should have," she insisted. "Or just... done something..."

"There was nothing you could do," he repeated. "Nothing. And I doubt Morris could have done anything. Don't blame yourself. It won't bring him back." They had blamed themselves too, him and Rico, when Judge Kinnison had been shot down between them. They had killed them all, then, all the perps in the room, even those who had surrendered without firing a single shot. And when all the scum had lain motionless in pools of their own blood, Kinnison had still been dead, and they had still been two scared little boys, and all alone. "All we can do is go on." After his friend Red, the pilot, this was the second good man who died for Mega-City Two. He just hoped it was worth it.

"We must," she agreed with surprising force. "We must, so they won't die. If they died, it'd all have been for nothing."

"And we will," he soothed her. Realising he had tangled his fingers in her hair, he stopped the motion of his hand. What do you think you're doing, Joe? Turning this into a make-out session? He could have smacked himself, hard. "I promise you that. If the Landraider breaks down, I'll walk. And if I can't walk any longer, well, then I will crawl." He allowed a tone of mock pompousness to enter his voice. "On my knees. All the way to Mega-City Two."

Anderson laughed softly against him. "And when your knees are all skinned and bloody, then I'll carry you."

"Carry me?" The smile came all by itself. "You can't. I'm too heavy for you."

She craned her neck to look up at him. In the dim light from the console, it seemed that her eyes still glittered with tears, but at least she was answering his smile now. "Then I'll have to drag you. Or maybe I shouldn't let you eat so much."

This actually made him laugh out loud. "Are you saying I'm fat?"

She stood back far enough to muster his stomach critically, and he resisted the urge to flex his muscles to demonstrate in how fine a shape he kept himself just in time. "A little?" she teased. One of her hands remained on his waist, while the forefinger of the other lightly poked him in the stomach.

This was when it hit him like a lightning strike. What the hell are you doing, Joe? What the fucking hell are you doing? You're flirting, that's what it is! You're on an important mission, you just lost the seasoned veteran you were relying on to help you handle the combat situations, and all it takes to distract you, to make you forget about it all, is a pretty girl? You're not worthy to be called Fargo's son.

I remember what distracted Fargo, a scathing voice spoke up in his head.

And who are you to judge him for it?, he snarled back at himself. Who are you to judge him, Joe Dredd?

Anderson had let go of him, he realised, and was eyeing him hesitantly. "I'm sorry," she ventured. "I crossed a line."

"It's fine," he said. It wasn't. "Come on, time for bed."

She let herself be led to their sleeping place easily enough, but while he switched off the small lamp and then proceeded to lie down on one blanket, his head pillowed on another, and pull the third over him, she just sat down and wrapped her arms around her knees tightly. It seemed to him that she was staring into the gentle darkness surrounding them wide-eyed, but there was too little light to be sure. "I don't think I could sleep," she told him in a small voice.

Dredd sighed as he got up again and dragged his makeshift pallet over to hers. Yet he made sure there was a little space left between them, even if it was just a hand's width. All the difference between his current position and the previous one was a metre and a half, yet he could see her relief even with the almost complete lack of light. "Go to sleep. I'll be right here with you."


At the distant sound of voices he raised his head. At this hour? The sky beyond the high dome, a huge bubble shielding life that hardly was worth living against the cold and the atmosphere's poison, did not tell him the time when he gazed up at it through a patch of transparent roof. But by now he had developed a surprisingly keen inner sense of timing.

Yes, there were voices. Shouting. In the darkness.

He smacked the heel of his hand against his forehead sharply, just in case. No, he wasn't dreaming, and not hallucinating either. Most likely, anyway.

Kicking off the thin blanket, he rolled off his cot and landed on his bare feet smoothly, quietly, in a crouch. His eyes darted from side to side by instinct, then, with a tiny snort, he righted himself. This place was driving him paranoid, slowly but certainly. He pulled his boots on, then his thin grey T-shirt and yellow jacket, the prison garb he so detested, still moving quietly. There was a security camera watching him, so it served no purpose, but silent movement had very much become habit by now. Soundlessly he approached the bars, peeking out into the dimness of the corridors outside.

Where he had his quarters, very few men were kept. Only the most dangerous. Originally he had been scheduled to depart with a terraforming crew to work at Shangri-la – the name was bitter irony; more prisoners died there than in the rest of the penal colony's facilities combined – but administration had changed their mind about it soon enough, after he had killed two fellow inmates with his bare hands. It had been self-defence, of course, but ever since then, he had been kept in nearly total isolation, even when working. For his own sake, they said. He suspected it was more for the sake of the others. Administration did not want to lose too many of their resources, no matter how worthless they were as human beings.

They were coming closer.

His shoulders tensed as his eyes attempted to pierce the darkness. The only light came in from above the structure's roof, a yellowish glow beneath a dimly opaque sky, currently half swallowed by Saturn's mighty shadow, its rings cutting across the sky like a vaguely defined bridge of darkness. The voices were growing louder now; he could make out individual words.

And then shots rang out. Withdrawing from the bars, he crouched down nearby, waiting for them to stop firing. By now he had a pretty good idea what was going on, and while he remained in hiding, motionless, his mind was working feverishly, carried by cascading and crashing waves of excitement. He was a coiled spring, every fibre ready for attack.

Shots. Screams. Running feet. Closer, ever closer. Finally a siren rang out its cry to arms. Too late, much too late. The tip of his tongue flicked across his dry lips eagerly.

And then they were there, two of them. Righting himself, he lounged against the bars, putting on a show of calm while his insides were writhing and reeling. He thought he recognised their faces, at least dimly. What good were faces to them, when in here they were just numbers?

"Want out?" the tall one asked in the slurred accent of the westernmost parts of Mega-City One. He carried a heavy assault rifle. "We could use you."

He smiled, slowly, lazily, a predator's smile. "Go on." His voice sounded hoarse to his own ears; he had not used it in at least two days.

The other one, shorter, but with broader shoulders, his skin dark as a Judge's uniform, slid a mag-card through the lock, and the door to his cell swung open.

At last. It was hard not to laugh out loud. But he had to work calmly and methodically now. "Lead the way," he said.

When he caught the tall man in a choke hold from behind and intentionally chose the angle so that he crushed his windpipe when he flexed his arm, the other was too surprised to put up much of a fight. The black man spun around at the sounds of panting and gagging that soon turned to wheezing, raising the rifle he was carrying, his eyes, bright against his dark skin, grotesquely wide, but he pushed his gasping victim forward towards him, and both men fell, the tall one clawing at his throat, the other struggling beneath him, unable to retrieve his rifle from under the heavier man's body. This time he really laughed as he brought his boot down hard into his face. Kept in isolation for years, he had completely forgotten how much he had missed the thrill of the fight.

Had he really enjoyed it that much, he wondered as he picked up the tall man's gun and put a bullet through both men's heads, just in case, had he truly lived for the fight like that? Or was it just that the thrill told him he was still alive in this cold and distant tomb?

Alive, and free. He was still smiling when he picked up the black man's rifle, too. Free at last.

Cautiously he moved along the corridors, following the cries and screams and gunshots. There was a fully fledged battle going on here, it seemed. Twice more he encountered small groups of escaped prisoners, and they all died with a bullet in their head. Another group had taken over the isolation sector's control room, but they, too, soon shared their fellow inmates' fate. There was no stopping him.

Barricading the door, he slumped down into the blood-spattered chair in front of the screen and started watching the video feeds, carefully taking note of their points of origin. He already had a vague picture of his concrete and steel grave's layout in his head, so it was not hard to build on it. Soon he had a pretty good idea of what was going on, and where. And where he had best be now.

It was just as if he had never been gone, never shut away from the light.

Before he left, he picked out those weapons best suited to his taste and all the matching ammunition he could find. There was a light ahead, it seemed to him, a dim, weak, flickering light, but it was there. For him.

Rico Dredd was going to rise from the grave tonight.