Prog 11 : Following

Silently and with her tongue protruding as she fumbled the delicate operation with a burned hand, Quartermain dripped distilled water on the footprint on the floor. The blood was dry, but the print was about the right size to be Anderson's. If it were not for the deadzone, visorcams and helmetcomps' DB uplinks would have confirmed the toeprints in seconds. As it was, they had to go old-school.

Despite the fact he'd probably never done it outside of the classroom himself, Cornelius had ordered Quartermain to play CSI tech. He was standing guard, blockrocker high and tight against his chest, head on a swivel and gaze reaching up the stairwell. But Quartermain knew his attention was at least a third on her performance, and that was more than enough to spot any errors or missteps. Forcing her hands to not shake despite her nerves she swabbed bloodstains up with a Q-tip, rubbing them on the test card. She stood and pointedly didn't stare at it as she whispered under her breath; "One radopotamus, two radopotamus, three radopotamus . . ."

The atrium of Mercy's central tower was chimney-like – tall and narrow it rose from what had once been a garden of reclaimed trees growing in synthetic soil to the clouded skylight above, flights of stairs on the north and south sides joining twenty landings stacked atop each other, lacing them together like a Sino-Cit finger-puzzle. Even when the skylight hadn't been choked with parasitic vegetation and clogged with filth, there wouldn't have been enough natural light for the trees to flourish – empty sockets, scorched and ringed with shards of broken glass like crystallized tears, showed where glowglobes with daylight filters had been mounted on the lower levels, pointing towards the futile former-extravagance of the garden. Now, it wasn't even a weed-choked ruin – it had passed that years before. The pre-war vegetation couldn't survive in Mega City One's post-war ecology – the skylight had shattered and never been repaired, letting in not only polluted air, but also wind-blown seeds. Rad-vines had strangled the garden, roots worming into the soil, tendrils piercing the bark, vines throttling limbs and sucking nutrients from trees gasping for life. Ornamental plants stood no chance against the mutant vegetation; hardy enough to survive in the Cursed Earth and capable of driving seeming-tender shoots through six inches of blacktop, they would have destroyed the garden mere weeks after Mercy closed its doors.

Now the trees were long-dead, the wood desiccated and rotten, a hollow framework of gnarled vines reaching upwards. Fibrous limbs stretched long and thin, weaving back and forth into an insane tangle as they desperately sought to climb higher than their fellows, an arms-race to claim the light. The only leaves on the rad-vines were at the very top, a dense canopy supported on denuded trunks. Here and there branches thrust out, grasping the railings of the landings and stairs like the arthritic hands of crocks clutching canes.

Little light filtered through the thick canopy above, but after the pitch-darkness of the foyer it seemed unnaturally bright to Cornelius and Quartermain. The floor was thick was rotted mulch, the composted remains of discarded leaves. The vines' ecology was trembling on the verge of collapse; parasitic, they had sustained themselves on the garden but now that was gone and they had grown almost to the point where the weak sunlight could no longer support them. They were choking themselves off, the canopy blocking the light from reaching below. Would this new garden reach equilibrium, Cornelius wondered, or was this life, too, doomed to fail? Here and there, in the darkest and dampest spots in the corners and around the rotted boles of the long-dead trees, some kind of life stirred – stalks and caps and shelves of fungus, spores budding and breeding and decaying. A horrible kind of life-in-death, disconnected from warmth and sunlight, feasting on the ruins of joy. He shivered and focused his attention more closely on the levels above him, telling himself it was because he was wary of what might descend with murder on their master's mind.

When Quartermain had eaten her tenth radopotamus, she examined the card. "Matches Cassandra's major antigen, Sir," she told him – Anderson was AB, because of course she was. She didn't need to be psychic to realize he knew she was thinking that, nor to know what his next thought would be; along with how many other people?

She also knew Around 5% wasn't going to be a satisfactory answer.

"I don't know her minor antigen profile, Sir," she said apologetically. "If we had a DB uplink . . ." Right, yeah, this is where we came in and why you were scrubbing the floor with a Q-tip, Jackie, she chided herself.

Cornelius snapped Anderson's badge off his belt, flipped it in his hand and offered it to Quartermain. Bio data on the back, of course. Smooth move, Jackie, real smooth. Look like a dumb Cadet in front of your partner. Abashed, she took it and compared the two. "All points match, Sir," she said, "it could be her."

Cornelius looked down at her, one eyebrow raised. "'Could', Jackie?" he asked.

She scratched her neck with the corner of the card, resisting the temptation to lift her foot and nervously stand on one leg, but still raising her heel and twisting her boot en pointe. "Well, Sir," she began, her mind churning with numbers, "out of eight-hundred-million people . . ." Carry the one . . .

He grinned – the broad, teeth-flashing smile that could have made him the next Conrad Conn. "You skip Kelso's classes, Jackie?" She furrowed her brow; while she couldn't do the equation in her head as quick as he might have liked her theory was solid. "We know Cassie came in here, and that about eight-hundred-million people didn't."

Not so solid after all, Jackie. Sheepishly, she offered him the badge. "It's still a 'could', Sir," she muttered.

He took the shield, his gloved hand lingering on her naked fingers. "Confidence, Jackie, is the hallmark of a good Judge." He clipped the bronze to his belt. "And call me JC, for Grud's sake." He glanced down – after the crunched remains of the glass ampoule, the bloody prints of a left foot appeared on every other stair. "She's bleeding bad," he remarked.

Quartermain followed him as he trotted quickly up the first flight of stairs, his shoulder pressed to the wall to minimize gunfire vectors from above. He leaned out on the final step, peering to get a clearer view and lifting his fist in a silent communication; halt. She slammed her back against the wall, standing very straight and stiff as he whipped around the corner behind the barrel of his gun. He didn't even glance at her, knowing she would be where she was supposed to be, as he pointed, beckoned and extended his pinkie. You. Move up. Take point.

She hurried forward, scurrying along the landing, skidding to a halt at the mouth of the corridor with her back to the wall, peering over her shoulder. It was dark down there and she closed her eyes for a few moments, regulating her breathing and letting her eyes adjust. She leaned out, pointing the blockrocker behind her one-handed. The empty corridor yawned sarcastically at her and she gave an audible sigh as she relaxed and swung her whole body around, a good two-handed grip on her weapon, scanning the corridor. Clear. She turned to Cornelius and beckoned.

For such a big guy, he moved with surprising swiftness and silence, somehow immobilizing the hardware-store of equipment strapped around him so it didn't rattle. She was studying his technique when he reached her and, without a word, enveloped her head in his massive hand, turning it so she looked down the corridor. Abashed, she tightened her focus, hands clenching and unclenching on the butt of her gun.

Cornelius moved past her, reaching blindly behind to clap her on the shoulder. She folded smoothly into his wake, spinning to put her hip against the wall and slide along it, attention dived between the trail of blood on the marbelite floor and any potential threats above them. The thatch of gnarled vegetation was thick here, a confusing crisscrossed mat of interwoven fibers, and more than once she jumped and started at nothing more than a partially-revealed shadow.

Procedure is the religion of the dangerous trades, and while the Judges only officially tolerated religion and many if not most were openly scornful of it, this was one orthodoxy they never wavered from. Heresy was, for all practical purposes, a capital crime. Faith in technique, reliance on process – these were their creedal statements. J-Dept's rules and protocols, regulations and processes – known among the black-and-bronze by the seeming-dismissive shorthand of 'regs' – were the second sacred text after The Law itself. They contained procedures for everything from clearing a room to interrogating perps, how to sharpen a boot knife or check a lawgiver, even down to grooming instructions and the best way to brew a pot o' joe in the Department-approved 'caf-makers. The early years of a Cadet's training were spent with regs; memorization before understanding, understanding before ability, and instinct above all. By the time a Judge hit the streets, regs should have migrated from his frontal lobes to his brainstem, tattooed there as deep as breathing.

With regs seared into their minds, into their very soul (or so the thinking went), even the least-competent Judge in the more severe, demanding or traumatic situation would be able to adjudicate in an effective, if uninspired way. No matter how stressed, tired, terrified or wounded, a Judge should always be able to fall back on instinct. The Department's collected wisdom, created in the gray calm of the Hall of Justice rather than the red-black chaos of the streets, distilled and refined. Faced with any situation, if a Judge recalled his training he might not come out alive, but The Law would certainly prevail.

Of course, blind faith was – at best – a minimum standard and – more likely, and especially for assessing Judges like Dredd – a failing grade. A Judge who never went beyond the ability to slavishly follow instructions, perennially a devout but impious follower of the religion of regs, would never rise higher than a simple patrol-rider in a relatively-calm 'block or sub-sector, clearance permanently below four, with no options but the Long Walk or Unsung at retirement. Chiefs and assessors watched for such Judges and, while it was rare indeed to fail them for their rigid orthodoxy, it might have been the kindest thing to do.

Quartermain's heterodoxy was of a different sort. A late induction, training hadn't had time to habituate to instinct. She was still thinking about the process, remembering the doctrine, considering her actions. She knew what she had to do, and that was the problem. She spent precious mental energy on each corner, each flight of stairs, each doorway. They frayed at her nerves, wearying her, making her want to cut corners without realizing it. She second-guessed her own peculiar power, worrying about her partner as etching precognition worried at her subconscious. Although she knew she could trust him to be where he should be, she still found herself glancing back to check.

Cornelius was calm in a way she couldn't comprehend, the gold flecks in his dark eyes glittering, his face neutral. Although not a telepath, it was obvious to her his mind was virtually blank – his consciousness a zen-like tabula rasa as he instinctively followed the drill without thought. His breathing was regular, the pulse in his neck even, his movements smooth and economical. Jealousy plucked at her, emotion tweaking her already-distracted mind.

They made five levels, following the bloody footprints, before they were checked. Quartermain peered around the corner of the flight of stairs, snapping her fist behind her and feeling Cornelius freeze into immobility. Slowly, she eased around the corner, beckoning him as she did so. He loomed over her as she crouched on one knee.

The landing ended in a twisted wreckage of torn girders and shattered marbelite; the vines had wormed their way inside, their slow, inexorable power ripping plasteen and crunching rockcrete over months or years. A tangled bundle of gnarled limbs thrust upwards, coiled and braided like a gigantic cable. Abruptly, she gave a short laugh.

"What?" Cornelius' question was a sharp whisper.

She cocked her head backwards and peered up at him with a lopsided grin. "I know my name's Jackie, but I don't much fancy climbing it," she quipped.

He smiled himself, tension broken. It was a tale from his childhood, too; he suspected she'd learned it at her mother's knee, while he'd probably heard it from his father (his mamá had different fairytales to drawn on). "I'm here to rescue a princess, not kill a giant," he muttered.

"Even so," she said, "how else do we get to the next level?"

Cornelius pointed with his chin. "Trail leads into the corridor there." Quartermain looked, touched the partial print in front of her, sweeping her naked fingertips across it. The blood was mostly dark and dry, only a single scab remained sticky-crimson. The footprints had been gradually getting smaller and sparser as Anderson's wounds clotted closed. Seen from the low angle it was hard to tell, but as she craned her neck and half-stood it was clear the trail turned into the main corridor of level-five of the north wing. She lifted herself fully from her crouch, glancing at the sign next to the gaping black maw of the doorway. Like the ones on other levels, it was a series of slats slotted into a frame, letters laser-etched through the brushed-gunmetal surface to the glossy black plasteen below;

5N: Psychiatry
- Pharmacy
- Crisis Stabilization Unit
- Neurosurgery
- Behavioral & Cognitive Therapy
- Electroshock
- Wards Psy1 thru Psy4
- Involuntary Commitment
- Nurses' Breakroom

Someone had sprayed a mocking question in rage-red paint on the sign – WHY SO SERIOUS? - complete with a primitive rendition of an impish face with a sanity-swallowing smile. "Oh, great," muttered Quartermain.

"You think it's gonna be any crazier than the rest of this madhouse?" asked Cornelius, not unreasonably. He pulled a glowstick from his belt and snapped the chemphial with a flick of his wrist. "I'll take point." She nodded silently, following in his green-edged shadow-wake as he led the way forward.

It was abruptly dark a few steps into the corridor – although the hospital had plenty of windows, they only illuminated the patient rooms on the outer edges of the building. The sun would never reach deep inside Mercy. In the sickly-green light from the glowstick, Anderson's bloody prints were matte-black, looking like holes against the glittering floor. Chips of reclaimed glass sparkled like jewels, the moving light sliding over the uneven veins of different materials in the marbelite. Whatever wavelengths of light Tek had decided on for J-Dept glowsticks rendered some of them translucent, and so the floor was a ever-lurching, never-moving slimy ocean of fluctuating depths that made the Judges queasy as they moved gingerly forward.

Details of the corridor vanished into inky uncertainty a few yards ahead of them, but the chemlight refracted and reflected for a surprising distance, gleaming on the floor, catching on the chromed rail running at knee height, bouncing off pus-yellow signs. The corridor ran straight as a gunshot until perspective contracted it to a single vanishing point. "You think Cassandra's in here, boss?" Quartermain asked. Her voice seemed hollow in the deserted space.

"That's why I came in, Cadet," he hissed through gritted teeth.

"No!" She swallowed nervously as her exclamation echoed down the corridor, battering itself to silence. She continued in a whisper. "I mean, in the psychiatry wing? Would Rindón want her here? He's messing with her head, right?"

Cornelius shivered as he negotiated a junction – the arrowed sign showed it led to neurosurgery. Images of the zomborderies and the psi-amps bolted through their skulls, followed by Anderson staked down and splayed open like a frog, floated into his consciousness. He had to check twice to make sure the footprints didn't lead towards it. "Stay sharp, Cadet," he told her. "Neither of us need your imagination."

"Yessir," she agreed.

Silently, they followed the trail – the prints were becoming fainter and fainter, but her and there a gobbet followed by smears of fresher, brighter bloody showed where a scab had been torn loose. Cornelius was no expert, but he knew blood spread like a rumor – clock a guy in the nose and his shirt would be painted crimson with a shotglass-worth. It looked worse than it was but, even so, Cassie was pretty badly cut up. The trail hadn't shown unevenness – whatever injuries she had, she didn't seem to be feeling them and they weren't impacting her gait. But now they did – Cornelius signaled and crouched down, Quartermain standing guard over him, her eyes sweeping up and down the corridor.

Nominally, they were at a four-way intersection, half-way along the wing – madness to stop here, a violation of every single article of doctrine. But there was a set of double doors to the west, a sign for stairs next to them, and a gate to the east. It looked secure – the sophisticated electronic locks would be useless, of course, but there were multiple pieces of mechanical security as well; bolts and bars latched and locked with rusted padlocks. Quartermain only glanced at it long enough to read the sign – Involuntary Commitment – and verify it as secure. She kept her back to it, concentrating on the doors in front of her and the long corridor to either side.

Cornelius move the glowstick back and forth, low to the ground. Anderson had stopped here, limped and taken uncertain steps, standing unevenly to avoid aggravating injuries. He plucked a shard of glass from the floor – the floors throughout Mercy were intermittently littered with trash, but this bloody spike caught his eye. The crimson was fresh as the footprints. Had she come to herself here, stood on one foot and pulled a splinter from her sole? He stood, fruitlessly wishing electronics would work here so he could use the luminol and blacklight, and tried to conjure her in his mind's eye.

His imagination dressed her, of course; what she wore for breakfast – fatigue pants and a tank, but still barefoot. Based on the bloody prints, where the glass had fallen, and her height, she'd probably put her hand against the gate to support herself. He reached out himself, running his fingers over it, hoping to find smears in the rust.

Something rushed along his arm, a freezing coldness shooting through his bones, wrapping icy tendrils around his chest. His heart beat hollow, leaping and jumping like a jackrabbit, as an icy wind blew through the gate, bringing with it his name whispered in silent-sursurration. His skin prickling with goosebumps and beading with clammy sweat. A sinking feeling in his guts, a loosening of his bowels that took all his effort to resist. Unwillingly, he staggered backwards, flailing helplessly at Quartermain and all-but-clinging to her.

She yelped herself, spinning around and shoving him away with a panicked scream. He stumbled, tripping over his own trembling feet and slumping against the wall, clutching at his chest. "Don't do that, boss!" she complained, her own chest heaving. "It scares the Dok out of . . . are you okay?"

Cornelius face was slack, his eyes blank with a terrorized thousand-yard stare. His mouth opened once or twice, meaningless syllables falling from his lips. He lifted a trembling hand and passed it over his sweating face, mastering himself with an effort. He gave a shuddering sigh and nodded weakly. Quartermain slung the 'rocker and offered him her hand. After a beat, he took it and she helped him upright. The tremor in his arm, the weakness in his fingers, the sudden seeming-smallness of his massive hand disquieted her. She barely noticed the cold that seeped into her own flesh. "What the drokk was that?" she asked.

He was still breathing heavily, clutching his chest, heartbeat fluttering in his throat. "I don't know," he admitted. "All of a sudden . . ." He shuddered and shivered, slapping himself in the face. "I'm good," he said unconvincingly.

Quartermain nodded, looking down at the footprints on the floor, her gaze following them to the double doors. "She went upstairs," she realized. She blinked once or twice herself, wavering very slightly. The palm of her hand was cold-bleached white, the burn of the reversed eagle of justice beating hot red at the pace of a pulse not her own. Abruptly, she crouched and touched one of the bloodstains. She lifted her hand to show him. "Boss! It's wet! We're right behind her!"

Cornelius' mind still wasn't his own, his heart hammering and brain flooded with adrenaline. In the light of the glowstick, blood was black and too-many other colors were dark. He caught her hand. Her fingers were dry, no blood on them. "Jackie," he said, "I don't . . ."

She snatched herself free and leaped to her feet. "C'mon, boss!" she exclaimed. "She's right here! Let's get after her!" She didn't wait for a response but instead dived through the double doors – they swung open and then closed behind her with a ba-du-dump!

"Jackie!" yelped Cornelius. "Don't leave me . . ." He clenched his fist and passed a hand over his face. "Get a drokking grip, JC," he muttered to himself. "You're not a . . ."

He jumped like a startled gazelle and actually screamed at the girlish giggle that floated down the corridor. His hands working feverishly on his gun, he peered blindly into the blackness.

He could see nothing. Terror scrabbling at the inside of his chest, the darkness enveloping him with its horrible promises, he snatched a glowstick off his belt and tossed it forward. In his jittery nervousness, he forgot to activate it. It clattered to stillness in the dark. Rooted in place by unnamed terror, he waited in trembling panic.

The clack of shoes on tile. The whistle of nylon. The swish of starched cloth. The same giggle as before.

There was a crack! as a heel came down on the chemphial of the glowstick with terrific precision. A pinprick sparked and grew to a sickly sphere of sonar-green. As the light expanded it revealed delicate feet enclosed in white frakk-me-pumps, attached to well-turned calves and shapely thighs wrapped in laddered stockings. The women giggled as they saw the terrified Judge, exchanging knowing looks at they sashayed forward.

There was a grotesque beauty to them, an alluring horror of visceral appeal. Long-limbed and curvacious, with wasp-waists and broad hips, cantilevered breasts pushed together to make a cavernous cleavage squeezed into almost-indecent nurses' smocks. The skirts' hems had ridden to an inch or three above the racy-lacy tops of their stockings, the outlines of garter belts and knickers clear through the taut fabric.

Despite himself, Cornelius smelted the last bits of his courage to bravado in the crucible of nervousness. "Stay classy, Judge Death," he quipped.

In another world, they would have been pink-and-white-and-blonde lovelies unsuited for the rigors of medicine, but automatic-hires for a grindbar in the shadow of Mercy, catering to a particular fetish. But here, in the queasy green darkness, with their uniforms torn and stained with blood and other bodily fluids best-not-guessed-at, stockings laddered and heels broken, crimson-glossed nails chipped, bottle-blonde hair a filthy birds-nest, lurching forward in a disgusting parody of the catwalk wiggle, they were a grotesque horror.

They pressed themselves against each other; pawing, caressing, whispering as if sharing secrets. "Oh, look . . ." ". . . a patient! We should . . ." ". . . take good care . . ." ". . . of him. Perhaps . . ." ". . . a sponge bath?"

Cornelius wanted to flee – to run back along the corridor, to dive through the double doors after Quatermain – but his legs were jelly and his feet rooted to the ground. "S-s-stay back!" he quavered, "I'm wuh-wuh-w-warning you!"

They all giggled as one but spoke in their back-and-forth, finishing-each-others-sentences way. "He's warning . . ." ". . . us. Do you . . ." ". . . think we should . . ." ". . . listen or . . ." ". . . not?" He lifted the blockrocker to his shoulder; the barrel shook more than his voice. "Oh, no . . ." ". . . honey. It won't . . ." ". . . work. You see . . ."

With a yelp of fear, he pulled the trigger. Shots stitched across their corseted middles. Bullets punched through ridiculous figures, crimson flowers blooming on dirty-white soil. They staggered backwards, but didn't fall.

". . . you cannot . . ." ". . . kill what does . . ." ". . . not live!"

As one, they lurched forward, broken nails reaching for him, ulcerated tongues lasciviously licking lesioned lips. "What the drokk are you?" Cornelius sobbed. Again, they giggled.

"We are . . ." ". . . his. It is . . ." ". . . more than . . ." ". . . we deserve."

He pulled the trigger again, but terror had robbed him of so much of his skill – the hammer fell on an empty chamber. They tittered eagerly and flung themselves at him, wrapping lithe bodies around his limbs and bearing him to the ground.

He shrieked, flailing wildly, losing control of his body, a spreading wetness hot in his fatigues. Shame mingled horribly with terror as he screwed his eyes shut, thrashing his body frantically. They writhed atop him in a giggling gaggle, delighting in the bulk beneath him, the way his fear-weakened muscles bunched ineffectually, pinning him and smothering him beneath their impure flesh.

The locks unlatched one by one, the gate swinging open with a sepulchral groan, infinite blackness yawning like the abyss. A presence lurking beyond the opened portal came closer. A distrustful mind of wheels-within-wheels, of layered secrets, of deception and falsehoods, nuanced meanings and everything that wasn't technically speaking a lie. A mind broken by fear and driven through it to the other side. The remains of what had once been a man that was, in every respect, projecting.

A figure stepped through the portal, looming tall and cadaverous above the heaving mass wrestling on the floor. Dressed in a busted straightjacket trailing restrains over scab-black scrubs, it lifted scrawny arms and spread them wide. Its face, veiled in shadow, was shuttered as an isocube. Abruptly, it snapped open. Its gaze pierced Cornelius, looking through the black-and-bronze, through the badge, through his flesh and obfuscations, beyond his own awareness to whatever lay in the unexamined darkness of his heart. When it spoke, it did so with his own voice and in the language he'd learned at his mother's knee;

"Mirar en la cara del miedo, pequeño Juan."

A/n : Comic readers will, of course, recognize the character being introduced here – although I have completely changed his origin and look (although, of course, I have changed Judge Death's too!) But, yes . . . as Jackie said; death, fear, fire, disease . . .

And, of course, it's now made explicit what ethnicity Cornelius is!

Any comments, please leave a review – even if it is just a very brief positive or negative!