Hello there, again I have to apologise for the huge delay on this chapter. I was on vacation, then I had entrance exams for university, then I was a lazy piece of shit... you get the idea. If it's any consolation to you, this chapter is twice as long as my usual chapters. I do hope you will like it and that it was worth the wait. And when you finish reading, please take the time to write a comment and follow/favorite my fic, your support really means the world to me.
Thank you and have fun.
Disclaimer: Dredd 3D belongs to Lionsgate, 2000 AD belongs to Rebellion Development
Attack
She crossed her legs underneath her, placing a cup of tea to her left. With a sigh she took a sip, enjoying the sweet taste of the blend. Her fingers darted across the display to write her last report for tonight.
Unbound:
status: active gang
criminal activities: weapon trafficking, drug dealing, prostitution, mutant trafficking, possibly murders on Judges Peters, Kovacs, Hamell, Corey
location: unknown, presumably in MegWest, sectors 171-220
leader/s: unknown
number of members: unknown
known members: none
She scoffed. Stripped to the bare bones, concrete information on the Unbound were pitifully few. She cracked her knuckles and, with a determined expression on her face, started to add tidbits she got from her "borrowed" memories.
weapon trafficking - variety of hand and machine guns, only projectile weapons, no laser or plasma weaponryinsufficient funds? (probably not), inapt storage room? (humid?maybe too close to a uninsulated power source)
drug dealing - ecgonine-phenethylamine derivates, distributed to lower-class dealers from unknown production location (delivery routes hint towards MegWest)
prostitution - nothing out of the ordinary (in light of newest info prostitutes could be mutants as well)
human(mutant) trafficking ca. 150 mutants supplied every two weeks (+/- few days) to numerous (approx. 20) fighting ringsnumber and frequency of deliveries indicates stable connection to Cursed Earth (but they still scout for mutants in the City)
„Why discard one and look for the other?" Anderson muttered to herself. The answer was quite simple. Mutants that looked ordinary and knew the City too, were valuable, while those who didn't match the criteria, were not.
murders on Judges - time-lapse(between murders): 4-5 days between the attacks, modus operandi: main focus on inflicting pain on victims (torture and mutilation on alive subjectssee pathology reports), no usable DNA samplestraces of alkali and other chemicals (s. pat. reports), acquisition of targets not necessarily by the gang itself (J. Corey was primary target of the Renegades, then passed to the Unbound exchange of favors? means of appeasement?), placement of the bodies as message to the Hall (decreasing distance=growing confidence/arrogance),(almost no video footageheavy usage of blind spots and distortion technology
She cracked her knuckles again and changed sitting position, her toes softly brushing against the bloodied riot shield. She took another sip of tea, now gone cold. Dull, throbbing pain pulsed in her temples, a common occurence when she focused too long on imported memories.
leader/s: unknown, members always refer to the leader as „Him" (doesnt disprove the existence of multiple leaders), no one seems to have seen Him (could indicate the leader himself is mutant, but the brutality and lack of compassion rega
She didn't get to finish her thought, because the door blew up.
In a heartbeat she snatched her shield and gun and vaulted behind the couch. Several small objects flew into the living room, filling it with acrid smoke and a rain of bullets tore apart the spot she sat in just a split second ago. Teary-eyed and coughing heavily Anderson burrowed her nose in the crook of her elbow and backed away slightly from the destroyed piece of furniture. Immediately a flurry of shots reflected off of her shield, throwing her off-balance and sending her tumbling to the floor.
Instinctively, like a wounded animal, she ran for the nearest safe-spot. Long leaps took her across the corridor to the bathroom, her mind so focused on fleeing, she barely even covered herself. A bullet wheezed past her head, so close she could feel the heat burning the back of her neck. Another scratched her calf. Red hot pain flared up in her body, but the adrenaline kept it at bay.
At last she slammed the bathroom door behind her. If the front door was of any indication, this would not hold them for long, but it did give Anderson the precious moments she desperately needed. With fast, efficient movements she properly strapped the shield to herself and tried to focus on the enemies on the other side of the door.
Strangely , she found out that she couldn't read them nor pinpoint their exact position for that matter. Their minds seemed foggy and somehow distorted, slipping away whenever Anderson tried to grab onto them. From the few glimpses she got through the smoke and the very occasional reveal of their mind, she assumed there were between four and seven of them. She had a hunch that her attackers were mutants, but it was yet uncertain and any hasty assumptions could be her undoing.
The sound of heavy boots kicking the flimsy chipboard door stirred her from her thoughts. Two more impacts were heard before the door buckled under the force and flung open, the locking mechanism torn off completely.
Just before the door opened she erected her own barriers, hopefully making herself just as invisible or at least unreadable to them as they were to her. She fired a round before taking cover next to the washing machine. Again, her attackers didn't waste time and a smoke grenade, just as a mass of bullets flew into the room. The bulletstorm shattered the once white porcelain tiles, sending up clouds of razor-sharp chips flying in every direction. Before Anderson knew it , every exposed bit of her skin was covered in nicks and cuts.
The washer, while providing acceptable cover so far, was also starting to show first signs of strain. The thin metal layer was full of holes and the bullets rattled hollowly in it's inner tub. It wouldn't hold much longer, she figured.
„Hot shot!" Anderson yelled, coughing violently, and leaned ever so slightly from her hideout. She emptied half of the magazine in the general direction of the perps, before falling back behind the washer. The heat-tracer bullets did their job, one mind going black, another becoming bright with agony.
She fired another round of hot shots, rewarded by one more visible mind and then with almost reckless abandon leaped out of her hideout and charged the unsuspecting perps, her Lawgiver spitting fire. They all wore gas-masks and black bulletproof suits, quite similar to the Judges uniform, she noticed. Few hastily fired shots ricocheted from her shield, but none came even close to doing harm.
The dead perp lay before her , his innards spilled in front of him. Warm blood mixed with other visceral fluids seeped into her socks and her feet slipped on the eely loops of intestines. She braced herself and slammed her shield into the nearest enemy's face. Blood and teeth splurted onto the shield. Stepping sideways, her shield catching another round, she kicked one of the wounded perps to the groin, then delivered a blow square to his jaw. He toppled to the floor and she stomped his neck to make sure he wouldn't stand up again.
And then she ran blindly. The element of surprise would only last so long and without her uniform she didn't stand a chance, even with the protection her shield provided. She fired blindly behind her hoping the heat-tracers would somehow make it effective. Unfortunately, only after four shots she heard the empty click of magazine.
„Fuck." she cursed under her breath. „FMJ! Rapid fire!"
A torrent of bullets struck the walls and perps behind her. One mind went blank. Three dead, two visible, but she heard at least two more sets of footsteps, even thought she couldn't make them out through the smoke. Something sharp and long embedded itself in her foot, slicing the tender skin of her arch, and she hissed in pain with every subsequent step.
Limping, she threw open the front door and was instantly introduced to a butt of an assault-rifle. Dizzy, her mouth filling with blood, she swayed to the side and fell to her knees. Two guards were stationed outside, one with the assault-rifle, another with a regular handgun. Both were about to fire at her and with the shots coming from behind, the shield was not big enough to protect her from everything. One bullet scraped her face, a gash along her eyebrow covering her face in blood, another hitting her shoulder blade, whether it was too a scratch or if the bullet stayed embedded there, she didn't know yet. She somersaulted out of the door, her shield tripping one of the guards.
Rising to her unsteady feet, she remembered to turn with her armoured side to the attackers. The perp with the hand-gun rammed into her, pressing her to the wall, forcing her shield down. She intended to shoot or kick him, but the shield restricted her. He pushed harder against the shield, squeezing the air out od Anderson's lungs. Panicked, she struggled against him, but to no avail.
A wild staccato echoed and a mass of blood, glass shards and brain matter splashed onto her face. Suddenly free from the suffocating grip, Anderson raised her weapon and showered her front door with another round. The bullets from the other side kept coming, the attackers either uncaring or oblivious to the fact, that they just murdered their own. She didn't intend to stay around to find out.
Taking the elevator was not an option so she ran for the stairwell. The gunfire behind her was getting more sporadic, apparently her mind-barrier worked and the perps didn't know where exactly to follow her. But that wouldn't last long, there were only so many routes she could take and they still could trace the blood-trail she was leaving. She reached the stairwell, tugging desperately at the straps of her shield, carrying the Lawgiver in her teeth. Finally she loosened the straps and slipped the shield off. It was risky to give up her only means of protection, but she needed the mobility. With a discontent growl she threw the shield down the shaft, hoping it would not shatter at the bottom and started running down the stairs.
She needed to make 23 storeys, which at first did go pretty well, with her jumping down entire flights of stairs, ignoring the pain in her insteps. But then the perps caught up to her and soon the stairway was filled with the sounds of gunfire, the bullets ricocheting dangerously, forcing Anderson to run pressed against the wall.
At level 3 her left leg gave out beneath her and she tumbled down the stairs. She remained lying for a while, taking shallow fast breaths, struggling to get the pain under control. But the shooting behind her forced her to recover urgently and she continued her escape, now at a much slower pace unfortunately. Even so, the advantage she had on her pursuers was not so easily erased and she reached the ground level before them. She noticed her shield laying nearby and, to her immense relief, she saw it survived the fall mostly unscathed. She picked it up, strapped it to her back and limped to her Lawgiver, fortunately parked quite close to the stairwell.
Anderson reached it exhausted, pained, but still relieved and put on her helmet. Unlike Judges like Dredd she prefered to keep her helmet by the bike, mag-locked to side panel. She only used it for driving anyway and taking it with her usually resulted in her forgetting it in strange places.
She gunned the engine and raced to the garage exit, when she noticed a black shape speeding in a passage parallel to her. She figured it was her attacker hoping to cut her off and then gun her down. But very few vehicles could match a Lawmaster in the matter of speed and when she revved the bike up to maximum, the perps could watch dumbfounded as she dashed out of the garage and into the traffic.
The cold night air whipped her sore exposed skin but she didn't dare slowing down. She reached the Hall in about an hour and only when she pulled over to the underground garage, did she allow herself to breathe out in relief.
The helmet stuck when she tried to pull it off. The blood and brain matter dried up and virtually glued her face to the supple padding. When she finally wrestled the cursed piece of gear off, her head came out with a shower of dried up clumps of blood and her cheeks were bruised. Annoyed, she scratched her head, causing more of the bloody shower to fall.
„I. Hate. This. Fucking. Job." she forced through clenched teeth, shaking off the sticky lumps of brain matter.
With her shoulders slouched and a sour expression plastered on her face, Anderson took the elevator to the administrative floors. Unceremonially she crossed the corridors, her gore-drenched socks leaving bloody smears on the spotless floors. She came to stand before the door 3573 and entered, not even bothering to knock. The office room was dark, only one of the four cubicles lit. She felt a grin settle on her face, when she saw whose workplace it was.
„Hey, fuckface. Put you cock back in you pa-" her sentence ended in an abrupt coughing fit, when the person behind the desk raised her head.
„Uh, sorry, Mr. Miles isn't working today." said a girl sitting in Miles' chair. Curly red hair framed her freckled face and she looked about 17.
„Yeah, I can see that." Anderson smiled uncomfortably, her hand nervously running through her hair, smearing more brain matter on her hands. „So, uh, you work here?"
The girl regarded Anderson's horrific, bloody figure and nodded her head, after a while. „Yep. My name is Katrina Doyle... um, everybody calls me Kitty... and I'm an intern here... and, uh, this is my first week and they left me all alone to do a night shift, so if you're some deranged maniac, here to cut me into million pieces and eat their eyes, please come another day, I'm in enough stress already. And if you're not a maniac... Hi, I'm Kitty, how can I help you?"
Anderson let out an amused laugh. „Hi, I'm Judge Cassandra Anderson, ID number 277-4910 ED. My apartment just got busted, I currently own only the stuff I'm wearing and I need a paper for the depot guys to issue me a uniform and all that shit. And I also need, naturally, a new place to stay."
Kitty's brows furrowed. „Uh-huh, okay. Just let me find the... oh, here it is. Okay, before I give you the document, I need at least a short report. You didn't bring me one I would guess."
„Nope, but if you go to documents, office, private, bullshit, Anderson's bullshit, you will find a copy on how we usually do this.
„Uh-huh, I'm right there. Wow, this is neat. Why don't they just give this to everyone, it would make things so much easier. Okay, we can start. By the way, don't you want to sit down?"
Anderson glanced at her tattered, bloodied clothes and shook her head. „You would have to burn the chair afterwards, so I'll just keep standing."
„Okay." Kitty nodded. „ Name?"
„Cassandra Anderson."
„Issue?"
„Assault with intent to commit manslaughter and my location has been compromised."
„Time of the attack?"
„Around 22pm."
„Location of the attack?"
„Verdera Block, 23rd storey, apartment 23-617."
„Identity of the attacker?."
„Unknown."
„Number of attackers?"
„Nine or more."
„Request?"
„I require the immediate issuing of a standard issue uniform and boots, along with a pair of undergarments And then I need all the electronics, one standard issue medi pack, one field version, and a combat knife. That's all for equipment."
Kitty nodded again. „Okay, thank you. Anything else?"
„Yes. Call the dispatching to send a meat-wagon to my apartment, there should be three or more bodies for them. And ask them if they could take my stuff while they're there. Just, you know, have someone go to my bedroom and throw all the stuff in my commode into a body bag."
„I'll see what I can do. If they say yes, I'll just tell them to bring it here to the office, you can pick it up tomorrow morning or so. Now, you said, you needed a new apartment. Am I supposed to do that? I don't think I have the, I don't know, authority?" Kitty shrugged. „I mean, it is possible, that I do and I just forgot, I mean, I really am here like the 4th day or so, so..."
Anderson smiled. „No, this is not your problem, we actually should handle these things ourselves, I just have an agreement with Miles, that he handles this for me, because I have neither the time nor the patience."
„Oh, okay. So, I just tell him you were here, when he comes for the morning shift."
„Thanks a lot, Kitty. You are my savior tonight."
A bright smile lit up the intern's face. „Glad to help. Just let me print the papers for you and then I get to the calling."
A minute later, she was leaving with a stack of papers, while in the background she could hear a call that started with the words: Hi, this is Kitty, the intern. She took the elevator down to the 14th level where she exchanged her papers for a brand new uniform and electronics. With the bundle stashed under her arm, she went to the nearest bathroom.
She threw her clothes in the trash and she sat on the bathroom counter, trying her best to rid herself of the crusted layer of blood, porcelain dust and brains. Even if it was awkward, with her not being able to have more than ten square centimeters under the water at the same time, she persisted until she was somewhat content. The only thing stat remained completely stained was her hair, mostly because her head didn't fit under the tap.
She opened the larger medi-pack and sat on the counter again, her back turned to the mirror, and started examining her wounds. All in all, she did pull through fairly well. Her body was covered in bruises in all the colors of the rainbow, but most of the bullet wounds were minor scratches, except for the one in the calf, where the bullet ended up embedded in the muscle. She pulled it out with surgical tongs, applied a generous amount of sealing gel to all her wounds and swallowed few analgesics.
With her skin tingling slightly as the local anesthetic in the gel started to work, she unwrapped the sterile-packed undergarments and put on her new uniform and boots. She stretched, yawning widely, and dragged herself and her remaining equipment into an empty office and curled up in an armchair in a far away corner, the medi-pack and shield serving her as a pillow and blanket. A lone thought sluggishly entered her brain and she reached for the new data tablet. She really should send Dredd a note.
She laid her head on the arm rest and fell asleep.
A harsh shake woke her up. Startled, she kicked out and hit something soft. She heard a low grunt.
„Anderson, for fuck's sake." Dredd growled as he rubbed his side..
She yawned and stretched, her damaged body protesting against such straining exercise. „Well sorry about that, but tell me what exactly did you exp-"
„What the fuck happened to your face?" he interrupted her.
She shot him a bewildered look. „Uh, what's with it? Oh, well, I was attacked at home. I got away, but got a little messed up in the process."
„Unbound?"
She shrugged. „Could be. Or the remaining Renegades, or some other gang, I really couldn't tell."
„Some leads? Something special about them?"
„Really good mental resistance training, I couldn't read or see them. They definitely were prepared for me."
Dredd nodded and gave her a quick once-over. „Are you fit for duty?"
She fished out the bottle of painkillers and rattled it. „I'm prepared, don't worry. And I take, you have a plan for today."
„Yes, we go round the other fighting rings before they relocate them."
„Good plan." she said and followed him down to the garage. She caught her reflection and understood his earlier question. A long scabbed gash crossed her forehead, had blue and violet shadows gaped under her eyes and her nose and cheek were a mess of angry red swellings.
The day dragged in fruitless irritation. After they successfully busted the first few fight-rings and gathered some, albeit scarce and incomplete, information, their luck ran out. The word about them spread and the only thing they found from there on were hastily abandoned spaces, the concrete still stained in blood. Sometimes they found corpses of the mutants, the people running the arenas opting to kill them rather than take them.
Frustrated, Anderson kicked the wall. Twenty meters away a mutant woman lay face down, a small pack of dogs feeding on her, their mouths covered in red foam as they ripped out her inner organs. One of the beasts raised its head and bared its teeth.
Dredd calmly pulled out his Lawgiver and in rapid succession planted a bullet in the head of each dog.
„How many are left?" he asked, his tone clipped.
„Four. It's pointless there will be nothing there." she groaned.
He shook his head. „We are still going."
„I know." she shrugged.
They were on their way back to their bikes, when Dredd's glove-com beeped and Chief's voice could be heard. „Dredd, we got another distress call. It's Ramirez, he's not responding, but we are still getting the signal."
Dredd tensed up. „Where is he now."
„About 20 minutes from your location, I'm sending the coordinates to you right now."
„Confirmed. Dredd out."
They sprinted the remaining distance to the bikes. As she mounted the bike, Anderson could already see the GPS coordinates highlighted on the screen. She didn't put her helmet on, it would only block her psychic abilities and the wind whipped her face as she raced behind Dredd to the highway. Her vision blurred as tears spilled from her eyes and flowed in horizontal lines into her hair and the only thing she could distinguish was a fuzzy mess of front and rear lights.
She pressed her upper body to the Lawmaster, the shield on her back trashing violently and expanded her mind. A, sort of, map formed itself in her mind, the minds of the drivers and passengers in an about 50 meter radius shining like little lights, pinpointing their position. Of course Dredd was there, his anger, now downright mad fury, blazing like a beacon.
Anderson wiped away her tears and shot a look on the monitor. They were closing in on Ramirez' position, according to the GPS less than three kilometers separated them. She saw, or rather felt, that Dredd sped up, weaving his way through the thickening traffic with enviable skill. She followed, only her abilities and whatever limited vision she had, preventing her from slamming into the side of the nearest car.
Only a kilometer separated them, when the GPS signal died down. Anderson cursed and lashed out with her mind, sacrificing her current field of sight in favor of longer reach. She gunned the engine desperately, stretching her mind to its limits trying to pick out Ramirez before they could take one of the many exit points and disappear again.
Suddenly a jolt of panic, utter horror stabbed into her consciousness. When she concentrated on it, she smelled motor oil and human sweat and heard the muffled sound of surrounding traffic. She saw nothing, suggesting that Ramirez was blindfolded. She tried to find other passengers but couldn't and since it was unlikely he was alone in the vehicle, she figured they were using the same protection like the guys earlier. She growled and found the driver of the vehicle behind Ramirez and through his eyes saw the vehicle. It was a dark van, nothing really special about it, without a license plate.
She took a deep breath and brushed against Dredd's mind, just to give him a slight warning before pouring the information into his brain. Despite her notice, it caught him off guard and he swerved wildly before getting the bike back under his control. -Sorry- she sent as an afterthought and shifted her focus back to Ramirez.
They were closing in on them really fast, Dredd no doubt already making visual contact. Anderson felt Ramirez' relief as she, like an echo, heard the rumble of the Lawmaster engine. She leaned forward and activated the megaphone.
„Driver of the black van, halt your vehicle!" her voice echoed through the night.
It didn't yield the desired effect, if anything the van sped up more. Not surprising. Anderson repeated her request to similar avail. She groaned. „I ask all drivers that can hear me to drive to pull over and keep their heads down."
Slowly the road in front of them cleared out and Anderson saw the rear lights of the van. She repeated the order to stop and received no reaction again. She was about to pull out her gun, when she heard several shots. The van swerved and skidded on the asphalt, one of it's wheels spitting sparks, before slamming into a standing truck and coming to abrupt halt. All this time Anderson could feel Ramirez' pain and panic as he was trashed around the interior. She also picked out two perps and the driver, at least for a while before their minds went invisible again.
A dark-clothed figure leaned out of the window and showered the asphalt with bullets. Dredd in turn sent a round flying in its direction. The AP bullets bit into the car door and a scream echoed from inside.
„Come out with your hands up and release the hostage." she yelled and was answered was in another hail of bullets. She cursed as few of them hit her Lawmaster, one scraping her leg.
And then a wave of agony engulfed her mind. She could feel her body being covered in heat, pleasant at first but swiftly turning agonisingly painfull. She detached her consciousness from Ramirez' and , horrified, yelled out. „They're burning him alive!"
Dredd immediately jumped from his bike and sprinted to the van, only with sheer luck, managing not to be torn apart by bullets. Anderson followed suit, holding her shield in front of her, while providing suppressing fire. Dredd practically ripped open the front door, not even bothering to try the one on the side, and ended the driver's life. He jumped in and Anderson could see him shooting back into the van, while the front seats provided him with at least some kind of cover.
Anderson ran around and approached the van from behind. The back door was sure to be locked as well, but few shots to the locking mechanism solved that problem and the door fell open. Immediately black smoke rose to the sky and the smell of searing flesh and melting kevlar filled the air. As horrible as the thought was, it was kind of.. appetizing.
The gunfire from inside died down. She jumped into the car and hurried to the wounded Judge. The acrid smoke stung in her eyes and the heat around the burning body was almost unbearable. Dredd was already at Ramirez' side dousing the flames on his body with a piece of cloth, that looked like torn down straight from the seat.
„He's not breathing!" he yelled at Anderson.
Immediately she reached the medi-pack and pulled out the adrenaline syringe. The second Dredd moved away from the other Judge's chest, Anderson knelt down and brought the syringe down in an arc straight to his heart. With her mind she could tell, that Ramirez was still alive, his brain still functioning, the nerves sending reports of the damage caused to his body.
She moved to CPR, bringing down her weight onto the Judge's chest, probably breaking ribs in the process. In the background she heard Dredd call the central to send the medics, but her sole focus was on keeping Ramirez alive. Every 15 compressions she breathed life into Ramirez, unfazed by the burnt skin clinging to her lips every time she pulled away.
She managed to keep him alive and only backed away once the medics came, reassuring her that she was no longer needed and that Ramirez would probably pull through. She watched the blood wagon drive away and massaged her shoulders.
Dredd stood beside her. „Did you manage to get anything from the perps?"
She shook her head. „Invisible, like the guys from yesterday. And now they're dead."
„So we can safely say they are from the same gang."
She shrugged. „Probably. I mean there is a slight chance they have nothing in common, but the mental barriers are really, really impressive. I don't know if you can imagine, but until now I have never met people I couldn't read or at least see at all. I mean, I can't read you straight away and if I tried, you would probably notice me, but I can always find you and I can bypass them when I want."
She looked up and saw Dredd shifting uncomfortably. „Hey, I'm not insulting you, you walls are perfectly okay." she smiled ran her head through her hair. It came out covered in gelatinous pieces of brain. She shifted her attention to it. „Okay, where the fuck does this stuff keep coming from?! I swear there wasn't thismuch of it this morning."
He reached out and his fingers brushed against her skull. He untangled a little chip of bone from her hair and absent-mindedly flicked it away. „You have a place to stay?" he asked out of the blue.
„Uh, no, no I don't, I was.. supposed..." She fell silent. „Oh, fuck me!" she groaned, annoyed.
„Huh? What?"
„Nothing, I'm a complete idiot. I was supposed to stop by the office to get my stuff and resolve the shit with new apartment. I completely forgot. Oh fuck, was I looking forward to taking a shower, my hair is, well you see what it is." she broke off. „Do you think they will let me stay at the hospital? I mean, I am a Judge, I could just tell them I caught a perp that looked like he had something contagious. Wait, then they would run test and stick me into quarantine, okay, contagious is a bad idea. Radiation poisoning is basically the same thing, I don't feel like breaking my own leg for a bed and shower, but on the other hand..."
Dredd watched her with a slight smirk. „Anderson, I do own a couch. And a shower for that matter." he interrupted her ranting.
She processed the sentence. „Are you inviting me or just showing off?" she asked, cocking an eyebrow at him.
He let out a low chuckle. „More of the former. You in?"
„Yes. Definitely. Thanks."