Greeting, my favorite internet people,
aaaand I give up, I'm applying to have my name legally changed to 'Rhinne, the Avatar of Procrastination', since I'm apparently completely incapable to finish anything, or you know, write a chapter in a normal amount of time.
But hey, but I did write something eventually, so let's get to that. I initially wrote this and the next chapter as one, but since I did find a fairly suitable place to split it up, I decided to do so. As usual, I'm open to any feedback you have, be it positive or negative.
So, thank you and have fun
P.S.: Again thanks to Nayruko, who agreed to be the test subject of my writing
Nervousness
The sirens dropped in pitch as the med-wagon merged into the dense traffic and sped away. Few moments later Anderson lost the mental contact to a young medic whose fingers trembled as she intubated the unconscious Judge on the stretcher. With a shuddering sigh Anderson retreated back into her own head, barely contained anxiety pulling her intestines into a tight knot.
Awkwardly clearing her throat, she shifted her attention to the cuffed redhead at her side. "Time to move out." she clipped.
Ruby jumped, torn out of her line of thought. Nervously, she bit her lip but obediently followed Anderson to her Lawmaster. Once they reached the bike, Anderson let out a frustrated groan as she remembered the standard procedure for transport of suspects and turned to her prisoner, who was looking at her with a mixture of wariness and curiosity.
"Look," Anderson started, not even bothering to mask the blatant irritation in her tone. "I forgot to call the transport for you and right now I don't feel like waiting for them. If I take you with me on the bike, can you promise not to strangle me while I drive?" she asked.
Ruby's look wandered to Anderson's bike, then her gun and at last to her face. Behind the redhead's eyes her mind was like a painted landscape with rosy sunlit clouds and a calm crystal clear lake that hid a violent undercurrent under its mirror-like surface. Only a slight tint of black hinted at the storm brewing behind the false scenery. For a moment she stood still, chewing on her bottom lip but ultimately nodded.
"Fine, we're going then." she clipped.
Ruby opened her mouth to speak and then closed it, a small focused frown displayed on her face. Deep in thought, she nodded, stepping closer to Anderson's bike, and extended her bound hands.
Keeping an eye on the young mutant should she decide to run, Anderson undid the cuffs around Ruby's wrists and motioned for her to mount the Lawmaster. When the redhead was seated, Anderson mounted as well and dove into the traffic. A part of her attention was on Ruby, lightly keeping tabs on her consciousness in case she decided to do something reckless and stupid. Another fraction of her focus was on the road, effortlessly weaving her bike through the dense traffic, but majority was with Dredd.
She merged into a three-lane highway that continued to sector 44, passing an ostentatiously expensive cobalt-blue cabriolet as she did so. Her eyes drifted towards an exit that led to the seventeen, sector that housed the Blessed Hand hospital, an exit she would be taking if she didn't have other duties. From Siren it was approximately a half an hour drive if one valued the safety of himself and his passengers. With a sense of longing that she wasn't willing to discuss with herself, Anderson passed the exit and fixed her eyes on the road before her.
A part of Dawson's conversation with the medics surfaced in her thoughts. As the cannula was pulled out of her arm, he mentioned that since Anderson was a mutant they should be ready for adverse effects that might occur if Dredd reacted unexpectedly to some component in her blood. The very thought that her blood might worsen her partner's state caused another wave of crippling anxiety to course through her nervous system, almost violent enough make her physically sick.
But she didn't get the chance to brood further because the surface of Ruby's mind flared up in alarm. Curious, Anderson shifted most of her attention to the redhead. -What is?- she sent a mental question, more like a warning that she was going to snoop around Ruby's brain rather than a serious attempt to communicate. She expected Ruby to be startled, maybe raise her barriers, basically be the standard kind of defensive. What she didn't expect was to have all the information that caused Ruby to get upset get hurled against her probing psychic extension with the force of a smaller nuclear missile.
The sensation could be compared to asking a friend for a pair of scissors only to have said scissors hurled with full force right into the skull. Which didn't work well with the driving aspect of things. When Anderson recovered from the shock and got the bike under control, she looked through the information delivered to her. At the first sight there seemed to be very little suspicious about the situation, just a normal case of asshole driving so abundant in the City, albeit a little hazy and unfocused, as Ruby's eyesight seemed quite poor.
A look back showed the same thing as Ruby reported, a huge ash-grey SUV illegally fortified with extra metal plates on sides and an arrow-like plow mounted on the front tailgating the cabriolet Anderson passed earlier, earning a slew of curses and obscene gestures from the driver of the blue vehicle. With an irritated growl Anderson intended to find the SUV's driver and issue him a citation for illegal car modifications, reckless driving, tailgating and at least seven other offenses, but found no one behind the wheel. That was upsetting, though not surprising in the slightest.
The SUV finally managed to force the cabriolet into merging to another lane and moved on to bully the next car in front of it. Anderson cursed and leaned forward to retrieve her helmet mag-locked to the side panel, eliciting a startled psychic response from Ruby, as she passed her the helmet. -Put it on. Look ahead, notice everything. When I signal, or when you feel like I'm not seeing something in front of us, show it to me.- she ordered, deliberately adding a cold edge into her thoughts and waited for the redhead to equip the piece of gear. A glimpse back revealed that the SUV managed to bully another two cars from the lane, so that the only thing separating it from the Lawmaster was a barely operable ochre sedan driven by a centenarian who looked just a little less mobile than the car he was driving.
-And now hold on.- Anderson thought and revved up the bike, taking off at a ludicrous speed. Ruby screamed and started hanging on like grim death. Immediately Anderson's eyes started watering, her vision getting blurry and unfocused. She expanded her consciousness, the minds of the surrounding drivers forming something like a grid. With great caution she navigated between the vehicles, Ruby's sensory input allowing them to make some near misses without any damage done.
A suspicious empty space appeared on the grid and Anderson signaled to Ruby for an update on the spot. Immediately she had a load of information stabbed into her brain-space. With a wince of pain she sorted through the info and found another SUV that belonged to the empty place, this one without such obvious modifications, but with a bulky cloth-covered something on the roof that would probably not turn out to be boating equipment.
Anderson carved into the traffic earning another round of screams from Ruby as the bike leaned almost horizontally. Cutting off a red combi, the agile Lawmaster merged into the little patch of no one's land between the two lanes, pulling up next to a beaten-up van so that an entire car lane separated them from the SUV. Once it looked like they would get out of its line of sight the cloth-covered something turned out to be a cloth-covered someone armed with an auto-rifle.
A hailstorm of bullets stitched an almost perfect line into the side of the van, way above Anderson's or Ruby's head. The driver of the vehicle swerved, but when he realized he wasn't the primary target of the barrage, he quickly regained composure and continued driving at steady speed, his face pressed to the steering wheel. Almost all of the other drivers kept their cool as well, showing just how used and well-adjusted they became to the frequent shootouts happening on the highways.
A second line of bullet began etching its way across the side of the van, this one a lot lower, since the man on the SUV's roof started to adjust to the vehicle's movements. Anderson sent out an unarticulated warning signal to her passenger before hitting the front brake and countersteering, using the locked up front wheel as an axis to do a one-eighty. The gap between the cars was too narrow and Anderson felt the rear wheel scrape against something, off-setting the delicate equilibrium of the bike. More through sheer luck that anything else, did the Lawmaster survive.
The smell of burnt rubber rose into the air and a small wave of alarm flared up in the surrounding drivers, in one instance turning into anger quickly as the driver noticed his side mirror was suddenly missing. As he saw the dents and scratches across the side of his car he seriously thought about ramming the Judge. A shrill continuous scream was spilling from Ruby's throat and she held onto Anderson so tightly, she made it impossible for the Judge to draw a breath.
The sudden shift of driving direction confused the gunner on the SUV and he wasted the remainder of his clip. Using the moment in which he had to reload, Anderson ripped her Lawgiver from its holster and showered his position with a barrage of shots. At least one connected, because suddenly the empty mindless spot flared up with pain and rage and the perp retreated back into the car. For a brief moment Anderson saw all the passengers of the SUV, imprinting their faces into her brain, before the shot perp regained his composure and closed off his mind to her.
Without warning her passenger to hold on, not that she needed to, Ruby did a good job maintaining her suffocation grip, Anderson repeated the maneuver from before and turned the Lawmaster to drive in the correct direction again. She gunned the engine to the max, the front wheel of the bike lifting a few centimeters off the ground as she did so. If she wanted, she was sure, she could take the SUV on, the Hi-Ex ammunition and a frag grenade would probably be enough, but in such a dense traffic and with an unarmoured passenger it was a little too risky, so she opted for a nonviolent outcome of the situation.
Wind lashing against her face, she raced in the non-lane between cars until she was sure she was out of shooting-distance. As she decelerated to a velocity she could maintain while retaining at least minimal vision she noticed slight stiffness and unresponsiveness of steering and braking, as well as strange vibrations jolting through the bike when cutting curves. Cursing, Anderson made a mental check to let someone look at that.
Eight more assaults happened while they drove, each more desperate than the last. In a brief moment when Anderson wasn't screaming for the other drivers to stop, take cover and hope that it was their lucky day, or dodging missiles and grenades, she sent a short message to the Hall, briefly elaborating on the situation and requesting some higher standing officer to assist her Ruby's interrogation. A moment later she received a confirm that a team has been dispatched to deal with the attackers and then additional info on where the interrogation would happen.
As the Hall of Justice came into view, Anderson felt Ruby's arms around her waist tighten, strong shiver coursing through the redhead. She pulled up into an underground garage and dismounted, practically having to force Ruby to release her grasp. Fear and discomfort radiated off of the mutant in waves and her bottom lip was again trapped between her teeth. With unsteady fingers she removed the helmet and handed it to Anderson, who mag-locked it to its place. When beckoned by the Judge, the redhead uttered a strangled whimper, but obeyed and on shaky knees followed through the parking lot.
With a strained expression Ruby cleared her throat, catching Anderson's attention. "Um." she uttered her first word since being attacked by Bob's creation. She fell silent again, but that didn't last long and with a small determined frown she burst into a torrent of words. "Just... I'm really, really, really, so sorry. I mean, if Robert really did the things you said, then I'm an accomplice and a horrible person and deserve to die." she sighed on the verge of crying.
"You know, I really thought I was making something out of my life, I don't know why... I thought this would work out... I'm so sorry." with trembling hands she wiped the tears away and shook her head in defeat. "Or whatever, it's not like my apology is worth something." she finished, a sharp edge of bitterness in her voice standing in stark contrast to the peace and joy that defensively radiated off of her mind.
Anderson opened her mouth, feeling the need to say something. At first she intended to calm the mutant down with some unrealistically positive words that would only spur false hope, but then decided to go with the truth instead. "Okay, I won't lie, it looks bad for you. You are facing execution, or deportation if you're lucky." she said and earned a horrified look in return. Realizing that her words didn't do any good at all, she rushed to mitigate the damage. "Look, all I can say is that full cooperation might reward you some leniency and that I will lobby for you with the higher-ups."
The look of horror was replaced confusion. "Why?"
"Well, you could have slit my throat today and you didn't. I think that should be rewarded." Anderson shrugged, a small smile appearing on her lips.
"Yeah, but that's... why would..."
Rolling her eyes, Anderson interrupted. "Look, you seem like a relatively nice, misguided person. You want to do good and I would like you to maybe get a chance to do so. Or at least not get executed for it."
A member of the security staff came across them, offering a polite nod to Anderson before noticing her companion. His eyes glazed over and his face gained the expression of pure bliss for a moment, before his regular self kicked in, the happy fog in his mind making space for suspicion. With narrowed eyes he glared at the redhead until they reached the elevator.
Anderson threw a quick glance at Ruby. "Also, stop doing that." she remarked as they boarded the elevator and she selected the 67th floor.
Ruby shifted and nervously rubbed her arm. "Oh... umm... but, it's..." she stammered.
"It's a defensive mechanism, I understand that." Anderson said and shook her head. "And whether you were born with it or learnt it, right now you'll need to stop, right away. If you do something this obvious it off-sets people, makes them suspicious and hostile. Bad strategy if you want them on your side."
A petulant expression passed the redhead's face. "But I don't want to. When I do that, I get hurt." she pouted.
With only a slight hint of impatience Anderson nodded. "You'll get hurt when you don't." she clipped and let out a frustrated huff. "Look, I know, I sound like a real asshole right now, but in the next few hours you will meet more that enough Judges. And they'll be quite okay with executing you, if they feel threatened. You don't need that, you're a mutant, no need to add anything else against you."
Ruby pulled a slightly confused frown. "But, you're one of them. Shouldn't they... I don't know... be used to the whole... mutant thing."
Anderson answered with a shrug and a lopsided smile. "Working on that, no worries. No one can resist my wonderful personality for too long." she joked and with delight noticed that the redhead suppressed a brief smile. Encouraged by the result, she continued. "So just do as I say and try to believe me when I tell you that I don't want you to get shot."
With a pensive frown Ruby chewed on her bottom lip, the gears in her brain turning as she evaluated Anderson's words. In the end she nodded with an expression of unbearable discomfort. As the aura of happiness she was releasing into her surroundings abruptly disappeared, the defensive perimeter limited only to the barrier around her mind, even Anderson was surprised just how much she felt its sudden absence. For a moment the world looked unbearably grey and hopeless. Then Anderson's cynical side stepped in and remarked that the world always looked that way.
The elevator reached its destination and the two women made their way to an interrogation room at the end of the corridor. Anderson didn't have anyone specific in mind when she requested assistance, but when she opened the door and the Chief herself together with Holocaust Judge Harris were present, she couldn't hide her surprise.
The Chief greeted her with a professional smile and a curt nod, motioning to steel table screwed to the floor. "I believe we shouldn't waste time. Please take a seat, Miss Sheehy." she addressed Ruby.
The redheaded mutant gulped audibly and took a seat, nervously playing with her hair. Her eyes darted all over the room as if she was a caged animal, until at last she got a good look at Harris. Wide-eyed, she stared at the bulky Holocaust Squad uniform and the full-face helmet, the expression on her face changing into fearful reverence.
"What're you looking at." Harris asked with a hint of good-natured humor in his voice.
Ruby jumped and opened her mouth to speak, but no sound came out. Clearing her throat, she tried again. "The uniform. It's awesome." she forced out of herself at last, the blunt honesty in her voice causing both Anderson and the Chief to suppress a smile, while Harris laughed openly.
The Chief turned to Anderson. "Judge Anderson, this is your suspect, how do you plan on leading the interrogation?" she asked.
Anderson looked at Ruby, who was crouching in the chair, for a change chewing on her nails and not her bottom lip. "Miss Sheehy has decided to speak out of her own volition, so I think she should get the chance. The veracity of her information or supplying of details she might forget or withhold will be handled by me."
With a curt nod the Chief turned on a recorder mounted on the table. "Shall we start then?"
It became clear that when Bob threatened to wage war on the system he wasn't lying. Anderson's theory about the connection between the factories bought by Cyril Brown and several others was confirmed. Every company produced in on itself inauspicious products to mask another sinister task. The metalworking factories produced weapons and fighting vehicles, the pharmacy companies combat drugs, and what was done in the medical facilities was already revealed by Anderson. And even though every facility was autonomous to an extent, they all were connected to the CVC mining company. From there ore for the tanks, chemicals for the drugs and living matter for experiments were supplied. It was the living beating hearth that sustained Bob's mad operation.
And though Bob talked with Ruby mostly about his pseudo-altruistic motivation, he did share more than enough of his battleplans and logistics with her as well. And fortunately, not all of Ruby's knowledge were bad news. Since Bob's primary plan was to take over the City and rule it as a despot with the guise of equal rights, he wasn't planning on razing it to the ground, at least as far as Ruby knew. Which meant that he probably didn't spend all that much time developing nuclear missiles or plagues, though, since Bob made an attempt to hide the worst of his machinations from her, that information was marked as questionable.
Once all the contents of Ruby's brain were documented, every detail dissected, every possible question asked, preferably twice, the Chief turned off the recorder and looked up. "Now to you, Miss Sheehy." she started, consulting a dataslate in front of her. Just as Anderson opened her mouth to bring up some extenuating circumstances in favor of the mutant, the Chief Judge spoke again. "Would you mind elaborating on the kind and extent of your powers?"
"Uhm," Ruby started, fidgeting her fingers. "I can make people feel well. Or not so much. And I can make them do what I want... in theory... sometimes... a little." she stammered, uncertainty palpable in her voice.
"Pathokinesis and psychic compulsion." Anderson filled in the proper terminology, very discreetly checking the thoughts of her superior officer to see where she was going with the question. "Potential's good, but she's untrained." she elaborated further, shamelessly playing into the plan that was budding in the brain of the Chief Judge.
The older woman nodded, shooting Anderson a quick suspicious look, drumming her fingers into the table. "Miss Sheehy," she spoke up at last. "Would you like a job?"
Ruby's eyes widened and she seemed to choke on her tongue. "What, like a Judge?" she breathed, her brain bursting with activity, the desire for a way out of her situation battling the horde of objective objections to the scenario. "N-no. I don't... no... I can't kill people, my eyes are bad, I'm scared of the dark, and spiders, and centipedes and-"
The Chief stopped the flood of words with a wave of her hand. "Miss Sheehy, I am not offering you to be a Judge, you are past a suitable age to be recruited." she clarified sternly. "However, I would be willing to offer you a position in the auxiliary force."
The redhead stared at the Chief with the expression of utter confusion. Inside her a battle was raging between the conviction indoctrinated inside her that the Judges, and in fact the entire justice system were the enemy, a fact that so far she didn't see disproved, and the vicious animalistic sense of self-preservation that said survival was the ultimate goal, no matter the way it's achieved.
"So... not shooting people?" she asked eloquently, coming to a decision.
"Probably, not necessarily."
With furrowed brow, Ruby nodded. "Okay, does that... does this mean that the whole Cubes, deportation, killing-me thing isn't happening?" she asked, her voice meek.
A hint of a warm smile graced the Chief's features. "That would be the case. Of course, nothing's set yet, you would have to undergo a psychological evaluation and complete both the basic medical and advanced combat training, not to mention requiring coaching in regards to you psychic powers, which I hope Judge Anderson would take over this task." she explained and looked at the Judge in question, who readily nodded.
"But, should you agree with all the conditions, your sentence for complicity in this case would be absolved by your work for the Hall of Justice." the Chief elaborated."So, Miss Sheehy, would this arrangement be agreeable to you?" she asked, even though Ruby was already nodding her head ferociously, covering her face with her hands.
The Chief allowed herself a impersonal professional smile and stood up. "Very well, as far as I was informed, there was an attempt to kill you and you still are a part of this investigation as a culprit, so I'm ordering protective custody for now. Judge Harris, Judge Anderson, please escort her to the detention cell..." she consulted her dataslate. "B-fourteen. As for the further advance in this case, I will consult the information provided with my colleagues and when we have decided on the course of action, you will all be notified." she finished and turned to leave.
"Um.. Ma'am." Anderson called, attracting the attention of her superior officer. "If can offer some advice, you are dealing with a very powerful psychic, so don't bother with a complicated plan."
"Noted." the Chief nodded and left the interrogation chamber.
"Okay then, let's get Jade down then." Harris sounded, stepping over to Anderson and Ruby.
The redhead looked up to his covered face. "Ruby." she corrected him with a small pout.
Harris didn't react but a small wave of satisfaction extended from his mind. "How's life, by the way?" he asked as they left the room and made their way to the elevator.
"Eh." Anderson shrugged neutrally, not wanting to share her feelings. Now that her work was done, her mind unoccupied with other things, crippling anxiety again manifested in her stomach. "How's the arm?" she asked to change the subject.
He didn't answer until the three of them boarded the elevator and then rolled up the sleeve over his artificial arm. "For perps? Good. Fine china, not so much." he said, pressing the button for the underground detention cells floor with his mechanical fingers, soft sound of hydraulics accompanying the action.
Harris noticed that Ruby was looking at the prosthetic with a mixture of curiosity and awe. "Hey Opal, staring's impolite."
The redhead jumped back and folded her hands over her chest, slouching her shoulders into a defensive posture. "Ruby." she corrected him again, this time with an insulted frown, though a twinkle of amusement lit up in her eyes.
Once the door to the underground floor opened and they stepped into the brightly lit corridor, that smidge of positive emotion vanished instantly. With growing feeling of unease Ruby eyed the bleak white windowless corridors lined with steel doors, singing or curses coming from behind some of them. As they reached an empty cell, her unease turned to claustrophobic fear when the saw the two by two cube furnished only with a mattress, a sink and a toilet. The fear that she might end rotting here for who knows how long almost overwhelmed her and for a moment she regretted every single decision that has brought her to this.
Sensing her growing panic, Anderson stepped in. "Don't worry, you won't be here forever, I promise." she said quietly, hoping to project some calm onto the mutant. "Also, you'll need to take your shoes off." she added as an afterthought, even though she was fairly sure, Ruby wouldn't try to hang herself on her shoelaces.
The redhead jumped but obediently stepped out of her tennis shoes and barefoot stepped into the cell, fidgeting her hair. As Anderson said her goodbye, Ruby cleared her throat to catch her attention. "Um... Judge... Ma'am-"
"Cass is fine."
"Really? Okay, Cass then, um... thanks, I guess." she forced out of herself. "I mean, you kind of destroyed my life a lot, but you could have destroyed it a some more, I think, so... well, thanks." she ended with a shrug.
A small smile appeared on Anderson's face. "No problem, I guess. And don't worry, I'll come back." she promised.
"Later, Topaz." Harris called with laughter in his tone.
The cell door close and so Anderson was the only one to hear, well mostly feel, the exasperated -oh, come on- from the young mutant. "Ass." she hissed at the other Judge, shaking her head.
"Hey, better if she's riled up in there than scared." he answered with an unapologetic shrug. "So, you've got yourself a rookie." he commented, before leading the way back to the elevator, Anderson selecting the floor for the garage.
Anderson shook her head. "I'll just help her a little with her powers when I have this case off my shoulders. She's not in training, so no rookie for me. " she objected.
"Semantics." Harris laughed, stepping into the elevator. "So anyway, what's with you? You look kind of bummed-out."
She sighed heavily and shrugged, letting him interpret in any way he wanted.
"Yeah, I know what happened. No worries, he'll be fine. I don't even know what could kill that tough son of a bitch."
Anderson couldn't help but let out a short hoarse laugh. "Nuclear missile?" she suggested.
Harris laughed. "Worth a consideration. Anyway, you going to check on him?"
She froze, taken aback by the fact that she hasn't thought about that. Before she had the chance to think over the best course of action, her mouth already decided for her. "Yeah, I am." she said as the elevator door opened and she stepped out into the parking lot offering a friendly nod to the fellow Judge.