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¦ Fiction ¦ By
the People - For the People
Story by Richmond Clements
Illustrations by Bolt 01
I made it to the park
early, just to make sure that I got a seat. It was not long after I got there
that the crowds began to arrive, so I reckon that I made the right decision. I
relaxed, eating some of the packed lunch I'd prepared for myself and watching
some children as they laughed and ran together in the play area. I laughed too,
as a number of them swarmed around some poor sap dressed up in a giant Judge Pal
suit. Even the Judges watching on were smiling, as the kids whacked Pal with their
giant novelty foam daysticks. Man, to be that age again, to have no worries, no
problems.
I check my watch.
Still an hour or two before the parade begins. Justice Day always brings out the
crowds, the families, the War veterans and, this being Mega City One, the crazies
too. Over the general hubbub of the crowd the sound of the protest groups can
be heard. There are groups supporting the Judges, groups who hate them, anti-war
organisations and those who reckon we don't fight enough people. All this along
with the more usual collection of Mega City crazies, preaching death, destruction
and the return of Real Umpty.
The Justice Day
parade always makes me think of my Dad. He was a big champion of the Justice Department.
I really dunno how many times we had to listen to his tale of how he fought, however
briefly, alongside Dredd himself in the Battle of Adam Sandler Block during the
Apocalypse War. Grud, he was so proud of that. He got a medal and everything.
'Ha! Die you Dem
Drokkers!’ That was my earliest memory of Dad; watching the news on the
tri-d. It was a march by the Democratic Tendency. He watched laughing, as the
Judges waded into the crowd, swinging their daysticks with abandon, cracking heads
and knocking out teeth. I can remember, even at that age, not understanding why
these people where being punished. I asked my Dad what they had done that was
so wrong.
He looked over
at me, I was laying in front of the tri-d screen playing with my dolls house,
'Helen,' he said, 'they're Democrats. Do you know what that means?'
I told him I didn't.
'They're a danger
to everything we hold dear in this City. Their ideas... they're dangerous honey,
dangerous.'
Even as a young
juve of six or seven, I couldn't understand this. I mean, what was the problem
with someone having an idea that was different to your own?
'There's nothing
wrong with that Helen,' Dad had explained when I asked him, 'It's just that, our
system works. Sure, it might seem harsh, even cruel to some eyes. But it works.
The Judges are regular heroes in my book, giving their life in the way they do
to protect us citizens and this glorious city. For Drokk sake, we had an orang-utan
as our mayor once! That's what democracy’ll get you: monkeys in charge.'
And so it went
on, as I grew older, and more erudite, Dad and I would debate the pros and cons
of our system of government. I'd suggest that perhaps we, as a people, were under
the thumb of an oppressive, totalitarian regime. He'd tell me that we'd never
had it so good. This was on good days, sometimes it would get heated, I'd call
the Judges fascist, he'd say that if you weren't for the system, you were against
it.
Dad had some money
behind him, granddad had invested wisely, and with Dad being sanctioned in a lot
of his business by the Justice Department, I was able to attend University. So
I decided to go abroad to study, I lived in Brit Cit for seven years and had a
good time there, studying law. While I was there I started to get kind of political,
joining a liberal thought society. But then, doesn't nearly every student? If
they're not stealing traffic droids, or painting the Dean-bots' head purple, then
they're trying to impress each other by pretending they know what they're on about
when waffling at length on the subject of complex socio-political issues. My many
discussions and arguments with Dad stood me in good stead, as at college, I joined
the debating team.
Even then though,
I wouldn't have called myself a Dem. Sure, I argued their case, I could see their
point of view and all, I even thought that they had a point. But when all was
said and done, I, like most folk, was happy with the status quo. I didn't love
the Judges like Dad did, but I did think they were better than the alternatives.
Eventually I returned
home to the Big Meg. Things had changed when I came back though. No that’s
not right, the city hadn’t changed, it was still the same vast madhouse
it had always been. I was the one who had changed. Brit Cit, yes it has a Judge
system too, but it’s nothing like the one here. The Judges over there live
among the people a lot of the time, and consequently have a more human face. I’m
not blind or stupid, there’s still trouble there, dissatisfaction, but compared
to the Meg, it’s a holiday camp. So, anyway, back in the city, things have
changed.
I took up a job
in a small law firm, Mower, Lee and Fisher. I had my run ins with the Justice
Department, but nothing major. Judges would get annoyed when I made them release
one of my clients. Dredd himself once sneered at me, as a client of mine, an Oz
politician, was let off the hook as I successfully argued he wasn’t expected
to be aware of every minute detail of the stringent Mega City import laws.
‘You creeps,
you’re as bad as the criminals you protect,’ Dredd had growled at
me. I stared up at him, he was a good foot taller than me, and tried to look him
in they eye. It can’t be done of course, they make the helmet that way for
a reason.
‘Not knowing
you shouldn’t be wearing pants made of natural cotton? I can see how that’s
a threat to the city.’
‘A crime
is a crime, citizen.’
‘It’s
not you know, Dredd,’ I said, feeling kind of sad at his curt dismissal.
Dredd leaned down, the red cross at the front of his helmet almost touching my
nose. He was just trying to intimidate me of course, and by grud, it was working.
I don’t know if you’ve ever met Dredd, but he certainly does live
up to his reputation. ‘Helen Kane? That’s your name, ain’t it?
You anything to Harrison Kane?’
‘He…
he’s my father,’ I answered, cursing myself inwardly for the squeak
that came out instead of my usual, confident voice.
‘Father
huh..? Looks like the apple fell far from the tree with you, Kane.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning
your father’s a friend of this City. Meaning you ain’t. You’re
putting criminals back on the streets Kane. In my book, that makes you a threat.’
With that, Dredd
turned his back on me and marched off, it was only when I heard the door slam
behind him that I remembered to breathe.
I hadn’t
been back to see Dad since returning to the city. I just couldn’t bring
myself to do it yet. Like I’ve already said, my time at university had changed
me. I reckon Dad, would call me a liberal, and I guess I was. It’s just
that now, after seeing what I’d seen while working, I knew the other side
of the Justice System. The darkness, the pettiness and the cruelty. All the stuff
Dad refused to see, and people like Dredd never would.
Things changed
then. Justice Department started to take an interest in me and my work. I had
three crime blitzes in the one week. They didn’t find anything of course,
there was nothing to find. After being pulled over in my car on the way to work
for the eighth time, I began to regret answering Dredd back in the holding cells
that night. I knew the law of this damned City. I knew that I had no choice but
to submit to this… this torture. It was the law.
I decided that
I had to do something to try and change it. So I joined Democracy Now! Strangely,
this seemed to do the trick, because the crime blitzes and the ’random’
stop and searches ended. I didn’t doubt though, that I was still under surveillance.
Justice Department had cameras everywhere, and though they would deny its existence,
we all know they had an undercover division. So when anyone new would join a group,
or attend a meeting or rally, they were always treated with the utmost suspicion.
There was one
march in particular; it ended up being the last one I ever went on. The anniversary
of the Vote. I was too young to vote at the time, but I still remember it, Dad
had been out there, canvassing for the Justice Department, campaigning to vote
against the right to vote… only in Mega City.
But this march,
it had started well, a few hundred thousand of us converging on the public square
outside Justice Central, only we never got that far. Someone, and I have to admit
it, it was someone from the crowd, threw a rotten head fruit at the line of Judges.
What happened next was sickening in both its predictability and ferocity. An entire
squad of riot Judges appeared from nowhere, and went through the crowd like a
bullet through flesh.
I ended up with
a broken jaw and pelvis. I spent the next four months in a hospital, learning
to walk again, and eating a lot of soup. I had very few visitors during my stay.
Most of them where Judges, who tried repeatedly to get me to confess to throwing
missiles at their lines, or to admit that I had organised the whole thing and
supplied the weapons. All nonsense of course. It was fortunate that, as a lawyer,
I knew my rights, so I was able to make them stop questioning me for small periods
every day or so. Eventually though, they got bored and left me alone, no doubt
going to find themselves an easier target to bully a confession from . That was
all they were interested in: blaming someone. They didn’t care about addressing
the real issue: looking at why people had found it necessary to march in the first
place.
Dad visited too.
He didn’t stay long though, just enough time to say how ashamed he was of
me, how he couldn’t understand why I would bite the hand that feeds in this
fashion. My ‘liberal’ stance on many things had been bad enough, but
becoming a Dem? I was bringing shame on the family, he told me. He only hoped
that the Judges didn’t see this action of mine as reflecting upon him in
some way, and loose him his city contracts. At least he brought flowers.
A few of my friends
from Democracy Now! visited too. The Judges had killed ten protesters during their
attack on the march. Ten innocent people. In the group they had been thinking
a lot about what our next step was going to be. It was obvious that our peaceful
marches were having no affect on the Judges. If anything, they only gave them
an excuse to beat the people down for nothing. What was needed was a louder voice.
Something to compel change from the Judges.
I check my watch
again; the parade will be along any minute now. I’m standing at the edge
of the road, craning my neck to the left along with everyone else, trying to catch
a glimpse of the first vehicle in the convoy. The music came drifting in front
of the procession, a tinny version of some martial tune blasting from the first
float, Angelina Jolie Twin Towers City Def in their recreation of the Battle of
Dan Tanna. And so it went on, various citizen groups paraded by, waving at the
crowd. Every now and then, someone in the crowd would see a person they knew,
a family member or a friend, on one of the floats, and scream out a greeting.
A group of children, all dressed the same in their Junior Scout uniforms are behind
me, so I move to the side slightly, allowing them in front of me, giving them
a better view of the proceedings. Their group leader, looking harassed at the
exuberance of his charges, gives me a grateful smile. At last though, the float
we’re all waiting for pulls around the corner and into view.
The Chief Judge
is a pretty woman, or would be if a smile ever cracked her sharp features. To
her credit though, she was trying her best now, as she waved at the cheering multitude
from an eagle shaped throne.
The Chief Judge
is only meters away from where I stand.
We need to compel
change in the system, if the system fails to listen to the reasoned voice of the
people, then the system is wrong. When I left the hospital after getting the hang
of walking again, I joined another group who were dedicated to the same goals
as Democracy Now! But this new group used more direct methods. They called themselves
Total War.
I say again, if
the system is wrong, then the system should be changed.
Letting out a sigh,
I allow my gaze to drift across the faces in the crowd around me. I see a father,
his child raised on his shoulders, her ice cream melting and dripping down her
arm onto her dads shoulder pad, her mother is staring up at the child, enraptured
by her beauty. A group of ancient veterans in their wheelchairs, dress uniforms
immaculate, medals gleaming, they salute proudly as the Chief Judge passes, she
returns the honour. A young couple in each others arms, the boy has his head buried
in the girls luxurious long brown hair, whispering something in her ear, and she’s
laughing. A Judge is lifting a small boy from the crowd, allowing the giggling
infant a better view of the proceedings. I almost allow myself to think about
the child, about his future about to be stolen. I focus on the Judge holding him
instead, remind myself who the real enemy of the people is, and I pull myself
back to the moment.
I ease my hand
inside my jacket. I smile to myself as I stroke the plastic and wire taped to
my belly.
The Chief Judge
is right in front of me now. I know she won’t die, she’ll be shielded.
But she’ll get the message. The detonator is in my hand. The Chief Judge
catches my eye, I smile at her, and she smiles back. Then I press the button.
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