Judgement Day

A flash of bright light, the fell of cold metal holding her wrists, ankles, and chest down to a cold metal surface, nearby distorted voices. The random sensations great her as she awakens from her forced sleep. June tries to close her mouth but finds she cannot, a bundle of cloth prevents her from doing so. She tries to move against her bonds, seeing how loose they are, her Judge training beginning to kick in even amidst the pangs of pain and clouded mind. A cool breeze over her bare skin told her how much clothing he had left her with.

“Stop struggling, you can’t get out.” a familiar voice drifts over to her.

June’s head rolls lazily over to the direction the voice came from. Much to her, not, surprise it was Culverton. He walked over to her with a limp in his right leg that she had not noticed before and stood next to the metal table. His eyes traveled up and down her body, looking at her like she was a piece of meat. A clammy, pasty white hand reached out and traveled over her stomach.

“You have the most beautiful body, it’s so perfect.” he told her in a tone that suggested wonder, as if he had never touched another woman before. Something June was sure that he had done before.

“Get your hands offa me.” June slurred.

“I can’t, it is so beautiful. You know I traffic women who are beautiful, but none as beautiful as you are. Do you know how many times I have been up until the late hours of the morning look at that tape of you and that other idiot Judge fucking? Pretending it was me instead of him?”

“You’re a crime boss and you have fetish for random female Judge?”

“Yes, shocking I know. But in the end that is what I feel. To the point where I must immortalize you forever.” he whispered as he pulled over a small table with various needles.

“No torture? You’re just going to kill me?”

“The process to perfection is one of hellish consequences and broken pasts. The pain of transformation will be torture enough,” he told her as he picked a syringe with a six-inch needle up. Flicking it to get the air bubbles out as he looked down and stroked her skin again, June felt her skin cells die from contact with his grimy fingers.

“What happened to Emily Kasey?” June asked, not sure why, maybe to get closure before whatever was in this serum affected her in whatever way it would.

“Oh, the brat from the ammo supplies parents? She’s on the cyber grid, but once I finish giving you all five shots that will make you mine forever and ever and ever you won’t be thinking of her too much. Or turn you inside out to revel in eternal pain until the next Big Bang.” he told her while pointing to a cage in a corner. Revealing what he said to be true, a woman’s skeleton held fleshy lumps of tissue and organs in place while she cried and spoke in an inaudible tongue.

There was an hail of bullets from outside the room; June knew the Judges had come. Culverton screamed in rage as he stabbed the syringe into her heart and pushed the plunger down. June didn’t scream, instead she lurched forward. Her body turning pale and what felt like dry ice was shoved into her veins. Vomit exploded from her lips as Culverton ran from the room.

“If I can’t have you now, I will at least make you perfect.” he snarled as June began to buck and spasm. Never screaming, a look of permanent horror etched onto her face.

The door to the room exploded to reveal Andrew and a new Judge that June had never seen before. She took no real notice as she bucked and spasms more.

“June!” Andrew yells though he sounds like he is miles away. He rips open the bonds; how he does it she is not sure. “Hang in there. We’ll get you out of here.” he tries to comfort her as he picked her up.

“Drokk, what did they do to her?” the other Judge asked.

“I don’t know Pete, we need a H-Wagon evac now.” Andrew ordered as he held June in his arms, she wasn’t able to sense this as she sank further and further into her head.

****
Earlier that day.

Andrew came to the scene of the crime, Judges stood there taking pimps and whores out of the brothel. Running over to Dredd who stood there looking at the street, analyzing it for some unknown clue.

“Dredd!” he yelled as he ran over, Dredd held up a hand to silence him.

“Suspects drove up and grabbed Judge Summers when the rest of us were preoccupied with dealing with business in the whore house. From there, we have no clue as to where she went. The tracker in her left boot went off shortly after her abduction, she could be anywhere in the Pleasure District.”

Andrew turned and punched a wall. His teeth gritted together, he should have been here, he should have been doing his job instead of visiting Yvaine.

“Rookie, your new task is to find Judge Summers. You will be assigned a new partner to help track her down. He will meet you on Hoffman and Eighth Street, the last place the tracker was working before it was shut off.”

Andrew ran back to his Lawmaster and jumped onto the seat. Gunning the engine he shot off down the street, swerving in and out of traffic to get to his destination quicker.

After a few minutes he arrived at Hoffman and Eighth Street, there was another Judge there hooking his Lawmaster up to a camera pole. Andrew pulled over and stopped next to him.

“Are you my partner?” Andrew asked bluntly.

The Judge turned around and looked at Andrew.

“Judge Andrew Grey?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Judge Pete Smith.”

Andrew was shocked at how plain the name was, compared to the last few Judges he had worked with. He shook his head and watched what Pete was doing for a moment before asking, “What are you doing?”

Pete stopped for a moment before giving him a quick glance and then returning to the terminal on the side of his Lawmaster.

“Hacking the camera feeds, if we can get an idea of which way she went then it should make it easier to find her.” Pete replied.

“Isn’t that twelve years on Titan?”

“Nope. Not if used for the protection of the public. We are the law, but we can also bend it on the rare occasion rookie. Try to keep up.”

“You look about as old as I am, how long have you been on the job?”

“In a week it will be my second full year. I’ve got experience rookie.”

Andrew shook his head and stood back to let him handle the cameras. If he could do it then finding out where Culverton had taken June would be slightly easier. Even so it would still be trying to find a piece of Umpty candy in a mountain of normal candy.

“Got it. They went down that street.” Pete said as he pointed down Seventh Street. Andrew wasted no time getting on his Lawmaster and racing off to the next camera point. They would have to check each camera point, but it was their only lead for now. It would have to do.

*****
Present time.
Culverton walked into his underground headquarters. The sprawling metropolis had been built in the area underneath the concrete when the old cities had been covered and built over. It had been easy to move in and chisel out the space he needed, the Judges didn’t patrol down here. It was too expansive and they didn’t have the manpower to do so. Causing them to ignore this part of the city until something went terribly wrong, even then he was deep within the bowels of the old city.

Passing through security, who dared not even look at him for more than a brief moment, with ease he approached his private quarters. Opening the door with his handprint he strode into the red and black colored room.

In the center of the room was a wooden table, embedded with black skulls and embellished with white finger bones. On top sat a basin of rose water. Culverton walked over and placed his hands over the water. He murmured words in a language not spoken in an eon and a half.

The water seemed to come to life, curling and wrapping around his hands. It whispered and crooned to him. Soon words were no longer spoken aloud, Culverton’s mouth moved but no sound arose from it. There was no need.

The two talked like old friends who had not seen each other in many years, the water changing color to fit its mood. It would turn yellow when it was happy or dark red when it became angry. After two hours their talk concluded with the four words coming from the water that could be understood.

”Fail us not Mephisto.

Culverton nodded as he pulled his hands from the water. It changed from a royal blue back to the rose color it originally took. Sitting still and quite Culverton smiled as he exited his room and walked over to the communications sector. On his entrance the head of communications walked over to him.

“Did you need anything sir?” he asked.

“I want you to relay our exact location to the Judges. It has been so long since we have had company.”
*****
Earlier that day/
After two hours of checking cameras the two Judges managed to find the truck entering the lowest level of an abandoned parking block. The first three stories were structurally sound, but the rest had weak points that could cave in at any minute. There was no chance that the truck they drove with its level of handling could navigate through all the spots to a base located anywhere in the decaying building.

“Heat vision,” Andrew said and his visor turned into a mirage of red, oranges, and blues.

“See anything?” Pete asked.

“Maybe,” Andrew replied.

Andrew scanned over the area; he saw a thin line in the air that suggested exhaust was hanging there. He walked along, going deeper and deeper into the parking block, following the line to a wall where it disappeared. Pulling out his Lawgiver he aimed it at the wall, he would either bring fifty stories of concrete down on them or he would be greeted by a hail of gun fire. He hoped it was the latter.

“Be ready,” Andrew warned Pete. “Hi-Ex.”

Andrew shot the bullet into the wall, bits of mortar, brick, and concrete shot out in all directions. Following the explosion a grenade rolled out, Andrew panicked and kicked the grenade back into the hole in the wall, and it exploded three seconds after doing so.

Andrew rolled over to the right side of the wall and motioned for Pete to take the left. Raising his Lawgiver Andrew peeked around the corner. The coast was clear as evident by the three to six bodies that lay scattered around the opening.

“That was one hell of a grenade, what kind was that? Standard issue wouldn’t rip that many apart.” Pete asked.

“I don’t know, I wouldn’t be surprised if Culverton had an entire pile of personal Lawgivers. Just keep sharp, he might have a whole hallway booby trapped.”

The two progressed forward, the safehouse looked like something out of Andrew’s nightmares. Random parasitic tentacles covered in spikes came out of the wall. There were two members of Culverton’s crew stripped naked and hung from the ceiling wrapped in razor wire, a mutilated corpse with face ripped away is raped nonsensically by the horns of a goat as it chewed on the cock of the unfortunate soul. Andrew puts a bullet through its head; any animal willing to do that did not need to live. The goat fell over with a guttural bleat. No words spoken as Andrew and Pete ran from the room into another room.

Pentagrams and the heads of goats lined the walls of the hallway, after everything he had seen there was no way that Culverton could have been human. This next room confirmed Andrew’s worst fears about their mission.

In the center of the room hung Emily Kasey, her limbs had been ripped off leaving naught but bloody stumps. Teeth ripped out and mouth forced open with a ring gag. Two phallic shaped objects coated with razor wire had been shoved into her tender regions. Her eyes, at one point brown and alive, were grey and dead. She looked up at them and uttered something that sounded like “kill me”. Andrew looked away and raised his Lawgiver before shooting a bullet between her eyes.

"Damn it. Her parents will be devastated." Pete said as he walked over to the body and closed her eyes.

"After the slaughter earlier this week I was hoping for one thing to go right. But we can't even get that anymore." Andrew replied as he shoved open another door.

The two walked through the house of horrors, trying not to vomit or lose their composure as they continued to see the sticky, demented nightmares that awaited them around every corner. The sound of June’s voice drifted over to him. Andrew picked up on it and ran towards it. Hang on June, he thought. We’re coming.