Psykogeddon Read Free

wouldn't have stopped us being overrun," Dredd told him. "And it would have left us all stranded. They're for when some traitorous drokker tries to take over the helm."
    "Now really, Dredd." Drago San exclaimed. "I resent that. That's criminal mastermind profiling, that is. I was of inestimable use to you, and now you simply chain me up again like an... urk!"
    This last comment was rudely interrupted as Dredd gave the cuffs securing him to Drago San a more than necessarily vicious yank.
    "I don't deal in your pathetic attempts to twist the truth, Drago San," he said. "I just deal with what's in front of me - and what's in front of me is a creep who'd turn traitor at the drop of a hat."
    "Once again, Dredd, I must protest." Drago San turned thoughtful. "What kind of hat? Is it a nice one? I must admit that, on occasion, I could rather do with a new hat."
    They had been making their way back through the ship toward the brig, where a Justice One crewman was tinkering with a collection of servo-powered blades in a cell.
    "We're reinstalling the security countermeasures here, for the time being," Dredd told Drago San, "where they'll do the most good. First thing you do on the voyage home that I don't like, they start to slice and dice. Welcome to the mechanism of Mega-City Justice, Drago San."
     
    Secondary Information: Dying on the Inside
     
    Somewhere, someone is screaming that a tiny arm is hanging out of the pupil of their left eye. Pale and thin to the point of being skeletal, the homunculus within waves desperately with the last of its dying strength.
    Arfie knows what "homunculus" means. It means "little man". Arfie knows things like that. In fact, he knows that it's the little men inside people's heads, looking back at you from behind their eyes, that make them real.
    This has gotten Arfie into trouble at times. More times than he can count. It's why he's in trouble now.
    A lot of people simply do not have these little men inside. This means that, although they might be walking around and talking - talking all the time, in some cases - they are not truly real and alive. You can do what you like to them.
    The Judges hadn't liked that, for some reason. They especially hadn't liked it when Arfie cut up some empty people to see what made them go. He'd only wanted to see what made them move and breathe and act like they were alive when they had nothing inside.
    They just didn't understand. A squad of them had burst into his con-apt as Arfie was peaceably flushing the last remains of a Fattie he had seen in the Eighteen Wheeler Velodrome, and had brought home on the promise that he had a big pie in the refrigerator. They had shot him in the leg. It had hurt worse than anything he had ever felt before.
    They had their helmets on, so you couldn't see if there was anything inside them or not. Probably not, because otherwise they would have understood. They'd have understood that all the blood and blubber might look nasty, but it wasn't truly real, from a real person, and so it didn't count.
    Instead, they had shackled him and dragged him out onto the walkway outside the con-apt. Arfie hadn't liked not being able to move his hands, and his leg was hurting very much. But that wasn't the worst thing that happened.
    The worst thing was the Justice Department hover-wagon floating by the walkway, as if it had any right whatsoever to be there.
    Arfie knew about hover-vehicles, obviously. He isn't stupid. But there had never been a hover-wagon outside his con-apt door before. It was just impossible for there to be one now. It was as if the whole world had gone fundamentally wrong.
    He tried to explain this to the Judges.
    "Jovus drokk!" one of them shouted. "He's having a total stomm-fit! Trank him and get him into the Meat Wagon!"
    A Judge had pressed something cold and sharp against his neck. There was a hiss... and then just blank. Not darkness, but sheer nothingness. The world had just switched off.
    It had switched on again here,