Free Judge Dredd by Neal Barrett Page B

Outcasters came up to the LA Wall all the time, especially at night. You weren’t supposed to feed them, but sometimes a guard would toss something off the Wall. Sometimes something would fall off a shuttle or a barge. A lot of the time, Fergie knew, an Outcaster came out of the wild just to look at the Wall, to see where he couldn’t be.
    Fergie dreamed Maggie was beside him. He dreamed she touched his leg and slid her hand up his thigh. Fergie opened his eyes and saw the skinny con squatting over him, grinning with rotten teeth.
    “You son of a bitch,” Fergie yelled, “get out of here!”
    He knocked the man’s hand away, raised his foot and kicked him in the chest.
    The con coughed, spat on the bare ground, and pulled himself up. He wiped a ragged sleeve across his face.
    “You don’ have to get all heated up,” he said. “I wasn’t doin’ what you thought it was I did.”
    “Yeah? What are you, then, the local massage parlor, or what? I’m going to get a free rub?”
    The man smelled like he’d just won the hundred-meter cesspool event. Fergie wondered if he smelled as bad, and decided he didn’t want to know.
    “I’m Dix,” the guy said. “Donnie Dix.”
    “I’m not,” Fergie said. “Beat it, pal.”
    “Listen, ol’ Donnie ain’t offended. I got a real thick skin. Don’t anything much bother me. Say whatever you want, it don’t mean anything to me.”
    Fergie gave the con a curious look. “Nothing, huh?”
    “Not a thing, friend.”
    “If I was to maybe hit on something, you’d tell me, okay?”
    Donnie grinned, showing jagged rows of green teeth. “I don’t just side up to anyone, mister. I been around the track once or twice an’ I can pick the right feller out ever’ time. I got an insight into people won’t quit.”
    “And you picked me.”
    “Right off. Minute I spotted you sittin’ over here.”
    “What for?”
    “What for what?”
    “What did you pick me out for? What did I win, a free trip to Hell?”
    Donnie looked puzzled, then his eyes lit up. “Well, say, I might’ve got you wrong, friend. It sure ain’t likely, but I won’t say I didn’t or I did. This is your first time goin’ up, ain’t it? I got to figure it is.”
    “Yeah, first time up,” Fergie lied. “How can you tell?”
    “Like I say, it’s a gift.” Donnie raised a dirty finger. “You got to look real good, is all. There’s a first-timer look and that’s what you got.”
    He glanced over his shoulder to make sure no one was close.
    “You’ll learn about that once you get up there. I’m not supposed to say anything an’ I’d get in a whole lot of trouble if anybody found out I did.”
    “Did what?”
    “Told you about the ERP. That’s the Extra Ration Plan. Prisoners get extra rations on Sundays and holidays. The thing is, a new guy like you, a fish, the old cons, they’ll take away your ERP. Unless you join up with one of the guilds. You do that, you got protection, see? Nobody’s going to screw with you, you’re in a good guild. Am I coming through okay? You got any questions, you let me know.”
    “No, I think it’s pretty clear.”
    Fergie had figured the scam about the first two seconds the droog started talking, he just didn’t know the wrap-up, the end.
    “So what do I do when I get to Aspen, I join one of the guilds, right?”
    Donnie looked pained. “No, man, you get it up there, it’s going to cost you a mucking arm and a leg. What you want to do, you want to join before, you want to join now and save half of what you’d have to pay.”
    “Half sounds good,” Fergie said.
    “Sure it does. Now you’re talking, man.”
    “No I’m not,” Fergie said. “I haven’t got any bucks and neither do you. Neither does anyone else in this hole because the Judges took everything away.”
    “Don’t I know that? Don’t Donnie Dix know that?” Dix looked irritated. “The guild don’t expect you to have any cash. They know how it plays here, man. That’s why I’m