Free The Cold Light of Day by Michael Carroll

two-hundred-storey-tall cylinder that towered over the rest of its sector. Dredd had visited the block before, investigating a domestic disturbance; its interior didn’t live up to the promise of its gleaming glass-and-metal shell.
    Inside, the walls were unfinished, the electrics and plumbing exposed. Uncovered light fittings cast sharp-edged shadows across the bare floors, and the poor sound-proofing allowed the slightest noise to travel from one side of the block to the other. The Mega-City One housing authority had basic standards for what were considered to be habitable conditions, and Jeffrey Abrams Block only passed inspection because its aggregate score was boosted by its high resistance to fire—and that was because there was little in the block that could burn.
    Dredd pulled onto the slip-road leading off 4007th Avenue and checked his screen for Riley Moeller’s apartment number. “Dredd to Control.”
    “Go ahead.”
    “Approaching Jeffrey Abrams Block, ramp entrance. Send an elevator to the thirtieth floor, locked for my use only.”
    “Uh, Dredd, that procedure’s only for priority cases. If—”
    “This is a priority, Control. Just do it.”
    After a tiny, almost imperceptible pause, Control replied, “Acknowledged. Elevator will be waiting for you.”
    Dredd grunted a reply and shut off the comm-link. Justice Department Control was manned chiefly by cadets, invalided Judges and tech support staff, and usually they gave him anything he requested, but today some of them seemed slow in responding. He didn’t know whether that was because of the increased workload due to the race, or because many of the senior Judges blamed him for the deaths of Collins and Pendleton.
    It shouldn’t be like this , Dredd told himself. Judges are expected to be impartial when dealing with the citizens; we should be the same with each other.
    It was a leftover from the days of Chief Judge Solomon. Before Goodman was appointed, corruption among the Judges had been rife. Or if not out-and-out corruption, at least incompetence, which was just as bad.
    Though Clarence Goodman’s administration, working with the Special Judicial Squad, had done great work in straightening out and clarifying the role of the Judges, some of the old squabbles and grievances had yet to be eliminated.
    Many of the older Judges resented Dredd and Rico, solely because of their link to Solomon’s predecessor, Eustace Fargo. Fargo had been a hard-lined, no-nonsense Judge who had always made it clear that the Judges existed to serve the citizens, not the other way around. “We’re not their rulers,” Fargo had once told a gathering of senior Judges. “We’re their caretakers, if anything.”
    Dredd had always held true to that belief. Some Judges had friends among the civilian population. A few even had lovers, though that was strictly against the rules. They saw judging as a career, not as a life.
    And Dredd knew that many Judges thought of him as “Junior Fargo.” He didn’t have friends outside of his own class at the Academy, and even then he didn’t socialise with his former classmates. They were just Judges he knew better than other Judges, that was all. Rico, on the other hand, did sometimes socialise. Though they were genetically identical, their personalities were quite different.
    Joe Dredd had often wondered why that was so. He and Rico had had the same experiences when they were cadets. Neither had been shown favour by their tutors—most of the time the tutors couldn’t tell them apart—and all of their test scores matched almost perfectly. But still, somehow, they had ended up as two very different Judges.
    Judge Morphy, one of Dredd’s mentors during his time at the academy, once asked them—separately—what they’d intended to achieve when they graduated. Rico had told Morphy that he wanted to be the best possible Judge. He’d keep the citizens in line. He’d be firm with them, but compassionate. “I’ll uphold the