CHAPTER NINE

 

WHEN POET TOOK his first life, he had, only moments before, wrapped up the final edit of his high school valedictorian speech.

He heard the cries for help, for something as silly as justice, Poet made his way to his mother’s bedroom in the hopes that for once it would prove to be a mistaken case of carnal cries.

It wasn’t. It was the same thing that sent his sister away to boarding school in escape. It was the same thing his mother told him to not pay any mind to. It was his mother’s face, cratered swelling.

His father, whose last breath bore that clichéd stench of weakness and whiskey, had seemed surprised when Young Poet came in with death in his hands. He held the gun lightly, more carrot than stick, before passing the ultimate judgement on his father.

When his mother decided to defend the dead man rather than her son in court, Young Poet had the composure of a man who’d never had a free meal ticket. The more surprising development, however, was his choice to defend himself; the papers called him insane.

Tragic as it’d been to lose the opportunity to give a listless valedictorian speech, there was some victory in what he gained.

He learned that the only thing that really mattered, at the end of the day, were the words; pretty words in pretty books to defend his less-than-pretty soul from conviction. If not for that, scouring night after night through texts on law, on philosophy, on an asphyxiated understanding of life, he may never have become the man that dragged Ezekiel Jones from the wreckage of the warehouse.

He would have never been approached by a former classmate, some scrawny whelp who’d taken up the school honour of valedictorian after the whole ‘murder’ thing disqualified Young Poet. The young man had made good use of his life, more than Poet had—or at least, that was his thought meeting the Harvard Law student who changed the course of his life forever.

“Why did you do it?” he asked, sat across from Poet in the diner. “You know—that doesn’t matter. Do you think it was right? Do you ever wonder if you should have done time for taking a life?” It wasn’t a question you would ask someone you’ve only shared one class with. Asked it he did though, and Community College Student Poet mulled it over without so much as a frown.

“I suppose I could understand that, but no. No, I don’t. The law is a blankie. It’s—”

“Trivial?” the law student asked, or demanded. Poet only smiled, if with something a bit more magnetic than was there before.

“No. Shit, no. It’s the most terrifying, powerful bit of nothing. It’s only trivial, like any story, when there are too many inconsistencies. I was told time and time again that what I did was incredible, defending myself with no prior experience; that I’d earned people’s respect. That’s where I find my why, and how, at night. I saw something wrong, I made it right. Justice isn’t just words, it’s what we do with it.” He wasn’t sure why he needed the man to hear him.

The law student smirked. “I think that’s very poetic, apologies for the pun. Granted… it’s a bit of a mixed metaphor there, is it a story or a tool?”

“Oh, well, I don’t know about that. What is any story if not a tool of one kind or another?”

Both men assumed the meeting would be their last. But one story led to another, that led to another, that led to Judge Poet pulling Judge Jones from the firelit warehouse, burning more brilliantly than could ever be expected by daylight.

It also may be why all the new weapons to account for, the death of Pellegrino, and the ash and debris finding its way into Judge Poet’s ass-crack led him to suggest a coffee after his partner awoke.

 

 

“DESTINY HEAD. WE were… utter fucking garbage. I didn’t know how to play my bass, but I did know how to look really into it. If I look back at it, though? I just had a bit too much college at that point, and was sure that anything I vomited would be important to the world,” Poet said, twenty-five minutes and a bad coffee later.

“The hell does that even mean? Destiny Head?” Ezekiel laughed.

“Hell if I know. If you were to ask me then, I’d of probably freestyled something about us being at the head of a change that was necessary for the world to survive, that we were ultimately the one thing that can be the start of a new destiny, a reprise that would finally bring balance. All bullshit, of course; honestly, I joined three weeks after they’d started jamming together and was too excited that someone would let me play to even ask.”

Judge Jones laughed again, watching across the diner table as Poet sprinkled his fifth pack of sugar into his cup.

“Well, maybe you can go back to it after we send in this report,” Ezekiel said, sighing into his coffee. “Here’s to ‘Destiny Head,’” he added, raising his coffee ironically. “And to Marisa Pellegrino, who gave her life for—holy jelly bombers.”

When Marisa, still sporting singed garments from the night before, slid her butt into the stall next to Poet, their glasses stayed raised high. She took a long sigh that ran down the back of her throat, not stopping until it hit the seat beneath her.

She grabbed a cup of water from the table while the Judges’ eyes were too occupied to remember their coffee, searing their palms as they gaped.

Her hood was hanging by a thread; Ezekiel stared at it, trying to work out how in every multiple-choice hell she wasn’t burned from head to toe.

“Well, that was a fucking show, now, wasn’t it, gentlemen?” she said, slamming the water back down to the table.

“Ma’am…?” Judge Jones prompted, peeling his skin away from the ceramic and returning the cup to the table. She eyed him, and would have more than likely responded, if not for Poet’s sudden cheer.

“Rein it in,” she said with a huff, sliding her hand across the table to grab at Ezekiel’s coffee, taking it down with the same endless swig as she’d done the water.

“Yes, ma’am,” Poet said, sliding his helmet on and clipping it tight.

“I’m glad to see you made it out, ma’am,” Ezekiel said. “We—I thought something may have happened.” He turned his eyes down to the flat of the table. It’d been a long few hours without his visor, without the protection it gave from the rest of the world, but knowing Marisa, Ezekiel figured his relief wouldn’t have gone unseen either way.

“Yeah, I’m okay. I mean, you know, waking up to the sound of thirty sirens while a partially burned skull stares lifelessly into your eyes wasn’t, existentially speaking, a great start. Oh! At least I had the pleasure of speaking for two hours with Officer Dennison, who married a woman named Denise! It was such a fascinating story to hear fully seven times while they fixed the Wi-Fi to confirm my credentials.”

“Well, at least we have the weapons. I’m sure there’s a lot to sift through, but hopefully they lead back to—”

“We got shit, Poet. Thurgood is clever. The weapons that were seized melted in a soppy mess of hot steel by the time we reached the station. I’m not sure how he—well, how he anything, but it seemed in the handling, either the fingerprint locks, or something else, activated a failsafe.” Marisa leaned her head back and closed her eyes.

Judge Jones remembered the heat of the flamethrower, the seared flesh, imagining the sight of that same heat turned inward.

“Well, at least we have our lives, right?” said Poet. “At least we have—apologies, ma’am, but Judge Jones and I were having a rather productive lunch before you returned from the dead to remind us we’ve got nowhere.”

Marisa brought her head back from the ceiling.

“Well, it’s good that I have actually brought something more to the table than shitty jokes and an allergy to wearing my goddamned helmet like a Judge is supposed to,” she said with another sigh.

“What do we have, ma’am?” Judge Jones asked, dropping his voice. Marisa leaned in, a flash of a smirk passing by at the sound of Poet’s helmet clicking.

“Not here,” she said. “Clubhouse, gentlemen.”

The Judges nodded, standing up and following their superior out of the room.

During Fargo’s first hundred days of appointment, the Judges had had to move fast and steadily, sometimes ignoring the proper processes of government. Conversations caught on body cameras had been leaked, leading the new Chief Judge to make a public vow to never again bypass consultation with the Senate.

Sometimes however, time was not on his, or their, side. To avoid the possibility of Washington ears connected to Washington mouths from picking up on anything too sensitive for comfort, all discussions deemed classified were to be handled within codename ‘Clubhouse.’

It was archaic, but held unfortunately true for Washington, or for anywhere in the country where men held power and diners were sort of shitty, that statistically a women’s restroom was the safest place from eavesdropping.

They entered the restroom, Judge Poet leaning against the door after they scanned it for lingerers.

“The truth is, gentlemen, that our numbers aren’t strong enough. Not by half. A tip was received that you’d been set up, but no Judge in proximity to aid. Unlucky for me, I was still in Illinois, out in Elgin on business. I’d infiltrated the meeting by force, and that brings us up to speed.”

“Why couldn’t you communicate all of that to us with, you know, a phone? Or do anything else that would have helped us before we arrived?” Judge Poet asked, and Marisa shot him a glare from beneath slightly singed eyebrows.

“I had every means of communicating this information to you, I also had the means to withdraw you from the mission, but—”

“The mission mattered,” said Jones mechanically. “The mission is the only thing that matters. If we were aware, we could have compromised the acquisition of Carl Patterson, and the largest black-market distribution of arms in Chicago’s history.”

Marisa smirked proudly. “Precisely.”

“Well, lot of good that did, ma’am,” parried Poet. “We have none of Thurgood’s connections, the Brotherhood members who didn’t die escaped, and quite possibly the largest militia in history is gathering while we sit in this shitter.”

“We have what we’vealways had, gentlemen. We have the Law.”

Judge Poet sucked his teeth. “But do we have anything else, ma’am?”

Marisa rolled her eyes before making her way to one of the stalls, opening it and standing on the toilet seat. She pushed up the flimsy ceiling tile, allowing the thick briefcase she’d previously stored there to fall into her hands.

She heaved it to the sink countertop.

“Whew. Well, Judge Entitled, I do have a new helmet for Judge Jones, and a bit of fun for you boys,” she said, unlatching the combination lock with a pair of 20s.

She first tossed the helmet to Ezekiel, who wasted no time in stuffing it over his head. What was left in the black briefcase were two weapons, not so different from their own weapons, slightly larger, augmented somehow from within.

“We’re no Thurgood, but our boys in R&D do what they can. A disclaimer? Don’t break these, please. They are prototypes. They come equipped with a doubled capacity on your standard issue weapons, as well as”—she paused, taking one out and flipping it upside down for a moment to read a serial code etched on the bottom of the handle—“two additional munition options. Two buttons. One initiates a strobe light—”

“A strobe light?” Judge Poet interrupted, picking up the other weapon.

“Yes. A fucking strobe light. The other, which is activated with the second button, is a grenade launcher.” She lazily handed the weapon over to Ezekiel, who checked the scope and measured the weight in his hands.

“What grenade, ma’am?” he asked, setting the weapon down, pulling out his old one and emptying what was left in his clip.

“That’s a question for the nerds, but I’m told it makes the Milkor look like a little bitch.” She chuckled.

“Well, this is all good and admittedly cool, but what are you aiming us at, ma’am?” Judge Poet asked.

“We storm Thurgood and his annoying-as-shit street monks,” Pellegrino replied. “We take them out, we do the hero thing.”

She noticed the rally hadn’t fired them up as expected, so she changed tack. “He has them strapped to the tits. You know what order isn’t? This shit. This is that other thing.” She clacked the suitcase closed. “Someone got caught slippin’ up. The call was made from a cell phone. GPS puts it in a local house in the name of one Mrs. Patterson. Who was the grandmother of—”

“Catastrophe,” Jones finished.

“Precisely. The call was short, Aaliyah Monroe has been abducted; at least, that’s what was said. The call included the address, not that we needed it, but she couldn’t have known that.”

“Well, now what? Why are we sitting here, ma’am?” asked Poet. “Shouldn’t we be mobilising all Judges active in the Illinois area and ending this crap once and for all?”

Ezekiel nodded in agreement.

“Well, that would be protocol, but I don’t know what the hell we’re walking into there,” Marisa said with shoulders slumped and nearly burned body ready to shut down.

“What do you mean, ma’am?”

“The information wasn’t given freely. Protocol is for local law enforcement to surrender any pertinent information about ongoing cases to us. The location of one person of interest in the largest technological revolt is pretty fucking pertinent, don’t you think? The old guard kept it from us. They are still sitting on it. I thought that, at first, they wanted to be heroes, swoop in and make us eat crow.”

“But?” Poet asked.

“But we’re still sitting in a bathroom trying to figure out what to do about this,” Jones said.

Pellegrino smiled wide, with one finger on her nose and the other pointed at him. “Two for two.”

“Why the hell would they do that?” Poet asked, and she shrugged.

“All I know is that they’re not moving, at all. My theory? They want Thurgood to win, whatever he’s doing; they’re compromised. Maybe not all of them, though,” she amended, as she saw Jones flinch.

The thought of Ocasio being part of something like that hurt him more than he’d expected.

“So, what’s the move, ma’am?” Judge Jones asked, composing himself.

“We fight. We take this right to them, and we do it alone,” Marisa said, and this time it was Judge Poet who flinched.

“Well, that worked out so well for us last time.”

“You think you came here to live, Judge? Get your shit together, we have a job to do.”

 

 

THE JUDGES ARRIVED on Nuohlac Street to find it silent and peaceful. The door was cracked, sweltering a heat out into the world beneath the light.

Judge Jones was first. A thug in grey robe started reaching for something that looked enough like a gun, enough like a reason, and Judge Jones answered in kind. Ezekiel stepped over his body from the door to the corner of the den. Poet followed.

The next room was filled by one couch, a zebra-print throw rug, a TV affixed to a hastily-fastened wall mount, and not a single Brotherhood member.

“They know—” Judge Jones started to whisper, but he stopped at a footstep from above. He pointed to Judge Poet, and then at the steps at the end of the room leading to the basement. Judge Poet nodded, making his way to clear it out.

Judge Jones made his way to the flight of stairs leading up, before tapping the commlink at the base of his helmet.

“Justice blind, ma’am,” he whispered, and after a moment heard a quick “Affirmative” from Marisa crackle through the comm.

Three seconds later, the lights throughout the house—and the entire street—were shut down. Jones tapped the side of his helmet to initiate the dual night vision and body heat sensors through his visor.

When he reached the top of the flight of stairs he paused, unclipped a rattler from his belt, and slung it down the hallway.

There were the expected shots of gunfire in response. The flashes of fire, the boom of bullets, told Judge Jones of five firearms waiting through the hall for him.

“Come on, you pussy!” he heard one scream, and being a civil servant, Judge Jones obliged.

Tumbling forward, he sprang upwards, wrapping an open hand over the closest cultist’s face and twisting his head round with a snap. As the body began to fall, Jones tapped the button at the side of his new weapon, directing the strobe light at the rest of the cloaked trash.

As they blinked in the staccato light, Jones fired true. Nothing in the world seemed as fair or consistent as a centre-mass shot, and it didn’t disappoint as Ezekiel fired round after round, stopping only at the faint click.

“You murdering sonofa—” A man lunged at him from the darkness. Jones snatched a weapon from a corpse and hurled it as best he could at the voice.

When it connected, and the body toppled back with a wince, the rest of them opened fire again: a line of flame, the thack of bullets against the walls, and the familiar tic-tic-tic of a taser.

Ezekiel fell flat to the ground, smacking visor-first against it and losing the augmented sight.

The light from the fire was more than enough to see, so he popped back to his feet, snatched the wall-hanging mirror next to him from the wall and hurled it at the ceiling down the hall.

It impacted, and the glass shattered in jagged pieces over the remaining cultists, and they looked up.

Their screams blossomed in Jones’s ears, but there was still work to be done. He reloaded, weighed their crimes and granted them their due, one bullet at a time.

“Judge Poet, rooms scanned upstairs, seven down, report,”he said through the communicator.

 

 

POET, WHO’D BEEN indisposed by the Brotherhood members filling the basement, decided to apologise for not answering late, if he made it out alive. The Brotherhood members down here were less panic-prone than those his partner dealt with; one of them had thought enough to use her weapon’s flame mode to give her fellow cultists a fighting chance.

Poet deactivated the night vision mechanism in his visor, regaining clear sight as a robed gangster darted towards him, and quickly dropped a smoke bomb.

The Judge crouched low as an arm swung to lop off his head, then popped upwards, letting his helmet crunch the thug’s nose into his face. The lowlife sprawled out flat, and Poet shoved the heel of his boot through his throat.

He took off his helmet and hurled it at another thug’s head. The cultist ducked low, evading the helmet, but not the butt of Poet’s pistol, cracking into the waste’s jaw.

He flipped the gun back around before the remaining thug could respond. His aim was never anything special, but thankfully, the crescent-shaped birthmark on her face was target enough, and he laid out the probable drug addict and dropout with a merciful bullet to her face.

 

 

JUDGE JONES, STILL waiting for his partner to respond, continued dispatching the Brotherhood in the rooms along the hallway. They were easy enough game, and he’d judged them each within two seconds flat; just as the old guard would a pellet gun in a Cleveland park.

Clearing them out, one by one, bullet by bullet by bullet, was taxing. He wasn’t sure, as he reached the final room, that even the upgrades Marisa had provided could keep up; by his count, he had at best five rounds left, at worst three. It was immediately academic, though, as he was tossed across the room by a robed thug that tested their tailor’s one-size-fits-all strategy to the limit.

Jones had dealt with bigger, badder, and less breakable, but he was tired. The demon lumbered at him, and he tossed his weapon aside and rushed the thug, tackling him to the ground. It had little impact, as he plucked Jones off him with a grunt and slammed him against the ceiling.

“Fuck what you think,” Judge Jones wheezed, as he scrambled to his feet, closed in and swung a knee under the beast’s chin. It wailed and fell to its knees, gripping at its mangled, mandingo chin.

As Judge Jones leaned in, trying to grasp at the thick wrist, he felt like a five-year-old taking on Hulk Hogan.

“What the hell are you…?” he asked as the thing snatched its arm back, dripping thick, foamy spit, like a streetwalking waste who couldn’t be bothered with a sidewalk.

It drove its foot into Jones’s jugular, sending him sprawling.

The beast heaved itself to its feet again, and Judge Jones reached for his pistol, only then realising it had fallen to the floor when he’d come in. He resigned himself to a hopefully swift death.

“Martin?” A woman’s voice, an incantation that made the creature turn. Before it could reply, something smashed into the behemoth’s face with a heavy thwack, rendering it unconscious even as it fell to the ground.

“Marisa, showtime,”Jones said into his communicator, and as planned, the power came back on throughout the house.

Judge Jones turned off the night vision of his visor to see the person of ever-growing interest, Aaliyah Monroe.

He looked to the weapon across the room, and then to the woman once more. She dropped the pistol in her own hand and reached down to him.

“Could have shot him with that, you know,” Jones said as he climbed to his feet.

Aaliyah looked at the prone hulk for a moment, nudging him with a foot to confirm he was out. “No, I couldn’t. These weapons, only specific people could use them. Also, not much of a murderer, Judge.”

“Not what I hear.”

“You heard fucking wrong. I’m—I was set up, I haven’t done anything wrong, not the way you all wish I did, anyway. My son was taken, I gave testimony under duress… your honour.”

Jones retrieved his weapon and checked the room for any remaining danger. “Where is your son?”

“Not here. I don’t know what Thurgood did with him; if he’s been hurt, I swear—”

Judge Jones stopped her before she could finish, clapping a hand over her mouth and shoving her back to the room’s closet. He watched her slump to the ground.

“We intercepted your call to the Chicago PD, Dr. Monroe,” he said. “We are here to end this. Keep yourself hidden.” He tossed her his old pistol, with half a clip.

He slammed the door before she could respond, muffling her parting words, and made his way to the now-illuminated hall, seeing his partner waiting with Pellegrino at the end of it.

As he ran to meet them, he wondered about the quality of his new helmet, most importantly the sound input settings. While it was able to pick up Aaliyah’s fleeting words, it made them into nonsense.

I never called the cops…

He couldn’t see how such a blatant lie could serve her.

“Status, Judge Jones?” Poet asked.

Jones tapped the bottom of his gun, prompting Poet to produce a spare clip.

“Fine,” he said as he loaded. “Last room. You ready to meet Thurgood?”

“Drokk, yeah.” Marisa laughed.

The two stopped.

“The hell?” Judge Poet asked.

She shrugged. “I heard a kid at the precinct say it the other day.”

Jones shook his head and stepped back to thrust a foot at the door, smashing it open.

After the mass murder, nightmarish night terrors, and poor grammar, Jones was open to endless possibilities: a monster, a robot, a living god… he was almost disappointed at what he saw. A sunglass-wearing, quivering minority on his knees, with his hands stretched up in the sky.

“Who are you? Where is Thurgood?” Judge Jones demanded, marching in with his weapon. He noticed the man didn’t flinch. Pellegrino and Poet surveyed the room, finding nothing but the simpering man in front of them.

“I—I’m just—oh, god, don’t hurt me!” the man whined.

“Answer. Him,” Judge Poet added, pushing the lip of his weapon against the shivering man’s head.

“I—oh, oh, god, I’m—I’m Colin Jobee. I am a-a-a-a engineer. I was brought here by Thu-Thu-Thurgood, I crafted his weapons for the Brotherhood,” Colin wailed.

Judge Poet took a step back, lowering his weapon slightly before giving Judge Jones a shrug.

Judge Jones looked him over, and raised his own pistol. He caught the twist of Marisa’s face and held out an open palm to reassure her.

He turned the strobe light function on, and, after a moment, shut it down.

“He’s blind,” Judge Jones said, holstering his weapon, and continuing to search the room.

“Yuh-yes… is that… is that against the law, or—?”

“Shut. It,” Judge Poet spat, aiming his weapon at Jobee. He kept it there for a moment, registered Pellegrino’s grimace, and awkwardly shuffled the weapon against Jobee’s head for him to feel it. Pellegrino gave a condescending smile and flashed a thumbs-up, then continued her search of the room.

“Seventeen down in total, ma’am,” Jones reported. “Aaliyah Monroe is armed in a closet next door. She isn’t here of her own volition.”

Marisa glanced back to the door, to the suddenly stilled blind man, and back to Judge Jones. “What did she tell you…?” she asked, meeting Jones’s eyes and nodding back to Jobee. Ezekiel nodded back.

“Everything,” Judge Jones said, hand over his holstered weapon.

Colin Jobee’s shaking fully stopped at the word everything. He began towards the door, but was stopped by Judge Poet’s forearm.

“She… she told you lies,” Colin said, writhing on the ground for a moment before composing himself, on his knees.

Jones nodded thoughtfully, but stayed silent. He waited, and waited, and as Judge Poet rolled his eyes, waited for a bit longer.

“She told me that you’d say that, Thurgood,” he eventually bluffed.

Colin, keeping his hands raised, sighed, long and low, and slipped into a smile. “Whatever you think she said is circumstantial at best. Yes, though, let’s take time to mull over the rantings of a confessed consort of Thurgood. More importantly, I’d like to speak with your superior about your brutal methods, officers.”

“Yeah, I’ll call HR in the morning. Get the fuck up,” Pellegrino commanded.

“Well, thank you. I have to say though, there is a more pressing matter to attend to, Marisa, was it? Excuse my impertinence, but if I may explain, lives hang in the balance!” Jobee wailed.

Jones noticed Marisa eyeing him and turned to meet her gaze for a moment, before turning back to Thurgood.

“Talk.”

“The weapons. I—as disclosed in the contract I’ve distributed to my customers, the weapons have a… a kind of kill switch, excuse the pun. As they were, and still are in production, it was only ethically sound of me to do so, in case they were found ill-suited to private use.”

“Of course,” Judge Poet huffed.

“Thurgood, from what I’ve overheard, is a kind of prophet to these people. Meanwhile, even as this ‘Brotherhood’ marches as one on every police precinct in Illinois, I remain but a humble entrepreneur and a concerned citizen,” Colin said, letting tears spill. “I am also, a—a friend to all human kind. And what you do for friends is… you cherish your friends, look out for your friends, lift up your friends, love your friends.” He was sobbing now, and for a moment, Jones wondered if Colin Jobee really wasn’t Thurgood. Anyone who would carry the name of a Judge with such entitlement couldn’t possibly blubber like this.

“For cock’s sakes man, stop with the bullshit and say your words,” Judge Poet groaned.

Jobee winced. “What… what time is it?”

“Quarter after eight, why?” Pellegrino said, glancing at her watch but keeping her gun aimed tightly over Colin.

“Oh! Oh, no! It’s already started… the TV, please, it has to be on some local station.”

Marisa glanced over to Judge Jones again, jerking her head towards the TV. Jones obliged.

Jobee had fortuitously left the TV last on a news station. ‘It’ had, as promised, happened.

“What is this?” Judge Jones asked, heavily.

Jobee grinned for a moment, unable to see the broadcast, but listened along with the rest of them, his hands still stretched to the sky.

They heard the description of the Brotherhood members surrounding multiple police stations throughout the city, each armed with the weapons he’d built for the cruel ‘criminal mastermind,’ Thurgood.

“They were ordered by—by Thurgood to take… retributive justice for all the wrongs made against them, by blood. God forgive me, they can do it too, with my weapons, with my—listen. I can stop them. I can—”

Judge Jones stepped out of line, his body filling with a rage, threatening to drown. He felt pushed the cold steel of his weapon against Jobee’s head, against what could only be Thurgood’s head, and felt no hope at all.

“Judge Jones!” Pellegrino shouted, but he didn’t respond.

“Well, I don’t know how that isgoing to help anyon—”

“How can we stop this?” Judge Jones snapped before Colin could finish.

The blind, black, bent man shrugged, slowly lowering his arms from a surrender he’d never intended to give, and carefully climbed to his feet.

“As I mentioned before, I have integrated a kill switch—oh, what’s that sound? Are the officers on their way out? Not long now… ” Jobee cooed.

He was right. Judge Jones turned briefly to the TV, watching as the helicopters recorded the officers emptying out from the back of the building, strapped in the weapons of old, weapons that held no hold over the future.

“I—and excuse any implication here—I don’t quite know how to trust this won’t result in yet another false accusation from the Justice Department on my character? Now, if I had assurance that I would be free from any unconstitutional handling of my person…”

“What do you want, Jobee?” Jones demanded.

“Well, I want to be wanted, like any rational businessman of the century. You see, I was unjustly made into this… beggar you see before you, when I was catapulted from a budding future and—”

Judge Poet fired a round into the ceiling, putting a halt on Jobee’s speech. “Not the time for the whole ‘Sympathy for the Devil’ speech, citizen. Answer my partner’s question.”

“Yes, well, I don’t want—or, I don’t want to givethis Thurgood control over anything. I am a proud taxpayer, I don’t even deduct for political donations, so, you know, good guy here. I admire, and want to play my part in continuing this tradition of protection, of service. What I want most, though, is a form of income. So, I leave the choice here to you…” Jobee seemed almost pained, almost human.

Pellegrino lowered her weapon, and ordered the other two to follow suit.

“What choice?” Jones asked.

“Well, speaking in hypotheticals here, of course, but… this is not going to end well,” Colin said slyly. “People won’t walk away from this… But I wonder who you would want to remain? We have the intrepid, tenacious police force of Illinois. They aren’t all that bad, are they? But they aren’t going to go without a fight. What if you don’t have to fight? What if, by way of an unpressed button, the fight was finished for you?”

“And door number 2?” Marisa questioned, paying no mind to Jones’s incredulous look.

“The weapons are deactivated at the opportune moment, after a shot or two, and two-thirds of those contributing to the murder capital of the country are taken out in a heartbeat. There is the start of, if not justice, at least order,” Colin said, mouthing the last word slow and sticky.

Judge Jones looked back to the TV: the gangs were there, some sporting the robes and some not; not that it seemed this Thurgood, this invisible man, cared much for their unity.

The officers did just as Colin said they would, emptying out and readying themselves for a death they couldn’t begin to comprehend.

“What would you require, citizen, to give us the tech?” Marisa asked.

“Ma’am?” Jones prompted, without reply.

“Well, skimming over the whole trust-but-verify speech I had planned,” Jobee replied, “I’ve… prepared for such a possibility. If one of your dogs wouldn’t mind—the dresser over there? Top drawer.”

Marisa nodded to Judge Jones, who went to the dresser and pulled out a single black folder. When he opened it, there was a contract, filled with the familiar legalese he’d always hated dealing with.

He couldn’t help looking at the letterhead, though: a company logo that only read G. A. Manufacturing and nothing more.

He took it over to Marisa, who glanced it over and laughed hollowly.

“You. Assholes. I can’t believe I didn’t see it earlier…”

“What is it?” Poet asked, but Pellegrino didn’t acknowledge the Judge’s question, instead glancing at the TV for a few moments before turning back to Colin Jobee.

“So, Mr. Jobee, I don’t expect the CEO of General Arms Manufacturing will be joining us as well today, will she?” Marisa asked, and treason danced across Jobee’s face like a child proud of his trickery.

“No, unfortunately, you just have me. Though I do speak for her. We trust each other entirely. You, though—tsk—you haven’t been so trustworthy, have you? We know, for instance, that you’ve been flirting with Metal Storm about their weaponry developments behind our back. For shame, Pellegrino, for shame. You should know that we aren’t angry, but saw it only as an opportunity to show you our developments. While Thurgood, wherever and whoever he may be, hasn’t been the best business partner, he has done everything legally.”

“One dollar…” Jones said.

“Oh, you’re familiar with our price point? Well, if you don’t spend you don’t win, bit of a business 101 tip for you there. I digress, call this a signing bonus, in one sweep Fargo gets whatever he values more, or call it Operation Revelations, we know how much you love your code names. Call it whatever you want, frankly, but make your choice fast, we don’t have much time.” Colin Jobee seemed to relax, lowering his hands and leaning back on them.

Marisa grinned, looking at the papers, looking at the insignia of her future business partners. She looked back to the TV, withdrew her weapon, and sent a round through its centre, letting it flash to nothing but wires and darkness.

“Judge Jones,” Marisa started.

“Yes, ma’am?” Jones said, staring still to the television.

“A pen, please.”

Jones and Poet holstered their weapons, and Ezekiel withdrew with a pen from his belt, clicking it to wake and handing it to her. She worked her way around Jones and used his back as a surface to sign on.

“Well! That’s that. Thank you for your patronage. So! Moving along, what would you like to do?” Jobee said as the scratching of the pen stopped. He reached to his back pocket and pulled out an inch-long, circular device with a button fixed in its centre.

“I’ll have that, Mr. Jobee,” Marisa said. Jobee tossed it underhand towards her voice, and she caught it. She looked over to Ezekiel and Judge Poet.

“What happens, exactly? If I press the button?” Marisa asked.

“Hit the button, the signal goes out. It takes roughly two minutes, unfortunately,” Jobee said.

“Ma’am, you can’t… you know, you know what will happen. It won’t be mercy.”

Judge Jones, Ezekiel, was the cadet on his bed again.

“No, it won’t, Jones, but it will be order.”

Marisa tapped the button.

They heard a sizzle from within the weapons littering the room, and the hallways. They didn’t hear, of course, the last breaths of the men and women in the street.

“Judge Jones, make sure to—”

“You… you—”

“Judge Jones. Judge Poet. Please escort Mr. Jobee out of the house. He’ll need medical attention for that shoulder.”

Judge Poet gave a quick nod and helped Jobee to his feet, while Judge Jones kept his eyes on Marisa.

“Judge Jones?” she asked, mildly.

“Affirmative, ma’am,” he eventually replied.

As they walked the halls, Judge Jones was careful to avoid the bodies. Judge Poet seemed too weighted by Ezekiel’s gaze to try and nudge him back to the man he’d met at the diner earlier that day. They stayed silent until the end of the hall, until a sound in one of the rooms drew their attention.

Aaliyah, Judge Jones thought, but then realised it’d come from a different room.

Poet rushed towards the room, leaving Jones holding Jobee.

He heard Poet screaming in the distance, but nothing returning to him, only words he’d heard so many nights, the catalyst of so many mistakes.

“Put the weapon down, I won’t ask twice, kid.”

It was the first time Colin seemed truly rattled. “No!” he screamed, attempting to rush to the room, until Jones kicked him in the sternum, knocking him to the ground.

Jones jogged past the wheezing engineer, his weapon out, entering the room to see a young boy holding one of Jobee’s weapons.

“Judge Poet! Weapon down. This isn’t—the weapons have been deactivated.”

“We can’t know that, not for all of them. Kid, let’s not do this, let’s not—”

Given more time, Poet could have explained why pointing a gun at him wasn’t a great idea. He could have talked the little black boy out of killing himself through a Judge’s gun. He could have done many more things, if not for the sound from across the hall. If not for Aaliyah Monroe, gun still smoking and still in her hands; if not for the bullet that split Judge Poet’s eye socket, leaving him in darkness.