The theme for this story competition was an alternate "What if?" story from 2000AD's history. I picked a character who was killed in the second issue and wondered what would have happened if he had survived instead of Dredd. I quite like the Chipmunk jokes but I don't think it collected many votes.
This should have worked. The Judges. We should have fixed everything. Sociologists and epidemiologists with lab coats, trendy eyeglasses and pocket protectors. They all did their studies, ran their simulations, published endless papers. Everything said that a strong Judicial system was the best way out of Booth’s holocaust.
There was just one proviso, one little wrinkle, one bit of small print that the lab-jockeys insisted on. They said the best chance for the system was to have some visible embodiment of the law, someone to rise above all the street crime, appear in the news feeds, someone to battle the big issues that face the Mega-City. Someone who would achieve a mythic status and reassure the vast populace that the Judges were the only thing that made society work. Someone, in other words, like me.
Well I tried to be the best there was at what I did, but what I did wasn't very good. Things started well when we got through the Robot wars OK. I was sorry that we couldn't do anything when that virus ravaged MC-2 but what the drokk had they ever done for us.?
I admit that throwing my weight behind Judge Cal for Chief Judge may have been a mistake. When he made me wear the Chipmunk suit on duty it probably took something away from my authority. But he wasn't all bad, at least the Kleggs did something about over-population and their songs were OK. I often hum that “Slicy-slicy” one when I’m out on patrol.
Still it was probably a good thing when Judge Death killed Cal and then Anderson dealt with Death, I tried to help out as best I could but when you've gazed into the face of fear it can cause a few extra nuts to appear in the lower parts of your Chipmunk outfit. By the time I managed to get myself cleaned up it was all over for the Dark Judges.
Then I went out and picked up this Judge Child character. Nice kid called Owen. Not sure why we thought he was Chief Judge material but there you go. I mean Psi Judge Feyy says some stuff but couldn’t he give us something useful, like lottery numbers or something?
Anyway then we went into a bit of a decline. East-meg One nuked half the city, I flew over to negotiate peace. They got all our munce and we got to live. Just not for very long. It seemed like one thing after another, Necropolis, Judgment Day, Doomsday, Chaos Day. I liked it better when the days were named after some charity and we all got to wear a nice ribbon.
I guess I haven’t really worked out as the figurehead guy. Maybe somebody else should have done it. I think about that Joe Dredd, he was pretty good in the academy. But he took Whitey’s bullet for me. I wonder how he would have got on?
My name is Judge Alvin, and I am the Flaw.
No comments:
Post a Comment