Fear the Darkness by Mitchel Scanlon Read Free Book Online

House's holding cubes over the last two weeks. It made unwelcome reading. In content, the report was short on evidence and long on unsubstantiated allegations, but Franklin knew he could not ignore it. As much as he might wish the entire business would just go away, he had to try to resolve the matter somehow. He had to take action.
    Otherwise, the whole thing had "sour note" and "black mark" written all over it in big, ugly letters.
     
    "Sector Control to Custody Command," the voice said over the speaker. "Catch Wagon inbound with twenty-four - that is two four - perps for processing. ETA to your location: six minutes. Confirm."
    "Confirmed, Control," Judge Mullins said, inputting the new figures into the computer terminal set in the console in front of him. "Twenty-four perps inbound. We're getting pretty full down here. Request iso-block transport ASAP to relieve overcrowding. Over."
    "Negative, Custody. All transports currently engaged. Sector's so busy you'd think there was a Block War on. Will advise you as soon as situation changes. Sector Control out."
    It was turning into a hell of a night. Standing beside his control station in the Custody Command Room opposite the holding pens on basement sub-level two, Chief Warder Judge Abel Sykes looked at the Situation Board and grimaced in annoyance. Twenty-four more prisoners inbound, while according to the board's holographic display they were already running at ninety-eight percent capacity. The cubes were full, and they had been packing perps into the holding pens like canned synthi-fish all night. A twenty-five year man, Sykes didn't need to turn to look through the reinforced plasteen viewport at the holding pens behind him to know things were in danger of turning ugly out there. Litterer and murderer alike, he knew every new perp came to the Sector House nursing a fresh grudge against the system.
    Overcrowding made them more volatile, increasing the likelihood of their lashing out at their warders as the nearest representatives of that system. This left it to him as chief warder to keep a careful lid on things, walking the tightrope between protecting his men and not being so hard on the prisoners as to trigger a full-scale riot.
    "Another twenty-four prisoners inbound, chief," Mullins said. "We're already approaching the permitted safety threshold for prisoner numbers."
    "I'm not deaf, Mullins," he replied. "I heard you over the comm with Sector Control. And I can read the Situation Board as well as you can. Contact the watch commander upstairs and tell him I'm putting the interrogation cubes off-limits until further notice. If his Judges want to question any perps they can do it in the hallways. Next, radio Murcheson in the holding pens and tell him to start filtering out the non-violents. Jaywalkers, litterers, loiterers - he can use his discretion. Tell him to put them in restraints and transfer them to the interrogation cubes to free up space in the pens. And tell him to have his men suit up in their riot gear, just in case."
    Turning away as Mullins switched through the comm-channels to relay his instructions, Sykes stared for a moment through the viewport at the prisoners in the holding pen closest to him. On the other side of the pen's bars he saw a sea of faces. Each one was angry, vainly and silently cursing the unfairness of a life that had seen them caught and imprisoned for their crimes. Not for the first time in his life, it seemed he had seen every one of those faces before. In his years as a warder he had seen thousands of perps. They were all the same to him. Pushed far enough they were all potential Judge killers: the only question was how much each individual perp would take before he showed his true colours. When it came to safeguarding the lives of Judges, Sykes didn't believe in taking chances. He ran things hard and tight, always putting the lives of his men first.
    Time was when that was good enough, he thought. Time was when a chief warder's