Fear the Darkness by Mitchel Scanlon Read Free Book Online Page B

had asked, staring down the bore of the Judge's Lawgiver and thinking it looked big enough to swallow him whole.
    "How'd you think, genius?" the Judge replied. "Audio on the surveillance cameras at the pad-mart picked up your partner calling you 'Leland'. That, and the fact your wife wasn't too well-endowed. How many guys you think fit that profile and happen to live in the same block where the robbery took place? Piece of cake. Now, give up your partner's name without me having to take you back to the Sector House for interrogation and I'm prepared to go easy on you. Minimum sentence."
    The whole damn thing was Arnie's fault anyway, Leland thought as he lay on the bunk staring at the ceiling. If the dumb bastard had kept his mouth shut, I wouldn't be in this mess, so I squealed on him.
    Sadly, Arnie had refused to see things that way. When the Judge had brought him out of the block in cuffs and he saw Leland already chained to a holding post on the street waiting for him, Arnie had gone crazy. He'd kicked and bit and screamed so much the Judge driving the Catch Wagon had put him in a gag and restraints. The real shame of it was that he and Arnie had been friends ever since they were juves. Although, however Leland looked at it now, he had to figure their friendship was over.
    Serves the asshole right, he thought. And it ain't like they wouldn't have caught up with him eventually anyway. Only thing I regret is not thinking to ask the Judge what the minimum sentence was. Eighteen years! So much for going easy on me. Damn Judges. You just can't trust 'em.
    Leland was in a holding cube in Sector House 12, waiting for a transport to take him to the iso-block where he'd be spending the next eighteen years of his life. The second they had come into processing and the Judges had removed his gag, Arnie had started screaming again, telling anybody who would listen his partner was a rat. The warders had put Leland in his own private cube instead of the holding pens, probably figuring he would be safer that way.
    So this is what a holding cube looks like, he thought. A bunk, a sink, a shower and a toilet: that's about it for the furnishings. Oh, and a surveillance camera to watch my every move. I guess an iso-cube will look pretty much the same, and I got to spend eighteen years in one. Grud. It might as well be a life sentence.
    The lights went off, plunging the windowless cube into darkness. Must be time for lights out, Leland thought. I didn't think I was supposed to be staying here long enough to have to bed down for the night.
    Leland Barclay , he heard a voice say nearby, the sound of it nearly making him jump out of his skin. Someone was in there with him! Leland sat up in his bunk in panic. He couldn't see anything. Frightened, he pulled his legs up onto the bunk with him like a child scared of the bogeyman. Leland sat and listened, ears straining to hear the sounds of movement or breathing. But there was only the voice again, its tone low and quiet.
    Leland Barclay . The sound, a barely audible murmur.
    Leland Barclay . A strange voice, malign and knowing.
    Leland Barclay . A whisper in the darkness.
    It is time to be judged...
     
    Grud, Chief Warder Sykes thought as the lights went out and the Custody Command Room fell into sudden darkness. It's happening again.
    The emergency lights kicked in, bathing the room and the holding pens beyond it in a dim blue light. The chief warder was already on the move. He put his helmet on and grabbed a torch from a rack as he headed for the door.
    "Chief!" he heard Mullins call after him from the comms console. "Tek-Bay reports a power outage across the entire Sector House. Backup generators are out as well. We've got emergency lights and comms operating off battery supplies and that's about it."
    "Tell them we need power down here now," he said, halfway through the door. "Priority code: eight five seven alpha one. The second they get any kind of power source back online, they're to route it