Sweet Justice by Neil Gaiman Read Free Book Online Page A

as if fourteen years of pent-up frustrations and held-in anger just came boiling XXXXXXXXXXXXCENSOREDXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXCENSOREDXXXXXXXXXXXCENSOREDCENSOREDXXXXXXXXXXXCENSOREDXXXXXX.
    My hand shot out and grabbed the duck by the neck. The stupid things are programmed to flap off if a citizen gets too close, of course, but like I said this one had popped its cork. I gave the loudest yell I’ve ever heard without the assistance of a Judge’s megaphone and whirled that criminal duck round my head.
    Willy the C, needless to say, was lying on his back on the plasti-grass, laughing like he was having some kind of seizure. Looking back on it, I suppose I would have laughed too if our situations had been reversed and the delinquent duck had attacked my buddy. But it hadn’t, and I was too angry to see the funny side of anything. So I threw the duck straight at Willy’s head.
    I’ll say this for Willy the C – his reflexes are good. I mean, when we used to play in the Park he was always the best on the never-snaps, and he always won when we played ballgames with the seniors. And it was his reflexes that saved him now.
    He rolled back, both legs jerking out straight. He caught the duck – which must have weighed about five kilos, by the way – a hefty kick. It whizzed through the air. From this point on, everything that happened was a pure accident. I swear it. I mean, I had to throw the duck ’cos I lost my temper, and Willy had to kick it aside otherwise it’d have probably caved his skull in. I’ve already made that clear to the Judges. They say it doesn’t matter. They say I caused the accident, and Willy was a major accessory. So that’s that. There’s no quarrelling with a Judge’s judgement.
    Anyway, like I was saying, Willy kicks out and the robo-duck goes flying. Right at the crowd that was hurriedly forming around us. You don’t need me to tell you how quickly that happens when something out of the ordinary is going on. And of course, you don’t need me to tell you that there was a trouble-maker in the crowd. Every crowd has one, a do-gooder, a bigmouth who wants to interfere and clear things up for everybody.
    In this particular crowd it happened to be a skinny runt wearing the insignia of the Dennis Tanner Citi-Def.
    ‘All right, all right,’ he loudmouthed. ‘Let me through here...’
    He broke off and screamed as the diverted duck, travelling about 20 kilometers an hour, hit him slap in the jaw.
    A lot of people would say it was his own fault. For a start, he was a Tanner Blocker so he didn’t really have any right to be in our Block Park (he was visiting a relative, it turned out.) And then he was a Citi-Def member. Let me tell you, these Citizen Defence Corps creeps are all the same – they’re so full of themselves and their responsible work, they’ll interfere with anything . Huh! Where were the Citi-Defs during the war with East-Meg One, that’s what I’d like to know! I mean, Citi-DefXXXXXXXXXXXCENSOREDXXXXXXXXXXXCENSOREDXXXXXXXXXXXCENSOREDXXXXXX.
    ‘Aaaaaaagh!’ The Dennis Tanner Blocker screamed.
    ‘Kwaak!’ squawked the robo-duck. Its neck had snapped on contact with the Tanner Blocker’s face, and its voke-box must have been knocked out of action. This was its final Kwaak.
    And it was that strangled Kwaak that brought me to my senses. My anger vanished as quick as it had appeared – to be replaced by a queasy feeling in my gut so strong I nearly retched. Fear. Fear for what me and Willy had done. Fear for what the consequences would be.
    Willy was scrambling to his feet now and he didn’t need to speak for me to know he felt exactly the same. ’Cos the Tanner Blocker was lying very still on the plasti-grass, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. A girl stooped beside him, shaking her head like she was stunned.
    ‘He – he’s dead,’ she gasped. ‘The – the duck must’ve broken his neck!’
    The duck in question, now completely headless, was flapping round in silent