CALEB
The only danger is we expand too fast. In the last few days we’ve added distribution to three new blocks. Pretty soon we’ll be looking at making inroads into sectors nine and fifteen.
MA-MA
Fifteen is still Red territory. Why make waves?
CALEB
I’ve been talking to my contacts there. They want a sit-down, but from what I hear, it’s already squared. Fact is, they want what we’ve got. Just business.
Ma-Ma nods.
MA-MA
Good.
Then she turns, and gestures to the corner of the room.
And what about them?
Reveal that throughout the previous conversation, there were actually three other men in the room.
Sitting in a row, on chairs. Beneath the chairs are plastic sheets. Their arms are tied behind them. They are all gagged. Wide-eyed. Bruised and blood-stained. Unable to do anything but listen.
Kay speaks up.
KAY
They were selling Sternhammer product on my level. Warned them off with a beating a couple of weeks ago. Guess it didn’t work.
MA-MA
And you can’t deal with it yourself?
KAY
I can deal with it.
CALEB
The question is whether you want to make an example of them.
Ma-Ma thinks a couple of moments.
Then turns away.
MA-MA
Skin them and toss them over the balcony.
On their seats, the gagged men freak out, eyes bugging, struggling against their restraints.
Sy pulls a knife.
KAY
Hit ’em with a little slo-mo first?
MA-MA
Sure.
Kay walks up to the first Gagged Man. He is also inked – with a crude Judge Death tattoo on his chest.
Kay yanks the Man’s head back and pulls out the gag.
As the gag is released, the Man starts to scream.
Which is stifled as Kay jams a slo-mo inhaler into his mouth, and depresses the button.
Cut to:
INT. PEACH TREE BLOCK ⁄ ATRIUM – DAY
The interior of Peach Trees, which contains an atrium of dizzying scale. It spans the entire height of the construction. Effectively, the block is hollowed out, two hundred storeys high, ringed with balconies.
The lower levels are a shopping and recreation zone. Above the shopping and recreation zone are medical centres and educational facilities. Everything above is residential.
At the base of the atrium is an area like a massive, busy third-world train station, with people criss-crossing the area, milling about, exiting out of tunnels and escalators.
We track a Woman with a Child in a pushchair as she makes her way through.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, a body falls out of the sky, and lands with a sickening impact.
Thwack. Right in front of the pushchair.
The Woman pulls back.
And a second body lands directly behind her.
Thwack.
She looks up, as the crowd around her starts to scatter …
… and is stunned to see that another body is tumbling down towards her.
She just manages to jam the pushchair forward before the body lands.
Thwack.
EXT. HALL OF JUSTICE – DAY
Dredd and Anderson walk down the steps outside the Hall of Justice towards their bikes.
At their bikes, we tap into the endless streams of radio calls that are constantly being transmitted from Control.
CONTROL
(over radio)
Responders in vicinity of Peach Tree block. We have a report of a multiple homicide.
CONTROL
(over radio)
Responders in Sector Thirteen North, we have armed robbery reported. Four suspects on foot. Gunshot victims at scene of crime.
CONTROL
(over radio)
Responders on Highway Alpha Five. We have ambulance crew under assault, requesting assistance.
DREDD
(to Anderson)
Twelve serious crimes reported every minute. Seventeen thousand per day. We respond to around six per cent.
ANDERSON
Which six per cent?
DREDD
Your show, rookie. You tell me.
Anderson glances down at her bike-nav screen. Waypoint markers are flashing all across the sector map.
ANDERSON
Peach Trees, multiple homicide.
Dredd lifts his left hand – which has his radio integrated into the glove.
DREDD
(into radio)
Control. Dredd. We’ll take Peach Trees.
EXT. MEGA CITY ONE ⁄ ROAD – DAY
Dredd and Anderson ride their bikes towards Peach Trees.
EXT. PEACH TREE BLOCK – DAY
Dredd and Anderson walk into the south entrance of Peach Trees.
Above them, against the background of grey-and-black concrete slabs, a bright hologram of a cartoonish peach tree flickers like a neon striplight with a bad connection.
Sitting against one side of the entrance is a Homeless Man.
In front of him is a handwritten sign on cardboard.
It reads:
HOMELESS JUNKIE
WILL DEBASE SELF FOR CREDITS
As Dredd and Anderson pass him:
DREDD
Rookie.
ANDERSON
Vagrancy, three weeks, iso-cubes. But prioritise murders.
DREDD
Correct. (To the Homeless Man.) Don’t be here when we come back.
INT. PEACH TREE ATRIUM – DAY
Dredd and Anderson enter the busy atrium.
DREDD
Tell me about Peach Trees.
ANDERSON
Sir. Houses seventy-five thousand registered citizens. Actual population probably closer to one hundred thousand. Highest crime rate in Sector Thirteen. Unemployment rate ninety-six per cent. More than half of the residential levels are classed as slums.
DREDD
Why do you want to be a judge?
Anderson is thrown momentarily by the non-sequitur.
ANDERSON
… Sir. I want to protect and serve the city. Make a difference.
DREDD
Make a difference to a block like this?
ANDERSON
I was born and raised in a block like this. Until the Justice Department took me. I know there are good people inside. Good families. Just trying to get by.
Beat.
Yes. I believe I can make a difference.
Dredd glances upwards.
Above the bustle of the atrium floor, the ringed balconies of the atrium stretch up into shade and darkness.
DREDD
(flat)
Admirable.
INT. PEACH TREE ATRIUM ⁄ CRIME SCENE – CONTINUOUS
Dredd and Anderson push past a taped cordon.
Behind the cordon, a Paramedic stands with the bodies.
Above, a gathering crowd of onlookers gaze down from the ringed balconies.
DREDD
(to Paramedic)
What have you got?
PARAMEDIC
Three stiffs in a somewhat fucked-up condition.
The Paramedic pulls open the cordon tape to allow Dredd and Anderson through.
The bodies are the three men we saw with Kay.
From the neck down and waist up, they have been skinned.
DREDD
You’re based in Peach Trees?
PARAMEDIC
Med centre on level twenty-five.
DREDD
You ID’d them?
PARAMEDIC
Mostly. That one is registered to this block. And that one is registered to Block Sternhammer.
DREDD
(gesturing to the last)
And him?
The Paramedic shrugs.
Close-up on the man’s severely crushed head.
>
PARAMEDIC
I’ll have to run his blood through the DNA profiler. If I can figure out which blood is his.
Dredd kneels down to take a closer look at the nearest body.
Inside the man’s open mouth is a white, dust-like marking.
DREDD
Rookie. What do you make of this?
ANDERSON
… I don’t know, sir.
DREDD
It’s a cold burn from a slo-mo inhaler.
ANDERSON
Slo-mo?
PARAMEDIC
A new narcotic. Only just hit the grid, but it’s making big waves. Makes the brain feel as if time is passing at one per cent its normal speed.
Anderson looks up to the height from which the men dropped.
And shudders.
The Paramedic is also gazing upwards, obviously having much the same thought.
PARAMEDIC
Must have felt like a long way down.
INT. CONTROL – DAY
In Control, where rows of men and women sit in front of banks of monitors, operating the huge communication centre within the Hall of Justice …
… we find a screen, on which the faces of the murdered men are appearing.
The Control Operator manning this monitor speaks into his mike.
CONTROL OPERATOR
Positive on your IDs. All show convictions for possession of narcotics.
Close on monitor screen.
CONTROL OPERATOR
Transmitting data now.
INT. PEACH TREE ATRIUM ⁄ CRIME SCENE – CONTINUOUS
Pull back from the image on the monitor screen, to reveal we are now seeing it on Dredd’s PDA.
DREDD
Small-time perps. Junkies. No known gang affiliation. (To Anderson.) What’s your analysis?
ANDERSON
Drugged. Skinned. Displayed in public. It has to be a punishment killing. A message.
Above them, the balconies of the atrium are ringed with people looking down.
PARAMEDIC
Yeah. Don’t fuck with the Ma-Ma Clan.
On Dredd. Turning.
DREDD
Ma-Ma Clan?
INT. MEDICAL CENTRE – DAY
In the twenty-fifth-floor medical centre, Dredd and Anderson are looking at a holographic display, on which we can see a rotating 3D mugshot of Ma-Ma, and her medical records.
In the background, the Paramedic closes the medical centre’s heavy security door, while he provides a brief bio of Ma-Ma.
PARAMEDIC
We have her on record from her whoring days. The picture’s pretty old, but – yeah. That’s her. Madeline Madrigal, aka Ma-Ma. Ex-hooker from the S-Nine pleasure district. Quit working after she got sliced up by a pimp. But she got her own back. Block legend says she feminized the guy with her teeth. Then took over his business interests, and never looked back.
The Paramedic sucks his teeth.
Anyone else, you’d say it was bullshit. But not with Ma-Ma. Her trademark is violence. Takes it further and harder than anyone else. I’ve been in Peach Trees fifteen years. Used to be there were nine or ten different gangs, hustling for control. Now there’s just one.
ANDERSON
How did she get away with it?
PARAMEDIC
You know how often we get a Judge in Peach Trees?
DREDD
You’ve got one now.
Dredd hits a console button, and the holographic display changes to a map of Peach Trees.
DREDD
The victims were registered to apartments on level thirty-nine. Likely killed over a turf issue, so the perps will be in the vicinity. (To Anderson.) Rookie. Next move.
ANDERSON
Locate where the Clan operate from on this level, and hit it hard.
The Paramedic lights up an area of the map.
PARAMEDIC
That would be here.
Cut to:
INT. METAL DOOR – DAY
A viewing hatch sliding open, in a metal door.
Crowded into the other side of the viewing hatch, we see the faces of two Junkies.
One of them holds up credits.
The door is opened.
INT. SLO-MO DEN – CONTINUOUS
The Junkies enter an apartment.
A squalid shit-hole. In our day and age, it would be a crystal-meth or crack den, with piss-stained mattresses, schizoid graffiti on the walls, and crushed glass pipes on the floor.
But this is a slo-mo den. Much the same, but instead of crushed crack pipes on the floor, it’s broken and empty inhalers.
The man by the door is Sy, holding a shotgun.
Sitting in an armchair, with a pistol on his lap, is Kay.
Our two Junkies score off Kay, swapping credits for the glass ampules that fit inside their inhalers.
Cut to:
INT. LEVEL THIRTY-NINE ⁄ CORRIDOR – CONTINUOUS
Outside the apartment.
Dredd and Anderson, taking position either side of the metal door.
Weapons drawn.
We can see Anderson’s nerves.
The door opposite them opens – and a Kid peers out of the crack. Anderson gestures for the Kid to go back inside. The door closes.
DREDD
Take it this is your first time in non-sim combat.
ANDERSON
Yes, sir.
DREDD
Been wondering when you’d remember you left your helmet behind.
ANDERSON
Sir – the helmet can interfere with my psychic abilities.
DREDD
Think a bullet might interfere with them more.
Cut back to:
INT. SLO-MO DEN – CONTINUOUS
The Junkies.
They find a space in a corner of the room, beside two people who are mechanically screwing on a filthy mattress.
Then put the inhalers in their mouths. Take a long hit.
Cut to:
INT. LEVEL THIRTY-NINE ⁄ CORRIDOR – CONTINUOUS
Dredd, pulling a plasti-charge out of his utility belt.
He fixes the plasti-charge to the door.
DREDD
Ready?
Anderson nods.
Dredd notices –
– the glitter of sweat on Anderson’s face. The slight tremble in her hands.
DREDD
You don’t look ready.
Anderson tightens her grip around her gun to stop the shake.
ANDERSON
Just adrenaline, sir.
Cut back to:
INT. SLO-MO DEN – CONTINUOUS
Our Junkies, in the grip of the drug.
And we’re with it too.
Everything slow.
Not just slow – ultra-slow.
All movements. Facial expressions. Blinking eyes.
And we discover why people take the slo-mo – as grim reality is transformed into something lyrical.
From sordid to oddly beautiful. Fascinating and hypnotic.
Even the couple screwing on the floor.
Then –
what was fascinating and hypnotic –
becomes slightly confusing.
Because the heavy door of the slo-mo den is very gradually starting to expand.
To bulge.
And in front of the bulge, a shock wave of air is starting to form.
And contacting the guard, Sy, who stands just behind it.
Lifting him delicately off his feet.
And now around the edges of the door, we can see a white and yellow brightness.
Which becomes a blossoming explosion of flame.
Until the door, and Sy, are flying backwards across the room.
Slow cuts between –
Junkies hunching.
Faces morphing into expressions of fear and surprise.
Hands reaching for guns.
Dredd coming through the door.
Followed by Anderson.
Now gunplay, gracefully erupting. br />
Bullets rifling through the air.
Punching through plasterwork.
Drilling through chests, leaving trails of hanging blood.
Drilling into the head of a Clan member, creating a spiral of flesh as it enters.
Smoke and dust unfurls.
Until it blinds us.
INT. SLO-MO DEN – CONTINUOUS
As the smoke and dust clears, it allows us to return seamlessly to normal speed.
Dredd and Anderson stand surrounded by the corpses of gang members and those Junkies who were foolish enough to reach for their guns.
The survivors crouch or stand with arms raised, dazed with narcotics and fear, with the guns of the two judges trained on them.
DREDD
Rookie.
Anderson is breathing fast. Still charged with adrenaline.
DREDD
Anderson. Judgement.
Anderson gathers her wits.
ANDERSON
Crime: possession and use of controlled substances. Sentence: two years in the iso-cubes.
DREDD
Don’t tell me. Tell Control.
ANDERSON
Sir. (Into radio.) Anderson to Control. Requesting meat wagon to Peach Trees. We’ve got four bodies for Resyk and six live for the iso-cubes.
CONTROL
(over radio)
Copy that. Meat wagon inbound.
Dredd nods.
DREDD
Let’s get them cuffed.
INT. SLO-MO DEN – CONTINUOUS
The perps are lined up and being cuffed.
One of them winces as Dredd pulls the plasti-cuffs mercilessly tight around his wrists.
Anderson is cuffing another man –
– but hesitates as she sees the distinctive Ma-Ma tattoo on the side of his neck.
ANDERSON
Sir, this one is a gang member. He –
Anderson breaks off. Frowning.
Then she turns the man round, revealing –
– Kay.
They gaze at each other for a couple of beats.
Then:
ANDERSON
Sir. It’s him.
DREDD