Sweet Justice Read Online Free Page B

insisted that I delete all reference to it throughout, on the grounds that it had no right to disturb the status quo of the kneepad world over what was essentially a human problem. I asked it what it meant.
    ‘If citizens at large found out that your kneepad can talk, they’d want to know why their own kneepads can’t.’
    ‘Well – why can’t they?’
    ‘Oh,’ said my kneepad, ‘most can. It’s just that they choose not to.’)
     
    January 25 th
    Spent the entire day composing letters to newsvids, vidzines and holovid shows, including one to Kenny Kark. My kneepad thinks Kark might be a Juve spy, but I’m not so sure. He’s pretty tall for a Juve.
     
    January 26 th
    Thursday again. Time for my weekly trip to Orinoko’s – but the usual fear of going out was absent this morning. As soon as I reached the lift, the Juves arrived on schedule. They launched into their usual glare and sneer tactics – but this time I glared and sneered right back. I elbowed one of them aside and lounged against the wall, looking as contemptuous as possible. This is all part of the Hari-ip-Slip method. 60% of all Juves will shuffle off if treated like this.
    Not a Juve shuffled. I knew this meant they had accepted my challenge to their challenge, and events were now likely to escalate. No matter. I have surprised even myself with how well I have mastered the martial art.
     
    So when the first Juve aimed a blow at me, I was ready. I swayed back out of his reach, causing him to lose his balance and strike one of his bald associates on the head. The bald Juve snarled – and hauled a cosh from a pocket in his zipporak.
    All hell broke loose. I ducked the cosh with a Snaking Weave, combining it with a sideways Dragon Slide that took me out of range of the fists that tried to smash me from behind. A Juve closed in from each side, one wearing a studded Knocknux, the other swinging a short stave. I did a double Dodge-Duck on the spot, and the stave hit the knux kid full in the mouth.
    That’s when I made my mistake. I should have executed a Backward Long Slither and worked myself away from them. Unfortunately, I paused long enough to titter about the Juve who’d been hit.
    It was my undoing.
    A dozen hands grasped at me, pulling me down. A hard, bald head cannoned into my stomach, winding me. I tried to summon up the strength for a desperate Leaping Lizard – but it was too late. I was submerged in a sea of boots and fists and swinging sticks...
    I don’t know how a Juve gang decides when its victim has had enough. I’m glad they do, though. As suddenly as it had begun, the whole melee was over. The Juves disappeared along the corridors, and I was left to pick myself up, rubbing my wounds, feeling dazed and a little sick.
    ‘You... okay, kneepad?’ I looked down. Horror of horrors! My kneepad – my mentor – my saviour – was gone.
    It must have been ripped off in the struggle, and the Juves had carried it off – no doubt to torture and interrogate. Despair spread through my veins like ice water. It was all over. Without my kneepad, I was nothing. It had been my only friend – had kept me sane and relatively cheerful through this black time. I would never see it again.
     
    Dejected, dispirited, I slouched back into my apartment. The scrawl on my door had been changed to NITCHY BOKS GREE, presumably during the fracas, but I didn’t pay it a second thought. I knew in my heart there was only one way out of it for me now.
    I opened my living room window and clambered up onto the ledge. It was a long way down to the ground: 89 storeys. Nobody could possibly survive that drop. I took a deep breath, closed my eyes and prepared to jump...
    ‘Hold it, Citizen!’
    I whirled, to see the impressive figure of a Judge framed in my living room doorway. ‘Attempted suicide is a serious offence.’
    He took a step towards me, but I waved him back. ‘I’m sorry, Judge. I’ve never broken the Law before, but I... I just can’t go on.