The Ultimate Crime of Tony Thermo

Shuggy Shuggy Shuggy

At  daily briefing that morning at the Sector House 255, given by  Judge Holly, two items in particular caught the rookie Judge's attention. The first, was a report of a thermic explosion at the Ed Asner block in Sector 254 the might before. Major casualties had been reported and Judges were still on the scene. The other report was that someone called Goldie Rainer Spugbender, wanted on multiple counts of murder and arson, had jumped the Luna-1 shuttle at the Mega City Spaceport and was believed headed for this sector where he grew up. The only other thing of interest that happened was when Vertenberg asked about the dark city-block they had passed the previous night and a strange hush fell over the assembled Judges.  After a somewhat strained "See me about that later!" from Judge Holly the rookies were despatched on foot patrol in the Ryall Square area.

After the by now traditional, trouble with getting their Lawmasters underway, the Judges eventually arrived and set out on patrol. After dealing more-or-less successfully with the Case of the Flying Purple Wig, they were approached by two slightly tipsy men asking them to resolve a dispute about shuggy, unfortunately for the men the dispute appeared to be  about the winnings form some illegal bets on  a game and the Judges promptly arrested them! After the two were taken away, the Judges decide their next move would be a raid on the Higgins' Shuggy Hall. The Shuggy Hall, which was in the basement of  a nearby  run-down pre-Atomic  building.  Logan and Centurion went through the building;'s main entrance, arresting the concierge for being too slow to open the door to them and wasting Judge's time, while Dave and Vertenberg entered by kicking-in the side entrance!

Even this early in the morning, the air in the shuggy hall was heavy with illicit tobacco smoke, noisy with music and chatter. Shouting over the noise Vertenberg issued a challenge to the occupants, about half of whom immediately dropped to the floor their hands over their heads. The other half diver for cover drawing weapons, firing indiscriminately in the Judge's direction! Hearing the shots, Centurion and Logan hurried down the stairs and kicked-in the front door to the shuggy hall, immediately arresting a youth sitting at reception, plugged-in to a vid screen and seeming oblivious to what was going on. As the lead began flying Vertenberg took a couple of hits as she and Dave returned fire. The barkeep popped up from behind the bar with a spit carbine and joined in the fun! Logan fired-off a shot at someone dropping him to the ground bleeding. Centurion, deciding it was time to go in heavy switched to grenade rounds and began firing at a couple of perps sheltering behind one of the tables. In short order the Judges restored calm, most of the perps were down and bleeding on the floor. As they went round cuffing the perps, Logan kicked one of them in the head - fortunately none of his teammates spotted this casual example of police brutality!

Vertenberg meanwhile began searching the rooms off the main hall and ran into another couple of perps holed up in an office, these ones were better armed and seeming better trained than the others, but a couple of stumm gas grenade from Centurion put paid to their resistance m- one of them permanently as he suffered an allergic reaction to the gas! Searching the office the found another body, that of a young man, lying on the floor a single bullet in his head. The body had a mock-canvas bag slung round one shoulder which aside from the remains of an arm clock, some jewels screwdrivers, and a circuit tester, contained a glossy brochure describing the Southside development programme as built by Skyhigh Interests Inc. and the first of their developments in the area, the Barney Sloane block - designed along the lines of Sector 254's prestigious Ed Asner block. The brochure also mentioned the gala opening - today at 09:30 that was to be attended by the Sector Chief Marshall and vid star Prester Button! Inside the brochure was a scrap of paper with a rough sketch of the building, its car park and the annotation "Bang!" Realising this was probably a sign of bad things about to occur, the Judges called in the information to Control, who advised they would divert the Sector Chief and Mr Button but that there were 20,000 citizens already gathered around the new building. They were despatching a tech-Judge and support, but they they were the nearest judges and should get there soonest !

The Barney Sloane Bomb Basement Blues

Fifteen minutes later, sirens screaming and loud-hailers warning citizens to clear the area, the rode at speed into the basement car park beneath the Barney Sloane block only to find a gang of local punks having a party there, keen to celebrate the opening of the new building so they could be the first to vandalise it! Logan immaterially issued a challenge to them, and backed up by three other Judges all sitting on Lawmasters with cannons pointed at them, the gangers wisely decided to be elsewhere quickly. The Judges immediately headed for the location marked on the sketch map where they found a small saloon car, keys still in the ignition.

Wary of opening the door in case it was trapped, Centurion smashed one of side-windows with the butt of his lawgiver, and pulled down the back of the rear seats revealing enough thermite in the boot to level a huge chunk of the building. A hodge-podge clockwork and electronic  timing mechanism swarming with red, black and blue wire s surrounded the explosives, it seemed to be timed to go off in six minutes! They put in a quick call to Control to be informed the Tech-Judge had been delayed trying to get through the crowds fleeing the scene! Logan and Vertenberg forced the lock on the trunk using their boot-knives and the Judges   pondered the device as the clock counted down. A quick call to the tech Judge dint prove very helpful about which colour wire to cut. Eventually, with time running  out, they agreed that each would cut one coloured wire!

Fortunately for the rookie Judges, as they cut simultaneously and the  timer clicked to zero, nothing happened, they had saved the day!