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buildings. Then he crossed back to the front edge of the roof, and found the spot where the sniper had lain in wait.
    He got as close to the spot as he could without disturbing any evidence the sniper might have left behind, then peered down across the street to the windows of Ralph Bellamy Block. The glass was bullet-proof, and as reflective as a mirror. With the right ammunition, any decent sniper could have made the shot: the glass opposite would reflect the window of Chalk’s apartment, and all the sniper had to do was lie in wait for someone in the apartment to get close enough to the window.
    Dredd knew that if he examined the correct window opposite, there would be a tell-tale mark on the glass.
    He returned to Chalk’s apartment to see the owner, Zederick D’Annunzio, sitting on the bed—his arms and hands covered in blood—as Judge Oakes crouched over Ruiz, pressing a medi-patch to the wound on her back.
    D’Annunzio looked up at him, his face drained of all colour except for fresh bruising around his left eye. He said nothing.
    “What’s her status?” Dredd asked Oakes.
    “She’s holding on.” The Judge turned around to look at Dredd. “You. That figures. This creep says you told him to stick his fingers in the wounds.”
    “He’s right. I did.”
    “Huh.” Oakes glanced at D’Annunzio. “My apologies, citizen. Didn’t look like you were helping her.”
    “Pulled me offa her and the other one kicked me in the face ,” D’Annunzio said.
    “Where is the other one?” Dredd asked.
    “Hayden’s checking the block opposite. You called in a sniper, right? Block opposite’s the only place where he could get a shot at this sort of angle.”
    A med-team arrived as Dredd was explaining how the sniper had made the shot. The three-man team assessed Ruiz’s wounds. “Reckon she’ll make it. Bullet was through-and-through. Not much damage—must have been low velocity. What about the cit?”
    “Patch him up here,” Dredd said. “I’m not done with him.”

 
     
    Six
     
     
    S EAMUS “S HOCK ” O’S HAUGHNESSY pulled back on the throttle of his Blenderbike and risked a quick glance behind him. Vavavoom Grupp, lead rider of the Bearangel Clan, was still right on his tail, breathing his exhaust fumes, just as she had been for the past eighty kilometres.
    The screen mounted between the handlebars of Shock’s bike told him that he was in twenty-first place, right where his race-planner told him he should to be at this stage. In sixteen kilometres he’d move to overtake Arthur Dekko—a Mutie, but not a serious challenge—in twentieth, then sit on that position for another hour or so.
    This was Shock’s fourth time running the 5000. And he was determined that this time he was going to finish better than second place.
    Last year had been so close—two seconds between him and that drokker Napoleon Neapolitan, and less than a minute from the finish-line Neapolitan’s bike sputtered and wavered, slowed down enough for Shock to narrow the gap.
    And then, just as the front edge of Shock’s lead spoiler came into line with Neapolitan’s, the drokker had laughed and surged forward. After a thirty-nine-hundred-kilometre race, he beat Shock by four metres.
    For Shock—and for most of the racers—it wasn’t just the adoration of countless fans, or the sense of glory that came with being the winner of the Mega-City 5000: It was the money. Napoleon Neapolitan had signed fifteen sponsorship deals before he’d even walked to the podium to collect his trophy.
    The only sponsor who’d approached Shock was for a company that specialised in certain medical treatments for men and whose motto was “Sometimes, being in second place is important !” Shock had signed the deal anyway—money is money, and twenty thousand credits was significantly more money than he felt his pride was worth, even after the city took its sixty per cent tax—but if he’d been first ... Rumour had it that Neapolitan had