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Without my kneepad to tell me what to do, there just doesn’t seem any point. I’ve no-one to talk to any more.’
    ‘Hold on a second.’ The Judge spoke quietly into his wrist-communicator, then a voice blared up from the street below.
    ‘Pizmo!’ it cried. ‘Pizmo!’
    I leaned out a little and, fighting the dizziness, looked down. On the street below I could make out the shapes of a few Justice Dept. vehicles, and the tiny figures of some Judges.
    ‘This is your kneepad, Pizmo!’ the tinny voice went on. ‘Don’t jump! I’m safe! The Judges found me. Come on down and claim me back!’
    I turned back to look at the Judge in my doorway. ‘That doesn’t sound like my kneepad,’ I told him.
    ‘It’s speaking through a megaphone, Pizmo,’ the Judge replied. ‘Makes ’em sound a bit funny.’ He stepped further into the room, and stretched out a gloved hand. ‘Come on now. I’ll take you to your pad.’
    There were tears in my eyes as I allowed him to take my hand and lead me out to the lifts.
     
    January 29 th
     
    Of course, it was a trick. They hadn’t really found my kneepad at all. It was another Judge hollering through the loudspeaker. They were very nice to me, though, if a trifle brisk. They brought me here, to this Justice Dept. Psychiatric Cube where XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXCENSORED BY ORDER OF CHIEF JUDGE MACGRUDERXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX.
     
    February 9 th
     
    I’m cured now, the medics tell me. I can go home soon. They’ve been encouraging me to keep up my diary. They say it makes a splendid hobby, and a good hobby is more than half the battle against the possibility of further bouts of Future Shock. So I think I will stick at it.
    I watched the Kenny Kark Spectacular this morning on the Cube holo. Funny how Kenny doesn’t seem to be half as nauseous as he used to. If gambling wasn’t illegal I’d have won that bet too – the goldfish woman was his star guest. She’s evidently Number One in the Musi-Charts with a thing called Ant Egg Salad.
     
    February 10 th
     
    I’ve decided I won’t bother going to Orinoko’s any more, looking for Mom. The Judges traced her for me – she married an alien and moved back to Alpha Centauri with him. So I don’t suppose she’ll be coming to the Mega-City for her Thursday lunchettes. Perhaps she’ll write to me.
    Looking back, all that stuff with the kneepad seems like a dream, like it all happened to some other Pizmo Nitchy, not me. I mean, kneepads don’t have any vocal cords, so how could it speak? (They don’t have brains either, so it couldn’t have been communicating telepathically.) And how could a kneepad know all about things like Juve conspiracies? It never told me that. Still, I can’t help remembering something I imagined my kneepad said: ‘Most kneepads can talk. It’s just that they choose not to.’
    I wonder why?

 
    JUDGE ANDERSON: EXORCISE DUTY
     
    By Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning, Judge Dredd Annual 1991
     
     
    The Mavis Riley Home for the Debilitatingly Bewildered lies in the quiet Western districts of Mega-City One; five stories of pale, pink, pastel windows gazing out in quiet contemplation. It is a calm place, serene and tranquil, seemingly untouched by the City’s contaminating turmoil. But today the polyester curtains are twitching at the sound of visitors on the pedway below. It’s not the hushed tones of visiting relatives that echo through the antiseptic Hospitality Zone, but the heavy thump of marching feet. Judges!
    ‘I’ll only be a few moments,’ Anderson said tersely to her four companions. ‘You guys can wait in the Sympathy Suite.’
    Judge Pyke, who had been with the squad for only a few weeks, sneered as she strode away. ‘I heard Psi Division were highly strung, but she’s got her corn rations wedged somewhere painful.’
    ‘Clamp it, Pyke!’ growled Judge Warner. ‘It’s Anderson’s private business.’
    ‘It troubles me. I sense heavy angst in Anderson and it’s clouding her normally