Red Shadows Read online

  The contact isn't coming. The thought was insistent, insidious. You can't get in touch with your employer. There's only you and the contents of a data-slug that might well be worth millions. The contract is as good as broken anyway. Look at the data-slug. You know you want to.

  Telling himself he would wait another five minutes, Griggs tried to forestall the decision. Then, when five minutes came and went, he waited another five, and another. Until, slowly, he found himself trying to buy off the voice inside him with smaller and smaller increments of time. Three minutes. Two minutes. One. Finally, he reached the point where his resistance melted away entirely. The point where what had begun as an idle thought grew into an unstoppable compulsion. No matter that the limited ethics of his profession told him his actions were wrong, he would look at the data-slug and see what secrets were hidden inside it.

  You will need privacy, the small voice said inside his head. Head for the restrooms, find a stall, and then boot up the recorder's software.

  Following the instructions of the voice inside his head, Griggs left his booth and made his way to the men's restroom. Once there, he found a stall with empty cubicles either side of it, locked the door behind him, and sat on the closed lid of the vacuum pan. Then, switching on the recorder, he wondered briefly how he was ever going to find a way to break through the data-slug's protective encryption.

  The password is "Oberon", the voice said. Wait until the options menu appears on the recorder's screen, and then press F8 and type the password into the keypad.

  He obeyed the voice, even as some small, quiet part of his mind questioned how a voice inside his head could possibly know the password to unlock the encryption. But by then he was in the thrall of a curious detachment, as though he was no longer wholly in control of his own actions. Typing in the password, he saw the screen change as an entirely different menu appeared on it. There were a series of headings, each one linked to a different file within the data-slug's main directory.

  Open the file marked "Mission Parameters", the voice within him said as, helpless to resist it, he complied with its instructions. That's it. Now, read the file slowly and carefully. It wouldn't do to let some vital piece of information slip by unnoticed. Not after going to so much trouble...

  There were a great many files on the data-slug. Later, having opened them all, his body numb from having sat reading them for what seemed like hours, Griggs at last stood and unlocked the stall door. His eyes fixed glassily ahead of him like a sleepwalker, he emerged from the restroom with the Tri-D recorder under his arm and made his way towards the exit - only to find his path blocked by the robo-waiter that had led him to his table earlier.

  "There is the matter of the bill," the robo-waiter said, an expression close to annoyance passing across its metal features. "One Glen Fujimori on the rocks, plus a consideration for having held a booth for two hours. A gratuity is optional."

  Barely listening, Griggs's hand went to his pocket and pulled out a fistful of credits. Dropping them on the floor, he lurched past the robo-waiter as it bent down to collect them, and stumbled through the automatic doors into the cool air of the night outside. The air did nothing to revive him. His limbs hardly seemed to be his own anymore. He moved with a shambling drunken gait as though his legs were being poked and prodded into action from afar. At the same time, a dull haze suffused his mind. Lost within it, he felt strangely unconcerned at the fact that he no longer seemed to be the master of his own body. Instead, he drifted along like a sleepwalker in the midst of a pleasing dream, vaguely aware that the outside force directing him seemed at least to know where it was going.

  Heading away from the restaurant towards the pedway, Griggs found himself pausing beside one of the metre-high metal cylinders set at strategic locations across the plaza. As his hands moved of their own volition to pull open the hinged lid at the top, Griggs's eyes dimly registered the embossed instructions written in Japanese and English on the front of the cylinder. "Hondo City Municipal Waste Disintegration Unit," the instructions read. "Place waste inside the unit, make sure the lid is properly sealed, and begin disintegration process by pressing red button. Penalty for improper disposal of waste (first offence): 1,000 credit fine, or one month's imprisonment." Even as he read the instructions, his hands were already completing their work. Helpless to stop them, as though he was watching someone else, Griggs saw himself drop the Tri-D recorder with its encrypted data-slug inside the disintegration unit and close the lid behind it. Appalled, he watched his finger press the red button - a muffled popping noise coming from inside the cylinder, as the disintegrator activated to destroy the recorder and data-slug alike. In the blink of an eye, millions of credits' worth of valuable information was gone.

  His legs moving once more, Griggs resumed his journey. He found himself confused: his mind wallowing in a befuddled state of helplessness as he wondered why he had gone against the ethics of his profession, only to then destroy the data-slug before he could profit from his crime. He could find no answer; his own actions were a mystery to him. Rejoining the pedway, he began to head north, his body working more freely now as though the force guiding him had established a greater degree of control. Ahead of him he soon saw his destination. He was walking towards a zoom station, one of the network of such stations linked together by Hondo's underground system of maglev trains.

  Entering the station, Griggs's hand went clumsily to his pocket as he purchased a basic transit day pass from one of the automatic ticket dispensers lining the concourse. Following the throngs of post-rush hour commuters, he headed for the anti-grav chutes leading down to the platforms. Reaching the bottom of the chute, he found the platform crowded with bored travellers waiting patiently to emerge from the tunnel. But even as he took his place at the back of the platform, Griggs realised the unseen force guiding him was not yet satisfied.

  His legs moving once more of their own volition, Griggs stepped forward through the milling crowds towards the edge of the platform. As he made his way closer to the edge, he heard a rumbling noise grow louder in the distance as a train sped through the tunnel. Closer, his feet stepped over the red line on the platform floor that marked the minimum safe standing distance. Closer, he felt a warm rush of air hit him, pushed out of the tunnel by the approaching train. Closer still, he took another step, past the edge of the platform, his body pitching forward as the sole of his shoe came down and connected with nothing.

  Griggs fell off the platform, landing painfully on his side on the trackless metal bed of the maglev, directly in the path of the onrushing train. The noise was deafening, the rumble of the train hurtling towards him mixed with the screams of the commuters on the platform, and the shrill shriek of screeching brakes as the train's automated safety systems detected his presence. It was too late. Bathed in blinding light, Griggs looked up to stare into the dazzling headlights of the train as it bore down on him out of the tunnel. His mind granted sudden clarity by the imminence of death, his last act was to move his lips to frame a final despairing question, the sound of it drowned out in the roar of the train. Why, he asked? Why did I do this?

  The train, though, had no answer.

  ONE

  SEEING RED

  A few weeks later...

  The knife was a masterwork of lethal precision. It was everything he could have wanted. Single-edged, with a long, sharp, tungsten alloy blade and a reservoir of liquid mercury concealed in the hilt to add extra weight to every slash and thrust. A Bowie knife, the salesman had called it. "An American classic," the man had said, smiling. "'Course, the damn Judges say you've got to have a permit before you can go buy a knife like this." The man had leant forward, the smile growing quietly sly and conspiratorial, "But I guess we don't have to worry about all that, what with you being a collector."

  Standing in the elevator as it rose slowly towards the thirty-second floor of Kitty Genovese Block, William Ganz put his hand inside his coat to feel the reassuring shape of the hidden knife. The walls of the el
evator seemed uncomfortably close and claustrophobic - an unwelcome reminder of all the years he had spent confined in rooms of similar dimensions. But with the knife near at hand, William found he had no reason to let the terrors of his past still rule him. He was free now. Free of the institution and its doctors; free of all their medicines, tests and theories. He was free, and so long as he had the knife they would never cage him again.

  The sound of a soft metallic chime announced he had reached the requested floor and the elevator doors opened before him. Relieved to have space to breathe in at last, William stepped out into the hallway, his eyes scanning the numbers on the line of apartment doors either side of him as he searched out his destination. Brenda Maddens: Apartment 56-C, thirty-second floor, Kitty Genovese Block. In his mind's eye he could see her name on the list he had memorised as clearly as if he were holding it in his hand. Soon now, he told himself as he felt a sense of anticipation rising darkly within him, soon now. He looked at the numbers of the apartments again. Apartment 56-C must be right around this corner.

  "Bad dog! Look at this drokking mess! I thought I told you to wait until we got outside!"

  Startled by the sound of a voice ahead of him, as he rounded the corner, William saw a middle-aged man berating a cringing robo-pet as it stood beside a realistically steaming pile of synthi-shit further down the corridor. The man was angry, his features flushed crimson with exasperation, but as ever what registered more intensely to William were the colours of the man's soul. To William's eyes the robo-pet's owner was surrounded by a hazy cocoon of colours made up of shifting shades of green and brown, shot through with pulsing black lines of anger.

  The exact palette of colours varied, but William had always been able to see the same cocoon around every living being. The aura, one of his doctors had called it, before trying to persuade him it was all a figment of his imagination. William preferred to call it by the same name he had given it as a child, back before he had come to understand that other people were not able to see the same things he did. The soulshadow, he had called it then. In the same way a physical object blocked out light and cast a shadow shaped in its outline on the ground beside it, so a person's soul radiated a shimmering envelope of colours that surrounded their body and revealed the outlines of their psyche: the soulshadow. It was as good a name for it as any. Certainly, William had never heard a better one.

  "Damn stupid dog," the man muttered quietly, the black lines of his soulshadow pulsing wider as he bent down to clean up after his pet. "I told the wife we should've got one that didn't produce any shit. But no, she had to insist on getting the latest model."

  Still complaining to himself, the man did not even glance up as William walked past him. It had always been the same. Ever since his childhood, William had known what it was to be ignored. Unless he did something particularly strange or noteworthy, people hardly noticed him. Even when they did, they seemed to find it difficult to remember what he looked like afterwards. I guess I must have one of those faces, he told himself from time to time. Average, unmemorable, with nothing distinctive about it to make it stand out from the crowd. Deep inside however, he suspected there was a good deal more to it. Sometimes, it was like he was invisible; as though the same gift that allowed him to see the colours of the souls around him had somehow blinded the world to his presence in equal measure.

  He had experienced it all the more intensely in the last few days, since his arrival in Mega-City One. At times, walking the pedways of the city and seeing thousands of people pass him by without even one of them pausing to look in his direction, William knew what it was to be a ghost. Not that he felt any great regret at this curious state of affairs, far from it. Given the nature of the work he had come to do in the city, the fact that its people ignored him could only be to his advantage.

  After continuing a short way down the corridor, William waited for a moment as the man with the robo-pet made his way around the corner towards the elevators. Hearing the distant chime of an elevator door opening once the man was out of sight, William turned to resume his search for the apartment of Brenda Maddens. Coming at last to the door he wanted, he looked around to make sure the corridor was empty before ringing the doorbell.

  "Who is it?" he heard a woman's voice call out from inside the apartment after a few seconds.

  "Synthi-Flora delivery," William said. Staring at the black spyhole in the centre of the door, he wondered whether she was looking at him through it as he spoke. "I got a delivery.flowers and candy for Ms Brenda Maddens in Apartment 56-C."

  "A delivery for me?" The voice on the other side of the door was suspicious, distrustful. "Who's it from?"

  "There's no name on the card," he said. "It must be from a secret admirer. You'll have to open the door. I need you to sign for it."

  For a moment there was a pause. Then, from within the apartment, he heard the sound of locks turning and the rattle of a security chain being pushed into place. An instant later, the door cracked open a few centimetres.

  "Pass it through to me." The woman's voice was wary. Craning his neck around to look through the gap between the edge of the door and the doorjamb, William caught a glimpse of the apartment's interior, but found the woman was still hiding unseen behind the door itself.

  "The gap's too small," he said. "I told you, it's flowers and candy. If you want it, you'll have to take the chain off the door."

  The door closed once more. Then, from inside, he heard the noise of the chain being released as she finally relented. The door opened again, revealing a small, dark-haired woman of perhaps forty years of age. She was attractive in a somewhat nervous way, but for William her good looks went almost unnoticed. Instead, he found himself all but transfixed as he caught sight of the colour of the soulshadow around her. It was a brilliant, vibrant shade of red - so bright he almost had to squint just to look at her. Red. Abruptly he felt a pressure building behind his eyes: a stabbing pain growing stronger inside his head. Red. Brenda Maddens was exactly what he had been told she would be. She was red. So red. She was everything the Grey Man had promised him.

  "You said there were flowers?" Agitated, the woman shifted nervously, as though having gone against the received wisdoms of the city by opening her door to a stranger, she now felt naked. "Flowers and candy, you said, from a secret admirer?"

  "That's right," he replied. Smiling, he held up his open and empty hands in front of her. "Flowers and candy. Look, you can see them here. You can see them, can't you Brenda? In my hands?" Seeing her nod her head in agreement, he continued. "And you know what goes good with candy? A nice hot cup of synthi-caf. That really would be delicious. You'd like a cup of synthi-caf, wouldn't you Brenda?"

  "Synthi-caf would be nice," she said. "Delicious." Still standing in the doorway, as though unsure what to do next, she looked uncertainly into the apartment behind her.

  "Yes, it would be," he told her. "And I'd like a cup of synthi-caf as well. You should invite me in and we'll have some synthi-caf together."

  "Yes. I should invite you in." Her eyes were glazed and distant, her voice strangely listless. "Would you like to come in for a cup of synthi-caf?" she asked, already turning away from him to head back into the apartment.

  "I'm sure that would be lovely," William replied. Following her as she walked from the apartment's hallway towards the kitchen, he closed the door behind them. "But Brenda, before you make the synthi-caf, there's something else..."

  Seeing the woman pause, he put his hand to the knife inside his coat. He felt a flutter in his chest, and he knew his hand was shaking. He tried to soothe the excitement within him. Soon now. The red glow of her soulshadow was painful to him, the colour of it sending little jolts of agony coursing through his brain. Soon now.

  "Turn around, Brenda," he told her. He saw her obey him. As she turned to face him, the red glare around her seemed to grow ever brighter, the killing urge within him becoming stronger and more compelling with it. He felt the blood thundering at his temples, h
is heart beating wildly in his chest. "Turn around and look at me. Good. Now, lift your chin. That's it, Brenda." He pulled out the knife, the excitement building within him to a climax as he saw a look of dull comprehension dawning slowly in her eyes. But, even frightened, she did not resist him. "Higher, Brenda, higher. There's a good girl. Just a little bit higher and soon it will all be over..."

  He looked and saw the colours of her soul shining from within her. He saw a red light spilling from her body, suffusing her surroundings with a blinding vivid haze.

  He saw red. He felt the knife in his hand, the blade cold, sharp and ready.

  He saw red. The rest came easy.

  "Red!" Ahead down the corridor an old woman was screaming, her hands flailing in front of her like frantic, desperate claws. "Someone help me! I'm blind and all I can see is red!"

  A Med-Judge grabbed her, wrestling with the old woman for a second as he administered a shot from the pressure hypo in his hand, before cradling her gently to the floor as the sedative took effect and her body went slack. Moving down the corridor towards them, Psi-Judge Cassandra Anderson paused for a moment to peer over the Med-Judge's shoulder as he pulled out a mediscanner to examine the patient's injuries. There were twin tracks of bloody tears running down the old woman's face, while the whites of her eyes were disturbingly opaque and scarlet.