Fear the Darkness

by Mitchel Scanlon

  "Get ready," she said, realising Symonds was still standing dumbly in the same location. "Safeties off. There's no way of knowing whether they're going to be friendlies or hostiles."

  "Hostiles?" As the floor display continued counting down, Symonds jogged over and drew his Lawgiver as he crouched beside her. "You think the psychos know how to use elevators?"

  "They use guns, don't they?" she said tersely. "They're psychos, Symonds, not zombies. The only difference between them and us is that they're under the entity's psychic influence-"

  "Entity?" Symonds seemed alarmed. "What entity? I thought we were just dealing with crazy people?"

  "It's a long story," she said as the ping of the elevator announced it had reached their floor. "Ask me later. Right now, we've got other things to worry about."

  The doors opened, but instead of frothing madmen they found themselves face-to-face with a group of Judges, some of whom were injured. She recognised a familiar face among the crowd.

  "Anderson, am I glad to see you!"

  It was Whitby. Excited to see her, he strode from the elevator towards her, then he stopped, his expression wary.

  "You needn't worry," she said, guessing at the origin of the glint of suspicion in his eyes. "Neither me nor Symonds here are about to go psycho and start shouting about sin and judgement." She saw his uniform was singed and stained with soot, a torn sleeve revealing a small but ugly burn on his forearm. "Looks like you've been in the wars."

  "There was a fire in med-bay," he shrugged. "I got as many out as I could..." His voice trailed away.

  "What about these others?" Gazing at the rag-tag selection of Judges emerging from the elevator, she saw there were about a dozen of them who were still able-bodied. They ran the gamut of Sector House life: Street Judges, Tek-Judges, station Judges, even an owlish Acc-Judge from Accounting.

  "Before the power came back on I was to trying to evac the wounded by the emergency stairwell," Whitby told her. "We came across more survivors along the way, not to mention more than a few crazies."

  "Yeah, I've met a few myself," she said. "Okay. You've seen more of the Sector House than I have. How bad is it?"

  "Bad." Whitby's expression grew dark. "Most of the Sector House staff are dead. Entire floors have been gutted by fire before the sprinklers came on, and then there's the crazies. Whatever happened seemed to affect the auxiliaries and citizens worse than it did the Judges. From what I've seen maybe only one Judge in five was affected, but that's enough when we're talking about psychos wearing body armour and armed with Lawgivers." He tilted his head to indicate the carnage of the foyer around them. "Every floor above us is as bad as this one. The whole Sector House has been turned into a slaughterhouse, and without Judges on the streets, Grud knows what's happening in the rest of the sector. Perps are probably having a field day."

  "It's worse than that," she said. "Last time I talked to Justice Department, there were reports of futsies and riots all across the sector. I think all the souls the entity's absorbed have allowed it to expand its influence to the wider sector - doing the same things outside as it's done here."

  "The entity?" Whitby said. It was the same question Symonds had asked. Glancing about her, Anderson realised they had an audience - all the Judges had gathered around to listen.

  "Some kind of psychic entity has possessed the Sector House," she said. "Don't ask me what kind of creature it is; I only wish I knew. It takes control of people's minds, sends them out on a killing spree, then feeds on the souls of their victims."

  "Drokk," Whitby said quietly. "What about us? How come we haven't been affected?"

  "Could be we're more strong-willed than the others," she said. "You said only a minority of Judges had been affected. It could be that's the answer - after surviving fifteen years at the Academy, you'd expect a Judge to have more willpower than the average citizen. Then again, I'm only guessing." She shrugged. "Not wanting to dent your faith in me, Whitby, but when it comes to this thing, I'm as much in the dark as the rest of you."

  There was a pause as the assembled Judges digested what she had told them.

  "Still, you're Psi Division, Anderson," Whitby said at last. She noticed the others seemed to defer to him, as though in the course of their journey through the Sector House they had accepted him as their leader. "You know a hell of lot more about handling situations like this than we do. What's our next move?"

  Looking at the Judges, she saw there were at least three seriously wounded cases among the injured. "First we evac the wounded to the waiting area outside Check-In - that way the walking wounded can guard the badly injured, while they'll all be in the best possible place to get immediate treatment whenever the med-teams finally arrive. After that, I say we take our Sector House back. The entity may have expanded its influence to the rest of the sector, but Sector House 12 is still the epicentre of this whole mess. This is where the battle will be fought and this is where we'll beat it."

  "Sounds like a plan to me," Whitby agreed. The uncertainty she had seen in him in the Undercity and after Brophy's psychotic breakdown had gone. He seemed more forthright, a man who had found his inner steel in the wake of the crisis unfolding around him.

  "There's a complication," she said. "I know it'll be dangerous, but when it comes to subduing the people under the entity's influence, we have to try to do it without killing them."

  "You're kidding right? Grud, Anderson. I know some of them are Judges, but don't you think things have gone kind of far to be worrying about the niceties?"

  "Niceties don't come into it." She shook her head. "Every time we're forced to kill someone who's gone psycho, the entity feeds on their soul. The people doing the killing may be crazy, but they're as much the victims as anybody else. Listen, you'll just have to trust me, this is one of those times when by winning the battle, we may lose the war, and I don't know about the rest of you, but I don't intend on losing anything here today."

  There was more silence, but looking at the faces around her, she could see she had convinced them. They might not like the implications, but they would go along with her.

  "All right," she said. "Once we've evac'd the wounded, we need to get to the Armoury to pick up some equipment. We'll need riot foam, stumm gas, riot guns, shockprods - anything that can help us take down the crazies without killing them." She noticed Whitby looking at her strangely. "What is it?"

  "Yeah, about that. We passed by the Armoury on our way down here." He paused, shifting uneasily. "I think we might have a problem with Deputy Chief Grimes."

  SIXTEEN

  SUPPLY CHAIN IRREGULARITIES

  "Deputy Chief Grimes!" From his position crouched behind the barricade inside the Armoury, Grimes heard the voice of the Tek-Judge calling to him from the other end of the corridor. The man's face was familiar, but he couldn't put a name to it. "This isn't right. Think what you're doing here. You have to listen to reason."

  "No," Grimes yelled as he stood up, firing a burst from the spit gun and watching with cold satisfaction as the Tek-Judge ducked to safety around the corner. "You listen. How many times do I have to tell you I'm Sector Chief Grimes? Sector Chief. I'm not telling you again."

  That told him, he thought, crouching back down. What is it with everyone around here? You tell them you're sector chief and they simply refuse to listen. Then, you shoot a few of them to make the point and before you know it the others are treating you like you're crazy. Crazy! The very idea. Would a crazy man have realised the best way to control a Sector House is by controlling the Armoury? I think not.

  "Please, Sector Chief Grimes," the Tek-Judge called. Abruptly, the name that had been on the tip of Grimes's tongue came to him at last. Symonds. That was the Tek-Judge's name. "There has to be some way to resolve this peacefully. Surely we can negotiate-"

  "Negotiate this," Grimes roared back, firing another burst as Symonds scurried back under cover.

  At least he called me sector chief this time, Grimes thought. Not that I'm fooled, m
ind you. They're just humouring me, trying to trick me into a false sense of security. Yes, that's it, they're all part of the conspiracy, every single one of them. They all want to steal my sperm.

  It had come to him in a flash of inspiration a short while ago - the answer to a question that had been troubling him. For the longest time he had wondered - given that he was in control of the Armoury and therefore the Sector House - how it was that every Judge he met refused to call him sector chief or salute him. It had been unsettling, until at last he had seen the reason. The conspiracy led by Chief Judge Hershey, Meryl Coolidge and Anderson had obviously got to them first. But even that answer begged other questions: why were they trying to destroy him? What did these three women have in common that caused them to hate him? Finally he had seen it. Three women, fighting their way to positions of power in a world dominated by men. In the end, the answer had been as plain as the nose on his face.

  Obviously, they were all lesbians.

  That was why they hated him. Here he was, a strong and virile man, born to command and clearly destined to rise far in Justice Department. It was obvious they resented his virility and they were intimidated by the one thing he had that their sad and tragically man-free lives lacked. It made perfect sense. Like the story of Samson and Delilah, they wanted to rob him of the source of his strength.

  They wanted his sperm.

  At the other end of the corridor, the Tek-Judge was quiet. No more calling out or pleading for him to "reasonable". He's probably on the radio, Grimes thought, firing another burst of bullets down the corridor, just to be on the safe side. Taking instructions from his lesbian superiors, no doubt. Trying to come up with a new way to trick me. Not that it'll work, of course. But, Grud knows, you've got to wonder what this world is coming to. I knew things were bad, but all this just takes the cake.

  I mean, what kind of world is it when a man has to fight to the death to stop lesbians from stealing his sperm?

  Drokk, but it's cramped in here, Whitby thought, nearly banging his head again for the third time in as many minutes. Good thing I'm not claustrophobic. If I were, I'd probably be having a screaming fit right about now.

  He was in one of the Sector House's ventilation ducts, crawling on his hands and knees through the darkness after Anderson as they made their way towards the Armoury. Once he had explained to her that Deputy Chief Grimes was holed up in the Armoury and was shooting at anybody who came close, Anderson quickly came up with a plan. While Symonds and some of the other Judges tried to distract Grimes's attention, the two of them would crawl through the ventilation ducts in the hope of taking the insane deputy chief by surprise. As plans went, it had seemed a pretty good one at the time, but now, having spent fifteen minutes breathing stale air with the walls of the duct tight around his shoulders, Whitby had begun to wish he hadn't volunteered for the job. It was not so much that he was risking getting shot, or even the fact he could occasionally hear rats moving through the ducts nearby. No, the origins of his misgivings were much more practical: after fifteen minutes of cramp and discomfort it was abundantly clear to him now that crawling through ducts was definitely a job for a smaller man.

  Nearly there, he heard Anderson's voice talking in his mind. All the way along the ducts, in order to make as little noise as possible, she had been communicating with him telepathically. It took some getting used to - every time he suddenly heard her voice in her mind, Whitby nearly jumped out of his skin.

  Ahead, he saw a glimmer of light and heard sporadic gunshots. The sound of Symonds's voice shouting something and the sound of Deputy Chief Grimes yelling back about being sector chief now. More gunshots. Drokker's gone totally futsie, Whitby thought. Grimes always did seem tightly wound. Guess whatever this entity had to do to make him go crazy, it didn't have to push too hard.

  Here it is, he heard Anderson's voice in his mind say. They had reached their destination - a ventilation grill that opened out from the duct to the ceiling of the Armoury. As he stayed on one side of it with his fingers through the grill to hold it, Anderson produced the omni-tool Symonds had given her earlier and started to unfasten the screws keeping the grill in place. Symonds had bragged that he had modified the motor of his omni-tool to run more quietly, but these were nervous moments all the same. If Grimes heard them at the grill, the two of them would be sitting ducks.

  That's the last one, Anderson said telepathically, helping him turn the now un-attached grill sideways to pull it inside the duct with them. Careful now. We go in quietly and split up. You take the left, I'll take the right, and remember we don't want to kill him.

  -Lowering herself through the grill, Anderson dropped soundlessly into the Armoury. Following her, inwardly cringing at the soft thump as his boot soles hit the floor, Whitby saw they had landed in one of the aisles between the endless shelves and supply stacks that took up the majority of the Armoury's space. It was ominously quiet. Feeling exposed, Whitby quickly moved so his back was against one of the shelves. As Anderson headed off in the other direction, he made his way stealthily through the aisles in search of Grimes. The Armoury was a maze of aisles, the shelves and stacks around him piled high with all manner of equipment, and he soon lost sight of Anderson. Torches, rad-cloaks, spare utility belts, helmets, binoculars: boxes and crates of many different shapes and sizes, all marked as to their contents. But there was no sign of Grimes.

  Whitby, he heard Anderson's voice in his head again, the tone calm yet urgent. I could do with some help back here.

  Retracing his steps, moving swiftly back the way he'd come, Whitby hurried quietly along the aisles to find her. Ahead, somewhere through the intervening stacks, he heard a distant voice talking. He recognised it at once: it was Grimes!

  "You think I'm a fool?" he heard Grimes say. "You think I didn't know you were coming for me? You think my friend the voice didn't tell me you were coming?"

  "The voice?" Anderson replied. Hurrying even more quickly through the aisles, Whitby tried to home in on the sound. "Listen to me, Grimes, whatever you think, that voice in your head isn't a friend."

  "He told me you'd say that," Grimes said. It seemed to Whitby he was closer. He was getting warmer. "He told me the psi-bitch would try to trick me. Psi-bitch. That's what he calls you. He tells me a lot of things. About what a sin it is that I was passed over for promotion and how I should do something about it. Good advice, all of it. Of course, he didn't tell me about the lesbian conspiracy. That I had to work out for myself."

  Closer. It sounded like they were in the next aisle.

  There. Rounding the corner, Whitby saw them. Anderson with her Lawgiver at her feet and her hands up in the air, Grimes standing beside her with a pistol pressed against her temple. He must have been waiting for her, Whitby thought. Grud, he could pull the trigger at any moment!

  Lifting his gun, for an instant Whitby hesitated. They taught at the academy that the only sure shot is a head shot, but Anderson said she wanted Grimes alive. He had no choice. Even if he shot for the hand or elbow, Grimes still might be able to get off a round. A head shot, right at brainstem. It was his only choice.

  "Lesbians?" Anderson played for time. "Right. Of course. Why don't you tell me all about it?"

  "Don't do that." There was a dangerous edge to Grimes's words, a rising tone of anger. "Don't try to humour me like you don't know what I'm talking about. You know all about it, Anderson. You think I don't know you're one of them?"

  Looking through his Lawgiver's viewfinder, Whitby noticed there was a crate of street rations behind Grimes's head. Good, he thought. That way, if the bullet over-penetrated it wouldn't end up hitting munitions and starting a chain reaction. You're thinking too much, he told himself as he locked on target. Concentrate, like you were back on the firing range at the Academy. There's just you and the target. Nothing else.

  Take the shot, he heard Anderson's voice in his head. He saw Grimes's finger tighten on the trigger.

  "You think I don't know what you're doing here?" Gri
mes's voice had risen to a shriek. "You think I don't know you're trying to steal my sperm?"

  "No offence, Grimes," Anderson said calmly, "but I wouldn't take it if you were giving it away."

  Whitby fired a single shot, hitting Grimes just below the cheekbone and exiting bloodily through the back of his head. Features slackening, gun falling from useless fingers, Grimes slid limply towards the ground.

  "Anderson?" Whitby ran over to her. She was standing over Grimes's body, looking down at him with an expression of quiet horror as though she was watching something no one else could see. "Anderson? Are you all right?"

  "I'm fine," she said after a moment. She seemed distracted. "The entity... It got him, sucked away his soul and the souls of everyone he killed. So much darkness..." She shook her head and turned to him. "Nice shot, by the way, Whitby. Next time I've got a crazy standing with a gun against my head, I'll know who to call for a rescue."

  "I had to kill him," Whitby said.

  "You'll get no arguments from me on that score," Anderson said. "Thanks, Whitby. You saved my life."

  They were silent for a moment, then she gathered her thoughts. Anderson retrieved Grimes's gun.

  "Plastic ammo," she said, extracting the magazine and inspecting the contents. "Sounded like Grimes was firing at the others with a spit gun earlier, but when it came to a fire fight inside the Armoury, it looks like he wasn't crazy enough to start shooting off a Lawgiver."

  "You think it means something? I mean, either way, he was crazy."

  "Yeah, he was at that." She shrugged. "Think about it, though. It's obvious enough the entity wants us all dead, but seeing as it was controlling Grimes, why didn't it just get him to shoot a hi-ex into the ammunition stacks and blow us all to kingdom come? Instead, Grimes did the opposite - taking care not to blow the Armoury up. Is it just me, or does that seem pretty rational behaviour for a psycho? Kind of makes you wonder if there's some reason the entity has for not wanting to see the Sector House destroyed."