Red Shadows

by Mitchel Scanlon

  Colours. He could see colours all around him.

  Gazing at the soulshadows of the people around him as he walked down the pedway, it seemed to William that the city was a kaleidoscope in a thousand shifting shades. He saw candy-apple greens and turquoise blues, burnt ambers and sunburst yellows. He saw earthen shades of brown, delicate hues of violet and darkest indigos. The city was a symphony in every colour imaginable. Then, there were the other colours - the colours of the mundane and humdrum physical world: the spectral orange haze of neon lights, the ink blue-black of the sky at night, the silver orb of the moon, the dirty granite grey of the rockcrete floor of the pedway beneath his feet. The contrast with the institution where William had spent the majority of his adult life could not have been more marked.

  There, the walls and furnishings had been rendered in a series of limited variations in the same nauseating and oppressive shade of bile green. Now, William was free to walk the streets of a city painted in a broader palette; a city that seemed to bleed colour from its every sweating pore, a city alive with colour. After all the wasted years of his confinement, all the years spent with his arms held close to his body by straps and buckles, his mouth drooling from the drugs the doctors used to numb his mind, he felt he had finally come home.

  Red, he saw red.

  His mouth gone suddenly dry, William spotted a glimpse of red amid the glowing sea of souls before him. At first, it seemed little bigger than a pinprick. As it grew larger, he saw it belonged to the aura of a man walking down the pedway towards him. The man was in his thirties, dressed in the current Mega-City fashions: T-shirt, drainpipe trousers, kneepads, sleeveless jacket. He was just a regular citizen out for a nighttime stroll, minding his own business. As the man drew closer, William saw that his soulshadow was a blood-red tone of vermillion, shot through with veins of cinnabar and livid scarlet.

  Red, the man was red.

  Without him even realising it, William's hand went to the knife hidden inside his coat. His fingers curled around the hilt. The man came nearer, each movement of his legs carrying him another step closer to his destruction. William felt a throbbing pain behind his eyes; a pressure in his head building toward release. His heart beat wildly within his chest. Nearer; the pain in his head was unbearable. Another half-dozen steps and the man would be close enough for William to strike.

  Red.

  His mind working feverishly, William developed his plan-of-attack. He would let the man pass by him, and then turn to take him unawares. He would grab his hair and pull the head back to expose his throat. Then, a quick movement with the knife and it would all be over.

  Red.

  No. This time simply killing him would not be enough. The rage within him would not allow it. It had grown stronger, waxing rather than waning every time he took a life.

  Red.

  He would cut the man's head off.

  Red.

  He would make him eat his own eyeballs.

  Red.

  He would hack the limbs from his body.

  Red!

  He would rip open his torso.

  Red!

  He would stamp on his entrails.

  Red!

  He would...

  The moment passed. Struggling to maintain control as the man walked past him, William realised he was shaking. He felt a sudden nausea in the pit of his stomach, the pain in his head reduced to a dull ache now that the man was no longer in his line of sight. Fighting the urge to vomit, William gulped deeply at the cold night air. He did not even dare to look over his shoulder to see whether the man was gone. Despite the fact that his initial enthusiasm for the kill had passed, he still had to guard himself against temptation. It would be so easy to turn and follow the man, dogging his steps through the city until the opportunity arose to murder him in some more secluded location. Finding his hand was still gripping the knife, William released it. He was himself once more. He had been tested severely, but he had stayed true to his word. The Grey Man would be proud of him.

  The Grey Man.

  Briefly, William's thoughts turned to the deal he had made with his benefactor. The Grey Man had kept to his side of their agreement. He had rescued William from the hell of the institution and given him a new life in the wonderful city before him. The Grey Man was his friend, his patron, his saviour. He had changed William's life and delivered him from his torments. And, in return, he had asked for only the smallest of favours.

  Velma Sharn: Apartment 15-A; twenty-ninth floor; Mary Kelly Block. He checked the details in his mind again on the list he had memorised.

  Yes, the Grey Man had asked him for so very little.

  Now, it was time again for William to live up to his end of the bargain.

  "We seem to be having some kind of problem with communication," Weller said. Beneath his helmet, his expression drew tighter as he became angry. "Maybe I didn't make myself clear before. As the first Judge on the scene it's up to me to decide who's going to play a part in the investigation. In that role it is my judgement that your help is no longer required. You're done here, Anderson. You hear me? Your work here is finished. End of story."

  As the exchange between them had grown more heated, Anderson had noticed that the Tek-Judge had disappeared to some unseen corner, while Noland had returned quietly to his examination of the dead woman's body, as though trying to find some work that would help keep him out of the line of fire. Meanwhile, she and Weller had been going at it for several minutes - Anderson fighting to control her own temper as she tried to reason with the recalcitrant Street Judge.

  "You're not listening to me," she told him. "I'm not trying to horn in on your case or grab any of the credit. All I'm saying is that there are some leads from Brenda Maddens's psi-scan that still need investigating."

  "Leads?" Weller grimaced. "You mean like the phantom delivery man with his imaginary cargo of flowers and candy? I've already told you, Anderson - the things you say you saw in your scan contradict the physical evidence. If that's the quality of the leads you're talking about, I'd be better off trying my luck at finding the perp by sticking a pin in a map."

  "That wasn't all I saw in the scan," Anderson said. She found speaking to Weller was like talking to a plascrete wall. "I told you, I'm sure Brenda wasn't the killer's first victim. He's killed before."

  "So now you want me to base my investigation around something you think you saw in the killer's face during a psychometric scan that's already been proved to be completely unreliable? Stop trying to build this case into more than it already is. There's not a single shred of evidence to suggest we're looking at a multiple murderer here."

  "Um... Not wanting to interrupt, much less contradict anyone..." At the sound of a voice behind them, both Anderson and Weller turned to see that the Tek-Judge had returned from his brief disappearance, and was standing facing them in the doorway. Looking at him, for the first time Anderson noticed the Tek-Judge's name imprinted on his badge: Yoakim.

  "But I'm afraid there is. Evidence, I mean." He held up a small, transparent evidence bag. "I found sweat residue and some epithelials - skin cells - on the inner edge of the front door. I'm guessing the killer wiped his forehead with his hand, and inadvertently transferred some of it to the door when he left the apartment. When I sent the DNA to MAC for analysis, it came back with positive matches to DNA found at the scenes of three other homicides, each of which occurred last night in this same sector. It looks like we're dealing with a serial killer here."

  The hallway was quiet, deserted. Standing outside the door of one of the apartments lining the corridor, William rang the bell and waited patiently for the ring to be answered.

  "Hello?" He heard a voice from the other side of the door after a moment's pause. "Who is it?"

  "Synthi-flora delivery," he said. "I have a delivery for Ms Velma Sharn in Apartment 15-A. You'll like it. It's flowers and candy."

  FOUR

  DEAD RECKONINGS

  "Margaret Lena Penrith," Med-Judge Nola
nd said, sliding open a long metal drawer to reveal the body of a woman with a ragged wound across her throat. "Victim was found dead in her apartment. Body temperature and post-mortem lividity put the time of death at between twenty-one hundred and twenty-three hundred hours last night. The cause of death was a single slash wound to the front of her neck, severing the left carotid artery and jugular vein. A number of hairs have been yanked violently from her scalp, indicating the killer attacked from behind and grabbed the hair to pull back her head and make it easier for him to reach the throat. Besides that, there were no other injuries."

  "Vincent Wilbur Henk." Leaving the first drawer open behind him, Noland moved to another one. This time the corpse was a man, empty eye sockets staring out of a face that was an unrecognisable mass of welts and bruises. "His body was found in his apartment earlier this afternoon, but temperature and lividity indicate he died sometime between midnight and zero three hundred hours this morning - making him the second victim. The cause of death was the same as Penrith's - a single slash wound to the throat, inflicted by an assailant standing behind the victim. This time the killer gouged out the eyeballs, post-mortem, and jammed them into the victim's mouth. As you can see, there are also extensive blunt trauma injuries to the victim's face, including multiple fractures of the nose and cheekbones - all inflicted post-mortem. From the shape of the contusions, I'd say they were inflicted by repeated blows with a vid-phone handset. The investigating Judge found a vid-phone belonging to the victim at the scene, broken and covered in blood, but I haven't had a chance to do a definite comparison as yet."

  "The third victim was Eunice Virginia Bibbs." Noland pulled a third drawer open. The corpse was of a woman, her body hidden by a sheet below the neck. From the uneven contours of the sheet, the body beneath it was in pieces. "Found in her apartment: estimated time of death between zero four hundred and zero six hundred hours this morning. Again, the cause of death was a single slash wound. But this time he cut her throat right to left, severing the right carotid artery and jugular - a wound pattern that indicates he was standing facing her when he struck the fatal blow. Then, after she was dead, he really went to town." His face unflinching, Noland pulled back the sheet to show what was beneath it. "He cut off both her arms post-mortem, and stamped repeatedly on her torso. If you look closely..." He pointed to a series of striated bruises across the woman's body. "You can see the heel marks. He wears walking boots. Size tens. From the lack of wear in the tread patterns, I'd say the boots are new."

  They were in the sub-basement morgue beneath Sector House 34. In the wake of Tek-Judge Yoakim's revelation, Anderson and Noland had travelled to the Sector House to see the bodies of the three victims that Brenda Maddens's killer had claimed on the previous night. Weller had returned with them, but rather than join them directly in the morgue he had left to check in with his watch commander. The Street Judge's sudden disappearance had come as no surprise to Anderson. From his behaviour towards her so far, it was clear that he could hardly bear to be in the same room with her. Inwardly, she found the level of Weller's apparently unprovoked resentment towards her to be odd, even troubling, but she had no time to dwell on it at any length.

  Right now, gazing down at the three dead bodies before her, she realised she had a much bigger problem to occupy her attention.

  "Three victims, all in one night. Then, tonight, he kills Brenda Maddens." She turned to face Noland. "How come nobody recognised the pattern until now?"

  "It's a busy sector," Noland replied. "Shootings, stabbings, poisonings - between murders, suicides and accidents we can have anything upwards of two hundred bodies to process in a typical shift. Including me, there are four Med-Judges and half a dozen med-auxiliaries working Pathology at any one time. As bad luck would have it, a different Med-Judge performed the autopsy for each of the victims. And, aside from the fact that each victim was killed by a slash wound to the throat, the killer's MO varied with each killing. One victim he leaves relatively undamaged. With another, he gouges out the eyes. Then, with the third, he cuts off her arms. I don't know what to tell you, Anderson." The Med-Judge shrugged wearily.

  Anderson realised he was all but running on empty; exhausted by the unending ranks of cadavers that greeted him every night. "They slipped through the cracks in the system. Until the DNA analysis came back confirming the same person was present at each of the crime scenes, nobody realised the killings were related at all."

  "What about now?" she asked. "Now we know there's a pattern to these killings, what else do their bodies tell you?"

  "Well, it's pretty clear the perp is working off some pretty major rage." Noland nodded at the corpses of Vincent Henk and Eunice Bibbs. "Killing them would be one thing, but it's like it isn't enough for him. He hates them so much he finds himself driven to abuse their bodies after they're dead. I'm no Psych-Judge, but I'd say the progression and increasing severity of the mutilations in each case gives us some indicators towards his psychopathology. There's no mutilation of the first victim because at that stage he thinks killing her will be enough to satisfy the rage inside him. It isn't, so after he kills Vincent Henk he mutilates his body. That still isn't enough, so with Eunice Bibbs and Brenda Maddens the savagery of the mutilations becomes more pronounced. It's like he's building to a crescendo, trying to find some way of expressing his hatred for his victims that will allow him to feel cleansed of his rage after the killings. The rage doesn't go away, so he kills again, the mutilations growing worse each time. I mean, I realise this isn't really my area..."

  "No, I think you're right. It makes sense," Anderson agreed. "Rage. He must feel it constantly, like something gnawing and burning within him. Still, he can control it well enough to allow him to function normally - on the surface, at least. His social skills aren't impaired. After all, he was able to persuade his victims to open their doors to him. And he was smart enough to get away from each of the murder scenes without getting caught."

  "Smarter than that," Noland said. Seeing Anderson looking at him questioningly, he continued, "Eunice Bibbs wore a locket on a gold chain around her neck. The med-auxiliary who prepped her for autopsy found a black fibre caught in the chain and sent it to Forensics for analysis. It turns out the fibre is an electrostatically-charged polymer, manufactured by the Lauper House of Fashion MegaCorp under the brand name Stay Kleen. The electrostatic charge in the fibre is supposed to repel dirt and liquids, preventing the garment it's made of from getting dirty. Anything spills on it and you just wipe it clean. Teks think it probably came from an overcoat."

  "He's wearing a coat that can't get dirty?" Anderson thought of the Maddens crime scene; the blood splattered over the kitchen floor and table. "So that no matter how much blood there is when he kills, none of it sticks to him?"

  "Yeah," Noland told her. "Helps explain how he got away from each crime scene so easily, doesn't it? After he kills each victim he just wipes the blood away and goes on to the next one, confident there's not going to be any incriminating stains left on his coat that might get anyone suspicious. Of course, there're still his other clothes and shoes, but, for all we know, they're made of Stay Kleen as well. You have to hand it to this perp. He knows exactly what he's doing."

  "He's probably been planning this a long time," Anderson said thoughtfully. "If it is rage that's driving him, then you don't accumulate that much hate by accident. It takes a long time and a lot of suffering. Someone did this to him. Someone inflicted pain on him over a great many years, and now he's looking for payback. He's looking to take the pain he feels inside and inflict it on others. You don't just wake up one day and decide to become a monster. Usually, it begins in childhood. I can't say for certain, but the chances are we'll eventually find out the killer was once an abused child."

  "Uh-huh." Raising his hand to rub the back of his neck, Noland seemed suddenly uncomfortable with the direction her thoughts were taking. "I know it will be easier to catch the perp if we can understand what makes him tick. All the same, Anderson,
this is a killer we're talking about. It's beginning to sound like you feel sorry for him."

  "No." Anderson shook her head. "The majority of abused children don't grow up to become killers. Our perp chose his path. He killed four people, and then mutilated their bodies. Whatever may have happened to him in the past, nothing could justify that. Abused child or not, as an adult he's a monster, and it's my job to catch him before he kills again."

  "You think he will?" Noland asked her. "Kill again, I mean?"

  "I'm sure of it," Anderson said. "Remember what you said about the perp being driven to kill by rage? I don't see anything here to make me think he's about to stop. Worse than that, I get the feeling he's only just getting started."

  Her eyes lowering to stare at the bodies around her, Anderson fell silent. Three bodies, three victims, three different sets of sensations, recorded as psychic impressions in the cold dead cadavers before her. If she wanted to get any closer to catching the perp, she would have to scan them all. One by one, enduring every iota of pain and horror they had experienced at the hands of their killer. Unbidden, the memories of Brenda Maddens's last moments on Earth returned to her; memories of another human being's fear and desperation, haunting her from beyond the grave.

  It could not be helped. She was a Psi-Judge. Having to deal with other people's bad memories was something that just came with the territory.

  "There was something else." Noland's voice intruded into her train of thought, "Two things really, both of them a little unusual. You notice the victims all look to be about the same age? I've checked their dates of birth in the records, and all the victims were born in 2084 - the same year as Brenda Maddens."

  "You think the killer is choosing them by their birth dates?" Anderson asked him. "You think that's his pattern?"

  "Could be," Noland answered, "but the specific birth date is different in each case. Vincent Henk was born in March like the Maddens woman, but the date was the twenty-first of March instead of the second. Eunice Bibbs was born in April; Margaret Penrith in June. I sent their DOBs and other details to the Justice Department mainframe to see whether MAC could spot any common denominators between them in terms of the dates of historical events, religious festivals, the days of the weeks, solstices, number codes, things like that. But MAC came up empty. So far, all the victims seem to have in common is the fact they were all born in the same year."