Red Shadows

by Mitchel Scanlon

  "Sure, it could happen," Anderson agreed. Mounting her Lawmaster, she realised she needed to get back to the case she was supposed to be working on with Weller. By her watch it was 22.00. If the serial killer was still following his usual pattern, he could have killed another victim already tonight. "But the ingredients used to make psi-booster are so heavily controlled it's hard to envision an underworld chemist being able to get hold of them, much less mix up a psi-booster by mistake." She shook her head. "I don't know. I guess we'll have to wait and see if anything shows up when the Med-Judges do the tox-screen on her body. Take care of yourself, Crosetti." Shaking hands with the Street Judge, she started her Lawmaster and pulled out of the forecourt. For the moment, she had done all she could at Sissy Spacek. It was time to rejoin Weller and get back to the hunt.

  Somewhere, out in the night, a killer was waiting.

  He found the female Judge standing alone on the pedway at the side of the block forecourt, away from all the commotion. Approaching her, William saw a glimpse of blonde hair at her collar, peeking out from under the rim of her helmet. He moved closer, feeling a familiar excitement rising within him.

  "Excuse me? Judge?" As she turned towards him, William smiled. "I saw some juves hanging around down there." He pointed to the shadowy alleyway between two blocks. "They were smoking cigarettes. I thought I should report it."

  "You did well, citizen," she said. Her hand went to activate the comm-link hidden inside her helmet. "I'm working perimeter duty here, but I'll radio it in and-"

  "No," William's voice was forceful. "You don't need to radio anyone. You can handle the juves yourself. Come with me now and I'll show you where they are."

  Her hand falling, the Judge walked into the alleyway with William beside her. Then, once they were halfway along it, William told her to stop.

  "Take your helmet off and turn to face me." As the Judge followed his instructions, he saw a cascade of golden hair fall free across her shoulders. "That's it. Now, lift your chin up. Higher." He reached for the knife inside his coat. "Higher. There's a good girl. Just a little bit higher and, soon, it will all be over..."

  Pulling out the knife, he struck with one fluid motion, the blade unleashing a bright spray of arterial blood as it slashed through her throat. Her glazed eyes suddenly snapping to awareness as she registered what was happening to her, the Judge's hand reached down to draw the Lawgiver from her boot holster. But it was already too late. Losing her balance as her knees abruptly weakened, her forward motion caused her to fall against William. Pushing her back against the alley wall, William propped the woman up as the blood continued to seep from her throat, their bodies held briefly together like courting lovers in the midst of an illicit rendezvous. In seconds, it was over. The woman's eyes clouded and became distant, a last sigh escaping her lips as she breathed her last. Her aura faded. It was finished.

  Afterwards, as he released the Judge's body to let it fall to the ground, William experienced a rush of disappointment. When he had seen the woman standing alone and unprotected he had succumbed to temptation, hoping that by killing her he might be given some release from the frustration churning inside him. But it had not worked. The woman was only a humble Street Judge. The badge on her chest read "Wilkerson", not "Psi Division". She was not a Red. In life, the colours of her aura had been blue and indigo. He felt no contentment. The same need that had burned within him when he first saw her still burned on regardless of her death. Worse, he realised that in killing her he had made a mistake.

  For all he knew the Justice Department's surveillance cameras might well have recorded him talking to the Street Judge and leading her into the alley. Once the other Judges discovered that one of their own was missing, they would scour the streets to find him. William would have to flee the area, returning to hide in his lair as he waited to see whether the Judges' manhunt succeeded in bringing them to his door. Even if he had made a lucky escape and none of the cameras had seen enough of his face to be able to track his movements through the city, an entire night would have been wasted.

  I shouldn't have killed her, William thought, looking down at the dead Judge as he stood beside her. She wasn't the one I wanted. I only picked her because I saw her hair and it reminded me of the one I really wanted to kill: the Psi-Judge. I couldn't get to her and so I killed another woman instead, a woman who wasn't even a Red. That was stupid.

  Chiding himself for his foolishness as he cleaned the blade of his knife and put it back inside his coat, William turned towards the mouth of the alleyway to head back to his lair. Briefly, he wondered whether he should flee to another sector, find a new lair and try to lie low until the heat cooled off. He quickly rejected the idea. For all he knew, the Judges were already on his trail. If he had to face them it would be better to do it on home ground. After all, he knew his lair intimately. As far as William was concerned, there could be no better place for him to have to meet an army of Judges. He would not let them take him easily. Certainly, he would not let them take him alive, not when they might put him back in the institution. William would rather die than allow that to happen.

  Emerging from the alleyway, he turned and set off at a brisk pace along the pedway. As he did, he thought of Marjorie Kulack and the annoyance he had felt when he had arrived at Sissy Spacek Block to see there were Judges all around it. Now, the emotion had passed. Everything had changed in the instant that he had first seen the Psi-Judge. Before that moment, all he had wanted to do was kill reds, any reds, irrespective of their names or who they were. Now, things were different. Now, his life had been given an entirely new focus. Granted, he still wanted to kill reds, but he no longer cared about his bargain with the Grey Man and all the names on the list. All that was behind him. The bargain, the list - they no longer mattered. There was only one name on William's list now.

  Anderson.

  FIFTEEN

  A MEETING WITH WILLIAM GANZ

  "Say that again, Control?" Weller said. He had been parked up for a meal break, enjoying the dubious pleasures of a Munce-Burger Royale with Synthi-Cheese, when he had received the call. Now, the news he had just heard was almost enough to make him spill his soy-cola. "I want to be sure I heard you right."

  "I said we've maybe got a line on your perp," Control replied. "I received the results of the surveillance analysis you ordered from Gunderson at PSU. By analysing the footage from the exterior cameras at each crime scene, he managed to isolate a single suspect who is recorded as being in the vicinity of the blocks in question at or around the time that each of the victims was killed. The bad news is that none of the shots of the suspect's face are clear enough to permit his identification. However, by tracking his movements over the last two nights through the PSU archives, Gunderson thinks he has identified the neighbourhood where the perp lives. What's more, early this morning somebody went into a pharmacy just outside that neighbourhood and filled a prescription for Zirovanifex. It's a viral antibiotic used to kill the bacteria that cause wound infections, including the kind of bacteria you get in human bite wounds. We're interrogating the doctor who wrote it, but so far he denies all knowledge of the prescription."

  "This neighbourhood," Weller felt his pulse quicken."Where is it?"

  "Trinity Heights," Control said. "It used to be the most exclusive neighbourhood in the entire sector, until it got hit hard by a Sov tac-nuke during the Apocalypse War. It's been derelict ever since. Oh, and there's radiation advisory on that whole area. The roentgen count isn't hot enough for you to need a rad-cloak, but you're advised to take anti-radiation pills every two hours. If your perp wanted to find a place in Mega-City One where he could be alone, he couldn't have picked a better spot."

  Considering it had once been known as an exclusive address, Trinity Heights had come a long way downhill. Turning his Lawmaster onto a skedway that led through the heart of what was formerly a prosperous neighbourhood, Weller was confronted by an eerie landscape of devastation. On either side of him he could see the burnt-o
ut shells and empty windows of the con-apt buildings that had been destroyed when the nuke had hit.

  According to the information he had gleaned from his Lawmasters computer on the way over, the fuse of an incoming warhead had been damaged when it was struck in flight by a laser blast from a City-Def anti-missile battery. Instead of exploding in an airburst that might well have wiped out the entire sector, the warhead had only detonated after it had hit the ground at City Bottom three kilometres westward. Sadly, for the residents of Trinity Heights it made little difference. Enveloped in the searing heat of a nuclear firestorm, the ashes of their bodies had long ago blown away in the wind, leaving only the scorched and ruined buildings of the scene before him as a lingering testament to their passing.

  Grud, you forget just how bad the Apocalypse War really was, Weller thought, his mood made sober by the destruction. I was barely out of the Academy when it happened. Maybe I was lucky. When you're young, you're an optimist. Even after the worst disaster you think things will eventually get better, but by the time you get older, you realise that that never happens. Things don't get better. They only get worse.

  Suppressing a shiver as his memory was stirred to thoughts of Necropolis, by the sights around him, Weller tried to concentrate on the mission ahead. He knew he was taking a dangerous gambit coming alone to a desolate wasteland in search of a killer. Worse, if Anderson was right and the killer was psychic, Weller might well be about to grab hold of more trouble than he could handle. Procedure said he should contact Anderson at once. Not only would she be more able to deal with the killer's powers, her own psychic abilities might make it easier to track him down.

  Despite this, Weller found that he simply could not bring himself to do it. He realised he was being irrational. He realised he was putting his own life at risk, but having spent the best part of the last twenty-four hours in Anderson's company, he felt relieved that he no longer had to put up with her riding beside him. It might not be the Psi-Judge's fault, but in the end he simply could not forgive her for being a psychic.

  No, he thought as he brought his Lawmaster to a halt beside the crumbling and fire-blackened walls of what might once have been a restaurant. I don't care what procedures say. I've made my decision. I don't need Anderson's help on this one. I'll find the perp without her. And I'll bring him in on my own.

  There was only one problem, it occurred to him as he gazed at the maze of ruins, debris-strewn streets and mounds of rubble all around him. If he was going to search out the perp in this wasteland and bring him in, where the hell did he start looking?

  William was on his way back to his lair when he saw him. Turning a corner as he walked the deserted streets of Trinity Heights, he saw a Judge standing beside a Lawmaster parked on the roadside ahead, and felt an electric surge of fear. His mind racing with question, William scrambled to take cover in the ruins of a burnt-out building before the Judge could spot him. How had the Judges managed to track him down so fast? Were they watching him already, somewhere out in the darkness of the night, waiting to arrest him? Was Anderson with them? Would he have a chance to kill her before the others grabbed him? Then, suddenly, he noticed something that caused him temporarily to abandon his line of questions.

  The Judge was alone.

  Confused, for a moment William thought he must be mistaken. Surely the Judges would not send only a single man to bring him in. He was a monster. He had killed one of their own. Surely, if they had discovered that he lived in Trinity Heights, they would bring every weapon in their armoury to bear against him: H-Wagons, Manta tanks, Spy-in-the-Sky cameras, Lawmaster bikes. From what he had seen in his short time in the city, the resources at Justice Department's disposal were formidable.

  Yet here he was, hiding in the rubble while a single Judge stood out in plain sight on the roadway ahead. More questions were raised than answered. Was the Judge lost? Was he waiting for someone? William's heart suddenly skipped a beat as it occurred to him that the Judge's presence might well be a trap. Perhaps they thought he had killed the female Street Judge simply because she was a Judge, and had sent out another lone Judge to trap him. Perhaps this Judge was bait? William was not quite sure what to think. Frankly, he found the entire situation completely baffling.

  Cautiously moving to a more comfortable vantage from which to observe the Judge in safety, William waited with bated breath. As the minutes passed, he found himself increasingly reassured that his earlier conviction had been correct. The Judge was alone. If other Judges had been hiding anywhere in the vicinity, William would have been able to see the colours of their soulshadows sparkling from afar in the night. As it was, the only soulshadow he could see belonged to the Judge in the roadway. Agitated shades of yellow, brown and blue, outlined with spider's web traces of black. It was the aura of a man ill at ease with himself, a man whose mind was slave to secret torments. At the same time, William could see nothing in it to suggest the anxiety he would have expected if the Judge was waiting as bait in a trap. Watching the Judge's head turn to scan the ruined landscape around him as the man paced a wide circle across the skedway, William became convinced that the Judge was caught on the horns of some internal dilemma. It was as though the Judge was about to start searching for something, but was unsure exactly where to begin.

  You're searching for me, Judge, William thought to himself, aren't you? Staring at the man, he smiled. Too bad, 'cause you'll never find me. This is my home-ground, not yours. Trinity Heights is a big place. All I've got to do is stay out of your way for a while, and eventually you'll get tired and give up.

  Then, just as he was about to skirt through the rubble around the Judge and continue on his way to his lair, William had second thoughts. An appealing new idea suddenly occurred to him. After he had made the mistake of killing the woman Street Judge, it had seemed to him that he had wasted an entire night. Now, the Judge's presence on his home ground might well have presented him with a golden opportunity to get his work back on track. The Judge might be exactly the thing William needed to help him achieve a deeply held ambition.

  After all, there was more than one way to use a Judge as bait...

  "Excuse me, Judge?" As he stood on the skedway pondering his next move, Judge Weller heard a voice behind him. "I was hoping maybe you could help me?"

  Turning at the sound, his hand going for his Lawgiver, Weller found himself standing face-to-face with a young citizen in a black overcoat.

  "Freeze!" Weller barked as he levelled the Lawgiver. Even without the fact that he wore an overcoat the same as the killer's, a citizen wandering around a rad-pit in the middle of the night was automatically cause for suspicion. "Keep your hands where I can see-"

  "Drop the pistol." Hearing the forceful tone of the command, Weller abruptly realised that he was facing the killer. There was something in his voice, something that compelled Weller to obey him. Appalled, he saw his own hand open to release his Lawgiver and let it fall to the ground.

  "Stay still," the killer said. There was no resisting his voice. With every word out of the man's mouth, Weller knew that he would do whatever he was told. "You will not try to attack or hurt me. You will not try to use your radio. You will not run. You will answer all of my questions truthfully. Do you understand me?"

  "Yes. I understand." The words seemed to force their way up from between Weller's lips as though the perp's every question demanded an answer.

  "Good. Tell me, do you know Psi-Judge Anderson?"

  "Yes. I know her." He gritted his teeth, trying to hold the words inside, but it was no good. He was slave to every nuance in the killer's words. Weller was horrified to realise that his own brain was acting against him by responding to the perp's instructions in a direct and non-evasive manner. He was no genie in a bottle, craftily interpreting his master's orders to his own advantage. No, the perp had told him to answer truthfully. That was precisely what Weller did, helpless to offer anything but the complete, unvarnished truth. "I'm working a case with her: your case. We're inv
estigating the murders you committed."

  "Really?" the perp said. He seemed delighted. "That's perfect. Her knowing you just makes everything so much better."

  Falling deep in thought, the perp fell silent for a moment. In that silence, Weller tried to find a way out of his predicament. He was still wearing his daystick and bootknife and his Lawgiver lay on the ground by his feet. But no matter how hard he tried to make his hands reach for his weapons, they would not obey him. Desperately, his mind ran through his options as he attempted to find a loophole in the perp's instructions. He could not run. He could not attack the perp. He could not lie to him and try to trick him. An idea occurred to him. He could still speak, and his Lawmaster was only a few metres away...

  "Lawmaster!" Weller shouted suddenly, trying to get the command out before the perp could stop him. "Emergency protocol zero-"

  "Shhhh." Putting his fingers to his lips, the perp hushed him softly and the words died on Weller's tongue. For a moment the perp smiled quietly again, and then he continued. "Your Lawmasters computer can follow your instructions, then? What were you going to tell it to do?"

  "Return to base," Weller said. "When the lawmaster showed up at the Sector House without me, it would automatically trigger a Code Ninety-Nine Red."

  "Code ninety-nine Red? What's that mean?"

  "Judge down," Weller told him. "When a Code ninety-nine alert is issued, every Judge in the area drops what they're doing and responds to the call."

  "Clever," the perp said. "Of course, they would have gotten here too late anyway." He paused again. "Still, I think it's better if we get rid of the lawmaster. What's the furthest part of the city from here?"

  "MegSouth," Weller said. "By the South Wall."

  "Tell your lawmaster to go there." The perp raised an admonishing finger. "Nothing else, you understand. Just tell it to go to the South Wall right away."