The Shadow Maker

by Robert Sims

  He was standing on the far side of the bedroom, a fresh pack of DVDs in his hand, an expression of horror on his face.

  As everyone saw him and lurched forward at the same time, Flynn ditched the DVDs, stepped backwards through the door, hitting a wall button as he did so. The door slammed shut with a loud electronic click.

  Strickland and Bradby rushed over and tried to open it, but they couldn’t force the lock.

  ‘How the fuck did that happen?’ Strickland exclaimed. ‘The bastard’s locked us in!’

  By the time the door was forced open Eddy Flynn was long gone.

  Strickland was already on his phone, ordering a state-wide alert, with taskforce officers scrambling in response, and photos of Flynn being downloaded for circulation to police stations and release to the media. With Strickland in charge of the crime scene, Rita was ordered back to the office to help with background intelligence for the manhunt.

  The rain was coming in uneven bursts as she got back in her car. The trees by the lake were thrashing around in spasms, shaken by gusts of wind sweeping through the night. Sheets of lightning were flashing overhead. Peels of thunder were rolling in on top of each other. She watched Josh Barrett drive off, and after a final look around she started up, following the road away from the park with a mixture of anticipation and anticlimax. She wanted a hands-on role in the capture of the Hacker - instead she was retreating to the sidelines.

  She drove slowly at first, still keeping a lookout for Flynn’s vehicle and trying to calm her sense of impatience. The image of herself as the Shadow Maker - that surreal experience in VR - had fired her up into a state of manic alertness. The vision was still with her: confronting her own transfigured form endowed with feathered wings, a wild expression and voluptuous nudity. She was yet to get her head around it - being turned into a program by a psychotic killer. And the thing was still running, not just in cyberspace but also inside his mind. Whatever else unfolded in the coming hours, she knew there’d be no sleep for her tonight.

  Back at police headquarters, members of the taskforce were thin on the ground, with most of them out on patrol or stake-outs trying to track down Flynn. Rita still felt restless. After a debriefing session with Loftus and Mace, she wandered into the near-deserted squad room, pacing up and down. With nothing else to do but review what she’d uncovered across the day, she found herself strangely dissatisfied with the outcome. It wasn’t just that Flynn had escaped arrest; she now saw a glaring inconsistency.

  Loftus found her at a window, contemplating the night, a dark frown on her face.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m wondering if we’ve jumped to the wrong conclusion.’

  ‘You’ve got to be kidding!’ said Loftus, stunned. ‘You’ve identified Flynn as the man behind the attacks , no doubt about it, caught him virtually red-handed. You profiled him accurately, followed the evidence, located his secret base and exposed his sex crimes background. That’s brilliant detective work. What’s more, the crime lab’s confirmed the Hacker’s prints are all over his computer. I’m beginning to wonder myself if sometimes you’re just perverse.’

  ‘Thanks, Jack.’

  ‘Okay, that’s unfair, you’ve had another long day. There’s not much point in hanging around here. Why don’t you go home?’

  ‘I think I will,’ she said, shouldering her bag.

  ‘Wait a minute,’ Loftus relented. ‘Tell me first what could possibly make you doubt that Flynn’s our man.’

  ‘He’s a paedophile, Jack, but the Hacker isn’t. It doesn’t add up.’

  ‘You’re basing your doubt on textbook psychology, that’s why.’

  ‘Well it’s not going to hurt to double-check some evidence,’ she said, picking up the nearest phone.

  ‘Who are you calling?’ asked Loftus suspiciously.

  ‘Dale Quinn at the crime lab,’ said Rita. ‘Then I’ll go home.

  Promise.’

  He was on the loose again. Living a split-level existence. But the shock of the confrontation this evening had pushed him further than ever before. It was as if his identity had slipped from his grasp.

  Only the bronze mask he was wearing was keeping him intact.

  Despite his insomnia and his aching brain he’d achieved a dualistic clarity. In the virtual game he’d dispatched dozens of opponents. In the game of reality he’d decommissioned four - two scarred for life, two dead. Now it was Van Hassel’s turn. The duel was imminent.

  He knew she was a fellow warrior, another Shadow Maker, and between them he’d sensed a mutual respect. The more she examined his exploits, the more she would appreciate his skill and power. Now he realised she was positioning herself to subvert and destroy him.

  In truth, she was the most dangerous opponent of all and he couldn’t risk leaving her defeat to improvisation. She symbolised a higher level of challenge. That’s why he’d designed a special program, allowing him to stalk her in two worlds at once.

  The other casualties, in the lower levels of the blood sport, had been easy. Compliant creatures who’d conspired in their own destruction as he gouged out eyes, ears, tongue and nostrils. But he’d left those levels behind, working his way up from the nether regions of the Underworld, through the circles of hell, to the precincts of the vast underground city. This was where the duel would be played out. This was where Van Hassel would endure her fatal end.

  The oracle had whispered in his ear, telling him to go into combat armed with a meat cleaver. The sequence was already keyed in. He’d render her helpless, lying there at his mercy. And when he’d forced his way into her body and vanquished her, he’d mark her with the stigma of defeat. Something suitably extreme to disarm her.

  Something time-honoured. Yes. Cutting off her hands would do it.

  Though of course he couldn’t leave it at that. Her defeat would be followed by the coup de grace. That too was decided. He would chop out her neck.

  He reminded himself.

  The game was real - and the real world was the game.

  As he manipulated the controls, he sped like a projectile through bronze forests and neon canyons and parabolic causeways. Geometric structures streamed across his retinas in a vortex of lights, the colours of emeralds and rubies and white phosphorus. Flickering symbols.

  A delirious rush through a maze of icons. But it was too fast. Too precipitate. He altered his trajectory. Slowed down. Through a crystal channel now, with dim illuminations. Past shadows in alcoves.

  Dark figures in the night. Metallic fingers pointing the way. Aliens.

  Human holograms. Designer cavemen and women.

  He homed in on the target and stopped.

  Focused.

  Approaching carefully now.

  Storm FX kicking in. Strobing veins of electricity. Tectonic rumbles.

  And there it was - an open portal.

  He accessed it.

  Followed the gloomy passageway.

  Entered the chamber.

  His fist tightening on the hilt, he held the meat cleaver aloft and advanced.

  The first blow severed an artery.

  Blood spraying into his face as she started screaming.

  But his enemy had tricked him. She’d morphed into somebody else.

  He didn’t recognise this woman at all.

  Rita could hear the screaming as she pulled up outside Lola’s apartment. As the horror hit her, she realised it was Lola herself.

  She hurled herself from the car and all but collided with a figure sprinting from the garden through the rain. She fell to her knees, rolled over and scrambled along on hands and knees, and got to her feet just in time to see a figure in a bronze mask bolt into a black Falcon ute. It was there, in front of her, under the streetlamp.

  As she chased after him, whipping the gun from her holster, he was already revving away from the kerb, tyres squealing. She ran, lungs heaving, but he was accelerating off. She stopped, took aim and fired - one, two, three, four shots - the bullets p
unching holes through the bodywork, the door and splintering the side window.

  The car veered violently under the impact - she must have hit him

  - but it straightened up and sped away.

  The screams were worse than hysterical. What had he done to her?

  She was drenched and out of breath as she burst into the apartment, slipping on a thick trail of blood. It led from the bedroom to the bathroom. She rushed there to find Lola, in terror and uncontrolled panic, blood on the tiles, the walls, the mirror, the ceiling - unable to stop the arterial spray from a deep wound in her forearm.

  She was shrieking, ‘Help me!’ as Rita pushed her back, sat her on the toilet seat, yanked the cord from her friend’s robe and used it as a ligature, twisting it hard around Lola’s upper arm.

  The tourniquet worked. The blood stopped squirting. There were no other injuries.

  Lola was sobbing now. There were voices outside. Alarmed neighbours coming inside. Rita shouted at them to call an ambulance.

  It arrived as the full force of the storm was breaking. A downpour after the lightning and thunder.

  He sped through rain-slicked backstreets and alleyways, every shortcut he knew, blood streaming from his cheek wound, the sound of her gunshots still reverberating in his ears. Despite his close call with death - her last bullet had come within an inch of killing him - his hands were steady, his reflexes fluid, his brain hyper-alert. The game wasn’t over. It had just moved to the ultimate level.

  The car thumped over rail lines at an empty level crossing and he accelerated into the next suburb. His enemies were multiplying by the minute. Keeping to side streets, he drove across one main road after another until he reached the park. He sped around the lake through torrential rain, his wheels slapping through leaves scattered by the storm, the wipers slashing against the windscreen.

  With time running out, he couldn’t lose momentum, couldn’t falter or hesitate. His game plan would work if he maintained focus - and kept ahead of his opponents.

  As suddenly as the rain began, it stopped. He headed for the warehouse entrance at the rear of Xanthus. Using his access key, he drove straight in, the gates clanking shut behind him. The gash on the left side of his face was already congealing, as were the pock marks from glass splinters. He threw away his shirt and used the warehouse washroom to wipe the smeared blood from his neck and rinse the stains from his jeans. Fabric plasters from the first-aid kit were enough to cover the gash on his cheek. Having cleaned himself up he broke open lockers and pulled on someone’s jungle green army shirt. Then it was time to deal with tactics and logistics.

  He took the back stairs to the shadowed clutter of the office.

  Without switching on a light, he logged on, checked the time and went to work. The first task was to prime a cluster of crippling viruses. Once that was done, he keyed in a countdown and launched them at their targets. Next he triggered a phone search - all the numbers listed to Barbie. The one that was answered - ‘Hello, this better be important’ - gave the location. Next he accessed the online home security system that he’d installed. The multiple screens showed most of the rooms were unoccupied, apart from those hosting the cocktail party. He checked the alarms were off, made sure they stayed that way, then reprogrammed the system to go into a loop over the next hour. That would give him time enough. He logged off and jogged back down the stairs.

  The bullet-scarred car had to be abandoned. One of the firm’s white vans was much more suitable in any case. He got the keys, opened it and loaded it with more than a dozen cans of petrol.

  His plan was falling into place - in line with the art of guerrilla warfare. Evading capture. Commandeering transport. Improvising weapons. The stakes were higher now but the goal was still the same. To win.

  As he drove away from Xanthus a police helicopter swept through the sky above him, its searchlight probing the streets below. But in the lanes behind the firm there wasn’t a police car in sight. The van threaded a course to the highway where it joined the late-night traffic heading towards the suburb of Brighton.

  Rita sat beside the hospital bed, head in hands, tears running down her cheeks. Lola lay there bandaged, sedated, weakened by a loss of blood. But she was strong, and first aid had been applied in time. The violence and the trauma of the attack would leave her with one ragged scar on her arm, and a deeper, invisible one in the reaches of her mind. Her fate could have been a lot worse. With that thought in mind, Rita wiped away her tears. Then, leaving her sleeping friend to the care of the nurses, she drove back towards the police complex.

  Jack Loftus was pacing up and down the communications room when she arrived. He was listening to incoming calls, waiting for news from the manhunt. Every available patrol officer was out on the road and the helicopter was extending its search radius. Flynn’s apartment was among the places staked out, should he put in an appearance there. A squad car was discreetly parked opposite the front gates of Xanthus, but so far there’d been no sign of him. Local police in the Latrobe Valley were keeping a watch on his family home in case he was making his way back to his roots. The longer he was on the loose the wider the search would become. Uniformed police had taped off Lola’s apartment, where the Hacker had left perfect impressions of his shoes. The soles were neatly etched in her blood. And detectives had bagged the weapon - the meat cleaver that had been embedded in her arm.

  ‘If he’s smart he’s lying low somewhere,’ said Loftus.

  ‘He’s more than smart.’ Rita was leaning on a desk. ‘He’s acting with a lucid intellect.’

  ‘That makes him unpredictable.’

  ‘Not necessarily. He’s also violently ill. That’s why his crimes are so grotesque. And because his actions are compulsive they can be predicted.’ Her mind was searching for clues. ‘All we need to know is which part of the delusion he’s following.’

  ‘Is there anything Flynn said?’

  ‘It’s not Flynn we’re hunting,’ she corrected him. ‘It’s the Hacker.’

  ‘How does that help us?’ asked Loftus.

  ‘Because he plays by the rules of the cave.’ She pulled herself up from the desk. ‘Jack, I need to get into the Xanthus building.’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But it’s got a squad car out front. If he turns up they’ll grab him.’

  ‘I need to get inside,’ she insisted.

  ‘We’d need a warrant.’

  ‘There’s a quicker way. Get Nash to tell Giselle Barbie to tell her husband to call you immediately. He’s on a private line somewhere.’

  ‘Why Nash?’

  ‘They’re pals.’

  Loftus picked up the nearest phone and put in a call to Nash.

  He was finishing his coffee when the call came on his mobile, Barbie saying, ‘I’m always happy to help the police. No explanation needed. My security guard will be there in ten minutes to open up the place.’

  Loftus thanked him and turned to Rita. She was already heading for the door.

  ‘Don’t go in alone,’ he called after her.

  He dimmed the lights and pulled off the road, parking in a street lined with oleander bushes. There was no sign of pursuit. He was still ahead of the game. The wind had died away and the storm’s retreat had left a humid calm in the night air. Already the water from the downpour was draining away. From nearby came the sounds of laughter and excited chatter. The cocktail party guests were enjoying themselves. Good for them. They’d soon have something shocking to talk about.

  Senses on high alert, he climbed the side gate and dropped into the broad back garden of Barbie’s mansion. There was no one around.

  Crossing the lawn, he skirted the swimming pool and went inside through open patio doors. The room he wanted was at the end of the hall. He let himself into the study and closed the door behind him. Inside was the locked wooden cabinet he remembered that contained Barbie’s prized collection of imported hunting rifles.

  Using the heavy base of a television
award statuette, he broke open the lock. The rifles stood in their rack like a small arsenal. He grabbed a lightweight .308 with a fibreglass-reinforced synthetic stock and black rubber recoil pad - a Remington 700 ADL. The stock and metalwork had a non-reflective black matte finish - just right for night hunting. He lifted it out and felt its comfortable weight.

  Yes, this was definitely the one. Collecting a box of bullets, he slipped out of the house as invisibly as he’d arrived, gun under his arm. Not even the security cameras would record his visit.

  Before he could start the endgame he needed to gauge the heaviness of the trigger, feel the recoil, and check out the scope.

  He drove to a deserted point on the foreshore. Here, lying among tea-trees with waves foaming against rocks below, he fired off three shots. His target was the door of a brightly coloured bathing box under a distant light. As he peered through the sights he could see the neat pattern of holes. It boded well for what was coming. How gratifying it was going to be to use Barbie’s rifle as an assassin’s weapon. What a deadly irony.

  The manhunt was fully operational when the communications system at the police complex malfunctioned, with radio interference, jammed phone lines, computers going offline. A virus attack was coming in waves. Clearly someone was blitzing the system from outside.

  Chaos ensued as engineers grappled with the problems.

  Loftus stomped around his office swearing with frustration. At its most crucial point the investigation was becoming uncoordinated and in danger of unravelling. He was losing contact with his officers.

  Detectives weren’t responding. Patrol cars couldn’t call in. Even the helicopter was out of reach.

  As the problems escalated Mace burst into his office. The Homicide chief grabbed a chair and sat down heavily.

  ‘He’s blinded us electronically,’ said Loftus.

  ‘Have you come across anything like this before?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So what’s he up to?’ Mace ran a hand through his hair. ‘Is he covering his escape?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Loftus. ‘I think it’s gamesmanship.’