Red Shadows (10 page)

"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."

"Still, it's one hell of a coincidence," Anderson said. "In a city of four hundred million people, the killer manages to pick four victims who were all born in 2084? That doesn't sound random to me."

"I agree. And then, there's the other thing. You remember I told you that with both Eunice Bibbs and Brenda Maddens the killer cut their throats from the front?"

"Sure. What of it?"

"Well, admittedly it's hardly unheard of, but it is an unusual way to kill someone, especially when, as in these cases, the perp used a single blow to kill the victims each time. Usually, if a victim is attacked from the front by a slashing weapon like a knife you'd expect to see defensive wounds where they put up their hands to ward off the blow. Plus, the throat is a relatively small target. That makes it a difficult target to hit - even more so when the victim is capable of movement and can try to dodge the attack, or lower their chin to protect their throat. And yet, in both cases, the perp hit his victims right on the money. One blow and it was all over. I'd almost suspect he'd managed to immobilise them in some way, except there's no physical evidence to support that theory. Splatter patterns on the blood spray found at each scene show that the victims were all standing and probably conscious when they were attacked. There's no sign of any ligature marks to suggest they'd been bound. The tox-screen came up clear: there were no paralysing agents, mood altering drugs, anaesthetics or anything else of that kind in their bloodstreams. Granted, it might not actually mean anything. It could just be that the killer got lucky both times. Thought I should mention it anyway, just in case it turns out to be important further down the line. You never know."

"Yeah, you never know," she echoed him. Staring down at the bodies, Anderson realised she had reached the point where the Med-Judge could tell her no more. It was up to her now. She was putting off the inevitable. The time had come for her to scan the three bodies before her. It was time to see what they had seen when they died, to experience their pain.

It was time for more bad memories.

Bad memories
.
To Judge Edward Weller, sometimes it seemed as though they were the only memories he had left. As he walked the corridors of the Sector House after having visited his Watch Commander in his office, he found himself sinking into a dispirited mood as his mind replayed their brief conversation from only minutes earlier.

"Believe me, I sympathise with your position, Weller," watch commander Jessup had told him, nodding sagely from behind his desk. "Nobody likes interference, much less when they are the primary on a case and supposed to be in overall charge of the investigation. But it's a question of priorities and chain of command. What do you think Sector Chief Collins will say if he hears we had a Psi-Judge wanting to help us catch a serial killer and we turned her away? You know what the SC is like: he wants to see cases cleared and perps put in the cubes. Admittedly, I understand that Anderson can be a little unconventional, even difficult at times, but you will just have to make allowances. She is a
Psi-Judge
, after all. Give it time and I'm sure you will find that she's an asset to your investigation. Anyway, it's not like I'm asking you to partner up with her indefinitely, just until the two of you can bring in the perp." Apparently satisfied that the issue had been decided, the watch commander's eyes had turned to the pile of reports and folders littering his desk. "Now, if that's everything, you'll have to excuse me while I get back to my duties. This paperwork isn't about to pick up a pen and do itself."

With that, the interview had ended. Despite his best efforts, Weller had been stymied. He had hoped that by visiting Jessup he could elicit the watch commander's support in forcing Anderson to keep her nose out of his case. Instead, he now found he was shackled with the Psi-Judge for the foreseeable future. "Just until the two of you can bring in the perp," Jessup had said. Having worked a number of serial killer investigations before, Weller was well aware of the inherent difficulties of reaching a satisfactory outcome in such a case. Serial killers were elusive beasts. Above all else, the lack of rational motive for their crimes often hampered any attempt to track them down.

In his own twenty year career as a Judge, Weller had encountered serial killers who committed murder by reason of prior abuse, religious mania, substance addiction, or simply because they thought some Tri-D chat show host was sending them secret messages in every broadcast ordering them to kill. Granted, Weller might get lucky. Maybe Forensics would turn up something, or the killer would make a mistake. Maybe the perp would pick the wrong victim next time and find a stump gun blast waiting for him when he pulled out his knife. In the meantime, it looked like Weller was going to be on this case for the long haul. It could take weeks, even months. And during every moment of the investigation, he would be forced to work with a psychic beside him.

A psychic; he would have to spend time with a psychic. To Weller, it seemed like the very stuff of his nightmares.

It all started with Necropolis, he thought, his mood growing bleaker as he made his way to the elevators to head for the morgue. I mean, I never exactly relished having to be around psychics. What Street Judge does? If I'm honest with myself though, it was Necropolis that made all the difference. Necropolis changed everything. After Necropolis, things could never be the same again.

Necropolis.

They called it the Necropolis Event. In the blood-splattered annals of the history of Mega-City One, it ranked alongside the Apocalypse War as one of the worst disasters to have ever befallen the city. A group of powerful other-dimensional psychic entities had seized control of the minds of the city's Judges and had forced them to start murdering the same citizens they were sworn to protect. Weller had been one of the enslaved Judges. His memories of the event were a series of hazy recollections of citizens screaming, as he either killed them or rounded them up to deliver them to his new masters for extermination.

By the time the entities had ultimately been defeated and the Judges finally released from their mental domination, over a million people were dead and the city was in ruins. Ironically, it was Anderson who had played a major part in defeating the entities' plans. But to Weller, it made little difference. She was a psychic, while he was man who, under the influence of psychic powers like hers, had personally played a role in the murder of thousands. It might be unfair, even irrational, but he could no more forgive her for the fact that her powers were psychic in nature than he could forgive himself for his own crimes.

Even now, more than ten years later, the memories of those nights still haunted him. In the aftermath, like most of the Judges involved in the disaster, Weller had been cleared of having to pay the price for what he had done. "You were acting under psychic compulsion," the senior Judge in charge of the review board had told him. "Your mind was not your own. You cannot be held accountable for your actions." Other than ordering him to attend a few sessions of mandatory psychiatric counselling, as far as the Justice Department was concerned that had been the end of the affair.

For Weller though, it could never end.

He dreamed of Necropolis constantly, the sensations of that time granted a clarity and vividness in his dreams that, mercifully, his waking mind could never muster. He dreamed of a woman choking, desperate, her eyes looking at him in uncomprehending horror as his hands closed around her throat. He dreamed of lines of terrified men, women and children being led screaming to destruction. He dreamed of standing in streets littered thick with corpses, his nostrils heavy with the cloying stink of decay, the sky above his head rendered black by the entities' powers as they delivered the entire city into eternal night.

He dreamed of all these things and more, waking in a cold sweat every time he slept. Then, day after day, when he awoke, he put on his uniform and went out into the streets to do his duty, trying all the while to pretend he could one day forgive himself for the things he had done. In his heart he knew it would never happen. He had innocent blood on his hands. He could not forgive himself for that; his memories of the victims of Necropolis would not let him. While, thanks to the labyrinthine internal politics of the Justice Department, the memories that were his secret shame were now in danger of being discovered.

A man's mind should be his own, he thought, feeling a rising tide of bitterness as the elevator doors opened before him and he stepped between them. He shouldn't have to guard his thoughts every minute, worrying that some telepath might learn all his secrets. As it is though, I'm going to have to be careful. I can't let Anderson see what's in my head. I can't let her see my memories. I can't let her see anything they could use to pronounce me unfit for duty. I can't let them do it. If they did, I'd go crazy. Some days, I swear being a Judge is the only thing that keeps me sane.

The frustrating thing was, he had not wanted to call in a Psi-Judge in the first place. He had simply had no choice. Sector 34 had one of the worst rates for unsolved homicides in the city. Accordingly, Sector Chief Collins had recently issued standing orders that the Street Judges of his sector were to use "every available resource" when preliminary investigation of a murder failed to identify any suspects. It was all about clearance rates and Justice Department targets. Sector Chief Collins was an ambitious man, and he was not about to let the problems of Sector 34 reflect poorly on his record. In this case, that meant that Weller had been all but compelled to call in a Psi-Judge to perform a psychometric scan on the Maddens woman's body. Now, he was stuck with her. Worse, he was stuck with the very real possibility that at any moment his own guilty conscience might betray him.

It did not matter that the review board had cleared him, or that there were hundreds - perhaps even thousands - of other Judges in Mega City One who were in the same position as him. All that mattered was that he had never been able to put Necropolis behind him. If something like that came to the attention of the powers that be, they would act swiftly. Being a Judge in Mega-City One was stressful enough, never mind when you were damaged goods already. They would not take the risk that, his resolve ground down by his nightmares, one day he might crack under the pressure. They would take action. They would invalid him out of the Justice Department immediately, reducing him to civilian status fast enough to make his head spin. And, in the years since Necropolis, it seemed to him that his head had done enough spinning already. Sometimes, it felt like his whole world had turned on its axis and was doing cartwheels, leaving him hanging on grimly in the hope that one day things might return to normal. He wanted to be able to forget. He wanted to be able to forgive himself. But he was a Judge. To a Judge, forgiveness was like mercy: a strange and alien emotion that did not quite come naturally.

I just have to crack this case as quickly as possible, he told himself. Concentrate on catching the perp so I can get Anderson out of my hair. In the meantime, I just have to hold it together. Above all else, I can't let Anderson know what I'm thinking. I just have to watch my thoughts. I can do it. I've kept this thing to myself for so long. I can keep it inside a little while longer.