Red Shadows (2 page)

Glancing briefly down at the lightweight Tri-D recorder under his arm, Griggs was forced to concede that his anonymous employer knew his business. The recorder had been waiting for him in the rented storage locker in Mega City One where he had made the pick-up. It was a common enough brand of recorder from the cheap end of the market; exactly the right thing for a tourist on a budget to be carrying, and of such limited intrinsic value that not even the most desperate snatch-thief would consider stealing it. The recorder fit Griggs's cover like a glove, while hidden inside it was the "package" he had been hired to transport - an encrypted crystalline data-slug, disguised to look like a blank slug for recording pictures. Griggs had no idea what was on it. It could be anything: industrial espionage, blackmail material, stolen state secrets. Frankly, whatever was on the slug, it was none of his business. All that mattered was that someone valued it highly enough to pay him a hundred thousand credits to transport it halfway across the world.

Leaving the pedway at the next juncture, Griggs turned onto a broad plaza ringed by gaudy neon shop fronts and made his way through the bustling crowds to the location where he was due to rendezvous with his contact. "Lucky Golden Eight Noodle Bar", the sign above the doorway read in Japanese and English. Stepping through the automatic doors as they opened, Griggs saw a robo-waiter glide sleekly towards him on castors, its outer metal skin painted in patterns of black and white to resemble a dinner jacket and black tie as though it was the maître d' at some swank Euro-City restaurant.

"Konichi-wa," the robo-waiter said. Then, when Griggs shrugged in incomprehension, it began again. "English? Deutsch? Francais? What is your language preference? Was ist Ihre..."

"English," Griggs replied. "I have a reservation. A corner booth in the name of O'Reilly."

"This way, please." Rotating the top section of its body one hundred and eighty degrees, the robo-waiter turned to lead him past the diners seated at the counter and communal tables to a secluded booth at the rear of the dining area. "Please be seated. Would you care to look at our specials before you order?"

Abruptly, the lapels of the dinner jacket design on the robot's chest slid apart, revealing a small vid-screen showing images of a series of tempting dishes.

"Later," Griggs said. "Another party will be joining me shortly, we'll order then. In the meantime, I'll have a synthi-whisky on the rocks. Glen Fujimori. Ten year-old, if you have it."

"Certainly, sir." Rotating its body once more, the robo-waiter rolled swiftly away.

Taking his seat, Griggs made a show of stretching his arms as though he was tired and glad to be off his feet, using it as an opportunity to surreptitiously scan the other customers seated in the diner around him. Appearances could be deceptive of course, but he saw nothing to concern him unduly. The patrons of the Lucky Golden Eight looked like the usual New Shinjuku crowd: a cross-section of tourists and locals, all minding their own business. Above all else, given his past history, he kept his eyes peeled for Yakuza tattoos and hidden wetware. From the look of things he had no reason to worry. The drop-point was clean and uncompromised. All he had to do now was sit back and wait for his contact to arrive, and soon he would be a hundred thousand credits richer than he had been that morning.

It came subtly at first. An idle thought intruded briefly into Griggs's mind; a passing fancy as he sat in the booth, waiting for his contact to arrive at the Lucky Golden Eight.

The information on the data-slug is valuable
, the thought said, seeming almost like a voice inside his head.
Why don't you sneak a peek and check it out?

Naturally, he rejected the idea. Morality might not have figured heavily in his chosen career, but all the same, a man had to maintain something in the way of standards. He was a courier, his discretion bought and paid for by his clients, and, of course, there was the matter of reputation. Griggs had not reached the pinnacle of his profession by being a man readily inclined to violate a client's trust on a whim. No. He had been hired to take the data-slug to Hondo City and hand it to a contact at the Lucky Golden Eight. He would do his job and collect his fee. No matter what was on the data-slug, the idea of looking at the contents did not figure in the equation.

No-one would know,
the thought inside him was as smooth as a serpent's song.
You could go to the restroom and look at the slug's contents there. Why don't you do it? Why don't you?

Again, he resisted. As time went by, the idea slowly became more attractive. Nearly an hour had passed in the noodle bar with no sign of his contact's arrival. Already, the robo-waiter had begun to hover pointedly close to his booth as though to encourage him to order. Soon, he would be asked to either purchase a meal or leave. However, he found himself more concerned that the contact was late. Checking his watch, he felt a nervous tremor in the pit of his stomach. The contact's failure to appear could mean the mission had been compromised. Standard operating procedure said he should abort the meeting now and get in touch with his employer to request further instructions. But with the employer's identity unknown to him, he had no way of initiating communications.

The contact isn't coming
. The thought was insistent, insidious.
You can't get in touch with your employer. There's only you and the contents of a data-slug that might well be worth millions. The contract is as good as broken anyway. Look at the data-slug. You know you want to.

Telling himself he would wait another five minutes, Griggs tried to forestall the decision. Then, when five minutes came and went, he waited another five, and another. Until, slowly, he found himself trying to buy off the voice inside him with smaller and smaller increments of time. Three minutes. Two minutes. One. Finally, he reached the point where his resistance melted away entirely. The point where what had begun as an idle thought grew into an unstoppable compulsion. No matter that the limited ethics of his profession told him his actions were wrong, he would look at the data-slug and see what secrets were hidden inside it.

You will need privacy
, the small voice said inside his head.
Head for the restrooms, find a stall, and then boot up the recorder's software.

Following the instructions of the voice inside his head, Griggs left his booth and made his way to the men's restroom. Once there, he found a stall with empty cubicles either side of it, locked the door behind him, and sat on the closed lid of the vacuum pan. Then, switching on the recorder, he wondered briefly how he was ever going to find a way to break through the data-slug's protective encryption.

The password is "Oberon",
the voice said.
Wait until the options menu appears on the recorder's screen, and then press F8 and type the password into the keypad.

He obeyed the voice, even as some small, quiet part of his mind questioned how a voice inside his head could possibly know the password to unlock the encryption. But by then he was in the thrall of a curious detachment, as though he was no longer wholly in control of his own actions. Typing in the password, he saw the screen change as an entirely different menu appeared on it. There were a series of headings, each one linked to a different file within the data-slug's main directory.

Open the file marked "Mission Parameters"
, the voice within him said as, helpless to resist it, he complied with its instructions.
That's it. Now, read the file slowly and carefully. It wouldn't do to let some vital piece of information slip by unnoticed. Not after going to so much trouble...

There were a great many files on the data-slug. Later, having opened them all, his body numb from having sat reading them for what seemed like hours, Griggs at last stood and unlocked the stall door. His eyes fixed glassily ahead of him like a sleepwalker, he emerged from the restroom with the Tri-D recorder under his arm and made his way towards the exit - only to find his path blocked by the robo-waiter that had led him to his table earlier.

"There is the matter of the bill," the robo-waiter said, an expression close to annoyance passing across its metal features. "One Glen Fujimori on the rocks, plus a consideration for having held a booth for two hours. A gratuity is optional."

Barely listening, Griggs's hand went to his pocket and pulled out a fistful of credits. Dropping them on the floor, he lurched past the robo-waiter as it bent down to collect them, and stumbled through the automatic doors into the cool air of the night outside. The air did nothing to revive him. His limbs hardly seemed to be his own anymore. He moved with a shambling drunken gait as though his legs were being poked and prodded into action from afar. At the same time, a dull haze suffused his mind. Lost within it, he felt strangely unconcerned at the fact that he no longer seemed to be the master of his own body. Instead, he drifted along like a sleepwalker in the midst of a pleasing dream, vaguely aware that the outside force directing him seemed at least to know where it was going.

Heading away from the restaurant towards the pedway, Griggs found himself pausing beside one of the metre-high metal cylinders set at strategic locations across the plaza. As his hands moved of their own volition to pull open the hinged lid at the top, Griggs's eyes dimly registered the embossed instructions written in Japanese and English on the front of the cylinder. "Hondo City Municipal Waste Disintegration Unit," the instructions read. "Place waste inside the unit, make sure the lid is properly sealed, and begin disintegration process by pressing red button. Penalty for improper disposal of waste (first offence): 1,000 credit fine, or one month's imprisonment." Even as he read the instructions, his hands were already completing their work. Helpless to stop them, as though he was watching someone else, Griggs saw himself drop the Tri-D recorder with its encrypted data-slug inside the disintegration unit and close the lid behind it. Appalled, he watched his finger press the red button - a muffled popping noise coming from inside the cylinder, as the disintegrator activated to destroy the recorder and data-slug alike. In the blink of an eye, millions of credits' worth of valuable information was gone.

His legs moving once more, Griggs resumed his journey. He found himself confused: his mind wallowing in a befuddled state of helplessness as he wondered why he had gone against the ethics of his profession, only to then destroy the data-slug before he could profit from his crime. He could find no answer; his own actions were a mystery to him. Rejoining the pedway, he began to head north, his body working more freely now as though the force guiding him had established a greater degree of control. Ahead of him he soon saw his destination. He was walking towards a zoom station, one of the network of such stations linked together by Hondo's underground system of maglev trains.

Entering the station, Griggs's hand went clumsily to his pocket as he purchased a basic transit day pass from one of the automatic ticket dispensers lining the concourse. Following the throngs of post-rush hour commuters, he headed for the anti-grav chutes leading down to the platforms. Reaching the bottom of the chute, he found the platform crowded with bored travellers waiting patiently to emerge from the tunnel. But even as he took his place at the back of the platform, Griggs realised the unseen force guiding him was not yet satisfied.

His legs moving once more of their own volition, Griggs stepped forward through the milling crowds towards the edge of the platform. As he made his way closer to the edge, he heard a rumbling noise grow louder in the distance as a train sped through the tunnel. Closer, his feet stepped over the red line on the platform floor that marked the minimum safe standing distance. Closer, he felt a warm rush of air hit him, pushed out of the tunnel by the approaching train. Closer still, he took another step, past the edge of the platform, his body pitching forward as the sole of his shoe came down and connected with nothing.

Griggs fell off the platform, landing painfully on his side on the trackless metal bed of the maglev, directly in the path of the onrushing train. The noise was deafening, the rumble of the train hurtling towards him mixed with the screams of the commuters on the platform, and the shrill shriek of screeching brakes as the train's automated safety systems detected his presence. It was too late. Bathed in blinding light, Griggs looked up to stare into the dazzling headlights of the train as it bore down on him out of the tunnel. His mind granted sudden clarity by the imminence of death, his last act was to move his lips to frame a final despairing question, the sound of it drowned out in the roar of the train. Why, he asked? Why did I do this?

The train, though, had no answer.

ONE

SEEING RED

A few weeks later...

The knife was a masterwork of lethal precision. It was everything he could have wanted. Single-edged, with a long, sharp, tungsten alloy blade and a reservoir of liquid mercury concealed in the hilt to add extra weight to every slash and thrust. A Bowie knife, the salesman had called it. "An American classic," the man had said, smiling. "'Course, the damn Judges say you've got to have a permit before you can go buy a knife like this." The man had leant forward, the smile growing quietly sly and conspiratorial, "But I guess we don't have to worry about all that, what with you being a collector."

Standing in the elevator as it rose slowly towards the thirty-second floor of Kitty Genovese Block, William Ganz put his hand inside his coat to feel the reassuring shape of the hidden knife. The walls of the elevator seemed uncomfortably close and claustrophobic - an unwelcome reminder of all the years he had spent confined in rooms of similar dimensions. But with the knife near at hand, William found he had no reason to let the terrors of his past still rule him. He was free now. Free of the institution and its doctors; free of all their medicines, tests and theories. He was free, and so long as he had the knife they would never cage him again.