Red Shadows

by Mitchel Scanlon

  "I was just thinking." She directed his attention to the images in front of them. "Makes you wonder, doesn't it? They say childhood upbringing can have a big impact on the way the powers of a latent psychic develop. Maybe if he'd been brought up in another family, Alexei's psychic abilities would have come out differently. As it was, he grew up in a family of religious fanatics, surrounded by images of suffering and torment, no doubt being told day after day that blood has a holy and sacred power. Is it any surprise that's what his unconscious mind latched onto as his powers grew to maturity? Blood."

  "Hmm, maybe." Jansen shrugged. "I'm just a Street Judge, Anderson. I don't care how the kid ended up being able to do what he did. All I care about is that there's been a crime and somebody has to pay the penalty."

  "You don't mean Alexei?" She turned to stare at Jansen. "I told you: the kid was acting in self-defence. If he hadn't used his powers, the priest probably would have beaten him to death."

  "What about the others?" Jansen asked. "There are survivors outside, bleeding out of every orifice. Grud, when I first got here I thought somebody had set off an Ebola bomb."

  "Collateral damage." Now it was Anderson's turn to shrug. "Why do you think Psi-Judges spend so long training at the Academy? Controlling psychic powers can be difficult, especially when you're a frightened ten year-old boy who doesn't understand what's happening to you. Anyway, no pun intended, but you won't see me shedding any tears for the people outside." She looked at Jansen more intently, almost daring him to disagree with her. "His mother, his father, the other survivors, they were all part of it. I don't care if they thought Alexei was possessed. They all stood around, egging the priest on while he beat a child half to death. You talked earlier about people burning witches? That's exactly what happened here, only with a whip instead of a fire. I realise that, as the first Judge on the scene, sentencing is at your discretion, but, if you want my opinion, I'd throw the book at the whole damn lot of them."

  "Duly noted. I was leaning that way already. Just wanted to get a Psi-Judge's perspective before I passed sentence. It's a pretty weighty list of crimes." Holding up his hand, Jansen counted out charges on his fingers, "Torture, Abuse of a Minor, Performing an Illegal Exorcism, Assault with a Weapon Occasioning Grievous Bodily Harm, Failure to Report a Religious Gathering. Plus, a Conspiracy to Commit added to each of the original charges. All in all I'd say that makes it twenty-five years apiece for the ringleaders, with sentences of between ten to fifteen years for the rest of them depending on their complicity. 'Course, that still leaves the problem of what we're going to do with the boy."

  "Problem? I don't follow you. We've established he was acting in self-defence. Standard protocol now says he should be taken to Psi Division HQ for assessment."

  "That's just it." Turning away from her, Jansen nodded towards a doorway leading off from the living room to elsewhere in the apartment. "The boy's still here. After he killed the priest, he shut himself up in his bedroom. When I tried to talk to him after I got here, I found myself getting a nosebleed. Figured it was the kid getting ready to put the blood whammy on me. 'Course, I could've called in a tac-team to try and take him down with tranqs and stumm gas. Seemed kind of harsh though, doing it that way. Kid's probably traumatised enough as it is. That's why I called for Psi-Judge back-up. I was hoping you could talk him out. I know it's a risk, but..."

  "All right," Anderson said, as she moved towards the door he had indicated. "You've sold me." She paused for a moment to cast a last look at the body of the priest in the middle of the blood-stained apartment. "We have to hope that right now, as much as anything else, Alexei is just looking for a shoulder to cry on.

  "Otherwise, there could be a lot more blood painting these walls before the night is out."

  "Go away!" the boy's voice shouted to her from the other side of the door. "Go away or I'll hurt you like I did the priest. Don't think I can't."

  Standing in the hallway outside the door to the boy's bedroom, Anderson felt a sudden tingling at the front of her face and the warmth of a spreading dampness underneath her nose. Putting her hand to it, she saw blood on her fingertips and realised her nose was bleeding. So much for knocking on the door to see if he's willing to come out, she thought. After all that's happened tonight, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised the kid's ready to shoot first and ask questions later. Doesn't matter though; if I'm going to be able to end this thing peacefully, I just have to go in there and hope he's in the mood to be talked down.

  Taking a deep breath, her psychic senses alert for any sign of a disturbance in the psi-flux that might warn of another impending attack, she pushed the door open. Finding that the door wasn't locked, she wondered whether it might be a good omen. No matter what the boy might say, if he really just wanted to be left alone, surely he would have locked the door behind himself? A tenuous line of reasoning, perhaps, but, one way or another, she was about to find out whether it was true.

  "Go away!" Her eyes adjusting to the shadowy semi-darkness before her as she stepped into the room, Anderson realised the boy's voice seemed to be coming from beneath the bed. "I'll hurt you. Haven't they told you? I'm the Devil. I'm evil. I can kill you just like I killed the priest."

  "No, you aren't the Devil, Alexei." Anderson stood just inside the open doorway, careful not to advance further into the room in case the boy felt threatened. She talked calmly and quietly. "You aren't possessed. You aren't a monster. Everything the priest and your parents told you was wrong. They were wrong, Alexei. You're not the Devil. You're psychic."

  For a moment, there was silence. As she began to worry that perhaps she had broached the subject too bluntly, the boy finally spoke.

  "Father Grigori said there was no such thing as psychics." The boy's voice beneath the bed was terse and wary. "He said psychics were a story made up by the Judges. He said they lied about things like that 'cause they wanted to gather up all the witches and use their powers for themselves."

  "Witches?" Remembering Jansen's comments earlier, she slowly came to understand what the boy meant. "Like me, you mean? Father Grigori told you the Psi-Judges were witches?"

  "That's right." Still hiding beneath the bed, the boy answered her. "He said you were witches in league with the Devil. That's how come you had your powers. 'The Judges have turned away from the laws of Grud. That's what he told Momma and Poppa, but he said if we were righteous, we would follow the laws written in the Holy Book. The law that says 'Suffer not a witch to live.'"

  "And do you think Father Grigori was right?" Cautiously, Anderson took a step forward into the room, testing the waters. "Do you think he was right to call you evil? Do you think he was right to beat you?"

  "No!" As the boy shouted, Anderson felt a wave of psychic force surging towards her. Desperately trying to raise her own defences, she wondered if she had made a mistake in confronting the boy so directly. Abruptly, the threat receded, the psychic wave losing its power before it reached her. "He was wrong." The boy's voice became quiet and sorrowful, the words broken up by ragged pauses as he started to cry. "But Momma and Poppa- they let the priest hurt me- they let him beat me..."

  "I guess they were frightened, Alexei." Anderson's tone was conciliatory, but inwardly it sickened her to find herself trying to justify his parents actions. But whatever her own feelings, she realised that it was vital to try and make a connection with the boy.

  Concentrate on coaxing him out from under the bed, she thought. That's the important thing. Remember, Jansen's outside waiting to call up a tac-team if you don't bring the boy out. It doesn't matter that you think Alexei's parents were a pair of backwater stupes. All that does matter is making sure the situation doesn't get any worse than it already is.

  "Your parents were just scared of something they didn't understand," she continued. "And because they were scared, they did some crazy things, but it doesn't change the fact that both your parents and Father Grigori were wrong. There are no witches, Alexei. You're not possessed by the Devil or
anything else for that matter. All that is different about you is that you were born with a special talent. You're psychic, Alexei. That's all there is to it."

  She paused for a moment, allowing time for her words to sink in. Then, taking another step closer to the bed, she began again.

  "I want you to come with me, Alexei," she told him. "I want you to come with me to Psi Division. There are people there who can show you how to use your powers."

  "But I know how to use them..." Alexei's voice was low and mournful. "I used them on Father Grigori... and he... You saw what I did... The blood..."

  "I know, Alexei." She stood by the bed, waiting. "And I understand how it happened. You were defending yourself, but I know you didn't mean for everything to get so crazy. Listen to me, I know it all seems really bad now, but, you've got to understand, things don't have to be that way. You have a gift, Alexei, a gift. You just need to learn to control it a little better." She held out her hand. "Come with me, Alexei. Come with me to Psi Division, and I promise you everything will be better. Come with me, and everything will be all right."

  There was another pause. Then, amid the sound of rustling bed clothes, the boy emerged from underneath his bed. Standing before her, for a moment he looked at her uncertainly. Until at last, reaching a decision, he stepped forward and put his hand in hers.

  "You won't let them hurt me?" the boy asked.

  "No, Alexei. I won't let them hurt you," she said, even though inside her the words felt like a lie. "I promise you, no one will ever hurt you again."

  TWO

  RED HARVEST

  "Come with me," she had said to the boy. "Come with me and I promise you everything will be better. Come with me, and everything will be all right."

  As Anderson rode her Lawmaster motorcycle along the megway away from Psi Division Headquarters, the words returned to haunt her.

  Two hours had passed since her conversation with the frightened boy in his bedroom. Two hours, in which she had taken Alexei to Psi Division and handed him over to a senior Psi-Judge in charge of the psychic examination procedure. Over the next few weeks, Alexei would be subjected to an exhaustive battery of tests designed to discover the full range and magnitude of his powers. Brain scans, genetic screening, psi-tests: over the weeks to come the boy would be poked and prodded while the data gathered would be analysed and collated. Then, once the results were in, the powers-that-be at Psi Division would make their decision.

  I just have to hope he makes the cut, Anderson told herself, as she zigzagged her Lawmaster through the late night traffic. I have to hope they decide it's worthwhile to enrol him in the Academy. If they don't, the alternative doesn't bear thinking about.

  The psi-cubes; that would be Alexei's fate if the examining Psi-Tutors decided his powers were too wild and untamed ever to be controlled. If they made that decision it would be a life sentence. Alexei would be condemned to spend the rest of his life locked up inside a small windowless cell whose walls were lined with psi-resistant materials, doomed never to be allowed out to breathe free air or even see the sun. To make matters worse, the odds were stacked against Alexei from the very beginning. He was ten years old; five years older than the usual age at which psi-talented cadets were inducted into the Academy. Already, he had learned to use his powers on his own - meaning there was every chance he had picked up bad habits along the way that no amount of repeated instruction would ever be able to rectify. Training the Psi-Judges of the future was a long and expensive process. The Psi-Tutors might decide Alexei's age made him a bad risk, unlikely to make progress no matter how much time they invested in his training.

  I have to hope for the best, Anderson thought as she gunned her Lawmaster's engines and sped faster along the megway, her hair whipping wildly in the breeze from the slipstream. Alexei has a rare and unusual psi-talent. I have to hope that's enough to tip the scales in his favour.

  The most frustrating thing about it was that Anderson understood the reasons why the system worked the way it did. It was harsh, but she had seen for herself what happened when wild psi-talents raged out of control. From bitter experience she knew there were whole armies of hostile psionic entities existing in the psi-flux - entities capable of using psychics as a gateway to allow them to invade the physical world. In her time she had seen entire cities brought to their knees and almost destroyed by psychic invasion. She had seen innocents killed in their millions, streets running red with blood, bodies littering the megways, all because of psychic powers.

  The history of Mega-City One was filled with such incidents: the Necropolis Event, the Judge Child-Mutant Affair, the Dark Judges Incursions. One way or another, Anderson had been involved in all of them. At times it seemed like her own life had been one long, salutary lesson on the dangers of psychic talents and how they could be used for either good or ill. Taken all together, it was enough to convince her - whatever the distaste she felt towards it - that the Justice Department's policy on psychics was not wholly without merit.

  But it was one thing to accept the policy in theory, quite another to have been involved with it in practice. Whatever the arguments for or against the policy, she had been forced to lie to a ten year-old boy in order to gain his trust. Everything will be all right, she had told him. I promise you: no one will ever hurt you again. The way she felt now, she wouldn't have complained if the words had turned to poison on her tongue.

  There has to be a better way, she thought. It was an old argument she had had with herself more times than she cared to count. Just because someone is born with psi-talents, it shouldn't mean their only choice is becoming a Psi-Judge or spending the rest of their lives in the psi-cubes. It's the twenty-second century, for Grud's sake! We should have come up with something better by now. No matter what the Law says, there has to be room for some compassion. As ever, try as hard as she might, she could find no answer.

  "Control to Anderson." She found herself strangely relieved as the radio on her Lawmaster motorcycle abruptly squawked into life. Where earlier in the night she might have despaired at being called to yet another emergency, now the prospect of more work seemed a welcome distraction from her thoughts.

  "Anderson receiving," she said as she hit the transmit button. "Go ahead, Control. Over."

  "Duty board indicates you have completed your current assignment," the controller said over the radio. "Are you available for reassignment? Over."

  "Affirmative, Control. What have you got for me?"

  "Psi Division backup requested at Kitty Genovese Block. The Street Judge investigating a suspected homicide needs a Psi-Judge to perform a psychometric scan of the crime scene. Can you attend? Over."

  "Confirmed, Control. Currently headed westbound on Henry Ford Megway. ETA to Kitty Genovese. Seven minutes. Request a more specific location on suspected homicide. Over."

  "Acknowledged, Anderson. Homicide location is reported as thirty-second floor, Apartment 56-C. Victim is female, approximately forty years of age. Will advise of further details as they become available. Over."

  "Acknowledged, Control." Hitting the accelerator on her Lawmaster, she cut across lanes and headed for the interchange to change direction. "Tell the Judge on the scene I'm on my way. Anderson over and out."

  "Murder in Mega-City One! This is Ralph Matts with Channel 109's I-Witness News, bringing you an exclusive report as Judges investigate a killing at Kitty Genovese..."

  By the time she had reached Kitty Genovese Block the vultures were out in force. Anderson parked her Lawmaster in the block forecourt, and as she made her way to the front entrance of the building she saw a large crowd of rubberneckers already gathering outside. Among them, standing a little way away from the rest, was a Tri-D news reporter, his face set in a practised and insincere smile as he breathlessly delivered the latest on-the-scene update to the viewing millions via a remote camera drone hovering in the air before him. Neither development - not the crowd nor the reporter - particularly surprised her. In a city where unemployment ran a
t over eighty seven per cent, people tended to take their excitement wherever they could find it. Granted, the murder of a woman at Kitty Genovese Block would be counted as a tragedy to those who had known or loved her, but to most of the couch potato population of Mega-City One, its only purpose was as entertainment.

  "Anderson to Control." Walking into the elevator to begin her ascent to the thirty-second floor, Anderson hit the transmit switch on the radio unit on her belt to contact Sector Control.

  "Control receiving, Anderson. Over."

  "Just a heads-up, Control. Have arrived at Kitty Genovese and I am on my way to the reported location of the suspected homicide. Thought you'd want to know there's a crowd of citizens gathering outside the building, a few hundred so far, with more arriving by the minute. You might want to detail some extra Judges to handle crowd control. If nothing else, they can keep an eye out for dips and tap gangs working the crowd. Over."

  "Understood, Anderson. Be advised all Street Judges are currently tied up with other duties. The Public Surveillance Unit is aware of the situation and monitoring it. Appreciate the heads-up though. Over."

  "No problem, Control, just following procedure. Anderson over and out."

  Signalling with a metallic chime that she had reached her destination, the elevator doors opened before her. Stepping out into the hallway, Anderson saw the majority of the apartment doors lining the block corridor were open as their residents stood watching for the latest twist in the unexpected drama they found unfolding on their doorsteps. "A Psi-Judge." As she walked down the hallway, she caught the occasional whisper.

  "Looks like the Judges have called in the big guns."

  "Grud, I think that's Judge Anderson."

  "I seen her on the Tri-D." As she passed them by, it occurred to her that there was a certain irony at work here. Despite the fact they shared their city with four hundred million other human beings, many of the citizens of Mega-City One lived in self-imposed isolation - rarely venturing forth from their apartments to socialise with their neighbours. Normally, the tenants of a typical housing block would no more think of hanging around on their doorsteps, gossiping to each other, than they would consider going for an unprotected swim in the toxic waters of the Black Atlantic. It seemed that, twenty-second century or not, human nature had remained largely unchanged. Against all expectation, curiosity was still a powerful enough force in their lives to cause these people to forego their customary alienation and break through the city's social barriers.