Red Shadows Read Free

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