Free Fear the Darkness by Mitchel Scanlon Page A

smile now. "After the third murder I called in Psi-Judge Manley to ascertain whether there was any sign of pyrokine activity at the scene. He found none, confirming my thesis that the burnings were achieved by some form of technological means that has yet to be detected. You see there is clearly-"
    "Uh-huh," Anderson interrupted him. "I'd love nothing better than to hear your theories, Hass, but we seem to have had some kind of communications breakdown about what I found when I scanned the crime scene."
    "You said you found nothing," Chief Franklin leaned forward eagerly.
    "That's right," Anderson said. "I found nothing. No psychic impressions, no residual memories, no lingering pain, fear, horror, or any other emotion. Zero. Zip. Zilch. Nada. Bupkis. It's like the entire cube was a blank slate, and that's something that shouldn't happen."
    "Really? I think you are being too hard on yourself, Anderson," Hass interjected as smooth and oily as a snake as he tried to steer the conversation back to the course he had originally set. "As I said, you are only human-"
    "Oops. There's that communications breakdown again," Anderson smiled at him, chiding herself inwardly for the glee she felt at the way Hass seemed to develop a slight facial tic every time she interrupted him. "Let me put it to you this way: you have some perp sitting at home somewhere trying to make himself a bomb. He mixes the ingredients wrong and the whole thing goes boom . When you get to the crime scene, what do you expect to find?"
    "I fail to see the point of this." Hass shifted uncomfortably in his chair.
    "Humour me, Hass," Anderson told him. "Trust me, you'll get the point, soon enough."
    "Very well." Hass pursed his lips in annoyance. "It would depend, of course, on the precise size of the explosion and the environment in which it happened. Generally, I would expect to see explosive debris, a bomb crater, human remains-"
    "Exactly," Anderson said, noticing the SJS man's tic was growing more pronounced. "But the one thing you wouldn't expect to see is an empty room with no sign there had ever been an explosion there at all."
    "I'm not sure I see what you're getting at," Franklin said, all three of them looking at her now.
    "What I mean is, when things happen in the physical world you see evidence that they've happened. It's the same with the psychic world. As living creatures we leave a psychic imprint on our surroundings. We can't help it. When a man dies violently, burning to death alone in a confined space with no one to help him, that imprint should be all the stronger. So strong that, for months afterwards, any psychic going into the room would feel like it was happening to him - like he was drowning in the dead man's pain. But not in this case. Somehow, the cube where Leland Barclay died was devoid of any impression. It felt like no one had even ever been in the room, much less that a man had died there only a couple of hours earlier. The entire room felt blank, and believe me when I tell you there's no way that should even be possible."
    She let her words sink in. She could see realisation dawning on the faces of Grimes and Franklin, even as Hass's expression stayed stubbornly tight.
    "That's not all," she said. "After I tried to scan Barclay's cube, I had Chief Sykes take me to the cubes where the other perps died and it was the same in every one. All I could detect were the psychic impressions of the other perps who had been inside the cubes since the deaths. There was nothing left of the men who had died inside the cubes. Somehow, six men burned to death in screaming agony without it leaving any psychic impression whatsoever on their surroundings. You can take it from me that's just plain spooky ."
    "Spooky?" Hass's tone was barbed. "This is a murder investigation, Anderson, not some damned Tri-D ghost story. You'll be telling us next you give credence to Sykes and his claims of bloody messages appearing and disappearing on walls."
    "I take it you