The Shades Read online

  Following him, I find myself in a small, neat room with a couple of sofas and a huge bookcase that lines one of the walls. To be honest, this is exactly how I imagined John Lydecker's apartment might look, with plenty of dull, beige tones and a general air of old-fashioned rigor. This doesn't seem like the kind of place where someone would ever hold a party, for example, or even invite someone back for a drink. Come to think of it, I don't remember Lydecker ever coming across as a very social kind of person. He always seemed to just come in to work, do his job, and then go home. I don't remember him mentioning any hobbies, and whenever the office went out for drinks, he'd always excuse himself. As far as I know, he doesn't even have any social network profiles. The guy certainly kept himself to himself.

  "I don't really know what I was expecting to find," Reed says as he walks over to the window and looks out at the view. "At least there's no rotting corpse."

  "Here," I say, picking up a small identity card that has been left on a table by the sofa. The picture shows John Lydecker, but the card is for some company called Compidome, which I've never heard of. "Is this the same guy you're looking for?" I ask, passing the card to Reed.

  "That's him," he replies, before holding the card up to the light. "You got any idea about Compidome?"

  "Nope," I reply. "I guess maybe he had a third job as well?" Taking my phone from my pocket, I pull up the browser and run a quick search for Compidome. To my surprise, there are no hits. I try a few different variations, but there's nothing. "What kind of company," I continue after a moment, "has no web presence at all? Not a website, not a mention. Nothing. It's as if they don't exist."

  "A company with something to hide?" Reed asks, before putting the identity card in his pocket. "I'm guessing that maybe Lydecker doesn't need this anymore," he adds, "and if he does... Well, tough."

  "Do you think maybe we're getting mixed up in something big?" I ask, glancing back across the empty room. While it's kind of fun to be sneaking around like a pair of spies, I'm starting to worry that there are too any questions mounting up about John Lydecker's life. "I mean, it's almost as if he was involved with something kind of creepy."

  "John Lydecker?" Reed replies, as if he finds the idea amusing. "What do you think he was? Some kind of spy? Something to do with the government? Maybe he was sent here by the Russians!"

  "No!" I reply quickly. "Well, I don't know. I mean, something weird's going on here, right? And now he's vanished completely, which kind of doesn't make any sense. What if there's way more to him than we realized? I mean, I don't want to get carried away, but I feel like maybe we're going a bit too far. We've broken into the guy's apartment!"

  "I guess," Reed replies, even though the frustration is evident in his voice. He pauses for a moment, clearly lost in thought. "You're right," he says eventually. "Do you want to maybe retreat and get a drink somewhere? It seems like we're looking for the same thing, so we might as well work together. I'd like to pick your brain and see if we can work out what's really going on here."

  "Sure," I reply. "My boss made it pretty clear that my job's on the line if I don't manage to find this asshole."

  "Mine too," he says, as we turn and head back to the front door. "When we do find him, though, I swear I'm going to -"

  He stops speaking as we reach the hallway and find a woman standing in the doorway. Looking a little confused, she frowns as she stares at us. She looks to be in her twenties, with dark skin and a set of colored folders clutched to her chest. It's hard not to notice that she seems very stylish, and she looks extremely out of place standing here in the drabness of this rundown apartment building.

  "Who are you?" she asks, with a distinctive British accent.

  "Who are you?" Reed replies cautiously.

  "My name's Chloe Atkins," she says, eying us suspiciously. "I'm from Kellerton's." She stares at us, as if she expects us to say something. "The fashion magazine?" she offers eventually. "I've been sent to check up on our assistant editor. He hasn't shown up for work over the past few days."

  "Let me guess," I reply, glancing over at Reed. "John Lydecker."

  Dr. Stef Grant

  Today

  "You are joking, aren't you?" Gretchen asks, as the four of us stand next to the message that has been scrawled on the sidewalk. "You're not actually going to start falling for this stuff, are you?"

  "It's not about falling for anything," Cooper replies. "It's about taking sensible precautions. Someone left this message for a reason. Maybe it's just superstitious nonsense, or maybe there's more to it. Either way, I think we'd be well-advised to proceed with caution."

  "He's right," I say, looking down at the roughly-sketched letters on the floor. It looks as if whoever wrote the message, they did it in a hurry, perhaps even in a panic: the lettering is very scrappy, as if the person didn't have time to redo the parts that weren't right. "Stop," I continue, reading the message out loud. "It's not exactly ambiguous, is it? Someone was obviously trying to warn us."

  "Warn us about what?" Lacey asks, looking nervously up at the tops of the nearby buildings. "Does anyone else feel as if we're being watched?"

  "Don't overreact," I tell her.

  "I'm serious," she continues, almost as if she's starting to panic. "I can feel someone looking at us. There's someone here! Like, in one of the buildings. They're watching us. Maybe they're waiting for us to do something?"

  "Could you feel this person before we found the message?" I ask.

  "No, but -"

  "It's your mind playing tricks on you," I continue, hoping to calm her down. Even before we left Spain last week, I'd pegged Lacey as the nervous, panicky type, but I'd hoped she might be a little better at keeping that part of her personality under wraps. "There's no-one here," I tell her. "No-one's watching us. No-one's left to watch us."

  "You don't know that," she replies.

  "Look around you," I say firmly. "There's no sign of anyone. You're just letting the unusual nature of the situation get to you. This is exactly what we were all warned about before we came here."

  Lacey sighs, but I can tell that she's not convinced. As I'd expected, she's already starting to fall apart, and I'm not even sure she'll be able to last for the whole mission. If I had to place a bet, I'd say that after a maximum of two days she'll decide she wants to remain on the boat while the rest of us explore. Not that it matters much. She's here to represent the company, and as such she contributes nothing valuable to the situation. The last thing we need is to have to babysit some vapid little corporate shill.

  "This is exactly what I warned everyone about," Gretchen says. "This mission isn't a place for civilians."

  "I'm not a civilian!" Lacey protests.

  "Sorry," Gretchen replies, "but you are. You're the very definition of a civilian. I'm a professional security adviser, Cooper and Grant are scientists, and you're a paid shill who was sent by the company to keep tabs on us. You're the most civilian-like civilian I've ever met."

  "There's no need to argue," Cooper says. "I think we can find a way forward that keeps everyone happy. Lacey, you say you can feel someone watching us, but have you actually spotted any movement?"

  She shakes her head.

  "And you've been watching the buildings pretty closely, haven't you?" He waits for a reply. "I noticed the way you were walking," he continues eventually. "You kept looking up. You were already on edge. If there'd been any movement at all, I'm pretty sure you'd have spotted it."

  "I can feel someone watching us," Lacey replies, but the pep has left her voice and she sounds strangely defeated. She knows that we don't believe her, and she lacks the strength to argue her point.

  "Until or unless we see anything," Cooper adds, "we're going to assume that there's no-one in the area. Personally, I'm convinced that if anyone saw us, they'd come running to greet us with open arms." He turns and looks back down at the message. "This thing, on the other hand, concerns me. It's pretty direct, and it's clearly very deliberate." He glances over at th
e side of a nearby building, where the message is repeated several times in the same messy, scrappy writing. "

  "This is just superstitious nonsense," Gretchen continues, clearly becoming increasingly frustrated by the way that we're stopping to discuss the message. "None of us knows the context this was written in. It could have been part of a game, or some kind of gang conflict. There are literally a million different reasons why someone could have written this here, and the idea that it's intended specifically to warn us not to proceed is..." She pauses, as if she's waiting for us all to agree with her. "Well, it's insane," she continues eventually. "Cooper, it's less than an hour since you warned us to be rational as we move through the city, and now you're acting as if there's some kind of magic line we're not supposed to cross."

  "I'd rather have a better understanding of the situation before we move forward," he replies firmly.

  "And how are you going to do that?" Gretchen asks. "Do you want to get a Ouija board and summon the spirits of the dead?" With that, she steps forward, moving past the message and the line. "There," she says, "now what do you make of it?"

  "I think you should step back over here," Cooper says, clearly not impressed.

  "If we stop every time we come across something unusual," Gretchen continues, "we're never going to get anywhere. It's clear that there's nothing going on here, so let's stay calm, stay rational, and keep moving. We need to be back at the boat by sunset, and we can't afford to waste any time." She waits for one of us to say something. "Do I look like anything bad is happening to me?" she continues. "How much more proof do you need? What exactly do you think is going on here? Some kind of magic, invisible wall?"

  "I'm in charge of this mission," Cooper says firmly, attempting to regain his authority. "I decide our route, and I'm the only one who has the authority to judge when a situation's dangerous." He turns to Lacey. "Ms. Hobbs, can you please confirm to Dr. Maloney that the company invested its full authority in me for the duration of this expedition?"

  Lacey nods, even though it's clear that she's terrified.

  "Fine," Gretchen says, stepping back across the line and standing next to me. "Do we have your permission, Dr. Cooper, to advance past this piece of superstitious nonsense, or are we going to turn back?"

  Cooper sighs. It's clear that he's picked a fight that didn't need to be fought, and he needs to find some way to reimpose his authority.

  "If you want my opinion," I say, hoping to give Cooper a nudge in the right direction, "it's safe for us to continue, but we need to be extra vigilant. This message does make it clear that there's added danger. Someone obviously felt very strongly that no-one should go further into the city. Maybe that person was deluded, and maybe not, but we have to assume that they had a better understanding of the situation than we currently possess." I pause for a moment, keen to ensure that Cooper realizes I'm on his side. "Do you agree?" I ask eventually.

  "We proceed with caution," he says finally. "If I say stop, we stop. All of us. There'll be no more insubordination. I make all decisions, and final authority rests with me. Is that understood?"

  "Loud and clear," Gretchen replies, smiling as she once again walks past the line drawn on the sidewalk.

  "What do you really think?" Cooper asks me.

  "I think we should be careful," I tell him, before stepping past the line and following Gretchen. It's clear that whatever's going on in New York, it'll take us more than a few days to unravel the truth. Something happened in this city, something that terrified people and made them fear for those who'd follow. Whatever it was, it can't have been a virus, since the hand-held scanners haven't picked anything up, and it can't have been any kind of radioactive event. Right now, it genuinely seems as if all the citizens of New York simply died and vanished, leaving behind the bare bones of a city to mark their passing. It's hard not to share at least some of Lacey's concerns, and I can't deny that I feel as if we're being watched. Still, that's just my mind playing tricks on me. The reality is clearly that, for whatever reason, we're alone here.

  Caroline Jones

  Fifteen days ago

  "Meet John Lydecker," says Chloe, placing a couple of photos on the table as we sit in the coffee house opposite the apartment building. "This guy knows the fashion business inside out. I mean, seriously, he dresses like someone's dodgy uncle, but when it comes to high fashion, he's just got the most amazing eye. It's almost like magic." She pulls out a couple more photos, which Lydecker at what appears to be some kind of glitzy fashion event. "On the other hand, his personal hygiene is atrocious and he's got a personality like sandpaper. The way dandruff collects on his glasses is pretty fucking gross too. It's like little piles along the top of the frames, with flecks all over the lenses. Like, seriously foul. People go out of their way to avoid him unless they absolutely need his help."

  "Huh," I say, staring at the photos for a moment, before turning to Reed. "What do you think?" I ask after a moment.

  "I think there are now three John Lydeckers," he replies, unable to take his eye of the images. "A pair of twins would have been just about believable. I was just starting to get my head around that idea. But three of them?" He pauses. "No way. This is clearly something much bigger, and I don't think we're going to get to the bottom of it by just hanging around in a coffee shop and waiting to see if he shows up at his apartment."

  "So let me get this straight," Chloe continues. "You both know John? And your versions of him both went missing two days ago, like mine?"

  "He just stopped showing up for work," I tell her. "The guy was always conscientious. First in, first out, and then suddenly he was gone. He even used to comment whenever someone else was late. Of all the people in the office, he's the last one you'd ever expect to pull something like this." I take out my phone and bring up Lydecker's phone number. "Is this the same number you two have?"

  Reed nods, while Chloe checks her phone before showing the screen to me. It's the same. There can no longer be any doubt: we're dealing with the one man, not three.

  "There's just no way to explain this," I continue. "The same guy, the exact same guy, can't be working in three places at once, full-time. Believe me, if it was possible to hold down three jobs at once, I've have tried."

  "How do we know it's even just three?" Reed asks, looking out the window. "For all we know, someone else'll turn up soon looking for him. And someone after that. Hell, soon the whole city might be on the hunt for John Lydecker. This thing is already a little too weird for me." He pauses. "I'm just gonna call my boss and tell him what's going on. There's no way he can expect me to deal with this. It's insane."

  "Somehow," I reply bitterly, "I think my boss might not believe me."

  "My boss loves Lydecker," Chloe continues. "He acts like he's the best worker in the world. Seriously, he's not going to be pleased when I tell him I drew a blank. He might just fire me out of spite." She pauses. "We should go to the police. Whatever's going on here, it's way bigger than anything that any of us can deal with. I can handle weird shit, but this weird shit is a step too far."

  "You might be right," Reed says. "We should probably wait until the end of the day or something, and then start filing a missing person's report. Or missing persons. I have no idea if we're dealing with one person, three people, or..." His voice trails off, and it's clear that he's got no more answers than the rest of us. "I swear," he continues eventually, "when I eventually get my hands on this guy, I'm going to hold him down until I get some answers. After the morning I've had, chasing around after him, I deserve some answers." He looks over at me. "By the way, if we do go to the police, let's leave out the part where we broke into his apartment, okay? It's not really a big part of the story, and I'd rather not have to deal with a bunch of unnecessary questions. Just focus on the main issue."

  "I think I'm going to stay here for a while," I say, checking my watch. "You never know, he might still show up."

  "You really think so?" Chloe asks skeptically. "Don't you think he's proba
bly skipped town permanently? Maybe he was caught up in something big and now he's on the run? It's always the quiet ones, you know. They're the ones who're scheming away in the background, and then suddenly they surprise you. It wouldn't surprise me if Lydecker turned out to be messed up in some pretty shady stuff."

  "If he does come back," Reed replies, grabbing my phone and typing a number into the display, "call me. I'll come back. My number's saved." He passes the phone to Chloe, and she does the same. "I'm going to check a few bars that I know John went to from time to time, just in case anyone's seen him, but I'll come back in a few hours. We need to work together on this. If just one of us goes to the police, we'll be laughed out of the station. We should go together."

  "I'm gonna go check his desk," Chloe says, grabbing her folders and getting to her feet. "I'll swing back here at five and I guess we can compare notes. You wanna meet up then?"

  Once she's left, Reed and I sit in an uncomfortable silence for a moment. It's clear that we're both completely creeped out by the situation with Lydecker, and I imagine he's feeling the same thing that I'm feeling: he's worried that we're going insane. After all, on the surface, this situation makes absolutely no sense, and it's hard to see how there could possibly be an explanation that brings things back into the realm of reality.

  "You okay?" Reed asks eventually.

  "Yeah," I reply, even though it's not strictly true. "I'm just kind of dazed by it all."

  "Me too." He pauses. "If you want to drown your sorrows later, we could get a drink and see if we come up with anything. Sometimes a couple of beers can help lubricate the brain and get a few extra ideas flowing."

  "Sure," I say, looking over at the window. "Right now, I feel like I'm going crazy."

  "There's a reasonable explanation," he continues. "Just 'cause we can't see it now, doesn't mean it's not there."