Mind Control: A Science Fiction Telepathy Thriller (Perceivers Book 2) (17 page)

Michael put out his hand to rest on the back of Chubby’s chair as his mind put two and two together.

“What’s the Hetherington kid from my bomber inquiry doing in CCTV footage from my radiation poisoning inquiry?” said Patterson.

“I don’t know,” said Chubby. “What I do know is they spent ten minutes under that bridge together, out of the view of any cameras.”

“Are you sure?” said Patterson.

“CCTV shows Hetherington going down to the canal from the pub side and walking under the bridge about half an hour before Elkins shows up. He stays there until just after Elkins leaves. Suggests to me they had a meeting, don’t you think?”

Patterson shook his head. “At this moment, I don’t know what to think.”

But Michael knew. And it scared him.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

SIX O’CLOCK IN
the morning and Michael was the only one in the dining area. It was blissfully quiet, not only in sound, but in perceptions. The others were still in bed, either asleep or dozing, waiting for their six-thirty alarm call.

Breakfast had been left at the far end of the room on two wheeled trolleys with metal racks onto which twenty trays were dressed exactly the same. A bowl of cereal in the nearside right hand corner, a spoon opposite it on the right, a portion of milk in an insulated cup behind the spoon, and a piece of fruit in the final corner. Michael chose a tray with muesli and a banana on it, more out of habit than anything else, placed it on the nearest table and sat down.

James Hetherington filled his mind, as he had done in every waking moment since he had seen the boy’s hazel eyes stare out of that CCTV footage. Which was almost every moment of the sleepless night he had just had.

Hetherington had turned the journalist into a killer, he was sure of it. The cameras hadn’t seen what had gone on under the bridge by the canal, but Michael didn’t need to see a video to know what happened. The boy had used his perception on Oscar Elkins. Perhaps he caught his attention first, by asking something crass, like if he had the time. Then, when the journalist stopped, the boy slipped into his mind and took control. He found a way into his subconscious and planted a series of instructions. They would have been simple:
Slip the poison into Rublev’s tea when he is not looking and make sure he drinks it
.

Perhaps Elkins resisted, knowing somewhere deep down that what he was being asked to do was wrong, but Hetherington would have perceived it. He would have reassured the journalist, maybe told him that the radioactive isotope was really a lump of sugar that would sweeten the tea the way the Russian liked it. And, because Elkins hadn’t expected to be invaded by a perceiver on the day he walked along by the canal, he would have accepted the explanation. Because no one stops a stranger and asks them to poison someone, it’s unthinkable.

The instructions would have sat in a dark corner of Elkins’s mind, like a subroutine in a computer, waiting to be triggered. To anyone looking in from the outside, they would see nothing had changed. They would see a journalist on his way to interview a Russian dissident, like he had interviewed so many other political refugees in London over the years. Until Elkins sat opposite Rublev and a waiter brought them tea, activating the subroutine. The touchpaper was lit and the fuse burned, wiping out all memory as a fire swept through Elkins’s consciousness. It left no trace, other than a memory gap that Elkins couldn’t explain and only another perceiver could see.

Hetherington had pushed him into committing murder, a slow painful murder that ate a man from the inside until he was sent gasping to his death.

Like he had pushed the members of his gang to strip Michael naked, tie him to a chair and leave him to burn.

Hetherington was the power behind Tyler and Bailecki. He had made Bailecki carry explosives to a hotel and kill himself for a cause he didn’t even know. A job, perhaps, that Tyler was originally supposed to do before he was arrested.

Michael looked up from his tray of muesli to see other perceivers had started to come in for breakfast. One of them was Alex. Michael perceived his far-too-awake-for-that-time-of-the-morning cheerfulness before he saw his shape among the other grey-clad teenagers.

“Morning!” said Alex as he passed Michael’s table. “Didn’t your mother tell you not to play with your food?”

Michael looked down at his muesli. There were tracks in the cereal where he’d twirled his spoon around in the bowl subconsciously while thinking about Hetherington.

Alex collected his own tray and brought it over to the table. “Am I early or are the people with the coffee late?”

Michael looked around. Normally, a delegation from the catering corps brought over urns of tea and coffee for the morning meal, as part of an arrangement to keep perceivers out of the mess hall and out of the way of regular soldiers. The corps were uncharacteristically late. Not that Michael cared.

“Can we talk?” he asked Alex.

“Sure!” Alex poured milk over his bowl full of cornflakes.

“Not here.” Michael kept his voice low.

“After breakfast,” said Alex. “Should have five minutes before roll call.”

Michael didn’t respond. He sat impatiently, allowing his emotion to bypass his filters.

Alex perceived him. “You mean
now
?” he said. “Right
now
? Before breakfast
now
?”

“Outside,” said Michael. “Away from the other minds.” He stood.

Alex frowned and allowed his spoon to fall back into his cornflakes. “You’re definitely going to owe me a favour,” he said. He grabbed the orange from his tray and got up from his chair. He paused for a moment, swiped the banana off Michael’s tray, and joined him as he headed for the door.

~

AS MICHAEL AND
Alex were leaving the dining area, Pauline was arriving for breakfast. She looked different with her hair pulled tight away from her face and tied in a scrunched up ball at the back of her head. If it hadn’t been for the familiar perception of her personality, Michael might not have recognised her in the grey uniform that they all wore.

But Pauline was perceiving them too and she could tell something was going on. “Where are you off to?”

“For a walk,” said Michael.

“Can I come?” she said.

“No,” said Michael.

“If you like,” said Alex.

Michael shot Alex a reproachful glance.

“Great!” said Pauline.

Michael would have thought of some appropriate words for Alex to perceive if he didn’t think that Pauline would perceive them too. It wasn’t that he didn’t like her – in fact, he liked Pauline a lot – but he wanted to share his theory with an experienced perceiver.

It was too late, however, and Pauline tagged along as they left Galen House into the haze of the spring morning. Only a month ago, it would have been dark at that time, but now the few street lights that glowed were superfluous in the early daylight, which would have been bright if it wasn’t for the fog which had descended over the camp. It made Michael shiver, and he realised that coming out in a T-shirt hadn’t been the best plan.

The complex was already busy with soldiers going from one building to another on whatever business they were on. The threesome were almost run over by the catering van as it careered round the corner, bringing freshly made coffee and tea to Galen House. Alex let the mournful thought
coffee
slip from his mind as they walked past it. Michael and Pauline chuckled.

After only a minute, they had left the activity behind to enter the quiet of the car park. The army vehicles – jeeps and personnel carriers – sat like khaki standing stones: cold, still and damp in the morning fog. Michael led the way past them to where Hodges always parked his vehicle, pulling out the keys from his pocket as they got near.

“Are we having the meeting in your office?” asked Alex.

“Something like that,” said Michael. He pressed the button on the remote and the car unlocked itself.

“Bagsie sitting in the front!” declared Alex, like an excited five-year-old. He was at the passenger door and opening it before anyone could object. “You two can sit in the back.”

“Oh we can, can we?” said Michael.

Alex grinned. He didn’t let out any thoughts from behind his perception barriers, but he didn’t have to. He was an incorrigible matchmaker.

Pauline shivered as she reached for the door handle. Not because she was uncomfortable about the idea, but because she was cold. She was thinner than the other two and goose pimples had appeared on her bare arms.

“Hodges keeps a blanket in the boot,” said Michael.

He opened the boot and found Hodges kept a lot of stuff in there, including a bottle of spare screen wash, jump leads, a tyre iron and a spare set of clothes. It wasn’t so much a car boot as a cupboard. Michael retrieved the blanket and passed it to Pauline who was now sitting in the back of the car. She wrapped it around her shoulders and draped the ends over her knees, as he got into the seat beside her. He wanted to shuffle up to sit closer and to feel her body warmth next to his, but self-control stopped him.

“As snug as a bug in a rug,” said Alex who was kneeling up in the front passenger seat, facing backwards so he could see their faces. He still held the orange and banana in each hand.

“Who you calling a bug?” said Pauline.

“Michael, obviously,” said Alex, with another one of his grins.

He looked at the two pieces of fruit, turned round for a second to put the banana on the dashboard, then turned back again and dug a thumbnail into the orange peel. A tiny spray of juice spat out to the side and the smell of citrus filled the car. “So,” said Alex. “What’s on that very perceptive mind of yours?”

Now that they were all sitting in the car and the other two were looking at him, Michael wasn’t sure what to say. Alex kept peeling his orange, making Michael feel hungry.

“Did you find out any more about that perceiver who fudged his paperwork at the cure programme?” said Pauline.

“Who’s this?” said Alex, opening the passenger door window just a crack and posting his orange peel through it so it fell to the ground.

“James Hetherington,” said Michael. “Yeah, I did.”

“Well?” said Pauline.

Michael took a moment. He wasn’t quite sure how it say it. Saying it, rather than thinking it, made it somehow more real. “I think he used his perception to kill people.”

He perceived their shock and their scepticism. He would have thought the same if he hadn’t been inside the heads of those Hetherington had manipulated.

“Perception doesn’t kill people,” said Alex.

“Like guns don’t kill people,” said Michael. “It’s what you do with them that makes the difference.”

“Is that what you were talking about before?” said Pauline. “That there’s more to perception than they’re telling us.”

Michael nodded. “I think this kid goes into people’s heads and programs them to commit murder or kill themselves.”

“Why would he do that?” said Pauline.

“He likes the power it gives him,” said Michael. “From what little I was able to perceive I got the impression he loves controlling his little gang. It makes him feel superior.”

“It’s not possible, Mike,” said Alex, separating a segment of orange from the rest of the fruit. “Our power is, like, passive. We sense minds, we don’t control them.” He popped the piece of orange into his mouth and chewed.

“You’ve never heard of anyone using their perception for anything else?” said Michael.

“No,” said Alex. “Have you?”

“Yes, for the cure,” said Michael.

Alex stopped chewing. Pauline continued to watch. Both were intrigued.

“You don’t know how they cure perceivers, do you?” said Michael.

“Of course we do,” said Pauline from under her blanket. “It’s an injection.”

“That’s what they tell people.” Michael looked at both of them, realising neither of them knew the truth. “The injection is a sedative. It helps to stop people resisting the real treatment. Once the person is docile, two other perceivers go inside their mind and cut off that part of the brain which allows perception to happen.”

“No,” said Alex. “Mike, you’re wrong. The cure’s been around for, like, more than two years. If that was the case, we’d know by now.”

“Do you think so?” said Michael. “With everything you know about the army and the intelligence services, do you think they would let out that sort of information? Parents are willing to let their children have an injection if it will make them ‘normal’, but letting someone inside their brain …?”

“Is that what your mother told you?” said Pauline.

She did, but Michael didn’t want to say in front of Alex.

“Okay,” said Alex. “So say that’s true, what’s that got to do with killing people?”

“It means there’s more to perception than they’re telling us,” said Michael. “If you can close off perception by going into someone’s mind, maybe you can do other things too. Things that no one has tried yet, or things that only strong perceivers can do. Most perceivers either get cured before they master their power or they get sent here like us and get trained so they never find out.”

“I still think it’s far-fetched,” said Alex.

Michael sighed. He couldn’t disagree with Alex, it did sound far-fetched. But that’s why he wanted to talk it through with him. “The Hetherington kid was strong. As strong as me. Maybe that’s why he can do things that we never thought of. Maybe he would have been a natural born if his mother hadn’t taken the pill, and maybe the combination of the two allowed his power to be even greater. I don’t know …”

“We should try it out,” said Pauline. “On a norm. See if we can get inside their head and make them do stuff.”

“Kill people?” said Alex in alarm.

“No!” said Pauline. “Something safe. Like, I don’t know, flashing their naked bottom at Sergeant Macaulay.”

“Norm the Norm?” Alex laughed. “I’d love to see his face.”

Michael felt a familiar presence at the edge of his perception. “Hodges,” he said.

“Brilliant idea,” said Alex. “We could get him to do it.”