Mindlink (10 page)

The violence of the king’s outburst rippled through
One
. The Redhead’s comment after being beaten took on
monumental significance—everyone wanted someone to push around.

She meant
have
power
over
. As the king had demonstrated in his unkindness
toward the queen. As the Telhada exercised over the lower classes and as the
lower classes exercised over the Mora Tuwa. Even to the point of harming them
for sport or stripping them of their lives just because they could. Alhedis’s
hierarchy had existed long before his birth and he’d never questioned it.

Until now.

“Take him to be recycled. I am finished with him,” the king
said, with a curt slice of his hand.

Security surrounded
One
. A chill
washed through him. Perhaps the king already knew about the behavioral problems
in the Security Division. Perhaps encouraged them. The guards were not normal
citizens and clearly did not exercise any control over their baser impulses.
That alone shattered One’s worldview into unrecoverable pieces. Little else
would surprise him.

Two Security workers grabbed his arms. He tugged free and
willingly turned his back on the king and the court for the last time. He wasn’t
afraid to die, but he no longer believed his death served a purpose. Neither did
the death of
Four
, which Security had informed him
already occurred. Everything a ruler did should serve a purpose and an abuse of
power was not an acceptable one.

One
marched with the Security
workers to the lift and held his head high as they prodded him onto a barge.

One’s
entire life had been lived in
black and white and he’d always looked at the world through that lens. Only
after making the acquaintance of someone from another world, someone emotional
and vibrant, with a view of her own existence contrary to everything he
believed, had he discovered the shade of gray. A shadowy world between
absolutes. A place with more questions than answers, but one thing was
clear.

Gray meant alternatives. Choices. The king had denied him the
power of choice while simultaneously planting the desire for it.

His first choice was to live.

The second was to find a new purpose, a purpose he chose—to
expose the king as the opposite of the benevolent leader he’d brainwashed
citizens into accepting as truth. The imbalances
One
had witnessed in the cellblock, the unusual guards and
UBA’s
cryptic role all indicated a system-wide deterioration more
grievous than he’d envisioned and it could not be allowed to continue
unconstrained. The Telhada had transformed
One
from
a loyal citizen eager to belong into an enemy.

The fragile yet resilient redhead—indeed, all of the Mora
Tuwa—came to this planet because of his faulty list and he’d sentenced them to
death, just like
Four
. Purposeless death ended here.
No one else must be allowed to perish because of his mistakes.

He alone held the full responsibility of saving them, of saving
her, and his third choice was to do so.

A thrill coursed through him and he allowed it. Choices held
power. He reveled in the newly discovered ability to chart his own destiny.

The barge slid to a stop and hovered. The whoosh of its
propulsion system reduced in volume as the steps protracted to the ground.
Security prodded
One
down the stairs and through the
sliding doors of the Penal System pyramid.
One
studied the entrance as he passed through, calculating and contemplating The
Redhead’s escape ideas from last night.

The Acquisitions building restricted admission, allowing only
Acquisitions staff and members of the Telhada’s entourage. The Telhada did not
have implants, requiring them to travel with a citizen anytime they entered the
lower city. The Security quadrant didn’t operate the same as his quadrant, as
he’d discovered last night, and differences could be exploited. He just had to
discover how.

At the Penal System processing center, the workers blinded him,
which he’d expected, and stripped him of his clothing, which he had not. During
his previous incarceration, the guards had allowed him to retain his uniform,
and the oddity of being stripped of clothing highlighted the arbitrary and
mercurial class division further.

He became of the same ilk as the Mora Tuwa.

He’d been taught his entire life the Mora Tuwa occupied an
evolutionary rung far beneath citizens of the Telhada due to genetic weaknesses.
They practiced no civility and murdered each other for sport. Waged war over
differences in skin color. They matched animals in intelligence and morality.
Yet the Telhada had an unholy fascination with Mora Tuwa science and theology,
driving citizens to document and study all aspects of Earth culture alongside
the search for answers to the fuel crisis.

The chill of the hallway seeped down deep, to his bones. Strict
enviro control moderated the temperature in all quadrants except this one, but
he hadn’t noticed before since he’d retained clothing.

He shivered. The
shush
-
shush
of his thighs brushing together grated across
his nerve endings. The lower city perpetuated the distinct lack of sensation and
the combination of cold and nakedness overloaded his senses.

Adrift and alone, he staved off the tingles along his spine by
focusing on The Redhead. A citizen did not fall apart in the middle of a
challenge.

The workers led him through the halls and then paused. With
hands to his back, they shoved and he tumbled to the ground. The containment
frequency hurled through his head. He rolled until he hit the back wall and lay
there, dazed.

Eerie quiet blanketed this section of the penal facility.
Either they’d taken everyone to recycling already or the workers had quartered
him in a different area than last night. He passed the time strategizing and
praying he’d regain his vision quickly. The eye of the king roamed everywhere,
as the High Priest had warned.

There was no one he could trust.

When two workers returned sometime later, his eyesight
functioned at full capacity and his senses hummed with an extraordinary, but
welcome, alertness. He followed the workers docilely, lest he give them a reason
to incapacitate him. The bright white of the walls and floor stung his eyes, but
he blinked it away and memorized the pathways they walked, measuring and
assessing every nuance of the Penal system.

As they passed a separate cellblock, two more workers emerged,
leading a group of prisoners toward the recycling chamber. In the middle of the
formation—easily identifiable because of her short stature and long hair—was The
Redhead.

His throat clamped and no amount of swallowing eased it. He
rationalized the visceral reaction as relief over locating her. Her hair swung
as she walked, catching the light. So vibrant. The Redhead was tiny, yet her
presence filled the hallway.

The groups converged. Their gazes crashed and her eyes widened.
The two workers at the head spoke in low tones while the two in the back—he
glanced behind him to verify—monitored the prisoners on their handhelds.

A handheld could emit a frequency to cripple a prisoner’s legs.
Or blind them. Or kill them instantly by locking onto the prisoner’s unique ID.
Implants had access to every bodily function controlled by the brain. He had one
chance to overpower the workers and take all four handhelds, before the
prisoners were dumped in the chamber and euthanized.

The panel to the recycling center flipped noiselessly at the
end of the hall, yawning in wait. When the workers drew close enough to the
chamber,
One
planned to shove them inside and seal
it, giving him a chance to help the others escape.

The Redhead walked a few step ahead of him, favoring her left
leg in an odd one-two hop, but with her head held high. She weaved closer, so
close he heard her breathing. They weren’t separated this time and her proximity
washed over him with physical force.

Dark bruises peeked out from between limp strands of hair, an
ugly contrast to the fairness of her skin. A hot flash traveled through his
lower abdomen, culminating in an odd sort of tightening in lower regions and a
strong urge to shield her, to step ahead and keep all harm from ever reaching
her. He ripped his gaze away from the lean lines of her back.

She turned her head and said over her shoulder, “I thought
they’d cooked you already.”

Obviously not, but something compelled him to draw closer and
respond. “No.”

The workers at the head of the group approached the panel. As
he flexed to fly into action, The Redhead leaned in and her long, shiny hair
brushed across his chest. “By the way, my name is Ashley.”

Her breath warmed his skin and as her arm casually slid along
his, his lower abdomen panged sharply. “I am still planning to help you,” he
said brusquely in an attempt to reorient. It didn’t work.

Her face relaxed with relief and hope. Mesmerizing. She didn’t
even try to control it. Every emotion her brain processed appeared in her
expression.

She nodded. Then her injured leg buckled and she tripped.

His hands shot out, but she was so small, he had to bend almost
in half to catch her. As she regained her balance, she turned her head swiftly.
Too swiftly. She stared straight into his eyes from a distance of less than ten
centimeters.

Panicked, he jerked his head backward and snapped his eyelids
shut.

It was too late.

Blinding pain crashed through his skull as his implant linked
with The Redhead’s.

Chapter Six

Images exploded in Ashley’s head. Images and crushing
agony. She tore out of the grip of the naked and uncomfortably well-built alien
with deep, not-so-alien hazel eyes.

The onslaught of black-and-white pictures continued, like a
movie run amuck. Strange plants and a moving sidewalk. A middle-aged man with a
King Tut-style headdress reclining in a heavy chair and a scary guy in wizard
robes standing next to him. Her, in the cell, lying on the floor. Then lifting
her head to reveal dark streams of blood pouring out of her nose and mouth.

Geez, she looked terrible in black-and-white. Boring and normal
without her famous red hair. Sam stood stock-still in the hallway, eyes shut.
The rear guards prodded him and he took drunken steps.

“By the Ancestors, I never dreamed—” He broke off with a heavy
exhale and opened his eyes. “What color is your hair?”

“Uh, red? Hence me being a redhead,” she said under her breath,
and almost fell to her knees as pain sliced through her head anew. What was with
the meat cleaver to the forehead all of a sudden?

“Your images are amazing. Can you understand me?” he whispered,
and stopped walking. The guards almost plowed into him.

The guard spit out a command in the aliens’ consonant-heavy
language. No interpretation needed. He wanted them to keep moving toward the
chamber.

“Of course I can,” she whispered and took a step. “You’re
speaking English, aren’t you?”

“No, through the implant,” Sam said. “We are linked.”

She couldn’t make her feet move. “Linked? What’s that
mean?”

Your
images
are
amazing
, he’d said. He must be seeing her thoughts.
And she was seeing his. That’s why they’d been in black-and-white—Sam was
colorblind. He must be seeing hers in color.

Without waiting for his answer, she took a tiny step to appease
the guard. “Is it permanent? Turn it off, right this minute, and then tell me
how you’re planning to help get me out of here.”

This was a thousand times worse than the little room with only
a machine to sift through her mind. At least then she hadn’t known the aliens
could see her memories. But now, allowing someone of a complete different
species to frolic through her shame and humiliation was far too intimate. Sam
could talk and ask questions and pass judgment. Sweat and chills popped up
simultaneously. Some things were best forgotten.

The color orange burst into her mind. She swept it away and
swallowed back the sickening tide in her throat. She could
not
be mind-linked with an alien.

He shook his head. “We must use the link to our advantage.” An
image of her with her mouth closed flew into her mind. Needles pricked her from
the inside out, like a trapped porcupine Ping-Pong ball in her skull.

“How am I supposed to do that when I can’t think over the
migraine you’re giving me?” she returned, and ground both palms into her
temples. “What do you mean use it?”

Another image bloomed of her hitting the guard, with an
uppercut to the chin. Had she done that when the guards attacked her in the
cell? She didn’t remember it, plus the surroundings were different.

Different surroundings. Because the action in the image took
place in
this
hall. Sam had pushed the picture
through the link, as a plan or an idea. Dr. Glasses had said the device was
supposed to be used for communication.

The guards reached the panel, and the entire group stopped as
the first guard tapped on his cell-phone thing.

They could communicate without the guards knowing.

How handy. Whoever invented the octopus had really been on to
something. If she ever met the guy, she’d shoot him in the head so he could see
how it felt. Why did it have to hurt so much?

In less than thirty seconds, Ashley and Sam worked out the
entire plan with a barrage of back-and-forth images. Sam—with some help from the
evil octopus—was going to save them. She wasn’t going to die. The others weren’t
going to die, and she almost stuck her tongue out at them for being so negative
and mean.

After a silent count of three, Ashley hobbled in a circle and
kicked one of the rear guards in the groin with her good leg. With an angry
hiss, he went down, hands clutching his alien package with both hands.

She pounced on his tappy thing before he recovered. A solid
toss put it well out of the incapacitated alien’s reach. She shoved hair out of
her face and took stock.

Sam wrestled with the other rear guard. The two guards at the
front were tapping away already. Not cool. Freddy put two-and-two together more
quickly than the others and jumped on one of the guards.

He was the first prisoner to be knocked unconscious. Or
killed...

She didn’t have time to check his crumpled form and bit the
inside of her cheek to steady herself.

“Stop them,” Sam shouted and Ashley expected Sid or Dr. Glasses
to leap toward one of the guards. But neither of them moved, only stared at
Freddy, limp on the ground. Idiots.

She shouldered past Natalie at a lopsided run and dove at the
second guard. Sam wrestled the tappy thing away from his guard and she saw him
throw an off-kilter punch through the link. Where had he learned how to fight?
Sesame Street?

Knifing pain, accompanied by Sam’s random images, distracted
her and her knee twisted, throwing her off balance. Her fist connected with the
alien’s thigh instead of his face.

She hurtled forward in an adrenaline-induced roll and bowled
over the guard instead. The guard’s head hit the ground with a
crunch
.

Payback. He might not have been the guard who’d roughed her up
earlier, but the two looked enough alike for her satisfaction.

Ignoring the sore and abused places all over her body, she got
to her feet. Natalie clung to the back of the second guard, biting any flesh
that came close enough to her mouth. He flung her off and whirled. Ashley jumped
on him, then Natalie followed.

Both frenzied women were too much and he teetered to the
ground. Ashley tightened her grip and kneed him in the ribs. He jerked his head
back to smash her forehead. Pinpricks of light and pain exploded in her already
sore head. She lost hold of the guard.

Sam appeared out of nowhere and twisted the guard into a
headlock. Clearly he’d learned how to fight faster than she’d given him credit
for. At the same time, he pushed the image of Ashley taking the guard’s tappy
thing.

With the last of her energy, she sprang for it and peeled his
fingers from the device, one by one. Too slow. In the time it took to pry them
off, the guard zapped Natalie.

Ashley threw the tappy thing against the wall, but it bounced
instead of shattering. Figured.

“Pick it up and do as I show you,” Sam instructed calmly, his
arm locked around the guard’s head while the guy clawed at him. “It is already
activated so you may use it without authorization.”

She followed his link-transmitted instructions and tapped on
the screen until symbols appeared, then, with glee, watched the guards pass out,
one after the other, as she keyed the sequences Sam patiently fed her.

“You’re a handy fellow to have around,” she told him and handed
off the alien magic wand. “Can you show us the way out?”

Dr. Glasses had somehow been tappy-thing-zapped as well as
Freddy and Natalie, but she’d missed it in the mayhem. Where was Sid?

There. Huddled halfway down the hall, well out of harm’s way,
arms covering his head. Scrubbing a hand over her face, she thought long and
hard about leaving him there, but he was only human, so she’d cut him some
slack.

“We have to go. More workers are on their way,” Sam said as he
looked at the borrowed tappy thing in his hand. He wedged it under his arm and
hauled Freddy to his feet as if he weighed nothing. “You take the female,” he
said to Ashley and to Sid, he asked, “Can you handle the big one?”

Sid stared at him blankly. Finally, he rose from his fetal
position against the wall and tugged on Dr. Glasses. He didn’t budge.

Ashley struggled to drag Natalie and almost pitched over on top
of her limp form. What she wouldn’t give for a bottle of Jägermeister and row of
highball glasses—her knee hurt so badly, it might take four or five shots to
numb it. God, how had Ashley V ended up in the middle of this nightmare?

She bent low and lightly slapped Natalie’s cheeks. “Wake up.
You have to help me.”

Over her shoulder, she called to Sam, “Isn’t there a Sleeping
Beauty icon? Anything to get them to snap out of it?”

“No. The implant causes temporary neural disruption and the
synapses must reengage naturally. This way.” Sam turned away from the recycling
room.

Ashley looped Natalie’s arm, which was the consistency of a wet
noodle, around her neck and pushed with her gluts. Miraculously, Natalie came up
with her. Hanz would be thrilled the hundred squats he made her do every day and
twice on Sundays had paid off. She hurried after Sam as quickly as she could
while dragging a comatose woman who must eat lead in the morning.

“Wait.” Sid’s weak voice floated after them. “I don’t think I
can do this.”

“Then you will die and consign the other to the same,” Sam said
without stopping.

Should she try to help? While she didn’t care overly much for
Dr. Glasses, the aliens wouldn’t hesitate to kill him.
They
didn’t deserve to win even that one victory. “Sam, isn’t there
anything we can do?”

He paused but didn’t turn around. An image of a floating
stretcher popped into her head.

“Am I supposed to know what that is?” she mumbled through the
searing pain accompanying the image.

“It’s a transport used for medical emergencies,” Sam said. “It
should be housed in the medical center. We have no time to search for it.”

Ashley glared at Sid. “You heard him. We don’t have time for
this. Try again.”

The Russian bent down and heaved but it was no use. Even she
could see that.

Sam’s forehead tightened. He lowered Freddy to the floor and
consulted the stolen device. Then he glanced up and met Ashley’s eyes. “We must
find the medical center then, though we risk recapture.”

Was it worth it to save a bunch of whiners who’d been less than
impressed with her presence? She sighed. No one was famous on alien-world. “I’m
willing to take that risk.”

Sam tapped several times on the screen. Two panels flipped
midway down the hall. “Put the unconscious ones inside that empty storage unit
and wait there while I retrieve the transport.” He took the other tappy things
from the guards and gave two to Ashley and one to Sid. “We must be quick and
silent.”

How was she supposed to carry something else? She stuck one
under each of Natalie’s arms and pressed them against her sides to hold them in
place. It would have to do. She pulled Natalie into the small room, and once Sam
had settled Freddy, she dashed back into the hall to help with Dr. Glasses. It
took all three of them to drag him into the room. Sam halted at the doorway and
looked at the tappy thing again.

She peered around Sam’s biceps at the map he’d called up on the
screen. He glanced at her. “Wait here.”

“You’re going the wrong way,” she called after him as he strode
to the left.

A clear image of her with her mouth closed blasted painfully
into her head at the same time he whirled. “Lower your voice. You disagree with
my direction?”

“Yeah, the map shows the medical center is the other way. Pull
it up. I’ll show you.”

One eye narrowed, but he humored her. She pointed to their
current location on the screen and then traced a finger to the flashing medical
symbol she recognized from earlier. “Look, you have to go this way and then loop
around to here.”

“You are correct,” he acknowledged and she almost fainted. A
man had actually admitted to being wrong, and that she was right, all in the
same sentence. Er, an alien, not a man, though his gender was certainly not in
question. Her cheeks flushed hot for God knew what reason.

“Can you find us some clothes along with the transport?” she
asked. The quicker Sam covered up, the better. Not for any sense of
modesty—she’d seen lots of naked men before—she just didn’t like how twitchy
this one made her.

With a difficult-to-decipher expression on his face, he said,
“Yes. It is a prudent suggestion.”

He started to leave. No way would she call out again after the
first scolding. With a glance at Sid, she grabbed Sam’s hand.

His gaze zeroed in on hers, and for a charged moment, the
connection stole her breath. Heat erupted between them, thawing her skin,
spearing through her insides. He felt the exact opposite of cold and reptilian.
She dropped his hand.

“Wait.” She stepped out into the hall.

His gaze roamed over her face and she wondered what he was
thinking, how to read him. He was so still. A wax figure had more life. He never
made stray movements or shifted from foot to foot like she did when forced to
wait.

The image of her black eyes appeared in her head again along
with flashes of her bruised body, and around the needling pinpricks, she sensed
his pity. Right, she didn’t have to guess what he thought. “Make this link thing
stop. I don’t want you in my head.”

“The only way to break the link is to render you unconscious or
to fall asleep. I need you awake,” he said.

She clenched her fists. No, unconscious was not an option, but
something had to be. “How does it work? Can you go in and look around or do I
have to think about something for you to see it?”

“We have little time for this either.”

“Then talk fast. This is scary enough without the added fun of
this thing.” She poked her temple.

“I have not been trained to search your memories. You must
project for me to see your thoughts.”