Telepath (Hive Mind Book 1) (12 page)

Forge had recovered from
the initial shock now, and was panicking about how knowing the telepath would affect
his chances. He’d lost Shanna, and desperately wanted this job to give him a new
focus in life. Had he only got this far because the telepath was his friend?

“You got this on pure
merit,” I said. “I knew nothing about it until I discovered you were on Adika’s
list of preferred candidates for his Alpha team.”

Forge blinked, startled to
have his unspoken question answered. “The others are still bound to think …”

“They don’t know we met on
Teen Level,” I cut into his words. “No one knows, not even Adika, and we don’t
have to tell them.”

“That would be wonderful,”
he said. “I don’t want …”

“I can see it all in your
head,” I interrupted him again. “No need to spell it out to me. Any hint of favouritism,
or special treatment, could mess up your chances of getting selected as a
deputy team leader. Adika won’t want a deputy who can’t cope without having his
hand held by the telepath.”

Forge gave a gasp of laughter.

“You’d better get out of
here now,” I said. “If we spend too long on this, Adika will get nosy about the
reason.”

There was the sound of a
chair moving again. “Thanks, Amber. You’re being great about this.”

I followed his thoughts as
he went out of the room, and saw his sudden shock as he remembered something.

… selection criteria
include appearance. Does Amber …? Am I supposed to …?

There was a wordless blank
for a second, and then he was reassuring himself.

Amber never showed
the slightest interest in me except as a friend who likes the same sports as
her. She dated Atticus for a while, and he’s dark-haired and …

I’d known that Forge had
only been interested in Shanna on Teen Level. I hadn’t expected him to be
attracted to me now, I didn’t want him to be attracted to me now, but it was
still a slap in the face to see his distaste at the idea of sleeping with me. I
gave myself a moment to pull myself together, and then tapped the table
controls. “Please send Eli in.”

Another dark-haired young
man hurried into the room, his eyes widening as he saw me. I took one look at
his thoughts and smiled.

“Yes, I look just like an ordinary
girl, Eli. No strangely coloured eyes.”

He choked and looked at me
in horror.

I laughed. “Don’t worry.
I’m not going to hold that thought against you. I’m finding it hard to shake
off my own ideas about nosies.”

Eli gave me an engaging
smile. “This is all so strange. I can’t believe Lottery hit me with this.”

I smiled back at him. “How
do you think I feel?”

Kaden came next. His
parents worked in Law Enforcement too, and would be thrilled if he got a post
in a Telepath Unit. He was already daydreaming about impressing Adika, and
winning one of the two deputy Strike team leader positions.

Rothan was much calmer
than the others. He had ambitions, but was conscious that the wellbeing of the
Hive was more important than his personal wishes.

Matias came last. He had
the same problem as Forge, his mind shadowed by thoughts of the girl he’d cared
for on Teen Level. He’d always known that Sofia’s incredible painting talent
would make her Level 1. He’d dreaded Lottery, expecting it to assign him to his
home zone weightlifting team. That would give him a profession he’d love but
end his relationship with Sofia by creating a barrier of 9 levels between them.

Their Lottery results
turned out to be even more cruel than that. Sofia was a Level 1 Mural Painter
as expected. Matias was Level 1 as well, but assigned to Law Enforcement. The
barrier between them now wasn’t about levels but about secrecy. Law Enforcement
staff knew things that must be kept secret from the rest of the Hive, so they weren’t
allowed to enter into relationships with ordinary citizens.

I saw Matias’s last memory
of Sofia. Her straight black hair was nearly waist length. There was a smudge
of green paint on her cheek. She’d thrown her arms round his neck, and …

I pulled sharply away from
that intimate memory, disentangled myself from Matias’s personal pain, sent him
out of the room, and tapped the table. “Adika, please come in.”

Adika arrived a moment later,
and gave me an enquiring look.

“Those five are cleared,”
I said. “I’m tempted to get the rest of your team in as well. I keep picking up
from Lucas that it’s important we get our unit operational as quickly as
possible. The sooner you can start your training sessions the better.”

You never argue with the
telepath, except when you think something might harm her ability to serve the
Hive. Adika folded his arms stubbornly. “You mustn’t do too much today. The
rest of the interviews can start at nine o’clock tomorrow.”

I groaned and gave in. I
was feeling unnatural wearing such formal clothes, so I headed back to my
bedroom, changed into an outfit that was a more adult version of the tunics and
leggings I’d worn on Teen Level, and then grimaced at myself in the mirror.

I’d seen no sign that Forge
was a borderline telepath, and my obsession with him made even less sense now I’d
discovered the trigger was purely visual. I wondered if I should discuss this
with Lucas after all, then remembered I’d promised Forge not to tell anyone
that I’d known him on Teen Level.

Why had I said that? Was it
the old compulsion to do whatever would please Forge? I didn’t think so. I’d
just seen his thoughts panicking about the effect on his future career, and had
a natural urge to reassure him the same way I’d want to reassure any friend. Whatever
weirdness was going on here, I was totally in control of it. I just needed to
close my eyes, look at Forge’s mind instead of his face, and the spell was
broken. I found it easier to focus on the telepathic view of the world with my
eyes closed anyway, so there was really no problem at all.

That night I had the dream
again. We walked through the trees and Forge was pleased with me. I was a good
girl.

I huddled in a ball. Eyes closed,
back against the rough bark of a tree, soft prickles of grass beneath me. Five
armed men stood tensely round me, but my mind was reaching out past them, past
the small, soft thoughts of birds, mice and squirrels, following one particular
mind. It was concentrating on running and hiding.

“Down corridor, turning
left, still running,” I said.

I could hear Adika’s voice
coming from the crystal unit that fitted snugly in my ear. I could see the
world through the eyes of my target.

“He’s just reached a crossway
with a main corridor. He’s planning to ride the belt.”

Adika’s voice barked instructions
to the Chase team in response.

“He’s on the belt now. He’s
planning to jump. Jumping up now. He’s caught a ladder. Arms hurt. Nearly fell.
Climbing up ladder now.”

“Visual on target!” said Forge’s
voice.

“Visual confirmed!” said
Adika. “Chase team are in position. Strike time!”

This was the danger point
where the Strike team moved in to capture my target. A cornered wild bee might
fight back, so I had to change focus from reporting my target’s movements to
protecting my Strike team.

I dumped my mental link to
the target, opened my eyes, and looked at the display hovering above the dataview
in my right hand. Glowing dots and names marked the position of Adika and the
twenty Strike team members on a spider network of corridors and levels. Tapping
any one of those glowing dots would display the view from the camera extension
of their crystal unit. That feature was vital for others, but I never bothered
with it. Why depend on cameras when I could enter someone’s thoughts and see
the view through their eyes?

“Going circuit,” I said.

I hit the circuit button
on my dataview. The list of the five names of my current Bodyguard team
appeared on the left of the display, while the sixteen names of Adika and the
Chase team started scrolling up the right side. The names of the Chase team
were currently highlighted in one of red, blue, or green, since Adika had them
divided into three groups to approach the target from different directions.

I ignored the Bodyguard
team list entirely, since I knew those men were safely next to me. I ignored
the coloured highlights on the Chase team list too. I didn’t care what group a
man was in, just whether he was in trouble and needed help.

I chanted each name on the
Chase team aloud as I checked the man’s mind, tapping the display to send it
back down to the bottom of the list as I moved on to the next. “Adika, Matias, Tobias,
Rafael, Kaden, Eli …”

I broke off as pain
stabbed my left arm. “Eli’s hurt!”

“Eli here. I’m fine. Fell
off a girder,” said an embarrassed voice.

“Caleb, Dhiren …” I worked
my way through the rest of the minds. “Circuit complete.” I started again.
“Adika, Matias, Tobias …”

“Target down,” said Adika.

I completed my circuit,
then quit checking minds and relaxed.

“Nice run,” said Adika.
“Eli, what happened with the girder? Are you hurt?”

“A few bruises. A slight
scratch.” Eli sighed. “I assumed there’d be the standard gap between girders,
but two were further apart. I swung and didn’t make it.”

“Never assume things,”
said Adika. “Regroup at the park now. Our volunteer target for the next
training run is Keith’s Strike team leader, so be ready for absolutely
anything.”

We gathered together in
the park. The Strike team members made a garish group. They’d all been issued
with functional outfits in unobtrusive colours, designed to help them blend in
with the crowds in any zone or level of the Hive, but half of them were still wearing
old training outfits in the colours of different teen sports teams.

Eli’s slight scratch
turned out to be a sizeable gash in his arm. Adika got out the medical kit and
patched him up. This was our sixth day of training exercises, and half of the
Strike team were looking battered.

“Matias, you were out of
position at the end,” said Adika. “You need to move faster. More gym time.”

“I’m working at it,”
grumbled Matias. “I expected Lottery to assign me to the Purple Zone
weightlifting team. If I’d known it was going to throw this at me, I’d have
done more running training.”

I laughed. Most of the
Strike team would have expected to be assigned to one or other of their home zone
sports teams, but their Lottery results couldn’t have shocked them more than
mine had shocked me.

“Other than that, it was a
good run,” said Adika. “Coming together nicely.”

The Strike team members
started chatting now, with Kaden, Rothan, Matias, Eli, and Forge dominating the
conversation as usual. Everyone was well aware that these were the five men imprinted
for Strike team leader. Whenever Adika split the Strike team into groups, he’d
choose his group leaders from among those five. Whenever he had a difficult
task to be done, he’d choose one of them to do it. He was grabbing every chance
to test them with varied challenges, to see which of them would be his best
choice to fill his two deputy positions.

“You have to be careful of
those savage girders, Eli,” said Forge.

Eli tugged down his
sleeve. “You need to watch those savage walls as well.” He pointed a finger in
the direction of the spectacular bruise on Forge’s forehead, but misjudged his
distance and poked it.

“Ow!” yelped Forge.

Forge’s cry of protest
made me make the mistake of turning my head and looking straight at him. Seeing
his expression of pain, I reacted furiously, screaming at Eli. “You hurt him, waste
you!”

There’d been several discussions
going on between Strike team members, but they abruptly stopped. Startled faces
looked at me. Adika’s face was deadpan, but his thoughts were frantically speculating.

… how will our clown
of a Tactical Commander react if Amber chooses Forge instead of …

I moved on from Adika’s
thoughts into Forge’s head, and found him cursing.

… never going to
take me seriously as a potential deputy if Amber protects me like a helpless baby!

I’d upset Forge! I hastily
tried to cover my error. “Why can’t you fools remember I feel your pain when I
check your heads? Waste it, that’s why I’m running circuits, to find out if
you’re in trouble. Being hit by a score of different aches and pains isn’t funny,
and if you start deliberately hurting each other then I’m going to quit.
Understand?”

“Sorry,” said Eli. “I
meant to point, not prod.”

“All right,” I said, “but please
be careful. I had exactly the same thing happen yesterday, when I was in Dhiren’s
head and Matias patted him on his dislocated shoulder.”

“Sorry,” said Matias.

I checked a few minds.
They’d all accepted this wasn’t about Forge, but about me being overloaded by
pain. Adika was yelling at himself for pushing me too hard in the training
sessions, wondering if …

“Target ready,” said a
voice from my ear crystal.

“You’re too tired for
this, Amber, so we’ll finish now,” said Adika.

“No,” I said. “You’ve
brought Keith’s Strike team leader over especially for this, so we’ll carry on.
I’m just pointing out that you may all be tough and impervious to pain, but I’m
not, so stop making it worse for me.”

I’d got them all convinced
now, so I quit whining and sent my mind out. It was easy spotting a target in this
isolated part of the Hive. I’d no idea how I’d manage when we moved somewhere
packed full of people.

… kill people. I’m
going to kill people in a horribly gory fashion and spread lots of blood around.
Waste it, I feel stupid thinking all this stuff. Blood, blood, blood. Death.
Blood …

“Target acquired. It’s a
woman. About six corridors out. Thataway!” I pointed.

“Eli, you’re in charge of
Bodyguard team,” said Adika. “Chase team divides into four groups now. Rothan
take red group, Matias take blue, Forge take green, and Kaden take yellow.”

The names on my dataview
shuffled around and changed colour as Adika spoke. Eli and four other men
clustered round me as my bodyguards, while the rest gathered into four groups
and headed out on chase duty.

“Target is heading
directly away from us,” I said. “She’s found an express strip. I see numbers.
I’ve got a position. She’s on … No, she isn’t. She’s picturing a sign that
isn’t really there, lying in her head to try to fool me.”

“I told you to be prepared
for anything.” Adika sounded amused. “You’re dealing with an experienced Strike
team leader.”

“Trying to work out what’s
real and what’s lies. She’s circling round us. She’s in the vent system, about eight
corridors out. No, make that more like six cors. She’s circling anticlockwise.
I’m feeling a cold wind.”

“She’s close to an air conditioning
unit then,” Adika muttered to himself. “There are four possible ones in our
area. Any more clues, Amber?”

“She’s lower than us.
Three, maybe four levels. Still in the vent system. Still circling anticlockwise.”

“Only one possible air conditioning
unit matches that height. She can’t crawl too fast, so we’ve got speed over her.”
Adika started barking instructions, getting his net of Strike team members into
position.

“She’s gone up at least
one level,” I reported.

“Still in the vents?”
asked Adika.

“Yes, it’s cramped in
there.”

“She can’t go up a level
in the vent system unless … Got her position!” Adika snapped out more instructions.

“Opening a vent cover. Coming
out. Ouch, cut a finger. Turning right and running down corridor. Riding belt. Jumping.
Climbing a maintenance ladder.” I gabbled. “She’s level with us now and still
climbing. She’s thinking about me.”

“She isn’t going for the
dolls,” shouted Adika. “She’s going for Amber. Bodyguard!”

Five handsome young men
pressed up against me, protecting me with their bodies. If this had been a real
threat, I’d have been scared to death, but in training it was rather fun.

I wondered how I’d feel if
Forge was among the bodyguards piled against me. I hadn’t been in that situation
yet, I hadn’t even had Forge carrying me, because he was never assigned to Bodyguard
team. I’d been worried that was because Adika had guessed something was going
on between me and Forge, until I caught Adika thinking about physical fitness
levels. He kept assigning Forge to Chase team duties because he was one of the
fittest men on the Strike team.

I’d been relieved by that.
I didn’t need the complications of Adika interfering in this. There was the
hideous possibility of him ordering Forge to be … friendly … to me. Forge wouldn’t
like that. I was almost sure I wouldn’t like it either. When I looked at the
world with my telepathic view, I was fascinated by Lucas’s glowing mind, while
Forge’s thoughts were no more appealing than the rest of the Strike team.

As a telepath, it all
seemed very simple, but when I looked with ordinary human eyes everything
abruptly reversed. Lucas was attractive, the Strike team were all handsome men,
but one glimpse of Forge’s face drew me like a magnet. I was in control of the situation,
of course I was, but …

I realized I’d let myself
be distracted at a key moment in a chase. Stupid, stupid, stupid! I concentrated
on my target mind again, and found it somewhere totally unexpected. “She’s
right above us now, coming through the ceiling!”

“Strike time!” shouted
Adika. “Anyone in range, get her now!”

“Going circuit. Adika, Forge,
Dhiren, Caleb, Rafael …” I was hearing shouting voices that weren’t coming from
my ear crystal. I looked up and saw a tangle of bodies landing in the branches
of a dwarf oak just ahead of me.

“Target down,” said Adika.

I stopped chanting, and
watched Strike team members scramble out of the tree and release the target. The
startlingly tall, blonde woman dusted off a few stray leaves.

“I got far too close,
Adika. You mustn’t let a target get anywhere near that close to your telepath.”

“More practice, more gym
time,” said Adika grimly.

I felt horribly guilty. Adika
was embarrassed and angry, and my whole Strike team were upset and blaming
themselves, but I knew this was my fault. My team depended totally on the information
I gave them, and I’d let my mind drift off into thoughts of Forge.

Adika was looking past me
now, frowning at something. I turned to see what he was looking at, and saw
blood pouring down Forge’s face.

“Forge, that’s a nasty
looking injury,” said Adika. “You’d better go to the medical area and get it
treated. In fact, you’d all better go there. We’ll be heading into more populated
parts of the Hive soon. A mob of young men together is unusual enough, without
them all having visible cuts and bruises as well. Medical will issue you each with
special antiseptic makeup to match your skin tones, so you can make yourselves
look respectable.”

The Strike team headed off
in a depressed group, and Adika started talking to Keith’s Strike team leader.
I slunk off to my apartment, and sat there brooding on what had happened. Today
had just been a training run, but when we were doing this for real … A single
lapse of concentration by Keith had led to the death of Megan’s husband. If I
let myself get distracted, then one of my Strike team could be the next to die.