Telepath (Hive Mind Book 1) (14 page)

“Fran, you’re fired.”

She took a step towards
me. “Freak!” she yelled. “Ugly mutant freak!”

Adika was between us in an
instant. He grabbed Fran’s arm with one of his hands, covered her mouth with
the other, and dragged her off.

I watched them go, then
buried my face in my hands for a moment. I’d thought that Fran shifting her disapproval
from me to Lucas was a sign she was learning to accept me. I’d been horribly
wrong. She daren’t openly show her hostility towards me, so when she realized I
cared for Lucas, she’d made him the target of her hatred instead.

When I lifted my head
again, I saw Lucas frowning at me. “You didn’t know Fran felt like this?”

“The one time I read Fran,
she hated it,” I said. “I’d loathed nosies myself as a child, so I understood that
and instantly pulled out of her head. I didn’t know her feelings were this
strong.”

Adika handed Fran over to
the Strike team, and came jogging back to join us. “Fran is being escorted out
of the unit.”

“I know this is my fault,”
I said. “I should have read Fran properly, realized her hatred of telepaths was
at an uncontrollable level, and rejected her. I messed up.”

“Yes, you messed up, Amber,”
said Lucas savagely. “You let someone into your unit who wasn’t just a problem,
but a potential danger to you. How could you have been so stupid?”

“Lucas!” Megan shrieked
his name.

I was busy reading Lucas’s
thoughts not hers, but I could see them in her appalled face. You never criticize
the telepath. You definitely don’t tell her she’s stupid. I’d fired Fran, and
now I’d fire Lucas as well, and that would be terrible for the unit and the
Hive.

The stress of the situation
must have been having an odd effect on me, because I shocked everyone,
including myself, by laughing. “Calm down, Megan. Lucas is saying those things
because he cares about me. He’s scaring himself to death right now, picturing
what could have happened if I’d been alone with Fran when she lost her temper, imagining
her stabbing me and him finding my bloodstained corpse.”

I paused. “Yes, I was
stupid, but you were all stupid too. I have to check every member of my unit, not
just to see if I’m comfortable with them, but to make sure they aren’t a personal
threat. Why didn’t you tell me that at the start?”

Megan shook her head.
“Because it isn’t true. Nosy patrols are deliberately set up to be frightening,
with the nosy appearing inhuman behind their mask. Most people in Law Enforcement
will have gone into Lottery with a mild dislike of nosies, but that dislike
vanishes once they’re imprinted with the facts about nosy patrols being fake,
and true telepaths being rare and vital to the Hive. Lottery would never
imprint someone with a serious hatred of nosies for any post in Law Enforcement,
let alone a post in a Telepath Unit.”

“Fran came out of Lottery twenty-five
years ago with Sapphire,” said Lucas. “She must have gained her prejudices
since then.”

His mind finally stopped visualizing
my bloodstained corpse. “If Fran’s imprint covers Telepath Unit Liaison team
leader, why wasn’t she given a post in a Telepath Unit years ago?”

“Good question,” said
Adika. “If Fran was imprinted for team leader, it meant she was one of the most
able Liaison candidates. She should have automatically been given a post as
team member, just the same way that I automatically included everyone imprinted
for Strike Team leader in my preferred candidates for Alpha team.”

Megan moistened her lips
before speaking. “Fran was one of the preferred candidates for Sapphire’s Liaison
team, but Sapphire rejected her. I didn’t think that was a black mark against Fran.
Sapphire’s notoriously choosy about the people she has in her unit, and rejects
lots of candidates.”

“Fran had to wait twenty-five
years to get her second chance at a Telepath Unit posting,” said Lucas. “She’s
spent all that time hating Sapphire for rejecting her, and that’s extended to
hating all true telepaths.”

“It never occurred to me
that someone could put their own grievance ahead of the needs of the Hive,”
said Megan miserably. “If Fran had a personal issue with telepaths, then she
shouldn’t have accepted this posting.”

“Fran’s very ambitious,”
said Lucas. “She wouldn’t want to give up the prestige of a post as team leader
in a Telepath Unit.”

Megan groaned. “This is my
fault. I recruited her. I resign.”

I felt like I was drowning
in guilt. I’d been given perfectly simple instructions and chosen not to follow
them. Now I was watching Megan tear herself apart, seeing the horror in her
mind that she’d made a mistake that put a true telepath at risk. She’d lost
Dean, all she had to cling to in life now was her work, but she was going to
give that up and leave because of my mistake.

“Not you,” said Lucas.
“Me. Any competent Tactical Commander would have recognized that Fran wasn’t
just reserved and formal, but fighting to contain her hatred of telepaths.”

Chaos, Lucas was blaming
himself now and planning to leave as well. I’d have Adika resigning too if I
didn’t do something quickly. “Oh, shut up!” I yelled at them. “Nobody is
resigning, and that’s an order!”

They all looked at me in
stunned silence.

“I misled you all by
letting you think I’d read Fran properly,” I continued. “You naturally assumed I’d
have mentioned any rabid hatred of telepaths. If I’d read Fran’s thoughts
properly, or even told you the little I’d seen, she’d have been replaced on her
first day.”

I turned to Megan. “This
was totally my mistake, Megan. I need your help to sort this out.”

Megan gave a helpless
gesture with her hands. “What? Yes?”

“I’ve fired Fran. Tactical
team is operational. Strike team is in final training phase. We can’t handle operational
runs without Liaison. What’s our best option for replacing Fran?”

Megan ran her fingers
through her hair, wrecking her elegant hairstyle. “We either bring in an
alternate candidate, or we promote her deputy. Nicole is imprinted for Liaison
team leader position. She only had a year’s experience at team member level
before coming here, but she had very high assessment scores.”

I hadn’t had much contact
with the Liaison staff apart from the initial interviews. I vaguely remembered Nicole.
A girl with long, red, flyaway hair and an anxious expression, who used a
powered chair to travel round the unit. “Can we make Nicole temporary team
leader, see how that works?”

“That’s the best solution,”
said Lucas. “We can’t delay going operational while we look for a new Liaison
team leader. The current health of the Hive mind means our unit is urgently
needed.”

I was alarmed by that
sentence. “What do you mean, Lucas?”

“Things have been difficult
for the last few years since Claire died,” he said. “Only four true telepaths. Morton
has physical limitations because of his age, Mira finds emergency runs
stressful, and Keith has his own particular issues, so Sapphire has been left carrying
far more than her share of the load. She’s held the line bravely, kept the Hive
functioning, but she’s gradually losing ground. Any telepath needs a full day
of rest after an emergency run or the casualty rate among the Strike team
soars.”

He pulled a face. “The problem
is that too many areas with warning signs aren’t being checked before their
wild bees hatch. That means the number of emergency runs is increasing. In
turn, that means even less time to check areas with warning signs, but once our
unit is operational it will swing the balance back in our favour. We’ll make
progress with check runs again, and the situation will rapidly become more
stable.”

I delved into Lucas’s mind,
and was even more alarmed by the thoughts behind the words. I’d always been
aware of his sense of urgency about getting the unit operational, but I’d never
caught him thinking through the specific reasons for that.

Now he’d laid out
everything neatly in his head for me to see. The numbers and patterns of
incidents, the grim current statistics, and the logical future projections that
were terrifying every Telepath Unit Tactical team.

The simple truth was that
four true telepaths weren’t enough. The Hive was heading out of control, moving
steadily towards the point where the incidents were too many to cover up, the
nosies were unmasked as fakes, and we descended into anarchy. The Hive needed
me to help stop that happening. It needed me right now.

I pulled out of Lucas’s head,
and tried to rally my panicking thoughts. The Hive needed me to get out there
and chase wild bees, and I didn’t even know if I was capable of it. I forced
away that doubt. I was capable of it. I had to be.

I tried to look calmly
confident as I nodded at Lucas. “We’ll make Nicole temporary team leader then.”

The meeting ended. Adika
went off to inflict more suffering on the Strike team, and Megan and Lucas
exchanged glances. Lucas seemed to lose, because he wandered off, leaving Megan
looking at me anxiously.

“Amber,” she said. “You
mustn’t be upset by what Fran said.”

“I’m not,” I lied. Fran’s
comment about mutants had struck deep, because I’d always thought of telepaths
as frightening, inhuman creatures. I had to forget about Fran’s words. Forget
about the hatred and disgust in her face that was mirrored by part of my own
mind. My Hive was in deep trouble and needed my help.

I was still deeply asleep at six
the next morning, when a warbling sound filled my bedroom and dragged me awake.

“Unit emergency alert,”
said a calm, computerized voice. “Unit emergency alert. We have an incident in
progress. Operational teams to stations. Strike team to lift 2.”

Emergency alert? I sat up,
gasping in shock. What was happening? Were Adika and Lucas throwing a special
training run at us? I reached out past the thoughts of the other people in the
unit, to find one familiar mind with glittering express thoughts.

Waste it, this was a real emergency!
I rolled out of the sleep field, pulled on my mesh body armour first, then threw
clothes on over the top of it. At the last minute, I remembered to put my
crystal unit in my ear before sprinting for my front door.

Outside my apartment, I saw
people running at top speed, heading for either their work stations or the
lift. Mostly the lift, since the Strike team’s apartments were clustered protectively
around mine.

I was the last to arrive
at the lift. Adika started it moving the second I was inside. I gasped as I felt
it dropping at higher than even express speed. The lift was rated to hold up to
sixty people, but it seemed crowded with tense Strike team members.

“Strike team is moving,” Adika
said, his words echoing from my ear crystal.

“Tactical ready,” the
voice of Lucas responded from the Tactical office.

“Liaison team ready,” came
a shaky, female voice. That was Nicole, speaking from Liaison’s operations
room. She must be even more shocked than me. Last night, she’d been told Fran
had gone and she was acting team leader. Now she’d been dragged out of bed by
an emergency alert.

Adika’s voice prompted her.
“Tracking active, Nicole?”

“Tracking status green for
all Strike team,” she said.

I remembered I was next on
the checklist, and fumbled for my dataview. The glowing dots of the Strike team
were packed tightly together, since we were all in the same lift. I tapped my
circuit button and checked the scrolling lists of names. Chase and Bodyguard assignments
were still set from our last training run.

“Tracking green here too,”
I said.

The checklist completed, Lucas’s
voice started briefing us. “This is not a drill. I repeat: this is not a drill.
We have a major incident in progress. Sapphire and her Strike team can’t take
it, because they’re already committed following a target. Keith and Morton both
had emergency runs yesterday, so their units are in mandatory recovery time. Mira’s
unit had a bad run two days ago that ended with Strike team injuries, and Mira
is still very distressed. That means we’re up.”

Lucas sounded reassuringly
calm, as if he’d done this dozens of times before. Of course he had, though as
deputy rather than Tactical Commander.

“Incident location is
480/1877 Level 54,” he said. “You can expect one target. Evidence suggests male
and armed with a knife. There are two reported stab victims.”

Adika glanced round at the
Strike team. “Half of you look like you’ve been in a fight. Cover up those
bruises before people see us. We’re supposed to prevent panic, not cause it.”

Several of the Strike team
urgently dabbed makeup on bruises and cuts. Those who’d already remembered their
makeup, or had no visible injuries, watched smugly.

“And why has everyone got crystal
units on visual?” added Adika. “You may be used to seeing people wearing
cameras at the side of their heads, but the rest of the Hive aren’t.”

Smug looks vanished as
everyone, me included, hastily switched their ear crystals to audio only. The
camera extensions folded themselves neatly back into the crystal units,
becoming virtually invisible.

“Changing to belt system,”
Adika said, as the lift doors opened. He led the charge to the express strip. “Setting
assignments now. Kaden is in charge of Bodyguard team. I’m taking red group,
Rothan takes blue, Matias takes green, Forge takes yellow.”

I glanced at my dataview,
and saw the Chase and Bodyguard lists had changed to match the new assignments.
I had the standard five bodyguards, who went into formation; three ahead of me,
two behind. There were four men in each of the Chase team groups.

Any lift we used would be automatically
set to priority usage, not stopping to pick up anyone else, but we had to share
the belt system with everyone else in the Hive. Bewildered early morning travellers
stared at us. We were in casual clothes, bruises were no longer visible and
weapons were hidden, but a group of so many heavily muscled men was still an
odd sight.

We rode the belt for
perhaps ten minutes before Lucas started talking again. “The first stab victim is
a boy aged sixteen with severe but non-fatal injuries. The second stab victim
is a woman aged forty-eight with minor injuries. We believe that the
sixteen-year-old boy was the original focus of the attack. Our target then ran
from the scene, stabbing the woman who was blocking his way. We estimate our
target’s age at sixteen or seventeen. Previous warning signs in this area had
only been strength two. This is a sudden, violent escalation to strength five.
The escalation has probably been triggered by a personal event, such as a relationship
crisis.”

Lucas paused for a moment.
“Your destination is a small shopping area. The corridors north and east are residential.
There’s a park to the west, and a hospital one cor south. Medical and hasties
are already at the scene.”

Nicole spoke, her voice
calmer now. “Liaison is securing the shopping area and the park. The hospital
is in lockdown. We’re issuing local area announcements advising people to stay
in their apartments due to a coolant leak.”

“Jump belt,” said Adika.
“Crystal units to visual.”

We all followed him off
the belt and adjusted our ear crystals. The camera extensions unfolded at the
right side of our faces.

“Visual links green for
all Strike team,” said Nicole.

“Strike team is approaching
scene via upway from Level 55,” said Adika.

We were going past a
notice board with a red border flashing. There was a group of hasties there,
but they moved aside to let us through, their eyes turning to me in open curiosity.
I was a lone, slightly built girl, conspicuous among the Strike team. What were
they thinking about me?

I caught myself reaching out
to check their minds, and gave myself a mental slap. I had to focus on doing my
job. The Strike team swept me onto the upway with them. I caught a glimpse of
another flashing red announcement about a coolant leak as the moving stairway
carried us upwards. We went past the blank walls of the maintenance interlevel
between Level 55 and Level 54, and then shops appeared around us. We’d arrived.

I stepped off the stairway
with the Strike team clustered around me. This was the first time I’d ever seen
a totally deserted shopping area. I was reminded of the emptiness of Hive Futura.
There was a row of lifts immediately to my left. In front of them, an abandoned
bag lay forlornly, its contents scattered across the ground and its handle
trailing through a patch of red liquid. Blood!

I felt a sick lurch of
panic. Despite everything I’d been told, everything I’d seen in the minds of my
unit members, part of me had still been clinging to my old belief that the Hive
was a safe and secure world, patrolled by the hasties and the nosies who made
sure that nothing bad ever happened. The sight of the blood made me finally let
go of that reassuring fantasy. The grey-clad nosies weren’t real. There were
only five true telepaths. Right here and now, there was only me.

People had already been
stabbed, and their attacker was riding the upway or the lifts right now. I had
to find him before anyone else was hurt.

I closed my eyes to avoid
the distractions of visual images, and reached out to the minds around us,
sifting through them. The familiar ones of the Strike team, wound up with
tension at their first emergency run. Adika thinking over his first impressions
of Lucas in action as a Tactical Commander, and grudgingly admitting the clown
might actually be good at his job. Anxious hasties shaken by the unaccustomed
sight of blood.

I reached further out to the
minds of relaxed people in apartments. So many, many minds. I could feel myself
shaking with panic. I had no idea what I was doing. I’d never touched a genuine
target mind. I didn’t know how I’d recognize one.

Arms were round me,
lifting me and carrying me bodily. I ignored them. The standard procedure was for
the Strike team to place their telepath in the most easily guarded location
possible. I was on the floor now, with what felt like a wall behind me. I was
still seeing perfectly normal minds. Someone was in the shower. Someone was
eating breakfast. Someone was …

… hiding in the
dark, panting, frightened …

“About four cors north,” I
said.

Adika’s voice was giving directions
to the Chase team. They were moving out, while the Bodyguard team stayed with
me, but I felt something was wrong.

“I’m not sure I’ve got the
… It’s not the target, it’s a victim. A girl. She’s hiding. She’s afraid of someone.
She’s afraid of her brother. Her mother left to work early shift as usual, then
her brother arrived at the apartment. He was acting oddly. He hit her. She’s
hiding in a cupboard. I think she’s been there some time.”

“He must have gone to the
apartment before he came to the shopping area,” said Lucas.

“Chase team, pull back,”
ordered Adika.

“Can you get a name for
the girl, Amber?” asked Lucas.

“She’s very young. She’s
alone in the apartment. Her father doesn’t live there. Why do people never
think of their own name? No, wait, she’s remembering her brother yelling it at
her. Jade. The girl’s name is Jade.”

“All right, Amber, try
searching for the target again,” said Lucas.

I left the frightened girl
and searched again. I was searching for one mind among a hundred million. One
mind that didn’t seem right.

“Girl identified as Jade 2524-1873-966,”
said Nicole. “Target is Callum, Jade’s brother, aged sixteen. We’ve found a
report of an argument last week between Callum and the stabbed boy, Samuel. Apparently
Samuel had started dating Callum’s ex-girlfriend, Willow. We’ve dispatched Security
teams to guard both Jade and Willow.”

“Locate and guard any
close family members of both Willow and Samuel as well,” said Lucas. “Callum must
have either chased or lured Samuel to that shopping area. He’ll probably head
back to Teen Level to find Willow now, but if he can’t get to her then he may
go for a secondary target.”

“Getting my team on that
now,” said Nicole.

My questing thoughts found
a mind that was a different colour, a different brightness, a different texture
from the ones around it. I touched it, felt the heady mix of fury and delight,
and lifted my red and sticky hand to let my nose savour the rich tang of Samuel’s
blood.

Samuel got what he
deserved for stealing my …

I was deep in the target
mind, but I remembered my training sessions and managed to keep speaking. “Target
located. He’s five cors east, waiting for a lift.”

The lift doors opened. I
hurried inside, leaned my back against the coolness of the metal walls, and felt
the muscles of my face stretch into a triumphant smile.

“Target is inside the lift
and heading up.”

“Probable destination is
Willow’s room on Teen Level,” said Lucas. “Is she guarded yet?”

“She’s not in her room!”
The voice of Nicole was shrill with alarm. “Her dataview’s there, but she isn’t.”

I was being carried, but I
was still concentrating on that sharp, feral mind. There was the sensation of being
in a lift, both in real life and through the mental link.

“Target’s lift doors are
opening,” I said.

… the blue of hasties’
uniforms. Back in the lift! Get back in the lift! Go home to Level 100. Hide.

“Callum saw the hasties,
he’s back in the lift, going down to Level 100.”

“Excellent!” Adika’s voice
rejoiced. I felt the breath of the word against my face. He must be carrying me
himself.

“There’s only one
maintenance team in that area of Level 100,” said Nicole. “Pulling them out
now.” A pause. “They’re in a lift, heading up. You should have a clear run.”

… stay calm, stay
calm. The hasties must have been going to Samuel’s room. There wasn’t a nosy
near the lift, so they can’t know I was there or that I’m going home.

“Callum keeps thinking
about going home to Level 100,” I reported. “That makes no sense. Callum is
sixteen, so he must live on Teen Level.”

“He’s got a hiding place
on Level 100,” said Lucas. “A nest. He’s used it often. Be careful when you reach
Level 100, because he’ll know the area really well.”

“He’s still going down in
the lift. He’s not sure whether the hasties were looking for him or not. Better
play safe and hide.” I gave the running commentary on my target’s thoughts, as I
felt myself being passed from one set of arms to another.

“Bodyguard team stay in the
lift with Amber,” said Adika. “Chase team be ready to move.”

“Callum’s out of the lift
now,” I said. “Running north down a corridor. Going past a network of pipes.” Part
of me felt our own lift stop. Part of me was with the target. “He’s undoing a
plate on the wall. He’s on the same level as us, and five cors east, one north,
past the pipes. He’s in a tube now. A big tube, curved under his knees, small
enough he has to crawl rather than walk. There’s a fan on the left, a very big
fan.”

“Is that a fan, Amber, or
blades?” asked Adika.

“He didn’t look at it
directly. He didn’t think about it. Could be either.”

“I think he’s in the waste
system,” said Adika. “Still level with us?”