The Rainbow Maker's Tale (32 page)

Cassie nodded back.

I wasn’t convinced that she was
going to like what I was about to suggest. “I think we need to do
some more experimenting – to try and work out what the limits are
to what you’re able to do – and maybe work out how you’re doing
it.”

She groaned. “Always the
scientist.”

“I’ll take that as a
compliment,” I laughed, trying to lighten her mood. “Think about it
– if we look at
how
your talent works, we might be able to
understand why it’s happening.”

“That’s true,” she agreed. Her
eyes clouded with fear. “So, you don’t think I’m going mad
then?”

Was that what she thought –
that she was mentally ill?
No wonder Cassie hadn’t wanted to
talk to me about what was happening to her.

“In all honesty – if you were
just hearing random voices, then I’d have to say maybe...”

Cassie’s eyes nearly popped out
of her head, and I couldn’t help but laugh, which probably wasn’t
the most reassuring thing to do. I held up my hands to ward off her
anger.

“But, but, but… We know that
you’re hearing what people are
actually
thinking. It’s not
your imagination creating the voices, but something real –
something that would seem almost impossible – but it’s
happening.”

Apparently Cassie accepted
this, as the anger emptied from her face. “So, what now?” she
asked.

“We review the facts…”

“OK.”

“From what you’ve told me, I’d
agree with you that it sounds like when you’re unconscious –
normally that would mean asleep, but obviously yesterday was an
exception – that you’re picking up on people’s thoughts, maybe even
their
dreams and seeing them in your own.

“Other than that, the only time
you’ve ever heard anyone was when you were both using an
auto-discourse headset, which might mean that the headset is
tapping in to the same brain functions that are triggered when
you’re unconscious.”

“Except today,” she reminded
me. “I think I heard the Medic when you were leaving Medical
Records today – it was all a jumble, but I’m sure it was him. Then
there was the woman when I was coming here this afternoon.”

“So…that could mean whatever is
causing it is getting stronger, or your ability is getting more
powerful.” It seemed like a good suggestion, before I realised that
the improvement wasn’t consistent. “You’ve not heard anything from
me whilst we’ve been here?”

“Not a peep,” she
confirmed.

“Then maybe there’s something
else – another common factor?”

“Perhaps,” she sighed, “but I
can’t imagine what. And I still have the feeling that the woman
this afternoon was expecting something from me when I heard her
thoughts. As though she could hear me instead of the other way
around.”

I sighed myself. “I’d forgotten
that part.” There was so much to consider, I needed time to pull
things together. Right now, my thoughts had no order or sense to
them.

“No – it couldn’t be!”

Cassie bolted upright beside
me. The sudden movement made me jump, and I turned to look at her
in surprise.

“You said before about my
dreams being people’s thoughts, maybe even snippets of what they
were actually doing…?”

“Yes – ” I began, but stopped
when she rolled away from me. I dragged my fringe away from my
eyes, to look at her properly. The sudden change – from resignation
to fearful babbling – was bizarre. “Are you OK? You seem upset –
did I say something wrong?”

“No,” she replied through tight
lips, “it’s not you – it’s Ami – I’ve got to go.”

“Ami? What does Ami have to do
with anything?”

* * *

Knock-knock.

The sound was faint, compared
to the drumming of water on my head, although it was enough to
interrupt my re-living the events of the afternoon. I expected it
would be Mother, as Father had been essentially non-existent over
the last few weeks.

A disgruntled huff escaped my
lungs, as I turned off the water. It was not a welcome intrusion.
Pulling a dry towel from the rack I ruffled it over my hair to take
care of the biggest drips, before dragging it across my face and
shoulders, securing it around my waist. When I reached out to open
the door, I noticed two long bruises running across my chest, a
nice yellow-green colour. They were from when I’d hit the ground
when Cassie fell, not painful, but Mother would not miss them. I
rolled a second towel around my shoulders and let it hang down,
covering the worst of the marks.

Perfect.

Releasing the lock on the
bathroom door, it
swooshed
open, to reveal Mother – as
expected – standing on the other side.

“Hi,” I said, stepping out of
the steamy room, avoiding eye contact with her. I had hoped for a
quick exit to my room, but that was obviously not going to
happen.

“Hello, Balik. Have you been
here long?”

I shrugged. “Maybe twenty
minutes.”

“I just ran into Cassie outside
the apartment. She was looking for you.”

“Cassie?” I repeated, managing
to sound like I didn’t actually know who Mother was talking
about.

“She seemed a bit upset, maybe,
flustered…”

I looked up to find curious
eyes trained on my face. As if she expected this information might
mean something to me. Unfortunately, it didn’t – although it did
worry me, and I wondered if it might be connected to Cassie’s
abrupt disappearance from the park. “Oh,” I said finally, hoping it
would be an adequate response.

Mother narrowed her eyes, ever
so slightly. She looked like she was straining to hear someone
whispering. A moment later, her facial muscles relaxed into her
normal, bland expression.

I began walking towards my
bedroom. I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but Mother’s
behaviour was even stranger than usual. An eerie sense of de ja vu
washed through me, as if I should understand more about her
reaction, but couldn’t quite put it in context.

“Did you go to the engineering
sector to look at the placement details today?” she asked.

I didn’t turn back when I
replied. “No, I forgot that was today. I’ll go to the next
one.”

Taking a step towards me,
Mother appeared at my arm, half blocking my path. She never
normally came that close – seeming keen to keep a physical distance
between us, as far as possible. But now, her full attention was
turned on me like a spotlight.

“You seem to be forgetting a
lot of things lately. Yesterday you left your bag at The Clinic,
and had to go back. Now this as well, are you feeling OK?”

As she spoke, it was not in her
normal, subdued tone; instead it ratcheted higher with each
word.

Was it concern…?

It had to be, I told myself.
Then, I remembered another time I’d heard someone’s voice get
similarly shrill. That hadn’t been concern…it had been fear.
Cassie’s voice took on a similar higher cadence when she was
scared.

I watched Mother for a few
seconds. Her eyes were staring right back at me, as she waited for
an answer. “Yes, I’m fine, thank you.” I nodded firmly, reinforcing
my words. “I went to the park with Cassie when we finished – I just
didn’t think about the placement visit. It gets busy learning all
these new things at The Clinic each day – it’s quite different to
school.”

Mother smiled slightly, the
focus of her eyes changing as she looked at me, as though my words
meant something more than they did. The expression sent a shiver
rippling down my spine.

Had Mother ever looked at me
that way before?

At that, Mother turned away and
began walking in the direction of the main living area, although,
she did offer some further words as she went. I wasn’t sure if they
were supposed to be encouraging, because she sounded
dismissive.

“You do not need to worry too
much about what you learn at The Clinic, you probably won’t use
most of it anyway.”

“Won’t use it?” I repeated. My
face compressed around the question in a confused frown.

Mother’s head swung up, her
eyes drawing back to me. She looked surprised, as though she hadn’t
meant to say what she had, or perhaps that she hadn’t meant it…

“I – er – just – obviously you
will
use it – I just meant, you will not need it all at
once. There will be time for you to keep training after the
placement.” Mother’s head twitched minutely as she stammered out a
response. The twitch was something I had never seen her do before,
and I had certainly never, ever heard her stammer. This was not
right.

“Oh,” was all I could say,
because my mind was already racing.

What was wrong with Mother, her
behaviour was so different?

Or was I changing? Heightened
sensory function was a likely side-effect from the gene therapy I
had administered…could it be making me more aware than normal?

Yesterday I had guessed that
the therapy might have sped up my reaction time when Cassie fell.
From hearing a small cracking noise and feeling a slight movement
beneath my feet I had already been responding: working out what
connected the two things and reaching for Cassie before I was truly
conscious of what was happening. Was it just adrenaline heightening
my senses, or was it something more permanent…?

“Are you going to speak to
Cassie?” Mother asked.

Her question startled me from
the confused jumble of thoughts that had invaded my brain.

“Speak to her?”

“Yes. Cassie asked me to tell
you to call her, she should be home by now – and she seemed keen to
talk to you, she called on the viewing screen a few minutes after I
had seen her here.”

I could have kicked myself.
Cassie must have called at the apartment whilst I was in the
shower. Piecing together Cassie’s strange disappearance from the
park, with Mother describing her as upset, and her apparent desire
to speak with me… A nervous tremor ran through my stomach. None of
that sounded good.

“Yes,” I replied. “Yes I am.
I’ll call her now.” I was already heading to my bedroom.

I pulled on a clean day-suit,
whilst trying not to panic about what might cause Cassie to behave
so oddly. As I rolled the sleeves down over my arms, I realised
that if there was something seriously wrong with Cassie, it might
begin to flag up on the monitoring systems. Maybe it was connected
with the adjustments I’d made to her supplement…?

No. I shook my head, convincing
myself it wouldn’t work
that
quickly…

Dragging my portable screen
from my bag, I ran my fingers across the keys and began logging in
to the, now familiar, database. Within seconds I was looking at
Cassie’s profile for that afternoon. It didn’t look good.

On entering Park 42, she had
shown slightly elevated pulse rate and some low-level agitation –
not enough to hit the escalation point. Just. But, as she left the
park, the scanner showed a huge increase in heart rate and tension.
She was also moving at high speed, which had earned a mark in the
review
column. I tapped in some new instructions and her
data returned to the normal level. I was about to scroll forwards,
to see if she had passed any other markers between the park and the
Green Zone, when something caught my eye.

At the bottom of the screen,
Cassie’s scan results from her walk to the park showed a red mark
in a column that was normally empty. Swiping the pointer to it, I
tapped once to open the link. It took me to a new page – one filled
with a large, single rotating image. I stared for a moment,
watching the blue curved lines moving on the black screen, before
realising what it was: a brain scan.

The first set of scan images
was completely normal. Green, red and yellow spots showed specific
areas of activity in the brain at the time of the scan. I guessed
that some would have been managing physical activity, such as
controlling Cassie’s legs and body as she walked. Another area,
which looked like it might be the amygdala, was active at the time.
I struggled to recall what that was connected with, but I thought
it might be emotional memory.

When the image rotated further
to show the frontal lobes, everything went from normal to
extraordinary. Two bright points, shone white on the screen,
emanating from the frontal lobes. Thin, white threads beneath them
showed a neural pathway connecting the two points with the temporal
lobe, which also glowed white. This in itself was unique, but the
thing that really caught my attention were the wispy, shimmering
trails of light, which connected to the frontal lobes, but were
stretching outside the scan area…they were linking to something
outside the brain.

Whatever was happening to
Cassie – giving her these new powers –
this
was the
evidence. The fact that the scan appeared in a column, which
directed immediate investigation, suggested that there was
something seriously amiss. And that someone, somewhere, was
monitoring us for this very thing.

I closed that screen and moved
through Cassie’s data, looking for something more. Two pages back,
I found it. Another red dot – which I clicked – and a near
duplicate scan image, although the white areas were considerably
less bright on this one.

The time stamp was today. My
blood froze. It was when we had been in the records suite, and
Cassie had heard my thoughts. I raced back to the day before, when
we had been in Park 42, but found nothing.

Perhaps we had been too far
from the scanner to register?

I scrolled forwards now,
finding the first scan I’d looked at. The time stamp for the scan
this afternoon, was about ten minutes before Cassie had met me in
the park.

Could it have been when she saw
the woman she had told me about?

I was nodding to myself,
agreeing with the likelihood of that guess, when I saw that new
data was available on Cassie’s profile. It must have downloaded in
the last minute or so, as I looked at the scans. It was the last
hour of scans reported across the Family Quarter.