Mind Secrets: A Science Fiction Telepathy Thriller (Perceivers Book 1) (17 page)

Michael deflated. His body sagged onto the bed. The realisation weighed heavy. “Why?”

“It was to protect you,” said Page.

Michael chuckled. How ironic. And not funny at all. “Like that worked.”

“It would’ve. But you ran away before we could put you somewhere safe. It would have been somewhere secret. Away from Cooper.”

The hotel door opened.

Michael stood back from the bed like a child embarrassed at what he’d been doing.

Otis stood in the doorway and surveyed the scene. “Nothing happened while I was away, did it?”

“No, Otis,” said Michael.

“We were just chatting,” said Page.

Otis raised an eyebrow. “Really?” He walked in and threw what he’d bought onto the bed: a collection of chocolate bars and two packets of different painkillers. He pressed two paracetamol and two ibuprofen out of their blister packs and helped Page swallow them down with more water.

“Help yourself to the chocolate,” Otis told the room. “Not exactly healthy, but it’ll give you energy,” he said.

Page reached out for one of the chocolate bars with her uninjured arm and brought it to her mouth, where she ripped at the wrapper with her teeth. Jennifer snatched away another for herself. Michael – suddenly desperately hungry – grabbed the first one he came across that didn’t include nuts. The glue that sealed the edges of the wrapper resisted him for a moment, then gave way and tore down the edge of the chocolate. He took a large bite. Larger than his mouth really had room for. And he chewed. Flavour overwhelmed his mouth, the smooth chocolate melting into a sensual river of sugar and fat and cocoa.

All too soon, he had crammed the last piece into his mouth and screwed up the empty wrapper.

After a few minutes, only Otis was left eating. He looked less hungry than the others. He’d probably helped himself to one of the bars before he got back to the room. Eventually, all eyes were on Otis. He chewed, slowly and silently until the last mouthful of chocolate and toffee had melted.

He looked across at Page. “So,” he said. “Here we are.”

Page shifted her back against the pillow. Michael suspected it wasn’t her position that made her uncomfortable. It was the way Otis was looking at her. He only had to use his expression to emphasise that he was taller, more muscular and stronger than her, especially in her wounded condition.

“I saved you from Cooper,” said Otis. “I patched you up, watered you, fed you. Now I want your end of the bargain. I wanna know about the cure.”

“Okay.” Page sighed. “What do you want to know?”

“How does it work? And don’t give me no skank about injections, ’cos I know they ain’t nothing but a sedative.”

Page took a moment to compose herself. A hint of a smile formed on her lips. “You lot are quite some detectives, aren’t you.”

Otis was not smiling. He shuffled his weight from his right foot to his left foot. It was only a tiny movement, but it was enough to emphasise that he was the one in charge.

Page nodded an acknowledgement that it was time to come clean. “You’re right about the injection. It helps subdue the patient and wipe their short term memory so they don’t know what happened during the procedure. It’s a useful cover story for us, but it’s not the cure. More of a pre-med, you might say.” She smiled again as if she’d made a little joke. No one else in the room was laughing. “Norms can’t perform the cure. It has to be done by perceivers. Two, strong perceivers. That’s why there are so few clinics. There are not many natural-born, adult perceivers. And the strain of performing them … well, you can’t do too many in a short space of time.”

“Do what? What is the cure?”

“It’s kind of difficult to explain.” She paused. Took a breath. “You know when you perceive someone? When you deeply perceive them? You can almost go into their head and feel their mind? Feel that they’re a perceiver – like you did with me?”

“Yeah.” Otis shrugged. “I suppose.”

“We do that with the cure. Except when we feel the perception, we try to contain it. Close it off so the mind can no longer access that part of itself. Like brain surgery without a knife.”

“You don’t destroy it?” said Otis.

“I don’t know if we could,” said Page. “Blocking it off is safer. And seems to be effective.”

Otis looked thoughtful. His hands fell from his hips. He stepped back and leant on the wall. “Could it be reversed?” he said.

“Unblock the mind and allow it to access the ability to perceive again?” said Page. “We think it’s possible. Although, we never tried it.”

Otis pushed himself off from the wall. His eyes suddenly bright, reflecting a mind firing with ideas. “Could you do it for Jennifer?”

Jennifer squashed herself up even further against the wall. “No, Otis …” she said.

“Could you?” said Otis again, approaching the bed.

“There needs to be two of us,” said Page.

“I’m a perceiver,” said Otis. “I can do it.”

“You’ve not even performed a cure before,” said Page. “You can’t just go into someone’s head and perform a procedure. You’ve not had training.”

“Then teach me,” said Otis.

“I don’t think your girlfriend is keen.”

Otis turned towards Jennifer. She looked like a scared little girl. Fragile and vulnerable. “How about it, Jen? You want to perceive again, don’t you?”

“Yes, but …”

He walked towards her and put his arms around her. He pulled her close. Her head rested on his chest. He ran his fingers across her hair. She seemed serene.

“You’re one of us, Jen.” His voice was soft and soothing. Meant just for her, even though in the quiet of the room, Michael could hear every word. “You don’t want to be one of them for the rest of your life, a norm.”

She burrowed her head deeper into the folds of his shirt. “What if it doesn’t work?” she said.

“We have to try. It’s our only hope.”

“What if it damages me?”

“I’ll be with you the whole way,” said Otis. “I won’t let you get hurt.”

“But you don’t know!” She pulled back from him. Her face emerged from his chest and she looked up to face him. “You’ll be experimenting on me!”

“She’s right,” said Page.

Otis glared at her.

“Are you sure you want to experiment on your girlfriend’s mind?” said Page.

A moment of doubt flickered over Otis’s face. A moment for Michael to step in. “Experiment on me,” he said.

“No!” said Page.

Michael turned on her. “Why not? You’ve damaged my mind already. You took away my perception, my memory, my family, my life … You owe me this.”

Almost in desperation, Page looked across at Otis for some kind of backup. But Otis seemed excited by the idea.

“It’s risky, Michael,” said Page.

“I don’t care. If it works on me, you can help Jennifer. If it doesn’t … well, I’ve got nothing to lose, have I?”

Page looked at Otis. “I’ll have to teach you some techniques.”

“Fine.”

“You understand, I’ll be in charge. You’ll have to follow my lead.”

“Whatever, lady. Let’s do it already.”

She turned her attention to Michael again. There was an unspoken question in her expression.
Was he sure? Was he ready?

He nodded a silent reply.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

MICHAEL SAT
cross-legged on the bed facing Page.

“Close your eyes, Michael,” she said softly.

He didn’t want to. He looked across at Otis. He was sitting on the bed, propped up on a pillow next to Page looking as nervous as hell.

“Look straight ahead,” said Page.

Michael did as he was told. His breathing was rapid and unsteady, betraying his unease. He was like a little kid at the head of the queue for the rollercoaster, excited and terrified all at the same time. But she had to know that. She was a perceiver.

“I can’t give you an injection of a sedative, so you’ll have to try to stay calm and still, okay?”

“Okay.”

She looked into his eyes. Deep into his eyes. Like she had done that first time in the clinic, and again in the office. Her green irises with flecks of yellowy brown drew his gaze into her intense, black pupils. As her perception entered his mind.

She lifted the hand from her uninjured left side and touched at his temple. He let out a little gasp at the sensation of unexpectedly cold fingers.

“Relax,” she said. “Breathe slow and deep.”

Michael tried.

“In … and out … in … and out … That’s it. Now, close your eyes.”

Spots of red and blue flashed in the darkness of his own eyelids, then settled to a lonely black. He fought to relax, to unfurl his fingers that had clenched into fists and to breathe slow and deep.

He waited. Alone in the darkness of his own mind, the sound of the room amplified to fill the space. Beyond the forced steadiness of his own breathing was the bare whisper of Page’s breath centimetres from him. The rustling of the bed sheets as Otis shuffled nervously beside her. An occasional drip of a leaky tap echoing through the open bathroom door. The creak of the chair where Jennifer sat, watching what was going on. Whatever was going on.

Something touched inside of him. Somewhere in his head. He breathed in sharply. His fingers clenched.

Page, suddenly closer. The smell of her sweat, the touch of her fingers, the hint of her body heat. Overwhelmed by the sense of her. He felt … he wasn’t sure … her heaviness, a weight on her shoulder. A sharp stab of pain. Her pain. The ache of where a bullet had torn through her flesh was inside of him. More real than any sight or sound or smell. He
perceived
her.

Sensations flowed into his brain. One after another: racing cars whizzing past on a track, a blur of colours.

A wave of anxiety; determined, but uncertain: Otis. He had to be perceiving Otis.

A flash of Jennifer’s timidity.

Barriers being knocked down one by one, allowing him greater and greater access to the minds around him.

Concentration, professionalism, love. Distinctively Page.
Was that really love?

Otis: concern, jealousy, distrust, uncertainty. Big and brash like the man himself.

Jennifer: confusion, fear, anxiety.

All together. Flooding into his mind like rain, like a swollen river.

Something without. Tapping at his old senses. He struggled to clear his head of perception. It was a voice. Female, adult, loud: “Michael? Michael? Are you okay?”

He moved his lips, air passed through them. He tried to say words, but with the cacophony inside his head, he didn’t know if any sound came out.

“You can open your eyes now, Michael.”

His eyelids flickered. Light stung him. Blinded him. One final sensation on top of a room full of emotions pushed him over the edge. He cried out and clutched his head. Everything swimming inside, all together. Concern and fear and pain and love and worry and confusion. He couldn’t distinguish them anymore – even from his own thoughts. A jumble of everyone pressing in on him. Hurting him.

Voices around him.

“Are you all right?”

“Michael?”

“Can you hear me?”

“Did it work?”

“Aarrgghhhh!” His own voice – screaming.

His legs stumbled off the bed. Away from the others. But their emotions got no quieter. His vision: a blur of light and shade. His body hit something hard. The wall. He veered left and struck another wall. He was in the far corner of the room. Trapped with nowhere else to go, the pain of so many sensations crowding in on him.

His legs gave way and he sunk to the floor. Still clutching his aching head. Feeling it about to burst with the thrashing of things that didn’t belong inside of it.

“What have you done to him? What have you done?” Jennifer’s screeching voice.

Michael tried to focus his sight. The one sense he had relied on the most as a norm. Blurred colours coalesced. Jennifer stood by the window with Otis holding her. Page was still on the bed.

“Is this what it’s like?” said Michael through the pain.

“You always were a strong perceiver, Michael,” said Page. “You’ve forgotten how to control it.”

He couldn’t control it.
It
controlled
him
. Helpless on the floor in the corner.

Another presence pushed into his already crowded mind. At the edge of his perception, but strong. Determined and getting closer.

“There’s someone else,” said Michael.

“What?” said Otis.

Or more than one. He wasn’t sure. The bombardment was so intense. Emotions and thoughts hitting him and swirling around inside him like a whole school full of children screaming for attention. And, in the midst, a strident distant presence concentrating on him. Searching for him.

“He wants me,” said Michael in delirium.

The volume of concern from the others increased. They all looked at him: unmoving, unspeaking.

A sound jolted them. The three turned towards the main door. Waves of panic and fear and trepidation crashed through his mind. He cried out with the pain of being made to feel so many things at once.

The sound again. They jolted again. Michael realised it was someone knocking at the door.

Whispered voices. He heard the words, but they were just sounds to his overwhelmed mind. He didn’t even know who was saying them.

“Who is it?”

“Well, I don’t know.”

“Did you order room service?”

“I got chocolate.”

“See who it is, Otis.”

“Perceive who it is, Otis.”

Otis prised himself free of Jennifer’s arms which slipped from around his torso. At the door, he laid his palms flat against the wood and leant forward to rest his forehead.

A click of the lock – and the door moved.

Otis – flung backwards – crashed against the wardrobe.

Three men in suits walked in. Three black silhouettes in formation: a desire for Michael spilling from their heads. So loud, his mind burned from the intensity.

Jennifer screamed. She scrambled towards the window.

Otis staggered back from the silhouettes.

Michael squeezed his eyes, willing the shapes to coalesce into people. And, through the squint, he recognised the face of the first man: Cooper.