Mind Secrets: A Science Fiction Telepathy Thriller (Perceivers Book 1) (25 page)

Michael stepped backwards and sat slowly on the bed. The springs, made for a smaller person than him, gave way under his weight. “Sit down.”

“Michael, don’t you want to see?”

“In a minute.”

She paused. “Okay.”

She sat.

“Are you okay?” said Michael.

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Because of what Cooper did to you.”

He perceived the pain she was trying to hide from him. She averted her eyes.

“Look at me.”

She kept her eyes fixed on the patch of duvet that lay between them.

“Please.” His fingers touched her soft chin and eased her face back towards him. “I was worried about you. Are you sure you’re all right?”

“Of course!” A false smile. It hid the sadness in her expression, but Michael perceived her repressed emotion building inside of her.

“Let me see.” He looked into her eyes.

“No, Michael.”

“I’ll be gentle,” he whispered.

He looked into her. Like she once did to him, so long ago. Beyond the surface of her face, past the iris and into the pupil of her eyes. He opened his perception and took in everything that was her. He felt the same fear she felt. Understood her vulnerability. Saw what it was like to be a perceiver stripped of her perception: lost in a world where sight, sound, smell and touch were pale senses. The teenager she once was, was only a memory. She was like a child again, protected against the world in the comfort of her childhood home, with a mother to look after her and a toy giraffe to cuddle at night.

Michael pulled back. He didn’t want to probe deeper. He didn’t need to. All her feelings were just under the surface.

“Did you …?” Tears were welling in her eyes again. “Were you perceiving me just then?”

“Yes.”

The tears fell slowly from her cheeks. “It’s weird.”

“What is?”

“I couldn’t feel you at all.”

“You don’t mind, do you?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“I only did it because I’m worried about you.”

“I’m fine. I said I’m fine.”

“You came back home. I didn’t ever think you would do that.”

“I only left because they wanted me to have the cure,” said Jennifer. “After … well, after what happened, there wasn’t any reason to stay away anymore.”

“Your mum seems nice,” said Michael, trying to be more cheery.

Jennifer rolled her eyes. “Yeah.”

“And your dad …”

“At work. He’s nice too. It’s like they’re walking on eggshells, though. Don’t want to do or say the wrong thing. It’s driving Janey mad.”

“Janey?”

“My sister.”

“Oh.”

“She’s at school.”

“I see.”

There was so much Michael wanted to say to her, but he didn’t have the words. “Have you seen Otis?” he said, eventually.

“A couple of times,” she said. “He’s in London, so it’s difficult.”

Michael nodded. His eye caught the bright colours of the webpage on the computer screen. “You said there was something you wanted to show me?”

“Yes!” Jennifer got off the bed, her mood suddenly brighter, and went to the computer. “We’ve been arranging protests at cure clinics.”

“I saw the news report – that was you?”

She nodded with pride. With a click, the screen displayed a page listing all of the cure clinic protests. There were more than Michael expected. About ten over the past couple of weeks. In Manchester, London, Liverpool, Guildford, Belfast and others, where clinics had to be closed for a day or where people were arrested.

“I thought the government kept shutting down your websites,” said Michael.

“We’ve got a computer whizz who’s a perceiver. He keeps the site one step ahead of the authorities.”

“Jennifer …?” he asked.

“Yes?” Her eyes still bright with enthusiasm that poured, unrestrained, out of her. If she saw his doubtful expression, she didn’t register it. After a lifetime of perception, she probably didn’t know how to read the signs.

“On the news,” said Michael, “the report I saw … it was – well, it wasn’t very favourable. Teenagers throwing bottles and attacking doctors.”

“We’re making a stand, Michael. At last. We’re showing them we’re not going to lie down and take it.”

“The news report made perceivers look like terrorists. Like the quicker they round us all up and cure us, the better.”

“They’re taking away what we are, Michael! Can’t you see?” Tears formed in her eyes again. Tears of anger and frustration. “We have to stop them. Whatever way we can.”

In the tense silence that followed, Jennifer’s mother called from downstairs. “Jennifer? Are you all right up there?”

“Yeah!” she shouted back.

“I’ve made some tea, why don’t you come down?”

“In a minute,” shouted Jennifer.

“Okay, but don’t let it get cold.”

Michael felt the edge of her anger subside. The red of her cheeks faded and her breath returned to its normal steady rhythm.

“If you’re going to win this war, you need to convince people,” he said. “Not just other perceivers, but adults. I know you want to fight back, but violence will turn people against you.”

Jennifer threw her arms up in the air in despair and flopped down on the bed. Her volatile emotions turned to regret. “It wasn’t my idea to hurt the doctors. I wanted our protest to be loud, to make a fuss, not to be violent. But a lot of the kids are angry.”

Michael sat beside her. He took her hand and cradled it in his own. Her skin was soft, it felt nice to touch her. “I understand,” he said.

“I haven’t told you about Monday!” She was suddenly excited again.

“Monday?”

“Yes! We’re gonna hold a massive protest in London. Every perceiver we can get in touch with is going to be there. We’re going to march on Parliament.”

“Won’t most teenagers be at school?” said Michael.

“Not on Monday. They’re going to skip school and come into London. A whole mass of people telling the government we haven’t got some horrible disease, that we don’t want to be cured of who we are.”

Her eyes bright. Expectant, waiting for Michael’s approval.

A shout from downstairs: “Jennifer! Tea’s getting cold.”

She ignored it. “Well?”

“Sounds like they’re going to have to listen to you.”

She smiled. “I think so. But it’s a secret. You can’t tell anyone. Only ’ceivers.”

“Sure,” he said.

“Promise?”

“Scout’s honour.” He lifted two fingers to his temple in salute.

“Were you a scout?” she said.

“I can’t remember,” said Michael.

She laughed. A delicate, beautiful laugh. She turned to the bedroom door and shouted, “Coming, Mum!” She took Michael’s hand and led him back down the stairs.

~

Sian’s car bumbled down the M1 back towards London. Her mind was alive with excitement. She was more buzzed about her newspaper article than she had been when she first offered to drive Michael to Hemel Hempstead to find Jennifer. He couldn’t figure out why.

A thought …
could be big
… drifted over from Sian’s mind.

He hadn’t been eavesdropping, but it intrigued him, so he concentrated:
Need to call Mark
… he perceived. …
Hands free kit’s in my bag … Wish I didn’t have this damn kid in the car
…

Michael stared across at her. Outwardly, she appeared not to care he was sitting next to her in the passenger seat. Her eyes were on the road with one hand drumming on the steering wheel and the other clutching the gear leaver. Inwardly, something was festering. A frustration at the traffic and a resentment at Michael being there.

Mark’s going to go for it … He’s got to … Thank God Ted’s on holiday … If I get home before six – God, don’t say I’m going to hit the rush hour – then I can … Mark will go for it, I know he will …

He pulled his phone from his pocket and awoke the screen with a touch of his finger. The contacts page was still active where Jennifer had typed in her number. Michael texted: ‘S v. excited bout story. What did U tell her?’

They turned off the M1 onto the North Circular and hit stop-start London traffic.

“Who’s Mark?” Michael asked.

“What?” Sian woke from her driver’s daze.

“Who’s Mark? You mentioned him back at the house,” he lied.

“I did?” Annoyance at his question. “I don’t remember.”

“Yeah, you said you needed to call him about something.”

“Oh, did I?” It was a reasonable explanation of how he’d heard the name. Although untrue, she accepted it and became less defensive. “Mark’s my editor. Acting editor, really. He’s stepping up while Ted’s on holiday.”

“Is that bad?” said Michael.

“Good,” said Sian. “Ted didn’t like me bringing perceiver stories to him. I think he was under government pressure to toe the official line, not as if I ever had any proof. But Mark … well, he’s got two weeks while Ted’s in the Maldives – or wherever he is – to make his mark, so to speak.”

“And that’s why you have to call him?”

“Got to tell the editor what story you’re working on.”

“Feature,” corrected Michael.

“What?”

“Feature. You said ‘story’.”

“Story/feature – same thing,” said Sian.

But it wasn’t, if he perceived her correctly. Michael reached for his phone: ‘Don’t think S is writing “feature”. Text me.’ He hit send.

Damn this traffic
… she kept thinking …
gotta get the kid out of the car … gotta ring Mark … he’ll need to bump the lead and it’s getting late …

As they turned off the North Circular onto the Hendon Way, Sian turned apologetically to Michael. “I’m running really late. I’m not going to be able to take you all the way into town. I’ll drop you at Cricklewood train station. It’s hardly centre of the universe, but there’s a quick service into St Pancras and you can get where you need to go from there.”

“Okay,” said Michael.

Up ahead a road sign indicated it was only a mile to Cricklewood. He hadn’t got much more time to find out the story in her head.

“What are you running late for?” he asked.

“Deadlines,” said Sian. “Always deadlines.”

“You’re going to write up the stuff about Jennifer tonight?”

“While it’s fresh,” she said.

“I thought, with a feature, there wouldn’t be so much urgency.”

Bloody children and their bloody questions
. “No urgency.”

Michael looked at his phone. He brushed a finger across the screen to wake it up. Still nothing from Jennifer. ‘Where R U?’

A few minutes more and Sian turned right. Ahead of them loomed Cricklewood train station.

“Nearly here,” said Sian, with relief.

“Thanks for the lift,” said Michael.

“No problem,” she said, even though her feelings said different.

“So you think Mark will be happy to run the story then?” he prompted.

“I would think so.”
I got an exclusive, he better bloody run it.

“What angle are you going with?”

“Angle? It’s a feature, there is no angle.”
Demonstration to bring London to a standstill … schoolchildren planning to abandon their classrooms …

And Michael had his answer. She knew about the planned demonstration, the one Jennifer said was secret.

They pulled up at the taxi rank at the front of the station. “There isn’t going to be a feature, is there?” said Michael.

A pleasant, puzzled smile masked her lying face. “You think I’d drive all the way to Hemel Hempstead and back for nothing?” she said.

“Don’t run the story,” said Michael.

Anger boiling within her.
How does he know? Does he just suspect?
“You need to get out now, Michael, I’m not supposed to park here.”

Michael gave her a hard stare. There was nothing inside her that seemed ashamed at what she had done. He punched at the clasp holding the seatbelt. It leapt out of the holster. “Jennifer wouldn’t want you to run it.” He got out of the car.

The forecourt of the station smelt of the exhaust of half a dozen running taxi engines. Dirty and polluting, like the journalist.

He was about to close the passenger door when Sian leant across the seat. “It’ll be fine, Michael. The publicity will be good for Jennifer, you’ll see.”

He perceived she meant what she said. She had no remorse.

Michael slammed the door and watched her drive off.

He dialled Jennifer’s number on his phone.

It rang for a long time before someone answered. “Hello?”

He put a finger in his other ear and turned away from the noisy road. “Jennifer?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s Michael. Where have you been? I’ve been texting you.”

“Sorry. I was at dinner. Mum’s banned phones from the table.”

“Did you tell Sian about the demonstration?”

“What?”

Louder: “Did you tell Sian about the demonstration?”

“The journalist? No! Are you a skank?”

“She knows.”

“It’s supposed to be a secret,” said Jennifer.

“I didn’t tell her!” said Michael.

“Then, how—”

“I was thinking, maybe your mum …?”

Silence on the other end of the phone. A strange nothingness in his head – he couldn’t perceive Jennifer at such a distance, even though her voice had been right there in his ear.

Jennifer swore. “I told her not to say anything.”

“You mean you told her? Why on earth …?”

“She kept going on about how I needed to do something with my life,” said Jennifer. “I thought it would shut her up.”

“It seems to have done the opposite.”

“Yeah,” she said.

“I rang to tell you because I think Sian’s going to publish it.”

“She can’t.”

“I don’t think she cares,” he said.

An audible sigh down the phone line. “What do I do?”

“I don’t know. I just thought I should tell you.”

“I’ll ring Sian,” she said.

“I don’t think it’ll help.”

“Then I’ll get onto the network.” A pause. “Are you sure about this, Michael?”

“I’m sure.”

“Skankin’ hell,” she said. “What a skankin’ disaster.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

PERCEIVERS PROTEST TO PARALYSE LONDON