Noble Conflict (23 page)

Kaspar was excited. If this guy was right, then this could be a way in. This could be what Mac had been talking about. A vast amount of data that was too big to mess with. Data that nobody would bother to alter because it was irrelevant, just ‘fairy stories for kids’. He launched a new bot-search.

As soon as the bots were off and running, Kaspar had to
run to be on time for roll call. He pelted down to the Ready Room, slammed on the brakes just outside the door and sauntered in with the nonchalant air of a man in no hurry. After grabbing an energy drink from the vending machine, he slipped into the seat next to Janna.

‘Hey, genius, we don’t see you around much these days. What’cha up to?’ she said.

‘Er, not much. Sleeping  . . . catching up on stuff I missed when I was in the Clinic.’ kaspar took a sip of his drink.

‘Hmmm! Catching up on your research, Kas?’

‘Sorry?’ Kaspar nearly choked.

‘You seem to spend a lot of time in Library Services,’ observed Mariska over his shoulder.

‘Er  . . . erm  . . .’

‘Closeted with the perky purple-headed librarian,’ added Janna.

‘Oh, I’ve seen her. She’s cute!’ said Mariska.

‘Down, girl!’ said Janna.

‘Woof! Woof!’ Mariska barked at the top of her voice, causing more than a few heads to turn in their direction. Kaspar’s cheeks grew uncomfortably warm.

‘More than cute, she is adorable,’ said Janna. ‘I hope she’s not overtiring you, Kas?’

Kaspar’s entire face was now burning. He’d seen this Janna and Mariska double act before. Their bantering was nearly as terrifying as their combat. He leaned forward and tried desperately to bury himself in a briefing memo about standards of cleanliness in communal vehicles. But at least if everyone thought that his relationship with Mac was
romantic, that was a whole lot safer than them knowing the truth.

That evening, Mac came round to his room again and they started examining what the bots had found.

‘There seem to be several recurring themes,’ said Mac. ‘One of the more obvious candidates are these legends of men who could fly, become invisible and walk through walls. Doesn’t that sound like ninjas to you?’

‘If you believe in that kind of thing.’ Kaspar flagged that one as a possible, though not very likely, link to follow up. ‘It’s certainly a better lead than these guys who can run fast enough to outrun lightning.’

‘Or men who can melt the armies of their enemies by the friction of their hands, or father storms by mating with animals,’ said Mac.

‘Oh, I dunno. Have you met Tomas Hytner? That last tale might be at least half true,’ said Kas.

‘Euww!’ said Mac. ‘Moving swiftly on, a lot of these stories have a telepathy component. Fairies who can talk without mouths, mind thieves who can steal your thoughts by kissing you, and twinned souls where two minds share a single body.’

Kaspar leaned back thoughtfully in his chair. He remembered the stories his Uncle Jeff had told about the Insurgents and the way he’d dismissed them.

‘Sometimes my dreams are like that,’ he admitted. ‘Like I’m sharing someone else’s head filled with thoughts and emotions that aren’t my own.’

His head had started acting funny right after Dillon’s
death. A certain amount of post-traumatic stress disorder was understandable – nightmares and flashbacks – but what about the other stuff? Why would the death of his friend have given him memories of a grandma he didn’t have and a cottage he’d never been in and mellisse bread that he’d never before tasted? Unless  . . . Kaspar hesitated. Having hallucinations about grannies and bread was bad enough, but using kids’ stories retold from centuries ago to try to explain them was
seriously
nuts.

Except  . . . ‘Oh. My. God.’ A moment of blinding clarity made Kaspar’s eyes open wide and his jaw drop.

‘Kas, what’s the matter?’ asked Mac.

‘What makes you think  . . . ?’

Mac raised an eyebrow. Kas decided not to insult her intelligence by insisting he was OK. Besides, he really needed to confide in someone.

‘When Rhea saved me from the earthquake, she touched me, skin against skin,’ he admitted. ‘First when she throttled me, and afterwards when she carried me to safety. My uniform was hanging off in rags by then and she wasn’t wearing gloves. What if close contact between us in the Alliance and Crusaders is strictly forbidden by the High Council because they know that the Insurgents pass on some kind of virus or drug through skin-to-skin contact?’

‘If you’re right, then why would she work as a masseuse?’ said Mac. ‘That’s the last job she’d choose. She’d be busted inside a week.’

Mac had a point. If Rhea and others like her really did
pass on some kind of virus or drug through skin-to-skin contact, then a good proportion of the Alliance population would’ve been infected by now. So that theory had just been blown out of the water.

‘I’m racking my brains for a reasonable explanation and getting nowhere fast,’ he admitted.

Mac chewed at one corner of her bottom lip, her gaze dancing away from Kaspar’s.

‘What?’ Kaspar’s eyes narrowed. ‘What are you not telling me?’

‘Kas, maybe she’s a touch-telepath,’ said Mac slowly.

‘A what? Telepathy? Are you kidding? You don’t really believe in all that stuff, do you?’ Kaspar frowned.

Mac leaned forward and lowered her voice so it was barely above a whisper. ‘Kas, this is between you and me or you’ll drop me right in it from a great height, but I’m going to trust you.’

Kaspar nodded. ‘I won’t let you down.’

Mac took a deep breath. ‘With my security clearance, I get to see a lot of things that you and even my  . . . Commander Voss don’t have access to. Now I can’t tell you exactly what for obvious reasons, but believe me, my suggestion is more feasible than yours. The High Council believes that some of the Insurgents are capable of something not a million kilometres away from touch-telepathy. They think it’s a latent tendency that only kicks in during puberty, and those who have it can choose when and if to activate it. That’s why the High Council try to make sure that the terrorists can’t  . . . contaminate any of us in the Alliance.’

‘How?’

‘Our water.’ Mac lowered her voice even further. ‘They add things to our water to keep us safe, to stop the Insurgents from being able to control us.’

‘Yeah, I already knew about our water. Brother Simon told me. But touch-telepathy? Come on! That’s something entirely different.’

‘Don’t you believe in the possibility?’ asked Mac.

If Mac had asked him that a few weeks ago, his answer would’ve been immediate. But that was a few weeks ago. ‘I’m not sure,’ Kaspar admitted.

‘But doesn’t it fit?’ asked Mac. ‘And it would certainly explain why the High Council are so hot on no close contact with Insurgents and unapproved Crusaders who still live in the Badlands. Even the ones who apply to live in Capital City are kept segregated for several months in special camps before they’re allowed to live among us.’

‘But telepathy that’s initiated with a mere touch is the stuff of science fiction, not fact,’ Kaspar argued.

‘Well, certain kinds of telepathy amongst other species are a fact,’ said Mac. ‘Why not amongst some of the Crusaders?’

‘But how? And if that’s the case, how come they have it and we in the Alliance don’t?’

‘I have no idea. Something to do with the War to End All Wars? The biological fallout from that might have caused some genetic mutations. Who knows what decades of exposure to the pollutants in the soil, or in the air or in
the water – or all three out in the Badlands – has done to them.’

‘So you think what I’m seeing is Rhea’s grandmother, and that Rhea is the one who’s nostalgic for home baking?’ asked Kaspar at last.

‘We should at least consider the possibility.’

Kaspar was having real problems wrapping his head around the idea, but he had to admit it would explain so much – the memories that weren’t his own as well as his familiarity with things that he should know nothing about. ‘Could that be why I can’t get enough of mellisse bread? Why I was drawn to the gym where Rhea worked?’

For the first time, he deliberately focused on Rhea, on her thoughts, her memories, her emotions. He concentrated on her face, her body, on seeing her. Almost immediately, images flooded into his head again and he felt faint. He was hallucinating again. He knew it was a hallucination and yet it seemed so real. He wobbled and Mac grabbed him to stop him from falling off the chair.

‘I’m in bed  . . . and Rhea’s with me  . . .’

Mac let go of him like he’d suddenly burned red-hot and sat back, shocked.

‘We’re lying there, cuddling. No  . . . not cuddling  . . . she’s just holding me  . . . but I’m not holding her.’ Kaspar struggled to remember. ‘I’m lying still, while she  . . .’ The room began to spin and he was sinking, sinking like falling through water. ‘She’s in my head. Rhea is running through my mind  . . . exploring.’

And suddenly Kaspar knew with total certainty that
this wasn’t a dream and it wasn’t a hallucination either. This was a real memory. Rhea had been here, in his room, in his bed. She had come here and  . . .

‘Oh, Jeez! I woke up a few days after the Loring School massacre and the right side of my neck was sticky. I remember now. She made me put on a transdermal patch! That little ninja bitch drugged me! Mac, she broke in here and she drugged me and then she did some kind of telepathic voodoo shit to my head.’

‘Are you sure?’ frowned Mac.

kaspar nodded vigorously, appalled at the notion that not even his thoughts were his own.

‘OK, what could she have found out?’ asked Mac grimly.

‘Huh?’

‘Kas, think. If Rhea did establish some kind of neural link with you, maybe she can read your mind. Maybe she can see through your eyes, learn secrets. What could she have found out?’

Kaspar’s eyes widened with horror as the full implications of what Mac was saying hit him hard. Wave upon wave of sheer panic rose up to smother him. He took several deep breaths, trying to get himself together.

‘No. No, it’s OK,’ he said, calming down. ‘There’s nothing to know. I’m the lowest grade of Guardian there is. I don’t attend high-level briefings, don’t meet with important people.’

‘What about your computer access, your passwords?’

‘Nothing classified. She can’t learn anything from me
because I don’t know anything. The ninjas knew the security code for the Academy’s computer core and I certainly didn’t. They know the locations of camouflaged network nodes and I don’t.’ Kaspar finally got his breathing under control.

‘Are you sure? What about your meeting with Brother Simon?’

Kaspar thought for a moment. ‘I’m sure they didn’t learn anything that they didn’t already know,’ he said at last. ‘Even if there is some mental thing between Rhea and me, it can’t be doing them any good. It’s probably just some freakish accident caused by direct contact.’

‘Then why did she come here? She took a hell of a risk breaking into the Guardian Academy. I mean you’re cute, but not that cute. Would Rhea really risk life in a maximum security detention centre just so that she could press herself against your manly body?’ Mac looked sceptical, to say the least.

Kaspar’s face flamed. The glint in Mac’s eye told him she was well aware of the effect her words had had. He walked over to the sink in the corner of the room to splash his face. One thing was for certain: with Mac in his life he’d never get too full of himself. She’d see to that. As he was towelling himself dry, there was a knock at the door. Kas wasn’t expecting company. Mac stood up.

‘It’s OK, I’ll get it.’ Kas crossed the room to open the door as Mac sat back down. It was Janna, Mariska and Mikey, though he could hear others in the hallway.

‘We wondered if you wanted to come for a game of
handball?’ asked Mariska as she peered past him to where Mac sat on the bed. ‘But I can see you already have your hands full.’

At that, half a dozen heads appeared round the doorframe, jockeying for a view of his guest. Kaspar was mortified. The knowing looks had his face burning again.

‘Hey, Mac.’ Janna gave a brief wave.

‘Hi, Janna.’ Mac struggled to suppress her amusement. She gave Kaspar a knowing look that raised the temperature of his face by several degrees.

‘Thanks for the invitation. Maybe some other time,’ Kaspar told Mariska.

‘Don’t do anything we wouldn’t do.’ Mariska winked at Kaspar.

‘There isn’t anything you wouldn’t do,’ Kaspar retorted.

‘Exactly!’ laughed Mariska with another wink, this time at Mac.

‘You can all bugger off now,’ said Kaspar, exasperated.

There were a couple more comments, but surprisingly they weren’t too ribald, and Kaspar’s door was finally closed.

‘Sorry about that,’ Kaspar muttered as he sat down next to Mac.

‘Don’t worry about it.’ Mac smiled, though it quickly faded. ‘Besides, Rhea is the one in your thoughts, not me.’

‘Not from choice,’ Kaspar protested.

‘Are you sure about that?’ asked Mac softly.

Kaspar opened his mouth to deny it, but his reply died
on his lips. He regarded Mac and thought of Rhea and felt like his head was about to explode.

‘Let’s get back to it,’ said Mac with a sigh.

They resumed the research, but the bots’ findings were getting less and less likely. After reading about a monster that, whenever it was slain, came back to life with its knowledge increased until it finally learned all the secrets of the universe and became a god, they decided to call it a night.

Kaspar escorted her to his door. Mac turned to him.

‘Thanks for an evening that was  . . . different!’ she said wryly.

‘You’re welcome. Fancy doing it all again tomorrow?’

‘Any time you want,’ said Mac.

They stood in silence watching each other, a strange tension springing up between them. Kaspar was struck by an intense desire to kiss her. He leaned forward slightly. Mac didn’t back away. In fact, if anything she leaned forward herself. Or was Kaspar just imagining things? He hesitated, just a tad too long.

Mac drew back.

‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’ she said. And she slipped away.