Telepath (Hive Mind Book 1) (10 page)

I sat there, staring blankly at the
holo of Forge, telling myself I was a fool to be so shocked by this. I’d known Forge
was strong and a natural athlete. I’d known he was addicted to taking risks. I’d
even known Lottery had assigned him to Law Enforcement. I should have realized
there was a high risk of him showing up on my Strike team. There might be thousands
of other candidates just as well qualified, but Lottery had made the final
choice based on their resemblance to Forge, so he’d naturally be selected.

I forced myself to turn
off the holo, went to my bedroom, and floated in the warm air of the sleep
field thinking about the situation. Lottery had weighted the odds in Forge’s favour,
so he was one of the two hundred or so candidates imprinted for Strike team. The
process hadn’t stopped then, because Adika had been impressed enough to choose
him as one of his twenty preferred candidates for the Alpha team.

It hadn’t stopped then,
but it was going to stop right now. I could reject anyone in my unit, and I was
going to reject Forge. You don’t argue with the telepath, so Adika would just
accept my decision and replace Forge with a reserve candidate. He’d be
surprised though, and might ask what I’d seen in Forge’s record that made me
reject him.

I could bend the truth,
say I’d met Forge on Teen Level and hadn’t liked him, but a comment like that
from a telepath might hurt Forge’s future career. He’d been allocated one of the
highest prestige positions in Law Enforcement, and I was going to take it away
from him. I mustn’t wreck his other chances as well.

Anyway, I daren’t admit
I’d known Forge on Teen Level. Lucas was already shying away from having a relationship
with me because he expected me to dump him for some member of my Strike team.
He wouldn’t miss the implications of the Lottery results for my physical
preferences in men matching someone I’d known on Teen Level.

I’d seen all the rapidly
changing moods of Lucas’s mind. His excitement as his thoughts raced on a
multitude of different levels to solve a work related puzzle. How he’d glow with
boundless self-confidence at the moment he found the solution. The way all that
brightness could suddenly darken and fold in on itself when he remembered a
girl mocking him on Teen Level.

Lucas’s ego was very
fragile when it came to relationships. At the slightest hint that there’d been
something special between me and Forge, Lucas would assume my future was decided,
and retreat behind an unassailable wall of his insecurities.

I could keep the past out
of this by claiming I didn’t like the birthmark on Forge’s face. Shanna had
kept complaining about that one slight imperfection in his good looks, and I
could pretend I felt the same. Surely no one could blame Forge for a telepath
disliking his birthmark.

I stood up, my mind automatically
reaching ahead of me to where the now familiar shape, taste, sound of Adika’s
thoughts hung in the black silence, and then sat down again. Adika was with
Megan. He was about to make a huge mistake that Megan might never forgive.

I hadn’t expected Adika to
push things with Megan this fast. I hadn’t allowed for the fact he was a Strike
team leader, used to acting swiftly and decisively. If I’d realized, I could
have stopped this, warned him that Megan was still raw with grief for her
husband, so approaching her now would only distress both of them.

It was too late to warn
him now, and was I entitled to do that anyway? What were the boundary lines here?
Even Megan didn’t know that I’d seen her deepest, most private feelings about
her husband. I should surely keep that knowledge strictly confidential.

The problem was that I
didn’t want either Adika or Megan to get hurt. I was relieved that I hadn’t
known about this in advance, because it would have been hard to stand silently
by and let the pair of them walk off an emotional cliff.

… stinging pain on
my cheek from Megan’s slap. I’ve just shot myself in the foot. Time to pull
back and regroup. I could use a Tactical Commander telling me how to …

I surfaced from Adika’s
mind, both confused and startled. I hadn’t even realized I was inside his head
until I felt Megan’s slap.

First lesson, it was dangerously
easy for me to drift from thinking about a familiar mind to reading it. Second
lesson, I didn’t just experience other people’s feelings as if they were my
own, I felt their pain the same way. That was … ominous.

This obviously wasn’t a
good time to talk to Adika, so I postponed the job of rejecting Forge until the
next day. For the rest of the evening, I fought the temptation to play the holo
of Forge again. I won that battle, but it was an empty victory. When I went to
sleep that night, I had the Forge dream.

It was the first time I’d
dreamed it in Hive Futura, and it seemed somehow clearer, brighter, more sharply
defined. I could smell the tang of pine on the air, and hear the dry leaves
crunching under my feet. My eyes were dazzled by the bright light, it was hot, unbearably
hot, and I was sobbing from fear until Forge said the magic words that made
everything right.

“Good girl, Amber. You’re
a good girl, Amber.”

I woke up in a glow of happiness,
and knew that I wouldn’t talk to Adika. If I didn’t allow Forge on my Strike
team, it would make him unhappy. He wouldn’t be pleased. He wouldn’t say I was
a good girl. I should get rid of Adika instead, and make Forge my Strike team
leader. Forge would like that.

No, maybe Forge wouldn’t
like that. Stray remnants of reason warned me that Forge might be highly
embarrassed to be thrust into Adika’s shoes, and everyone would ask a lot of
awkward questions. At the beginning, Forge would be happier as a Strike team
member. Later on, Adika would want two deputy team leaders.

I rolled out of the sleep field,
and hurried to check the records on Adika’s data cube. Most of the candidates were
only imprinted for Strike team member, but five were imprinted for Strike team
leader. Kaden, Rothan, Matias, Eli, and Forge!

I smiled. That solved
everything. I’d tell Adika to make Forge deputy leader in charge of Alpha team.
Adika would do what I told him, just the way Mira’s Strike team leader had
chosen the deputies she wanted. Later on, when he had enough experience, Forge
could take over Adika’s position.

The happy haze of imagining
how pleased Forge would be lasted for several hours. After that, I started
wondering if I’d totally lost control of my own mind. I absolutely must tell
Adika to reject Forge. The flaw in that plan was that I was bound to have the
dream again. The minute I woke up from it, I knew I’d go dashing back to Adika,
saying I’d changed my mind and insisting he should put Forge on the team again.

I had to think carefully before
I did anything at all. I needed to make sense of the way I was reacting to
Forge. If I couldn’t make sense of it myself, then I’d have to ask for help,
but I knew exactly how Lucas would react to my story. He was a Tactical
Commander, imprinted with information on psychology and behavioural analysis
techniques, an expert in taking the clues of odd behaviour and determining the
reasons behind them. His mind would work like a machine at the mystery of my
reaction to Forge, the same way it had worked on the mystery of why true
telepaths shouldn’t meet, but his emotions would take it as a personal rejection.

That triggered a new
thought. Perhaps those two mysteries were linked. Perhaps true telepaths
affected each other in the same way that Forge affected me. As a small child,
I’d learnt to block the massed thoughts around me, but the stronger thoughts of
another telepath might have been able to get through my defences.

If Forge’s thoughts and
feelings had been hitting me telepathically when I was on Teen Level, it would
explain my fixation on making him happy. Lottery would never have missed discovering
Forge if he was a true telepath, but he could be a borderline telepath. Megan
kept telling me that borderline telepaths could only get random glimpses into
other minds. If Forge’s random glimpses had come at the wrong times, the
Lottery tests wouldn’t have detected him.

I was feeling a lot calmer
now. If Forge was a borderline telepath, it would explain everything. I should
stop worrying about him being on my Strike team until I was back in the Hive.
Once I met Forge again, and read his mind, I’d know if my theory was right.

A week later, I was stepping back
into the aircraft that had brought me to Hive Futura. I was eager to return
home to our own Hive, but the thought of the journey was scaring me to death. I
fought to hide that, trying to appear calm and collected as I chose a seat and
sat down.

“You could be sedated for
the journey, Amber,” said Megan.

Waste it! My terror must
be blatantly obvious.

“It’s better if Amber stays
awake for the journey,” said Lucas. “If she has a problem approaching the huge
mind density of the Hive, she can warn us and we can turn back.”

“That’s true,” Megan
admitted.

Lucas grabbed the seat
between me and the wall, and Adika sat behind me. Megan pointedly sat in front
of me to avoid being near Adika, and Fran took the seat next to her. I saw Fran
lean across to whisper something in Megan’s ear, but couldn’t hear what she
said, and resisted the urge to read Megan’s mind to find out. Since the face
slapping incident, Adika and Megan had only had minimal, coolly professional
contact with each other, while Fran seemed to be getting increasingly friendly with
Megan.

Hannah waited nervously
until her superiors were settled, before taking a seat two rows in front of
Megan and Fran. I could understand someone who was Level 57 preferring to keep
her distance from a group of Level 1 people.

“We could uncover the
window and enjoy the view,” suggested Lucas.

I glanced at the square
metal plate on the wall, shuddered, and shook my head. This aircraft was about
to leave Hive Futura. We’d be flying through the air, and on the other side of
that thin metal plate would be the terrifying Truesun.

“Lucas! Don’t you dare
remove any of the window covers,” said Megan. “Amber’s already nervous about
the flight.”

There was a faint squeak
from in front of me, which told me Hannah was as terrified as me by the idea of
seeing Outside. Adika was never going to embarrass himself by squeaking, but I
caught the tension in his thoughts too, as he fervently wished that Lucas would
shut up.

Lucas sighed. “The environment
Outside isn’t innately hostile, it’s merely unfamiliar. There’s an initial agoraphobic
reaction due to the increased scale of the surroundings, but that’s easily
overcome.”

“We’ve no reason to be interested
in Outside,” said Fran. “The Hive is our whole world and provides everything we
need. A few unfortunate maintenance workers may be required to go Outside to perform
tasks necessary to the Hive, but the rest of us can shelter within the perfect
safety of its walls.”

For once, I was totally on
Fran’s side against Lucas, though her tone of voice reminded me of a disapproving
school teacher. Lucas must have been thinking the same thing, because he
laughed and spoke in a pretentiously smug voice.

“Now children, let’s all
sit on the floor in a circle and hold hands while we sing Hive Duty song number
ten. ‘The Hive Is Our World.’”

Fran swung round in her
seat to frown at him. “Lucas, you shouldn’t mock the Hive Duty songs. Don’t you
realize their importance?”

He gave her an unrepentant
grin. “I know their importance far better than you do, Fran. My imprint
includes full details of the part that school plays in socially conditioning
children to be conformist and productive members of the Hive.”

“Then why make fun of the
Hive Duty songs?” Adika joined in the attack.

“Because that social conditioning
may be desirable for 99 per cent of Hive members,” said Lucas, “but our role in
the Hive puts us in the small minority who need to step beyond the comforting
lies and the songs and the myths. Nosies are fakes. The Hive isn’t a totally
safe place. It isn’t the whole world either. We’re in a different Hive right
now, and as for having no reason to be interested in Outside … Waste it, this aircraft
will be flying Outside in a minute!”

I didn’t need reminding of
that fact. I was already far too terrifyingly conscious of it. I was strongly tempted
to order Adika to tie Lucas up and gag him, an order that I knew would be
gladly obeyed, but Megan hastily changed the subject.

“We’re heading back much
too soon. Amber’s only spent three weeks training in Hive Futura. Keith was
here for far longer.”

“The main Hive is a much
more secure location.” Adika lounged back in his seat, nearly as relieved as me
by the new topic of conversation.

I was carefully avoiding
reading Lucas’s mind, but I dipped into Adika’s head and was shocked by what I
saw. I’d picked up that Adika was edgy about me being at Hive Futura, but the undercurrent
of his thoughts had never explicitly stated why he wanted me back in the security
of our own Hive. Now I could see it clearly. He wanted me back there before
other Hives learnt about my existence.

“Another Hive might try to
kidnap me?”

“There’s no need to worry,
Amber,” said Lucas. “Adika is in charge of unit security, so he’s paranoid about
protecting you. A Hive without any telepaths might well be desperate, but
hardly desperate enough to try kidnapping one. Hive Treaty was set up specifically
to prevent problems like territory violations and kidnappings, and no Hive
would dare to breach Treaty.”

If Adika was paranoid
about protecting me physically, Megan was equally obsessed with protecting my
health and wellbeing. She stubbornly returned to her original point.

“Amber has progressed much
faster than Keith, but going from being near a handful of minds to being near a
hundred million is …”

I interrupted to save
time. “If I have a problem, I’ll say so immediately and we’ll turn back.”

The room suddenly began to
vibrate and Lucas took my hand. I hung on gratefully, and tried to think about
anything other than where I was and what was happening. I was tensely aware of
the closeness of the unfamiliar mind of our pilot, and the importance of not
reading his thoughts. Our pilot would have been selected by Lottery as capable
of coping with the sight of Outside, but I couldn’t risk seeing through his
eyes.

I warily checked Lucas’s mind,
and found he’d forgotten about the window and Outside. His thoughts were on our
relationship now. He was convinced that I’d have no interest in him once I met
my Strike team, and was regretting that I’d listened to him, done things his
way, and kept my distance.

Waste it! Better a
few days than nothing but too late now. I’ll never have another chance with a
girl who can really understand what I’m saying.

The vibration eased, but I
could feel the room around me moving in a peculiar way. I was Outside in a
fragile metal box, hanging in the air below the Truesun. I stared at the back
of Fran’s head, trying to distract myself from my fear.

The situation with Fran
was becoming a serious problem. When I accepted her as my Liaison team leader,
I’d believed I would be in total control of my telepathy, picking and choosing
what minds I read and when. Now I’d learned that opening up my telepathic view
of the world was like opening my eyes on a room full of people. I couldn’t
choose to see certain faces and not others. Even worse than that, thinking about
a familiar person could be enough to link me to their mind.

I couldn’t change the way
my telepathy worked to suit Fran, and I mustn’t even try, because this was what
my Hive needed from me. Telepathy had to be as automatic to me as breathing if
I was to search through a multitude of minds to find the single wild bee, and I
needed to be able to link to the minds of my Strike team members with split-second
speed if I was to help keep them safe.

I’d managed to avoid
trespassing in Fran’s mind so far. I worked hard at keeping my mental gaze directed
away from her, and pulled guiltily away whenever I accidentally touched her
defensive surface thoughts. It was a constant struggle though, and caused added
problems. Spending so much time with Lucas had trained me to expand people’s
words by instinctively reading extra details in their head. Communicating with
Fran, limited to just hearing words, felt like groping my way along a corridor
blindfolded.

I didn’t want to give in
and fire Fran at this point though. Firing her wouldn’t just cause problems for
my unit, but give a victory to the part of me that hated telepaths, and
strengthen the voices of self-loathing that nagged at me in moments of
weakness.

Besides, I was finally
seeing some signs that Fran’s attitudes towards telepaths, or at least towards
me, were shifting. She’d seemed far less antagonistic towards me during the
last week, joining Adika in disapproving of Lucas’s light-hearted clown act. I
guessed that she was being influenced by Megan’s attitude to telepaths.

Once we were in my Telepath
Unit, surrounded by people who accepted me as a telepath, I hoped that Fran
would give in and accept me too. She’d be the lone hater of telepaths in my
unit, because I’d learned my lesson. I wasn’t going to accept anyone who shared
Fran’s attitudes.

I was still brooding on
the Fran situation, when I sensed a whispering in the distance. Was that our
Hive? I closed my eyes to concentrate better, and reached out cautiously to
explore it, but the mind mass was too far away to distinguish any details. I
watched it slowly grow nearer, bigger, louder.

Megan’s voice disturbed my
concentration. “Amber, please wake up. You should start sensing the Hive soon.
Tell me at once if you have problems.”

I opened my eyes. “I
wasn’t asleep. I’ve been … listening … to the Hive. It’s hard to describe what
that’s like in words.”

“No appropriate vocabulary
available,” said Lucas.

I nodded. “Exactly. I
borrow words from other senses – sight, smell, sound, touch, taste – but none
of them are exactly right. Anyway, the Hive mind is like a hundred million conversations
blurring into each other. Noisy, but in a way restful, like the waves on Teen
Level beach, or a fountain, or the humming of bees.”

That reminded me of
something. “During Lottery, I had a dream about bees. Their humming was reassuring
me. I think I was hearing the Hive mind then.”

I closed my eyes again,
and listened to the humming grow closer. There was the vibration of the aircraft
landing, and the background hum enfolded me like a warm, comforting blanket. I
was back in my Hive. I was home. I was safe.

No, I corrected myself. Things
were actually the other way       round. I’d been safe in Hive Futura, but not
any longer. It was now that the real test of being a telepath would begin. It
was now that I’d find out if I was like Morton or York, like Sapphire or Olivia,
whether I would cope with the challenges ahead of me or break under the strain.