Hidden Faults (40 page)

“That’s what worries me, Jodi. You’re making it personal.”

“Damn right. Jeyle? You and Kir can handle what you need to. I need to speak to Dede about...you know.”

“Go on. If she argues with you, tell her to speak to me.”

I was glad not to be on the receiving end of Jeyle’s baleful look for a change.

Dede, rather to my surprise, refused to be part of it in any way. “No, Jodi, it’s unethical.”

“And drugging people with naksen for no therapeutic reason is?”

“I was never involved in that. You could kill him.”

“Which is why I want your advice about how to do it safely.”

“No. Don’t ask me again.” She turned away from me, her back stiff with disapproval. “And Jeyle needn’t bother trying to bully me. I won’t agree no matter what she says.”

“All right. Don’t be angry, Dede.”

“I’m not. I want to cling to what’s left of my professional pride. They took so much....”

I put my hand on her shoulder and she patted it, her back still turned to me. “I’m a coward,” she muttered.

“No. I’m sorry to put you in this position. We’ll work something out.”

I found Kir in his workroom, and told him. He accepted her refusal philosophically. “Meram will help. Tell me what you need, we’ll run it past the guys in the Weadenal, and he can line it all up for us. And then you need to be ready, heart and mind. It’s gonna sting, facing him. Did last time, didn’t it?”

“Last time,” I said coldly, “I thought I was dealing with a friend.”

“Maybe you were. Don’t prejudge, Jodi. Makes you careless.”

I did what I could to prepare, physically and mentally. Every day Kir tested my shields, and every evening I went to bed with a lingering headache.If this mission failed, and I didn’t find a way to escape to a normal life in Pindone, then I’d have to think very hard about letting them wipe my memory and send me to the Weadenal. I didn’t want to do that. I’d lose the little I had scraped back for myself, even if I’d tainted that small amount by my actions. But I couldn’t see me spending another year on this rock. I’d go stark staring mad.

It took slightly more than a week to prepare. When my shields finally reached Kir’s exacting standards, we still had to wait for Meram to obtain the supplies we needed. Then we headed back down the highway through a bitterly cold spring landscape to Vizinken, and to Meram and Terna’s tidy little house. I was better prepared this time for the impact of being back in the city, but it still ached, especially seeing it in the spring in all its cold, crowded beauty. Vizinken could be such a handsome town. The distant mountains didn’t feel as welcoming and never would.

When we arrived, we found Meram wound up and anxious. Obtaining the drugs had been a risky and unpleasant business, but that hadn’t upset him as much as the direct confrontation with someone so highly placed in the security service.

“
You’re risking all of us,” he said, as Terna sat grim-faced at his side. “What if you fail?”

“Then you initiate the lockdown,” Jeyle said, “and get the hell out of this country.”

Terna’s eyes glanced around her lovely, welcoming home, lingered on the pictures of her children, her happy family. “I know you’ve all faced it, been through it...but to lose everything....”

“We won’t fail,” Kir said. “Have I ever let you down?”

She gave him a tremulous smile and said no, he hadn’t. But that was the only smile we saw from either of them that evening. None of us could raise a grin, for sure.

Kir had already done the reconnaissance. Kregan, like all senior officials in National Security, had personal protection and a house covered with surveillance devices. The knowledge of what these devices were and how to circumvent them was all in the heads of people like Kregan’s wife, Nuela, and thus open to Kir’s probing. That weak link made our job a little easier but still risky. If we didn’t return or report within two hours, Meram, Terna, and their children would make a run for it—and I didn’t blame him at all.

Kregan lived outside Vizinken, on an old farm estate converted to luxurious homes for the wealthy and influential. The security would have been tight anyway, given the kind of people who lived there, but he had an extra layer of protection. However, the estate security hadn’t been created with telekinetics in mind, and we simply sailed over the code-locked gates and the tall brick fence. All the alarms had been designed to catch intruders coming in by foot. Twenty-five years of repression had blunted the wariness about paranormals, and we could use that to our advantage.

We landed in an exquisitely landscaped garden—Kregan’s pride and joy. I took some savage pleasure in using that against him too. Jeyle delicately subverted the elaborate door locks and sensors, then we entered a house I knew nearly as well as my own, so often had I been a favoured guest. A friend. I gritted my teeth and silently pointed the route to the bedroom.

Kregan and Nuela lived alone, their children long grown up and with families of their own. Still, Kir probed to check no one else was in residence.

Okay, let’s do it.

Kir would ensure neither Kregan nor Nuela would wake until we were ready, but we still crept quietly along to the tastefully decorated bedroom, guided by the light of the small torches we carried.

We found husband and wife slumbering, completely unaware. Kir beckoned me to Kregan’s side.
Do it.

And this was what had caused Dede so much anguish, and Meram so much difficulty. A single dose of naksen, taken from a volunteer paranormal’s arm, and putting them at risk of prosecution and withdrawal. If the cause weren’t so important, I’d be revolted by my actions, but I put the hypoinjector against Kregan’s neck with not a twinge of conscience. The bastard had done the same to me, and with less reason.

Kir waited for the dose to take effect, then nodded.
Waking him up now. Jeyle, stand back in the shadows, okay? He don’t need to get a good look at us. Jodi, hit the light.

I switched on the bedside lamp. A couple of seconds later, Kregan’s eyes opened, his instinctive attempt to cry out stillborn by Kir’s will.

As we’d agreed, I took charge of things then, using Kir’s talent to communicate telepathically with my old employer.
You can’t call for help, Kregan, don’t even try. And you’ve been dosed with naksen so whatever talent you’ve got, won’t work.

His eyes darted to me.
Jodi!

Hi, boss. Long time no see.

But how...who are these people? What are you doing in my bedroom? And why the naksen for Marra’s sake?

Oh please, stop acting, Kregan. We know about the school and your brother and what you did to me and Timo and the others. We’re not here to listen to lies.

I held up the second hypospray.
Ready?
I asked Kir. He nodded again, so I put it against Kregan’s neck and pressed the button. He flinched as he felt the sting.

That’s duprazanin. In a minute or so, it will let my friend here get behind your shields and extract everything he needs. If you want the process to go quickly and smoothly —
I glanced at Nuela, unaware and sleeping at his side —
you’ll tell us what we want to know.

His eyes had already started to water, and a tic had sprung up in his cheek—the naksen’s grip on him was complete.
And what do you want to know?

I was immune to his trying to glare at me from a position of absolute weakness, but surprised at how enraged the attempt made me.

Why have you been concealing paranormals?

He was slow to respond, but the duprazanin together with the naksen would be making him sleepy. Finally he answered.
To...protect you.

You threw me to Noret!

It was...too late for you, Jodi. I warned...warned you I couldn’t protect you...if you stepped out of line.

You helped him. You would have helped him force me to work for him.

I did what I could, but once he found out...became part of public record, I couldn’t help you.

So you and your brother have been saving us? For what? Don’t tell me you were building an army and never intended to use it.

He took so long to answer I nearly shook him, but finally he did.
I’ve been planning for a very long time, Jodi. When the time was right, I’d have revealed your talent to you, and then all of you would help to change the government and what it’s been doing.

How?

Noret’s hoarding paranormals—he wants a cure no more than you do. He wants to build an army and I plan to stop him. But there aren’t enough of you.

How many?
Kir demanded.

Kregan didn’t answer. I reached down and this time I did shake him.
How many, Kregan? And who?

Kir didn’t wait for the reply.
He’s got them listed...on his viewcom. Jeyle, here’s the password. Log in and write down the information, can you?

She went to the viewcom concealed in a cupboard at the other side of the room, pulled up a chair and commenced work.

I stared at my former boss.
How many?
I repeated.

A hundred and five.
Kir grinned at me in triumph at Kregan’s answer.
But that’s not enough.

How many is enough? Two hundred? Three hundred? It’s enough. I say it’s enough because it’s not the numbers, it’s the will. How many like you are hiding in the government ranks? How many telepaths?

Four. But we can’t move yet, Jodi. You can’t change a society from the top down.

Why the hell not?
Kir asked.
They did it twenty-five years ago. We can do it now.

I won’t help you. You’ll bring disaster on all of us.

You’d rather watch thousands of our kind drugged and abused, than risk your precious skin?
I shouted at him through the mind link.
I say, if you won’t help, then you’ll suffer anyway. Which grandchild would you like to lose, Kregan? Which daughter shall have her house burned down around her family’s ears?

He sneered at me.
You? You’re too soft to kill. You said so to Noret.

His hands flew up in horror as a bright sword of cold flame lanced towards his eyes. I held it unwaveringly a mere half-midec from his face as he cringed back, afraid of the fiery horror in front of him.
A lot of things have changed since then, Kregan. Oh yes, I’d kill to win this battle. Kill you, them...her.
The sword moved to hover a midec from the unconscious woman beside him.
You have a lot of family to get through before we’d have to kill you.

Please...no. Not Nuela. Jodi, she’s innocent, she knows nothing—

Innocent? You’re pleading innocence? What about Neim? What about those beggars we walked past to get into the office? What about the people dying of cancer and liver failure because of naksen and jozidem? What crime have they committed? No, Kregan, there’ll be no mercy based on innocence.

You better believe him, Mas Kregan,
Kir said.
Cos if he don’t kill you, I will. You ain’t dealing with no kindly Spiritist here. Your wife? Drives her veecle much, does she? Easy to make her miss a corner and hit something coming the other way. Real easy. No one would ever know. ‘Cept you.

The pupils of Kregan’s bicoloured eyes were enlarged from the drugs, so the bright light would be blinding him, but he squinted up at me with pure hate in his expression.
So this is how you’ve learned to negotiate, Jodimai. Through threats and violence.
His mental voice was sluggish, but the scorn was clear enough.

This is how I’ve learned to make you take me seriously, Kregan. Work with us, or we destroy you and your family. Kir, you have the names of the other telepaths now?

Yep. We don’t need you, Kregan. But we can’t leave you hanging around if you’re not helping. You choose.

This has to be done
carefully
! Damn you, I’ve laid this down for so long, you think I want you to come in and wreck my work?

We don’t want to wreck it, we want to hasten it.
Massively
.

There’s public opinion to consider—

Yeah.
Kir’s mental voice dripped with contempt.
You and your friends spent all these years shoving lies down people’s throats. You can use your power to do the opposite now.