Mind Control: A Science Fiction Telepathy Thriller (Perceivers Book 2) (5 page)

Michael took a step forward. An armed policeman stepped out from a shadow. He was clad in black armour from his helmet to his boots and carried a semi-automatic rifle. Caught by surprise, Michael instinctively perceived him and learnt that the policeman’s initial assessment was that Michael posed no threat, even if he doubted that Michael had any authority to be there.

“I’m with Sergeant Patterson,” said Michael.

The sergeant’s name held currency with the armed policeman and he took a half step back. But the doubt remained. He looked closely at Michael’s youthful face, with its minor acne breakouts, and it didn’t correlate with what he was being told.

Michael strode forward with all the confidence he could muster and hoped the policeman wouldn’t think about radioing back to base to check.
Patterson must know what he’s doing
, the policeman thought as Michael passed him.

Patterson turned when he heard Michael approach and Michael perceived the sting of his annoyance. “What are you doing here?” said Patterson in an accusatory whisper.

“I need to perceive the bomber,” said Michael.

“You need to stay out of the way,” Patterson retorted.

“Don’t you want to know what the bomber’s thinking?”

“No,” said Patterson.
Yes
, said his thoughts.

“I can help you,” said Michael.

Patterson looked up ahead, they were not far from the cordon of police cars. He pushed Michael over to the wall and he felt the hard and cold bricks press at his back. He also felt Patterson’s anger and perceived a wish that he could just punch Michael and get away with it.

“You’re not trained, you could get us all killed,” said Patterson.

“I could get information you can’t get any other way,” said Michael.

Patterson hesitated. Michael felt the conflict within him: he wanted the information, but he wasn’t convinced Michael could get it, or that the risk was worth it.

“Jones sent me,” Michael said, the lie coming out his mouth before he had time to think it through.

If Patterson had been a perceiver, there would be no way a simple lie could deceive him. But as he was a norm, with only his ordinary senses to rely on, it gave Michael an advantage. He listened in to Patterson’s thoughts as the man weighed up the risks. Unlike the armed policeman back down the alley, he thought of calling in on the radio to check with Jones, but he didn’t have time to have another row about the use of perceivers in the police force – a row which he had always lost. Anyway, he needed to concentrate on what he was going to say to the suicide bomber, and maybe it was better to have Michael there where he could see him, rather than wandering around the scene like a loose cannon. “Okay,” he said, eventually. “But stay down, and if I say withdraw, then you get the hell out.”

“Understood,” said Michael.

Patterson released Michael from against the wall. He pointed to the back of the nearest police car, with its rear bumper closest to them, and indicated Michael should take up position behind it. Michael had no reason to argue.

In those last moments before he crouched down, Michael saw the position of two police marksmen, tucked into shadowy nooks between the other cars. He perceived them and realised there were four minds – which meant there were two policemen he couldn’t see – focussed and disciplined, keeping control over the adrenaline running in their blood.

Beyond them, Michael perceived another mind: more intense, wild and untrained. It spewed out a fear that fluctuated between panic and terror. It was the mind of the bomber.

From his hiding place behind the car, Michael looked out and saw the teenager with his own eyes, now only metres from him. He appeared the same as the image from the television screens, but now from a different angle and infinitely more real. He
really
was shaking, trembling like a frightened stray cat, desperately alone in his small space of tarmac outside the hotel, hemmed in by the building behind him and armed police in front. The shaking made it more possible to see the blue wire which emerged from the rucksack on his back, quivering in the air before it looped round and disappeared into the neck of his coat. It reappeared at the end of his sleeve and connected to something black and plastic in his hand.

I am ready …
said the teenager’s thoughts
… just a gentle squeeze, that’s all it will take … but not yet … wait …

The teenager’s thoughts changed to alarm. His head turned: he had noticed something. Michael also turned, to see what the teenager had seen.

It was Patterson. He had stepped away from the wall and stood in the middle of the alley with his arms out at his sides and his palms open. “I don’t want to hurt you,” he called out. “I just want to talk.”

Michael returned his concentration to the bomber.

Ignore him … I have to wait … I have to wait …

“My name is Sergeant Anthony Patterson from the Metropolitan Police.” He left a pause. “You can call me Tony. What’s your name?”

The teenager did not reply with words, but his thoughts said:
Stephen
.

“There’s nowhere to go,” said Patterson. “But I can help you.”

Then go away … if you go away, they will come …

“All you have to do is let my officers defuse the bomb,” said Patterson. “They are experts, they can bring you to safety.”

But I have to stay …

Stephen’s emotions trembled like his body, scared of his own thoughts as he ran the same idea over and over in his head.

Just a gentle squeeze … it’s all it will take … but wait … wait until they are here …

Michael wished Patterson was a perceiver. If the sergeant wasn’t burdened by the limitations of being a norm, Michael could think loud enough to transmit his thoughts into Patterson’s head so he could use that information to negotiate with Stephen. If the sergeant knew the teenager’s name, at the very least, he could use that to make a connection. But, no, it was not possible. Patterson’s mind could only think his own thoughts.

“Why don’t you talk to me, eh?” said Patterson, his voice soothing.

Can’t talk … won’t talk … ignore him …

“Tell me what you want and I can help you.”

Michael concentrated harder. Even if Stephen would not tell Patterson, his thoughts could still betray him. But there was nothing there, an emptiness in his mind which made no sense. His only thoughts were the repeated mantra, varying around the same theme, stuck in the same place like a car spinning its wheels on liquid mud.

I’m ready … just a gentle squeeze … but not yet … wait … wait until they are here …

Frustrated, Michael shuffled in his space behind the car, his feet scraping on the grit on the road surface. He thought it only sounded loud to him because he was close to it and trying to be quiet, but Stephen must have heard because he turned his head in Michael’s direction.

Realising he’d been spotted, Michael called out: “Who are you waiting for?”

Michael stood up from his hiding position behind the car so he was in full view. Patterson turned to look, his reproachful thoughts strong enough to bypass Michael’s filters. Michael blocked them out to concentrate on the images whirring through Stephen’s mind: white men in grey suits with white shirts, a Japanese woman in a cream skirt and jacket, a white woman in a red blouse with a bow …

… delegates …

“Michael!” Patterson spat in an urgent whisper. “Get back!”

Michael ignored him. If Patterson wasn’t getting Stephen to think the right thoughts with his negotiation, then he had to.

“Are those the people you want to kill?” said Michael. “The delegates?”

Stephen’s eyes widened, staring at Michael with incomprehension.

Ignore him … wait … wait until they are here …

“They’re not coming back,” said Michael. “Everyone’s been evacuated from the hotel. It’s just you, me and the police.”

Stephen turned away from him and stared out ahead at nothing. His fixed, open eyes were the only part of his body that wasn’t shaking.

I’m ready … just a gentle squeeze …

“It’s like Sergeant Patterson said,” Michael called out to him. “We can help. If you just tell us why you are doing this.”

It was the question Michael wanted the answer to. Somewhere inside of Stephen’s mind there had to be a reason he was prepared to blow himself up, some cause deep down that he was fighting for.

Michael concentrated. Patterson, the alley and the armed police were all banished from his mind: there was only him and Stephen. He pushed deeper than his surface thoughts, searching for his motivation. The more he found nothing, the more he pushed, getting deeper and deeper into the blankness of Stephen’s mind.

He’s in my head!
A stab of desperate panic speared through the centre of Stephen’s consciousness. So loud, it bounced Michael out of his mind.

Suddenly, Michael was aware of his surroundings.

Stephen’s head whipped back in Michael’s direction with angry, accusing eyes that burned into him.

“Perceiver!” Stephen shouted.

His hand reached behind – with no conscious thought – and pulled out a hand gun.

Gun!
cried the thoughts from all the policemen at once.

Stephen swung the gun in Michael’s direction, his finger on the trigger.
Kill the perceiver
.

A shot echoed off the walls of the alley.

Michael expected the pain of a bullet in the chest. But his lungs let out only a gasp as he saw a spurt of blood fly out of Stephen’s stomach. The pain he felt was Stephen’s pain: a searing hot stab through his body with a wave of shock and incomprehension that swelled in a moment and instantly cut to nothing—

An explosion – so loud it hurt – engulfed Stephen in a flash of flame. His body burst like a balloon filled with blood, throwing bits of his red-soaked flesh into the air.

The shock wave knocked Michael flying backwards. He landed on his back as bits of skin, muscle and bone fell onto him in hot red splashes.

Michael automatically blocked off all his perceptions. He lay on the ground with only his own terrified thoughts. He wiped something soft and squidgy from his eyes. It was a piece of Stephen’s flesh, fused to a scrap of his green, quilted jacket.

CHAPTER FIVE

“WHAT THE HELL
happened to you?” said Alex as Michael collected his meal of white fish hidden under a cream sauce, with chips and peas on the side, and joined him at the dining table.

The paramedics had patched him up the best they could, but he still looked a mess. Flying debris from the bomb, including (he overheard one of the bomb squad say) shards of Stephen’s exploded bones, had scratched his face and arms. His back and bum ached from bruises caused by being knocked to the ground. “There was an explosion,” he told his friend.

“Wow!” said Alex. “I wish my job was so exciting.”

You really don’t
, Michael thought. Although he said nothing.

The noise in the communal room hurt his ears, which were still ringing from the sound of the bomb. Everyone was in there, and their chatter was louder than usual. On top of that, the television was on. The big screen up one end of the room was playing an early evening quiz show with all the bright lights and vivid colours of daytime TV. On the table nearest to it, a group of perceivers – led by Peter, by virtue of him being the loudest – were shouting out the answers.

“Paddington Bear!” Peter shouted.

The screen cut to a close-up of a hapless contestant who, by virtue of having been recorded several months ago in a studio two hundred miles away, paid no attention to what Peter was shouting and muttered some guess which was clearly wrong.

“No! Paddington Bear, you idiot!” cried Peter.

Peter’s mates cheered when the besuited quiz show host announced Paddington Bear was, indeed, the right answer, which meant the embarrassed-looking contestant would go home with nothing and the jackpot would be rolled over to the next show.

“What’s going on?” asked Michael. The communal television was usually only switched on for big events like football and it was never – and this was a strict military rule –
never
allowed on at meal times.

“The first day of the trial today, isn’t it,” said Alex, scooping up a fork full of peas.

Michael’s body went cold. Then it went hot. The trial. He had forgotten about the trial. The smell of the fish suddenly made him feel sick. He dropped his fork to the plate and leant back in his chair.

The Perceivers Trial
, that’s what the press called it. Where the man who poisoned thousands of pregnant women to create a ‘master race’ of people with mind powers would answer for his crimes. As far as journalists were concerned, Brian Ransom was no better than a Nazi who was finally going to receive justice before a war crimes tribunal. The United Kingdom had no death penalty, but still the population bayed for blood, and waited for the moment when he would appear in the witness box and metaphorically hang himself with his twisted ideas of how he tried to better the human race.

Michael hadn’t decided whether he could bring himself to watch it. But he knew for a fact he didn’t want to watch it with a group of other perceivers.

Pauline was there, the new girl, sitting on the next table. She smiled at him and he tried to smile back, but that only pulled at a half-healed scab next to his mouth. She shot him a quizzical glance as if to ask what happened, and he shook his head to say that it didn’t matter. It seemed as if she wanted to ask more, but something was happening on the TV and she turned to look.

Michael looked too. The news had started. The perceivers around him hushed each other and the noise of the chattering that had been too loud, dropped to a stillness that hurt even more. A newsreader in a crisp blue blouse stared out the screen with deep brown eyes. “The Old Bailey hears how Brian Ransom conned thousands of British women into taking vitamin pills laced with the genetically-engineered perceiver virus.”