Telepath (Hive Mind Book 1) (26 page)

“When our Hive imprints
someone after Lottery,” said Lucas, “it’s done in carefully controlled conditions.
The person is left with no memory of the key or trigger symbols. Your case is
entirely different though.”

He pulled a face. “Your imprinting
was an incompetent mess, Amber. The target must have broken every possible
rule. I think he kept you awake and looking at him during the process, as the
simplest way to imprint the fixation with his face and pleasing him. That would
explain how your terror of being Outside got included in the imprint.”

Lucas hesitated for a
second before speaking again. “If I’m right, and you were awake for the
imprinting, then yes. It’s possible you’d have a memory of seeing or hearing
the key symbol.”

“In that case, we have to
try this,” I said. “I have to go Outside. I have to remember.”

“Megan’s perfectly right
though,” said Lucas. “Deliberately awakening those memories is dangerous. We’ve
no idea what makes someone into a telepath. It’s possible that causing massive
trauma on either conscious or unconscious levels of your mind could damage your
ability.”

“What else can we do?” I
asked. “We can’t wait for the target to trigger my imprint and make me his
personal slave.”

“We go into lockdown,”
said Adika. “We keep you totally isolated so the target can’t reach you.”

“For how long?” I asked.
“The target has already spent fifteen years hunting me. He’d spend another
fifteen if necessary, and I’m no use to the Hive while I hide in my unit.”

I paused for a moment. “We
have to do something, and there are only two options. Either we reset me back
to before I was imprinted, or we try to recover my memories of the key symbol.”

No one was saying
anything. They knew I was right, but they hated the idea of me going Outside. I
hated it even more than they did.

“I have to go Outside.” I
kept repeating the same words in an attempt to convince myself I could actually
do this. I knew it had to be me forcing myself to leave the Hive, because no
one else would drag the precious telepath Outside against her will. “I’ll need
you to help me. Make this as easy as possible for me.”

Lucas groaned, and I saw
his thoughts accelerate as his head started assessing options. He started
talking in speed speech. “Possible restore memories but danger reliving
traumatic childhood experience.”

I focused on the pre-vocalized
words in his mind, so I could see the full sentences and understand properly.

“We might be able to bring
the old memories to the surface without you going Outside, Amber, but then
you’d be hit with everything at once. Both the traumatic childhood experience,
and the terror of being Outside. Your suggestion is probably best. We give you
carefully graduated experiences of being Outside to reduce your fear to a level
you can handle. Some of your old memories may surface naturally during that
process. If not, we can move on to trying to restore them artificially.”

He paused. “The Truesun is
the focus of your fear?”

I saw an image of the
Truesun appear in his head, and instinctively pulled out of his thoughts. I
tried to cover up my shudder by making it into a nod. “Yes, I’m very scared of
that.”

“Then it’s logical to begin
going Outside at night.”

“When the Truesun is
turned off?” I asked.

“A slight technical
quibble, the Truesun isn’t turned off at night, it’s on the other side of our planet.
Be aware that the moon will be visible at night. Are you afraid of the moon in
the same way as the Truesun?”

“I don’t think so,” I
said. “I’ve been in parks at night when they were running a moons and stars
programme. Moons are a lot less bright than suns. That’s the same Outside?”

Lucas nodded.

I moistened my lips. “We’ll
make a start tonight then.”

“Not tonight,” said Lucas.
“It’s inadvisable to rush this.”

“It has to be tonight,
Lucas. We don’t know when the target will make his next move and … I have to do
this before I lose my nerve.”

He sighed. “If you
insist.”

I felt my stomach churn
with tension. I was going Outside tonight!

A few hours later, I stood in the
midst of a battlefield, my armour covered with mud and blood, my exhausted men
gathered around me.

“Once more unto the breach,
dear friends, once more; Or close the wall up with our English dead,” I heard
myself shout in a very masculine voice.

“Do you always play the
lead male role in bookettes?” asked Lucas.

I hadn’t noticed Lucas entering
the room. I turned in surprise, and saw a quizzical look on his face. “Bookette
stop.” The holo battlefield, the weary men, and my fake masculinity abruptly
vanished, leaving me standing in a featureless room. “The bookette doesn’t have
a female role at this point.”

“Why are you viewing a historical
bookette anyway?” asked Lucas. “You were supposed to be resting before
tonight’s trip.”

I pulled a face. “I tried
to sleep but couldn’t. I kept worrying about going Outside. I needed a
distraction, so I asked the bookette room for something involving people from
different Hives speaking different languages. It came up with this, and it’s
really confusing me. The relevant scene was right at the end, so I thought I’d
play some of the earlier stuff to see if it helped me understand what was
happening. It didn’t. You watch. Bookette restart first entry Catherine.”

Now I was a woman,
standing in a large room with tapestries hanging on the wall. The bookette had
me wearing a peculiar long dress, and I was accompanied by an older woman who
seemed to be my bodyguard. Lucas had been automatically designated the part of
Henry, and we stood facing each other, with the ancient dialogue appearing to
come from our mouths. This was a top model bookette room, so its holos faked
our mouth movements beautifully. I let the scene run for several minutes.

“Bookette pause,” I
finally said. “So, what’s going on? Catherine is getting traded between Hives?”

Lucas/Henry smiled. “Effectively,
yes.”

“But her imprint of her
new Hive language is faulty.”

His smile widened. “The story
is set prior to the availability of imprints. Catherine is learning the language
the slow way.”

“Can I do that to help me
read the target?”

“The slow way is extremely
slow. Takes years. Impractical.”

I sighed. “This bookette
is weird. Hive England and Hive France are fighting. Henry is king of England.
What’s a king?”

“A leader. Decisions were
made by a person, rather than by systems. In this bookette, Henry decides to
make war on France to increase his personal power. You can see why we don’t let
people make that sort of decision anymore.”

“So why is Catherine being
traded? What job does Hive England need her to do?”

Lucas clearly loved this question.
“Her job is to be queen of Hive England, sleep with Henry, and have a child to
be the next leader. Shall we order the bookette room to expand this scene to
include that point in their relationship?”

“No,” I said firmly.

“We could just let the bookette
fake our actions, if you preferred not to actually …”

“Bookette stop. Lucas,
quit giggling and behave!”

The room returned to being
featureless, and regal Henry turned back into Lucas.

“Is it time for us to go
now?” I asked.

Lucas nodded, and led the
way out of the apartment. I was bone weary and a mass of nerves. I expected him
to escort me to the lifts, but he headed for the park instead.

“We’re supposed to be
going Outside, Lucas.”

“Preliminary phase,” he
said.

I was too tired and
nervous for his speed speech. “Sentences, Lucas. Full sentences. Lots of
words.”

“You’re comfortable with
parks, so we’ll go to the park first. Our park keeper has just got the moons
and stars programme working. We’ll sit in the night-time park for a while, and
then we’ll cover your eyes, take you to a Hive exit, and go Outside. When your
eyes are uncovered, you should see a similar scene to that in the park. The idea
is to ease the transition for you and make it less threatening.”

“That makes sense,” I
admitted.

“Thank you,” he said.

Lucas’s voice sounded odd.
I took a proper look at him, and realized he was exhausted. I linked into his
thoughts for a second. He’d been frantically working out the best way to
approach this, picking out suitable spots in the park and Outside, arranging for
the moons and stars programme to be set up, choosing a nearby Hive exit to be used,
and debating security arrangements with Adika.

Alongside all that, he’d
been bouncing ideas to and fro with his team, trying to find a clue about what had
happened fifteen years ago that would remove the need for me to do this. If we
had some hard evidence against another Hive, then Joint Hive Treaty Enforcement
would become an ally not a threat, but we didn’t. At the moment, all we had was
the imprint in my head, and we couldn’t even prove that existed without the key
symbol.

I felt guilty about the
state Lucas was in, but I could hardly postpone our trip until tomorrow and
tell him to go to bed. If I did that after all the preparation work they’d done,
my own unit members would strangle me. Well, they wouldn’t actually strangle me,
because I was an irreplaceable true telepath, but there would definitely be a
few graphic thoughts floating around.

We entered the park. It
had been run down and neglected while the unit was closed, but now our park
keeper was bringing it back to life. Every day, new flowers, butterflies, and
birds were appearing. At night, it had been pitch black after the suns were
turned off, which was how Rothan had managed to fall into the lake, but now the
suns were on at moon brightness, and the tiny lights of stars dotted the
ceiling. Lucas led me into a grove of trees, and we sat down on the grass.

“I want you to lie back
and relax,” he said. “Look up at the trees. You should just see dim light
through the leaves, but no details of the sky. In a while, we’ll move you to
somewhere Outside, where your view around and above will also be restricted by
trees. What you’ll be able to see should seem like a slightly untidier version
of this.”

That sounded well thought
out and reassuring, but I’d still be Outside. I tried to fight off the tension,
do what Lucas said, and relax. I lay back, staring up at the canopy of leaves
with the faint light behind them. I gave a sudden gasp as I saw something dark
flitter across above me.

“What’s that?”

Lucas laughed. “A passing
bat. Learning its way round its new home, and looking for a feeding station with
fruit. We stole a nocturnal animal shipment scheduled for another park.
Telepath Unit priority.”

“I’m creating a lot of work,
and keeping everyone up for half the night. I’m sorry to rush this, but waiting
around would just make me more scared.”

“I understand,” said
Lucas.

“Am I stupid attempting
this?”

“No.” Lucas had been
sitting beside me, but now he lay back and relaxed too. “Trying this scares me
for lots of reasons, but you’re right. We have to do something, and we have to
do it quickly. Our target has been in total control of the situation until now.
He deliberately lured us to that park on Level 80. He took the child into the
drainage system, and arranged the booby traps, to keep us there as long as
possible. He was watching and waiting for us to return the second time, and the
dart gun was designed to pin us down and keep us there again.”

“He did all those things
just to make us spend time in that park?”

“He did all those things
to make
you
spend time in that park, Amber. The target must have been trying
to activate your imprint. Whatever he’d planned obviously didn’t work. We can’t
afford to sit passively waiting for him to make another, possibly successful, attempt.
If we find the key to removing your imprint, it would change everything, so
it’s worth taking risks.”

“I’ve been thinking,” I
said. “I could make a recording saying I want to stay in this Hive. Then if I
ask for a transfer, you could show it to people.”

Lucas shook his head.
“Recordings can be faked. We’d have to get a deputation from Joint Hive Treaty
Enforcement to come here and witness you saying it yourself. Even then, you
could claim later that you’d been pressured into saying it or had simply changed
your mind. Worse still, it would give away our only advantage, by telling the
target that we know about your imprint.”

“And even if we convinced Joint
Hive Treaty Enforcement, we still don’t know which Hive did this,” I said.
“They’d escape without penalty, and they could do it again, here or at other
Hives.”

“Exactly,” said Lucas.

“If the worst happens,
Lucas. If my imprint triggers, and there’s no other way to stop me being
transferred to the target’s Hive, promise me you’ll reset me.”

He groaned.

“Please, Lucas, I’d rather
be free with the mind of a child in an adult’s body, and have to grow up again,
than be the target’s slave.”

“If that’s what you want,
then I promise.”

We lay there in silence
for a while longer. Finally, Lucas took something from his pocket.

“Time to blindfold you.” He
sounded amused. “You’re wearing your body armour and crystal unit in case of emergency,
but you’ve got the ear crystal turned off?”

“Yes.”

“Good. I don’t want you
worrying about other people hearing anything you say, so we’ll both keep our
ear crystals turned off during this. Adika and the Strike team will be on guard
nearby when we’re Outside, but they should stay out of earshot.”

He paused. “Read my thoughts
if you like, Amber, but don’t read those of anyone else. The Strike team have
just been told about you being kidnapped as a child, which made them very
angry. Now they’re making their first trip Outside, which means most of them
are also scared. You mustn’t be hit by their emotions on top of your own. I
want you to focus on me and trust me. Understand?”

“Yes.”

Lucas covered my eyes. I
was tense, braced for what would happen next.

“We’ll wait here a while
longer,” said Lucas.

“Why?”

“Because your body
language is screaming in terror at me. Relax. I got bitten by a rabbit once.”

“What? How?”

“I was four years old,”
said Lucas. “I wanted to take the rabbit home with me. It wanted to stay in the
park. It won. I’m still nervous of rabbits. If we meet one, you’ll have to
protect me.”

I managed a giggle.

“That’s better.”

I felt myself being lifted
into his arms. “I can walk.”

“Not for this.”

I was being carried. I
couldn’t see anything, but Lucas was holding me close. “I might bite.”

“Query?”

“Like the rabbit.”

He laughed.

I was used to having my
eyes closed and being carried round like a doll by the Strike team. It was
oddly different, intimate, being carried by Lucas. I hugged the warmth of him,
tried to concentrate on his reassuring presence, but part of me was worrying
about where we were going, automatically noting when we went through doors,
took a quick lift ride, and travelled on the belt. I had a feeling there were
other people not far away, perhaps even standing next to us. Adika. The Strike
team.

“Shouldn’t the Strike team
carry me?”

“I resent that
suggestion,” said Lucas. “The Strike team may have a few more muscles than me,
but I’m not a complete wet lettuce.”

I heard a smothered laugh
from someone close by. Was that Adika? There was another short lift journey
next. Heading upwards this time. I could feel my heart rate speeding up.

“Trust me, Amber,” said
Lucas, his voice soft, comforting, hypnotic. “You can trust me. You’ll feel a
little cooler. There’ll be a breeze, like in the park, but much more varied.
Sometimes gentle, sometimes strong, and the direction may change.”

I was carried up some
steps, I could hear Lucas breathing harder from the effort, and then there was
the sound of a door opening. I felt the breeze. Lucas was right. This was
different from the constant air movement in a park.

“How do you feel?”

“Fine,” I said shakily.

We stayed there for a few
minutes, and then I felt Lucas walking again. We were Outside, and he was
carrying me away from the Hive. I reminded myself that it was night. There was
no need to panic. The Truesun was turned off and couldn’t burn me.

Lucas stumbled, and I held
on tighter.

“Sorry,” he said. “I
caught my foot on a savage tree root. It’s very dark out here, and there isn’t
much of a path.”

We moved on a little
further before he stopped. “This is where I put you down. The grass isn’t up to
park standards, so I left rugs here earlier.”

Lucas lowered me onto my own
two feet, and I cautiously sat down. I felt something warm being wrapped round
my shoulders, and Lucas’s hand took mine.

“I can tell you’re
nervous, so my next move is to distract you from your surroundings and help you
relax. Read me.”

I checked his thoughts.
“Lucas!”

“I’m just considering
possible ways to distract you while we’re alone in a dark wood.”

“Alone except for the
Strike team watching us.”

“I don’t mind them
watching us if you don’t. You wouldn’t want to shock your Strike team though.
You care deeply about them.”

“They care about me, and
risk their lives for me every day. I naturally care about them too. That
doesn’t worry you, does it?”

“Not in general. It’s
natural for a telepath to develop intense emotional bonds with their Strike
team members. It’s only the situation with Forge that worries me. You seemed to
be having a very nice time with him at the beach. Cuddling up together.”

I frowned. “I gave Forge a
sympathetic hug, that’s all. We were talking about Shanna.”