Telepath (Hive Mind Book 1) (6 page)

After a week of only Megan’s mind
amid total silence, there were three new people in Hive Futura. I’d been practising
controlling my telepathic abilities with Megan over the last few days. Now I
could open up my telepathic view of the world to see the shapes of three unfamiliar
minds nearby, or pull down a mental curtain to protect myself from them.

In theory, that meant I should
be in total control of this situation, but the experience of being hit by
Megan’s grief had taught me the difference between theory and reality. I’d
learnt to avoid the dangerous depths inside Megan’s head, and keep in the
safety of the shallows just below pre-vocalization, but I’d no idea what new emotional
whirlpools might lurk inside these strangers.

“We need you to approve or
reject your three operational team leader candidates at this point,” said
Megan. “They can’t start selecting their team members until their own
appointments are confirmed.”

We were sitting in a room
in my apartment, lounging in two of several comfortable chairs. Megan showed me
the holos of three people. I studied them anxiously.

“Their names are Lucas, Adika,
and Fran,” Megan continued.

“Do I really have to read
their minds?”

“You must read the minds
of everyone in your unit before their appointment is confirmed, Amber. If
there’s anything in their heads that makes you feel uncomfortable, then it’s
much better to find out at the start and reject them than have it cause
problems later.”

I was feeling nervous. My
team candidates were probably feeling even more nervous. Their future careers depended
totally on my personal whim. I could see that in Megan’s thoughts right now. She’d
chosen the best qualified team leaders she could, but they were replaceable and
I wasn’t. I had to be begged, bribed, cosseted, whatever it took to keep me
happy and doing what the Hive needed. I could demand anyone should be fired,
and they would have to go.

That was what Megan had
meant when she told me I was in charge. I would be the notional head of my
Telepath Unit, not because I was capable of making any useful decisions, but
because true telepaths had to be kept happy. I could throw a childish tantrum,
whine, scream, and demand anything I wanted, and people would have to obey.

True telepaths had to be
kept happy. I kept hitting that over and over again in Megan’s thoughts. The
fact was connected to something deeper down in her mind, something she didn’t
want to tell me. I’d tried investigating it, but whatever Megan was hiding was
surrounded by a wall of powerful emotions. There was a lot of fear in there,
and grief that somehow merged into her grief for her dead husband. The combined
effect of those emotions overwhelmed me whenever I tried to get past them.

“Which of your team leader
candidates would you like to read first?” asked Megan.

There were two men and one
woman, and I felt another woman’s mind would be easier. “I think I’ll start
with Fran.”

“Fran is your candidate
for the Liaison team leader position,” said Megan. “You may find some initial
tension when you enter her mind. She’s been highly successful in several
similar team leader positions, but she hasn’t worked in a Telepath Unit before.”

“What does the Liaison
team do?” I asked.

“They collect data and co-ordinate
unit operations with the rest of the Hive.”

That meant nothing to me. The
woman in the holo looked as if she was somewhere between forty and fifty years
old. She had an emotionless, professional smile that hardly changed during the short,
repeating holo sequence, but Megan had managed to hide all surface signs of her
grief behind a similar smile. If I was hit with something equally drastic, and
embarrassed myself by crying again, then I didn’t want an audience watching it.

“I’d rather see Fran
alone,” I said.

Megan sighed, but turned
off the holo images and left the room.

A minute later, Fran
entered. I gestured at a chair opposite me, she sat down, and there was an
awkward silence. I forced myself to speak.

“Megan said you hadn’t worked
in a Telepath Unit before. You understand that I have to …?”

Fran nodded. “I understand
there is an initial check.”

I reached out to her
thoughts. I’d read Megan so often during our training sessions, that her mind had
become familiar territory. Fran’s mind had a different … sound, taste, texture
to it. I hesitated at the surface, adjusting, reading the pre-vocalized words.

I am calm and helpful
and have no problem with this. I am calm and helpful and have no problem with
this. I am calm and helpful and have no problem with this.

I was startled. Fran was repeating
the words, over and over, inside her own head. I wasn’t sure if she was trying
to convince herself or me, but either way it was obvious they weren’t true. It prepared
me for the tension I saw on the next level down.

… have to do this or
I lose the promotion of a lifetime. Everyone would think …

I moved on to the level
below that, and was hit by bitter resentment.

Sneaking, prying nosy!

I recoiled out of her mind.
Fran loathed the idea of me reading her thoughts. I didn’t know how to react to
that. I had to get her out of this room so I could think.

I forced a smile. “Thank
you, Fran. You’ve been very helpful. Please ask Megan to come back.”

Fran’s face lit up with
relief. She believed her ridiculous chant had hidden her resentment, and she’d
got the post as my Liaison team leader. I watched her eagerly leave the room,
and wondered what I should do now.

The easy way out would be
to reject Fran, but I remembered all the times I’d been part of hostile crowds,
chanting tables as a grey-masked nosy went by. How could I blame Fran, reject
Fran, for feeling exactly the same way that I’d felt myself?

Megan came back into the
room. “What did you think about Fran? Was she tense?”

I tried to keep my voice
calm as I answered her. “Yes. I suppose that’s natural. I won’t have to read
her again?”

“The only people in your
unit that you must read on a regular basis are the members of your Strike team,
but the telepath has the right to read anyone’s mind at any time. All
candidates for Telepath Unit positions understand that and are happy about it.”

I didn’t believe Fran was
happy about it, but if reading her mind wasn’t necessary for my work then I
wouldn’t be doing it. My mood abruptly changed from uncertainty to grim determination.
I was going to prove to Fran that I was totally different from the hated, prying
nosies that had frightened me as a child. I’d show her that I’d only read minds
when necessary for the good of my Hive, and then she’d accept me.

I needed Fran to accept
me. My hatred of nosies hadn’t vanished when I learned I was a telepath myself.
It lingered on as a nagging voice in the corner of my mind, telling me that I
was a vile and disgusting thing. If Fran accepted me, then perhaps I could
accept myself, and that nagging voice would leave me in peace. I could be happy
then, remember all the Hive Obligations and Duty songs we’d learned in school,
and celebrate the fact I was Level 1 and valuable to my Hive.

I glanced at the images on
the wall. “Adika next.”

“Adika is your candidate
for the Strike team leader position,” said Megan. “When Mira was discovered
during Lottery seventeen years ago, Adika came out of Lottery as one of her
Strike team members. Ten years later, he moved to become a deputy Strike team
leader for Morton.”

I didn’t ask what the
Strike team did. I already knew their work was dangerous, because I’d been
seeing that fact every day in Megan’s mind. Her husband, Dean, had been a
Strike team member in Keith’s Telepath Unit. It was barely a month since Dean
had been wounded on a mission and bled to death. However much Megan concentrated
on training me, there was always a deep part of her mind brooding on her loss.

On a conscious level,
Megan believed that true telepaths were incredibly valuable to the Hive and
must not be criticized or rebuked. On a subconscious level, she believed that
Dean would be alive today if Keith hadn’t been so selfishly lazy and arrogant.
The two parts of her mind were fighting a constant war.

Megan went out of the
room, and a minute later Adika came in. The holo sequence of his dark face
hadn’t prepared me for just how powerfully built the man was, and the way his
presence dominated the room. I couldn’t guess his age by looking at him. If
he’d been through Lottery seventeen years ago, then he must be thirty-five now,
a few years older than Megan.

He sat down, and gave a
relaxed nod that seemed to be an invitation to go ahead. I braced myself,
reached out to a mind with such sharply defined edges that it could have been carved
with a chisel, and tapped warily into his surface thoughts.

… physically ideal, we’ll
hardly notice her weight carrying her, but how good is she at what really
counts? Are you able to read me, Amber? Tell me what I’m thinking now. I was
born in Red Zone. I have two brothers. I broke my right arm when I was
twenty-three.

I gave a startled laugh. Adika
was utterly relaxed about me reading his thoughts. I chanted his list of facts
back at him. “You were born in Red Zone. You have two brothers. You broke your
right arm when you were twenty-three.”

He gave an approving nod. “You’re
doing well for this early in your training.”

Part of Adika’s mind was
comparing me to his memories of Mira soon after she came out of Lottery. I’d
scavenged a scanty few pieces of information about the other true telepaths
from Megan’s mind, and was eager for more. I focused on Adika’s thoughts about
Mira, saw his memory of her talking to him, and was startled to see her face had
the same distinctive features as those of my friend Casper from Teen Level.

“I didn’t know Mira was
born with a genetic condition,” I said.

“I didn’t realize I was
thinking about Mira,” said Adika.

There was an incomprehensible
patch in his thoughts. Something about an extra copy of a chromosome. The word
chromosome was vaguely familiar, I thought I’d heard my parents say it, but I
didn’t know its meaning. I made a mental note that it was possible to read someone’s
thoughts but not understand them.

“Mira turned out to be an
excellent telepath, and always eager to do her best to help the Hive,” said
Adika. “We just needed to protect her from too much pressure, and make sure she
always had the same familiar bodyguards with her.”

I listened to the words,
but picked up extra details from Adika’s thoughts as well. I relived the echo
of his old disappointment, when Mira’s preferences had put someone else into a
deputy team leader spot, and he’d had to wait ten long years for a chance to
fill that role for Morton. I resented that for Adika, but he’d never considered
it an injustice. He had tremendous respect for how hard Mira worked and how
well she did her job. If having someone else as deputy team leader made things
easier for her, then that was for the good of the Hive, and …

I realized I’d got caught
by that old memory, swept up in the emotional overtones as if it was happening
right here and now instead of seventeen years ago. I pulled myself away with an
effort.

“Since I can’t be
imprinted, I’d like to meet the other true telepaths and learn from them.”

“That’s not a good idea,”
said Adika. “Mira couldn’t help you, Keith would be a very bad example, Morton
wouldn’t agree, and Sapphire …”

He hesitated for a moment.
It was strange reading his thoughts. I could see he was inventing reasons why I
shouldn’t meet the other telepaths, attempting to convince himself as much as
me.

I went a level or two
deeper into his mind, and things got even stranger. Adika knew it was important
that telepaths should be kept apart from each other, but not why. There were no
memories associated to the rule, and there was an odd, impersonal quality to it.
I’d met this sort of thing before in Megan’s mind, and discovered it meant it was
imprinted data rather than something she’d learned personally, but usually rules
like this included the reasons behind them.

“Sapphire is far too busy,”
added Adika finally.

He was thinking that this
first meeting had achieved its purpose, and he wanted to leave before I pushed
the subject of the other telepaths any further, so I nodded at him. “Thank
you.”

He stood and went out of
the door. I was still linked to his mind as he saw Megan sitting on a chair in
the hallway. She stood up to greet him, her short skirt flashing a tempting
length of thigh that …

I gasped with shock, and instinctively
pulled out of Adika’s mind. Waste it! I wasn’t attracted to women, and I didn’t
possess the bit of anatomy that I’d felt responding to Megan.

When she entered the room
a moment later, I was deeply relieved to find I reacted to her as myself rather
than Adika. Megan must have noticed something strange about my expression,
because she frowned at me.

“There’s a problem with
Adika?”

“No,” I said hastily. “He
seems perfect for my Strike team leader.”

She looked relieved. “Amber,
you’re clearly finding this difficult and should rest now.”

I barely heard her words.
I was still thinking through what had happened with Adika. It might have hit me
in a different way, but I’d really had exactly the same problem with him as
with Megan. Fran too for that matter. Everyone was hurling their emotions at me
like missiles.

“I’ll tell Lucas that
you’ll see him tomorrow,” said Megan.

I hurriedly shook my head.
I didn’t want to delay meeting Lucas. He was my Tactical Commander candidate. The
person who would give me answers to my host of questions.