Telepath (Hive Mind Book 1) (2 page)

I woke the next morning, gasping in
panic. I’d been trapped in a nightmare where I’d overslept and got lost on my
way to Lottery. I couldn’t read any of the signs. I was running along the
belts, asking people which way to go, and none of them would help me. When I eventually
reached my assessment centre, a man stood blocking the doorway.

“Too late,” he said, and
handed me a card saying Level 99 Sewage Technician.

I hadn’t overslept, it had
just been a ridiculous dream, but my taut nerves refused to relax and I could
only eat half my breakfast before my stomach rebelled. I threw the remains of
the food down the waste chute, with inevitable thoughts about whether I’d be
joining the low-level workers who ran the waste system, and then concentrated
on getting everything I needed inside the one large bag I was allowed to take
to Lottery.

Bag packed, I started
hurling the rest of my possessions into the storage locker next to my room. I
was aware that someone further along the corridor was loading things into their
storage locker too, but didn’t turn my head to look at them. I couldn’t face
yet another pointless conversation of goodbye and good luck.

Once my room was empty, I
used its built-in comms system to call my parents. Their faces appeared on the
wall, smiling anxiously.

“I’m ready to go,” I said.

“You’ll do brilliantly.”
My mother turned to my father. “Won’t she?”

“Definitely,” he said. “I
know it’s hard, Amber, but try to relax during the assessment process.”

“And we’ll still be here
for you afterwards,” said my mother. “No matter what.”

My father nodded.

“Thanks,” I said.

I knew they meant what
they were saying. The Hive encouraged new adults to make a fresh start after
Lottery, breaking free from old teen friendships that would fuel discontent in
those that were lower level, but it recognized that it could be psychologically
damaging to break close ties between parent and child.

Families keeping in touch
whatever the Lottery result was accepted, even encouraged, but many parents
would still dump an embarrassingly low-level child. Mine wouldn’t. Whatever
Lottery decreed for me, whatever new life I was thrown into, I’d have the
comfort of one link to the past. My parents would still keep calling me their
daughter, and I’d be welcome to visit their home.

They’d have to follow the
social conventions though. My Lottery result would decide whether my photos
stayed in one of the public rooms of their apartment, or were hidden away privately
in their bedroom.

My parents were Level 27.
Lottery would have to rank me at least Level 29 for it to be socially acceptable
for them to keep my photos on public display for their friends. If my photos
vanished, then those friends would know what it meant and do the polite thing.
Never ask how I’d done in Lottery, or mention my name again.

If I did very well, the situation
would be reversed. The photos would be proudly centre stage, and my parents
would glow with pride and talk of my success.

Right now, I had a gut feeling
there was little chance of that. My photos were heading for the bedroom.

“Gregas!” my mother
called. “Come and wish your sister a good Lottery result.”

There was a pause before
my brother reluctantly came to join them and muttered something inaudible. He
was looking pretty strained himself, and I could understand why. Gregas was thirteen.
In four short weeks, he’d be moving to Teen Level.

“Good luck to you too,
Gregas,” I said. “Moving to Teen Level, living on your own in a small room,
will seem strange at first, but you’ll soon get over that. There’s no more
school, you can try out all the activities on offer in the community centres,
join any sports team you like, go to parties and have a great time.”

He grunted a reply, but
didn’t seem convinced he was going to have fun. To be honest, I wasn’t too
convinced myself. It was vital to make friends during your first few weeks on Teen
Level, and Gregas wasn’t very sociable.

“When you move here,” I
added, “spend as much time as you can in your corridor community room. Everyone
on your corridor will be new like you, and they’ll all want to make friends.
Remember that it’s horribly rude to ask what level they came from, or mention
what level your own parents are. Your family background doesn’t matter once
you’re on Teen Level, because all teens are Level 50 and equal.”

Gregas grunted again, and
I gave up. I’d done my best. I’d told him the right things to do, and warned
him of the one social blunder he mustn’t make. There was no need to emphasize
the point about taking part in activities. Gregas would have had plenty of school
lessons about the importance of using your time on Teen Level to prepare for
Lottery.

I didn’t want to talk
about the activity sessions anyway. I’d dutifully attended every type my local community
centre had to offer, but failed to discover any especial gift for painting,
costume design, or a hundred other things. My instructors had said that wasn’t
a bad omen for the future, because the activity sessions mainly focused on work
involving creative skills. Lottery would test all my innate abilities, and search
among tens of thousands of other possible professions in the Hive to find the
one that was perfect for me, so I still had every chance of becoming high level.

Back when I was fourteen
or fifteen, I’d accepted those comforting words were true. Now I was heading
into Lottery, I found them far less reassuring.

“I’ve got a long way to
go,” I said, “so I’d better get started.”

My parents nodded. “High
up to you,” they chorused.

“Thanks.” I ended the
call.

I gave one final, nostalgic
look round the room where I’d lived for five years. Once Lottery was over, I’d come
and collect my belongings from the storage locker, but maintenance workers would
already be overhauling the room itself by then.

I pictured them painting
over every familiar scuff mark and scratch on the walls, eliminating every last
trace of my residence here ready for another girl or boy to move in. It might
even be Gregas who came to live in this room next. Teens were always allocated
rooms in their home area, so the support of parents was just a lift ride away.

I picked up my bag and
went outside. My door slid closed behind me for the last time, and I hurried
down the corridor. At the first crossway, it met a wider corridor with a slow
belt lane. I stepped onto the moving strip and rode it to the nearest major belt
interchange.

Once there, I took my
folded dataview from my pocket, tapped it to make it unfurl, and checked the instructions
I’d been sent. Lottery testing was done in the Teen Level 50 community centres,
but teens were always allocated to centres a long distance from their home area
to make sure they wouldn’t be assessed by a friend of their family. I had to
travel all the way from my home area of 510/6120 in Blue Zone, to the area 110/3900
community centre in Yellow Zone. I glanced at the overhead signs, and stepped
onto the northbound slow belt, before moving across to the medium, and then the
express.

Once I was on the express
belt, I put my bag down and sat on it. My old friends would all be riding the
belt system too, making equally lengthy journeys to different community centres.

It was like a sad echo of
the wild ride yesterday. All the Carnival decorations had been taken down, leaving
just the usual amateur wall paintings of Teen Level to brighten the corridors. Everyone’s
Carnival costumes had been replaced by standard teen outfits too, mostly
leggings and tunics emblazoned with the emblems of favourite singers or sports
teams, though some of the girls wore the fashionable tops and skirts that
Shanna adored.

The eighteen-year-olds
dotted the express belt, sitting on their bags like me, while the younger teens
stood by the corridor walls and watched us go by. I’d been a watcher myself in previous
years, wondering what the travellers were thinking. Now my turn had come, and
my thoughts were a confused, dejected jumble. I wished the trip was over, but I
didn’t want to arrive.

“Warning, zone bulkhead approaching!”
A voice boomed from overhead speakers, and red signs started flashing countdown
numbers.

On any other level, people
would start moving across from the express to slower belts, or even get off the
belt system entirely so they could walk across the boundary between the two
zones.

This was Teen Level, so we
just stood up and picked up our bags. The bulkhead approached, its massive blue
and turquoise striped doors wide open as always. I saw the boy ahead of me toss
his bag across the narrow gap between the end of the Blue Zone belt and the
start of the Turquoise Zone belt, then leap after it. A second later, it was my
turn. I braced myself, hurled my own bag ahead of me, and jumped.

The safety bar between the
two belts made it impossible to fall down the gap, but there was always a
fractional difference in speed between two express belts. I staggered on
landing, swayed for a moment, but managed to stay on my feet.

“Eight!” screamed a set of
voices from over to my left.

There were always some
self-appointed judges giving points on how well you managed the zone boundary
jump. I didn’t turn my head to look at them, just retrieved my bag and sat down
on it again.

The watching younger teens
wore clothes decorated with the turquoise emblems of Turquoise Zone sports
teams now. I travelled on through more bulkheads, crossing from Turquoise Zone
to Green, and Green Zone to Yellow, before changing to a westbound belt.

When I finally reached the
community centre in 110/3900, I double and triple checked I’d got the right
number and the right place, then dug my assessment card out of my pocket and
slid it into the slot beside the door.

“Welcome, Amber, you are
now registered for Lottery assessment,” it said, spat the card back out at me,
and the door slid open.

The inside looked exactly
like the community centre back in my old area. All the chairs were out in the
main hall, and some teens were already sitting on them, each with a large bag
at their side. The huge display wall at the front of the hall was filled with instructions.
I picked a chair as far away from the other teens as possible, sat down, and
started to read the text.

“Lottery welcomes the candidates
of 2532. You should wait in this hall between tests, but are advised to avoid interaction
with other candidates. Do not be concerned if your tests are not following the
same sequence as those of others. Every candidate follows an individualized test
progression, where the results of each test determine what other tests should
follow. There may be a delay at times until staff and facilities are available
for a key test.”

A banner flashed into life
at the top of the main screen. “Ricardo, please go to room 17.”

A gangly lad scrambled to
his feet, looked at the map of the centre on the side wall, and scuttled off
down a corridor. I went back to reading the general instructions.

“Do not be concerned if
you appear to perform badly on any particular test. Your weaknesses are not
important. You will be allocated to a profession that matches your strengths,
with priority going to professions harder to fill and more vital to the Hive.”

That was the end of the instructions.
I focused my attention on the banner now, getting nervous as the minutes went
by without my name appearing. The instructions said there could be delays, but
…

The banner was showing my
name! “Amber, please go to room 23.”

I stood up, checked the
map, and headed to room 23. A smiling blonde woman was waiting for me inside what
looked like a standard medical room. She asked me to roll up my sleeve, and
then held a metal gadget to my arm.

“I’m taking a blood and
tissue sample. This will feel cold, but it won’t hurt.”

I’d had blood and tissue
samples taken at every one of my annual medical checks. The next bit was just
like an annual medical too. The woman turned on a scanning grid, and I stood
inside the field while it made murmuring noises.

“Your medical records show
you had an allergic reaction to face paints at age three,” she said, “and
another allergic reaction to the contraceptive pellet implanted in your arm at
age sixteen.”

I frowned. Would a history
of allergies damage my chances in Lottery? “I haven’t had any problems since
they changed the pellet to a different type,” I said hastily.

“You also have occasional headaches.
Any other health problems, Amber?”

“No.”

The woman turned off the
grid. “That’s all for now, Amber.”

I went back to the hall
and sat down next to my bag. It was a quarter of an hour before my name
appeared on the banner again, sending me to room 9. This held a central chair
facing a wall covered with randomly moving, glowing clusters of colour. A young
woman was studying a small technical display in the corner of the room. She
only looked a year or two older than me. It wasn’t long since she’d been the
one being assessed to decide her future career, and now she was assessing me.

“Please sit down, Amber.”
She gestured at the central chair.

I sat down, and she gave
me the same blandly reassuring smile as the earlier woman. Did the information
imprinted on the minds of medical and assessment staff include the correct professional
expressions?

“I’m taking baseline brain
activity measurements.” She came across to position a metal blob on each side
of my forehead, and then returned to check her technical display.

I sneaked a look at the
display myself. A lot of little lights were bouncing up and down. It meant
nothing to me, but my tester seemed happy with it.