Telepath (Hive Mind Book 1) (28 page)

There were two Ambers now. The
Amber that was me was trapped in a spherical, crystal cage within my own head.
Fleeting images of people and places swirled around my prison. I could hear
snatches of conversation, and recognized that some of the words were spoken in
my voice. There were moments when I was aware of my body moving, but it wasn’t
answering my orders.

The imprint had activated,
and put the Amber that was three years old in control of my mind and body. She
was the one looking through my eyes, speaking with my mouth, and touching
things with my hands. I felt her raw, childish emotions ripping through me, changing
abruptly from joy to anger and back to joy again. She’d done what Elden wanted.
Elden would be pleased with her. Elden would say she was a good girl.

Elden had to be the name
of the man who’d imprinted me. What had the child Amber done to please him? Had
she harmed the people I loved? Was she already taking me to serve her master in
another Hive?

I couldn’t tell anything
from the random words and bewildering images that reached me. I tried to talk
to the child Amber, reason with her, but she didn’t seem to hear me, or even be
aware that I existed.

Lucas’s face appeared outside
my prison, his expression utterly exhausted and despairing. I gathered every
ounce of strength, tried to control my body for just a second to speak to him,
but couldn’t. A moment later, he was gone, and then everything outside the
crystal cage went black.

Was that blackness because
the three-year-old Amber had closed her eyes, or was it because I’d lost the
last fragile link to my body? I remembered the Halloween stories of the hunter
of souls. The creatures of the pack that followed him were forever cursed to
roam the night shadows of Outside. Was I cursed to hang here in darkness
forever?

That was the moment when I
felt the walls of my cage move closer to me. The imprint had imprisoned me
inside this crystal sphere, and now it was trying to crush me out of existence.

Lucas would be working to
remove the imprint, and send the three-year-old Amber back into the past. Working
to free me from this cage, and give me my body back. I had to find a way to
hold on here, forget my fear and fight for my survival, or there wouldn’t be
anything left of me for Lucas to set free.

I thought of Elden, screamed
my anger and defiance at him, and the walls of my crystal prison moved further
away. I focused on the anger that made me stronger. I would survive this, I
would take my life back, and I would hunt down Elden and destroy him the way
he’d tried to destroy me.

I woke up, opened my eyes, and stared
at the ceiling. There was something wrong about that ceiling. This wasn’t my
bedroom at my Telepath Unit, or my room on Teen Level. I wasn’t on a sleep
field either, but lying on a solid bed.

“Welcome back, I hope. Do
you know me, Amber? What’s my name?”

I turned my head, and saw
Lucas was sitting in a chair by my bedside. There was a spectacular purple bruise
on his left cheek, and he looked desperately tired. I tried to work out what had
happened.

“Of course I know you,
Lucas. What’s happened? Did I faint when we were Outside?” I frowned. “No, I
remember we went back to my apartment after that. I had a dream, and I called
you and …”

I remembered the kiss
thing, and my words trailed off in embarrassment.

“That all happened three days
ago,” said Lucas. “Do you have any memory of ducks?”

“Three days!” I sat up,
shocked. “Ducks? What? No.”

“How about a parcel from
your mother?”

“Yes, I remember there was
a parcel on the side-table. Hannah must have left it there. I picked it up and
…”

I broke off. I’d opened
that parcel and discovered a glittering duck. That was followed by a blank patch,
which must have been the point when my imprint activated. The next thing I
remembered was a long period of nightmare images. I’d been trapped in a crystal
sphere, fighting to avoid being crushed out of existence.

I’d been determined to
survive and get my life back. I’d succeeded. I gave myself a moment to savour
the sight of white room walls, the humming sound of an electrical display next
to my bed, the coolness of a sheet beneath my hands, and the distinctive
background chemical scent that meant I was in a room in the unit medical area.

The world seemed very convincingly
real, but I had to be sure. I lifted my right hand to my mouth, and bit at the
side of my forefinger. There was a faint taste of blood and the blaringly loud
sensation of pain.

Lucas snatched at my hand,
pulling my finger away from my mouth. “What are you doing, Amber?”

“The imprint activated and
took control of me, Lucas. I’m checking I’m truly awake. Do you remember that we
once had a conversation about telepaths feeling pain? You said that pain
screams at all levels of the mind. You were right. There’s something very real
about pain.”

I gave a long sigh. I was
back in reality, but that meant I had to face the next problem. What had my
three-year-old self been doing with my body during the last three days?

Sick with apprehension, I
forced myself to ask the question. “What happened while I was under the control
of the imprint?”

“When I left you,” said
Lucas, “things between us were in a bit of a mess. I waited a couple of hours
so you’d be clear of the hypnotics, then went back to try to talk to you.”

I’d tested my five
standard senses, and now it was time to try that vital sixth one. I reached out
with my mind, dipped into Lucas’s thoughts, and found them startlingly slow and
comprehensible by his standards.

“You wouldn’t look at me,”
he continued. “It wasn’t because you were angry. There was something very wrong,
like part of you was missing. For a horrific moment, I thought it was my fault,
that I’d made some dreadful mistake when I used the hypnotics to get more information
about your dream.”

I flinched at the pain of
his memory. “Lucas, I can read you. There’s no need to explain.”

He was at breaking point
from exhaustion, but he kept talking anyway. He’d been waiting for hours for me
to wake up, planning exactly what he’d say, and he insisted on saying it.

“I was going to call Megan
over and explain the situation. If she didn’t kill me on the spot, I’d find
myself a nice deep lift shaft and jump down it. Then you told me that you’d
filed a request to transfer to Hive Genex.”

He dragged his fingers
through his hair. “That made everything clear. The target had somehow managed
to activate your imprint when you were safely inside your own apartment, in the
middle of our unit, behind the strongest security defences in the Hive.”

He gave a despairing shake
of his head. “You marched out of your apartment. I pulled myself together and
went after you. You were heading for the lifts, so I tried to stop you, and you
were kicking my ankles and fighting me.”

I looked guiltily at his
bruised face. “Did I do that to you?”

“No. Someone must have
seen us struggling, because Adika and the Strike team showed up and flattened
me. Fortunately, I managed to explain before I suffered major injuries.”

“Sorry,” I said uselessly.

“There were a few awkward
minutes after that. You were fighting the entire Strike team and winning,
because they couldn’t make themselves use physical force on their own telepath.
I finally had the sense to paint a fake birthmark on Forge’s face, and got him
to reason with you. The effect was incredible. You started calling him by the
target’s name, Elden, and obeyed his every command.”

I saw Lucas’s memories of
me acting like a puppet, constantly watching Forge, adoring Forge, obeying
Forge. I felt a wild medley of distress and fury at seeing myself like that,
tried to run my fingers through my hair, and discovered I was wearing something
on my head.

I took a look at myself
through Lucas’s eyes. I was wearing my own familiar clothes, but had a tiara on
my head, a ludicrously ornate thing smothered in glass crystals. I disentangled
it from my hair. “I see my three-year-old self liked sparkly things.”

“Yes, with Forge giving
you orders, and rewarding you with shiny jewellery, we had the situation
contained. You happily told Forge about finding the duck in the parcel.” Lucas’s
hands clenched into frustrated fists. “I was stupid. I should have guessed
those ducks were appearing in the 500/5000 Level 1 shopping area for a reason. The
gold and silver pattern on the ducks was the trigger symbol that would activate
your imprint. Elden was counting on the fact that a telepath was bound to visit
the finest shops in the Hive.”

“I kept meaning to go
there, but I was too busy.”

“Elden finally lost
patience, and took more direct action, luring us to that 601/2603 Level 80
park. Once we knew what to look for, we discovered a fragment of a gold and
silver balloon there.”

“I vaguely remember seeing
a balloon when we were there. I never really looked at it. I usually have my
eyes closed when I’m working.” I threw the tiara into the far corner of the
room. “You weren’t stupid, Lucas. There was no reason for you to think the
ducks were important when they first appeared.”

“I was incredibly stupid,”
said Lucas. “I should have realized about the ducks. I shouldn’t have assumed
personal mail from your family was safe. I should never have left you alone for
one single second. If I’d been there when you opened that package, I’d have realized
the duck was the trigger symbol. I might have been able to grab it before …”

I interrupted him. “All
that matters is that you’ve got rid of the imprint now. It is gone, isn’t it?
It can’t control me any longer?”

“The imprint is gone,
Amber. It can’t make you do anything now.”

I moistened my lips before
speaking again. “And I didn’t … hurt anyone?”

Lucas understood the
question I daren’t ask. “You didn’t kill any of your Strike team by sending
them into danger, or shooting them, or doing whatever other horrors you’ve been
picturing in your head. They have a few bruises where you kicked them, some of
them in very painful places, but they’re always covered in bruises anyway.”

I sighed in relief. If my
three-year-old self had killed someone in her eagerness to please Elden,
everyone would have told me it wasn’t my fault, but I’d still have spent the
rest of my life feeling like a murderer.

I forced that thought
away. It hadn’t happened, and it wasn’t going to happen. My three-year-old self
was back in the past, and I was in control again. “How did you get rid of the
imprint? The symbol on the ducks was the key symbol too?”

Lucas shook his head. “The
key and the trigger symbols mark the start and end of the imprint, so they have
to be different.”

“You didn’t do it without
the key? I’m not …?” I could read Lucas, so I was still a telepath, but would I
be able to tell if my mind was damaged in other ways?

“Obviously we had to find
the key first. You’d told me about the golden balloon chasing you in your
dream. The second you mentioned it, I was sure that was linked to the key
symbol. Given our personal relationship, it was shockingly unprofessional of me
to use hypnotics on you myself, but I had to break the rules. If I’d delayed to
get Megan, your dream memories would have faded.”

Lucas hesitated. “Once I’d
broken safety protocols to get more details of the balloon, I couldn’t possibly
risk kissing you.”

I waved a dismissive hand.
“I understand that, but I didn’t know you’d worked out the key symbol.”

“I hadn’t worked it out. I
just had a few clues as a starting point. It was like trying to recreate a
piece of broken china when all you have is a couple of remaining fragments.
There were a huge number of possibilities for the symbol, but at least we could
dismiss the incorrect ones rapidly.”

I could see the painful
process in his head. Seemingly endless attempts at creating the key symbol. All
the times when I’d obeyed Forge’s orders to look at the symbol but not
responded. Finally, after working solidly for three days and nights, Lucas had
found the right answer.

“Once we’d found the correct
key symbol, your imprint unravelled beautifully,” he said. “It should have
taken your artificially imprinted fear of Outside and the Truesun with it, but
an unpredictable amount of natural fear will remain given your terrifying experience
out there as a child.”

“The target, Elden, can’t
control me anymore. I’m free.” I took a moment to savour the thought. “Did you
get Forge to order me to cancel my transfer request, or do I still need to do
that?”

“I’d rather you didn’t
cancel that yet,” said Lucas. “Elden must have access to the low security areas
of our central data core to achieve the things he’s done. He’ll have seen your request
and know your imprint has been activated. If you cancel the request, he’ll see
that too.”

I frowned.

“Our best tactical move is
to leave Elden thinking he’s in total control of the situation,” added Lucas. “Of
course our Hive won’t process your request, but Elden will expect there to be a
delay while we try to convince you not to leave. He’ll wait patiently for the
next few weeks, joyfully imagining you carrying out your imprinted orders, causing
havoc, and convincing everyone our Hive is better off without you.”

My instinct was to cancel
the transfer request immediately, but I gave a grudging nod. “I suppose that’s
the best plan.”

Lucas stood up. “I’ll get
Forge in to do some tests, just to confirm the imprint hasn’t left any
lingering effects.”

He went out of the room, and
returned a moment later with both Forge and Megan.

“Amber, how are you feeling?”
asked Megan anxiously.

I stood up and smiled at
her. “Calm down, Megan. I’m myself again and I can still read your mind. Removing
the imprint hasn’t damaged my telepathy.”

The frantic tension in her
mind abruptly relaxed, and her thoughts sagged into weariness. She was very tired,
though not in as bad a state as Lucas. She’d had a couple of hours sleep in the
last three hideous days, but Lucas hadn’t rested at all.

I made myself turn to face
Forge. He seemed embarrassed, and I didn’t dare read him. Eventually, I’d have
to face his thoughts about me acting as his obedient slave, but not now. I
wasn’t being a coward; I just had too many other things to cope with right now.
No, it probably was cowardice, but either way I’d leave reading Forge until
another day.

“We think Amber’s cured,
Forge,” said Lucas. “Try the puppet thing.”

Forge gave me a
self-conscious look and coughed. “Sit down, Amber.”

I didn’t move.

“Wave at me.”

I did nothing.

“Kick Lucas.”

I winced.

Forge took a deep breath.
“You’re a good girl, Amber.”

“I’m not a good girl!” I
snapped out the words in fury. I wasn’t angry at Forge for saying them, but at
Elden for using me, controlling me, owning me.

Forge breathed out in a
soft sound of relief. “It’s really you again. When I saw what an agent of
another Hive had done to you, turning you into his obedient little doll, I wanted
to kill him. I
am
going to kill him.”

“We don’t just need to
deal with Elden,” said Lucas, “but bring the wrath of Joint Hive Treaty Enforcement
down on Hive Genex too. Our best plan is to keep Elden in his fool’s paradise,
thinking he’s controlling Amber, while we …”

Megan interrupted him. “You
shouldn’t be making plans for the future now, Lucas. You need to get some
sleep.”

Lucas frowned. “It’s important
that I …”

“No, it isn’t!” she said
sharply. “Amber will be suffering an unknown amount of trauma. You’re on the
edge of collapse. Everyone else in the unit is exhausted too. We must allow
ourselves recovery time before we do anything at all.”

I let Megan argue with
Lucas, while I closed my eyes and let my thoughts reach out across my unit,
briefly touching mind after mind. Megan was right. Everyone seemed exhausted
and hovering somewhere between deep depression and total despair.

I could understand the
Strike team feeling like that. They cared about me and I cared about them. Their
job was to protect me but physical defence was useless against this attack.
They’d spent days in helpless suspense, waiting to see if Megan and Lucas could
find a way to bring me back to myself.