Telepath (Hive Mind Book 1) (34 page)

I touched his mind. One
level of Lucas’s thoughts was concentrating on the eastern sky, another on reassuring
me, and a third was full of incomprehensible technical details about imprints.

“If I hadn’t been a
telepath,” I said, “Elden wouldn’t have kidnapped me. I wouldn’t have feared Outside,
I wouldn’t have had a fixation on Forge, and Teen Level would have been totally
different.”

I was babbling randomly,
as if talking would blot out what was happening in front of my eyes. Memories
of Lottery surfaced, and a terrified girl frantically talking to herself. “Why
is the sky striped like that?”

“There are some bands of
cloud in the sky,” said Lucas. “They go different colours at dawn and dusk.”

“And Lottery wouldn’t have
picked me out as being special,” I jabbered on. “If I hadn’t been a telepath,
what job would Lottery have allocated me, Lucas?”

“I’ve no idea. The minute
you tested positive as a telepath, the normal test sequence stopped.”

The eastern sky was terrifyingly
bright now. I kept suffering the problem of being sucked into other people’s emotions,
but I could use that to my advantage now. I sheltered in Lucas’s emotions,
letting them engulf me, and my view of the sky suddenly changed.

The eastern sky wasn’t terrifying
but incredible, glowing in a rich medley of red, orange, and yellow. I stared
at it in awed admiration. Parks just slowly turned up the lights from moon to
sun level brightness at dawn, there was nothing like this.

“Can’t you make a guess
about me?”

“I can’t possibly guess
what would have happened to you in Lottery,” said Lucas. “There are tens of thousands
of professions in the Hive. The decision system is far too complicated for any
human mind to mimic. Anyway, it’s better not to know. It might leave you discontented.”

“Well, not if I’d have been
a Level 99 Sewage Technician.” I saw the amusement in Lucas’s thoughts, and
screeched in shock. “What? There aren’t any Level 99 Sewage Technicians?”

Lucas was struggling not
to laugh. “They’re an urban myth, deliberately encouraged by the Hive. Everyone
can feel comfortably superior when they joke about the poor Level 99 Sewage
Technicians and Waste Handlers living in hovels wedged among the pipes. The
truth is that nobody lives below Level 96. Levels 97 to 100 are mostly used for
maintenance and storage.”

“Gah!” I groaned.

“All Hives aim to be as
self-sufficient as possible,” said Lucas, “but ours is one of the nearest to
being a totally closed environment. We collect a few resources from Outside,
trade a little, and have our own sea farm, but for the most part we’re independent
of the other Hives and Outside. Air, water, food, power, all the main needs are
recycled. Our real equivalent of Waste Handlers are Level 1 Ecology Specialists,
vital to the wellbeing of the Hive.”

I shook my head. “First
the whole nosy thing was a bluff, and now there are no Level 99 Sewage Technicians.
You have no idea how worried I was that I’d become one.”

Lucas couldn’t hold back
his laughter this time. “It’s impossible for me to duplicate the complexity of
the Lottery decision process,” he gasped, “but I’m absolutely certain you’d
have been rated a lot better than Level 99.”

He dissolved into laughter
again. I cautiously tried separating my mind from his, letting my own emotions
take over again. The Truesun’s glowing orb was moving above the horizon now,
but I wasn’t being burnt to death. I wasn’t running or screaming either. I felt
some nervous fear and tension, but my terror had gone.

I was living in an impossible,
incredible new world. The reality of everything I’d known and depended on as a
child had shattered into a thousand pieces. My Hive would never imprint me. The
grey-masked nosies couldn’t read minds. Level 99 Sewage Technicians didn’t even
exist.

I was Outside, the Truesun
was rising, and it wasn’t terrifying but glorious. Elden’s last hold over me
had been broken, and I was free to hunt him down.

The next morning, I called my
parents so early that they’d barely started eating their breakfasts. “I just
wanted to warn you that I’ll be extra busy for the next week or two,” I said. “My
unit is going to be running some especially delicate experiments, so we may
have to exchange messages for a while rather than talk to each other.”

My parents nodded. My
mother and I had a rapid discussion about how Gregas was settling in on Teen
Level, while my father just kept giving wistful looks at his breakfast, and
then I ended the call.

I double-checked my gun
was locked on stun setting, clipped it on to my belt, picked up my crystal unit,
slung my jacket over my shoulder, and headed for lift 2. Adika and the Strike
team were waiting inside the lift. Lucas was standing outside it with Megan. She’d
obviously come to see us off on our hunt for Elden, or more precisely to make a
final attempt at stopping us going.

Megan frowned at me. “You’ve
only watched one sunrise and coped with a few hours of daylight, Amber. Leaping
straight into this trip on the basis of that, planning to spend day after day Outside,
is …” She broke off, unable to make herself say that a telepath was stupid. “Over
ambitious.”

“We discussed all this in yesterday’s
meeting, Megan. I’m not scared of Outside or the Truesun any longer. We have to
go after Elden now if we want to stand a real chance of catching him.”

Megan turned her attack
against Lucas. “You must realize that Amber’s been going through far too much
lately. That imprint. Your relationship. Going Outside. She shouldn’t be
rushing off on this trip as well.”

“I totally agree,” said
Lucas. “Leaving immediately is Amber’s idea not mine. I’d prefer less precipitous
actions, however I can see that she’s utilizing her multiple strong emotions to
mitigate each other, so leaving now has its advantages.”

Megan looked confused.

“Amber’s using her anger
at Elden to override her residual fear of Outside,” Lucas explained helpfully.
“She’s using her personal relationship with me as a distraction from both those
things.”

Was I really using those
tactics? I supposed that Lucas was right. He was the tactical expert after all.

Lucas spoke deliberately
slowly for emphasis. “You won’t change Amber’s mind about this, Megan. I know.
I’ve tried. Repeatedly. Just look what we’re up against!”

He pointed at the wall
opposite the lifts, where Sofia had painted her mural of me standing on the
picnic table and giving my speech to the unit. I felt that my passionate
expression, and my striking pose with both arms raised, owed more to artistic licence
than reality, but Megan threw a despairing look at it and groaned.

“Try not to worry too
much, Megan,” added Lucas. “If Amber’s tactics fail, then an aircraft can reach
us within minutes and take her back to the Hive.”

Megan sighed and retreated
in the direction of her office. Lucas and I put our crystal units in our ears, turned
them on, and went to join the Strike team in the lift. Adika greeted us with a
smile, clearly relieved to have escaped being drawn into the argument with
Megan.

“Strike team is moving,” he
said.

Everyone was carrying
backpacks that were even bigger than the ones they’d had yesterday. Lucas and I
were the fortunate exceptions, burdened with nothing except our bulky jackets.

Emili’s voice spoke in my
ear crystal. “Tactical ready.”

She sounded worried, and I
didn’t need telepathy to tell me why. Lucas was always concerned when he sent
me off on an emergency run, and Emili would be even more anxious about Rothan.
Lucas knew the entire Strike team would fight to the death to defend me from
any threats. Emili knew Rothan’s job put him in the forefront of that defence.

The ever anxious voice of Nicole
came next. She’d been rushed into being team leader without the standard experience
as a deputy. She was doing a great job, but still feeling insecure. “Liaison
ready. Tracking status is green.”

I’d already checked my dataview.
Everyone’s signals were there, including Lucas. “Green here,” I said.

Lucas started talking in
the lecture style he used for briefings. “This is a completely unprecedented
run by a Strike team. We’re prepared to be Outside for up to a week. Tactical
and Liaison teams are organized into shifts to give us round-the-clock support.
I can’t emphasize enough how important it is for people to rest and sleep when
they’re off duty. We don’t want to be several days into this, hit trouble, and
find people are too exhausted to do their job.”

“Strike team, that warning
is especially relevant for you,” said Adika. “I’m splitting you into red group
led by Rothan, and blue group led by Forge. Whatever the situation, the group
on rest break must try to sleep. Red group is …”

He recited a list of
Strike team members, and I watched names changing colour on my dataview.

“Everyone else is blue
group,” Adika concluded.

Lucas continued his
briefing. “We don’t want to be seen leaving the Hive, so we’ll go all the way
down to Level 100, ride an express belt through there, and then take a lift
straight up to a maintenance exit near a country park. Liaison have been rescheduling
maintenance work on Level 100, so we shouldn’t meet too many people there.”

Things went quiet until
our lift reached Level 100, and we headed out to ride the belt. I stood next to
Lucas as we went past seemingly endless mazes of pipes and tanks. Eventually,
we jumped belt. Lift 2 at our unit was giant-sized, to allow us to send out the
combined Alpha and Beta Strike teams to deal with an extreme emergency. Now we
were entering a standard express lift, so it was a tight squeeze for us and all
the camping equipment as we made the long ride from Level 100 right up to Industry
1.

When the doors opened, we
spilled out into an open area with a flight of steps leading up to a pair of
heavy duty doors. Adika held up a hand to stop us, and turned to look at Lucas.

“As we’ve already discovered,”
said Lucas, “the terrain Outside can be extremely difficult. Maintenance workers
maintain a few paths for access purposes. The Ramblers Association keep some
other paths clear for their hobby. We’ve maps of all available paths, and our
expert rambler, Rothan, will be guiding us. If we get lost, blame him not me.”

Lucas smiled at Rothan
before continuing. “We believe Elden originally came to our Hive from the nearest
stretch of coastline. For obvious reasons, our sea farm is at the closest point
of that coastline. Elden would want to keep his journey as short as possible, and
follow an established path towards our Hive, but avoid the sea farm. That means
he’d choose to come ashore at one of two quite small sections of coastline, and
follow either the Western or Eastern Coastal Way to reach our Hive.”

He paused. “Elden’s
probably at a nest near one of those two footpaths right now, waiting for
Amber’s transfer request to be approved. The plan is that we’ll head out from
the Hive along the Western Coastal Way. If Amber finds no sign of Elden on that
route, we’ll cut across to pick up the Eastern Coastal Way, and follow that
back towards the Hive.”

Lucas came to stand next
to me, while Rothan and Adika went up the steps and entered the code to open
the doors.

“Amber,” said Lucas, “if
you find your fear of the Truesun returning at any point, say so at once.
Rothan can get the tent up within a couple of minutes.”

“One minute, forty-five
seconds,” said Rothan. “We timed it.”

The door opened to show an
area of unkempt grass and scattered trees. The light Outside was duller than I
expected. Some of the more distant trees seemed strangely blurry.

Rothan stepped out of the
door and looked around critically. “We’ve still got some early morning mist.
That should clear within an hour, but it looks like we’ll have a cloudy day.”

“Clouds are good,” said
Lucas.

I took a deep breath,
moved Outside with the rest of the team, and looked upwards. The sky was a
uniform greyish white, like a badly painted park sky. I couldn’t even see the
Truesun. There was a cold edge to the air, so I put on my jacket.

Rothan was staring alternately
at his dataview and our surroundings. “We’ll have to take a maintenance path
down slope and head for Spike 71. Once we’re there, we can join the main Hive perimeter
path and follow it to the junction with the Western Coastal Way. It may seem like
we’re going the long way round, but it’s much easier and faster than trying to
force our way cross-country without a path.”

“You’re the expert,
Rothan,” said Adika. “General marching order is that red group go ahead with
Rothan, followed by Lucas and Amber in the middle, then Forge and blue group. Cover
the flanks when you can. Guns set to stun and hidden under jackets. Ear
crystals kept on audio only for now. We’re innocent little ramblers going for a
stroll.”

Rothan led the way along a
wide path with an oddly soft surface. I scuffed my feet, and found it was a
thick layer of ancient leaves. There were giant trees on either side of us now,
towering upwards to a dizzying height.

We mostly walked in silence,
though there was the odd joking comment from one or other member of the Strike
team. Adika was leaving Rothan to lead, and Forge to act as rearguard, while he
lurked near the middle of our party and watched every move I made. I checked
his thoughts, and saw that Megan had been lecturing him about the dangers of
exposing me to daylight for too long.

I sighed. I understood Megan
being especially anxious about this trip, but sometimes I felt like a toddler
with an over-protective mother. I allowed myself a brief fantasy about firing
her, but knew it was pointless. Any other candidate for Megan’s position would be
exactly the same, smothering me with care.

I’d learnt a lot about
imprints lately. Everyone in my unit was imprinted with identical facts about
how telepaths were rare, vital to the Hive, and must be protected at all costs.
Everyone except those imprinted for Tactical Commander or Senior Administrator.

Lucas was my Tactical
Commander in charge of operations. His imprint had to inform him telepaths were
precious, but not overwhelm him with that fact, or he’d never be able to make
the decision to send one on an emergency run. That was one of the things that had
attracted me to Lucas. Everyone else in my unit looked at me and saw an irreplaceable
telepath first and a person second, but Lucas always saw me as Amber.

But if the Hive left my Tactical
Commander free to make decisions that put me at risk, it also made sure my Senior
Administrator was a balancing influence to defend me. Candidates for Megan’s
position were chosen to be over-protective by nature, and imprinted with a crippling
mass of reasons why a telepath must be kept safe and cosseted.

I pulled a face. I’d once
thought that Megan’s primary role was protecting my physical and mental wellbeing,
in the same way that Adika’s primary role was protecting me from attack. That
was almost right, but Megan’s role also included protecting me from my Tactical
Commander. No wonder she was so uncomfortable about me being in a relationship
with Lucas.

I realized everyone had
stopped moving, and looked round to see why. We’d reached a junction in the
path, and Rothan seemed to be conferring with Liaison about which way to go. I
sat down on a fallen tree branch to wait, grateful for the rest. I was used to
riding an express belt for long distance travel, and what walking I did was
along nice level corridors. This path had a habit of sloping upwards and then
going down again. Parks weren’t totally flat, but they were nothing like this.

I closed my eyes to focus
on my telepathic view of the world. Lucas’s thoughts flared like a beacon among
the rest of our party. Below my feet was the thunderous hum of a hundred
million minds. Around us were a multitude of animals and birds. I opened my eyes
again.

“Our tracking shows you’re
definitely at the right junction,” said the voice of Nicole.

Rothan peered at his dataview.
“This is a four way junction instead of three. The path ahead looks like a temporary
one cut by maintenance workers. You get a lot of temporary paths appearing and disappearing
out here. We’ll turn right.”

We walked on and reached a
small stream. Adika automatically picked me up and carried me across it.

“If any ramblers see us
carrying Amber,” said Rothan, “they’ll be worried she’s been hurt and ask if we
need help. We should tell them she’s just tripped over a tree root and twisted
her ankle.”

“Easy enough to injure
yourself on paths like this,” grumbled Eli.

“That’s why we have the
special heavy footwear that you’ve been moaning about, Eli,” said Rothan. “The
boots protect your feet and ankles, so you’re less likely to injure yourself.”

When we were across the
stream, I did my own walking again. After what seemed a very long time, Megan’s
voice came over the sound link. “You’ll need to give Amber a proper rest break
before too long.”

“I’m all right so far,” I
said. “The sky is very cloudy today.”

“I was thinking of getting
us to the edge of table top, and breaking for a few hours there,” said Rothan.
“That way everyone will be fully rested for the descent.”

“What’s table top?” asked
Adika.

“It’s a rambler term,”
said Rothan. “When the Hive was first built, a vast, square hole was dug out. Most
of the Hive levels were built underground, but the rest stuck up above the
surrounding countryside. As we’re taught in school, there was just the one zone
back then, but over the next century the Hive was gradually extended sideways to
add the extra nine zones we have today. The thing they don’t mention in school,
is that all the spare soil and rocks from extending the hole was used to bury
the Hive.”