Telepath Read online

  “That’s not possible,” said Megan. “A century ago, there was a trial attempt to test children for telepathic ability at age twelve. The trial failed because the subconscious defensive block on using telepathic ability was too strong to overcome at that age. It would be even harder to identify a true telepath at age three.”

  “Our Hive’s method of identifying true telepaths doesn’t work on young children,” said Lucas, “but Hives never trade information on telepaths. It’s possible another Hive uses an entirely different approach. Brainwave activity goes through significant changes at around age three. There may be clues that indicate if a child is a potential true telepath.”

  “Another Hive!” Adika’s paranoia about threats from other Hives made him leap at that explanation, his thoughts burning with anger. “Another Hive is behind this. How could an agent from another Hive get information on our children’s brainwave activity?”

  “Annual infant development checks contain baseline brainwave activity measurements,” said Megan, in a despairing voice.

  “We know the target had the code to unlock Amber’s tracking bracelet,” said Lucas. “If the target could hack his way into our Hive’s central data storage to get the bracelet code, then he could access the development check records and a host of other information as well. Whatever method he used, he discovered Amber was a true telepath, and carefully planned her abduction. Carnival was the ideal opportunity, with all the children being entertained at special events.”

  “Kidnapping a true telepath is a major violation of Hive Treaty,” said Adika. “We have to report this to Joint Hive Treaty Enforcement.”

  “They’d dismiss the report as wild supposition,” said Lucas. “We’ve got no evidence at all that another Hive was involved in Amber’s kidnapping. We don’t even know which other Hive to accuse of the crime. All we’ve got is a plausible explanation of why Amber was kidnapped rather than any other one of a million three-year-olds.”

  “You believe the explanation is right though, Lucas?” I asked. “Our target is an agent from another Hive?”

  Lucas buried his face in his hands for a moment, thoughts racing on every level of his mind, and then lifted his head again. “Yes. There’s a limit to what I can accept as random coincidence, and if everything was deliberately planned then the target knows far too much about too many different things. How to find the one true telepath among a million three-year-old children. How to hack into our central data core. How to lure a telepath and her Strike team into a trap.”

  Lucas made a helpless gesture with his hands. “We have subversive groups in our Hive, but I can’t believe any of them could know more about identifying telepaths than the Hive itself. If the target is an agent from another Hive, it would explain a lot of things, including why Morton was having problems reading his mind fifteen years ago. Morton’s a skilled telepath, but was probably struggling because of language issues.”

  I didn’t understand that, and I couldn’t cheat by reading Lucas’s thoughts when they were running at bewildering speed on multiple, interleaved layers. “Explain that last bit please.”

  “Many Hives speak a different language to us,” said Lucas. “The target must have been imprinted with our language, but the top levels of his mind would still be using words from the language of his home Hive. I don’t know exactly what that would look like to a telepath, but it must be confusing.”

  “I’ve sometimes had trouble when a target is thinking of something complicated to do with their work,” I said. “When a thought level is racing along using lots of technical words that I don’t understand, it all blurs together into an incomprehensible mass. I usually get round that by skipping to a thought level that’s using simpler words, but presumably all the target’s thought levels would have the same problem. That’s not good.”

  I bit my lip. If we ever caught up with this target, I’d find his thoughts unreadable. I’d be able to see the view from his eyes, but not warn my Strike team about his plans.

  “So the target kidnapped me, planning to take me back to his own Hive,” I continued. “He took off my bracelet so no one could track us and hunt us down. What went wrong? Why did he let me go? If Morton’s Strike team scared him away, then he should have made another attempt to kidnap me a few weeks or months later, not wait fifteen years before reappearing. It doesn’t make sense.”

  “I agree,” said Lucas. “From what the report says, Morton’s Strike team never got close to the target. I doubt he even knew they were chasing him. We need to go back to the beginning and work events through logically.”

  He paused. “Let’s start with the base point assumption that the target is an agent from another Hive. Our time line starts over fifteen years ago when the target came to our Hive. How would he have got here? My imprint doesn’t tell me anything about other Hives. I know we have border defences, but I’ve no information on how they work or …”

  “My imprint covers border defences,” Adika interrupted. “It’s a long way to both our coastline and our land borders with the territory of other Hives. An unauthorized aircraft couldn’t breach our air space without being detected. We’d launch intercept aircraft in response, and Joint Hive Treaty Enforcement would send in forces as well. The guilty Hive couldn’t possibly explain their incursion, because we’re nowhere near any of the neutral trading exchange points.”

  “How do you think the target reached us then, Adika?” asked Lucas.

  “Our land border line is a flat concrete strip patrolled by heat-seeking drones,” said Adika. “They’d be hard to evade even with stealth technology, and I don’t believe the target came from a neighbouring Hive anyway. We’re on good terms with our neighbours, and they speak the same language as us.”

  He pulled a face. “My guess is the target came from our coastline. Our air space extends offshore, so the target must have been dropped into the sea from an aircraft. There are drones patrolling offshore, but a lone swimmer with breathing equipment could make it past them by diving underwater when they approached. Once the target made it to land, he would have had to make a lengthy journey on foot to reach our Hive. It would have taken him several days, possibly longer, to get here.”

  Lucas nodded. “And the target would have to make the same trip in reverse to get back home.”

  Megan burst into speech. “The target surely couldn’t have been planning to take Amber on a journey like that. She was only three years old. Spending days Outside. Being dragged underwater. It could have killed her!”

  Lucas banged his head forcibly on the table top.

  “Lucas, stop that!” I said.

  He lifted his head and looked round at us. “Everything strange that’s been happening is interconnected. Every bit of it. Amber told me she had a vivid, repeating dream through all her years on Teen Level. She was in a weird park, walking through incredibly tall trees with Forge. It was hot, and the suns were very bright. Of course they were. It was a bright, sunny day Outside when Amber was kidnapped. She was frightened in the dream, but Forge told her she was a good girl. He talked to her as if she was a child, because she was a child when it really happened.”

  “My dream can’t have been a memory of being kidnapped by Forge,” I said. “We were both only three years old back then.”

  “Your dream isn’t the exact memory, Amber,” said Lucas. “Your mind tried to make sense of confusing fragments by relating them to familiar things. You replaced Outside with a park. You replaced the Truesun with the park’s lighting. You replaced your kidnapper with Forge.”

  He paused. “You were kidnapped when you were three years old, but the dreams didn’t start until you moved to Teen Level and met Forge. You had a strange reaction to the sight of Forge as well. Those things must have happened because Forge looks like your kidnapper. The sight of him had triggered latent memories.”

  Megan turned to look at Lucas with an appalled expression. “Lucas, if you’re right that Forge looks like Amber’s kidnapper, then the whol
e Strike team must look like him too!”

  “Oh, yes,” said Lucas. “We didn’t just try to take Amber Outside; we surrounded her with men chosen to look like her kidnapper. Amber should be completely hysterical by now, but she isn’t. The dreams and the strange reaction to the sight of Forge have stopped as well. When did that happen, Amber?”

  “I’m not sure,” I said. “After I worked out my reaction to Forge was caused by me looking at him, I tried to keep my eyes closed when he was around and work telepathically. One day, I accidentally looked at him directly, and found I wasn’t reacting to him any longer. It was the same with the dream. I suddenly realized I hadn’t had it for a while.”

  “Did you react to Forge after your arrival at the unit?” asked Lucas.

  “Definitely. I remember getting hit by it just before a training run. Keith’s Strike team leader was going to be our target.”

  “I remember that day,” said Adika sharply. “Forge had a bruise on his face, and someone poked it. Amber started yelling at them, and we all wondered … Wait a minute!”

  He broke off and stood up, leaning forward with his hands on the table. “When Forge arrived at the unit, he had a birthmark. An odd red mark on his left cheek. During the training run with Keith’s Strike team leader, Forge cut his face badly on a branch. Our medical staff had to do some reconstruction work on that cheek, and Forge got them to remove the birthmark as well. We all teased him about it.”

  Adika seemed to realize he was standing up, and sat down again.

  “And that’s why Amber wasn’t reacting to the rest of the Strike team,” said Lucas. “They may well have the same general appearance as the target, but they don’t have birthmarks.”

  “We can search Hive records for males of the right age group with a similar birthmark,” said Nicole.

  “The target may not actually have a birthmark, just some sort of mark on his left cheek,” said Lucas. “It could be a mole, a scar, a tattoo, anything, and if he really is an agent from another Hive then he won’t be in our records.”

  Lucas’s voice was oddly flat and dispassionate, but his thoughts were an incomprehensible whirlpool of analysis mixed with churning emotion. He’d thought of something very bad, and didn’t want to tell me about it.

  “Whatever it is you’ve worked out, Lucas, you have to tell me.” I quoted his own words back to him. “It’s impractical to lie to a telepath.”

  Lucas groaned. “What Megan said was right. The target couldn’t have been planning to take a three-year-old child on the hideously difficult journey back to his Hive.”

  “So why did he take me Outside?” I asked.

  “He took you Outside to imprint you with orders to obey him.”

  Chapter Twenty-five

  It took me a moment to absorb what Lucas had said, and then panic hit me. “No!” I wasn’t sure if I’d shouted the word or not. “The target can’t have imprinted me.”

  Lucas looked me straight in the eyes. “It’s the obvious answer, Amber. Your recurring dream and your obsession with Forge are precisely the sort of issues that can happen if the imprinting rules aren’t followed correctly. The target intentionally broke those rules so your imprint would include a fixation on him, a compulsion to obey him, and a reward of happy emotions when you pleased him. It will also include a set of orders.”

  He paused for a second. “The target took you Outside to make sure he wouldn’t be disturbed during the imprinting process. I think he was taking you back to the Hive entrance, aiming to put your bracelet back on and take you back into the Hive before anyone realized you were missing, when he ran into Morton’s Strike team. The target left you to be found by the Strike team, and I think at that point he went back to his home Hive.”

  “A set of orders,” I repeated Lucas’s earlier words. “Orders to do what?”

  “The target didn’t try to take you back to his Hive with him as a child, because he’d got a much better way to kidnap you. Now that you’re an adult, he’s returned to complete his plan. He’s been trying to reach you and activate the orders he imprinted in your mind. Those orders will compel you to request a transfer to his Hive.”

  I imagined myself a willing puppet requesting a transfer to an alien Hive, asking to go and live among strangers as their slave. I made a soft, gulping sound of horror.

  “Shut up, Lucas!” Megan shouted. “You’re frightening Amber.”

  I moistened my lips and forced myself to speak. “No, carry on explaining, Lucas. We all have to understand what’s been happening. Especially me. I can’t fight what I don’t understand.”

  Lucas studied my face for a moment, then nodded and started speaking again. “The imprint should have remained completely inactive all through Amber’s childhood and teen years, so there’d be no clues for us to spot during Lottery, but she met Forge. The sight of him, with a birthmark that reminded her of something on her kidnapper’s face, stirred up some of the imprinted orders.”

  “I was able to control my reaction to Forge,” I said. “A little, at least. Now I know I’ve been imprinted with orders, it should be easier to resist them.”

  Lucas shook his head. “The birthmark’s effect was only a faint shadow of your imprinted compulsion, Amber. Once the target activates your imprint, you won’t stand a chance of resisting its orders.”

  I hadn’t had a headache since Lottery, but I could feel one starting now. I rubbed my forehead to try to banish the pain. “Surely our Hive wouldn’t just hand over a telepath?”

  Lucas’s mind was screaming as he pictured what would happen. “Now you’re an adult, you have the right under Hive Treaty to request a transfer to another Hive of your choice. Our Hive would try to talk you out of it, bribe you, do everything we could to stop it, but your imprint could make you act in a way that was actively dangerous. If that wasn’t enough to make us give in, then the target’s Hive could approach Joint Hive Treaty Enforcement.”

  Lucas gave a shrug of total despair. “They’d complain we’d refused your Hive transfer request. Joint Hive Treaty Enforcement would send in a team to investigate. Without solid proof that another Hive had tampered with your mind, we’d be left with no options at all. We might be able to stall for weeks, even months, but if you insisted you wanted the transfer then we’d have to let you go in the end.”

  He grimaced. “It’s an utterly brilliant plan. If we hadn’t found out you’d been imprinted, we’d never have understood what happened.”

  I tugged at my hair. “Tell me more about Joint Hive Treaty Enforcement. I’ve only heard vague references to it.”

  “Hive Treaty outlaws a host of things like theft from other Hives, kidnapping, and territory violations,” said Lucas. “All Hives are signatories. Breaching treaty results in severe penalties.”

  “So failing to allow my transfer would breach Treaty,” I said. “What sort of penalties are we talking about?”

  Lucas pulled a face. “The offending Hive faces sanctions, and continued defiance can even result in an attack by the combined forces of all the other Hives. Things like war, invasion, kidnapping raids, and other conflicts are always bad for Hives. It’s in the general interest to make offences unprofitable. The occasional theft of research information happens because it’s easy to claim it was a simultaneous discovery.”

  I wasn’t following the words as much as the images in Lucas’s mind. Pictures of our Hive under attack by hostile aircraft. Housing warrens torn apart, with mangled corpses lying in the corridors. There was no choice here. No choice at all.

  “If the worst happens, then you have to hand me over, Lucas,” I said. “You can’t risk our Hive being attacked.”

  “Not my decision,” said Lucas. “Thankfully. Strongly suggest locking me up in that situation.”

  “It’s not going to happen,” said Adika. “The target isn’t going to activate Amber’s imprint, because we won’t give him the chance. She won’t leave this unit, we’ll go into lockdown, and Forge will be confined to his apartm
ent under armed guard.”

  I frowned at him. “There’s no need to lock up Forge. He didn’t know a thing about this. I’ve spent enough time in his head to be absolutely certain of that.”

  “If Forge was involved,” said Adika, “then your imprint might not allow you to tell us. He might even have given you orders to forget it yourself.”

  I opened my mouth, only to close it again. I couldn’t trust my own mind any longer. I could be ordered to do anything, literally anything, and I’d do it. Hideous thoughts ran through my mind. When we were at the beach, I’d had that silly moment, asked to borrow Forge’s board and go surfing. He’d pointed out then just how easy it would be for me to drown half my Strike team.

  “I hate to say this,” said Lucas, “but Forge is innocent of everything except cuddling Amber on the beach. If you want to lock him up for that, then I’m not going to object, but I’m a little concerned what penalties you’ll inflict on me if I sleep with her.”

  I gave a shocked laugh.

  “This isn’t a good time to play the fool, Lucas,” said Adika.

  Lucas gave him a pointed look. “It’s exactly the time to play the fool and relieve the tension. Look at Amber’s face. She’s worked out what this means. She could be ordered to do anything, including sending her own Strike team into a death trap, and she’d do it. How would you feel if you knew someone could take total control of your mind and make you shoot your own telepath?”

  I saw Adika’s face, his thoughts, and felt sick. The unspeakable horror of a Strike team was letting their telepath be harmed or killed. To make Adika contemplate being forced to murder me was brutally unkind. “Lucas, that was cruel.”

  “No, Amber,” said Lucas. “If an eighteen-year-old girl fresh from Lottery can look nightmare in the face, then a Strike team leader with the experience of a thousand emergency runs behind him had better be able to do the same. All of us have to accept precisely how bad this could be, and then work out how to beat it. We’ve been very, very lucky. We’ve found out about your imprint before the target managed to activate it.”