Defender Page 7

  “Are all the Telepath Units on Industry 1 like ours?” I asked.

  “Yes. All the Telepath Units are in isolated areas right at the top of the Hive. That’s more peaceful for the telepath and also minimizes the distance from priority areas.”

  “Priority areas?” I wrinkled my nose. “You mean the top accommodation levels that house the people most vital to the Hive?”

  “No,” said Lucas. “I mean the key systems located in the industrial levels. A target running wild sabotaging those could paralyze entire areas of the Hive, or even cause large scale injuries and deaths.”

  I’d never thought of that. “I see what you mean. When I was a seventeen-year-old living on Teen Level in Blue Zone, we had a power failure that lasted for two days. It was terrifying. Total darkness everywhere. Nothing working. People lost in corridors and trapped in lifts.”

  “Mira’s Telepath Unit was handling that emergency run,” said Lucas. “It was the classic example of what seems like a simple run turning into a nightmare. The target was heading through the vent system to a nest he’d made next to the Blue Zone power complex. The Strike team thought they had him cornered, but he’d left an inspection hatch open to give him an escape route into the power complex.”

  Lucas pulled a pained face. “The target wriggled through the inspection hatch, sprinted along a corridor to the power control centre, and killed himself jumping into the central core of the power supply nexus. The resultant power surge destroyed most of the nexus control systems, and took out the power to the whole of Blue Zone.”

  I was stunned. “I thought that was just an accidental power failure.”

  “Nobody could blame Mira for what happened,” said Adika. “She’s an excellent telepath, but anyone would have struggled to decipher complex thoughts about technical schematics and work out what the target was planning.”

  “Getting back to the subject of how areas are allocated, these are the positions of our current five Telepath Units.” Lucas added five flashing dots to the diagram.

  I leaned forward, eagerly matching the placement of the dots to the scraps of information I’d gathered on the other telepaths. “Keith has Burgundy and Red Zones, then I have Orange and Yellow, and Sapphire has Green and Turquoise. Is it Mira next or Morton?”

  “I don’t think it’s a good idea to go into all this detail on other telepaths,” said Megan. “It will encourage an unhealthy curiosity in Amber.”

  Lucas turned to face her. “From the beginning, you’ve insisted that we should protect Amber from stress by hiding certain basic information from her. I know you believe in that approach because it worked with Keith, but that was only because Keith can barely read the level of the mind below pre-vocalization. I’ve repeatedly argued that Amber is a far stronger telepath. It’s impossible for us to hide information from her. We can only force her to spend time piecing it together from passing references she sees in our thoughts. A process that just creates extra strain and confusion.”

  “This is an area where the decision of the Senior Administrator overrides that of the Tactical Commander,” said Megan. “I am still acting as Senior Administrator until you recruit someone to replace me.”

  “To be precise,” said Lucas, “this is an area where the decision of Amber’s counsellor overrides that of the Tactical Commander. Since we have already recruited a replacement counsellor for Amber, and that counsellor has not yet stated her opinion on this point, I’m free to make my own decisions about providing Amber with information.”

  Megan gave a despairing wave of her hands and sat back in her chair. “If you insist on doing this, then I hope you’re aware of the risks involved.”

  “I’m fully aware of them, and basing my decisions on the fact that the Hive knows best.”

  Adika had been watching the exchange with a frown, and now joined the conversation. “It’s undeniable that the Hive knows best, but I don’t see how you can claim the Hive agrees with you rather than Megan on this.”

  “I can claim it because the Hive has chosen to exclude some information, such as why telepaths should not meet, from the imprints of Telepath Unit staff. The Hive must have done that to avoid the danger of a telepath seeing potentially damaging knowledge in our minds. Don’t you agree, Adika?”

  “I suppose so,” said Adika.

  “Therefore you must also agree that any information covered by our imprints must have been approved by the Hive as safe knowledge for telepaths.” Lucas didn’t wait for Adika to think that through, but turned back to me and continued our earlier conversation. “Mira’s home zones are Blue and Navy.”

  I glanced at Megan, worried by her attitude of depression, and found myself linking to her mind.

  … hope that my replacement is more successful than me at counselling Amber. She could hardly be less successful, and perhaps that proves Lucas is right about …

  … admit I’ve been distracted by my own issues, but my counselling approach should have worked. Amber’s psychological profile results in Lottery showed that she was a perfectly obedient member of the Hive, with an ingrained trust of authority figures. When I pressured her to talk about problems, she should have given way, confided in me, and gratefully accepted my advice on …

  … remember arguing with Lucas about that psychological profile. He said it was far too perfect, that a telepath could read the correct response to questions in the minds of Lottery staff, and pointed out a couple of incidents on Teen Level where Amber exhibited anomalous behaviour. I still can’t believe that her telepathic skills were advanced enough to …

  … truth is that I learned more from Amber shouting at me than from any of our sessions together. She felt I was trying to control her, and she was right. I’d started by acting the maternal authority figure, but crossed the line into personal fantasy, trying to make Amber into the child that Dean and I …

  Megan’s mind abruptly filled with grief for the loss of her husband and the children they’d planned to have. I hastily pulled out of her mind, and tried to make sense of the reference to my psychological profile results in Lottery. I’d been desperate to do well in Lottery, and give the impression I was a dutiful member of the Hive. Had I somehow chosen test answers that misled Megan?

  “Amber?” Lucas’s voice interrupted my thoughts.

  I realized that he’d said something and was expecting me to reply. “I’m sorry. I missed whatever you just said.”

  “I was explaining that Morton has Purple and Violet Zones.”

  I forgot about psychological profiles, and studied the sequence of dots that represented the five Telepath Units. “There’s a big gap between Sapphire’s unit and Mira’s unit. Is that where Olivia’s unit is?”

  I heard gasps from all three of Megan, Adika, and Nicole at the mention of Olivia’s name, but Lucas responded calmly. “Yes. Olivia’s unit is not a fully operational Telepath Unit, but she still does simple check runs. Her Tactical team is included in the continuous data exchange between Telepath Units, and we naturally have to maintain the safe half a zone of horizontal separation between her and other telepaths.”

  Lucas paused. “I’ll highlight the areas our unit owns in yellow.”

  All the colours vanished from the diagram, to be replaced by a scattering of yellow patches. I stared at them in bewilderment. It was true that most of the yellow was focused in Orange and Yellow Zones, but … “That’s a bit of a mess.”

  Lucas laughed. “I know it looks that way, but allocating areas is a complicated process. Ideally, suspect areas are dealt with by relaxed check runs, so the travel time to reach them can be much less important than other factors.”

  He pointed at the diagram. “For example, you see we own some areas right down the far end of the Hive in Morton’s home zones. Morton’s Tactical Commander handed those areas to us because they’re very difficult to access and move around, and you’re our youngest and most physically fit telepath.”

  I nodded. “I see what you mean.”

&nbs
p; “For exactly the opposite reason,” Lucas continued, “Morton’s unit owns many easy access areas that are actually much closer to other Telepath Units. There are multiple other factors to take into consideration as well, like the KASIA issue.”

  Megan seemed lost in abject misery, and Adika was projecting grim disapproval, but Nicole laughed.

  “What’s KASIA?” I asked warily.

  “It stands for Keith Already Said It’s Alright,” said Lucas. “If Keith checks an area once and finds nothing, he’s reluctant to go there again. If his unit believes there really is a serious problem in an area, and Keith refuses to do a repeat check run, then it gets handed to another unit as a KASIA.”

  I was tempted to laugh, but then I wondered if the staff in other Telepath Units made jokes about me. Would they make fun of my chronic untidiness or something even more embarrassing?

  “A lot of thought goes into deciding which unit owns which areas,” said Lucas, “but emergency runs override those decisions. Lives are in danger, so speed is paramount. The alarm call is sent to the nearest available Telepath Unit. After the emergency run, that unit automatically takes ownership of the area in case there are any further related events.”

  He turned off his holo diagram, and leaned back in his chair. “So our unit now owns the area containing the suspect storage complex on Level 31. I assume you’ll want us to do a check run there, Amber?”

  “Yes. Can we check it now?”

  “If that’s what you want, then you can take the Alpha Strike team and head out in thirty minutes.” Lucas turned to Adika. “Do you want to put Rothan in charge of this check run, or go out yourself?”

  Adika’s eyes flickered towards Megan before he replied. “Rothan is a good man, but still relatively inexperienced, and this isn’t a standard check run. We’re hunting a target who has already killed once and will be prepared to kill again, so I’ll go myself.”

  Chapter Ten

  Lucas and I headed back to our apartment. He sat in a chair watching me strip off my clothes and change into the slippery mesh of my body armour.

  “I approve of you stopping the ridiculous attempts to hide things from me,” I said, “but it may make it harder to persuade Megan to stay in the unit.”

  Lucas sighed. “My Tactical team are in favour of Megan leaving.”

  “They’ve found out about Megan resigning?”

  “No, they’re arguing the case for firing her. Possibly firing Adika as well.”

  I frowned. “What? Why?”

  “Because the last run was incredibly stressful for you, and Adika and Megan’s relationship problems added unnecessary extra pressure.”

  I stared at him. “You told your Tactical team what I said about Adika and Megan? That was private information!”

  “I didn’t tell them anything. When you and the Strike team arrived back, the crowd waiting at the lifts to meet you included my whole Tactical team. I took you straight to our apartment to let you recover in peace and quiet, so we missed seeing Adika and Megan having a spectacularly public second argument.”

  “Oh.” I groaned. “That explains why Megan was in such a bad mood when you called her to ask about counselling for Nicole.”

  “Yes. It was obvious to everyone that Adika and Megan’s argument was a continuation of one that had happened just before the emergency run. My Tactical team members worked everything else out for themselves. When I walked into the Tactical office this morning, the whole lot of them started yelling at me.”

  I blinked. “Your team yelled at you?”

  “When Adika barks orders at the Strike team, they obey him without question, but Tactical team members have to be free to criticize their Tactical Commander. There’s no point in me having a Tactical team to help me if they aren’t allowed to mention my failings and make suggestions for improvements.”

  Lucas pulled a face. “I told you I was frightened when I saw you at the end of that emergency run. My Tactical team members were frightened too. They could all see that you were showing classic fragmentation symptoms.”

  I didn’t know what Lucas meant by the ominous word fragmentation, and I wasn’t sure that I wanted to find out. I picked out some casual clothes to wear over my body armour.

  “My Tactical team know exactly what losing you, going back to only four true telepaths, would mean for our Hive,” said Lucas. “Not keeping up with check runs means more emergency runs. In turn, that means even less time for check runs and the number of emergency runs increases again. It’s the death spiral that leads to bigger and bigger incidents until the Hive collapses in chaos.”

  He ran his fingers through his hair. “We were in that death spiral for several years before Lottery found you, getting desperately close to the disaster scenario where we couldn’t hide the incidents any longer, and the nosies were revealed as fakes. In one ghastly year, we had that situation you mentioned where the power was taken out in the whole of Blue Zone, a vast fire in Burgundy Zone, and Keith was stabbed.”

  “Keith was stabbed,” I repeated numbly. “I didn’t know about that.”

  Lucas gave me a startled look. “I assumed you’d seen me thinking about Keith’s stabbing, but didn’t want to discuss it.”

  “No, I hadn’t. I haven’t seen it in anyone else’s thoughts either.”

  “I’m the only one here who knows it happened. I was still working in Keith’s unit at the time. Megan had left barely two days earlier. Fortunately, Keith just suffered a minor arm injury, and was fully recovered in less than a week. He didn’t want people told about it, because there was no possible way to describe the events without showing him in an extremely bad light, so the information was restricted to the Tactical Commanders of the other Telepath Units.”

  Lucas paused. “I remember having a conversation with you about how Strike team members were carefully selected to have the right personality for their work. I said that they would, if necessary, kill a target and carry on with their lives without brooding on it. They could be tortured by regrets if they felt they’d failed to protect an innocent bystander though, and they’d be utterly devastated if you were injured. I was definitely thinking of Keith’s stabbing then.”

  I tugged a tunic over my head. “We had that conversation after my first emergency run. I was in total telepathic shutdown from shock, so I wasn’t reading your mind.”

  “That’s true. Perhaps I haven’t thought about it since then because I’ve been fully occupied with our current problems.”

  I pulled on the rest of my clothes. It seemed more likely that Lucas had thought about the stabbing several times, but I’d missed seeing it. Lucas normally had at least a dozen levels of thoughts rushing by at once, and I had to struggle to keep up with the speed and complexity of even one of them.

  “Anyway, we mustn’t have a repeat of Adika having an emotional crisis during a run,” continued Lucas, “so I’d like you to read his mind right now as a precaution. If he’s reacting badly to Megan’s resignation, then we need to delay this check run.”

  I nodded, and cautiously reached out to Adika’s thoughts. I was expecting to be hit by wild emotions, but met only grim acceptance. Adika found uncertainty stressful, but could adapt to new situations at lightning speed. He’d been considering ending a relationship that had consisted of little but arguments and frustration, and now Megan had made the decision for him. She was leaving our unit, and it was unthinkable that he would leave to follow her. Adika had waited seventeen years to get a Strike team leader position. He was finally able to serve the Hive to his full potential and he wouldn’t give that up for any relationship.

  There was some regret mingled with the acceptance. Megan had exactly the type of polished beauty that attracted Adika, but he couldn’t afford the distraction of a relationship outside the unit. He would have to find other outlets for …

  I didn’t want to find out what Adika meant by other outlets, so I pulled back into my own head. “Adika is perfectly calm and controlled.”

>   “That’s consistent with his response at the end of the meeting,” said Lucas. “He’s chosen to put his work ahead of his personal life.”

  I sighed, picked up my crystal unit from its shelf, and fitted it into my ear. “Yes, I suppose he has. I can’t see my wristset light. Did I leave it in the pocket of the clothes I wore on the last run?”

  “Probably,” said Lucas, “but Hannah came in to clean the apartment while we were swimming yesterday. The clothes heap on the bedroom floor has gone, so I suspect your wristset light is being washed.”

  I groaned. “I’ve killed one wristset light by standing on it, lost another crawling through an air vent, and now I’ve got to confess to Adika that a third one has vanished in my laundry.”

  “I’m just relieved that you take better care of your gun.”

  “Oh yes, I nearly forgot my gun.” I picked up the gun, attached it to my belt, and glanced in the mirror to check it was hidden by my clothes. “I’m ready.”

  Lucas and I hiked across the ludicrously large expanse of my apartment to reach the door to the corridor, and then headed for the lifts. The doors of the giant-sized lift 2 were open, and Adika and the Alpha Strike team were already inside.

  “Now I think about it,” I said, “it isn’t surprising that my Strike team always get to the lift before me in emergencies. It’s not just that they run faster than me. It takes me ages to get to my apartment door.”

  Lucas laughed and hugged me. “Be very careful during this run. If you find the strain becomes too much for you, or Adika’s mind goes into turmoil again, then you should say that you’ve got another headache. I’ll immediately order the Strike team back to our unit, and we can either decide to repeat the check run later or hand the case to another Telepath Unit.”

  “I’ll do that.”