Defender

  “We could track down all containers sent from the level 68 storage complex.”

  I finally spoke myself. “It wasn’t sent from the level 68 storage complex. The murderer took the container up in the freight lift to the storage complex on Level 31, filled it with thirty-six jars of tomato puree, probably smashed some of the jars so the puree would cover any bloodstains, and sent it off to a new destination.”

  There was a stunned silence. I opened my eyes. Everyone else had their eyes open now too, and they were all staring at me.

  I hurriedly explained. “When I was checking minds in the Level 31 storage complex, I saw someone worrying about thirty-six jars of tomato puree that had gone missing. I wasn’t interested at the time, but now …”

  Emili frowned. “Ashton could have been responsible for the missing jars.”

  “I read Ashton’s mind when he was panicking about a nosy being nearby,” I said. “He was trying not to think about his crimes, which actually made him think of them all in detail. He chose expensive or hazardous things to smash, and he never stole anything.”

  Lucas nodded. “So the murderer went to the effort of taking the container to the Level 31 storage complex, and filling it with tomato puree to cover up the bloodstains, before sending it off to a random destination.”

  “The murderer might not have sent it off from the Level 31 facility,” said Emili. “If I wanted to minimize the chance of it ever being found, then I’d take it to a third storage complex and send it off from there.”

  “That’s true.” Lucas sighed. “Tracking down every container sent from all the storage complexes in that column, and checking them for signs of blood, is close to impossible. There’s a storage complex on each of the accommodation and industry levels, they’ll each be shipping out hundreds of containers a day, and some of those containers will already have been sent on to second or third destinations by now.”

  A distinctive, lazy male voice spoke from behind me. “I know I’m dragging straight-line logic into this, but you’re building up a very inconsistent murderer profile here. Someone has a mental break leading to uncontrollable violent tendencies. Escalation is so sudden it skips the stage of injuring anyone and goes directly to murder. That’s immediately followed by recovery to a state where our murderer can create and successfully carry out a complex plan, dumping the body and disposing of the container used to transport it.”

  “Two targets then,” said Lucas. “One had a mental break and killed Fran. The other was perfectly stable and disposed of her body. Why would the stable second target risk covering up someone else’s murder?”

  “To protect someone they loved,” said Gideon.

  “The complex plan to dump the body indicates a logical, intelligent mind,” said the lazy male voice. “However much that sort of person loved someone, they’d surely realize that the violence wouldn’t stop with one random killing, and they couldn’t hope to keep covering up a whole series of deaths.”

  “It wasn’t a random killing.” That was Emili’s breathless voice. I saw her topple gently down from her handstand and stretch out on the rug.

  There was silence for a couple of seconds before Lucas spoke. “Follow theory.”

  I closed my eyes again and listened to voices babbling.

  “No mental break. A perfectly stable, logical murderer.”

  “Consistent with carefully planned disposal of body.”

  “Stable people don’t commit murder because they’re scared of the consequences if they get caught. The Hive has nosy squads patrolling everywhere. People believe their guilty thoughts will be read. That’s a huge deterrent against committing any crime, but especially murder.”

  “If you believe the nosies are real.”

  At least three people spoke at once. “One of us!”

  “Everyone in Law Enforcement knows that the nosies are a myth and the Hive only has five true telepaths,” said Lucas. “Just about everyone Fran had contact with was in Law Enforcement.”

  “Lottery selects Law Enforcement staff to have a strong moral code and loyalty to the Hive,” said the lazy male voice that I still couldn’t identify. “Even ones like Strike team members, selected to be risk takers with a capability for violence, are also chosen to be fundamentally moral. Why would someone with a strong moral code kill Fran?”

  “People can be affected by events after Lottery and change their attitudes,” said Emili. “Lottery selects Telepath Unit staff to be tolerant of having their minds read, but Fran developed a hatred of telepaths.”

  “So our theory is the murderer dumped the body in that storage complex to make this look like a random killing by someone suffering a mental break,” said Lucas. “Actually, the murder was committed by someone with links to Fran and a very good reason for killing her. The murderer may not have been troubled by moral issues, or possibly felt their reason was morally justifiable.”

  He paused. “Did our murderer take the goods from that Level 31 storage complex by chance, or was it deliberately chosen because it was already flagged for high levels of vandalism?”

  “A deliberate choice would be consistent with a highly meticulous murderer,” said Emili. “It would also imply the murderer had access to Law Enforcement systems.”

  “Our theory is that someone in Law Enforcement killed Fran,” said Lucas. “One of us. Query. Literally one of us? Someone in this unit?”

  I gasped, but the Tactical team eagerly pounced on the idea.

  “Fran was unpopular.”

  “Unpopular enough for someone to kill her?” asked Lucas.

  “Most of the Liaison team members hated her,” said Emili, “but why would they kill her months after she’d left our unit?”

  “Maybe there’s a bigger motive than personal feelings,” said Gideon. “Fran verbally attacked our telepath. Might have physically attacked her as well if Adika hadn’t restrained her.”

  I bit my lip. The comment reminded me of Fran screaming abuse at me, and also what Lucas had said about Keith being stabbed. Keith had insisted on that being kept secret because the events showed him in an extremely bad light. I’d heard that Keith enjoyed teasing his people about their secrets. Had Keith taken his teasing too far, so one of his own unit members had lashed out and stabbed him?

  “The harmful effect on Amber was clearly visible,” said Emili.

  It was? Waste it! I’d tried my best to keep my feelings hidden back then, but my Tactical team were all imprinted with information on behavioural analysis and body language. They were bound to see I was deeply distressed.

  “And that was closely followed by our first operational run,” added Gideon grimly. “One of the established critical points for a telepath. Amber struggled to cope with the combined stress. If she hadn’t …”

  I wished I’d been in Gideon’s mind when he said that. What did he mean about the established critical points for a telepath? I knew that York had broken under the strain of being a telepath after a few months and killed himself. I had the impression that had happened after his first operational run. What were the other critical points? Olivia had lasted longer than York before breaking, but I didn’t know exactly how long or what had proved too much for her. I could ask Lucas later if I really wanted to know the details. I wasn’t sure that I did.

  The Tactical team were still happily chasing their latest theory. “A threat to our telepath is a threat to the existence of our unit,” said Emili. “Telepath Unit postings are the highest status positions in Law Enforcement. Someone could have killed Fran out of revenge for endangering both our telepath and their career.”

  “They could have been trying to defend the Hive itself,” said Gideon. “After several years with only four Telepath Units, the Hive was growing increasingly unstable, heading towards a complete breakdown of social order. Harming Amber would have sent the Hive back into that death spiral, so the murderer could regard killing Fran as a noble and morally justifiable act in defence of the Hive.”

  “Othe
r teams in our unit would be less aware of the Hive stability issue than we are,” said Emili cheerfully. “That makes us the main suspects. Would we kill someone if we believed they threatened the survival of our Hive?”

  “Yes,” they chanted in unison.

  “The chief suspect has to be Lucas,” said Emili. “He’s not just our Tactical Commander, but in love with Amber too. Fran threatened to destroy his career, his unit, his Hive, and the first successful relationship in his life. With all that at stake, of course he’d kill her.”

  I was shocked into opening my eyes again and looking at Lucas. He appeared to be deeply amused.

  “You’ve almost convinced me with that argument,” he said. “Are you suggesting that I committed the murder totally rationally, or while suffering an episode of dissociative fugue so I’m not even aware of my own guilt?”

  “It wasn’t Lucas,” said the lazy male voice.

  I twisted round in my chair, curious to see who owned that voice, and saw a man of about fifty was speaking. His dark face had distinctive high cheekbones, and his name was … was something beginning with K.

  “Kareem’s right,” said someone else. “Amber would know if it was Lucas even if he was in dissociative fugue when he actually committed the murder.”

  Yes, the man’s name was Kareem. I’d thought it began with a K.

  “Perhaps Amber does know it was Lucas and is protecting him,” said Emili. “Perhaps that’s why she’s insisting on our unit investigating Fran’s murder. Perhaps that’s why she came to our brainstorming session, so she could intervene if we worked out Lucas was guilty.”

  I decided the entire Tactical team were lost in fantasy land and closed my eyes again.

  “It wasn’t Lucas,” repeated Kareem. “Our murderer is intelligent, very intelligent, but he isn’t on Lucas’s level. If Lucas had killed Fran, he’d have made it look like a natural death, so we wouldn’t be having this discussion.”

  “So who did kill Fran?” asked a woman’s voice.

  “Amber would know if we had a murderer in the unit,” said Lucas.

  I didn’t believe anyone in my unit had murdered Fran, but I’d got swept up into the surreal spirit of this by now. “I don’t read everyone regularly,” I said, “and I’m limited to seeing current thoughts. I’d notice if someone had committed murder though. There’s a change in the … texture of a mind that’s under great stress. It would attract my attention.”

  “It might be someone who wouldn’t be stressed by killing to defend Amber, or worry about it afterwards,” said Gideon.

  “Adika!” Several voices chorused the name.

  “Adika had to restrain Fran to prevent her from physically attacking Amber,” said Lucas. “He might see Fran as a continuing threat.”

  “We could take the easy option, you know,” said Gideon. “Check the security system to see who was in our unit at the times when Fran was murdered and when the body was dumped.”

  “But that would spoil our fun,” said Lucas.

  “And it still wouldn’t rule out Adika,” said Emili. “He controls our unit security system, so he could alter the records.”

  After Emili’s suggestion that Lucas had killed Fran, I couldn’t resist teasing her in return. “Adika wouldn’t have to kill Fran himself. He could have sent one of the Strike team to do it. He’d probably have chosen Rothan.”

  “Rothan was with me at the relevant times so he’s innocent,” said Emili calmly.

  “You’d say that even if Rothan was guilty,” said Kareem.

  “Definitely,” said Emili. “If both Adika and Rothan felt it was necessary to kill Fran to safeguard the Hive, then I’d do anything I could to help them.”

  “We now have a conspiracy involving Adika, Rothan, and Emili,” said Lucas. “Amber must surely have read the details in at least one of their minds, but is presumably protecting all three of them.”

  “Amber, did you kill Fran yourself?” asked Gideon.

  “Me?” Startled, I struggled up into a proper sitting position and opened my eyes. “No, of course not.”

  “Because if you did, you can just tell us.” Gideon laughed. “We’ve just pointed out that we’ll go to any lengths necessary to protect you. If you murdered Fran, then we just have to work out a good story to explain how she died and we can close the case.”

  “It would be very easy to blame it on Ashton, but hardly fair on the poor man,” said Emili. “Can anyone think of a way Fran could have accidentally cut her own throat?”

  “Far easier to claim it was suicide,” said Lucas.

  “A suicide who moved her own body twenty-two hours after she died?” Kareem shook his head. “You must be able to do better than that, Lucas.”

  “Fran didn’t move her own body,” said Lucas. “Someone in the storage complex found it, panicked, and hid it. By the following night, he’d calmed down and realized there was no need for an innocent man to be afraid of anything, so he went and put it back.”

  “So we do another check run there, and Amber reads his mind and discovers what happened,” said Gideon. “Which unfortunate person do we blame for panicking and hiding the body?”

  “We don’t blame anyone,” said Emili. “Amber feels sorry for the person involved, so she won’t give us their name.”

  I really couldn’t work out if they were serious about this or not. I didn’t want to read their minds just in case they were. “Don’t be ridiculous. I didn’t kill Fran, and I’m not protecting the real murderer either.”

  “Then we seem to have reached our conclusion,” said Lucas. “Someone in Law Enforcement killed Fran. If it wasn’t one of us, then the obvious suspects are the people in the Security Unit where she’s been working for the last few months.”

  He paused. “We’ll schedule a check run for the day after tomorrow. I’m not sure a telepath’s Strike team have ever gone out to do a check run in a Hive Security Unit before, so we’ll have to work out a discreet approach.”

  Everyone nodded.

  “Are you hungry yet, Amber?” asked Lucas.

  “I’m starving.”

  “Then let’s go back to our apartment now and eat.”

  We stood up, walked back to our apartment, and into the living room. “Can’t we do the check run tomorrow morning?” I asked. “I understand you’re worried after what happened during the emergency run, but I’m not suffering any problems or headaches this time.”

  Lucas turned to face me. “I know you aren’t, and I’m deeply relieved about that, but we should still be careful. The check run today didn’t find the target we were looking for, but Ashton’s mind was in a highly unstable state, so you need the full twenty-four hour recovery time.”

  I sighed. “Very well, we’ll wait the full twenty-four hours, but that still means we could do the next check run tomorrow evening.”

  “In theory we could, but it would be a sensible idea for you to have your first proper counselling session with Buzz tomorrow and leave the check run until the following morning. We can’t afford to take risks with you, Amber. You’re irreplaceable.”

  Lucas leaned forward to kiss me. At the touch of his lips, my mind automatically linked to his, and I shared the moment when his anxiety at the thought of losing me changed to a different kind of tension.

  With the second kiss, the boundaries between us blurred. I was Amber pressing my body against the warmth of Lucas. I was Lucas gasping in response. Lost in the feedback loop, his reaction building mine and mine building his, we forgot about Fran and check runs and everything except the two of us.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The next day, Lucas and I were waiting at the lifts to meet Buzz. The doors of lift 3 opened precisely on time, and I saw she was wearing the red skirt and top again, and her black hair was rioting as wildly as yesterday. She stepped out of the lift, grinned at me, and then raised her eyebrows at Lucas.

  “Buzz, this is Lucas,” I said. “He’s my partner, and also my Tactical Commander.”

>   “I’m pleased to meet you.” Buzz held her hand out towards Lucas.

  Lucas looked at the offered hand but didn’t shake it. “I’m pleased to meet you too. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

  Buzz kept her hand held out. I watched with amusement. Her tactic had worked on Adika, but I had a feeling it would fail on Lucas.

  “One word of advice,” said Lucas. “Don’t try basic pressure techniques on a Tactical Commander.”

  I couldn’t help laughing. Buzz threw a rapid glance in my direction, and then gave Lucas a wounded look.

  “You live with a true telepath. How can you be scared of shaking hands with a simple borderline telepath like me?”

  Lucas sighed. “That type of blatant manipulation wouldn’t even work on a member of our Strike team.”

  “It might,” said Buzz. “It’s surprisingly easy to manipulate the action types if you use one of their trigger words like fear or cowardice.”

  “In general that’s true,” said Lucas, “but this is a Telepath Unit. Our Strike team members are of the highest calibre, selected not just for physical strength and fast reflexes, but intelligence as well.”

  Buzz frowned down at her hand for a second then looked up at Lucas again. “Can I have one more try?”

  “This is your third and final attempt.” Lucas gave her the annoying smile that he usually saved for teasing Adika. “If that fails, would you like us to play rock, paper, scissors next?”

  I laughed again.

  “Amber came out of Lottery almost eight months ago,” said Buzz. “If I’ve been brought in to counsel her now, it means that at least one previous counsellor has failed. There are several possible reasons for that. I’m trying to assess your character so I can eliminate one of them. As a borderline telepath, mental insights are a key part of my assessment process, and physical contact often helps me get an insight. Would you please shake my hand?”

  “Actually, the one word ‘please’ would have worked just as well as that speech.” Lucas shook Buzz’s hand. “Can I let go now?”