Defender

  Gideon shrugged. “You know that, and I know that. The question is whether Fran was angry enough to persuade herself it wasn’t true.”

  “I suppose she might have reached that level of anger,” I said doubtfully, “but why would past targets agree to help her? Surely they’d have been successfully treated so they wouldn’t want to reoffend.”

  Lucas pulled a face. “Ideally, successful treatment totally removes the target’s desire to reoffend, but in some cases it just reduces it to the extent where a target doesn’t reoffend out of fear of the consequences. If Fran explained to those people that the nosy squads were fake, and there were only five genuine telepaths in the Hive, it would change the balance between temptation and fear.”

  “Fran could have been threatening them too,” said Hallie. “She had access to Law Enforcement systems. She could add something to their records that got them sent back for further treatment or even meant they were securely confined.”

  “Let’s assume for a moment that this theory is right,” said Lucas. “Fran recruited several dangerous past targets, took away their fear of nosy squads by telling them the truth about telepaths, and threatened them to make them obey her. For some reason, she went to meet her recruits. They grabbed their chance to free themselves of her threats by killing her.”

  “The really interesting question is why Fran would risk going to meet her recruits,” said Kareem.

  “There’s an even more interesting question than that.” Gideon turned to look at me. “Amber, imagine that you’re Fran. You’ve recruited some lethal people. There’s a compelling reason forcing you to go and meet them. What arrangements would you make to safeguard yourself?”

  I gave him a bewildered look. “Why are you asking me? You’re all tactical experts.”

  “Exactly,” said Gideon. “You aren’t a tactical expert. Neither was Fran. What arrangements would you make?”

  “If I was in that situation, then I’d take Adika and the Strike team, but Fran didn’t have that option.” I gnawed at my bottom lip. “It would be safest to have the meeting in a public place with lots of people around, but Fran couldn’t risk being seen with a group of past targets. Given the circumstances of her leaving our unit, it would lead to her being questioned, and probably having her mind read by a telepath.”

  I shrugged. “I’d have to meet my recruits somewhere deserted, but I’d take precautions. Either tell someone what I was doing, or record some information to leave behind. That way I could tell my recruits that they’d get caught if they harmed me.”

  Gideon smiled. “And that’s why the Security Unit was burned. Fran tried to protect herself by telling her recruits that she’d left information about them at her workplace. They killed her despite that, and then burned the unit to destroy the evidence.”

  “That’s plausible,” said Kareem, “but if you’re right then Fran’s evidence is now a sad heap of charred ash.”

  “Not necessarily,” said Lucas. “Fran’s recruits tried to kill everyone who worked in the unit. That could mean Fran mentioned a co-worker to them. She might have confided in someone, but it seems more in character for her to record the evidence. She could lie about what it was, and ask someone to take care of it for her.”

  He sighed. “Well, it’s just a theory, but it fits the facts, so it’s worth investigating. We now have two possible ways to make progress. Firstly, we check the records for firebugs with a history of using similar methods. Secondly, we question the unit survivors to see if Fran had either told them some information, or more likely given them something to keep for her.”

  “When I was reading the minds of people in the meeting room, I found most of them disliked Fran,” I said. “There was only one person who’d been friendly with her. They shared a love of music.”

  “Do you know this person’s name?” asked Lucas.

  “No. I don’t even know if they were male or female. I’d only just started reading their mind when the fire started.”

  “Then we especially need to find that person.” Lucas’s voice took on a decisive note. “I’ll lead the firebug record analysis. Kareem can lead the questioning of the survivors. Hallie, you carried out a standard check of Fran’s apartment soon after her body was found, looking for anything that could explain why she’d gone to that storage complex. You’d better go back and do an in-depth search for anything that’s been deliberately hidden.”

  Hallie nodded.

  “Gideon, you’re our defence specialist,” said Lucas. “The firebug tried to kill everyone in the security unit. There could be further attacks on the survivors. You need to arrange immediate protection for them.”

  “We can guard them most effectively if they’re all gathered in one place,” said Gideon. “Since we can’t move the patients who are in a critical condition, that place has to be the Navy Zone Fire Casualty Centre. Their other patients can be transferred to the Fire Casualty Centres in Blue and Purple Zones for treatment.”

  “Just remember that gathering the survivors together gives our target the chance to kill them all at once,” said Lucas.

  Gideon laughed. “I’m a defence specialist with fifty years of experience, Lucas. There’s no need to treat me like a child on his first day at school.”

  “I realize that you’re well aware of the risk factors,” said Lucas, “but I can’t help being nervous after that fire.”

  “I’ll specifically guard against arson attacks, Lucas,” said Gideon, in a soothing voice.

  I’d achieved what I needed to do – Lucas was planning tactics rather than blaming himself – so I stood up. “It sounds as if you’ll all be very busy for the next few hours, so I’ll leave you to carry on with your work.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Eight hours later, I was with Adika and the Alpha Strike team in lift 2. “Alpha Strike team is moving,” said Adika.

  “Tactical ready.” Lucas’s voice was far less husky now. Megan had grudgingly allowed him to take charge of this evening’s check run, though she’d made him promise to stay lying down on a couch in the Tactical office, and go back to the medical area as soon as the run was over.

  “Liaison ready.” Nicole’s voice started as a whisper in my ear crystal, but rose to normal volume as she adjusted her sound level. “Tracking status green.”

  I checked the Strike team display on my dataview, and felt a pang of pain that Rothan’s name was missing from the list.

  “Amber?” Adika prompted me.

  “We are green.” It felt wrong to be saying my standard words, implying all was well, when Rothan was in the Navy Zone Fire Casualty Centre, hovering between life and death. He only had to hold on until tomorrow afternoon, and the vital medicine would arrive to help him, but somehow I was getting more rather than less anxious with each hour that went by. It would be so cruelly unfair if Rothan lost his fragile grip on life just minutes before the genetically tailored treatment came, or he was among the one in ten patients who didn’t respond to it.

  I told myself that I had to stop worrying about Rothan, and concentrate on catching the firebug before he or she started another killer blaze. I reached out with my telepathic sense to do some blatant snooping in Adika’s mind. I knew that Megan had talked to him about her planned baby. If his thoughts were filled with chaotic emotions about the news, I needed to find it out now rather than at a key moment during the run.

  Images of Megan flickered in the depths of Adika’s mind, but the higher levels were fighting against thinking about her. Our last check run had turned into a nightmare. Adika was tensely aware there was a high risk of this one doing the same, and he couldn’t allow himself to be distracted.

  Lucas’s voice was speaking from my ear crystal now, so I drew back into my own mind and listened to his words.

  “My Tactical team has been working on two approaches to solving our case. The first is talking to all the survivors. We’re particularly looking for one person who shared a love of music with Fran. So far we haven’t ide
ntified that person or learned anything useful from anyone else.”

  He sighed. “Our research into firebugs has been progressing better. It’s obvious if an area has a firebug developing, so most of them are caught and treated early in their careers. The fire in the Security Unit was started by an unusually experienced firebug. Someone who’d carried out a significant number of arson attacks in the past before finally being caught and successfully treated.”

  “Given the scale of that fire, I’d argue the firebug’s treatment was far from successful,” interjected Adika.

  “The firebug’s treatment was successful until another target triggered him or her back into action,” said Lucas calmly. “We believe the firebug is now working in combination with that target and possibly others as well.”

  Lucas stopped speaking because the lift doors were opening. I glanced at the lift level indicator, and saw we were on Level 36. Once we’d transferred to the belt system and were moving again, Lucas resumed his briefing.

  “This firebug isn’t just unusually experienced, but also intelligent, organized, and methodical by nature. Every detail of their arson attacks is planned in advance and precisely carried out. My Tactical team went through the old records, looking for firebugs with similar characteristics, and came up with a list of a dozen main suspects. Checks on the current behaviour of those suspects flagged one of them as especially interesting. We’re heading out to check him now.”

  Lucas paused. “Our suspect, Martin, appeared as a firebug when he was aged sixteen. There were a series of fires of steadily increasing severity before Mira’s team caught him actually lighting fire number ten. Martin completed his treatment five years ago. He’s now a Level 36 Salvaging Processes specialist, with an impeccable work record. That work does involve visits to storage facilities, and dispatching containers of materials on the freight system, but the real reason we’re focusing our attention on him is that he moved to a new apartment a month ago.”

  “Is moving apartment suspicious behaviour?” asked Adika.

  “It is in this case,” said Lucas. “Martin’s new apartment is in an area that’s been having major problems with the waste system. A new waste shaft had to be installed, which blocked the main access route to one of the corridors. The inconvenience, combined with noise and smell issues, made all the residents move to new apartments elsewhere. The corridor was left completely empty until Martin specifically requested an apartment there.”

  “That does seem a little odd,” admitted Adika.

  “Martin has had no relationships that have lasted longer than a few days, so he lives alone,” continued Lucas. “He deliberately moved to an apartment where there weren’t any neighbours to notice what he does. That could mean he has something important to hide. We’re hoping he’ll be in his apartment this evening and Amber will be able to read his mind.”

  There was silence after that as we rode the belt system on through a series of corridors. The Alpha team were deeply worried about Rothan, so even Eli was too subdued to make random comments or jokes. I caught Adika wishing he would. This morbidly grim atmosphere wasn’t good for his team. If Eli didn’t start playing the clown soon to lighten the mood, he’d have to do it himself.

  “Time for you to jump belt,” said Lucas at last. “You’ll be basing yourselves in a hairdressing salon just behind Martin’s apartment while Amber does her checks.”

  Adika groaned. “Please don’t tell me we’re pretending to be hairdressers. The thought of Eli cutting someone’s hair terrifies me. We’re supposed to save people from being injured, not chop off their ears ourselves.”

  “You don’t have to pretend to be anything,” said Nicole. “The hairdressing salon closed an hour ago. You can just let yourselves in and lock the door again behind you.”

  We walked through a small shopping area, turned down a side corridor, and Adika spoke in a dry tone of voice. “Approaching hairdresser.”

  There was smothered laughter from Eli.

  Adika waved an electrical object at the door of the salon. The door opened, and we all trooped inside. I picked a comfortable looking chair and sat down.

  “Which way is the suspect’s apartment?” I asked.

  Adika pointed at the back wall.

  I closed my eyes, touched Adika’s mind to orientate myself, and then reached out in the direction of the apartment. It was less than a minute before I opened my eyes again.

  “Either Level 36 people have apartments vastly bigger than mine, or our suspect isn’t home at the moment.”

  I heard Lucas’s sigh over the crystal comms. “Unfortunate. We’ll have to settle for checking his apartment for lengths of hose or bottles of inflammable liquid. After what happened in the Security Unit, I think we should play safe and send in a robot. Which ones have you brought along?”

  “The modified pipe cleaning robot we use for narrow spaces, and the new experimental robot,” said Adika.

  “The new robot is called Spike,” said Eli.

  “Have we started giving our robots names now?” asked Adika.

  Eli responded to the encouraging note in Adika’s voice. “Only Spike. He’s different from the others. They’re just remote controlled, but Spike’s got autonomous onboard artificial intelligence.”

  Adika laughed. “Do you have the faintest idea what autonomous onboard artificial intelligence means, Eli?”

  “No,” said Eli, “but Spike is clever. When we tested him back at the unit, you could see the way his lights flashed when he was thinking over a problem.”

  “Well, we’ll see how Spike copes with an operational situation,” said Adika. “Eli, Zak, Tobias, and Dhiren can come along with me, while everyone else stays here on bodyguard duties. Matias, you’re in charge of the bodyguards.”

  There was no hint of danger, but I played safe, closed my eyes, and started silently running a circuit of the five minds leaving the hairdressing unit. I had a succession of views of a boring corridor, totally featureless except for the occasional apartment door. That was followed by a second boring corridor, a third, and a fourth.

  “We’re getting close to Martin’s apartment at last,” announced Adika. “You were right about it being in an inconvenient place, Lucas. There’s a very odd smell in this corridor too. I can see why all the other residents chose to move out.”

  He paused. “Eli, time to unpack Spike.”

  I swapped to Eli’s mind, watching through his eyes as he took Spike out of its bag and set it on the corridor floor. It looked like a red, oval blob, a bit bigger than a man’s head.

  “Spike, wake up,” said Eli.

  Six angular, insect-like legs appeared round the blob, and then a small circular disc rose slowly up on a rod from its centre until it reached waist height. The front pair of legs stomped on the ground, followed by the middle pair, and then the back pair. At least, Eli thought Spike was stomping its front legs first, but personally I couldn’t see any difference between the back and the front of the robot. Finally, lights rippled round the disc.

  “Hello, Spike,” said Eli.

  “Hello, Eli,” said Spike, in a surprisingly human voice.

  There was a ripple of laughter over the crystal comms, and Adika gave a theatrical sigh. “I thought I put Tobias in charge of the new robot.”

  “I kept telling Eli that,” said Tobias, “but he wouldn’t listen.”

  “Tobias isn’t a good person to take care of Spike,” said Eli. “He doesn’t appreciate Spike has true personality.”

  I moved to Adika’s head, felt his relief that Eli’s comedy routine was breaking through the grim mood of the Strike team, and shared his laughter.

  “All right,” said Adika, “Eli can be in charge of Spike. Can you get it to unlock the apartment door for us?”

  “Spike isn’t an ‘it’,” said Eli. “Spike is a ‘him’.”

  “You see what I was up against,” grumbled Tobias.

  Adika laughed again. “I don’t see how you can tell what sex Spike is,
Eli, but since you insist … Can you get him to unlock the apartment door?”

  “Spike, unlock apartment door,” said Eli.

  Spike’s lights flashed. “Eli, I see three apartment doors.”

  “Spike, unlock that apartment door.” Eli pointed a finger.

  Spike’s three pairs of legs rippled as it, as he, advanced towards the door.

  “Amber,” said Eli, “I was wondering if you could read Spike’s mind, and tell us what he’s thinking about when his lights flash.”

  I was startled into losing my mental link with Adika and opening my eyes. I saw my bodyguards desperately trying to smother their laughter, and waved my hands at them, palms up, to express my disbelief. I considered asking if Eli thought I could read the minds of other electrical items, such as dataviews and kitchen units, but decided to go for the tactful reply instead.

  “Umm, sorry Eli, telepathy doesn’t seem to work on Spike.”

  “Pity,” said Eli. “I suppose he thinks on a different wavelength or something.”

  I pulled a face at my bodyguards. “Possibly.”

  I closed my eyes again, and returned to Adika’s view of the situation. There was a gadget sticking out of Spike’s circular disc of a head, and it was doing something to the door lock.

  “Eli, the apartment door is now unlocked,” said Spike.

  “Spike, go in there and take a look around,” said Adika.

  “You can’t say it like that,” said Eli. “You have to give instructions in clear, defined sequences. Spike, engage camera link mode.”

  The gadget withdrew back into Spike’s circular disc, and was replaced by a camera extension.

  “Robot visual link green,” said Nicole’s voice. “Sorry, I mean Spike’s visual link green.”