Defender

  Buzz waved a hand in farewell, and I hurried off towards the lifts. I’d expected to find Adika, Forge, and the Alpha Strike team waiting for me in lift 2. Adika and the Alpha team were just as eager as me to be at the Fire Casualty Centre during the critical time, and Forge had talked Adika into including him on the trip since he was Rothan’s closest friend in the unit. I didn’t expect to find Lucas with them.

  “Amber, are you wearing your body armour and equipment?” asked Adika.

  “Yes.” I frowned at Lucas. “Does Megan know you’re here?”

  “Megan has authorized me going on this trip.”

  “Really? The Fire Casualty Centre is on Level 25 in Navy Zone. It’s only a few hours since Megan discharged you from the medical area, and gave you a long lecture about the importance of resting. I find it hard to believe she’s authorized you travelling all the way to Navy Zone.”

  “Well, she wasn’t totally happy about it, but she accepted that she can’t stop me doing this. Rothan was injured saving my life.”

  It was impossible to argue with that. I nodded to Adika, and he closed the lift doors. As we started heading downwards, I was startled to hear him begin the standard ritual.

  “Alpha Strike team is moving.”

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

  Nicole came next. “Liaison ready. Tracking status is green.”

  “What’s going on?” I asked. “This isn’t an emergency or check run. We’re just going to visit Rothan.”

  “We’re taking a telepath to an area that’s under maximum defence alert,” said Adika. “We either treat this as seriously as an emergency run or we don’t go at all.”

  I sighed, gave in, and checked the displays on my dataview. “Green here too. I assume the area is under maximum defence alert because you’re worried there could be another attack on the fire survivors.”

  “Yes,” said Lucas. “They’re all gathered at the Navy Zone Fire Casualty Centre now. The other patients have been evacuated to other centres, and no visitors are being allowed entry.”

  “How are the Liaison team explaining this situation to people, especially the staff of the Fire Casualty Centre?”

  “The staff of specialist casualty centres are imprinted with limited information about some major Hive incidents being caused by deliberate sabotage,” said Lucas. “Since they don’t belong to Law Enforcement, their imprints imply such sabotage is always caused by enemy agents rather than members of our own Hive, but that still makes it easier to explain situations like this.”

  Nicole’s voice joined the conversation. “We’ve told the staff of the Fire Casualty Centre that the fire survivors are being targeted by an enemy agent. The wider cover story is that fire containment discovered toxic materials had been released by the fire. The survivors have been brought to the Navy Zone Fire Casualty Centre for treatment, and visitors aren’t being allowed to avoid the risk of cross-contamination.”

  “We’ve made an exception to that no visitor rule for Rothan’s parents and brother,” said Lucas. “They’re at the Fire Casualty Centre with Emili, so everyone should be careful what they say in front of them.”

  Our lift had arrived on Level 25, but Adika kept the doors closed. “I appreciate you letting Rothan’s parents and brother visit the Fire Casualty Centre, but surely there’s a risk of it causing complications?”

  “Rothan’s parents and brother have been told the toxic materials story,” said Nicole, “and been given fake tablets that they believe will neutralize any toxins. If they question you visiting the facility, then you can explain that you were all at the fire scene so you’ve also been given these tablets.”

  “As it turns out, it’s telling other Telepath Units the truth that has caused the complications,” said Lucas. “We assigned a number of hasty teams to guard the Fire Casualty Centre. Gideon tells me that Sapphire’s Beta Strike team have arrived to assist them. I hope you don’t have a problem with that, Amber.”

  I daren’t speak or even make a sound in response, because Lucas knew me too well. Some clue in my tone of voice might tell him I’d already heard about this.

  “How did Sapphire’s Beta Strike team get involved in our case?” demanded Adika.

  “A team member’s daughter is among the critically ill survivors,” said Lucas. “Soren asked to come and visit Kirsten. We allowed that as a courtesy from one Telepath Unit to another, but then he decided he wanted to help guard the Fire Casualty Centre, and Sapphire gave permission for the rest of her Beta team to join him.”

  “I hope you’ve made sure that Sapphire won’t try to visit the Fire Casualty Centre while Amber’s there,” said Adika.

  “It’s been agreed that Sapphire won’t visit the Fire Casualty Centre herself,” said Lucas. “We just have to deal with the awkwardness of Sapphire’s Beta team being in an area that’s under our jurisdiction. Please remember that you’re all under stress because you’re worried about Rothan, but Sapphire’s Beta team will be just as worried about Kirsten. They’ll also be remembering the fire they were caught in last year where two of their team died. This isn’t the time to indulge in any Strike team rivalries. We should focus on our common interest in keeping the fire survivors safe.”

  “Agreed,” said Adika. “Whatever comments, jokes, or outright insults are made about us being inexperienced greenies compared to Sapphire’s Strike team, we will ignore them and remain perfectly polite. Understand, everyone?”

  There was a chorus of assent from the Strike team, Adika opened the lift doors, and we joined a southbound express belt for the long ride all the way to Navy Zone. We finally arrived at a major belt interchange, where we jumped belt, and walked down a short, double-width corridor to the Fire Casualty Centre. I saw what had to be Sapphire’s Beta Strike team standing outside the main doors.

  I had Strike team members with the whole range of possible skin tones, but they were all male, mostly with black hair, and had something similar about the bone structure of their faces. Sapphire’s Strike team members were all male too, and looked even more alike, all fair-skinned, with blond hair, blue eyes, and determined chins. I was tempted to read their minds, and find out what they thought about me, but that would be bad manners.

  I watched as their leader bowed his head in acknowledgement to me, and then addressed Adika. “Our best wishes for the recovery of Rothan.”

  “Thank you, Murray,” said Adika. “Our best wishes for the recovery of Kirsten.”

  The blond men moved aside, and we walked into the Fire Casualty Centre.

  Adika laughed. “I’m guessing that Sapphire’s Tactical Commander gave her Beta Strike team a similar lecture to the one that you gave us, Lucas. Is the gossip true, and half of Sapphire’s Strike team members aren’t naturally blond but dye their hair?”

  “I can’t comment on rumours,” said Lucas.

  “Rothan hasn’t just been dyeing his hair, but wearing contact lenses,” I said pointedly.

  Adika sighed. “True. If Rothan had had a different psychological profile, he’d probably have been assigned to Sapphire’s Telepath Unit rather than ours.”

  I was puzzled. “Why would Rothan need a different psychological profile to be assigned to Sapphire’s unit?”

  “Strike team members aren’t just chosen to be appropriate physically for their telepath,” said Lucas. “They’re also selected to avoid major conflicts of attitude. If a telepath was constantly reading the minds of people with diametrically opposing views on fundamental issues, then it would create stress and generate multiple other problems.”

  There was something odd about Lucas’s tone of voice when he said that. I checked his mind, and was surprised to find him thinking of Keith rather than Sapphire.

  … happened to Keith, it could be argued that all unit members should be selected that way, but the resulting bias in attitudes of the Tactical team would …

  … and everyone has limits to what they’ll tolerate. Keith was bound to p
ush someone too far eventually. Hopefully Gaius has managed to …

  … so grateful that Gaius is Keith’s Tactical Commander rather than me!

  This seemed to be something to do with how Keith had got stabbed. I was too occupied with thoughts of Rothan to bother about that now, so I left Lucas’s mind.

  Adika was leading the way down a corridor. “Which waiting room do we want, Nicole?”

  “Waiting room 3,” said Nicole. “Turn left at the end of this corridor.”

  We arrived at waiting room 3, and I saw Emili was slumped into a chair, fast asleep. A man and woman were sitting next to her. They must be Rothan’s parents. A boy, surely Rothan’s younger brother, was lounging on the floor in the corner of the room. Those three were all awake but had the resigned air of people who’d already suffered endless hours of suspense and expected more to come. I was filled with sympathy for them, picturing how my own parents and brother would feel in a situation like this.

  Somehow my concern for them made me connect to the mind of Rothan’s father. He was studying the people who’d just flooded into the room. They obviously worked with his son. He’d known that Rothan’s job was something important to do with the security of the Hive, and it could be dangerous at times, but still hadn’t been prepared for the news that Rothan had been critically injured. He’d no idea that the lone girl who’d arrived among so many men was a telepath.

  Adika went over to Rothan’s parents and spoke in a low voice, saying something complimentary about Rothan and the lives he’d saved.

  “We hadn’t realized Rothan was involved in rescue work,” said Rothan’s mother.

  “We aren’t specialist rescue workers,” said Adika, “but we happened to be close by when the fire started.”

  As Rothan’s mother spoke, I automatically moved to touch her mind. She was vaguely proud that her son had saved lives, but most of her mind was focused on fervent hopes that the doctors could save his. I drifted on to where Rothan’s younger brother was thinking how impressed he’d been when Lottery allocated Rothan a mysterious Level 1 post protecting the Hive. He’d hoped that in two years’ time, Lottery would give him similar work as well. Now he was scared that it might. He …

  I felt guilty seeing the boy’s private fear that he was a coward, and pulled back into my own head. I’d no business reading these people, but I’d been trained to react to a Strike team member’s name by instantly linking to their mind to check if they were in danger. Now using my ability had become as natural as breathing, and just thinking about anyone could make me link to their mind.

  Everyone in my unit had been imprinted with the fact telepathy worked like that, and their telepath would sometimes wander through their thoughts. They’d understood it from the beginning, but I hadn’t. When I first came out of Lottery, I’d had the naive, idealistic idea that I would be the telepath who was different. I’d tightly control my telepathy, respecting other people’s privacy unless it was expressly part of my job to read their minds at that moment.

  I was still trying to control my telepathy around a few especially significant people. My parents, my brother, and now Buzz as well. That meant being constantly on my guard when I was with them. I mustn’t trespass into their thoughts for even a second, because each contact with a mind made it more familiar and harder to stop myself reading it again.

  It was utterly impossible for me to be that defensive with everyone else. Since I couldn’t stop myself from reading minds, I’d invented some new moral guidelines for myself, about keeping secrets confidential and only using my knowledge to help others. There was nothing I could do to help any of Rothan’s family right now. Nothing anyone could do until the medicine arrived.

  I turned to Lucas. “Can we see Rothan?”

  “Megan said we’d be able to look through a window into his room. We won’t be able to see anything of Rothan though, just the cocoon that’s keeping him alive.”

  “I’ll take you there, Amber,” said Adika. “Lucas, Forge, Kaden, and Eli can come with us.”

  The rest of the Strike team dodged aside to let us out of the door. Once outside, Adika paused. “Forge in the lead with me. Amber and Lucas next. Kaden and Eli are rearguards.”

  I took my position in the formation with a resigned sigh. The Fire Casualty Centre was heavily guarded by teams of hasties, but that wasn’t enough to make Adika believe I was safe here. The only place he let me walk around alone was my own Telepath Unit. I couldn’t even visit my parents without Adika and a couple of bodyguards coming with me.

  Adika took a left turn into another corridor, and stopped by a door with two uniformed hasties outside it. Adika established who we were, and the hasties gave me an awed look before opening the door. I went into a room that was divided into two by a glass partition. On the far side of the glass was the white medical cocoon that enclosed Rothan.

  I closed my eyes and looked with the view of a telepath. The glass partition, the room walls, and the cocoon all vanished. There were the minds of Lucas, Adika, Forge, and Eli standing next to me, and the faint glimmer that was Rothan’s mind ahead of me. It was shut down to the very deepest level of the unconscious, with no words or images, just something restful, like the sound of water babbling along in our park stream.

  The other four telepaths in the Hive couldn’t reach the subconscious levels of the mind at all. I wondered if there were levels even further down that I couldn’t reach either. I stayed there for several minutes before opening my eyes again. I’d never thought much about religion or prayer, but thinking good wishes about Rothan wouldn’t hurt him and made me feel a little better.

  I finally turned away from the glass partition, and we went back to the waiting room. There weren’t enough chairs for all the Strike team to sit down, but that didn’t matter because they kept drifting in and out of the room, taking turns to go and look at Rothan’s cocoon.

  I’d been sitting there for about five minutes, when there was a sudden gasp from Emili. She sat up straight, and looked round in confusion at the number of people in the room.

  “We wanted to visit Rothan,” I said.

  Emili nodded and rubbed her eyes. Her hair was a wreck, and her face had the blotchy look of someone who’d been crying. She clearly didn’t care. I checked her thoughts and found she’d had endless drinks – Rothan’s brother had been desperate to do something useful and kept ferrying them drinks – but she’d refused all food today.

  “You can’t keep starving yourself, Emili.” I said the words, then realized I shouldn’t know whether Emili had been eating or not. I mentally slapped myself for making such a basic mistake, but fortunately Rothan’s family didn’t seem to have noticed it.

  Emili shook her head. “I couldn’t eat anything now. Rothan’s medicine should be arriving soon.”

  Emili had been awake all night, willing Rothan to stay alive until the medicine came, not daring to think beyond that moment to the agonizing suspense that would follow as she waited to see if his condition would improve. Eventually exhaustion had won, and she’d fallen asleep for a while.

  I closed my eyes and reached out with my mind, trying to find out when the medicine would get here. I rapidly head-hopped through conscious, unconscious, and sleeping minds, frowning as I noticed one of them in particular. I paused to examine it in more detail, before moving on again to where a man was drumming his fingers on the table top.

  … nearly an hour before the aircraft lands, and then the medical courier needs to …

  We still had quite a while to wait then. I tapped Lucas on the shoulder, and jerked my head towards the door. He raised his eyebrows, but silently followed me out of the room.

  As soon as we were outside, I turned to face him. “Lucas, I’ve just touched the mind of the man from the Security Unit. The one who was friends with Fran.”

  Lucas gave me a startled look. “My Tactical team questioned all the conscious survivors, and no one admitted to sharing a love of music with Fran. We assumed that meant the pe
rson was either dead or among the unconscious, critically ill patients.”

  “That’s right. This man is unconscious.”

  “He’s unconscious but thinking about Fran?”

  “No, he’s too deeply unconscious to be thinking about anything.”

  Lucas looked puzzled. “If he isn’t thinking about Fran, how can you tell he’s the right person?”

  I waved my hands helplessly. “I don’t know. Minds are a bit like faces. When you’re familiar with one, you can recognize it whatever the person is thinking.”

  “But you aren’t familiar with this mind. You’ve only read it once.”

  “I’ve only read this mind once, but it’s rather distinctive. There’s something unusually orderly about it. Anyway, the man is in that direction.”

  I pointed down the corridor. Lucas glanced round, saw Adika, Forge, Kaden, and Eli had followed us out of the waiting room, and nodded. “Then we’d better go and identify him.”

  I led the way through the sprawling Fire Casualty Centre to a room that matched Rothan’s exactly. The same glass partition. The same medical cocoon. The same flashing lights on the wall. The one difference was that a formally dressed woman was standing and staring through the glass partition. She turned round, looked stunned at the sight of so many people, and then smiled.

  “You’re friends of Richar?”

  “No,” said Lucas. “We’re from the Telepath Unit investigating the fire.”

  I was shocked by the way the woman’s face crumpled in disappointment. I hastily skimmed the top levels of her mind. Her name was Mika, and she worked for Law Enforcement as an incident coordinator. She’d contacted relatives and friends of all the critically ill survivors except Richar. There didn’t seem to be anyone to contact in his case, and it was very important to her that she found someone, somewhere, who cared whether the man lived or died.

  … so much like me. The same age. The same history of losing touch with relatives after coming out of Lottery. The same difficulty in making lasting friendships. The same …

  … still hurts to remember how my parents suddenly grew distant and my sister blocked my calls. It’s not an unusual reaction of course. Ordinary citizens are wary of hasties, so when their son or daughter comes out of Lottery as …