Defender

  “Well, if that happens, and they catch him or her, then that’s fine. If not … Telepath Units are always too busy, Lucas. If we hand Fran’s case to another unit, they’ll follow standard procedure and make a couple of check runs. If those achieve nothing, then they’ll suspend the case until there are new signs of the target.”

  I paused. “Once a case is suspended, it’s often never solved. I don’t want Fran’s case left suspended forever. I need to know what happened to her.”

  Lucas sighed. “Agreed. Handing Fran’s case to another unit won’t stop you worrying about it, so we have to ensure it’s properly resolved ourselves. Now I must make a quick call to Megan.”

  He made a second sound-only call. “Megan, Nicole’s suffering a guilt reaction to the news of Fran’s death. The rest of the Liaison team may be having difficulties too. Can you arrange counselling for them?”

  “Yes, but Amber is the real priority,” said Megan brusquely. “She was clearly deep in shock after discovering Fran was dead. Amber’s counselling is my responsibility. I should be helping her work through her reaction to Fran’s death, but she always resists talking to me. You must insist on her having a counselling session with me right away.”

  Lucas turned to me and raised a questioning eyebrow. I pictured Megan interrogating me about my feelings on Fran’s death, shuddered, and urgently shook my head.

  “Amber isn’t ready to have a counselling session yet,” said Lucas. “She needs more recovery time after the last run.”

  “I must have heard variations on that excuse a hundred times. Amber doesn’t want a counselling session because it’s too soon after a run. Amber doesn’t want a counselling session because she’ll be going on a run soon. Amber doesn’t want a counselling session because she’s going to visit her parents.” Megan made a disgusted noise. “The truth is that Amber resists counselling because she’s too defensive of her privacy. I suspect this problem was triggered by conflicts with her parents in infancy. It’s one of the issues I keep trying and failing to raise with her.”

  I glared at the dataview. Megan had insisted on talking about this during our last counselling session. I’d told her that if anything had triggered my need for privacy, then it was having a younger brother constantly trying to mess with my belongings. She’d refused to accept that explanation though, and kept asking prying questions about my relationship with my parents until I walked out in anger.

  I felt that same anger again now. Megan shouldn’t be discussing this with Lucas. The dull ache of my headache started building again, so I rubbed my forehead. Lucas seemed to notice that, because he threw an anxious look at me before speaking into his dataview in a pointed voice.

  “This isn’t a good time, Megan.”

  “I tried to discuss Amber’s counselling with you yesterday and you said you were too busy.”

  “That’s because I was too busy yesterday. Keith’s Tactical Commander called an emergency Joint Tactical Meeting about an incident in Burgundy Zone.”

  “You can’t keep evading this discussion, Lucas,” Megan’s voice was openly angry now. “You’ve effectively taken over my work of counselling Amber. That was tolerable as an interim measure when you were merely her Tactical Commander, but it’s completely unacceptable now that you’re her established partner as well. You have to force Amber to talk to me.”

  My forehead was throbbing so painfully now that I’d lost my link to Lucas’s mind, but his expression showed he was getting annoyed too. “I couldn’t and wouldn’t force Amber to have counselling from anyone against her will. Whether she talks to you or not has to be her own decision.”

  “Things have gone past the stage where we can let Amber avoid proper counselling. You saw the state she was in after this morning’s run. We have to relieve the stress on her or she’ll …”

  Lucas firmly interrupted the tirade. “Megan, when I told you this wasn’t a good time, I meant that Amber is sitting right next to me and can hear every word that you’re saying.”

  There was a single, appalled, monosyllable from Megan. “Oh.”

  I was furious with Megan, not just because of the things she’d just said, but because I was remembering Adika’s hurt and frustration during the last emergency run as well. I grabbed the dataview from Lucas and spoke into it myself.

  “Megan, you’ve no right to tell Lucas details of my private counselling sessions. You’ve absolutely no right to tell him to force me to talk to you.”

  “I would never have said those things if I wasn’t so worried about you, Amber. You were under severe stress during the last run. You have to discuss it with me, because I’m imprinted with all the counselling techniques needed to help you deal with it.”

  I groaned. “You keep pushing me to discuss things with you, but how can I do that given the things I see in your mind? You aren’t just trying to mother me, but to control me. You keep secrets from me. You want to stop me talking to Lucas about my problems. You’re jealous that I’m in a loving relationship while you’re lost in a maelstrom of emotions, trying and failing to move on from the death of your husband.”

  I paused for a microsecond to breathe. “Yes, I was under severe stress during the last run, but part of that was your fault. Emergency runs are hard enough for me, having to read the thoughts of a target mind that’s deep in an emotional crisis. I don’t need the extra burden of my Strike team leader having an emotional crisis as well, especially when the entire Strike team have picked up the fact that something is wrong with their leader and are getting distracted and upset by it.”

  Megan tried to speak again. “The situation between Adika and me is difficult because …”

  I raised my voice and swept on. “I don’t need you to tell me why the situation is difficult. Your mind keeps screaming it at me. You’re attracted to Adika, but he’s moving too quickly for you. You’re torn between the past and future, unsure whether to linger in mourning for your dead husband or start a new relationship. For the sake of this unit, you need to forget about counselling me on my problems, and concentrate on sorting out your own personal life. Tell Adika yes, or tell him no. He can cope with either. What he can’t cope with is you changing your mind every five minutes.”

  I stabbed Lucas’s dataview with my forefinger, ending the call.

  Chapter Six

  I sat there seething with anger for the next couple of minutes. When I finally calmed down, I gave Lucas an anxious look. “Did I go a bit far?”

  Lucas cowered in mock fear. “I don’t dare to comment.”

  The pain in my head was easing now, and I was feeling dreadfully guilty. “It was unfair of me to say those things to Megan. I’m a telepath, I can’t help seeing her deepest, most intimate thoughts, but I shouldn’t throw that knowledge at her in front of you, and I’ve no right to interfere in her private life.”

  Lucas abandoned his clown act. “I’m an expert in behavioural analysis and reading body language. I already knew everything you said to Megan, except the key detail that Adika was having an emotional crisis during the last run, and that was upsetting the Strike team.”

  He pulled a face. “I couldn’t understand why you were disintegrating so badly during that run. Now it makes sense. You weren’t just under extreme emotional strain from your target, but from your own Strike team as well.”

  “That wasn’t Adika’s fault. It wasn’t Megan’s fault either. They’re human beings, not robots, and the emergency call came at exactly the wrong time.”

  “I know they didn’t do it intentionally, but the fact remains that their relationship issues put you under pressure before you read Logan’s mind. He may not have been a murderer, but his thoughts would have been deeply disturbing, and then you discovered the murdered woman was Fran. You’re obviously suffering from the cumulative strain of those things even now, which is why you just lost your temper with Megan.”

  My pocket started vibrating. I took out my dataview, looked at it, made a whimpering noise of despair, and b
uried my face in my hands. “That’s a message from Megan. She’s resigned.”

  “Query. Are you accepting her resignation?” asked Lucas.

  I lifted my head again. “Of course not.”

  “If the situation between Adika and Megan has reached the point where it’s distracting the Strike team during emergency runs, then someone could get injured or killed. We should replace either Adika or Megan before that happens, and I think the choice is simple. Adika is doing his job perfectly. Megan isn’t.”

  “The Senior Administrator is responsible for the everyday running of the unit. Megan does that flawlessly.”

  “I agree,” said Lucas, “but the Senior Administrator is also responsible for safeguarding the telepath’s physical and mental wellbeing, acting as both their personal doctor and counsellor. It’s clear that you’ve irretrievably lost faith in Megan as your counsellor at a time when you’re in urgent need of psychological support. The simplest solution would be to accept her resignation and find a more compatible replacement.”

  I whimpered again. “I can’t do that, Lucas. After what I said to Megan, I’d feel as if I’d fired her. Given we’ve just found the dead body of the last person I fired …”

  “I appreciate the difficulty. Hopefully Adika will solve the relationship issues by breaking off his pursuit of Megan. We still need to find a solution to the counselling problem though. Am I right in thinking you’d be willing to continue having Megan as your personal doctor but not as your counsellor?”

  I stared down at my hands. “Yes. I’m happy with Megan as my doctor, but I can’t bear any more counselling sessions with her. I don’t see any reason for me to have a counsellor anyway. Your imprint includes some psychology, so you can keep doing my counselling.”

  “No, I can’t. Megan was right when she said that it was unacceptable for me to keep counselling you on a long-term basis. No one should ever receive counselling about problems from their partner.”

  “I don’t see why.”

  “Because the partner often is the problem. I hope we’ll keep discussing our problems with each other, but it’s essential that you have independent counselling as well. I suggest we keep Megan as Senior Administrator, but recruit a specialist psychologist to do your counselling.”

  I blinked. “Can we do that?”

  “We can and will do anything necessary to help you cope with the pressure of your work.” Lucas paused. “If we’re going to recruit a new counsellor for you, then we need to find suitable candidates as fast as possible. What sort of characteristics should we be looking for?”

  I was bewildered by the speed of this. “I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it. I’ve never met any psychologists other than Megan, unless you count Buzz.”

  “Who was Buzz?”

  “She treated me when I lived on Teen Level.”

  Lucas grabbed his dataview, and started tapping at it. “You had a psychologist treating you on Teen Level? How could I have missed that? I went through every detail of your medical records a dozen times when we were trying to work out why …”

  “Buzz wasn’t treating me on a regular basis,” I interrupted him. “When I was seventeen, I tried cliff climbing on Teen Level beach to try to overcome my fear of heights, and panicked. My friend, Forge, climbed up and rescued me, but I’d hurt my head so I was sent to a medical facility.”

  Lucas abandoned his dataview and nodded. “I know all about that. When Lottery discovered you were a telepath, there was naturally huge concern about you having had a head injury, but multiple experts went over the scans and confirmed you’d suffered no lasting damage.”

  “They did?” I shook my head. “I didn’t know that. Well, my injury was treated by a doctor, and then Buzz checked me for signs of memory loss or confusion before I was discharged from the medical facility.”

  “So that was how you met Buzz. You liked her?”

  I smiled. “Yes. She was just a year or two older than me, very informal, and it was amazingly easy to talk to her. It would help if you could find someone like Buzz to do my counselling.”

  “We may be able to get Buzz herself. Whatever her specialist area of psychology, her imprint will cover basic counselling techniques. The only difficulty is one of security. We’d need to get her personality profile checked to see if she’s discreet enough to be trusted with the truth about telepaths and transferred to Law Enforcement.”

  Lucas worked on his dataview for a moment. “I can’t find any record of a psychologist called Buzz. Are you sure that’s the right name?”

  “Buzz was just a nickname,” I explained. “I’m afraid I can’t remember her real name.”

  “I’m sure we’ll be able to track her down. It would help narrow the search if you know Buzz’s specialist area of psychology.”

  “I don’t.”

  “The different specialist areas have different level ratings,” said Lucas. “Do you know Buzz’s level?”

  “Buzz is Level 1.”

  “What?” Lucas stared at me. “Are you sure about that?”

  “Yes.” I frowned anxiously at Lucas. “Is that a problem? Does it make Buzz too important to join our unit?”

  “It’s unexpected, but it isn’t a problem. In fact, it means there wouldn’t be any security issues at all in recruiting Buzz. The only psychologists rated Level 1 are specialists working for Law Enforcement.”

  “Buzz already works for Law Enforcement?” I thought rapidly through my encounters with Buzz. “When I was on Teen Level, I discovered Buzz worked for Health and Safety, but I didn’t realize she belonged to the Law Enforcement division.”

  “I’m just surprised that a psychologist with Buzz’s specialism was working at an ordinary medical facility.”

  “Buzz wasn’t working at the medical facility permanently. I remember her saying she was only there for a day because their regular psychologist was ill.” I paused. “So, what is Buzz’s specialism?”

  Lucas hesitated before answering. “The only psychologists rated Level 1 are specialists in victim trauma treatment and forensic psychology.”

  I’d heard Lucas talking about those specialists before. A Telepath Unit’s job finished when a target was apprehended. After that, the experts in victim trauma treatment and forensic psychology took over, treating any victims and attempting to salvage the target as a productive member of the Hive. One key fact about these psychologists had stuck in my mind. Lottery selected them for their work because they had a very special talent.

  “But that means Buzz is …”

  I let my sentence trail off and Lucas said the words for me. “Yes, it means that Buzz is a borderline telepath.”

  Chapter Seven

  Later that day, Lucas and I went to our unit swimming pool. We swam slow and lazy lengths for hours until I was exhausted, but I still had trouble sleeping that night. My body floated peacefully on the warm air cushion of the sleep field I shared with Lucas, but my mind alternated conjuring up the image of Fran’s dead face, with trying to adjust to the fact that Buzz was a borderline telepath.

  There were only five true telepaths in our Hive, six if you counted the broken Olivia, but Lottery discovered almost a thousand people a year with borderline telepathic abilities. These people didn’t have the conscious control of their talent that I had, just getting random glimpses into the minds of others, but that was still enough to make them valuable psychologists and counsellors.

  When I first met Buzz, I’d been an ordinary seventeen-year-old, who believed the grey-masked nosies were genuine telepaths. I’d learnt a vast amount since going through Lottery. If I’d had any reason to think about Buzz in the last few months, if I’d worked logically through my memories of her, then I might have guessed she was a borderline telepath.

  Buzz was Level 1. She was a psychologist. It was weirdly easy to talk to her. When some hasties caught my friend, Forge, crawling through the vent system, it was Buzz who assessed him and ordered him to wear a child’s tracking bracelet to
stop him from taking risks. A decision like that would surely be made by a member of Law Enforcement rather than any other division of Health and Safety.

  I remembered how abruptly Buzz had reached that decision on Forge. Was the suddenness of that because she’d had one of her flashes of telepathic vision? Had Buzz managed to look into my own mind as well? If she had, then what had she seen?

  “Shall we get up now and have an early breakfast?” asked Lucas.

  I turned guiltily towards him. “Did I wake you up? I’m sorry.”

  Lucas rolled out of his side of the sleep field, stood up, and stretched his arms. “I wasn’t sleeping well either. I was too busy thinking. Working out the best way to handle the Megan situation. Considering scenarios that would explain how Fran ended up in that warehouse. Wondering whether bringing Buzz in to counsel you could be a dreadful mistake.”

  I frowned. “You told me it was safe for me to meet borderline telepaths.”

  “It’s perfectly safe,” said Lucas. “Which is deeply fortunate. Keeping true telepaths apart isn’t a problem, because our Hive has never had more than a dozen at any one time. Keeping true telepaths away from the many tens of thousands of borderline telepaths in the Hive would be a logistical nightmare.”

  “If it’s safe for me to meet Buzz, why do you think it could be a mistake to have her counselling me?”

  Lucas pulled a face. “Because the news Buzz was a borderline telepath clearly stunned you. Because they are notoriously unconventional in their approach to therapy. Because I’m worried how you’ll react if Buzz glimpses your thoughts.”

  “Even as an ignorant seventeen-year-old, I got the impression Buzz was a very unconventional psychologist, but that was exactly what I liked about her. I was stunned, I’m still stunned by the fact she’s a borderline telepath, but that’s just because she seemed as ordinary as me.”