Borderline (Hive Mind Book 4)

by Janet Edwards

  “It would be a good way to solve our staffing problem,” I said, “but we mustn’t try to recruit any men who are still needed by Sapphire’s unit.”

  “We’d never want to recruit anyone who’d worked for Sapphire’s unit,” said Megan. “Strike team members have to be both physically and mentally compatible with their telepath, and you and Sapphire have radically different personal preferences.”

  I frowned. I’d been shocked when I discovered Lottery had taken my personal preferences into account when selecting candidates for my Strike team. I believed they should have been chosen solely for their abilities, without considering whether I’d find them physically attractive or approve of their opinions on things like relationships. My unit staff, even Lucas, didn’t agree with me though. However much I argued the point, their minds were imprinted with the fact that it was vital for Strike team members to be compatible with their telepath.

  “You think that some of Claire’s old Strike Team members should be suitable though, Megan?” asked Lucas.

  “I remember that Claire’s preferences were somewhere in the middle ground between Amber and Sapphire,” said Megan. “If we’re only recruiting four men, then we should be able to find some with the right characteristics. They’re likely to have partners who worked in Claire’s unit as well, so we may be able to combine recruiting the Strike team candidates with using their partners to fill our other vacancies.”

  “We’re talking about bringing men back from retirement to assist our Strike team as a temporary measure,” said Adika. “Using their partners to fill permanent positions is a bad idea. You need to think what will happen in a few months from now when the men leave. Our staff have to live in our unit because emergency runs can happen at any time of day or night. The unpredictable working schedule makes it virtually impossible to maintain a relationship with anyone either living or working elsewhere.”

  Megan and Buzz exchanged glances. “It’s probably best if you tell him,” said Megan.

  “Tell me what?” asked Adika.

  “If we recruit these men for our Strike team,” said Buzz gently, “they won’t be leaving in a few months. What’s happened with Tobias should tell you that. Amber won’t send anyone away from our unit unless they’re leaving to get a position that suits them better.”

  Adika scowled. “Then we can’t recruit these men at all. They may be fit enough to stay on the Strike team for another year or two, but nobody can cope with the physical demands of the work forever.”

  “Which is precisely why the imprints of Strike team members are designed to allow them to fill alternate roles in later life,” said Megan pointedly. “Alternate roles that could be extremely helpful to our unit.”

  “The personal trainer and physiotherapist roles could be especially relevant,” said Lucas. “These men wouldn’t just be able to help our Strike team members achieve maximum fitness, but also give them the benefit of knowledge gained during decades of emergency runs.”

  Adika gave a resigned groan. “All right.”

  “We’ve covered the staffing problems now,” said Lucas, “so let’s move on to the most serious issue, which is that Amber will be under drastically increased stress. At this point, I need to mention that we have a potential complication with Keith.”

  “What’s Keith done now?” asked Megan anxiously.

  “I had a message from him during the emergency run,” said Lucas. “He asked me to send Buzz to his unit for a few weeks.”

  Chapter Eight

  Buzz shook her head urgently. “I’ve heard all about Keith, and I don’t want to go to his unit.”

  “You aren’t going to Keith’s unit,” I said passionately. “He can’t borrow one of my staff without my permission, and I absolutely refuse to give it.”

  “Why would Keith want me to go to his unit anyway?” asked Buzz.

  “He claimed he’d heard how much your counselling had helped Amber,” said Lucas. “He wanted to borrow you to see if having a borderline telepath counsellor could help him as much. I worked for Keith for three years though, so I know you can’t trust a word he says. Given Keith’s past history, I expect he really wants the chance to nose around in your mind and find out personal information about Amber.”

  “That’s outrageous,” said Adika.

  Lucas pulled a face. “Keith has a habit of being outrageous. I knew exactly how Amber would feel about his request, so I sent him a polite refusal, saying that Amber couldn’t spare her counsellor for even a few hours. Shortly afterwards, I got a message from Gold Commander Melisande. She said that Keith had asked her to intervene and order Buzz to go to his unit.”

  “Oh, no,” muttered Buzz.

  “Don’t worry,” said Lucas. “Gold Commander Melisande is well aware of Keith’s tactics, and realized what he was planning. She told Keith that it was impossible for two telepaths to have counselling from the same person, and offered to find a different borderline telepath to help him.”

  Buzz sighed in relief. “I pity the borderline telepath who gets the job of counselling Keith.”

  “I don’t think any borderline telepath is going to get the job,” said Lucas. “Gold Commander Melisande said Keith had no interest in any other counsellor than Buzz.”

  He paused. “I hope we won’t hear any more about this, but I felt I had to warn you all about the situation. If Keith sends a message to any of you, tell me at once, and let me deal with it.”

  We all nodded.

  “As I said a minute ago, Amber is going to be under increased stress while Morton’s unit is closed,” said Lucas. “Buzz is proving to be an excellent counsellor, and Gold Commander Melisande won’t allow Keith to disrupt that arrangement. Now, is there anything else we can do to help Amber?”

  Lucas looked expectantly at Buzz, but she was clearly still unnerved by the news that Keith had asked for her to counsel him. It was several seconds before she started speaking.

  “You’re talking about Amber taking on an unrelenting schedule of emergency runs. We all know the danger of allowing the lingering influences of wild bees to build up to the point where the telepath begins fragmenting under the strain. If Amber is going to be doing an emergency run virtually every day, constantly being hit by the minds of wild bees, then it’s essential we give her the chance to shake off those influences.”

  Buzz tapped the side of her glass with her elegant fingernails. “Amber’s method of cleansing herself of the echoes of wild bees involves going Outside. Preferably somewhere that’s a long distance from the hundred million minds in the Hive, so it’s totally quiet on a telepathic level. We’ll need to arrange for Amber to go Outside every few weeks.”

  She frowned. “It should really be every few days, but these trips Outside will be time-consuming and complicated, and we’ve got the added problem of it being winter and freezing cold out there. I’ve considered the option of just sending Amber up in an aircraft for an hour, but her fear of heights means she wouldn’t be able to relax enough to cleanse herself of echoes. That means we’ll have to fly her to an outlying supply base, and then give her time to recover from the trip and cleanse herself of echoes before flying her back.”

  “I know that my fear of heights is ridiculous,” I said guiltily. “I should be able to overcome it, but …”

  “You mustn’t worry about your fear of heights, Amber,” said Lucas hastily.

  “Amber may be afraid of heights, but she successfully overcame her fear of Outside,” said Buzz gloomily. “I thought I could do the same, but I’m finding it an impossible struggle.”

  She shrugged. “Since trips Outside will have to be infrequent, we need to do everything else we can to help Amber relax during her rest breaks. One of the reasons Telepath Units are built on Industry 1 rather than on a level halfway down the Hive, is that it’s more peaceful for telepaths here than down in the heart of a hundred million people’s thoughts.”

  “Yes,” I said. “The background sound of the Hive mind is far quieter
up here.”

  “It’s obvious that your favourite place in the unit is the park,” said Buzz. “I think that’s partly because the park is a large space and normally only has a few human minds in it. I’m only a borderline telepath. My insights into the thoughts of others are completely random, only last for a second or two, and are limited to one person at a time. That means I’ve never been aware of the Hive mind at all on a conscious level, but I still find it peaceful in this unit’s park.”

  She smiled. “I believe there’s an extra factor involved in your enjoyment of parks though, Amber. You enjoy feeding the birds. You love getting them to flock around you.”

  I nodded. “Animals and birds have simpler minds than humans. If they’re frightened or hungry, then their thoughts can be piercingly sharp, but the ones in the park are usually contented. They’re particularly happy when they’re eating, so there’s something very soothing about their minds.”

  Buzz hesitated before speaking. “You read thoughts on a lower level than other telepaths, Amber. You experience the emotions of others in a way that they don’t. I’d like to have a detailed conversation about the implications of that at a future time, but the key issue now is that you can touch the minds of animals and birds when I’m told they aren’t detectable by other telepaths. You find their contented thoughts soothing.”

  She waved her hands. “We need to use that to ease the constant pressure on you. The problem is that even when you’re feeding the birds, they get disturbed by the presence of other people. I’ve seen the Strike teams running laps of the park in training, scattering the birds every time they pass by. Ideally, you should either be alone in the park or just with Lucas.”

  “If the Strike team gave up using the park for training, it would severely damage their fitness levels,” said Adika.

  “Yes, the Strike team need the park for training,” I said, “and everyone else goes there to rest as well. I can’t keep it for myself.”

  “There’s an easy answer to that problem,” said Megan eagerly. “We could set up a small private park area for Amber in the expansion section.”

  I gave her a bewildered look. “What expansion section?”

  Megan stood up. “It’s going to be easiest if I take you there and show you.”

  I stood up, grabbed a handful of pastries, and happily munched them as I followed her out of the door. Megan headed down the corridor, chattering away busily, while everyone else trailed after her.

  “It’s important that a telepath isn’t troubled by the presence of unfamiliar minds when resting, so Telepath Units are always surrounded by things like water storage tanks that need minimal maintenance, but there’s also an area kept entirely free for expansion.”

  She paused when we reached the security doors that led to the accommodation section of the unit. “Telepath Units all have the same basic layout. Behind us is the operational section. Ahead of us is the accommodation section with the main bank of express lifts. On the far side of that is the expansion section. The park runs down the entire eastern side of the unit, with three sets of double doors that connect it to each of the three sections.”

  I swallowed the pastry I’d been eating. “I’d assumed the double doors at the far end of the park led to a storage area.”

  Megan continued through the security doors and on towards the lifts. I was surprised when she turned left to walk past my apartment door rather than right towards the park.

  “The park entrance to the expansion section has a long flight of steps,” she said. “The entrance at the western side of the accommodation section has a ramp, which will be better for Nicole’s powered chair.”

  “I can put my chair in walk mode to handle things like steps and getting on and off the belt system,” said Nicole.

  Megan sighed. “Your chair could handle an ordinary flight of steps, but this one is especially awkward because of some changes to the unit northern emergency exit over a decade ago.”

  We reached the end of the corridor, and Megan stopped by a locked set of double doors labelled “Maintenance Staff Only.” She entered a code, opened the doors to reveal total darkness, and clicked her tongue in annoyance.

  “The motion-activated lighting in here needs adjusting.”

  She clapped her hands several times, and a small light finally came on above a bank of switches. Megan went to press a large red one.

  Overhead lights blazed into brightness, and I gasped. We were standing at the edge of a vast empty space that stretched from a level below us to several levels above, and was featureless except for occasional structural columns and a raised area that looked like a stage.

  Megan led the way down a sloping ramp to floor level. “Claire liked to watch live performances by troupes of actors in here.”

  I’d been right about that raised area being a stage then. I glanced behind me to check that Nicole’s powered chair could handle the ramp without problems, and then looked upwards. “Why is the ceiling black?”

  “Because you’re not looking at a proper ceiling,” said Lucas. “That’s the Hive’s outer structural shield.”

  I blinked. If that was the Hive’s outer structural shield, then there was just a layer of earth and rocks above it between me and Outside. As a child, that thought would have terrified me. Now I found it oddly comforting.

  I popped my last pastry into my mouth, and walked forward to study the stage. The last troupe of actors to come here hadn’t left any of their scenery behind, but a crumpled streamer told me they’d performed a Light and Dark pageant. The Hive celebrated four festivals during the year. New Year, Carnival, Valentine, and Halloween. Light and Dark pageants were traditionally performed in the weeks before the festivals of Carnival and Halloween.

  I pictured Claire standing where I was now, surrounded by her unit members, watching the light angel in her silver dress fight to defend the Hive from the dark angel in his costume of red and black. The abandoned streamer was silver and gold, meaning the forces of light had triumphed in the pageant, so it must have been performed before Carnival rather than Halloween.

  That made sense. Everyone kept talking about the three years between Claire’s death and me coming out of Lottery. Since Lottery testing was always in the week after Carnival, Claire must have died sometime around Carnival too.

  I’d asked Gideon what Claire was like, and one of the things he’d told me was that she was a devout Hiveist. I didn’t know much about the old religions that were only practised in secret, but I’d been taught about Hiveism in school before I moved to Teen Level. Hiveists worshipped the Hive itself as a collective gestalt, and the myths of Halloween and Carnival had great symbolic significance for them.

  It was part of a Hiveist’s religious duty to attend the Light and Dark pageants before the festivals of Carnival and Halloween. I could imagine how horrified Claire’s Strike team leader would have been at the idea of her attending a pageant in one of the great Hive arenas, surrounded by gigantic crowds, and with periods of complete darkness. Being among those packed crowds would have been a massive strain on a telepath too.

  I was glad that Claire had been able to watch her Light and Dark pageants here in this expansion section, and the last pageant she saw was one where light triumphed. I had reservations about some of the things the Hive did, but there were times when I felt the Hive Duty songs I’d been taught in school were right, and the Hive did know best.

  This was one of those times. Claire had served the Hive faithfully as a telepath until her very last breath, dying of a heart attack on a check run when she was ninety-three years old. The Hive had been faithful to her too.

  I was getting ridiculously emotional about a woman I’d never met. I brushed moisture from my eyes with the back of my hand, picked up the streamer and tucked it into my pocket, then took a moment to get my voice under control before speaking.

  “This place is amazing.”

  Megan smiled. “Sapphire has her expansion section set up for parties. Morton has
a series of meditation rooms in different colours and décor to suit his varying moods. Mira has a full-scale hydroponics area.”

  I briefly wondered why Mira wanted a hydroponics area in her unit, but was more curious about why Megan hadn’t talked about Keith. She’d come out of Lottery with him, and spent thirteen years working for him before moving to my unit to be my Senior Administrator. She must know what Keith did with his expansion section.

  “What about Keith?” I asked.

  Adika laughed loudly.

  Megan gave him a reproving look. “Keith uses his expansion section as a giant bookette room,” she said, and swiftly changed the subject.

  “This expansion section isn’t big enough for a full-scale park with a lake, but we could certainly have some sort of animal and bird area here. I’d have to get some experts to look at the available space, and then consult Amber about the design.”

  “Would you like Megan to do that, Amber?” asked Lucas, “or were you planning to use the expansion section for something else?”

  “How could I be planning to use it for something else?” I asked. “I didn’t know it existed. Why haven’t you mentioned it to me before?”

  Lucas looked puzzled. “I did mention the expansion section to you. We discussed the possibility of you having a miniature beach here?”

  “We did?” I shook my head. “When did that happen?”

  “It was soon after our first operational run,” said Lucas. “We were discussing the number of rooms in your apartment, and you said something about having a door through to a private beach in the expansion section. I said that I didn’t think Megan could manage a full-size beach, but she’d arrange a miniature version if you asked nicely.”

  I groaned. People kept assuming I’d already seen information in their mind, or the mind of someone else in the unit, when I didn’t know anything about it at all. When I read a person’s thoughts, I couldn’t see everything they knew, just what they were thinking about at that moment. In Lucas’s case, there was the extra complication that I could often see what he was thinking about but didn’t understand it.