Borderline (Hive Mind Book 4)

by Janet Edwards

  Mira wrinkled her nose. “The problem isn’t solved though. Keith is still trying to hurt you. He couldn’t steal Lucas, so now he’s trying to steal your counsellor.”

  I was startled. “You know about Keith trying to borrow Buzz?”

  “Gold Commander Melisande warned the other Tactical Commanders about it,” said Mira. “She thought Keith might try to borrow our people too. Gold Commander Melisande wasn’t sure whether Keith was trying to steal your counsellor, or just wanted to read her mind to find out your private secrets. I think Keith was trying to steal her though. When Morton’s unit shuts down, things will be hard for all of us. Keith wants to make sure they’re extra hard for you.”

  She paused before adding in a mournful voice. “True telepaths can break under the strain of the shadows. That happened to Olivia.”

  I knew all about what had happened to Olivia. She’d come out of Lottery eight years before me, failed to find a way to deal with the lingering echoes of the wild bees she’d read, and been overwhelmed by the multitude of personalities fighting for control of her mind.

  I’d been deeply involved in the decision to reset Olivia’s memory back to before she went into Lottery. Olivia’s true self had been utterly lost in fragmentation, and she’d become a danger to the Hive. A memory reset had been the only way to free her from the invading echoes. I’d heard that the reset had been successful in restoring Olivia’s own personality to sole control of her mind. She wasn’t a true telepath any longer though, just a borderline telepath like Buzz.

  “Do you think Keith is trying to make me break like Olivia?” I asked aloud.

  “I think you need to be careful of Keith,” said Mira.

  “I’ll be very careful,” I said grimly. “What happened to Olivia was terrible.”

  Mira nodded. “Shadows can be very frightening. When I started fragmenting, I would have broken like Olivia, but Geo and my closest friends surrounded me with flowers to protect me from the shadows.”

  Adika had been a member of Mira’s Strike team when she hit the fragmentation issue. He’d told me a version of this story when I was struggling with fragmentation myself. He’d said that Mira’s Tactical Commander had ordered everybody but the five or six people closest to Mira to leave the unit.

  Adika hadn’t known what happened when he and the rest of the unit members were waiting in a housing warren on Level 20, just that they were eventually recalled to the unit and found Mira her old self again. Now I had a vivid picture of the events back then. Everyone in the support group would have realized something was horribly wrong with Mira. Geo and a few of Mira’s closest friends had brought her some of the flowers they’d been growing in the hydroponics area.

  Mira’s Tactical Commander must have been desperate by then. When he saw Mira respond to the flowers, he’d have thought the same thing that I was thinking now. It could be the flowers helping Mira, or it could be the fact that Geo and her friends had grown them and brought them to her. Mira’s Tactical Commander had taken the safest option and ordered everybody else to leave the unit, while Mira’s inner circle from the support group kept bringing their flowers to help her.

  “It’s sad that Olivia couldn’t find a way to drive away her shadows,” I said aloud. “I hope she can be happy as a borderline telepath.”

  “Yes.” Mira gave me a wistful look. “Now I must go and tell Roden to call your unit. I hope we can talk again soon.”

  “I’d like that very much,” I said.

  The holo image of Mira and her flowers vanished, and I ran my fingers through my hair. I’d have to do a lot of thinking to absorb everything Mira had told me, especially the ominous suggestion that Keith wanted me to break like Olivia, but right now I needed to focus on the Gregas situation.

  Roden would be calling my unit within the next few minutes. I had to get back to Lucas before he answered that call, and make sure he gave Roden the instructions I wanted. The biggest problem was going to be hiding the fact I already knew about Gregas’s arrest. Lucas was an expert in both behavioural analysis and body language, so he could easily spot when I was lying.

  Chapter Eleven

  I headed back to the living room but stopped in the doorway. Lucas was still on the couch, but he’d toppled over sideways and was sprawled out fast asleep. His dataview had fallen from his outstretched hand and was lying on the carpet beside him.

  Lucas’s light-brown hair was even more untidy than usual, with a couple of strands trailing down across his forehead. I was always struck by the way his sleeping face could pass as being that of an older teen rather than twenty-one. It was only when Lucas’s dark eyes were open that you could see the full strained look that came from the burden he carried. Tonight though, there was an extra pale weariness about him that worried me.

  I’d been shocked by the revelation that Keith had tried to take Lucas away from me, but now that shock had changed into fierce protectiveness. I stared broodingly at him, thinking how everyone kept talking about how tiring and stressful emergency runs were for the precious telepath. It was true that experiencing the mind of a wild bee, being bombarded with their thoughts and emotions, could be devastating. Lucas wasn’t having an easy time either though.

  I grimaced. Lucas spent so much time working, so much time taking care of me, and so little time taking care of himself. He desperately needed this sleep, but Roden would be calling my unit very soon and waking him up.

  At least this solved the problem of me hiding the fact I already knew about Gregas being arrested. I crept across the room, sat down in a chair that was behind Lucas’s couch, and linked to his thoughts. When Lucas was awake, his head was a mass of glittering thought levels, dividing, merging, and moving so fast that some were impossible for me to read. Now he was deep in dreamless sleep, his higher levels of thought were just random fragments, while all the standard restless activity had moved down to the subconscious levels of his mind.

  I smiled indulgently. I normally compared Lucas’s waking thought levels to a swirling Carnival crowd in sparkling silver and gold costumes. In sleep, his thoughts had a more peaceful beauty that reminded me of a display of white New Year lights or …

  A chime from Lucas’s dataview shattered the peace in his mind, and the swirling Carnival crowd returned.

  … Hallie’s turn to cover incoming unit calls. She wouldn’t contact me unless …

  … can’t be about another emergency run when our unit is in shutdown …

  … last emergency run ended tidily, but there could be complications from all the publicity or …

  Lucas’s fingers groped for the pocket where he kept his dataview, and found it empty. He opened his eyes, looked around rapidly, saw the dataview lying on the carpet, and grabbed it. A second later, he was looking reproachfully at purple-haired Hallie’s face on the screen.

  “I’m sorry to disturb you,” said Hallie, “but there’s a call from Roden about a major crisis.”

  “What sort of major crisis?” asked Lucas.

  “Mira’s Strike team have arrested Amber’s brother and his friend, Wesley,” said Hallie, with the doom-laden air of someone announcing the end of the Hive. “Mira has read their minds, and the boys are currently in one of Mira’s holding cells.”

  All the racing thoughts in Lucas’s head halted and were swept aside by a stream of new ones. I didn’t try to read any of those because I was too awed by what was happening down near his subconscious. A thought level had flared up from nowhere and was endlessly repeating swear words. I’d often seen this happen in Adika’s mind, but never before with Lucas.

  “Connect me to Roden,” said Lucas.

  Hallie’s face was replaced by that of an elderly man. “I assure you this wasn’t deliberate,” said Roden urgently. “Mira isn’t like Keith. She’d never …”

  “I know Mira isn’t like Keith,” Lucas interrupted him. “I need full details.”

  “Sending my report now,” said Roden.

  “Studying report.” Lucas
tapped at his dataview. The screen swapped to showing a mass of text, and Lucas started it scrolling down at a staggering speed.

  “You have to explain to Amber that this was an accident,” said Roden’s voice. “Mira stopped reading the boy’s mind as soon as she saw him thinking of his sister, Amber.”

  “I said that I was studying your report!” snapped Lucas. “Wait while I do that.”

  Roden obediently went silent. Lucas’s thoughts weren’t just racing now, but filled with churning emotions that sent me recoiling to the relative safety of the pre-vocalization level of his mind. Finally, the text on the dataview screen finished scrolling.

  Lucas tapped at his dataview again, and Roden’s face reappeared. “I apologize for yelling at you,” said Lucas. “I accept this happened by accident, but with Morton’s unit shutting down after the New Year festival …”

  “I know,” said Roden. “It will be hard keeping order in the Hive with only four operational Telepath Units. Another telepath feud would be disastrous. How close is Amber’s relationship with her brother?”

  “Amber belongs to an extremely tightly knit and loving family,” said Lucas grimly. “She’ll be shocked and distressed when she learns her brother has encountered a wild bee. While she’s still reeling from that news, I’m going to have to tell her that Mira’s Strike team arrested Gregas and his friend, Wesley.”

  He waved his hands in despair. “But the worst bit is going to be explaining that Mira’s staff somehow managed to keep the boys in their holding cells for over twenty-four hours without discovering Gregas had given a false name and identity code, so Mira ended up reading both of their minds. This situation is about as bad as it could get.”

  “Waste it!” Roden seemed to hesitate. “Lucas, you aren’t just Amber’s Tactical Commander. You’re her partner too. You need to make sure she’s in an especially good mood when you tell her what’s happened.”

  Lucas gave Roden a disbelieving look. “Are you suggesting that I should seduce Amber before telling her that Mira’s arrested her brother?”

  “Having a Tactical Commander in a relationship with their telepath is totally unprecedented,” said Roden. “You’re juggling the demanding role of being constantly available as the telepath’s partner, with the even more demanding role of Tactical Commander, but it does have the advantage that …”

  “You clearly don’t have the faintest understanding of my relationship with Amber,” said Lucas savagely. “Firstly, I’d never abuse our intimacy by using it to manipulate her. Secondly, I couldn’t.”

  I stood up. Lucas’s next words were already formed on the pre-vocalization level of his mind. I spoke them in unison with him, as I walked around the couch and into his view.

  “Amber would be sharing my thoughts at a moment like that.”

  I could tell Roden had heard my voice, because he made an odd gulping noise.

  Lucas gave me a nervous smile. “Amber, I thought you were still in the bookette room. I suppose my level of emotion attracted your attention.”

  “Your mind was screaming a bit.” I held out a hand. “Let me speak to Roden.”

  Lucas handed me his dataview, and I looked at Roden’s appalled face. He hastily bowed his head in the gesture of respect that Telepath Unit staff used to acknowledge a telepath other than their own.

  “I apologize, Amber. I’m deeply concerned for the wellbeing of the Hive and …”

  I pulled out of Lucas’s mind and focused on talking to Roden with cold dignity. “I share your concern for the wellbeing of the Hive, and accept that what happened between Mira and my brother was a complete accident. Please give my apologies to Mira for the problems caused by my brother’s behaviour, and ask her to have Gregas and his friend escorted to our unit immediately.”

  “Thank you for being so gracious about this,” said Roden.

  I frowned as a terrifying thought occurred to me. “Has Gregas been told or overheard anything about me being a telepath?”

  “Definitely not,” said Roden. “The boys have been kept in a holding cell since they were arrested. There was no reason for anyone to mention your name until Mira discovered Gregas was your brother, and for safety reasons she was in a different room when she read his mind. I’m not implying that we believed your brother was a threat to Mira. Having the telepath in a different room is a routine measure during …”

  “I know that,” I snapped. “Your unit is over four zones away from ours, and Gregas and Wesley are bound to ask questions during the journey. Their escorts mustn’t tell them anything. Nothing at all. Not even where they’re going. The boys are to be taken directly to my holding cells and handed over to my people.”

  “Understood,” said Roden.

  My mind moved on to another worry. “Did you confiscate the boys’ dataviews?”

  “Of course,” said Roden.

  “Good. The escorts should bring the dataviews and give them to my people. If Gregas got his hands on a dataview, then he’d be bound to do something silly like calling my parents.”

  “We’ll follow your instructions exactly,” said Roden. “Thank you again for your patience and …”

  His voice was abruptly cut off as I ended the call. I handed the dataview back to Lucas, and then slumped down on the couch next to him.

  “My brother has never had any sense,” I muttered, “but going trespassing in maintenance areas and getting himself arrested …”

  Lucas made a cautiously sympathetic noise.

  “He met a wild bee too.” I hovered between being annoyed with Gregas and alarmed about what might have happened to him.

  “Gregas is physically uninjured,” said Lucas soothingly. “If he’s suffering from any mental trauma, then we have the option of resetting his memory to before the encounter with the wild bee happened.”

  “I don’t like tampering with anyone’s memories, and this is my own brother,” I said. “As soon as the boys arrive, I’ll read Wesley’s mind. I hope I’ll learn everything we need from that, but if not then I’ll have to read Gregas as well.”

  “You had a difficult emergency run only a few hours ago that involved reading multiple targets,” said Lucas. “It would be dangerous to rush into reading more stressful strange minds.”

  “These aren’t strange minds,” I said bitterly. “These are the minds of my irritating little brother and his even more irritating best friend.”

  “They still count as strange minds because you haven’t read them before,” said Lucas anxiously, “and the fact that Gregas is your brother is precisely what makes this situation so dangerous. The personal element will hugely increase the impact on you.”

  I shrugged. “I know that, but I still need to read Gregas and Wesley’s minds as soon as possible. The boys could be struggling to cope with horrific memories.”

  “If you do read Gregas’s mind, then there’s far more to worry about than his meeting with the wild bee. You could be faced with disconcerting thoughts that fundamentally change your relationship with your family. Both your parents and brother loathe nosies, so …”

  “We discussed this problem when I was still learning to control my telepathy,” I interrupted. “I agreed with you that I should never risk reading the minds of any of my family. I may not have any choice about it now though. I can’t let anyone else make the decision to reset my brother’s memory.”

  “I agree that you have to be the one to make decisions about your brother,” said Lucas. “I’m just asking you to delay reading the minds of either Wesley or Gregas until after your twenty-four hour recovery period is complete.”

  “I can’t leave Gregas waiting around in distress,” I said impatiently.

  “There’s no need for either boy to be in distress while they’re waiting. We’ll need to use hypnotics when you’re reading their minds, to make sure their thoughts are focused on the encounter with the wild bee. We could begin using relaxing hypnotics as soon as the boys arrive, and keep them in a peaceful dreamlike state until yo
u’re ready to read their minds.”

  I frowned. “You’re talking about hypnotics like the ones used in Lottery tests?”

  “Something similar, just slightly more intense.”

  I hesitated before shaking my head. “I’d rather get the suspense over with and find out what happened to Gregas.”

  Lucas waved his hands in a gesture of defeat. “Well, if you’re going to stay up most of the night reading the boys’ minds, then you’d better call your mother again to cancel tomorrow morning’s shopping trip.”

  I wailed in despair. “I’d forgotten about the shopping trip. You’re right. I couldn’t read Gregas’s mind and then go shopping with my mother as if nothing had happened. How can I cancel the shopping trip though? It’s not just that I’ve disappointed my mother too many times already. I’d have to lie to her about why I’m cancelling it.”

  “You could truthfully explain that Gregas had been arrested and you were busy sorting out the mess.”

  I pictured how my parents would react if they learned Gregas had been arrested, and winced. “No, I couldn’t. My parents are very dutiful citizens of the Hive, and must never find out about Gregas being arrested. They wouldn’t do anything terrible like breaking contact, but they’d be dreadfully upset and disappointed in him.”

  I groaned. “All right. We’ll have to do what you suggested. Arrange for Wesley and Gregas to be put under hypnotics as soon as they arrive at our holding cells. I’ll go shopping with my mother in the morning as planned, and then do whatever reading of minds is necessary when I get back. That may not be a full twenty-four hours after the emergency run, but it should be close enough.”

  “I’ll just need to send some messages.” Lucas tapped away at his dataview for a minute. “Finished!”

  He turned to put his arms around me and gaze into my eyes. “Amber, you’ve been absolutely wonderful about this.”