Borderline (Hive Mind Book 4)

by Janet Edwards

  “There shouldn’t be a problem now that you’ve explained the situation to my mother.”

  “She was very kind about it,” said Lucas.

  I remembered an oddity. “There was one bit of your explanation that puzzled me. You told my mother that you were a duty child. The tone of your voice was strange when you said that. It sounded as if you weren’t just saying that your parents had you out of duty to the Hive, but using a term with a specific meaning.”

  “You’re right that duty child is a term with a specific meaning.” Lucas sighed. “I shouldn’t have used it to your mother. The words wouldn’t mean anything to someone from Level 27, but I was too emotional to think properly.”

  “So what does duty child mean?”

  Lucas hesitated. “Do you remember we had a conversation about family sizes? I explained that the standard family size on most levels of the Hive is two children, but the Hive encourages people on the elite top ten levels to have larger families by offering them incentives like bigger apartments.”

  I nodded.

  “I suggested you should discuss the issue further with Megan. I gather that you didn’t do that, because she’d have gone on to explain duty children to you.”

  I pulled a guilty face. “I don’t like discussing personal things with Megan.”

  Lucas let go of my hands and ran his fingers through his hair. “Now I stop and think about it, this would be a bad time for Megan to explain duty children to you anyway. I’d like to refer you to Buzz, but she grew up on Level 36, so she won’t know about it herself yet. My impression is that Buzz is a far more skilled borderline telepath than most, so she’s probably been selected, but she isn’t old enough to have received her official invitation.”

  He groaned. “All right, I’ll explain this to you, but please don’t read my mind during this conversation. You don’t want to have to deal with my emotions on top of your own.”

  I was feeling nervous now. “Maybe we should forget the whole thing.”

  “No, it’s better for someone to explain this to you properly before you stumble across the information by accident.” Lucas moved to the couch. “Let’s sit down.”

  We settled ourselves comfortably on the couch, and Lucas took a deep breath before speaking.

  “When we first met, I told you a little about how people started living in Hive cities to avoid pollution, extreme weather, crime, and other dangers.”

  I gave Lucas a bewildered look. I couldn’t see what the history of Hive civilization had to do with his childhood.

  “I said there was a period of time when our Hive didn’t allow people classed as criminals or socially undesirable to have children,” said Lucas. “While that resulted in a generally more cooperative Hive population, it also caused major problems, including a massive population drop and the accidental removal of some desirable characteristics from the gene pool.”

  He made a despairing noise. “Most Hives had made the same mistake. Many, particularly those in the genetics group such as Hive Genex, added to their problems by using artificial means to allow selected genetically valuable citizens to have hundreds of children.”

  I frowned at the mention of the Hive that had tried to kidnap me. “I don’t see how anyone could have hundreds of children.”

  “I’ll explain that bit in a minute,” said Lucas. “One of the worst effects of these policies was a widespread reduction in disease resistance, which led to some Hives suffering devastating epidemics. Our Hive just had to reabsorb the population of its seed Hive to be viable. Other Hives had to merge populations with one or more entirely unrelated Hives to survive.”

  I grimaced. “I hadn’t realized the situation got that bad.”

  “Our schools teach children there was a world population drop, so most seed Hives were reabsorbed by parent Hives,” said Lucas. “Our Hive feels the full information about mass deaths and decimated populations being evacuated to strange Hives would be too frightening for most adults let alone children. It’s only included in selected imprints, such as mine as Tactical Commander.”

  I didn’t like our Hive’s policy of restricting information, but I had to agree with the point about these facts being too frightening. I’d rather not have heard about them myself, but it was too late to object now.

  “At the peak of the crisis,” Lucas continued, “Joint Hive Treaty Enforcement cited its duty to protect the survival of the human race, and invoked its emergency powers. It imposed new rules to prevent further narrowing of the human gene pool, with brutal punishments for offending Hives.”

  Lucas paused. “Eventually, a slightly modified version of those rules was added to the main Joint Hive Treaty, and signed by the remaining one hundred and seven Hive cities worldwide. That modified version includes the right of each Hive to run a strictly limited duty child programme.”

  “So duty child is a term used in the Joint Hive Treaty?”

  “Yes,” said Lucas. “I’ve been explaining the past history so you understand why the rules about children are so strict. Joint Hive Treaty states that all Hive citizens must be allowed to have at least two children if they wish, and Hives are permitted to provide them with what’s classed as standard fertility assistance. That’s how Fertility Support is helping Megan to have her husband’s twins. Joint Hive Treaty limits Hives to selecting one in a thousand of their most valuable citizens to take part in their duty child programme though.”

  Lucas waved both hands. “Our Hive naturally chooses most of its one in a thousand citizens from among those who are Level 1, but there’s sometimes a good reason to choose a few lower level people.”

  “So this duty child programme affects about one in ten of Level 1 people,” I said nervously. “That one in ten would include you and me. You think it probably includes Buzz too.”

  “And it included my father,” said Lucas grimly. “On his twenty-fifth birthday, he got the official invitation to an important counselling session. That session was about the value of his genes to the Hive, and his obligation to have children. He was then invited to have up to six children using the duty child programme.”

  “Six children!” I blinked. “That would be a very large family.”

  “And those six children would be in addition to any children born conventionally. Well, my parents didn’t want any children at all, but my father kept getting official reminders on every birthday, with the wording changing each time to increase the pressure. My parents finally agreed to use the duty child programme to have a single child.”

  He stared down at his hands. “The duty child programme is different from standard fertility assistance, because it allows methods like surrogate mothers and pre-planned adoption. That meant my parents just had to donate tissue samples to Fertility Support, a surrogate mother would have the baby, and my parents could decide whether to keep it or have it adopted. My parents intended to go for pre-planned adoption of course, but things went wrong at the last moment.”

  I gave a dazed shake of my head. “So that’s what duty child means. What went wrong with the plan? Nobody wanted to adopt you?”

  “That wasn’t the problem. The duty child programme selects suitable adoptive parents between Level 11 and Level 19, and offers them the chance to adopt a child. Most enthusiastically accept, because they know there’s a high chance of the child coming out of Lottery as Level 1. Adoption records are restricted, and most adoptive parents choose to keep their secret, so they’ll have all the glory of having a Level 1 son or daughter.”

  Lucas shrugged. “A Level 18 couple were waiting to adopt me, but I was born when my parents were in the middle of a major argument. I’m not sure which of them decided to cancel the adoption in a moment of spite. It doesn’t really matter. Whatever happened back then, my parents kept their duty child past the thirty-day deadline, so they were stuck with raising me themselves.”

  “So that’s what you meant about being an unwanted duty child.” I tried to absorb the fact that Lucas had had two genetic
parents, a surrogate mother, and had narrowly missed having two adoptive parents as well.

  “Yes. I must sound very bitter about this, but I spent a lot of my childhood wishing that the adoption had gone ahead, and I’d grown up on Level 18 with loving parents.” Lucas pulled a pained face. “Now you know how the duty child issue affected me in the past, but we also need to discuss how it will affect you in the future.”

  “On my twenty-fifth birthday, the Hive will start pressuring me to have children,” I muttered.

  “The Joint Hive Treaty rules state that people must register their consent before taking part in a duty child programme,” said Lucas. “The Hive won’t dare to pressure a telepath into registering consent, but it will eagerly encourage you to take part if you wish. Joint Hive Treaty rules have a regular limit of six children under the duty child system for each person, but Hives are allowed to select one in a million citizens for a higher limit.”

  Lucas hesitated. “You can have as many as twenty-five children if you wish, Amber. You can raise any duty children yourself or have them adopted. There’s just the slight complicating factor that the Hive can’t allow you to have any children conventionally. All your children will have to be born through the duty child programme to surrogate mothers.”

  I stared at him, and was about to ask a question when I realized the answer was obvious. “That’s because being pregnant would interfere with my work.”

  “Yes. There would also be a tiny risk to your life, and the Hive can’t afford for you to take any risks at all.”

  I tugged at my hair. I’d grown up thinking I’d have two children one day, and worked hard to adjust to the idea of having three. Now I knew that the Hive would encourage me to have far more children, but I would never give birth to a child myself.

  Lucas had said this would be a bad time for Megan to explain duty children to me. Now I understood why. Megan was joyfully expecting twins, while the Hive forbade me from ever being pregnant.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Late that afternoon, everyone except the handful of operational team members on duty gathered by the lifts to watch Forge, Penn, Amir, and Yosh go undercover. Amir was from Burgundy Zone, and Yosh from Orange Zone, so they could just wear their own old teen clothes. The confusingly sandy-haired Penn, and the even more disconcertingly blond Forge, had to hide the fact that they’d grown up in Blue Zone though, so they wore borrowed tops. Forge had one that proclaimed his support for the Red Zone running team, while Penn was apparently a fan of a famous Yellow Zone singer.

  All four men were carrying a battered bag of their old teen clothes, as well as oddments of sports equipment. Forge clearly couldn’t take the competition surfboard that he’d used in his days with the Blue Zone surfing team, but he had his old red and blue training board tucked under his arm. Penn was holding a tennis racket, Amir a faded football, and Yosh was dragging along a bag of weights.

  Buzz and the rest of the Beta team members were standing next to our undercover people. While the Beta team members were dressed in the standard blue uniforms of an ordinary Health and Safety patrol, Buzz had her hair rigidly neat and was wearing the blue onesuit of a more senior member of Law Enforcement.

  Eli was in the front row of the watching crowd. “I wish you’d let me play the part of one of the hasty guards, Lucas,” he said plaintively. “I’d have enjoyed arresting Forge.”

  “I told you that we need to keep the full Alpha Strike team available for emergency runs,” said Lucas.

  “You wouldn’t have been arresting me anyway, Eli,” said Forge cheerfully. “Buzz is the senior official in charge of the hasties, so she’s the one arresting me.”

  Rothan looked amused. “How do you feel about your girlfriend arresting you, Forge?”

  “It’s more fun now than the first time it happened.” Forge winked at Buzz.

  “The first time?” asked Eli nosily. “Does Buzz arrest you often?”

  Forge laughed. “She’s only arrested me once before. That was nearly two years ago, just after the end of that massive Blue Zone power cut.”

  “I didn’t really arrest Forge back then,” said Buzz. “I was just the person who decided what to do with him after he was caught crawling through the air vents.”

  “I remember you were wearing an Emergency Services uniform rather than being dressed as a hasty that time,” said Forge. “The diagonal red and blue stripes of the uniform did amazing things for your figure.”

  “I know this outfit doesn’t suit me nearly as well,” said Buzz sadly, “but it’s more appropriate for the part I’ll be playing.”

  Adika gave a pointed sigh. “I took that whole arrest incident off your record for a reason, Forge.”

  “I know you did,” said Forge, “and I appreciate the assistance, but I think I’m past the stage of being a greenie deputy Strike team leader who needs his dignity protected.”

  Adika gave him an assessing look. “Agreed. You and Rothan are settling into your positions nicely.”

  Forge turned to Lucas. “We’re ready to leave now.”

  “We’re timing your arrival in Blue Zone for early evening, when most of the teens should be in their home corridors,” said Lucas. “Buzz and the hasty squad will escort our undercover people to their Teen Level rooms. At each of the four locations, Buzz will lecture the local teens about the need to avoid the appallingly badly-behaved newcomer.”

  He grinned. “I think we’ll drive home the point about our undercover people having a horrendous past history by having them arrive in their new corridors wearing restraints.”

  Yosh frowned at his bag of weights. “I hope we don’t have to travel all the way from here to Blue Zone wearing restraints.”

  “I suggest Forge starts causing trouble when we arrive in Blue Zone, and we put the four of you in restraints then,” said Buzz.

  “Am I supposed to cause any specific type of trouble?” asked Forge.

  “You can cause whatever trouble you like,” said Buzz indulgently.

  “Forge can cause whatever trouble he likes within reason,” said Lucas pointedly.

  “One final thing,” said Adika. “Remember that going undercover like this means you’ve no telepath watching over you, no body armour, no weapons, and no teammates beside you to help when you’re in danger. You can use your crystal units during the journey, but you’ll have to hand them over before you reach your Teen Level rooms, and after that your only way of communicating with us will be your old teen dataviews. Be careful.”

  “Yes,” I said. “Be extremely careful.”

  Forge nodded briskly. Our four fake teens led the way into lift 2, and their official escorts followed.

  “Beta Strike team is moving,” said Forge happily.

  I watched in depression as the lift doors closed.

  “I know you’re worried about us using this speed insertion tactic, Amber,” said Lucas. “It does have risks, but we need to get our men noticed by Blue Upway recruiters and invited into game groups quickly.”

  “I understand the urgency.” I pointed at where Megan and Adika were heading for the park. “The four Strike team candidates are waiting in the park for me to do the standard check on their minds. Megan says she’s got the wives of the two who are married there as well, because they’re our preferred candidates for the deputy Liaison and Admin positions.”

  Lucas and I followed Megan and Adika to the park door. I stopped to get the box of birdseed from a storage cupboard, before carrying on to the picnic tables. I saw birds flying to position themselves on nearby tree branches and laughed. They’d either recognized me or the box of birdseed.

  I took the first handful of birdseed, threw it on the ground, and there was a rush of multicoloured wings as the birds flew down to feed. I felt their wave of pleasure hit me, and couldn’t help smiling. I saw Lucas was smiling too.

  “There’s less noise from the expansion section now,” he said. “I hope that means they’ve done most of the major structural changes.
”

  I tossed more birdseed onto the ground, and spoke to the birds in a reassuring voice. “Don’t worry. However wonderful the new animal and bird area is, I promise I’ll still come and feed you.”

  When the seed box was empty, I sat down at the nearest picnic table, and closed my eyes to look at the world with my telepathic sense. That generally bore a resemblance to one of the other five senses, most commonly sight, but now both sight and sound were mixed together.

  The park around me was a black area filled with the glowing dots of animal and bird minds. A rustling like leaves blowing in the wind was the sound of their thoughts, while beneath my feet was the deep throbbing rhythm of the Hive mind. I studied that rhythm for a moment. I normally found it reassuring, but today it had a disturbingly harsh note.

  I concentrated my attention on the park again. Scattered among the animal and bird minds, were the brighter beacons of human minds. Lucas was next to me, the sound of his thought trains, and the way they kept flaring into life at unpredictable intervals, reminding me of the fountains in the Orange Zone centre point shopping area.

  I reluctantly tore myself away from the mesmerizing wonder of Lucas’s mind and reached out further. There were strangers in the expansion section, but there was no need for me to intrude on the privacy of workers who would be leaving within the next few days. In the opposite direction was the familiar mind of Megan. As usual, I avoided reading her thoughts, moving on to where Adika and Rothan were close together. I touched the unyielding contours of Adika’s mind, and shared his rueful amusement.

  “When we were running the fitness tests, I felt as if I was giving orders to my father.”

  Rothan laughed. “I felt as if I was giving orders to my grandfather.”

  “Claire’s Strike team members were still surprisingly strong, and fast enough over longer distances,” said Adika. “Their main weakness is the sprints we need when Lucas calls the strike. How would you handle that issue?”

  Rothan shook his head sadly. “Challenging me yet again? Aren’t you ever going to give me a moment’s peace?”