“You mustn’t do anything to worry Adika,” said Lucas solemnly. “In fact, you should be reassuring the poor man. I suggest a good method would be if we lie entwined on the grass in the park, madly kissing each other, while the Strike team are running laps.”
I laughed.
Chapter Twenty-one
The next day, Adika announced he wanted to test everyone on the Strike team’s swimming ability, and mine as well, before we made any more trips to 600/2600. We all headed over to the unit swimming pool. I went into a changing room, stripped off my clothes, pulled on my swimming costume, studied my reflection in a wall mirror, and wrinkled my nose. The Strike team were going to have a big disappointment. My figure didn’t live up to their fantasies.
When I came out of the changing room, the Strike team were already at the pool side in their swimming costumes. They were all very pointedly not looking at me. A quick check of the closest mind told me that Adika had given them a typically unsubtle warning. “Don’t ogle the telepath or I’ll drop you down a lift shaft!”
I was startled to see Lucas appear from a changing room, wearing a swimming costume and with a towel slung round his shoulders. He came to stand next to me, giving me a blatant inspection.
“Lucas, behave!” I hissed the words at him.
His eyebrows bounced wickedly at me. “Seen you wearing less,” he whispered.
Adika came over and looked at him disapprovingly. “Why are you here, Lucas?”
Lucas beamed at him. “Reporting for swimming ability check.”
“We know that you’re half fish, Lucas,” said Adika. “There’s no need to prove it.”
“I insist,” said Lucas. “This is my big chance to show I’m better at something than half the Strike team.”
“Oh, all right,” said Adika. “If you must humiliate someone then you can humiliate me. We’ll go first.”
I watched the two of them line up at the pool edge. The watching Strike team, including Forge, were very decorative half naked, but I was far more interested in Lucas. This was the first time I’d seen him in just a swimming costume. Despite his constant comments about the muscle-bound Strike team, he had plenty of muscles himself.
Lucas did a low racing dive, and powered up the pool and back again at impressive speed, while Adika struggled to swim a single, painfully slow length. My Strike team leader could barely swim, but he’d still gone underwater in that lake, and entered a flooded pipe to help Forge. I was awed by his courage.
When the pair of them were out of the water, Adika made a note of their times. “Amber next!” he called.
I strolled up to the pool, positioned myself ready to dive in, but hesitated. The whole of the Strike team knew about my old friendship with Forge now so …
“Forge!” I beckoned him over.
Adika raised an eyebrow, but didn’t say anything. After our conversation yesterday, he was probably scared to comment.
Forge lined up next to me, and we exchanged smiles. “Three, two, one, go!”
We chanted the words in unison and went for the racing dives. I surfaced an instant before Forge as always, and swam hard for the turn and the second length. Forge beat me by the normal couple of seconds, climbed out of the pool with one smooth movement, then took my hand to pull me up to join him.
There was stunned silence from the rest of the Strike team, followed by applause.
“High up, Amber!” yelled an excited Eli.
Lucas groaned. “Unfair, Amber. I wanted to show off and impress you.”
I smiled. “You did impress me. Your time was faster than mine.”
“But there was nothing in your record to show you could swim at all, let alone at competition standard. I was planning to teach you to swim.”
Lucas was genuinely disappointed. I thought rapidly, and remembered my feeling of utter defencelessness back in that park. “You can teach me to use a gun instead.”
Everyone seemed startled by this suggestion. “Why would you want to learn to use a gun, Amber?” asked Adika. “Your job is reading minds, not shooting people.”
I shrugged. “Lucas isn’t supposed to shoot people either, but he carries a gun when he comes with us on a run. I’d feel a bit less vulnerable if I was armed too.”
Adika frowned. “Well, if it makes you feel more comfortable, I suppose you can carry a gun once you’ve done the appropriate training. Lucas keeps his gun on stun, and would only use it if things went badly wrong. The same applies to you, Amber. The telepath only pulls a gun as a last desperate resort when everyone else is out of action. Understood?”
“Yes.”
Adika turned back to the waiting Strike team. “Anyone else able to swim well?”
Several of the team were able to swim a few lengths at a slow but steady speed. The rest were struggling to manage a width, and Forge had to stand by to rescue anyone who got into trouble. Lucas and I stood watching the show.
“If you can swim that fast, why is there no record of you being on a teen swimming team?” asked Lucas.
“Isn’t it obvious? I had that weird fixation on Forge, and he was a keen swimmer and surfer. I took up swimming so I could go training with him, but I’d no interest in competing myself.” I paused. “Why do you swim, Lucas?”
“I find swimming soothing,” he said. “It helps me relax and think through difficult problems.”
Adika blew a whistle, and everyone went quiet to listen.
“We’ll replace some of the regular sessions of running in the park with swimming training,” he said. “Forge can be our swimming instructor. Lucas, when the Strike team has swimming sessions, you can take Amber over to the shooting range for weapons training.”
Lucas smiled.
“We had problems in that park because we’d never expected to have to follow a target underwater,” continued Adika. “I’ve been trying to think of any other environments where we would be especially vulnerable. I think we’re already well prepared for anywhere else inside the Hive. That leaves one very obvious weak area. Outside.”
There was a startled silence. I froze up. Adika must be joking.
“There are specialist maintenance workers who regularly go Outside,” said Adika. “Nicole found one of them to give me some advice. He said that we’ll find the huge scale of things Outside startling to begin with, but with time we should all be able to adjust.”
He paused. “Does anyone have experience of going Outside?”
Lucas, Eli and Rothan raised their hands.
“That’s actually going Outside, not just looking out of an aircraft window,” Adika added.
The hands stayed up.
“Well, that’s a good start. Why did you go Outside, and for how long?” He looked at Eli first.
“A friend bet me that I couldn’t stay Outside for an hour,” said Eli. “I won.”
Adika nodded. “How about you, Rothan?”
“My family are members of the Ramblers Association,” said Rothan. “We regularly go walking and camping Outside.”
“What’s camping?” asked Adika.
“If you’re going to be Outside for more than one day, you take a tent along. That’s a shelter made of cloth. You sleep in it at night and it keeps the rain off. Well, most of the rain off.” Rothan glanced round anxiously at the audience of open-mouthed people staring at him. “I know any interest in Outside is considered a sign of disloyalty to the Hive, but I’m not disloyal. I just like the views and the …”
“Calm down, Rothan,” interrupted Lucas. “Admitting to liking going Outside won’t put a black mark against your name. Everyone in the Strike team will have broken the rules of accepted Hive behaviour and explored forbidden places. Lottery deliberately selects Strike team members who are risk takers, attracted to danger.”
“Oh.” Rothan seemed to relax. “It’s just that my parents warned me not to talk about this to anyone outside the Ramblers Association. I did mention going camping once at school. I couldn’t bear the silly things th
e other children were saying about the Truesun, but the way the teacher looked at me …”
He shuddered. “Anyway, there are about fifty thousand of us in the Ramblers Association. We go Outside in groups, for a day, a weekend, or even weeks at a time. There are lots of footpaths out there.”
“Incredible,” said Adika. “I didn’t even know this Ramblers Association existed.”
“I did,” said Lucas. “A Tactical Commander’s imprint includes details of all known subversive or non-conformist groups. The Hive doesn’t want its people requesting transfers elsewhere, so it limits information on other Hives and discourages any interest in Outside. The idea is that everyone will literally think of this Hive as being the whole world.”
He smiled at Rothan. “That means the Ramblers Association is technically classed as a non-conformist group, but in reality its existence is beneficial to the Hive. It helps those with a psychological need for more space and contact with nature than they can get in a Hive park. It also provides a useful pool of people that Lottery can draw on to supply the Hive with its Outside workers.”
“A lot of Ramblers Association members work Outside,” said Rothan. “I expected to come out of Lottery as an Outside worker myself.”
“The Hive obviously doesn’t want the Ramblers Association spreading information about Outside to the general population,” continued Lucas. “Members are expected to be discreet about their shameful hobby, and are forbidden from attempting to recruit new members while inside the Hive. Anyone they meet Outside is displaying non-conformist tendencies already, so regarded as fair game. Ramblers Association members have tried to recruit me several times when I was in country parks.”
“What are country parks?” asked Adika.
“There are a lot of exits from the Hive that lead to one of the ten areas of Outside parks,” said Lucas. “You must have seen the parks out of the aircraft window when we flew to Hive Futura.”
“No,” said Adika. “You were the one who insisted on uncovering a window. I was down the other end of the aircraft minding my own business.”
“Well, my imprint includes details of the country parks as well as the Ramblers Association,” said Lucas. “When I came out of Lottery, I was intrigued by the idea of an Outside park, so I went to take a look at one. I’ve made several repeat trips to admire the sky, especially at night.”
He laughed. “If I’m Outside long enough, I get approached by people in clumpy footwear, who whisper furtively about the love of the open countryside and the existence of the Ramblers Association. I keep telling them I like sitting on a bench in a country park, but feel no desire to go tramping through the wilderness.”
Adika shook his head. “Well, we’re very fortunate to have a couple of people with experience of conditions Outside, but the rest of us have some acclimatizing to do. Since Lucas is familiar with Outside, there’s no need for him to join us on our training trips.”
“But I’d love to come along,” said Lucas.
“I had a feeling you might.” Adika finally turned to me. “Amber, how do you feel about coming along on a few training trips Outside?”
“Not keen.” What I really meant was that I was utterly terrified, and I’d rather drown in a slime vat than go Outside where the Truesun could get me.
“The Strike team have to be able to cope out there well enough to chase a target,” said Adika, “but you could keep your eyes closed the whole time.”
I didn’t say a word. Keeping my eyes closed wouldn’t save me from the Truesun burning me. I was going to stay safely inside the Hive.
Adika seemed to get the idea he wasn’t winning this argument, because he turned back to the Strike team. “We’ll do some more swimming training now.”
I went to change from my swimming costume back into ordinary clothes. When I came out of the changing room, I found Lucas lying in wait for me. When I headed towards my apartment, he walked alongside me, ignoring my unwelcoming body language.
“The idea of going Outside frightens you.”
I didn’t reply.
“You were fine inside Hive Futura.”
“That was inside a Hive, Lucas. Not Outside. I thought you were supposed to be highly intelligent.”
“You coped inside the aircraft too,” said Lucas.
“Again, that was inside, and it still wasn’t easy. Can we stop talking about this now?”
I reached my apartment and went inside. The protein scum, Lucas, followed me.
“Amber, the Hive uses social conditioning to discourage people from going Outside. Schools treat any interest in Outside as shameful, and encourage children to believe the myths about the danger and the Truesun. There’s no truth in those myths, any more than it’s true the nosies are telepaths. If you try going Outside, or even read my thoughts about it, you’ll see it’s quite a pleasant place.”
I turned on him. “I’ve been Outside, Lucas! I went Outside when I was a little girl. It terrified me, and I will never go Outside again. Now get out of my apartment or I’ll call the Strike team to throw you out!”
I ran into my bedroom, and locked the door.
Chapter Twenty-two
Two days later, my team leaders and I were in meeting room four. Lucas was sitting directly opposite me, so I was staring at the table top to avoid looking at him.
After my angry response to the idea of me going Outside, Lucas had told Adika to abandon his plan, and warned everyone in the Unit not to mention Outside to me. That meant nobody was talking about Outside, but it didn’t stop them thinking about it.
Lucas was worst of all, constantly worrying about the violence of my reaction, and nosing through my records for any reference to me going Outside. He’d even tried calling my parents to ask them about it, which had triggered the first in a series of spectacular arguments that …
No, I mustn’t let myself think about that because I’d only get upset again. I forced myself to focus on the conversation.
“Nothing has happened in 600/2600 since our emergency run,” said Lucas. “No warning signs. No oddities. Absolutely nothing.”
“We might have scared our target into moving their activities to another area,” said Adika.
“Why would the target be scared of us?” Lucas had a bitter edge to his voice. “We got the child back, but no information about who was behind the incident. There’s no reason for the target to panic and leave their familiar territory. They’re still there, they’re giving us absolutely no clue to their plans, but eventually there’ll be another incident.”
“You think we should go back for a check run then?” I asked.
Lucas didn’t say anything, just frowned down at his hands. My Tactical Commander knew we needed to go back to 600/2600, but he was worried enough, both professionally and personally, that he wouldn’t give the order to send us there again.
I took a deep breath. “We either go back to check 600/2600 now, or wait to be forced into action by another incident. I don’t want another emergency run with a child’s life at stake. None of us does. That means we have to do the check run. Agreed?”
Everyone nodded.
“Do we begin at the park?” asked Adika.
“It’s the obvious place to start,” said Lucas. “If Amber can’t find a target there, then we’ll try a couple of places on other levels.”
“Do we go today or tomorrow?” asked Adika.
A delay would just make me more nervous. “We go right now.”
“Do you want me to come with you?” asked Lucas.
“No!” Adika and I chorused the reply.
“We treat this like an emergency run,” Adika said firmly. “No debate. No discussion. No towing along a Tactical Commander.”
I stood up and headed back to my apartment. Lucas scampered after me, and waited in the hallway while I went to my bedroom and got changed. Body armour, clothes, ear crystal. I was ready.
Lucas and I went back outside the apartment, and there was an awkward, silent moment. Severa
l Strike team members jogged past us heading for the lift. This was a planned run to check an area, not an emergency run, so they weren’t sprinting flat out.
“Read me,” said Lucas.
I reached out to touch his thoughts. Lucas loved me. He was sorry about the arguments. He was worried about this run. I had to be careful, because I mustn’t get hurt. Not just because I was the irreplaceable telepath, but because I was me.
“I’ll be careful,” I said.
“First kiss moment?”
More of the Strike team went past, some of them carrying bags of special equipment that included a newly delivered robot. Everyone that went by gave us curious looks. The entire unit knew about our arguments because two of them had happened in public.
I sighed. This wasn’t a good time to try to progress my relationship with Lucas. The arguments about going Outside were too fresh in my mind. People were watching us. I was filled with nerves about today’s run. “Maybe not. We have to work on the physical contact issue though.”
“I’m scared of messing it up,” Lucas admitted.
We were both scared of that. I was a telepath. Lucas had an incredible mind. Our relationship had progressed at high speed mentally, but we were both torn between eagerness and fear at the idea of making it physical. There was so much at stake here. We both felt we could never have another relationship like this, and were terrified that it could be wrecked by a disastrous physical encounter.
“I know,” I said. “Eventually, we’ll have to take the risk.”
We shook hands. Lucas ran for his office. I ran for lift 2, and the doors closed behind me.
“Strike team is moving,” Adika said, in a deafening voice.
Telepath Page 20
