Defender

by Janet Edwards

  “You all came to Hive Futura to help me with my fragmentation problems. Many of you don’t understand what fragmentation is, or how it can tear a telepath apart. You just knew I was in trouble, and that you coming here could help me.”

  I paused. “That was enough to make you get into an aircraft and fly here. I can’t find the words to say how amazing I think that is, and how amazing I think you all are. You came here to help me solve my problems, and you’ve succeeded.”

  There was an excited babble from my audience. “You’ve dealt with your echoes, Amber?” asked Gideon eagerly.

  “Yes.” I repeated the words that Sapphire had said to me. “Becoming a telepath was hard. Being a telepath is even harder, and I’m sure there’ll be other problems ahead, but having you with me, being surrounded by your mental support, has helped me deal with this one.”

  I felt the wave of emotion coming from my listeners as they absorbed that. Elation, delight, but overwhelmingly a sense of pure relief. These people had been aware that something was harming their telepath, threatening the existence of our unit. The fact most of them hadn’t understood what the problem was had made it even more frightening.

  There was a strangely quiet moment, as if people’s feelings were too strong to put into words, and then Hannah spoke.

  “Does that mean we’re going home now?” she asked. “Should I start repacking all those crates of food?”

  The straightforwardly practical question broke the tension, and the crowd burst out laughing.

  I waited for the noise to die down. “No, we won’t be going back yet. We came here for two reasons. The first was to help me with my fragmentation. The second was to deal with a threat to the Hive.”

  “Can we finally get some details on Lucas’s plan?” demanded Adika.

  “Yes. No.” I hesitated. “I’m not sure.”

  I’d been blocking out my weariness, but now it was flooding back, overwhelming me so it was hard to think. I threw a glance of appeal at Lucas, and he stood up and came to whisper in my ear.

  “Do you need to go and rest now, or should I give a briefing on the situation with Mars?”

  “I think I just need to sit down.”

  Lucas took my arm and guided me over to sit on a crate.

  I felt foolish. “I don’t know why I’m so tired.”

  Lucas smiled. “Extreme mental exertion can be physically tiring. It’s one of the reasons telepaths need rest after an emergency run.”

  He went to stand facing the audience “As Amber just said, our second reason for coming here was to deal with a threat to the Hive. For security reasons, I couldn’t give a general briefing on this subject until we were actually here at Hive Futura.”

  “Hurry up and explain what’s happening,” said Adika impatiently.

  Lucas laughed. “Some of you will know far more about the events in our current case than others. To summarize the situation, the telepath Olivia has been suffering from severe fragmentation for years. An especially malevolent echo personality, calling itself Jupiter, has taken control of her.”

  Lucas used his dataview to display an image of Olivia’s head, fringed in red, on the hangar wall. Below her appeared a row of three other heads. The first was Fran. The second was Martin, the firebug who I couldn’t help still thinking of as Mercury. The third was an anonymous black silhouette.

  “Jupiter used Olivia’s telepathic abilities and knowledge to recruit three people to make a joint attack on the Hive. Fran, an ex-member of this unit with a deep grievance against us, was given a mission to ambush and stab Amber. Martin, a skilled firebug, was given a mission to light a great fire. The third recruit has his identity hidden behind a false name, Mars. All we know about his mission is that it had to be timed to happen five days from now.”

  Lucas paused. “Olivia’s activities have been restricted, and Fran and Martin are dead, so now we just have to deal with Mars.”

  The images of Olivia, Fran, and Martin vanished from the wall, leaving only the black silhouette representing Mars.

  “Most of you won’t be aware that the year before the last Lottery was a disastrous one for the Hive, with three especially drastic incidents happening. The first incident was a telepath being stabbed. Fortunately, the injury was only slight.”

  “A telepath was stabbed?” Adika interrupted in a sharp voice. “Who? What happened?”

  Lucas shook his head at him. “I’ll discuss that with you later. The second incident was a vast fire in Burgundy Zone. The third incident was a target killing himself by entering the Blue Zone power complex and jumping into the central core of its power supply nexus. The resulting damage left the whole of Blue Zone without power for two days.”

  Lucas glanced round his audience. “I think you’ll all agree there’s a suspicious similarity between the first two of these events and the missions that Jupiter gave Venus and Mercury.”

  “You mean that Jupiter was trying to recreate all those three events in a single day?” asked Adika. “You think Mars is going to kill himself by jumping into the central core of power supply nexus 7?”

  “I believe Jupiter was trying to recreate all those three events in a single day,” said Lucas. “However, there were to be significant changes. Venus was to stab a different telepath. Mercury was to light a great fire, but it would rage through Purple Zone, not Burgundy. I think Mars will attempt to damage a power supply nexus, but we can’t assume it will be the one in Blue Zone, and he won’t necessarily use the method of jumping into the central core.”

  Lucas tapped at his dataview. The black silhouette of Mars was replaced by the standard oblong image of the Hive, showing the ten coloured zones running from Burgundy at the north end to Violet at the south.

  “Each zone of the Hive has its own dedicated power complex containing the crucial power supply nexus. Mars therefore has a choice of ten potential targets. We know the timing of the planned attack, so in theory we could mount a guard on each complex. The problem is that even if we ignored every other emergency in the Hive, and committed all five of our telepaths and their Strike teams to standing guard on a power complex, that would leave five zones with their complex guarded only by conventional means.”

  “Your Tactical team can’t predict which zone will be targeted?” asked Adika.

  “We can’t make predictions with a high enough level of certainty considering what is at stake,” said Lucas. “There are one hundred million people in this Hive. That’s ten million people in each zone. The power outage in Blue Zone last year caused many accidents that resulted in serious injuries and even deaths. I won’t burden you with the knowledge of the exact numbers.”

  I pulled a face. One of my own friends on Teen Level had been badly injured during that power outage. I wasn’t surprised to hear that others had died.

  “If Mars succeeds in damaging a power supply nexus,” said Lucas, “then we can expect the consequences to be at least as bad as the previous time, and probably far worse. In last year’s incident, power supply nexus 7 suffered extensive damage, but the people in Power Services worked to exhaustion point and managed to repair it within two days. Any greater damage would mean the nexus was impossible to repair. Building a totally new nexus would take months, so we’d have to evacuate everyone from that zone of the Hive.”

  Lucas winced. “Just imagine how difficult that evacuation would be with no working belt system and only small, hand-held emergency lanterns for light. Ten million terrified people trying to walk long distances through pitch-dark corridors to another zone of the Hive.”

  “Some of us don’t need to imagine it,” said Forge grimly. “Amber and I were in Blue Zone during the power outage.”

  “Me too,” said Rafael.

  Several other people joined in with comments. Lucas waited for the noise to die down before speaking again.

  “We don’t know which power supply nexus will be targeted by Mars. We don’t know who Mars is, and a huge number of maintenance workers have access
to key power systems. We can’t get telepaths to read all their minds.”

  Lucas looked round at his audience. “Mars could have a very high position in the Hive. We must make absolutely sure that he doesn’t learn of our plan. Everyone in Law Enforcement, even the Tactical Commanders of the other Telepath Units, believes our unit has only moved to Hive Futura in an attempt to solve Amber’s fragmentation symptoms. Gold Commander Melisande is the sole person who knows it is also part of our plan to deal with Mars.”

  He paused. “With so much at stake, we can’t afford anyone accidentally saying something that gives away the truth. Therefore your communications with friends and family back at the main Hive will need to be limited to recorded messages, so they can be checked by the Tactical team before they are sent.”

  “Wait!” said Adika urgently. “I’ve just realized that if Mars is targeting a power supply nexus, then the timing of this attack is …”

  Lucas held up a hand to stop him. “Yes, I know. I’m just getting to that.”

  He turned to his audience again. “The timing of this attack is deeply significant. You all know the Hive has bulkhead doors at each zone boundary. You all know those bulkhead doors can be closed to seal off a zone in the case of a catastrophic disaster. You all know there is a test closure of those bulkhead doors for one hour every three months. What most of you won’t know is that the three-monthly closure of the bulkhead doors is actually not a test at all, but a safety precaution while essential power supply maintenance is taking place across the Hive. This power supply maintenance is known as Operation Rainbow Cascade.”

  I was startled to hear Forge’s voice speak, its tone filled with alarm. “You think that Mars is going to attack a power supply nexus during Operation Rainbow Cascade?”

  “Yes,” said Lucas.

  “Waste that!”

  Forge’s words were echoed by other voices. It seemed that information on Operation Rainbow Cascade was included in the imprints of Tactical team members, and also those of the Strike team who’d been imprinted for Strike team leader. I didn’t bother reading any of their minds to find out what it was, because Lucas was obviously about to explain it.

  “The power for a zone is supplied by a single fuel rod in the central core of its power supply nexus,” continued Lucas. “Every three months, the depleted fuel rods are replaced with fresh ones during Operation Rainbow Cascade. Since a specific problem during a fuel rod changeover could result in a massive explosion, the bulkhead doors are closed as a damage containment measure.”

  I frowned. “When I was reading Mercury’s mind, I saw the detail that Mars expects to die carrying out his mission. You think that Mars may not just be attempting to damage a nexus, but cause this sort of massive explosion?”

  “Exactly,” said Lucas. “Operation Rainbow Cascade is coordinated by the Hive Gold Commander. It begins at ten minutes before midnight, when the belt system slows to minimum speed across the Hive, and the bulkhead crossing points are blocked off on every level. At midnight, all the bulkhead doors close. At five minutes past midnight, the fuel rod is changed in Burgundy Zone. Five minutes later, the rod is changed in Red Zone. The cascade continues across the Hive until the rod has been changed in Violet Zone, then the bulkhead doors are reopened, and the belt system returns to its usual operating speed.”

  “Can I ask a silly question?” I asked.

  “You are a telepath, Amber,” said Lucas solemnly. “It’s impossible for you to ask a silly question, because any question you ask is automatically classed as highly discerning.”

  “It would be a lot faster to change all the rods at once. They’re changed in turn so if something went wrong then only one zone of the Hive would be left without power at a time?”

  “That’s right,” said Lucas. “The fuel rod replacement process seems relatively simple. The central core of a power supply nexus has two fuel rod containers. The fresh rod is inserted into the empty container and then activated by using its unique security code. The nexus links are switched from the depleted rod to the fresh one, and the depleted rod is deactivated, removed from the central core, and sent to be recharged.”

  He paused. “There are only two major problems that can happen during the fuel rod replacement process. One is that the new rod is faulty. The nexus has a buffering system, which can supply power to that zone of the Hive for about ten minutes. The nexus links have to be switched back to the old rod within that time or that zone of the Hive loses power.”

  “But surely the zone can’t keep running on its depleted fuel rod for the three months until the next changeover,” said Megan.

  “No, it can’t,” said Lucas. “In that case, the Gold Commander would allow the cascade across the Hive to continue while the zone with the faulty rod removes it and gets a reserve one from storage. Once cascade ended, the opening of the bulkhead doors would be delayed while that zone is given the activation code for their reserve fuel rod and goes through the changeover process again.”

  Megan nodded.

  “The other possible problem with changing the fuel rod is that the nexus links connect to the new rod but fail to disconnect from the old one,” said Lucas. “There are safety systems designed to prevent that happening, but if it did then the nexus would be supplied with double the normal amount of power. The problem has to be corrected before the buffering system overloads, or there’s a huge explosion. Hence this situation is termed a deadly embrace.”

  “And Mars is going to try to make a deadly embrace happen,” said Adika. “We can’t delay Operation Rainbow Cascade – the existing fuel rods would run out of power within a few days – so I hope we’ve got a plan to stop Mars.”

  Lucas nodded. “We do. We’ll allow Operation Rainbow Cascade to run on schedule, but set things up so it’s impossible for Mars to cause an explosion.”

  “How will you manage that?” demanded Adika.

  Lucas smiled. “It takes two fully functioning fuel rods to blow up a power supply nexus, and no zone is going to have access to more than one of them until after we’ve caught Mars.”

  I was totally confused. “But the zones can’t change fuel rods unless they’ve got two of them.”

  “They will have two fuel rods,” said Lucas, “but not two fully functioning ones. Gold Commander Melisande is arranging for every zone in the Hive to be given a new fuel rod that’s faulty. To be exact, she’s sending them the fuel rods that are normally used at our sea farm. These can only supply a tiny amount of power in comparison with a normal zone fuel rod.”

  He paused. “Operation Rainbow Cascade will start as usual. The new fuel rod will be put in place in Burgundy Zone. When they attempt to switch the nexus links to the new fuel rod, the power will immediately fail. Burgundy Zone will then switch back the links to the old fuel rod, and report the faulty fuel rod to Gold Commander Melisande. She will allow the cascade to continue, while crucially not announcing the failure to the other zones, since Mars must not be alarmed by anything unusual happening.”

  Lucas paused. “Each zone in turn will report a faulty fuel rod, until the one where Mars has set up a deadly embrace. In that zone, the power supply nexus will be connected to both the old and new fuel rods. The power won’t fail, it will actually increase slightly, but should remain within the range that can be handled by the buffering system. Workers in that zone will believe they have successfully changed fuel rods, and report success to the Gold Commander. They’ll only discover there’s a problem when they attempt to remove the depleted fuel rod and find it’s still connected.”

  “Yes, but Mars will realize he’s failed to blow up the nexus,” said Adika. “He could find another way to damage it.”

  “We have to assume that Mars will try to work out an alternative method of destroying the nexus,” said Lucas. “He’ll have been fully briefed about the five telepaths and their Strike teams by Jupiter. Even if Mars suspects his sabotage has been detected, and the alarm raised, he’ll know that only one of those five telepath
s will be able to point him out as the guilty party.”

  Lucas laughed. “Mars will believe he has plenty of time to come up with a new plan and carry it out before a telepath can reach him. Jupiter will have told him that Telepath Units are located at the top of the Hive, in a quiet area far away from the hubbub of minds surrounding the power complex. If Mars has chosen to target a zone with a Telepath Unit, then the telepath and their Strike team will have to travel at slow belt speed across half the zone to reach the power complex. If he’s chosen to target a zone without a Telepath Unit, then there’ll be the additional delay of getting through a sealed zone bulkhead.”

  “I don’t see why you’re laughing at this, Lucas,” said Adika. “Would you mind explaining the joke?”

  “The joke is that when Operation Rainbow Cascade starts, our entire unit will be aboard our aircraft and holding position directly above the Hive. As soon as Gold Commander Melisande gets a report of a successful fuel rod changeover from a zone, she’ll relay that to us. We will then land in that zone’s aircraft hangar, only a few cors away from the power complex. We’ll set up a mobile Liaison and Tactical operations centre in the hangar, and Amber and the Strike team will head out to hunt Mars.”

  Adika laughed. “I like that idea.”

  “While we’re chasing Mars, the plan is that Operation Rainbow Cascade will continue until all the other zones have reported faulty fuel rods. They’ll all get their reserve fuel rods from storage, but Gold Commander Melisande will wait until we’ve caught Mars before she gives out the unique security codes to activate them.”

  He shrugged. “Operation Rainbow Cascade will then be rerun from the beginning, allowing all zones to change to functioning new fuel rods, before the Hive bulkhead doors are finally reopened.”

  Lucas looked around the watching unit members. “Every single one of you will have a part to play in saving the Hive from a devastating explosion. We’ll be holding our first training exercise tomorrow morning. We’re bound to discover that we’ve forgotten some things, or need duplicates of key equipment, so we’ll be sending an aircraft back to the Hive every morning to collect supplies. If any of you feel you can’t cope with this, then you can go back to the Hive in that aircraft, but I hope you’ll stay because you’re all needed.”