Adika pulled a face. “All these years later, it’s still painful remembering that time. We were all given alternative accommodation in a housing warren on Level 20. We were a Telepath Unit in exile, rejected as useless, worried sick about Mira, and expecting the unit to be disbanded at any moment. It was a huge relief when we were called home again and found Mira was back to her old self. I never discovered what happened when I was away. Everyone was warned not to talk about it or ask questions.”
“I can see the logic in protecting a telepath from contact with target minds, but not in sending away their own unit members,” said Lucas. “It obviously worked in Mira’s case though. Do you think that approach would help you, Amber?”
“No. All of my people, whether they’re Strike team or cleaners, Tactical team or maintenance staff, do everything they possibly can to help our unit and to help me in particular. On a telepathic level, I can constantly sense their supportive minds surrounding me. I’d hate any of them to be sent away and left feeling rejected and useless.”
I tried to find a way to repeat what Sapphire had said without giving away the fact I’d spoken to her. “I don’t think learning how other telepaths dealt with this can help me. If that knowledge would be any use at all, then surely you’d all be imprinted with the full details of how every telepath resolved fragmentation problems.”
“That’s very true,” said Lucas. “The fact our imprints contain nothing about how telepaths deal with echo personalities is highly significant.”
Lucas had referred to echo personalities, so I could use that term myself now. “I think those details are excluded from your imprints because the method of removing echo personalities is different for every telepath. Some of the information that is included in your imprints might be helpful though.”
I paused. “I’ve seen lots of disjointed thoughts in your minds about the development path for true telepaths. Can you explain that to me coherently, Lucas?”
“Of course,” said Lucas.
“Stop!” said Megan.
Lucas gave her a weary look. “Megan, we’ve discussed the risks and benefits of explaining things to Amber several times now. Do we have to have the same argument yet again?”
“I’m not arguing about you explaining things freely to Amber,” said Megan. “I’ve talked to Buzz about this, she agrees with you, and I accept her authority in this area. I just feel that Buzz should be present for this discussion.”
“You’re right.” Lucas made a call on his dataview. “Buzz, could you please join us in meeting room 4?”
“I’ve just finished a counselling session in meeting room 8,” Buzz’s voice answered him. “I’ll be with you in one minute.”
“Who …?” Lucas broke off his sentence. “She’s gone. Does anyone know who Buzz is counselling?”
“She’s counselling Eli,” said Adika. “When he had major surgery on his leg, the doctors put in several plates to hold the bones together. He’s just heard that he’ll need a follow-up operation to take those plates out, and he’s finding the idea of more surgery very stressful.”
“I understand Eli needing counselling, but why is he getting it from Buzz? I thought we already had psychological help available for the Strike team.”
“We do,” said Adika, “but Buzz is far better than a standard psychologist. She has this unusual method of chatting away, discussing her own life as well as yours, but it somehow works. Everything seems much clearer after you’ve talked to her.”
The rest of us stared at him. “You’ve been getting counselling from Buzz as well?” asked Lucas.
“Not formal counselling,” said Adika. “I just had a conversation with her yesterday. I’d been puzzled about how I was reacting to something, and Buzz said four words that made everything clear. I was really impressed, and thought she might be able to help Eli as well.”
The door opened and Buzz walked in. I noticed that she was wearing a casual tunic and leggings instead of her old top and skirt, but they were still in her favourite red. She pulled a chair across from the side of the room and sat down at the table.
Lucas frowned at her. “You’ve been recruited as Amber’s counsellor at a time when she’s in desperate need of support. I’m not sure it’s a good idea for you to divert your efforts into counselling other people in the unit as well.”
“I regard counselling Eli as just an extension of my work counselling Amber.” Buzz turned to me. “Am I right in thinking that Eli being distressed about something would worry you, Amber?”
“Yes. I know that people are never going to be happy all the time, but it bothers me when one of my unit is deeply upset about something. In the case of Strike team members, it makes it harder to do my job too. When I’m running high speed circuits, checking if any of them are hurt, it’s easy to confuse emotional pain with physical pain.”
Buzz faced Lucas again. “You see my point. Amber has a very close connection to the members of her Strike team. If I reduce Eli’s distress, then I also reduce the strain on Amber.”
Lucas gave a bemused shake of his head. “I suppose that’s true, but your counselling of other unit members mustn’t distract you from helping Amber.”
“Amber’s own counselling will be my first priority at all times,” said Buzz.
“Accepted,” said Lucas. “Now, we’ve called you into this meeting because Amber has been discussing her fragmentation problems with us. She’s asked me to talk through the whole development path for true telepaths with her. Are you happy with me doing that?”
Buzz grinned. “I’m ecstatic. Amber wishes to know exactly what problems she’s facing, which I regard as a positive reaction. Since I’m not imprinted with this information, the explanation will also be helpful to me. Please carry on.”
“I’d better begin by admitting that the Hive’s understanding of telepathy is limited,” said Lucas. “Do you want me to run through the whole development path from the beginning, Amber?”
“Yes. I’d like to know how my own progress compares with that considered normal for a telepath.”
“Well, we believe that a true telepath has their abilities at birth, but blocks them as a defence measure against the impact of the hundred million minds in the Hive. When Lottery discovers a true telepath, special techniques are used to lower their protective mental barriers. Once the telepath’s abilities have been brought to the surface, they are sent to Hive Futura, our old seed Hive. Since Hive Futura’s population was reabsorbed into the main Hive long ago, it’s a safely peaceful place for a telepath to go through their initial training stage.”
Lucas paused. “The first critical point in a telepath’s progress is returning to the main Hive. Telepath Units are located in as quiet an area of the Hive as possible, but some telepaths do have problems. Those generally occur immediately the telepath returns to the Hive, and are easily resolved by a further period of training at Hive Futura.”
“I remember everyone was concerned about me returning to the main Hive,” I said, “but I didn’t have any difficulties.”
“Once the telepath has successfully made the transition back to the main Hive, then they start training with the Strike team,” Lucas continued. “That rarely causes any problems. The telepath is having contact with many more minds now, but these are familiar, safe minds, those of people loyally serving their Hive and determined to protect their telepath at all costs.”
I nodded.
“The second critical point is when a Telepath Unit goes fully operational, and the telepath has their first contact with a genuine target mind in an emergency situation. They are encountering the mind of what you describe as a wild bee for the first time. The telepath is hit by highly disturbing actions, thoughts, and memories. There is always a strong reaction from the telepath afterwards, and in some cases it can be extreme.”
I wrinkled my nose. “My first emergency run was … quite harrowing.”
“Your reaction wasn’t out of the range we consider normal,” said L
ucas, “but we were still very worried about you back then. It’s easy to misjudge the extent of the trauma caused by a telepath’s first emergency run.”
“This was the critical point where York took his own life?”
“Yes.” Lucas winced, and hurried on with his explanation. “Once a telepath has coped with their first few emergency runs, there’s usually a relatively peaceful period. The telepath continues growing in skill and experience, and everything appears to be going perfectly.”
He pulled a face. “However, those appearances are deceptive. The repeated contacts with target minds are a cumulative strain, the telepath begins to find it harder to throw off their influence, and starts suffering from fragmentation symptoms. This is the third critical point in a telepath’s development, where the telepath battles to dissipate the lingering echo personalities of target minds. A telepath’s abilities are first brought to the surface during Lottery, which is right after Carnival. The fragmentation issue usually hits straight after Halloween.”
“This is supposed to happen straight after Halloween?” I asked. “But Halloween was a couple of months ago.”
Lucas threw up both his hands in despair. “I know. We watched you nervously after Halloween, looking for signs of fragmentation, but there weren’t any. After a month had gone by, we decided that you must have dealt with the problem with incredible ease. We were deeply relieved, so it was a horrible shock when you started showing fragmentation symptoms a few days ago.”
Buzz raised a hand. “I don’t know what’s been happening to Amber since she came out of Lottery. Is there any reason why fragmentation would have started later for her than for other telepaths? Was it longer than usual before Amber’s first emergency run, or has she had a less stressful time than average?”
“No,” said Lucas. “Quite the opposite. Amber returned from Hive Futura ahead of schedule, we were pushed into dealing with our first emergency run before our unit was even officially operational, and Amber suffered immense stress over a particularly complicated and dangerous case. If anything, we were expecting her to be hit by fragmentation symptoms earlier than usual, so …”
He broke off his sentence, and slapped the palms of his hands on the table top. “Wait! That’s the answer. It has to be. I was so busy panicking that I didn’t see it, but …”
He smiled at Buzz. “You are gold. You are pure gold.”
“What’s the answer?” asked Adika.
Lucas turned to face me. “Amber, you did get hit by fragmentation symptoms earlier than usual. You’ve already found a way to deal with the lingering effects of reading target minds.”
I frowned at him. “If that’s true, why have I got Mercury stuck in my head?”
“Because you were hit by the fragmentation issue when we were on that camping trip Outside. You were in contact with the unsettling mind of Elden. A mind that was especially stressful for you to read because of your own personal history.”
“But Amber didn’t seem to have any problems after reading Elden,” said Megan.
“No, she didn’t,” said Lucas. “I was surprised by that at the time, but I gratefully accepted it. If I’d stopped to think it through properly, I’d have realized Amber must have been affected and somehow found a way to deal with it.”
He paused. “Amber, this happened when we were a long distance from the Hive, so it was totally quiet on a telepathic level. I think your mind used something about that quietness to cleanse itself of invading echo personalities.”
“It did?”
“I’m sure it did,” said Lucas, “and it worked beautifully, so beautifully that we didn’t even notice it happening, but then we came back to the Hive. The strain of reading target minds started building up again, and your tactic to deal with it didn’t work when you were surrounded by the thoughts of a hundred million people.”
He shook his head. “You’ve just had several appallingly stressful runs, so naturally you’re having problems. Being in the park helped you a little, taking you Outside helped more, but you were still too close to the noise of the Hive.”
Lucas smiled. “If we take you well away from the Hive for a while, Amber, then your mind should be able to deal with your fragmentation.”
“You’re saying that we have to go camping again?” Adika grimaced. “It’s winter, Lucas. It’s freezing cold Outside.”
Lucas laughed. “I’m saying that we need to take Amber well away from the Hive to somewhere totally quiet on the telepathic level, but we don’t have to go camping to do that. We can just fly in an aircraft to Hive Futura.”
Adika gave a sigh of relief. “How long do you think we need to be away? If Amber is right, then we’ve identified Jupiter and should be able to stop her causing more trouble in future. We still have to deal with Mars though. If we can’t do that ourselves, then we should hand the case to another unit.”
“Going to Hive Futura will help us deal with Mars as well,” said Lucas.
“Really?” asked Adika, in his most sarcastic voice. “You think that flying off to Hive Futura is the best way to deal with an attack that will happen right here?”
“Yes,” said Lucas. “I have absolutely no idea who Mars is, or how to hunt him down, but I do know what he’s planning to attack. I’ve been trying to work out how to stop him, and failing, but going to Hive Futura means we can use a whole new approach.”
“Would you like to explain what you mean?” asked Adika.
Lucas gave him a deliberately maddening grin. “No, I wouldn’t. Our primary reason for going to Hive Futura is to help Amber recover from her fragmentation problems. Apart from the people in this room, and the members of my Tactical team, I want everyone to believe that is our only reason for going there. Once Amber is recovered, I’ll explain how this move will also help us deal with Mars.”
Adika turned to me. “Amber, do you remember me saying it was perfectly normal behaviour to hit Lucas, and that I often wanted to hit him myself?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I’d like to hit him right now.” Adika shook his head. “When are we leaving for Hive Futura, Lucas?”
“Tomorrow morning.”
Adika nodded. “And who is going on this trip?”
Lucas gave him the maddening grin again. “Everyone in the unit.”
Chapter Thirty-one
Lucas’s announcement sent almost everyone in my unit into a frenzy of preparation work. Since Buzz and I were the fortunate exceptions who had little to do but get on an aircraft tomorrow morning, we spent the afternoon in the park.
I wasn’t sure those lazy hours counted as a counselling session, because the words fragmentation and Futura were never mentioned. We didn’t even talk about what was going on between Buzz and Forge. We just fed the birds, admired the flowers, and coaxed two tiny black and white monkeys into coming down from the trees to take pieces of fruit from our hands.
We finally went to sit by the stream, and I started telling Buzz a silly story about when I was thirteen. I’d been panicking because I was about to leave home and live on Teen Level, and my eight-year-old brother, Gregas, kept heartlessly asking my parents if he could have my old room. I’d got to the point when I caught him inside my room, measuring the length and width to prove it was a fraction larger than his own, when a dreadful thought occurred to me.
“Waste it!”
“Is something wrong?” asked Buzz.
“I’ve just remembered that the day after tomorrow is Gregas’s fourteenth birthday. Gregas, Lucas, and I were supposed to be visiting my parents for a celebration meal. I’ll have to warn my parents that Lucas and I won’t be able to be there after all.”
“Will it be difficult for you to explain why you can’t be at the birthday celebrations?” asked Buzz.
“My family don’t know I’m a telepath, but they’re aware I run a Security Unit, so I can say something vague about problems with an enemy agent. Any mention of enemy agents makes Gregas happy. He loves the Hive entertainment channel
thrillers about Hive England Defence teams chasing agents from other Hives.”
Buzz laughed.
“I’d better go and call my parents right away, so they don’t put in a lot of wasted effort. They aren’t just expecting the two of us, but my bodyguards as well.”
When I left the park, I found the unit corridors were full of people towing crates on luggage trolleys. I dodged my way through the chaos to the safety of the apartment I shared with Lucas.
I called my parents from the bookette room, where their holo images were so realistic that it felt like I was physically standing next to them. I was about to tell them some vague enemy agent story, when I remembered Rothan’s parents and younger brother sitting in the Fire Casualty Centre waiting room. They’d known that Rothan did hazardous work connected with the security of the Hive, but they’d still had a terrible shock when he was critically injured.
I’d been limiting what I said to my parents, playing down the risks of my new life as much as possible, because I didn’t want to frighten them. I had to rethink that approach now, and be more open about the dangers involved. If I didn’t find a way to solve my fragmentation problems, if I became a poor broken thing like Olivia, then Lucas would have to explain that to my family.
I moistened my lips and carefully chose my words. “I’m sorry I haven’t called you for a while. My unit is dealing with a very bad case involving a fire.”
“The fire that was reported on Hive channel 1?” asked my mother.
“Yes.”
My father frowned. “That fire was caused by an enemy agent then?”
“Yes,” I repeated. I knew I could trust my parents to keep whatever secrets I revealed, but it was best to follow the same approach as the Hive did with the staff of specialist casualty centres, blaming enemy agents rather than admitting some of our own Hive citizens were involved. I didn’t want my parents living in fear, wondering if one of their own neighbours might be a potential killer.