“If there’s any chance of us having to dress up as teens in future, then Liaison will need to get us all some new outfits,” I commented.
Eli laughed. “Nicole said the same thing when she saw our people going undercover.”
A moment later, two members of the Liaison team came sprinting up. One handed Adika a heap of white clothes, while the other tossed some white sashes at the Strike team members. As they stepped back out of the way, the lift doors closed, and we started heading down to Teen Level.
“Alpha Strike team is moving.” Adika’s voice was so deafeningly loud in my ear that I hurriedly adjusted the volume of my crystal unit.
“What’s happening?” asked Forge’s startled voice on the comms.
“Amber and I are taking the Alpha team on a search mission,” said Lucas. “We’re about to join you on Teen Level, but you’re going south while we’ll be going north.”
I had a surreal moment. A couple of days ago, I’d been pretending to my parents that my people were searching for Gregas and Wesley on Teen Level. Now we really were searching for someone on Teen Level.
Now I had time to think about it, that didn’t make any sense at all. I could think of several reasons why Beckett and Cee Cee might find it hard to travel from Keith’s unit to mine at a busy time of day. When I was on Teen Level, my friend Casper had found unfamiliar places confusing, while teens using basic models of powered chairs needed the specialized arrangements at interchanges to join and leave the belt system.
What I didn’t understand was why Beckett had chosen to make his journey on Teen Level. The best pattern specialist in the Hive had to be rated Level 1. Whatever his problems, it would surely have been easier for him to travel to my unit on Level 1, where the belt system would be far less crowded.
The start of run checklist was continuing. “Tactical ready,” said the voice of Lucas’s deputy, Emili.
“Liaison team ready,” said Nicole. “Tracking status green for all Strike team. Do you want us to separate the Alpha and Beta team crystal comms, Lucas?”
Lucas was tapping busily at his dataview and didn’t reply.
“Do you want us to separate the Alpha and Beta team crystal comms, Lucas?” Nicole repeated the question.
“No, we’ll keep them on the same channel for now,” said Lucas tensely. “I want the Beta team to hear my briefing. In fact, it’s best if everyone in the unit is fully informed about what’s happening, so please set the crystal comms to broadcast over the unit loudspeakers for everyone to hear.”
“Done,” said Nicole briskly.
It was my turn next on the checklist. I took out my dataview, tapped it to make it unfurl, and blinked at a bewildering display. “Erm, there’s something wrong with my tracking display. It seems to be showing multiple zones of the Hive.”
“That’s because it’s showing tracking for both the Alpha and Beta Strike teams, and we’re in different zones,” said Rothan helpfully. “I’ll show you how to set it to focus on the Alpha team.”
He tapped my dataview, and the display changed to show the dots of Strike team members packed closely together in the lift. There were three red words at the top. “Focus Alpha Team.”
“Thank you.” I tapped my circuit button and checked the scrolling lists of names. Matias was in charge of my bodyguards, with the names of the four Strike team candidates listed below him.
“We are green,” I said.
Eli examined his white sash, and read the words on it aloud. “Inter-zone Teen Male Decathlon.” He grinned. “The Liaison team is being creative again.”
“That’s a good reason for a group of teens from different zones to be travelling together,” said Zak, “but I hope no one asks me to do a pole vault.”
“I hope no one asks why I’m travelling with a crowd of male decathletes,” I said.
Adika and my new bodyguards were pulling off their tops to reveal the see-through mesh of their body armour stretched across rippling chest muscles. I turned away to allow them privacy.
Lucas dragged a sash over his head and then started his briefing, his normally calm and reassuring Tactical Commander voice holding an edge of anger. “We’re searching for a pattern specialist called Beckett. He’s a provisional member of my Tactical team, attempting to travel through Teen Level from Keith’s unit to reach us, and we expect him to be in urgent need of assistance.”
He paused. “Liaison, can you please find an image of Beckett and send it to our dataviews? You’d better send it to all the hasties in areas of Teen Level on his possible routes as well. Tell the hasties they shouldn’t approach Beckett if they see him, just send us his location immediately.”
“The only image we can find of Beckett is one taken when he went through Lottery,” said Nicole. “That’s over three years old, and he’s wearing Teen Level clothes of course.”
“That image is perfect,” said Lucas. “Beckett always has the same hairstyle and wears virtually identical clothes. We’ll be transferring to the belt system soon, so I’ll give the rest of the briefing when we’re on the express belt heading north.”
A moment later, the lift arrived on Teen Level. There was a five-second delay before Adika and my bodyguards were all respectably outfitted with white tops labelled Event Official, then we headed for an express belt that was packed with groups of chattering teens.
I wasn’t sure there’d be room for me to join the belt, let alone space for my Strike team as well, but somehow I ended up next to Lucas, with Matias and two of my new bodyguards standing in front of me, and the other two behind. Adika lurked further back, keeping a critical eye on us, while the rest of the Strike team were scattered along the express belt.
Lucas resumed his briefing on the crystal comms. “Beckett was a member of Keith’s Tactical team, but Keith has fired him for coordinating the pattern analysis on Blue Upway.”
“I thought that Gold Commander Melisande ordered Beckett to coordinate that pattern analysis for us,” said Emili.
“She did,” confirmed Lucas.
“You’re saying Keith has fired Beckett for following the orders of Gold Commander Melisande,” said Adika. “That’s extreme even for Keith.”
“Keith hasn’t just fired Beckett,” said Lucas bleakly. “Gaius messaged me a minute ago to say he’s discovered Keith’s erased all their Blue Upway pattern analysis information including the backup copies.”
“Waste it!” Emili’s voice held a despairing note. “Beckett has already sent us the completed geographical pattern analysis, but only Keith’s unit has the timeline pattern analysis information. All the other Tactical teams were using the dedicated secure connection between the Telepath Units to work on it remotely. If we have to redo all that work …”
“Beckett told me that he expected to send us the timeline pattern analysis tomorrow morning,” said Lucas. “I’m hoping he’ll have copied everything to his dataview to do the final integration. Beckett likes to do his work on the same dataview that he used on Teen Level.”
“No dataview could store all the information for the timeline pattern analysis of a Teen Game with thirty thousand players,” said Emili, “and especially not one of the cheap models that teens use.”
“You’ve no idea what Beckett’s dataview is like,” said Lucas. “The outer casing is the same as it was on Teen Level, but he’s had so much extra storage and processing power packed inside it that Gaius jokes it could run the Hive’s central data core.”
“So this search isn’t just for Beckett any longer, but for the dataview that we hope holds our timeline pattern analysis as well,” said Emili.
“Exactly,” said Lucas.
“Why would Keith sabotage our work like this?” asked Adika.
“Keith says he fired Beckett and erased the information because Gaius and Beckett didn’t ask his permission to do the work,” said Lucas. “Keith’s lying though. He really did it because he’s angry about me refusing to let him borrow Buzz.”
“Keith was t
rying to borrow Buzz?” Forge’s shocked voice spoke on the comms. “Why?”
“He claimed that he wanted to borrow her for a few weeks to do some counselling,” said Lucas bitterly. “I refused because I knew Keith wanted to pry around the mind of Amber’s counsellor, so now Keith has fired my friend to punish me.”
“Keith didn’t just fire Beckett,” Megan’s voice joined in the conversation. “He deliberately did it in as cruel a way as possible.”
I was startled by Megan openly criticizing a telepath on the crystal comms. She had to be deeply upset to do that.
“Keith sent Beckett away without the specially customized equipment he needs just to get around a familiar unit without problems,” added Megan. “Beckett will be in a dreadful state travelling alone on the belt system.”
“Specially customized equipment?” Nicole asked sharply. “Are you talking about a powered chair?”
“Megan is talking about a noise-cancelling headset, and light-adjustment glasses, custom designed to prevent Beckett suffering sensory overload,” said Lucas. “Beckett is …”
Lucas broke off his sentence because we were approaching a major belt interchange. There was a minute or two of confusion as one set of teens left the express belt and another joined it. What looked like an entire corridor group of fifteen-year-olds tried to move from the medium to the express belt in the middle of my bodyguard group, but Vance swept me up into his arms while the other three new bodyguards formed a line that blocked their way.
Vance shook his head reprovingly at the corridor group. “We need some space here. Lucas’s girlfriend got a blow on the head from a discus a couple of days ago. She’s started suffering some worrying symptoms, so we’re rushing her to a medical facility for checks.”
One of the girls peered at my bruised cheek and winced. “Your poor face.”
The rest of the corridor group made sympathetic noises, and then the extra speed of the express belt meant we left them behind. When Vance put me down again, I was relieved to find the belt was a little less crowded, and the Strike team members had managed to move into a tighter formation around Lucas and me. I noticed Adika and Matias exchange nods that seemed to be an approving comment on my new bodyguards.
Lucas started speaking again. “Beckett is unusually sensitive to his environment. You can think of it as like having the lights on far too bright a setting, except that it doesn’t just apply to sight, but other senses as well.”
I frowned. When I was using my telepathy, I preferred to be somewhere quiet, and closed my eyes to block out distracting images. I was painfully aware that I’d find it impossible to work on this express belt, because it was so dazzling with overhead lights, and noisy with chattering teen voices. I could see why Beckett would be in deep trouble trying to travel in these conditions.
“When Beckett’s outside his apartment, he wears the headset and glasses that are custom designed to shield him from things like loud noises and flashing lights,” said Lucas. “He prefers to stay in familiar places with people he knows, and retreats to a quiet room when necessary.”
Lucas paused. “Beckett also has a genetically modified comfort cat to assist him. Please remember that you must never touch either Beckett or Cee Cee without Beckett’s explicit consent, and that consent should always be offered by him rather than requested by you.”
Cee Cee was a comfort cat! My parents’ work had involved the selective breeding of some new genetic lines of comfort cats. I knew enough about them to understand why Lucas had been anxiously checking that Beckett had Cee Cee with him.
“Beckett came out of Lottery with me,” said Lucas. “He had an assisted journey to Keith’s unit and hasn’t left it until today. Gaius told Beckett to come to our unit, and he’s trying to do that, but he’s gone back to Teen Level as the most familiar place to make the journey, and its belt system is the most crowded in the Hive.”
Adika spoke in a harsh voice. “So, Lucas refused to let Keith borrow Amber’s counsellor. Now Keith is hurting Lucas’s friend as a way to hurt Lucas. That’s contemptible.”
“You’re right,” said Lucas. “Keith is …”
I made a split-second decision and interrupted Lucas. “It’s actually more complicated than that.”
Lucas gave me a startled look. “What do you mean, Amber?”
Keith was attacking me by attacking my people and those they cared about. My unit members needed to know exactly what was happening here, so they could defend both themselves and me.
I couldn’t admit I’d got information from Mira, because I had to keep the secret of telepaths being in contact with each other. That meant I’d have to claim I’d got knowledge from a chance encounter with someone’s mind. Like the enemy agent story used by desperate Telepath Units, it was an explanation that couldn’t be used too often, but this was an emergency.
“Keith’s real goal isn’t hurting Lucas,” I said. “Keith is trying to hurt me. When I first came out of Lottery, Keith was happy to agree to both Lucas and Megan transferring to my unit. He was finding Megan’s presence in his unit difficult after her husband’s death, and I suspect Lucas was deliberately trying to annoy Keith to make sure he was allowed to leave.”
“That’s true,” said Lucas. “Though I didn’t need to try very hard. Keith found me annoying anyway.”
I sighed. “But Keith has grown jealous of how well our unit is doing, and he got especially angry when Law Enforcement started calling our unit Light Angel. He knew I was in a relationship with Lucas, and had the bright idea of wrecking my happiness by forcing Gold Commander Melisande to transfer Lucas back to work for him again.”
“Keith tried to drag me back to his unit to separate us?” Lucas stared at me. “I hadn’t heard anything about this.”
“That’s because Gold Commander Melisande refused to transfer you, and ordered the other Tactical Commanders to keep Keith’s attempt secret from everyone in our unit. She didn’t want me to find out about it in case I did something to hit back at Keith.”
Lucas was looking distracted, clearly thinking through past events, but I still phrased my next words in a carefully vague way. “Telepaths can stumble across secrets in people’s minds though. I found out what had happened, but decided not to tell any of you about it. Conflict between telepaths is bad for the Hive, and I hoped Keith would stop causing trouble.”
I grimaced. “Keith didn’t stop though. He’s still attacking me now, so you all need to know what’s going on. I’m perfectly sure Keith wasn’t just trying to borrow Buzz, but intended to keep her permanently, and he may try the same trick with others of you as well.”
Adika spoke in tones of barely restrained anger. “Keith tried to take Lucas, who isn’t just our Tactical Commander but Amber’s partner. Then Keith tried to take Amber’s counsellor. Now he’s fired one of his own unit members to upset Lucas, and destroyed vitally needed information on our current case.”
I’d felt the emotion building in my Strike team members during this conversation. I hadn’t realized some of that emotion was coming from the new Strike team candidates until I heard Vance speak from in front of me.
“Keith tried playing some petty tricks on Claire at one point. She chose to ignore them for the same reason that Amber was keeping these problems quiet, because conflict between telepaths was bad for the Hive. Trying to take another telepath’s partner and her counsellor goes well beyond petty tricks though.”
“What are we going to do about this?” demanded Adika.
“We’re going to rescue Beckett, and then I’m going to talk to Gold Commander Melisande,” said Lucas.
“We’re going to rescue Beckett, and then we’re both going to talk to Gold Commander Melisande,” I said grimly. “I hate arguments, and I’ve no wish to fuel a conflict that could harm the Hive, but Keith has to stop attacking my people.”
Chapter Twenty-five
We rode on along the express belt in grim silence for the next two minutes, then Nicole spoke on the crys
tal comms. “A hasty patrol has sent us a report of someone they think could have been Beckett. He was close to the southbound half of the express belt you’re riding now, sitting by the bulkhead doors between Red and Orange Zones with his eyes closed.”
“Why would Beckett be sitting by the bulkhead doors?” asked Adika.
“I think it’s because of the countdown numbers,” said Lucas. “Beckett did heroically well, he found the best express belt to reach our unit, and rode it until he heard the warning that the zone bulkhead was approaching. Most of the teens would have stayed on the belt to jump the narrow gap between the end of the Red Zone belt and the start of the Orange Zone belt, but Beckett would have obeyed the safety instructions to leave the belt and walk across the boundary.”
Lucas shook his head. “Beckett did everything right, but the warning for the zone bulkhead approaching is followed by a lot of red signs with flashing countdown numbers. Beckett would have found all those flashing signs overwhelming without his light-adjustment glasses, so he’d need to find somewhere to sit down and close his eyes to recover.”
“The hasty patrol reports that some teen musicians arrived a few minutes ago and began performing,” said Nicole. “A crowd formed and blocked their view of Beckett. The patrol moved to a position where they could see where Beckett had been sitting, but he’d gone by then.”
“I don’t believe Beckett could have recovered quickly enough to get back on the belt,” said Lucas. “He’s either gone somewhere away from the crowds and the music, or is still trying to reach our unit by walking beside the southbound express belt. How many belt interchanges are there before we reach the bulkhead doors, Nicole?”
“Only one,” said Nicole.
“The Alpha team will jump belt at the next interchange,” said Lucas. “Forge, your Beta team can move to a separate crystal comms channel now if you want.”
“We won’t arrive in Blue Zone for a while,” Forge responded. “We’d rather stay listening in to your progress until we know Beckett is all right.”
Borderline (Hive Mind Book 4) Page 25