Borderline (Hive Mind Book 4)

by Janet Edwards

  She shrugged. “Well, the medical facility arranged for me to have another six-month course of therapy, put me down as a candidate for the Halloween Lottery, and sent me back to Teen Level. I decided the only way I’d ever escape Bruce was to be a bigger liar than him. I told everyone, including my own family, that the stress of going into Lottery had given me a recurrence of my old trauma, and I was returning to Teen Level for a whole year rather than six months.”

  She winced. “Going back to my room on Teen Level was like going back in time to just after the Blue Zone power cut. More therapy, more hiding in my room, more running Blue Upway, more listening to Bruce crash into my door or stand making loud dataview calls outside it. After six months, I sneaked off to go through the Halloween Lottery.”

  “And this time you made it to the test centre,” I said.

  “Yes,” said Michaela. “I was so scared of someone stopping me again, that I made absolutely sure there were no clues that I was going into Lottery. I didn’t say goodbye to the other teens. I didn’t shut down the game master stack of Blue Upway. I didn’t take a bag with me. I just walked into the Lottery test centre barehanded.”

  She laughed. “The testing staff assumed I’d been panicking so much about going into Lottery that I’d managed to lose my bag on the way, and were very helpful about finding me a change of clothes. After everything that had happened to me, I was expecting Lottery to send me to scrub slime vats at the bottom of the Hive. Instead, I was told on the morning of the fourth day that I’d been selected to be a Senior Ambassador. My imprinting was completed late that afternoon, and I went straight to Elliott’s apartment. When I told him my Lottery result, he was stunned at me doing so well.”

  “I wasn’t stunned that you’d done well,” said Elliott. “I was stunned that you’d gone through Lottery without telling us.”

  “Elliott called the rest of the family,” said Michaela, “and my other brother and sisters came over to celebrate. My imprint included the truth about telepaths, which made me suspicious about the claim that a nosy had read Bruce’s mind after I was attacked. I finally told my family what had happened when I went into the Carnival Lottery, and about Bruce’s habit of lurking outside my room door.”

  “I was livid,” said Elliott. “I called Law Enforcement to find out what had really happened when Michaela reported the attack. It turned out that the hasty had gone to talk to Bruce, and found out he had a dozen witnesses to say he was eating breakfast at the local community centre when Michaela was attacked. Bruce told the hasty that he’d had to drop Michaela from the surfing team for causing trouble. He claimed Michaela kept inventing this sort of story about him, and he was so charmingly credible about it that the hasty told Michaela that a nosy had read Bruce’s mind to shut her up.”

  “Bruce had probably got one of the surfing team to lock Michaela in the storeroom, saying it was a joke and he’d let her out a few minutes later,” said Lucas.

  “That was what we thought as well,” said Elliott. “I was determined to get Law Enforcement to deal with Bruce, but my first priority had to be keeping Michaela safe. It was obvious that Bruce was obsessed with punishing her.”

  “Michaela’s Lottery result had already been posted,” said Paula. “We were afraid Bruce would see it and react by making another attack on her.”

  “We had a delegation preparing to leave for Hive Genex,” said Elliott, “and I decided to send Michaela with them to make sure she was absolutely safe.”

  “The urgency of the mission, and the length of the journey to Hive Genex, meant the aircraft was leaving at midnight,” said Michaela. “I had less than two hours to borrow suitable clothes from my sisters, pack, and get to the aircraft hangar. At the last minute, I remembered to tell my family about me running Blue Upway.”

  She paused. “I knew all the dataviews in the game master stack would have already run out of power, but I still didn’t like the idea of leaving them lying in my room for weeks or months while I was away. I told my brothers and sisters that the game master stack was in a crate in my room, gave them my door code, and asked them to make sure the dataviews were destroyed.”

  Elliott gave a depressed sigh. “Once Michaela had left for Hive Genex, Paula and I had a quick chat. We agreed that I’d call a Telepath Unit the next morning and ask for a telepath to read Bruce’s mind, while Paula would deal with the Blue Upway game master stack.”

  “If you’d called a Telepath Unit, then Bruce would have been arrested months ago,” said Lucas. “We’ve already worked out that Bruce stole the game master stack while Michaela was in Lottery testing. Presumably, Paula discovered it was missing when she went to Michaela’s room, and Bruce has been using it to blackmail your family ever since.”

  Elliott nodded.

  “But why did you give in to Bruce’s blackmail?” asked Lucas. “How could the game master stack be such a threat to you? Had Michaela stored some important secret information on the dataviews?”

  “No, the problem was just that Bruce was threatening to report Michaela’s involvement in Blue Upway to Law Enforcement,” said Elliott.

  “Surely you knew Law Enforcement wouldn’t have arrested Michaela for that,” said Lucas.

  “Oh, we all knew that running a well-behaved Teen Game was only technically illegal,” said Elliott, “but Law Enforcement were bound to keep records of Bruce’s report.”

  “So why was that a problem?” I asked in bewilderment. “Most of the people in my Telepath Unit seem to have a past history of playing or running Teen Games. Lucas was a Game Commander himself, and even my Senior Administrator confessed to having been a twice-ranked Colonel. I realize that things are probably rather different in Hive Politics, but would the public revelation that she’d been running a Teen Game really have destroyed Michaela’s career and caused trouble for the rest of you?”

  “It would have been a little awkward,” said Michaela. “Mainly because someone would have to give me an official reprimand for past disreputable behaviour on Teen Level, and warn me not to repeat it in future.”

  “And Elliott would have to do that himself,” added Paula. “It wouldn’t be fair to ask someone else to give an official reprimand to the adored baby sister of the head of Hive Politics.”

  “But that wouldn’t damage Michaela’s career,” said Declan. “Nobody takes reprimands about Teen Level behaviour seriously. They’re just a formality to make sure people arriving from Lottery appreciate that they need to act more carefully as members of Hive Politics. Elliot got reprimanded himself when he started working in Hive Politics, and it hasn’t stopped him reaching the highest position.”

  “So why did you surrender to Bruce’s blackmail if he couldn’t harm your careers?” asked Lucas.

  “We didn’t surrender to Bruce’s blackmail because he could harm our careers, but because he could harm our Hive,” said Elliott. “The political complications began the moment our delegation arrived at Hive Genex.”

  Chapter Thirty-six

  “As soon as our diplomatic aircraft landed, we received a message from the Joint Hive Treaty Enforcement inspection team,” said Michaela. “They’d just discovered that Hive Genex’s attempt to kidnap Amber had been their fourth such attack against our Hive. The first three attacks had succeeded in kidnapping less valuable citizens.”

  I gasped. “Three people had been taken before me!”

  “The inspection team had been holding those three people in protective custody until we arrived,” said Michaela. “They asked if we wished to register a claim on them, which left us facing a major problem. The claim about Amber’s kidnapping had been registered days beforehand. Our delegation had been expecting to take part in negotiations about penalties and compensation arrangements for that kidnapping, not registering an entirely new claim.”

  “I’d sent an Ambassador with general diplomatic skills as the leader of the delegation,” said Elliott, “with specialists in negotiating compensation arrangements to assist her. I hadn’t
sent a specialist Adversary with the knowledge to register claims against another Hive. I’d added Michaela at the last minute though, and her Senior Ambassador imprint included every type of diplomatic role.”

  “So that’s the equivalent of a Tactical Commander being imprinted with every type of tactical role?” I asked.

  “Exactly,” said Elliott.

  “Our delegation had to decide whether we should risk me registering a claim immediately, and possibly making a mistake that meant it was rejected, or delay while an experienced specialist Adversary was flown out to join us,” said Michaela. “The problem was that our three citizens had been kidnapped before they were imprinted by our Hive, so they’d been given imprints by Hive Genex. If we didn’t register a claim immediately, the inspection team would release the people from protective custody, and Hive Genex would seize their chance to remove the imprinted knowledge before our specialist Adversary arrived.”

  “Removing an imprint messes up all the associated personal memories,” I said anxiously.

  “Yes,” said Elliott. “Registering our claim immediately would mean the three people remained in protective custody until Joint Hive Treaty Enforcement ruled on the case. If they decided that the three people belonged to our Hive, they’d be handed over to us with their imprints intact, while Hive Genex would have no reason to remove the imprints if they were allowed to keep the people.”

  “So registering the claim protected the people’s memories,” I said.

  “There was also the point that the knowledge in those Hive Genex imprints could be staggeringly valuable to our Hive,” said Ambassador Paula drily. “Hive Genex has more advanced technology than us in several areas.”

  “I thought that people transferring Hive always had their imprints removed,” said Lucas.

  “If a Hive imprints knowledge on the mind of one of its own citizens, and that citizen chooses to leave, then their Hive has the right to remove that knowledge before they go,” said Elliott. “If a Hive chooses to imprint knowledge on the mind of a kidnapped citizen of another Hive, then legally speaking they’ve given the knowledge away.”

  “There was a huge amount at stake,” said Michaela. “I made an emergency call to Elliott and gabbled a three-sentence explanation of the situation. I knew Hive Genex was probably monitoring our communications, so I couldn’t raise the issue of me being tainted by running Blue Upway, but I’d told Elliott about that the night before.”

  “Tainted?” I asked, in confusion. “What does that mean?”

  “If an Adversary has a personal history of criminal activity,” said Paula, “then Joint Hive Treaty Enforcement considers them tainted, and regards the claims they register and the evidence they present as suspect.”

  Lucas frowned. “A couple of minutes ago, you said that you all knew running a well-behaved Teen Game was only technically illegal. Law Enforcement wouldn’t consider Michaela guilty of any crimes, or take any action against her, so why would she be tainted?”

  “Law Enforcement might not consider Michaela guilty of any crimes,” said Elliott. “Joint Hive Treaty Enforcement is a different matter entirely.”

  “Members of Joint Hive Treaty Enforcement don’t understand the concept of something being technically illegal but tolerated as beneficial to the Hive,” said Paula. “If a rule exists, then you either obey it or you are a criminal. There is no middle ground, no mitigating circumstance, no space for compassion. If Joint Hive Treaty Enforcement finds out Michaela was running Blue Upway, it will consider her tainted.”

  “I see,” muttered Lucas.

  “Michaela’s emergency call came in when I was still asleep,” said Elliott. “I woke up, grabbed my dataview, listened to her explain the problem, and had to make an instant decision. I knew that if Joint Hive Treaty Enforcement found out about Michaela running Blue Upway, then she’d be considered tainted, but there was nothing on record about it. The only evidence of her involvement was held on the game master stack, which we were about to destroy. Besides, we had a hundred per cent right to our kidnapped citizens, so being tainted couldn’t make a difference to the final ruling.”

  He paused. “I was more worried by the fact Michaela had only been imprinted the previous afternoon. Registering the claim involved her having to reply to a series of legal challenges by a Hive Genex Adversary.”

  Lucas nodded. “The Senior Ambassador imprint must be a sizeable one. Michaela’s brain wouldn’t have had time to integrate the data properly.”

  “We had to take the gamble though,” said Elliott. “I told Michaela to commit, so she registered the claim.”

  “The Hive Genex Adversary must have been gloating when Michaela walked into the Joint Hive Treaty Enforcement Chamber to face him,” said Declan. “He’d have known from her age that she couldn’t have registered many claims before. If he’d known that she wasn’t a specialist Adversary, and had only been imprinted the previous afternoon …”

  “Michaela made it through the challenges brilliantly,” said Elliott, “and Joint Hive Treaty Enforcement notified me that our claim had been accepted for deliberation.”

  He gave a despairing wave of his hands. “Ten minutes later, Paula arrived and told me the game master stack of Blue Upway had gone.”

  Lucas pulled a sympathetic face.

  “We were still trying to work out what had happened when Bruce called me,” continued Elliott sadly. “He said that he’d discovered Michaela was missing the day after she went into Lottery. He’d told Accommodation Services that he needed to collect belongings for an injured team member, and borrowed one of the tools they use to override teen room locks. He’d then let himself into Michaela’s room, and found the game master stack for Blue Upway.”

  Elliott groaned. “That was when Bruce told me how he’d learned the truth about telepaths. He threatened to report Michaela’s involvement with Blue Upway to Law Enforcement and give them the game master stack as evidence. He said that if we didn’t want Michaela’s career in Hive Politics to start with a massive scandal, then we’d have to do him a few small favours.”

  “Quite large favours actually,” said Paula grimly.

  “I wanted to call Law Enforcement to arrest Bruce,” said Elliott, “but I was nervous about Michaela registering the claim at Hive Genex. I knew that if I contacted Law Enforcement, they’d put lots of records on the central data core about Bruce, and those were bound to include something about Michaela running Blue Upway.”

  He sighed. “Our claim on our kidnapped citizens was perfectly straightforward, so I estimated it would only take two weeks for Joint Hive Treaty Enforcement to make its ruling. I decided our safest option was to placate Bruce by doing his few favours until our three people were returned to us.”

  “Unfortunately, that encouraged Bruce to believe the information about Blue Upway was a devastating threat to Michaela,” said Francesca.

  “The following day, Joint Hive Treaty Enforcement contacted our delegation again,” said Michaela. “We’d assumed that the three people had all been kidnapped relatively soon before Amber, so were about her age. It turned out that they’d been kidnapped well over three decades ago.”

  “I’d been wondering why no one in our Hive had gone through the records and got suspicious about what happened to those three people,” said Lucas. “I suppose someone did search the records, but they hadn’t gone back as far as three decades.”

  “Exactly,” said Michaela. “Twenty-seven years ago, Hive Genex put the kidnapped people in their duty child programme to have six children each. Those children now range in age from nineteen to twenty-six.”

  She paused. “The claim I’d registered had been automatically extended to cover these eighteen children, who all had one parent from our Hive and one parent from Hive Genex. That obviously made the case far more complicated, and involved a Joint Hive Treaty Enforcement inspection team checking evidence at both Hives.”

  “The situation with the children is that Hive Genex and our Hive ha
ve equal genetic claims on them,” said Elliott. “The Joint Hive Treaty Enforcement inspection team has just completed the checks on birth records and other information held in the central data core of Hive Genex. After the New Year festival, the inspection team will come to our Hive to check our central data core.”

  I gulped. “A Joint Hive Treaty Enforcement inspection team is coming here!”

  Elliott nodded. “The issue of Michaela being tainted is now crucial. Hive Genex’s claim is weakened by them having kidnapped the other parent from our Hive. The inspectors will be checking our Hive’s central data core. If they discover evidence linking Michaela to Blue Upway, then she will be tainted, and it could change a guaranteed win for our Hive to a win for Hive Genex.”

  “That’s why we’ve had to give in to Bruce’s blackmail for so long,” said Declan bitterly. “The few favours turned out to be a lot of favours, and two weeks turned into a couple of months.”

  “Couldn’t you just remove any evidence from our central data core before the inspectors arrive?” I asked.

  Six faces gave me pitying looks. “My specialism is security,” said Declan. “The inspection team will include experts in forensic examination of data cores. They’ll find anything that’s ever been added.”

  “So Bruce has been using Blue Upway to blackmail you,” said Lucas. “He thinks you’re giving him what he demands to protect Michaela’s career. You’re actually protecting our Hive’s claim on those eighteen children and the knowledge in their imprints.”

  “That’s right,” said Elliott.

  My mind was fully occupied wondering how I’d feel if I was told I belonged to a different Hive. “Don’t these people have the right to decide which Hive they belong to?”

  “The eighteen children are allowing Joint Hive Treaty Enforcement to make the decision on their behalf,” said Michaela.