I gazed down at the Level 66 beach. I seemed to be looking out from somewhere high up on its side cliffs. Directly below me, waves were gently rolling in towards the sand, and people were paddling in the water. The long length of the beach stretched off into the distance.
As a teen, I’d spent a lot of days on the Teen Level beach with Forge and my best friend, Shanna, who’d been his girlfriend back then. So many hours spent either swimming myself or sitting on the sand and watching Forge surf, but I’d never noticed there were viewing points high in the cliffs. I’d never realized there were maintenance ladders and corridors running over the sky. Far more importantly, I’d never known there was any danger in my world.
I’d learned so much since Lottery. I’d changed so much since Lottery. I had an odd moment, where I seemed to see my past self sitting on the beach below me, talking to Shanna and Forge.
That Amber had been terrified going into Lottery, fearing she’d be judged as virtually useless, but now I was a cossetted, protected telepath, effectively even higher than Level 1.
What would have happened if I hadn’t been a telepath but just an ordinary girl? What life would that other Amber be living now? What profession would she have? How far down the Hive would she be, and would she be as delighted with her work as Forge?
In the early days of being a telepath, I’d often wished I could be that other Amber, living the life of an ordinary girl again. Now I’d accepted it would never happen. Not just because my Hive needed me as a telepath, but because going back to being my old self would be like wearing an outgrown dress from when I was six years old. I still couldn’t help wondering what my Lottery result would have been if I’d gone through the full standard testing process.
“We need to move on, Amber.”
Forge’s voice drew me back to reality, and I hurried guiltily on down the corridor, slowing as I saw another ladder ahead.
Forge gave me an encouraging smile. “You can do this, Amber. I’ll be right below you all the way down.”
He started climbing down the ladder. I made a whimpering noise and followed him.
“Lucas, please tell me I’ll never have to do anything like this again.”
“If possible, we’ll get Sapphire to deal with future beach emergencies,” said Lucas, “but she won’t be available all the time.”
“Does it have to be Sapphire that helps? I know Morton can’t climb ladders, but what about Mira and Keith?”
“Mira has low dexterity,” said Lucas. “Her Tactical Commander won’t risk her on ladders.”
“And Keith?”
“Keith’s Tactical Commander has decided that Keith shouldn’t go near beaches.”
I blinked. “Why not?”
There was an awkward silence on the crystal comms, and then the strained voice of Megan, my Senior Administrator, spoke. “The last time Keith went on an emergency run to a beach, my husband died.”
Waste it! I gripped the ladder tightly, and gave myself a moment to get my voice under control before replying.
“I’m sorry, Megan. I didn’t know that happened at a beach.”
“It happened at the Level 81 beach,” said Lucas. “It was one of the last emergency runs Keith did when I was deputy leader of his Tactical team. Keith’s telepathy cut out in the middle of the run, and it ended disastrously.”
Lucas made a soft groaning noise. “Keith has always had a problem with his telepathy failing without warning. Sometimes it only cuts out for a minute or two, but it can be for as long as a full day. His Tactical team thought it was happening randomly, but we did an in-depth statistical analysis after the beach run, which showed nearby crowds of people could be a contributing factor. Keith’s Tactical Commander, Gaius, decided that Keith should avoid beaches and major event venues in future.”
“I understand.” I forced myself to start moving down the ladder again. I should never have asked why Keith’s Tactical Commander didn’t want him going near beaches. There was bound to be a good reason for that decision. Now I was feeling horribly guilty. This run was bound to be distressing for Megan, reminding her of how her husband died, and I’d made things even worse.
I seemed to spend a lot of time feeling guilty about Megan. She organized the everyday running of my unit perfectly, arranged every conceivable luxury for me, and when I needed her support she was unfailingly there for me. I should be grateful, I should care for Megan the same way she cared for me, but the unpleasant truth was that I often found her deeply irritating.
To make matters worse, I didn’t know why I felt that way. There’d been two good reasons for me to be annoyed with Megan in the past. Her arguments with Adika had made life difficult for me and the rest of the unit. Her duties as Senior Administrator had included acting as both my personal doctor and counsellor, and the counselling had been an utter failure.
But neither of those things were a problem any longer. Adika and Megan had sorted out their relationship. They’d come up with an arrangement that I thought was unusual – getting engaged but delaying the marriage to allow Megan to use stored tissue samples to have her late husband’s child – but seemed to make them happy.
Lucas and I had solved the counselling difficulties by recruiting a new counsellor for me, someone who had the great advantage of being one of the thousand borderline telepaths that Lottery discovered each year. Buzz didn’t have conscious control of her abilities like me, only getting intermittent glimpses of the strongest thoughts in other minds, but that was enough for me to feel she had some understanding of my life.
So all the old conflict areas between me and Megan were gone. The worst complaint I could make against her now was that she was obsessively tidy while I was the exact opposite. Why did I still find her so annoying? Why did …?
My right foot tried to find the next rung of the ladder but hit solid floor instead. I looked down, totally bewildered. Yes, I’d reached the bottom of the ladder.
“All the way down without a single panic attack,” said Forge, in a delighted voice. “High up, Amber!”
I gave a shaky laugh. It seemed that the best way for me to avoid being worried about heights was to be worried about something else instead.
“We just need to walk a bit further along this corridor now,” added Forge briskly.
My bodyguards and I headed along the corridor in formation. I could hear thumping sounds again.
Forge stopped and pointed at one of the corridor walls. “The Level 67 wave machinery area is on the other side of this wall.”
I nodded, sat on the floor, closed my eyes, and reached out with my telepathic sense. The clamour of the Level 68 beach was as loud as before, but it was crucially behind me now. Ahead of me, I sensed a completely blank area.
No, I was wrong. That wasn’t a blank area in front of me. I was deafened, dazzled, distracted by the mass of minds on the nearby beaches, but there was a scattering of other minds here as well. Most of them were the familiar sound, scent, shape of members of my Strike team, positioned to form a sort of huge globe, but near the centre of that globe …
“Target acquired,” I said. “There’s a problem though. Irwin’s got his daughter with him.”
Chapter Four
“Irwin can’t have his daughter with him,” said Lucas, in a confused voice. “Irwin’s daughter is at a medical facility with her mother and her injured stepfather. We’ve got a team of hasties guarding them.”
“Irwin’s daughter isn’t at the medical facility,” I said. “She’s standing right next to him. They’re on some sort of walkway running over the top of a line of big wave tanks. The tanks have numbers painted on the side. Irwin and his daughter are standing directly above wave tank 291.”
I was seeing the view through Irwin’s eyes. I was hearing the gushing of water through his ears. I was feeling the fine water spray hitting his skin, and both tasting and smelling the salt in the air. Most importantly of all though, I was sharing his thoughts about this place.
There were pro
per lights in here, rather than power saving, motion-activated lighting, because in normal circumstances at least one person was on duty in wave machinery areas. Some types of wave tank failure could cause freak waves that endangered people on the beaches, so they needed to be seen and dealt with quickly.
The lights illuminated the line of vast wave tanks, stretching off into the distance in both directions. All those tanks were rapidly filling with churning water. If I’d been alone in my own head, and physically standing on this narrow walkway, I’d have been terrified. It was little more than a strip of metal grating, with only a single safety rail on each side to prevent the unwary from falling into the tanks below.
I wasn’t in my own head at this moment though. I was in Irwin’s mind and experiencing his love of this place. I smiled at the blonde-haired girl next to me, and then looked down at the tanks. As the water level reached the halfway point, all the water abruptly dropped downwards, vanishing off somewhere below with a thumping, whooshing noise.
… been wanting to bring Christie here to see the wave machinery for so long, but her mother …
I, Irwin, shouted to make myself heard over the noise. “The water gets pumped up into these tanks and then dropped down chutes to make the waves on the Level 67 beach. At the moment, the wave machinery is set for swimming. On a surfing day, the tanks fill right up to the top, so they create much bigger waves.”
The part of me that was still Amber heard Lucas’s voice speaking on the crystal comms. “Liaison, please check if Irwin’s daughter is still at the medical facility.”
“I’m talking to the leader of the hasty team right now,” said Nicole. “He says Christie is definitely there. He’s standing right next to her.”
“Irwin must have another daughter that we didn’t know about,” said Lucas. “How old is the girl with him, Amber, and is there any clue to her name?”
“She looks about eleven years old to me, and she’s called Christie,” I reported, as bewildered as everyone else. “Irwin’s enjoying explaining the wave machinery to her. He’s wanted to bring Christie here for years, but her mother said it was too dangerous.”
“Irwin can’t have two daughters called Christie,” said Lucas. “Or could he? If he’s been leading a secret double life with two different families, he might deliberately use the same names for the children to make the lying easier.”
“I can’t believe anyone could successfully hide having two different families,” said the voice of Lucas’s deputy, Emili. “The central data storage integrity checks would spot it within days.”
“Keith’s unit had a case last year where someone had successfully hidden having two families for sixteen years,” said Lucas. “I admit that person had the advantage of working in data storage though. If Irwin doesn’t have two daughters, then … Amber, is that a real girl, or is she a figment of Irwin’s imagination?”
I disentangled myself from Irwin’s thoughts, and moved to study the mind next to him.
… the ice cream was good, and this place is thrilling. Like something out of a weird dream. I wish the man would stop calling me Christie though. I’ve told him that’s not my name twice already, but perhaps he didn’t hear me. It’s noisy here and …
“The girl must be real because I can read her mind. She isn’t Irwin’s daughter though. She’s never seen him before today, and she’s getting annoyed about him calling her Christie. She was on the Level 67 beach, and Irwin offered to buy her an ice cream and show her the wave machinery. She thinks this place is thrillingly weird and dreamlike.”
Adika groaned. “This is the downside of making everyone believe the Hive is a completely safe place. The girl wouldn’t see any danger in accepting an ice cream from a stranger and going off with him.”
“So Irwin isn’t imagining the girl exists,” said Lucas thoughtfully, “he’s just imagining that she’s his daughter. Do you know what the girl’s real name is, Amber, and whether she was at the beach with her family or by herself?”
I returned to the girl’s mind, scanning through the levels of her thoughts for clues. “It’s frustratingly rare for people to think of their own names. Ah, the girl has visited this beach twice before with her family, but she came here alone this time. I was wrong about her age, she’s younger than she looks, and today is her Freedom Day. She rode the express belt all the way from Purple Zone to spend the day on the beach.”
“It’s the girl’s Freedom Day,” repeated Lucas. “Yesterday was her tenth birthday, and her parents took her to get her tracking bracelet removed. That’s a hugely significant moment in a child’s life. Her parents probably held a bracelet party for the girl and her friends that evening, and today she was excused from school for her Freedom Day.”
“Lucas, it doesn’t matter if today is the girl’s Freedom Day or not,” said Adika impatiently. “Nothing matters except to get her out of the wave machinery area alive. You should call the strike now.”
“I’m not rushing into calling a strike when I don’t understand the situation. What’s Irwin thinking about now, Amber?”
I swapped to Irwin’s mind. “Curiously, he doesn’t just believe the girl is his daughter. He also thinks the Halloween Festival is starting tomorrow rather than happening a couple of months ago. He was supposed to take Christie to buy a Halloween costume, but he sneaked her off to the Level 67 beach to show her the wave machinery instead.”
“It sounds like Irwin is reliving genuine events which happened on the day before Halloween,” said Lucas. “Nicole, can you check that for me?”
“Waste it!” said Adika. “You mean we’ve got a target who’s operating in a different reality from the rest of us, and he’s taken a vulnerable child hostage. How could Saanvi and Katelyn have let that happen?”
“This situation isn’t their fault,” said Lucas. “When Irwin arrived at the Level 67 beach, Morton saw him thinking about the wave machinery, but then lost contact with his thoughts because the beach was so crowded. When the Strike team arrived a few minutes later, they found the maintenance entrance door in the cliffs had been left open, which confirmed Irwin had gone inside. Saanvi had no hint at all that Irwin had taken a girl hostage.”
He paused. “But even if Saanvi had known Irwin had a hostage, she’d still have had to call for emergency handover. Morton couldn’t either regain contact with Irwin’s mind or follow him into the maintenance area. The statistics on hostage scenarios are brutally clear. Sending a Strike team in to rescue a hostage without telepathic support more than doubles the chance of the hostage dying.”
“I’ve just spoken to Irwin’s ex-wife,” said Nicole. “She confirms that Irwin was taking care of Christie on the day before Halloween and took her to visit the wave machinery. Irwin’s supervisor caught them in there, filed a report about Irwin taking a child into an extreme hazard area, and Irwin got called in to see the Beach Controller. Irwin’s been assigned to night sand duty ever since then.”
“What’s night sand duty?” asked Lucas.
“The night patrol to clean up litter from the beach and rake the sand flat,” said Nicole. “The Beach Controller also reported Irwin’s behaviour to his therapist, his ex-wife, Emergency Services, Child Protection, Law Enforcement, and Hive Defence.”
I blinked. “Reporting it to Hive Defence seems a bit of an overreaction.”
“I’m skimming through Irwin’s work records,” said Nicole. “There have been three different Level 67 Beach Controllers in the last eighteen years, and they’ve all had difficulty dealing with Irwin. The current Beach Controller has been coping with his behaviour for nearly three years. I don’t know why … Ah!”
“Ah?” Lucas questioned.
“I’ve just seen the Beach Controller’s transcript of her interview with Irwin. He called her some names I’d rather not repeat. I’m not surprised she reported him to everyone possible.”
“And what was done in response to those reports?” asked Lucas.
“Irwin’s child access rights we
re removed, and he was put on a more intensive course of therapy,” said Nicole. “Unfortunately, that was of limited help. The therapist’s records say that Irwin won’t accept his actions contributed to his problems. He blames everything on his ex-wife, his supervisor, and the Beach Controller. He thinks they’re conspiring against him.”
“You’d better send all the records to my Tactical team for analysis,” said Lucas, “but the sequence of events seems clear. Irwin lost his post in the wave machinery area, was forbidden to see his daughter again, and was forced to undergo more intensive therapy. He blamed everyone but himself for what happened, and the discovery that his ex-wife had remarried tipped him over the edge into making a violent attack on her new husband. He was caught in the act by a nosy squad, and fled, but must have known he’d be hunted down.”
Lucas made a pained noise. “Irwin instinctively went to the Level 67 beach, and saw a girl who reminded him of his daughter. He hasn’t just taken physical refuge in the familiarity of the wave machinery area, but taken mental refuge in reliving his last few happy hours with his daughter. As long as Irwin remains in his fantasy world, believing the girl is his daughter, she’s perfectly safe. If we do anything to shatter Irwin’s fantasy though, he’ll instantly return to both reality and his state of violent anger. His past behaviour suggests he won’t accept responsibility for fantasizing about the girl, but blame her for deceiving him.”
“You think Irwin will react to a return to reality by harming the girl?” asked Adika.
“Yes,” said Lucas. “He’s already made the critical progression from verbal to physical attacks by stabbing a man. I’m looking at images of a typical wave machinery area right now. The line of wave tanks has to be as long as the beach it serves to create the full length of the waves.”
He sighed. “Irwin and the girl are standing on the maintenance walkway running above the line of tanks. They’re above wave tank 291, about a quarter of the way along the line. Irwin will see anyone who comes along the walkway towards them.”
Hurricane (Hive Mind Book 3) Page 3