I pulled a reluctant face.
“Amber, you need to understand that any delay on your part would only increase the danger for me, and risk the lives of other members of our unit as well,” said Lucas. “Our aircraft will be waiting on the beach during this run. In a crisis, the first priority of the Strike team has to be defending you and getting you on board one of those aircraft. Only when you’re safely airborne will they be able to switch their focus to evacuating the rest of us. We’d be abandoning our equipment, so we’d only need three aircraft to carry everyone.”
Lucas was telling me that any delay on my part could cause his death, or the deaths of some other members of my unit, like Buzz, Nicole, or Hannah. I knew the stakes were far higher than that though.
If I delayed following orders and was killed, if our Hive lost both Morton and me, then Melisande might have to sacrifice four zones of the Hive instead of two. It wouldn’t just be Purple and Violet Zones shut away behind a locked bulkhead at the southern end of the Hive, but Blue and Navy Zones too. I had grown up in Blue Zone, so the forty million people behind the locked bulkhead would include my parents and brother.
“If the situation becomes violent, I’ll follow evacuation orders immediately,” I said. “There’s a flaw in your plan though. You and I have acclimatized to going Outside, and so have the Strike team, but most of our unit members would be too terrified to go out of the beach exit. You need to have some of the aircraft waiting in the Haven aircraft hangar.”
Lucas shook his head. “In the event of mass violence, the Strike team couldn’t escort a mass of non-combatants safely through the long inside route to the aircraft hangar. Everyone would have to evacuate from the beach.”
“But that can’t possibly work,” I said fiercely. “Buzz might be able to get to the aircraft, because she’s been working on breaking her conditioned fear of going Outside for weeks, but nobody else would stand a chance.”
Lucas was putting on his heavy-duty combat armour now, transforming himself into a formidable warrior like the members of my Strike team. “The Tactical and Liaison teams had to learn to cope with looking at images of Outside when we went on the camping trip. There’s a chance that some of them can take the further step of going Outside and reaching the aircraft unaided. Anyone who can’t go Outside voluntarily, or allow a Strike team member to carry them Outside without fighting, will have to be shot on stun.”
I pictured Rothan shooting his girlfriend, Emili, and running to the aircraft with her unconscious body in his arms. “There has to be a better way than that.”
“The better way is to persuade the sea farm population to trust us. We’ll be doing everything we can to achieve that.” Lucas put his outdoor jacket on over his body armour and nodded. “We can turn our ear crystals back on now.”
My hand trembled as I adjusted the setting on my ear crystal. I didn’t know exactly how Celandine had died, whether it had been due to deliberate murder or an accident, but I did know Morton was responsible. Why was I putting the lives of everyone in my unit at risk to save him?
But I wasn’t really doing this to save Morton. I was doing this to save the twenty million people in the Purple and Violet Zones of the Hive. I was a telepath who saw the secret thoughts of others, sharing their dreams and feeling their emotions as strongly as my own. Right now, I was thinking of one mind that I’d read only days ago, one life that had briefly intersected with mine, one person among the twenty million in jeopardy.
This case had begun when my Strike team and I went to the Level 67 beach to help Morton with a target. We’d saved a courageous ten-year-old child and watched her happily run off along the sand. Glenna would have enjoyed the rest of her day, and then gone back to her home and family. The home and family that were in Purple Zone.
We had saved Glenna once, and now we needed to save her again.
Chapter Twenty-six
The notice on the fire doors that led to corridor 5 screamed a warning in bright red capital letters. “DANGER OUTSIDE.” Beyond them was a disappointingly ordinary looking corridor, with a blank wall on the left-hand side, and apartment doors on the right.
As Lucas and I walked on down the corridor, I was aware of the awkwardness of moving in the combination of my combat armour and bulky clothing. When our team went on our camping trip, we’d worn special clothing that was designed for the conditions Outside. We’d taken the same clothing on our trip to Hive Futura, but found the temperature Outside had got far colder than before due to something called winter.
Since then, Rothan had ordered us entirely new sets of clothing that he said would be better in winter conditions. This was the first time I’d worn mine, and I thought they had far too much padding. The temperature in our base corridors was chillier than back at the Hive, and I had my jacket undone and the hood down, but I still felt uncomfortably hot.
We met Adika, Rothan, and the Alpha Strike team at the end of the corridor. A grey-clad nosy stood next to them, its eyes glinting purple behind its mask. I’d been petrified of nosies as a child, repelled by the grey masks that hinted at inhumanly shaped heads, and appalled at the thought of them reading my mind. Since Lottery, I’d made a lot of progress in overcoming my old loathing for them, even worn a nosy disguise myself, but I still had to fight an instinctive shudder.
I sternly reminded myself that this particular nosy was my old friend Forge, and forced myself to look directly at him. There was something slightly odd about the hang of the layers of gauze on his grey outfit.
“Are you wearing your combat armour under your costume, Forge?” I asked.
“I’m wearing combat armour and my outdoor jacket,” said the creepy nosy voice.
“I just hope Forge doesn’t have a surfboard hidden under his robes as well,” said Eli cheerfully.
I made myself join in the following burst of laughter, and then smiled at the member of the Beta team who was standing next to Adika. “So you’re joining the Alpha team for a while, Jalen. I’m sure you’ll do well.”
The expression on Jalen’s dark face was one of tense determination. “Thank you, Amber.”
Heavy double doors in the right-hand side of the corridor had an identical warning sign to the one on the fire doors. Underneath the red capital letters, “DANGER OUTSIDE”, someone had written some extra words with a red marker pen: “WE REALLY MEAN IT THIS TIME.”
Adika led the way through the doors with a curiously theatrical air. The way the Alpha Strike team moved aside to let Lucas and me follow him was strange too. We were going Outside, so they should be in bodyguard formation, with half of them ahead of us and half behind.
Once I was through the double doors, I saw the reason for their strange behaviour. I’d assumed these doors would be the same as the Hive exits, leading directly Outside. Instead, I found myself standing in a huge room which had three walls that were almost entirely made of glass.
I gasped. The reason the Strike team had stood aside to let Lucas and me follow Adika, was to let us get the full benefit of the breath-taking view through these glass walls. The one directly ahead of me showed a grassy hillside sloping down to a pebbly beach. I ignored the line of aircraft parked on the edge of the beach, my attention grabbed by the sea. I’d glimpsed it from the aircraft window and been overwhelmed by its seemingly endless expanse, but now I could see far more details.
I took a few stunned steps forward, staring at the white-flecked peaks of water that seemed to rear upwards before curving over and breaking into cascades of foam on the beach.
Rothan and the Alpha Strike team had joined us in the room now. “I’d only seen the sea in summer before this,” said Rothan. “Apart from the fact it was on a much larger scale, there was a strong resemblance between it and the Hive beaches. It sounds silly, but now it’s winter, the sea seems to be in a much more forbidding mood.”
I was curious enough to close my eyes and reach out to Rothan’s mind to look for an image of the sea in summer. The second I touched his thoughts,
I was swept into a vivid memory sequence from when he was twelve years old.
The sea breeze was tugging at my hair, I could hear the screeching of gulls, and taste the salt in the wind. I was looking down at my skinny boy’s legs, watching the cold, foaming edge of a wave swirl around my feet. I lifted my head to laugh joyously at the sight of the sea sparkling with reflected sunlight, before turning to look at where my parents and younger brother were standing on the beach.
I pulled back from Rothan’s mind, and then opened my eyes to take in the view of the winter sea again. Rothan was right when he said it was in a forbidding mood. The waves weren’t reflecting sunlight but the harsh grey of the clouds in the sky. If you played games with the sea foam here, then you’d discover they were dangerous games of trick or treat.
There was a moment of silence before Adika spoke. “I’d love to know who built this room and why. Corridor 5 runs through a spur of the Haven hillside that juts out towards the sea. This room is carefully positioned at the end of it, with glass walls that give commanding views on three sides. We can look out south across the ocean through the windows ahead of us, see the whole sweep of coastline running west towards the coastal patrol base on one side, and the series of beaches running east towards Tropics on the other. There’s even a domed glass ceiling giving us a clear view of the sky.”
Glass ceiling? I tilted my head back and saw Adika was right. I could look straight up at the grey-clouded sky.
“All the glass in the walls is heavily reinforced to make it stronger than steel,” said Adika pointedly.
Lucas smiled. “I expect this room was just built for people to enjoy the sea views, and the walls are made of reinforced glass to avoid damage from storm winds, but I understand you seeing it as being a useful defensive feature.”
“If you look east towards the seawall,” added Adika, “you can see there’s a crowd of about sixty people waiting in front of the houses to watch you and the Admiral making your live broadcast. The Admiral is already there. He’s wearing a blue and white striped jacket now. I assume that’s his official Admiral’s uniform.”
Lucas stared out of the left-hand glass wall. “An audience of sixty people for the live broadcast is ideal. Enough people to give us an accurate idea of the response we’ll get from sea farm crowds, but not so many that they could overwhelm us in a sudden attack. I expect you’re right about that being the Admiral down there with them, though I can’t be sure at this distance.”
“Lucas, do you see the walls include some small circles made of slightly different glass?” asked Adika.
“Yes.”
“Take a look through one that faces the seawall.”
Lucas moved to stand by one of the circular sections of glass. “Waste that!”
Adika laughed. I went over to another of the circles, peered through it, and blinked. I seemed to be standing right next to the people at the seawall.
“The round sections are made of magnifying glass,” said Lucas.
“Yes, and they aren’t just present in each wall, but also in the glass ceiling,” said Adika. “There are a mass of engraved markings on the walls and floor as well.”
I frowned down at the floor, and saw its steely-grey surface had a complex pattern of lines engraved into it.
“Do you still think this room was only built for people to admire the sea view?” asked Adika.
“I see your point,” said Lucas. “The sections of magnifying glass would be very helpful for people wanting to see the details of aircraft in the sky or boats out at sea.”
“Particularly the aircraft or boats of another Hive,” said Adika drily.
I was studying the houses near the seawall. From the air, they’d looked a bit like grey tents. Now I saw the walls were built of blocks of stone, like the walls I’d seen around raised flowerbeds in parks. The houses had brightly painted doors, and what must be glass windows. I noticed a few of the houses had pieces of wood covering their windows, which probably meant the families that lived in them had faded into the countryside.
“There are a lot of oddities about the sea farm,” said Lucas, “and this room is one of them, but at least this is a useful oddity. Rothan, I can see a building near to where the hillside path meets the seawall. Did you inspect that when you were exploring earlier?”
“Yes,” said Rothan. “It’s a stone shelter, with an open doorway and windows. There are some benches inside where people can sit, protected from the wind and rain, looking out at the sea.”
Lucas nodded. “Listen carefully now, everyone. The main purpose of this run isn’t to make progress in catching our target, but to persuade the people of the sea farm to tolerate our presence. If that proves impossible, then we’ll have to evacuate immediately, because we can’t afford to engage in battles with these people.”
Lucas’s voice took on a harsh overtone. “On this mission, our lives are less important than those of people attacking us. It would only take one sea farm citizen being seriously injured or killed at our hands to make its population lose faith in the Hive. That would destroy any hope of stabilizing their numbers before the New Year census. Our defensive tactics have to be strictly limited to those that won’t cause lasting harm to others. The only one of us who isn’t expendable is Amber. Deadly force may only be used if her life is in peril.”
There was a grim silence.
“Our plan may have to change instantly in response to events,” continued Lucas, “and I won’t be able to speak freely when the Admiral and other people are close enough to hear me. Emili and my Tactical team will have to work out what I’m trying to achieve.”
“Attempting to second guess Lucas’s thoughts will add an extra level of interest to this run,” said Emili, on the crystal comms.
“We can’t get a true idea of the crowd’s feelings about nosies unless we show them one, so we’re taking Forge with us in his nosy costume,” said Lucas. “We may need to check people’s minds, so we’re taking Amber with us as well. We’re going to limit the danger of that by stationing Forge, Amber, and their five bodyguards at the stone shelter.”
He paused. “The sea farm population will have got their ideas about nosies from people back at the Hive, and believe their telepathic range is less than one corridor length. I’m hoping the crowd will be reassured by the nosy seeming to be too far away to read their minds.”
“Forge will still be a focus of hostility in his nosy costume,” said Adika. “Some people might sneak over to the shelter to attack him.”
“At the slightest sign of trouble near the shelter, two bodyguards need to get Amber back along the path, into one of our aircraft, and airborne,” said Lucas. “Forge and the remaining three bodyguards will deliberately lag behind in the retreat to draw attention away from Amber. All otherwise uncommitted Beta Strike team members will be on guard duty at the beach exit ready to provide covering fire.”
Lucas shrugged. “There may be problems at the shelter, but it’s the situation at the seawall which is most likely to escalate out of control. It’s almost inevitable that one or two people there won’t be able to control their hostility to nosies. Those people must be dealt with in as low key a manner as possible. What matters here isn’t the reaction of one or two individuals, but the general attitude of the crowd. If there’s a massed violent response to our presence, then we’ll need to initiate our emergency evacuation plan.”
He grimaced. “We have a squadron of fighter aircraft on standby at the coastal patrol base. In the event of mass violence, the fighters will fly low overhead in an attempt to frighten the crowd into dispersing while we evacuate our people. If necessary, the aircraft can fire warning shots to cover our evacuation. The aircraft cannot and must not actually fire on the crowd in our defence. Understood?”
There was a chorus of acknowledgements.
“But we’re hoping to get the sea farm population in a cooperative mood so we can progress on to hunting our target,” said Lucas, in a more cheerful voice. “We cu
rrently have the Admiral’s wife, Tressa, at the top of our suspect list. I’m hoping she’ll be at the seawall with the Admiral, in which case Amber can quietly establish her innocence or guilt as I’m making the broadcast.”
“I can’t believe Tressa will come to the seawall if she’s guilty,” said Adika. “She’ll realize we’ll bring a nosy with us, and make an excuse to stay away.”
“Very true. If Tressa’s not there, then we’ll have to arrange another chance for Amber to read her mind.” Lucas looked at me. “Amber, when you’re reading minds, you must remember to face away from the crowd. We don’t want your reactions to give away the fact you’re the real telepath.”
I nodded.
“Forge, I want people to see you entering the stone shelter, so they know we’ve got a nosy in there,” said Lucas. “I’d like you to stay out of view after that, so the crowd isn’t continually antagonized by the sight of you. The one exception is if we need you to come out of the shelter to put on a public performance of reading someone’s mind. The plan is for Amber to do most of the talking for you, but I assume you’ve learnt some of the standard enigmatic nosy phrases to use if necessary.”
“Yes,” said the distorted nosy voice. “Buzz has experience of playing the part of a nosy, so she’s been training me.”
Lucas turned to Adika. “We’re ready to head out now.”
Chapter Twenty-seven
“Alpha Strike team is moving,” said Adika.
“Tactical ready,” said Emili.
“Liaison ready. Tracking status green,” Nicole said.
I checked my dataview screen. Five of the Alpha Strike team were listed as assigned to bodyguard duty. Jalen was listed among those on Chase team. Lucas’s name had been added as Tactical Support, and Forge as nosy. “Green here.”
Hurricane (Hive Mind Book 3) Page 24