“You’re such a skank sometimes, Michael,” said Otis. “How come you don’t know this stuff?”
“Amnesia,” prompted Jennifer.
“Convenient!” Otis sighed. “What d’ya wanna know? I mean, you saw it. It takes away perception. It’s supposed to turn a perceiver into a norm, but it’s like taking eyes from a sighted person or ears from a hearing person. We experience life through ’ceiving. When it’s gone it’s like we’re suddenly blind or deaf. Jack ain’t the first I’ve known who’s been cured. They’re lobotomised. Like little robots programmed to pass exams and join the chess club.”
And play football in matching strips, be polite and obey their mother, Michael thought. “How does it work?”
“Injection. As far as we know. For some reason it has to be given by specially-trained doctors at a special clinic.” Otis gave him a disapproving look. “Not as if you couldn’t have found out all this by looking it up your skanking self.”
He bent down and snatched up his phone from the chair. He spent a few moments typing something and chucked it over to Michael.
Michael – taken by surprise – lifted his hands to catch it. The device bounced off his wrist and turned in the air. He fumbled for it and managed to grab hold before it fell to the floor. He turned it sideways and watched the video which Otis had started to play on the screen.
Soft, classical music drifted over images of a stone-clad building with the sign Perceivers’ Clinic on the door. The shot closed in and the door opened to allow in the camera. The shot followed through into a brightly lit waiting area with a smiling doctor in a crisp white coat and several teenagers and their parents looking excited.
A calm voiceover: “The cure is a simple, quick and painless procedure that can be given to any teenager showing symptoms of perception. Just a little injection and your child becomes normal again.”
The shot changed to a bunch of teenage girls playing basketball.
Then changed again to show one of the girls standing on the courtside, speaking to an interviewer out of shot. “I feel soooo much better.” She had long flowing hair as soft as a shampoo advert and a smile as white as a toothpaste commercial. “It’s just like being a normal kid. I’ve been able to join the basketball club and concentrate on my school work. I wouldn’t ever want to go back to the way I was …”
The video continued, but Michael had seen enough. He passed it back to Otis.
“I’m presuming Jack wasn’t acting like that?” said Otis.
“No,” said Michael.
“Propaganda’s everywhere,” said Jennifer. “We’re trying to tell people the truth, but they keep shutting down our websites.”
“Jennifer’s in touch with ’ceivers all over the country,” said Otis. “Maybe we can do something to stop it, if they don’t cure us all first.”
Michael sat on the chair opposite Jennifer. “What else does this cure actually do?” he asked.
Jennifer didn’t answer him immediately. She rested her elbows on her knees, clasped her hands together, sat her chin on top and looked at him. Looked into him. After a moment, her expression changed. A smile suggested she had found what was looking for. “You think you’ve had the cure,” she said.
It was the one thing that had dominated Michael’s thoughts since leaving the park.
Otis laughed. “Michael? A perceiver?”
“Why not?” said Michael.
“I’ve ’ceived you, Michael mate. I’m telling you, you’re a norm.”
Michael turned away from Otis’s mocking laugh, hoping to get more sense out of Jennifer. “Is it so ridiculous? The cure affects your brain, right? Could it affect memory?”
She shook her head. “They remember. They just can’t perceive anymore. It’s what’s so cruel. Knowing what you once were and realising you can never be that person again.”
“But Jack forgot stuff,” said Michael. “When I asked about you two, he looked at me blankly.”
“He remembers,” said Jennifer. “He’s moved on, that’s all. The cured don’t hang around with perceivers. They turn their backs on us.”
“But …”
The conversation wasn’t going the way Michael had imagined it would. They hadn’t looked into Jack’s eyes like he had. Michael wasn’t a perceiver – at least, not anymore – but he wasn’t wrong about recognising something of himself in the boy who insisted his name was ‘Nathaniel’.
“Are you sure it does all that with one injection?”
“Using specialist doctors and the specialist clinics,” said Jennifer.
“Doesn’t sound like a big deal,” said Michael.
“It ain’t like we haven’t thought of this stuff before,” said Otis.
“And?” said Michael.
“And nothing,” Otis replied. “The few of the cured we’ve talked to only remember the injection. Then they wake up in a recovery room.”
“So you don’t actually know what goes on inside clinics.” An idea was forming in Michael’s head. An exciting idea. Generating a plan as he spoke.
Otis nodded, like he was perceiving Michael’s thoughts as quickly as he was having them. “If you want to find out, why don’t you go into one of the clinics?” said Michael.
“No!” Jennifer stood up and backed away from the others, shaking her head. “No way, Otis. I’m not going near one of those places. I’m not.”
“Not you,” said Michael. “Me.”
Jennifer looked at him, uncomprehending. “But you’re not a perceiver.”
“Exactly,” said Michael. His mind was racing ahead of theirs. It was exhilarating. “Either I’ve always been a norm or I’ve already had the cure. Either way, it can’t hurt me.”
“As far as we know,” said Jennifer. “You’ve seen what happened to Jack. What will it do to a norm?”
Michael didn’t know. He hoped he wouldn’t have to find out. “I need to understand what happened to my memories … to get them back.”
Otis scoffed. “You might as well climb Mount Everest to learn about knitting!”
That wasn’t fair. “Even if I don’t find out anything about my own situation, I might find out something about the clinics that can help you.”
“Why do you care?” said Otis. “You’re not one of us.”
“But I’m sleeping on your sofa,” said Michael. “Maybe I don’t want to be homeless.”
Otis put his head to one side and looked into him, like a dog trying to understand a human. It was unnerving. Not like when Jennifer perceived him. He felt the prickle of hairs on his arms as his skin developed goose pimples. Only for a moment. Then Otis righted his head again and Michael’s skin relaxed.
“I’ll take that as an answer for now,” said Otis. He strolled around the room and went back to his armchair. He sat and spread his legs wide. He rested his elbows on his knees and leant forward. “So … memory-challenged norm-boy – what’s your plan?”
CHAPTER EIGHT
OTIS DROVE MICHAEL out to the countryside in his ugly, dented hatchback and left him to walk the last mile to the cure clinic on his own. The authorities had set up the cure clinic for one day in a building usually used by a private healthcare company. How Otis had managed to set Michael up with an appointment at such short notice, he didn’t ask. There were a lot of things to do with Otis he didn’t ask about. It felt safer that way.
At the front desk, a short, wide woman squeezed into a trouser suit one size too small for her, took Michael’s picture, his name, fingerprints and contact details. Michael lied. He used the false name Otis had given him, handed over the bogus ID and appointment card he had brought with him and trotted out a fake address and contact number. She noted it all down in her computer without comment. Michael tried not to show he was relieved to get through the first part of the plan.
She asked him to sit in the waiting room of plush furnishings, springy carpet and neutrally wallpapered walls. It was already full of other teenagers, some with their parents – most with just the
one, others with a pair – all sitting with stark faces around the edge. Not exactly the excited group which had been portrayed on the promotional video. Michael hadn’t brought anyone to play parent and he realised it made him stand out from the others, so he kept his head down and avoided making eye contact with anyone. Fortunately, no one seemed interested in him. If they weren’t playing with their phones, they were looking at their own feet and occasionally making hushed comments to their parents.
The woman, whose buxom chest strained the top button of her one-size-too-small jacket, sat at a desk at the head of the room like an exam invigilator, watching the children in her care with a stern face. If one of them – especially one of the younger ones – looked directly at her, she would smile. But otherwise, she spent her time staring blankly ahead or typing the odd thing on her computer. She was the one in control. With one word from her, a teenager would be called and off they would disappear to be cured.
Michael’s plan was to pose as a patient, ask as many questions as he could, snoop around as much as possible and get out without having the treatment. He’d tried asking the woman in the bulging jacket, but all she did was hand him a leaflet and told him to sit and wait.
The mother of the girl sitting two chairs away shifted uncomfortably on her seat. “Do you think there’s a toilet close by?” she whispered to her daughter, one of the youngest ones there. Probably thirteen, with braces on her teeth and long ginger hair running in a plait down her back.
“Mum! Again?” said the girl.
“I’ll ask.” The woman, ginger-haired like her daughter and surprisingly tall when she stood on her high heels, went over to the desk at the front.
The girl shifted up the couple of spare seats next to Michael. “I think she’s more nervous than me,” she said.
“Really.” Michael tried to sound disinterested. He’d chosen to sit on that chair especially because there were free seats on either side of him. Now one of them was occupied by the girl.
The woman at the desk directed the girl’s mother into the corridor. The mother nodded a ‘thank you’ and was out of the room.
The girl leant in close to him. “I know you’re not a perceiver,” she whispered.
Michael stared at the girl in shock. He suspended his breathing as he waited for the tiniest sign of what she was going to do next. He thought about running.
“Don’t worry.” The girl smiled. “I won’t say anything.”
He glanced around at the room to see if anyone else had heard. They seemed oblivious.
“How did you …?”
“I haven’t been cured yet,” she said.
Of course. Everyone under the age of eighteen in that room was a perceiver, apart from him. It only took one of them to be curious enough to look closer. He felt such a skank. Quickly in and out was the plan, mingling with non-perceiving adults so he wouldn’t be noticed. He hadn’t counted on the waiting. The long, interminable waiting.
“So, what you doing here?” said the girl.
“I’m standing in for my brother,” said Michael, keeping his voice low. “He didn’t want to come.”
“Liar.”
Of course she could tell he was lying. Another one of those irritating tricks perceivers had.
Michael looked up at the fat woman. She was staring out of the window where the trees of the landscaped grounds were bowing gently in the breeze. He wished she would look at her computer screen, see his name, call him to the front and get him away from the prying girl. But the woman continued to stare with hardly a blink.
“My name’s Elaine,” said the girl.
“Eric,” said Michael, remembering to use his false name.
Elaine raised her eyebrows. “Hello, ‘Eric’.”
Of course, she probably perceived that was a lie as well.
“It must be great to be born normal,” she said.
“I suppose,” said Michael. He really didn’t want to talk to her.
“No hiding. No going through the diagnosis thing …”
Michael was suddenly interested. “‘Diagnosis thing’?”
“Didn’t they come to your school?” said Elaine. “Ask you questions? Speak to your parents and teachers?”
“No.”
“Lucky.”
“I didn’t think you had to be diagnosed,” said Michael. “I mean, didn’t you already know you were a perceiver?”
“I wasn’t going to tell anybody, was I?” said Elaine. “When your friends find out, they don’t talk to you. You get banned from the athletics squad because they think you’re cheating. The teachers refuse to teach you. The woman over the road even told my mum to keep me indoors. Said I was …” She trailed off. As she became more agitated, her voice got louder and a couple of kids were looking up from their phones. “It’ll all be over after today.”
Elaine seemed relieved. Almost as if she were looking forward to it. He wished he could perceive what she was really feeling because, after everything Otis and Jennifer had told him, her reaction didn’t seem to make sense. “You want the cure?” he asked.
But he didn’t get a reply. The door opened and her mother entered, wiping her hands on a piece of tissue. “Oh, here she is,” said Elaine. “Bonsai Bladder herself.”
She sat down beside her daughter, apparently not noticing she had shifted seats, and started to complain about the state of the hand driers in the women’s toilets.
It put an end to their conversation.
Only ten minutes later, the fat woman called Elaine forward. Michael feared for her. She seemed a nice girl. She had been true to her word and not given him away. So he wondered, as she headed for the door, what sort of person she would be by the time the day was over.
~
IT WAS ANOTHER half an hour before the buxom woman called Michael to the front. The sound of his false name sent butterflies leaping and dancing in his stomach. He made a point of noting where she was taking him as she led him into the corridor. If he had to make a quick getaway, he wanted to be sure he knew the way out.
At the entrance to the corridor stood a beefy man in a white coat. He had a pen in his top pocket and every semblance of being a doctor. But the way he stood – his feet exactly hip distance apart, his hands clasped neatly behind his back – made him look more like a sentry. As Michael passed him, the man kept his eyes front, apparently not interested. Although, Michael suspected, the beefy man was aware of everything.
The woman stopped beside a laminated sign which read: Treatment Room #1. It had been stuck over the top of a plaque which must have indicated what the room was usually used for. She knocked. There was a muffled, “Come in!” and they went inside.
Its clean and clinical walls were in contrast to the plush, hotel-like feel of the waiting room. Vinyl easy-clean floor, seamless white decoration, functional desk, chairs and examination bed. All presided over by a man in a crisp, white nurse’s tunic buttoned to the neck. He was in his late twenties: his hair, nails and posture as neat as his uniform. He stood up as Michael came in, gave him a reassuring smile, then nodded to the woman to leave them to it.
“Sit down, please,” said the nurse. He glanced at the piece of paper in his hand. “Eric, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” said Michael. He sat. “I want to know more about the cure.”
“It’s very simple,” said the nurse, taking a seat by the side of the desk. “We get you to hop up on the bed, I call in the doctor and we give you a little injection. Then we take you through to the recovery room. And that’s it.”
The same story Michael had seen in the propaganda films. “It can’t be that simple.”
“Really, Eric, there’s nothing to be afraid of.”
Michael obviously wasn’t going to get any more than the party line out of the nurse. He was going to have to play along until the very last minute before making a break for it.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw a collection of hypodermic needles sealed in individual sterile plastic wrapping on top
of a stack of plastic admin trays. In the tray beneath, sat a collection of glass vials containing some sort of liquid. That’s what, if he wasn’t careful, was going to be injected into his arm.
“So, Eric, I just need to check a few details,” said the nurse, consulting the computer screen in front of him. “Your name is Eric Hughes?”
“Yes.”
“You live at …” He hesitated, distracted somehow by something he saw in Michael’s face. “Sorry … You live at number 32 Maple Avenue.”
“Yes.”
“You go to school … Your school is …” He stopped. He was staring at Michael now. An intense, penetrating stare. Almost like Otis when he was trying to perceive something deep inside him. It was unnerving. Uncomfortable. Michael turned away. But the nurse reached forward, grabbed Michael’s face and jerked it back to look at him. Michael tried to shake himself free, but the nurse kept a vice-like grip on his cheeks.
“You’re not a perceiver,” he said.
He let go of Michael’s face, but Michael didn’t move. He was too stunned. There was no way the nurse could have known that. No way. Adults didn’t look into people’s heads and read their secrets. Only teenagers. Only perceivers. Adults weren’t perceivers, all the propaganda said so.
The nurse got up and went to the other side of the desk where there was some sort of intercom. He pressed a button. “Can you get Doctor Page to come in here?”
Michael wasn’t waiting around for some doctor to examine him. He had to run now and figure out what the hell was going on later. He made a bolt for the door.
The nurse, caught by surprise, shouted after him. But Michael was already in the corridor and running.
The beefy man at the entrance was alerted to the noise. He turned and his large body filled the corridor. Michael reversed, but the nurse had come out of the treatment room behind him. He was trapped between the two. Michael spied another door off to the side and dived for it. Grasping the handle, he tried to turn it, but it didn’t budge. The door was locked. Panicking, he wrestled with the handle, knowing he didn’t have the strength to force the lock, but not knowing what else to do.
Mind Secrets: A Science Fiction Telepathy Thriller (Perceivers Book 1) Page 5