Defender

by Janet Edwards

  “Lucas! Rothan!” I cried. “Get out of there!”

  Lucas broke off his measured speech. “What’s wrong?”

  “I itch! Get out of there right now! Move!”

  I dumped the mind I’d been reading and linked to Lucas. He and Rothan had both drawn their guns and were heading for the meeting room door. The audience was staring at them, open-mouthed with shock.

  “Sorry,” shouted Lucas. “Got to go. Emergency call from …”

  His words were drowned out by a shrilling noise. There was a standard set of alarm sounds that were used everywhere in the Hive. I’d been taught them all in school before I went to Teen Level. That was the sound of a fire alarm.

  Emili’s voice was gabbling orders from my ear crystal. “Lucas, head north. The Security Unit exits are north and south, and the northern one is closest. Alpha Strike team, stand ready to evacuate Amber. Beta Strike team, emergency alert, grab full fire equipment and cutters and head to lift 2. I repeat: Beta Strike team, emergency alert, grab full fire equipment and cutters.”

  “Beta Strike team acknowledging full fire equipment and cutters,” said Forge’s voice.

  “Nicole, is that a genuine fire?” asked Emili.

  “It’s a genuine fire alarm. Emergency fire containment teams are responding. We can’t tell if it’s a genuine fire.”

  I was in Lucas’s head, looking through Lucas’s eyes, as he opened the meeting room door.

  “It’s definitely a genuine fire,” he said. “There’s smoke coming up from under the floor.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  My body was curled in a ball, my hands holding my legs to stop them from shaking. My mind was with Lucas, as he looked down at the thick smoke coming up from the floor level air vent, up at the corridor direction sign flashing emergency red, and then over his shoulder at the people spilling out of the meeting room door behind him.

  Rothan grabbed his arm and started towing him towards the northern exit. Lucas hurried along with him but his thoughts were busy analyzing the situation.

  “An accidental fire at this time is unlikely in the extreme,” he said. “We walked into a trap. We’re up against something bigger than we thought. Much bigger. Be alert for a possible synchronized attack on Amber too.”

  “Strike team, drop those spades, draw guns, and form a perimeter,” snapped Adika.

  I didn’t care what was happening around me, I only cared about what was happening around Lucas. He and Rothan had reached a junction and stopped.

  “Waste it!” Rothan’s voice gasped. “Northern exit is an inferno. Turning back and heading south.”

  Rothan and Lucas turned round to run the opposite way. There was a whole mob of panicking people ahead of them now, and smoke was filling the air. The main lights flickered and died, so just the emergency lighting was left.

  “Northern exit is on fire,” shouted Lucas. “Head south.”

  Everyone was turning and running for the southern exit. Rothan still had his hand on Lucas’s arm, but Lucas shook him off and darted into a side room.

  “Lucas!” Rothan yelled. “Where the waste are you going?”

  “Need to check something.” Lucas put his hand on the wall, and he and I cried aloud in unison as I shared his pain. Lucas pulled his hand away, and blew on it. “The outer wall’s red hot. Those flames at the northern exit were clearly fuelled by accelerant. There must be a ring of inflammable liquid around the whole unit.”

  He went out of the room to rejoin Rothan, just as the mob came running back along the corridor. People were screaming about the southern exit being on fire too. Lucas had to shout above the din.

  “Rothan, we need to find a different way out. Down is no use, there’s fire under the floor already, so we have to go up through the ceiling. Not into the vent system, it’ll fill with smoke too fast. We need to get into an interlevel maintenance crawl way.” He was staring up at the ceiling, looking for the telltale markings that would show a crawl way running overhead.

  “Lucas, that’s a Security Unit,” said Adika. “They’re built with defensive shields round them. Reinforced outer wall, and reinforced layers above and below. Those block every way in or out, including the maintenance routes. If you go up into one, you’ll be trapped. You have to get to an outer wall and wait for the emergency response teams to cut you out.”

  “We’re going up into the crawl way,” repeated Lucas. “We’ve no choice. The smoke is already building up in here, we won’t be able to breathe soon, and the floor will catch fire under us in a few minutes’ time. There shouldn’t be a reinforced layer above this security unit. There’s no need for it because we’re directly below the soil level for a park.”

  “But how will you get through the soil? It …” Adika broke off and answered his own question. “We have spades.”

  “Exactly,” said Lucas. “You dig down to get us.”

  “Where are they now, Amber?” asked Adika. “Where do we start digging?”

  I stood up, eyes closed, my mind still with Lucas, groping my way forward as I moved to stand directly above him. From the telepathic view, there was nothing between him and me but empty space. In reality, there was a whole level’s depth of soil.

  Lucas and Rothan had moved into a large office now. Rothan climbed onto a desk, took tools from his pocket, and started removing a ceiling plate. The Strike team were experts on the hidden arteries of the Hive, the vents, the crawl ways, the waste system, and all the other places where their targets might try to hide.

  Everyone else was crowding into the office now. The screaming had stopped because people were covering their mouths with bits of clothing, struggling to breathe with the poisonous black smoke filling the air. I wasn’t going to leave Lucas’s mind to read their thoughts, but they were obvious from the desperate way they were watching him and Rothan. They were trapped, surrounded by flames, but these two strangers seemed to have an escape plan.

  “Beta Strike team is moving,” said Forge’s voice. “We have full fire equipment and cutting gear.”

  “We’re sending advanced digging equipment to the park,” said Nicole. “Medical support is incoming too. Fire containment reports the fire is breaking downwards to Level 21. They’ve ordered the evacuation of the area around the security unit on Hive Levels 19 through 22. The next …”

  Eli’s voice interrupted her. “Lucas, this spot is full of tree roots. We’ll never dig down through them in time. You need to move either south or west, clear of the park trees.”

  Rothan had the ceiling plate loose now. “Lucas, Amber is reading your mind. Get up into the crawl way and find a point where the Strike team can reach us. I’ll stay and help everyone else up.”

  Lucas climbed up onto the desk. People were crowding round it. They understood what was happening now. One of the telepaths, Amber, was nearby. Her Strike team was coming to save them. They still had a chance to live.

  Everything suddenly went dark. The emergency lights had failed, and there was a new outbreak of screaming. Lucas tugged his wristset light down from under his sleeve, and turned it on. Rothan’s light was on too. Twin white beacons of hope.

  Rothan grabbed Lucas, lifting him bodily upwards, and Lucas scrabbled his way into the crawl way. “Don’t lose the ceiling plate, Rothan. When everyone’s inside, you’ll need to block the hole to keep the smoke out.”

  The crawl way was a claustrophobically small tunnel, and of course the usual motion-activated lighting was dead. Lucas shone his wristset light around, looking for a direction sign, and I felt the first touch of panic in his mind.

  There has to be a direction sign. Everywhere has direction signs. Ridiculous to burn to death just because you can’t find … There’s one!

  “Heading west,” he said. “Get people moving after me, Rothan.”

  I heard Rothan yelling. “Small people first, because I can lift them up quickly. Only one person standing with me on the desk, or it’ll fall over. As I lift that person up, the next one climbs on t
he desk.”

  A woman started speaking, in a loud but calm voice. “Everyone form a line! When I call your name, join the queue. Mell, Rogar, Jet …”

  That had to be the Security Unit leader. Between them, she and Rothan seemed to be getting things under control. Lucas was aware of the laboured breathing of people following behind him.

  I was moving too, walking above where Lucas was crawling. I felt someone take my arm, and gently guide me round some obstacle before letting me go again. The ground under my feet felt softer now, then very soft.

  “Lucas, stop!” ordered Eli. “This is perfect. Dig, everyone! Dig!”

  Someone grabbed me, carried me aside, and put me down in a sitting position on what felt like thick grass. I opened my eyes for a second, and saw the entire Strike team madly digging down into what must have been a beautiful ornamental flowerbed just a minute earlier.

  “This is very soft soil,” said Eli. “We’ll make fast progress but we’ll need a wide hole because the sides will collapse inwards. Caleb, Zak, Tobias, shovel the spare soil out of the way onto the grass. The rest of you …” He hesitated. “Sorry, I know I shouldn’t be giving orders.”

  “Tell us what to do, Eli,” said Adika. “You know more about this than the rest of us.”

  I focused on Lucas again. He was sitting still in the crawl way now. A line of people were next to him, sobbing and gasping for air. It was very hot and very hard to breathe.

  Too much smoke getting in, far too much smoke, but we can’t shut people out to die.

  “Rothan, how many more people out there?” he asked.

  “About a dozen,” said Rothan. “The floor’s smouldering now, so we’ve got them on chairs round the desk. It’ll just be another …”

  Nicole interrupted him. “Fire containment reports fire still spreading. Evacuation extended to Hive Levels 18 through 23.”

  Emili spoke in a voice of utter despair. “Alpha Strike team, evacuate with Amber.”

  “No!” I screamed. “We can’t leave!”

  “I’ll keep half the team here digging,” said Adika, “but I have to send the rest to protect you, Amber. Lucas warned us there might be an attempt to ambush you on the way back to our unit.”

  “I’m not going back to our unit,” I said flatly.

  “Be reasonable, Amber,” said Emili. “Fire containment has ordered your area to be evacuated. We have to get you to safety.”

  Lucas joined in the argument, struggling to keep his voice calm and measured when he could barely breathe. “Amber, you must go. We can’t risk you. Telepaths appear very rarely, and the Hive has been especially unlucky in the last few decades. Ideally, we need eight telepaths. We’d be in deep trouble if we went back to just having four, but it’s worse than that. Morton has increasing health issues. He won’t live forever, and the projections are clear. With only three telepaths, the Hive would go into social meltdown within a year.”

  Lucas knew I was reading his mind, so he was arguing with his thoughts as well as his words.

  Please, Amber. Let them evacuate you so I know you’re safe.

  Usually Lucas’s thoughts raced on a multitude of glittering levels, but now there were barely three and they were down to normal human speed. Lucas was short of oxygen and suffering from heatstroke. His mind had calculated the probabilities, and accepted he was going to die.

  An automated voice spoke from overhead. “This area is being evacuated for safety reasons. Please leave immediately.”

  I opened my eyes and saw the park lighting had changed colour. The suns were red instead of white now, and had altered shape from round to flashing arrows pointing to the nearest exit. I closed my eyes again.

  “I’m not leaving,” I repeated.

  “Amber, please go,” said Lucas. “The rest of the Alpha Strike team will still be digging, and the Beta Strike team will be here soon.”

  “No!”

  “Alpha Strike team should now evacuate Amber using minimal necessary force,” said Emili.

  “It’s not just Lucas down there,” I said. “It’s fifty other people as well. Your boyfriend, Rothan, is down there, Emili!”

  “You think I don’t know that?” Emili snapped.

  “Amber, you have to evacuate,” Rothan choked out the words. “We’ve got everyone into the crawl way now. We can hold on a while.”

  I knew that every second I kept arguing was an extra second that twenty men instead of ten were digging. Someone was picking me up, so it was time to use the ultimate threat.

  “If you drag me out of here, and Lucas dies, then I will invoke my right under Hive treaty to transfer Hive. There are one hundred and six other Hive cities, and every one of them would welcome a telepath.”

  The hands put me down again and there was dead silence for a minute.

  “You can’t do that, Amber,” said Lucas.

  “I mean it.”

  An unexpected voice spoke over our crystal units. Megan always listened in to our runs, but didn’t usually say a word. This time she had plenty to say.

  “Amber means it. I believed Keith could have saved my husband from dying if he’d tried harder, so I had to leave his unit. If you force Amber to evacuate, and Lucas dies, she will feel the same way about this Hive. If there’s the slightest possibility that she could have saved him by staying, or the men who left with her could have saved him by staying, then this Hive will lose her.”

  “Compromise,” gasped Lucas. “Four exits from park. Four escape routes. When down to two safe escape routes, Amber leaves.”

  Please, Amber, I’m begging you. Don’t let me die knowing my death destroys my Hive!

  I was in Lucas’s head, so I answered the way he would have done. “Compromise accepted.”

  “Nicole, we need people on all four park exits, checking the escape routes are clear,” Emili said, in a deeply relieved voice. “Alpha Strike team, keep digging.”

  I listened to the heavy breathing of the Strike team and the thuds of their spades. The sound of men digging, working to exhaustion point to save their team mates and friends. There was one brief interruption, when the digging equipment arrived, and spades were cast aside in favour of roaring, powerful machinery. All the time, Lucas’s conscious thoughts kept fading, until they were down to a single pale thread.

  “Lucas,” said Emili, “what’s your situation down there?”

  “Coping,” Lucas breathed the single word.

  “Rothan?” asked Emili.

  There was no response.

  “Rothan?” she asked again.

  Still nothing.

  “Amber, I know you won’t want to leave Lucas’s mind, but …” Emili let the sentence trail off.

  We all knew Rothan had been the last into the crawl way, the longest breathing the lethal smoke. I didn’t want to leave Lucas’s mind, was afraid of what I’d find if I did, but I owed Emili this.

  I reached out along the minds in the crawl way. Most of them were unconscious. I couldn’t tell if anyone had died, because a dead person had no thoughts left to read. At the end of the line, I found Rothan.

  “Rothan’s alive,” I said. “Unconscious. He’s dreaming about you, Emili.”

  “Good,” she said shakily. “That’s good.”

  As I went back to Lucas’s thoughts, Nicole spoke in a grim voice. “There’s smoke coming up through the floor at the southern park exit.”

  “Are the other three exits still clear?” asked Emili.

  “Still clear,” said Nicole.

  “Turn on the rain at the south end of the park,” said Emili.

  “Working on that,” said Nicole.

  One escape route had gone. If another went, then I’d have to leave. I’d given my word to Lucas. Waste it, I should have argued, held out for staying until one escape route was left.

  A few seconds later, I heard a rush of feet and a babble of voices as Forge and the Beta Strike team arrived. “You need to let my Beta team take over as soon as you reach the crawl way,”
said Forge. “We’ve got the protective gear and the cutters.”

  “I think we’re getting close now,” said Eli.

  Lucas was unconscious now, his mind still troubled by fears, not for himself but for our Hive. That was my fault for refusing to leave. If making people stay hadn’t helped, if we didn’t save him, then it would be my fault that Lucas died worrying about our Hive.

  “Have the cutters ready,” ordered Forge. “I think I can see the crawl way. Yes! Cutters now!”

  I opened my eyes, and saw the men crowding round the hole, a couple of them holding evil looking blades. A group of people in medical uniforms were standing nearby.

  “If anyone can hear me down there,” shouted Forge, “keep your heads down.”

  “Their heads are already down,” I said. “They’re all unconscious.”

  A painfully loud, squealing sound started, that made me want to thrust my fingers into my ears. It lasted for fifteen seconds, I counted every one of them, and then it stopped. There was smoke coming out of the hole now.

  “I see Lucas,” said Forge. “I’ve got Lucas!”

  A limp body was passed out of the hole.

  “Retrieval squad, get in there and start passing out the rest of them!” said Forge. “Be careful where we’ve cut our way into the crawl way. The edges are razor sharp.”

  More of the Beta Strike team moved in, looking like unfamiliar strangers in their orange protective suits and breathing masks. They were crawling into the hole and retrieving more bodies, but my attention was still on Lucas. He was stretched out on the grass now, with a doctor working on him, putting an oxygen mask over his face and giving him an injection in the chest. More doctors were arriving and taking charge of the other casualties.

  “Fire containment reports that the fire is now contained on Level 20,” said Nicole.

  I saw Lucas’s body jerk, and he suffered a massive coughing fit. He was awake again! I closed my eyes and reached out with my mind. Not looking into Lucas’s thoughts, but those of the doctor leaning over him.