Mind Power

by Jane Killick

  Her body trembled. She put her mug of coffee on the floor. “Sorry,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Don’t be,” said Michael. He put his coffee next to hers and moved up closer on the sofa. He perceived her first to make sure she wouldn’t shrink from him, then he put a comforting arm around her shoulder.

  “Everything I had was in Galen House. Everything. And they just burned it down like it was a meaningless pile of wood on bonfire night.”

  “I know,” said Michael.

  She sniffed and found her self-control from deep inside. She wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her bathrobe and calmed herself even though the feelings of loss and betrayal still raged under the surface.

  “I’m such a fool,” she said. “It’s only stuff, isn’t it? I can get more stuff.”

  She said the words, but she didn’t believe them. What had burned down was more than stuff, it had been her home for four years and she was, effectively, homeless.

  On the television, the smarmy show host from Wales was laughing about whatever the cocky comedian from London had said.

  “What’s this?” said Pauline.

  “Oh,” said Michael, looking at the television screen. “Three people on one team each tell a story and the three people on the other team have to work out which one is telling the truth.”

  “Sounds dull,” she said, and picked up the remote control which was next to her.

  Michael was about to say he thought the programme was actually quite funny, but she flicked a button and the screen abruptly changed to the news. The bulletin that Michael had been watching earlier had changed to a discussion programme. Three guests sat in a semicircle amid moody lighting and a screen behind them which showed a photograph of burning Galen House. Questioning the guests was an old male journalist Michael didn’t recognise. He recognised one of guests, however. It was Claudia Angelheart.

  “Turn it off,” said Michael. “It will just make you angry.”

  He reached for the remote control, but Pauline pulled it away from him. He wished his telekinesis was strong enough to rip it from her hand. “Someone needs to tell that woman she’s talking nonsense,” she said. You can’t cure everyone. I mean, even from a practical point of view.”

  “The Prime Minister has a report from someone at the cure programme who says that you can.”

  Pauline shifted in her position on the sofa to face him. “He’s considering it?”

  “Apparently,” said Michael.

  On the TV, one of the other guests had managed to get a word in edgeways. He was a young muscular man in his early twenties whose blonde hair was receding from his temples. “Curing people is not the answer,” he said. “Perceivers are here. You can’t disinvent us. Even if you were able to track down every perceiver in the country and make them take the cure, you’ve got to understand that the thing which turns people into perceivers occurs at the genetic level. It’s something that can be inherited. The young people who were the first to develop perception after the vitamin pill scandal are old enough to have children now. The chances are, their children will be perceivers too. What are you going to do, sterilise us all? Like the Nazis tried to do in the Second World War?”

  Recognition crept up on Michael as he watched. “Oh my God,” he said to himself.

  “I don’t believe he’s saying it, either,” said Pauline.

  On the TV, the journalist was getting excited. “Are you saying the cure doesn’t reverse perception?”

  “It stops people being able to perceive,” said the young man. “It doesn’t stop them from being perceivers inside and it doesn’t stop their children from growing up to be perceivers.”

  Pauline was getting angry. “That’s only going to antagonise norms even more.” She stopped; she perceived Michael. “That’s not what you’re ‘oh my God’ing about, is it?”

  The young man’s hair wasn’t as bright blonde as it used to be and his muscular frame was disguised by the cut of his suit, but it was definitely the person Michael remembered. “That’s Otis.”

  A name came up on the screen as the camera closed in on him: Oliver Smith, Perceiver. “It says he’s called Oliver Smith,” said Pauline.

  “When I knew him, he called himself after his initials that spelled Otis. His name is Oliver Something Something Smith. He used to be the boyfriend of Jennifer Price, the girl who led the perceiver movement before the riots. They must have found him from somewhere to talk on behalf of perceivers.”

  The picture had cut back to Claudia Angelheart who had become very animated at the thought of a whole new generation of perceiver children.

  “Telling the world that we’re all going to have perceiver babies isn’t going to help,” said Pauline.

  “But it’s true, isn’t it?” said Michael.

  “Speak for yourself,” said Pauline.

  The camera was back on Otis. The more Michael looked at him, the more the cosmetic changes to his face over the years seemed to fall away and he saw the same teenager he had known back before the Perceiver Corps. “The politicians didn’t tell you perception is inherited because they wanted to lull you into a false sense of security,” said Otis. “Even if you accept that the cure is a solution, it’s only a temporary one. The politicians knew that right from the start, but they didn’t say anything because it suited them to make people believe that everything was fine.”

  Pauline hit the ‘off’ button on the television remote and Otis’s face disappeared into the blackness of the screen. “You’re right,” she said.

  “What?” said Michael.

  “Watching that stuff makes you angry.”

  She moved closer to him and leant her head on his chest. “If we stay here and close the curtains, turn off the TV, the radio and don’t look at the internet, we can pretend none of this is happening. We can exist in our own little world.”

  “The world will still be there in the morning,” said Michael.

  “But not tonight,” said Pauline. “Tonight I want to feel like everything is okay. Just for a little while.”

  Michael allowed her to relax back into him. The warmth of her face on his chest and the strong beat of her heart lulled him into a soothing rhythm. He could perceive her thoughts were still troubled, but as she lay there, he sensed them lose their turbulence as sleep claimed her.

  Michael lifted her head from his chest and lowered it down onto the sofa. She stirred, but didn’t wake. He found the spare set of bedclothes he had just cleaned from the day before and lay them on top of her. She looked serene in the semi-light of his darkened flat.

  Removing her un-drunk mug of coffee from where she might kick it over in the middle of the night, he took one last look at her asleep on his sofa. He had been going to offer her the bed again, but he didn’t want to disturb her. It was better for her to lie there and dream about a world where perceivers were not hated and their future wasn’t under threat.

  The real world could wait until the morning.

  Eighteen

  Michael indulged Pauline with a shopping trip in Oxford Street in the morning. It was a shopper’s paradise where all the most well-known clothing chains in the country had their largest stores, in what was one of the busiest areas of London.

  Pauline was like a child in a sweetshop. For a woman with no clothes of her own, she was literally spoiled for choice. She took so many items to the fitting rooms that the shop assistants wouldn’t let her take them all in. Michael allowed her to have her fun. She smiled, she laughed and she didn’t think of the perceiver crisis once. Even though it meant Michael standing for lengthy periods outside of changing rooms waiting for her, he didn’t mind. Seeing her happy was reward enough.

  Most of the clothes she was trying on were a fantasy, as Michael could only afford to buy her one outfit. In the end, she chose a pair of black jeans, a black T-shirt with a picture of a white cat on it and a black jumper. She decided she could make do with the set of army boots she had been given, but refused to make do wit
h the scratchy wool socks that went with them, and so added a set of underwear to the bill.

  Afterwards, they retreated to a burger place where Michael stood in the queue for drinks and Pauline went off to the toilets to change.

  Being Oxford Street, it was packed with people speaking all sorts of languages, mostly tourists or foreign students, although he noticed some English voices among them. As Michael turned from the counter with Pauline’s chocolate milkshake and his own coffee, two people had just vacated a table by the window. He claimed it quickly before anyone else came and sat on the bright plastic chair next to the bright plastic table and looked out through the window at the dull winter’s day and the stream of dull people walking by.

  Pauline emerged all in black, as Michael had always known her when she wasn’t in her Perceiver Corps regulation greys. She still wore the smile she had worn in the shops. She also still wore the tag from the jumper which was sticking out of the back of her neck.

  “What do you think?” she said, opening her arms so he had a full view of her outfit.

  “They suit you,” said Michael. “Apart from one thing. Sit down.”

  Puzzled, she sat down. But then she perceived him and realised what he was doing.

  Michael got up and went round the back of her chair. The tag was attached with a thin bit of plastic which he couldn’t break. So he brushed her hair out of the way and leant forward to bite it in two.

  Pauline giggled and squirmed a little in her seat. “Your breath tickles.”

  The plastic was no match for Michael’s teeth and he was able to thread it out from the jumper and place the two halves on the table along with the offending tag.

  “Thanks,” said Pauline when he sat down. “Not going to work today?”

  “I’m not wanted,” said Michael. “I’m not sure they want me at all anymore.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “The working group on perceivers that I left my new life for is being overtaken by events. Anyway, I’d rather spend the day with you.”

  Pauline sipped at the straw which was sticking out of her drink and noisily drew chocolate milkshake up into her mouth.

  Michael looked around at the other people sitting at the plastic tables near them. He could hear all their conversations about what they should buy and how much things cost. It was too crowded a place for him to talk properly to Pauline.

  I spoke to Sian Jones a couple of days ago, Michael thought.

  Pauline looked up from drinking her milkshake.

  She said what she has been reporting on isn’t the real story, Michael’s thoughts continued. She said the politicians are hiding something.

  Pankhurst? thought Pauline.

  If he knows anything, he’s keeping it deep within his mind where I can’t easily perceive it. I don’t think he’s clever enough to do that.

  If not Pankhurst, then who?

  I don’t know, but I want to find out, thought Michael. Want to come?

  Pauline smiled. Yeah. After I’ve finished my milkshake.

  Sian Jones worked out of Broadcasting House, not too far to walk from the burger place in Oxford Street. It was tucked behind the frontage of old buildings which faced the road as if embarrassed to show its modern glass-fronted exterior to the world.

  As soon as Michael and Pauline turned off the street to walk down the paved entrance to the front door, it was obvious that finding Sian Jones in that haystack was not going to be easy. At least twenty people were in the process of leaving the building and walking in their direction to the street, while at least another twenty were approaching it alongside them.

  “What’s your plan?” asked Pauline.

  “Go up to the reception desk and ask for her,” said Michael.

  “What if she doesn’t want to see you?”

  “I’ll think of another plan.”

  The reception area on the other side of the glass was bigger than any other Michael had been in. Once he stepped inside, he realised why. It had to accommodate a lot of people. As well as a few visitors in business suits who were probably there for a meeting of some sort, there were others who were waiting to be guests on a television or radio show. There was even a trio in straw hats with a guitar, a cello and a violin.

  Past a couple of bored-looking security guards in uniforms of white shirt and tie was a long desk with three receptionists. Michael chose the one who looked the most friendly; a woman with dyed auburn hair pulled back in a ponytail and a telephone headset over the top, who looked hot in the formal jacket she had to wear.

  “Hello,” said Michael with a smile. “We’re here to see Sian Jones.”

  “Sian Jones,” the receptionist repeated. The name clearly meant nothing to her.

  “She works in television news,” Pauline added. “She’s a journalist.”

  “Let me ring the newsroom,” said the receptionist. She tapped out a few numbers on a panel in front of her. After a moment, her expression changed and she began a conversation with someone who had apparently answered the phone on the other end. The call didn’t last long before the receptionist hung up. “Someone’s just gone to find her,” said the receptionist. “She’s in today, but doesn’t seem to be at her desk. Why don’t you take a seat?”

  Michael and Pauline found a seat among the eclectic crowd and waited.

  Someone came and got the trio in straw hats and they went through the security doors into the main part of the building. Other people sitting on the seats near them were also collected and taken through. Michael and Pauline remained.

  “Let me go and ask again,” said Pauline. She went back to the reception desk, leaving Michael sitting alone. He watched the comings and goings in the reception area for a little longer and was beginning to suspect that ‘think of another plan’ was what he was going to have to do, when a tall man he recognised came through the security barriers. It was Andy the cameraman and he looked in a hurry.

  This could be his Plan B. As one of Sian’s colleagues, he was more likely than most to know where she was. All he had to do was follow him out and ask him. Even if he didn’t answer, Michael could perceive him and find out – assuming he didn’t burst into a rendition of Land of Hope and Glory in the middle of the street.

  But Andy didn’t head for the door, instead he approached one of the security guards who looked rather shocked to have a tall man loom over him. A tall, angry man at that, as Andy soon lost his temper. “Well, can’t you check?” the cameraman yelled at him.

  The people assembled in reception turned to look. The security guard gave an apologetic shrug.

  “You know what?” yelled Andy. “Just forget it!” He stormed out of the front doors.

  Michael perceived him as he passed and realised that his anger was born of concern. He was worried about Sian Jones.

  Michael got up from where he was sitting and followed Andy out. The cameraman had legs long enough to complete two strides where it took Michael three to cover the same ground and he had to hurry to keep up. At the same time, Michael reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. He called Pauline.

  “Hello?” she said.

  “I’ve thought of another plan,” he replied. “Catch me up. Go out of the main doors and turn left.”

  “Wh—?”

  But he had no time to explain. He hung up and put his phone back in his pocket.

  Out on the street, Andy had taken a left turn onto the main road and was heading for the tube station. As he disappeared down the steps into the London Underground complex, Michael realised he had only a few minutes to either lose him or lose Pauline. He glanced behind and saw Pauline hurrying in his direction.

  Michael stopped at the top of the steps to the tube station and waved for Pauline to hurry up. She broke into a run.

  Someone coming up the steps swore at him to “get out of the bloody way”.

  Seeing that Pauline was almost there, he did as he was told and descended underground.

  He’d waited too long. T
he station was full of people all going different ways, like a nest of worker ants all following their own path and all looking the same. Their thoughts chattered at the edge of his perception, but none of them felt like the worried and angry mind of the cameraman.

  Pauline bumped up behind him. “What the hell’s going on?”

  Michael grabbed her hand and pulled her towards the ticket barriers. Andy had to be on the other side of them somewhere. Michael tapped his Oyster card to the reader and the barrier let him through. He waited precious moments on the other side as Pauline found her ticket in one of the pockets of her new jeans and came through.

  Michael turned. There were two down escalators and two options.

  Out of all the dawdling tourists and hurrying Londoners around him, he picked out the head of the cameraman disappearing down the one that led to the Central Line. If Andy hadn’t been taller than most of the other people around him, Michael might have lost him.

  He followed, with Pauline behind.

  On the London Underground, the rule is that people standing on the escalators stand on the right, allowing people in a rush to walk down the left. It only works if people don’t block the left hand side. Thankfully, that morning, some thoughtless person had dumped their suitcase in the way and had stopped Andy striding out of view.

  At the bottom, Andy headed for the westbound platform, with Michael and Pauline not far behind him.

  What’s going on? Pauline asked with her thoughts.

  He’s worried about Sian Jones and he’s going to find her, Michael replied.

  It took only a minute for the tube train to arrive and for Andy to get on. Even though it was packed, Michael and Pauline squeezed themselves onto the same carriage. Crowded was good because it meant Andy didn’t realise he was being followed. Even when the train emptied out a little bit on the subsequent stops, he was too wrapped up in his thoughts to notice Michael and Pauline.

  Thoughts that Michael was able to perceive. Sian had not turned up to work that morning, which wasn’t like her, especially as she was excited about the story she was working on. She wasn’t answering her phone, either. Several other calls to several other people revealed no one had heard from her. Some of her colleagues in the newsroom thought it best to check to see if she had swiped in with her security pass and if she was, therefore, in the building somewhere with a flat mobile phone battery. Andy had volunteered to ask one of the security guards, even though he believed – he knew – that if she hadn’t turned up in the newsroom, she hadn’t turned up for work at all.