Mind Power

by Jane Killick

  “Thanks, Otis,” said Michael.

  “Thank my dad. I didn’t think he would do it until I perceived him with my daughter. He knows perception is hereditary and he fears his grandchild has it. After what Pankhurst said, he’s worried about what’s going to happen to her. He’s not the only one.”

  Because Otis had weakened his blocks and because Michael and Pauline were strong, they both perceived how scared he was for the little girl called Matilda. Before he wrapped up his emotions again and hid them behind his blocks.

  “When’s this appointment?” asked Pauline.

  “Eleven o’clock tomorrow,” said Otis. “We’ll need to leave no later than nine.”

  “We’ll be ready,” said Michael.

  Michael slept with Pauline that night.

  Not in the way that people usually meant when they talked about sleeping with someone. In the way that involved two people lying in one bed together and trying to sleep.

  His body wanted sex. The hormones inside of him were insistent and they made him respond when Pauline slipped in between the sheets next to him. He hid it from her, but hiding his body was easier than hiding his mind. He could put up his blocks, but every time he dozed off, they weakened and he knew she was able to perceive his feelings.

  Feelings of wanting to hold her, to feel the smoothness of her skin and the beating of her heart as he pulled her close. But sex was a distraction and so he kept his distance. They had a big day ahead and they needed sleep.

  Not that they got much.

  One of the advantages of asking Otis for help was that he could drive. He didn’t actually own a car, as living in London meant it was easier for him to use public transport, but it meant he could borrow Mary’s Vauxhall Astra and get them to Erith without crashing – which is what would have happened if Michael had had to drive.

  Erith was the other side of London to Beaconsfield, which meant a journey around the M25. If Katya had been with them, she would have seen a little bit of the English countryside which she had been asking about, and one of the notorious traffic jams which Cooper had talked about.

  Despite the traffic, and one stop for a “comfort break”, as Otis called it, they made good time.

  Gatehouse Industrial Estate was basically one purpose-built road which curled around itself with little spurs off to offices and warehouse-type buildings, each with their own car park out the front. Clairone Labs was one such building. There was no fancy glass-fronted reception, no big and bold sign across the front advertising its business. It was just a rectangular office block with a set of double doors at the entrance. There was also no security to stop them driving into the car park, although Michael did see several CCTV cameras positioned at strategic points around the building.

  Otis parked and turned off the engine. He pulled out his mobile phone and sent a text. “My dad knows we’re here,” he said.

  Otis asked Pauline, who was sitting on the backseat, to pass over a rucksack he had left in the footwell. Out of it he pulled three folded pieces of white cotton cloth and handed one each to Michael in the front passenger seat and Pauline behind him.

  Pauline unfolded hers. “Lab coats?”

  “Put them on when we get inside. It’ll help us blend in.”

  “People really wear these? Not just on TV?”

  Otis laughed. “Not just on TV. If you spill chemicals on your shirt, you need a new shirt. If you spill chemicals on your lab coat, it just looks lived in.”

  They sat in Mary’s Vauxhall Astra for five minutes before another car drove in. “That’s my dad,” said Otis.

  He parked up close to the building where there were a couple of visitors’ spots and got out. The man in his fifties, who Michael recognised as Doctor Smith, looked very little like his son from a distance. It was probably because what little hair he had left had turned to grey. Doctor Smith acted as if he didn’t know they were there and went into the building with not so much as a glance behind.

  “What now?” said Pauline.

  “We wait,” said Otis.

  It was a long wait. Twenty-five minutes before Otis got a text to say his father had accomplished his mission.

  “Here we go,” said Otis.

  They got out of the car and went round to the back of the building. They found two fire exit doors. The second one was ajar.

  “Lab coats,” said Otis.

  As Michael and Pauline put on their lab coats, Otis pulled a packet of cigarettes from his pocket, along with a lighter. He put a cigarette in his mouth and sucked air through it as he put the tiny flame to the end. The cigarette end glowed orange for a moment as Otis’s face turned red and he subdued his coughing to blow out a plume of smoke.

  “Otis, what are you doing?” said Michael.

  “Plausible deniability,” he said.

  Pauline led the way in through the fire door and into a long corridor which looked like its only purpose was to lead to the fire exit. “Someone’s coming,” she whispered.

  Michael perceived it too. A curious mind belonging to a woman who turned into the corridor on stealthy flat shoes. She was a short woman and physically not a threat, but being discovered was still going to be a problem.

  Otis took another breath of smoke and threw the cigarette out of the fire door which he closed with a bang.

  “What’s going on?” said the woman, striding in their direction. “I had a note come up on my screen that the fire door was open.”

  “Yeah, sorry,” said Otis. As he spoke, smoke came out of his mouth. “I was gasping for a cig.”

  She regarded him with a hard stare. Michael perceived her as she evaluated what he said. Bad luck for them, she was the receptionist and knew that she hadn’t signed in three visitors that morning. “Who are you?”

  Mind control, Pauline suddenly thought.

  Yeah, thought Michael.

  Pauline walked up to the woman, stringing out her apology as she got closer. “Sorry, we’re the research students working on the new project. Did nobody tell you we were starting today?”

  Michael followed and, as Pauline kept the woman’s attention focussed on her, Michael went hard into her mind. He pushed her doubt and her suspicion away to get to the centre of her thoughts.

  She gasped.

  Mind control was not pleasant if the subject resisted. It took a strong perceiver to do it and, unless there was time to be subtle, a norm would almost certainly feel it. Michael hated to manipulate people’s minds like that, but he hated being caught even more and so he did what he had to. Fortunately, the woman was already running a routine in her mind where she left the reception desk to check on the fire door. She had formulated two possible outcomes: in the first one she found nothing of concern and went back to the reception desk; in the second, she found something not right and raised the alarm.

  Michael held her thoughts in his mind and twisted them until the truth became a lie. She believed that she had seen no one at the fire door and her mind headed down the road of the first outcome.

  Pauline took hold of the woman’s arm and physically turned her around so she was facing away from them.

  She staggered a little and put her hand out to the wall to steady herself. Then she walked back the way she had come. Michael perceived she was thinking that there must be some sort of the glitch on the system and would have to make a note to tell the manager.

  What the hell was that? asked Otis’s thoughts.

  Mind control, thought Pauline.

  Can you teach me to do that?

  Absolutely not, she thought back.

  As they walked along the corridor, Michael whispered to Otis, “Why didn’t you warn us the fire door might be monitored?”

  “They aren’t always,” said Otis. “And if they are, the smoking trick usually allows me to get away with it.”

  “Usually?” said Michael. “How many buildings have you broken into?”

  Otis didn’t say, but Michael perceived there had been a few.

  The
y made it to the stairwell without encountering any more suspicious members of staff. In theory, the stairwell was a helpful place to be because there was a chart on the wall explaining what departments were on what floor. What was less helpful was that, other than the admin offices on the third floor and toilets and kitchen area on the ground, the departments were labelled Lab A, Lab B and Lab C.

  “Any word from your dad?” asked Michael.

  Otis checked his phone. “No, but then he only agreed to let us in, not to give us any information.”

  “We need to perceive someone,” said Michael.

  The sound of footsteps on the stairs above them made Michael look up. A man in scuffed shoes and wearing jeans under his lab coat was coming down.

  Michael pushed Otis back into the shadows in the hope he could perceive him from there, but Pauline stepped forward.

  Pauline, what are you doing?

  She ignored him.

  “Excuse me?” she said to the man as he reached the ground floor. “We’re the research students.”

  To Michael’s horror, she pointed behind her into the dark and blew any notion of them hiding from sight.

  Michael looked into the man’s mind and got ready to control him.

  The person on the stairs, who turned out to be a bearded man in his thirties, nodded as if it was all perfectly normal. “We were wondering where we were supposed to be. I know that one of the labs is super secret and we’re not supposed to go in there, but I don’t know which one. I thought it was Lab D, but there isn’t a Lab D. I must have mis-heard.”

  “Oh no, that’s Lab B,” said the man. “You really don’t want to go in there. You’re probably in Lab A because I’m in Lab C and we haven’t got any research students.”

  “Thanks,” said Pauline.

  “You’re welcome,” said the man. As he walked past Michael and Otis, he gave them a smile and nod and continued on his way. To the kitchen, according to Michael’s perception of him.

  What was that? thought Otis.

  It’s called being polite and charming, Pauline thought back. Sometimes the best way of finding out something is to ask.

  The chart on the wall said that Lab B was on the first floor, so they climbed up one set of stairs to the landing which had a choice of turning left through a set of double doors or right through a different set of double doors. Both of them led to Lab B, according to the sign.

  Michael took an executive decision and turned left.

  On the other side of the double doors was a corridor with windows which looked out onto the car park. It contained only one other door, presumably into the lab. It had no handle, just a square black box on the side with a little red light in the corner. It was similar to the devices on some of the doors in the House of Commons. It required an electronic key to open it, usually a security pass placed over the black box, which would respond by turning the red light green.

  They didn’t have a security pass.

  “What now?” said Otis. “We can’t ask it politely to let us in.”

  Michael told him to be quiet as he put his face to the door. He opened his perception wide and pushed it through the wood. For some reason, he imagined there would be lots of minds on the other side of the door. But he perceived almost nothing. Apart from the dull presence of one person. Far away so he could barely sense them.

  Well? asked Pauline. Do you want me to knock and ask to go in?

  Michael held up a finger as a gesture for her to wait. He locked onto the mind and tried to explore it. It was deep in concentration and he was able to pick up a few stray thoughts which didn’t mean anything to him: Growing medium … photosynthesis.

  The mind became clearer. At first Michael thought it was because he had a stronger grasp of it, then he realised it was because the mind was coming closer. He was going to withdraw, to warn the others that the person was coming to the door. He was going to tell them that they needed to decide whether they were going to force their way inside the lab, or force their way inside the man’s mind to find out what he knew.

  But the mind was familiar. Hauntingly so. A strong intellect and a methodical pattern to his thoughts that was keeping the turmoil of madness at bay.

  Recognition turned Michael cold. He pulled out his perception and stepped back from the door.

  “What?” said Pauline. She didn’t perceive the man behind the door, she perceived Michael and then she knew what he knew. The coldness of recognition spread over her too.

  An electronic bleep chirped from the black box as its red light turned green and the bolts that held the door closed clicked to the unlocked position.

  The door opened.

  A man in his fifties with dark-rimmed glasses and holding a security pass that was hung around his neck, stood in the doorway. His mouth fell open.

  It was difficult to tell who was the most shocked: Michael and Pauline … or Doctor Lucas.

  Twenty-Five

  “You fucking bastard!” screamed Pauline and charged at Doctor Lucas with her head down like an enraged bull.

  She struck the scientist in the stomach and the pair of them went sprawling inside the lab. Lucas landed on his back with the ugly smack of his spine hitting the hard floor. His glasses went flying off his face and under one of the benches. He cried out in pain as Pauline fell on top of him and pinned him to the ground.

  Michael and Otis rushed in afterwards.

  Michael looked around. As his perception had forewarned him, Lucas was the only person in the lab. It was a large expanse of a room with as many windows as the corridor they had left, except that these looked out onto the other buildings on the industrial estate. The light from the winter sun shone onto what looked like window boxes on the inside of the windowsill, with strange red moss-like stuff growing in them. The rest of the lab was laid out with rows of benches, equipped with scientific instruments.

  Pauline had Lucas on the floor between two of the benches and was relentlessly hitting him.

  She threw a fist into his cheek. “You put a gun to my head!”

  A second fist landed on his other cheekbone with a thud. “You killed Alex!”

  He cried out in pain and tried to bat away her punches with flailing arms. Her fury broke through his defences and struck his chest, his nose and his ear. “You. Evil. Murderous. Bastard!”

  Michael rushed over to her and tried to pull her off, but she shook him free. She landed another couple of punches before Otis was able to grab hold of her arm and, with Michael, drag her fighting body from the stunned, bruised and bleeding scientist.

  He scrabbled back from her, his feet pushing against the floor as he slid backwards like an upturned crab.

  Michael walked between the benches to catch up with him. Lucas staggered to his feet and backed away until he could go no further. His body hit one of the window boxes and he was stuck between Michael and the window.

  Pauline pulled herself free from Otis and came running over. The pathetic, frightened figure of Doctor Lucas drew back from her, but he had nowhere left to go.

  “What are you doing here?” she demanded. “You’re supposed to be in Russia.”

  Otis came up behind them. “You know this person?” he said.

  “He experimented on perceivers,” said Pauline. “He captured me, and Alex died to get me out of there.”

  “So what’s he doing in a research lab in Erith?” said Otis.

  “That’s an excellent question,” said Michael.

  The last time he had encountered Doctor Lucas, the scientist had injected himself with the perceiver serum and was able to block Michael’s perception. This time, there was no barrier to Michael reading his mind. He stared at the man’s bleeding face and saw beyond its physical exterior into his brain where terrified thoughts chased each other around like a mad dog chasing its tail.

  “No, no, please don’t perceive me!” he said. “I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you everything, but leave my mind alone.”

  Michael stopped. Lucas w
as telling the truth.

  “What are you doing?” Pauline glared at Michael. “If you won’t perceive him, I will.”

  She pushed Michael out of the way and Lucas’s terror filled the room.

  Michael put a restraining hand on Pauline’s shoulder. “There’s no need. Not if he’s going to tell us.”

  “You trust him?” she screamed. “After all he’s done? You’re going to trust him to tell us everything?”

  “We’ll know if he’s lying, Pauline.”

  “Hey,” said Otis. “I don’t know what this guy did to you, but you came here for information and if he’s willing to give it to you, that’s got to be better than pulling it from his head.”

  Pauline didn’t move away from Doctor Lucas. She stared at him. Michael could tell that she was perceiving him. Not hard enough to extract thoughts hidden deep inside his mind, but enough to know that the fear of it would make him talk.

  They allowed Lucas to sit on a stool by one of the benches. He pulled a handkerchief from his trouser pocket and Otis dampened it under one of the taps in the lab so he could dab the blood from the broken skin on his face. The others stood as he leant his elbow on the bench behind him and talked.

  “I was made an offer,” said Lucas. “The British government knew that I was working with the Russians and that I had produced the perceiver serum for them, imperfect though it was. I had done things in this country which, shall we say, could get me in trouble with the law, but the government officials said they were prepared to overlook that. They said they could offer a research position in England if I, in turn, was prepared to bring my research home and destroy everything that I had built in Russia.”

  “Who made that offer?” said Michael. “Was it an MP called Peter Wauluds?”

  “It was made through an agent out in Russia,” said Lucas. “She told me her name was Julie, but I doubt that was her real name. I think she chose something English to make me feel more comfortable talking to her. Whoever it was further up the chain who authorised it all, I don’t know.”