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The walls, ceiling, and floor were invisible now. I was hanging in a dark void with the five familiar glowing minds of my bodyguards clustered around me. I found it helpful to read the thoughts of one of my Strike team members to orient myself before scanning an area for a target, so I linked to the mind of Matias now. He was amused that a member of Personal Protection had offered to help a telepath’s Strike team.
... will only be the briefest mention of Telepath Units in her imprint. She doesn’t know the physical requirements and knowledge needed to ...
Further down Matias’s mind, close to the subconscious, was a train of thought about Tobias.
... and Adika is right that Tobias blames his failures on everyone but himself. I’ll never forget the way he whined to me about ...
A memory sequence appeared, its images distorted and tinged red by anger. A scowling Tobias was talking to Matias.
“Totally unfair that Lottery robbed me of the chance of getting one of the two deputy positions. I was even faster and stronger than my older brother was at eighteen. Lottery imprinted him as a Strike team leader, so I should definitely have got that imprint too.”
I felt Matias’s outrage as he replied. “Lottery didn’t rob you of anything, Tobias. A candidate needs other qualities than just speed and strength to be imprinted for Strike team leader, and the Lottery testing process must have shown that you didn’t have them. If anyone was robbed of the chance of a deputy position, it was me.”
“But you were one of the lucky five who were imprinted for Strike team leader,” said Tobias.
Matias lost his temper entirely and started ranting at him. “I wasn’t lucky, Tobias. I was unlucky. Lottery imprinted me for Strike team leader because I had all the necessary abilities, but I got appendicitis at the crucial moment when Adika was choosing his deputies.”
He paused to breathe. “That meant I had no chance to impress Adika, no chance to get promoted, but I didn’t sit around sulking about it. I accepted that not everyone imprinted for a post will actually get the chance to hold the position, worked hard to get back to full fitness, and did everything I could to serve my team, my telepath, and my Hive. That’s what you should be doing instead of ...”
I dragged myself away from that memory sequence, and moved on from Matias to where the men on chase duties were waiting. A stranger’s mind was moving past them, thoughts burning bright with frustration.
... fantasized about meeting one of the five telepaths on an emergency run. In those fantasies, I gave the Strike team vital help, ended up getting recruited to join them, and ...
Her mood abruptly changed.
... but this isn’t a fantasy. Lives are at risk, and I need to keep out of the way and let the experts ...
... telepath looked so young that she had to be the one who came out of this year’s Lottery testing. People in Law Enforcement have started calling her Telepath Unit Light Angel after their codename on the mission ...
I moved on again and searched further north. There were a host of glowing minds down on Level 2, but nothing but blackness here on Level 1 or higher up on Level Zero. I drifted on for at least three cors, then hit a mass of worried people. Their thoughts jostled together like a thousand voices screaming at deafening volume. I checked the mind of a random person, and found myself standing in a shopping area near an array of vibrantly coloured New Year festival dresses.
“Do you have a target, Amber?” asked Adika.
“There’s no one between us and the shopping area on either Level 1 or Level Zero. At least, there’s no one alive. I couldn’t find any glimmer of thought at all, not even down at subconscious levels.”
Adika groaned. “We’re too late to help the injured person then.”
“I can’t find our wild bee either,” I said. “Should I try expanding my search to a wider area, Lucas?”
“Try checking a little higher up first,” said Lucas. “The ceilings on Level Zero are normally over twice the height of a standard apartment ceiling, but in some areas the demands of specialist equipment mean they’re even higher. Our wild bee could have climbed up a maintenance ladder and be trying to find a way up into the main industrial levels of the Hive.”
“We’ve accessed the plans of Level Zero in this area, and are sending them to everyone’s dataviews now,” said Nicole gloomily. “We’re having difficulty understanding them though. This part of Level Zero is dedicated to hydroponics reclamation, and there are lots of tanks with a maze of interlinking maintenance ladders and aerial walkways. The ceiling height may well be higher than usual to allow space for the tanks, but we can’t work out how tall those are. We’re trying to calculate the height from tank volume, and we must be making a mistake somewhere because our answers are ridiculous.”
“My Tactical team mathematical specialist, Hallie, should be able to make sense of that for you,” said Lucas.
“I’ll try searching higher.” I reached up through the darkness. “I’m still not finding any minds at all, and it’s hard to judge heights with no reference points.”
There was a sudden burst of laughter on the comms, and Hallie’s voice spoke. “I can see why the Liaison team were confused by the tanks. They’re cylinders containing a series of sedimentation chambers to remove suspended particles from ...”
Lucas interrupted her. “How tall are these tanks, Hallie?”
“Six levels high,” said Hallie.
“Six levels!” I gasped. “I’ll need to search for our target over a much bigger range of heights, but that shouldn’t be a problem. If the maintenance workers have all been evacuated, there won’t be any other minds around to limit my range.”
I reached further upwards into the emptiness, and finally found a level packed with minds. “I’ve found lots of people on what must be an ordinary industrial level of the Hive. Let me just ...”
I linked to a glowing mind that was moving purposefully in a straight line.
... worryingly short time left before the New Year festival closure, and we’re still behind our production target of ...
I wasn’t interested in this person’s thoughts, just the view from their eyes. I’d guessed from the way the mind was moving that the person was walking along a corridor. They were approaching a junction now, and I could see a direction sign on the wall.
“The people are on Industry 46,” I said. “That’s consistent with the tanks extending upwards through the double height of Level Zero and on into the four industrial levels above it as well. I’ll now search that six level gap looking for our target.”
I started making methodical sweeps to the north, and almost immediately found a mind. No, there were actually three minds very close together.
I linked to the one that was flaring brighter than the others, and whimpered in pain. My left arm, no that was my target’s left arm, felt like it was on fire. I was holding it protectively with my right hand, and could feel some bare skin above what felt like a strip of tightly bound cloth.
All my information was coming from touch rather than sight. My target’s eyes were open, but the only lights in this area were tiny ones on a nearby control panel, so I could only see some shadowy outlines in the darkness.
“It’s too dark here.” The petrified murmur from what sounded like a young male voice echoed my own thoughts. “Much too dark.”
“We have to call Emergency Services for help,” whispered a voice that was certainly female.
As well as suffering from the pain in his arm, my target was feeling dizzy from loss of blood, but he hissed back sharply. “No! We aren’t calling for help. I’m in charge, and I’ve got this situation under control.”
“You’ve lost all touch with reality,” said the female voice. “You haven’t got this situation under control. That man is still down at floor level looking for us. Eventually, he’ll work out that we must have climbed a ladder, come up here after us, and attack us again.”
“I won the fight with him last time,” said my target stubbornly. “I can win another fight too.”
“You didn’t win that fight,” the female voice sounded totally exasperated now. “You didn’t do anything except get yourself stabbed. I was the one who kicked the man’s legs out from under him, hit him with my lantern, and then dragged the pair of you off between the tanks. I was the one who tied a cloth around your arm as a makeshift tourniquet. I was the one who thought of climbing a ladder to hide up here.”
She groaned. “Even if that man gives up looking for us, we’ll never get out of here by ourselves. We’ve no lanterns now, and no idea where we are. You have to give us our dataviews back so we can call Emergency Services for help.”
“No! If we call for help, then we’ll get in trouble.”
My target’s pain was making it hard for me to think, but I started babbling details on the crystal comms.
“I’ve found our wounded person. It’s almost completely dark where he is, so I can’t see anything to give us a precise location. He must be at least one corridor north of me, perhaps more like two cors, and at least five levels higher up. He’s been stabbed in the arm and seems to have lost a lot of blood. There are two people with him, and one has put a cloth tourniquet around his arm.”
I paused for breath. “The wounded person is lying on something cold and metallic, probably the top of one of the tanks. One of the other two people is male and frozen in terror of the darkness. The other is female and having an argument with the wounded person. They sound quite young. Definitely no older than me.”
“The people are arguing,” repeated Lucas. “Is one of them our wild bee? Do we have a hostage situation, Amber?”
“No. The three people were attacked by the wild bee. One of the boys was stabbed, but the girl fought the wild bee off, and they managed to get away, climb a ladder, and hide. She thinks the wild bee is still down at floor level looking for them, and the argument is because the wounded boy has all their dataviews and won’t call Emergency Services for help.”
“Are you sure it’s the wounded boy who won’t call for help?” asked Adika. “That doesn’t seem to make sense. Surely he’d want medical treatment.”
“The wounded boy doesn’t want to call for help because he thinks they’ll get into trouble,” I said. “I agree that isn’t sensible, but he isn’t thinking too clearly even at the level of pre-vocalized thoughts, and his lower thought levels are just a blur of pain.”
“We have three vulnerable bystanders hiding on top of a tank,” said Lucas grimly. “Our wild bee has already seriously injured one of them, and he’s probably down at floor level hunting for them right now. There’s obviously no motion-activated lighting around those tanks, but there must be some sort of lighting available.”
“There’s some overhead lighting in the area,” said Nicole. “That’s normally only turned on when maintenance work is being done on the tanks.”
“Our wild bee either doesn’t know how to turn the lights on or prefers to keep searching in the dark,” said Lucas. “We may want to turn the lights on ourselves later, but for now we want to keep the wild bee thinking he’s in control of the situation.”
He paused. “Amber, I want you to leave the three bystanders now, and see if you can find the wild bee.”
I left the pain-filled mind of the wounded bystander, and began sweeping the area looking for the wild bee. I was vaguely aware of the conversation continuing on the crystal comms.
“Sending details on the lighting to everyone on the Strike team,” said Nicole.
“Rothan, you have three people to protect and get to safety instead of one,” said Adika. “Caleb and Rafael had better join red group.”
“We mustn’t endanger the bystanders by leading the wild bee to their location,” said Lucas. “If he’s roaming Level Zero at floor level, then red group should avoid him by taking a lift up to Industry 46 and finding a floor access point. The plan is that you’ll lower yourselves down on ropes, land on the top of one of the tanks, and then use the aerial walkways to reach the bystanders. Don’t open the access point until I give you the order.”
“Red group is moving now,” said Rothan.
A moment later, I found a mind that was burning with anger. “Target acquired. Wild bee is three cors west of me, and one level up.”
“Blue group should get into position ready to corner the wild bee,” said Lucas. “You should remain hidden until red group have reached the bystanders and can defend them.”
“Understood,” said Adika. “Blue group is moving.”
I was reading thoughts that were filled with whirling emotions. “The wild bee is furious. Those three people trespassed on his territory. They learned his private secret. They showed disrespect when they laughed at him.”
“Our target thinks of this place as his territory,” said Lucas. “That means he’s an expert on this area of Level Zero. The bystanders encountered him by accident and learned an embarrassing personal secret. He responded by suddenly escalating into violence.”
“Amber, is the target carrying a lantern?” asked Adika.
“He never carries a lantern in Level Zero because maintenance workers sometimes pass through this area,” I reported. “He’s memorized every inch of this place, and trained himself to move around with only the control panel lights for guidance.”
“Is he wearing a maintenance uniform?” asked Lucas.
“The feel of the fabric isn’t right for a maintenance uniform, and there’s a high collar that’s more like the one on a formal onesuit. The wild bee’s approaching a control panel with lights, so ...”
I studied the view from my target’s eyes as he walked past the control panel. “I just caught a glimpse of one of his sleeves. It’s torn and smeared with dirt, but I saw what looked like a leaf design shimmering in the lights of the control panel.”
Buzz spoke on the crystal comms. “Those clothes can’t be more than three months old. Shimmering leaf and flower designs are the very latest fashion on the elite top ten levels of the Hive.”
“The target is ruining brand new expensive clothes by wearing them in a dirty maintenance area,” said Lucas. “He doesn’t care if he ruins his clothes because he can easily afford more. Our wild bee is a Level 1 resident of this area.”
