| |
––––––––
“I’d better call Melisande right away and find out what’s wrong,” said Lucas. “Do you want to be involved in the call?”
“I’d prefer to listen to the call, but keep out of view,” I said. “If Melisande saw me, she’d probably notice my black eye.”
“She’d definitely notice your black eye,” said Lucas. “Melisande never misses anything.”
I sat down on a couch at the far side of the room. Lucas tapped at his dataview, and a holo of a familiar diminutive figure in a Hive Defence uniform appeared in front of him. Melisande’s blonde hair usually hung in a neat plait down her back, but today it was just roughly tied with a ribbon, and she looked uncharacteristically tired. I remembered all the panicking messages during the night, and wondered guiltily if Gold Commander Melisande had been involved in them.
“Tactical Commander Lucas, how is Amber?” she asked. “She’s still not showing any worrying symptoms after the Tobias attack?”
I frowned. I’d specifically told my people not to mention the Tobias incident to anyone outside this unit, so how had ...?
“Our Senior Administrator has already sent you a full medical report,” said Lucas. “I’m not a doctor, so I don’t see what I can add to that.”
I felt it was typical of Megan to ignore my wishes and send a report to Melisande.
“Your imprint information covers behavioural analysis and selected areas of psychology, and you have an intimate personal knowledge of Amber,” said Melisande. “You’re the most likely person to notice symptoms such as forgetfulness or personality changes.”
“Amber has some bruising on her left cheek and around her eye,” said Lucas, “but she’s acting exactly as I’d expect in this situation.”
Melisande nodded. “Your Strike team leader’s report included a recording of the incident.”
Adika had sent a report to Melisande as well! Had everyone including my cleaner, Hannah, sent reports? I gave a despairing shake of my head.
“After examining that recording, I’m satisfied that everyone acted correctly except for Tobias and Amber herself,” said Melisande. “It’s difficult to take disciplinary action against telepaths, but I hope you’ve made it clear to Amber that she must never endanger herself again.”
“I expressed myself forcefully on the subject of Amber endangering herself,” said Lucas.
“I was surprised and concerned to discover that Tobias is still in your unit,” said Melisande. “I’m aware that Amber is overly protective of her unit members, but you were criminally negligent not to insist on him being moved elsewhere immediately after the incident.”
“Tobias isn’t in our unit,” said Lucas calmly. “He’s merely being held in our holding cells under maximum security conditions. Amber has already accepted that Tobias must leave the unit permanently. Tomorrow morning, she will read Tobias’s mind as part of a psychological assessment to decide the best options for his future.”
“Is it necessary for Amber to take part in that assessment?” asked Melisande.
“Amber’s counsellor wants to let Amber satisfy herself that no errors are being made. I feel that’s a wise decision.”
“Very well,” said Melisande. “Now what’s the current status of the Gregas crisis?”
“It was complicated by Amber’s parents getting involved,” said Lucas, “but I think we’ve got everything under control again.”
“Containing the situation between Amber and Mira must remain your unit’s first priority,” said Melisande, “however we have an additional problem. Over the last few weeks, there have been increasing numbers of Blue Upway game players suffering accidental injuries. Now three Telepath Unit emergency runs have encountered Blue Upway game groups.”
Lucas raised his eyebrows. “Three?”
“Keith’s Strike team encountered a Blue Upway game group this morning,” said Melisande. “Details of that will soon appear on the data exchange between Telepath Units.”
“We’ve just learned a relevant piece of information from Gregas,” said Lucas. “The Blue Upway Game Commander has started offering group leaders bonus points for taking inexperienced players into maintenance areas.”
Melisande frowned. “That would explain the escalating problems. This situation cannot be allowed to continue. When Morton’s unit is in shutdown for his surgery, the Hive’s four remaining Telepath Units will be pushed to their limits keeping order. We can’t have a reckless Teen Game creating extra trouble.”
“Agreed,” said Lucas.
“Game Control has tried all the standard methods of getting Blue Upway back under control without success,” said Melisande. “That means your Telepath Unit has to step in to close down the game. Ideally, you should deal with Blue Upway before the New Year festival.”
Lucas grimaced. “Gold Commander Melisande, I totally agree with you about the urgency of shutting down Blue Upway, and I understand that the newest Telepath Unit always gets the job of dealing with Teen Games, but suggesting we can do it before the New Year festival is ... an extremely ambitious deadline. Blue Upway has been running for over twenty months and has gone Hivewide. It must have at least ten thousand players by now.”
“Game Control estimates that Blue Upway has thirty thousand players,” said Melisande.
Lucas made a choking noise. “I’d expect it to take at least two months to shut down a game on that scale.”
“Shutting down a Teen Game is usually treated as a non-urgent background task,” said Melisande. “In this case, it would be your unit’s first priority.”
Lucas seemed to be choosing his words carefully. “You just said that our first priority was containing the situation between Amber and Mira. I was expecting to keep our unit shut down until after Amber has read Tobias’s mind. Depending on Tobias’s psychological state, Amber may need some further recovery time after that as well.”
“Amber must obviously be allowed sufficient recovery time,” said Melisande, “but your Tactical team could start making plans to deal with Blue Upway.”
“I agree,” said Lucas. “Our first step in dealing with Blue Upway will be to collate all Game Control’s information and run a complete geographical and timeline pattern analysis. Given the massive number of players, the analysis work will take my Tactical team at least a week.”
“I accept you need to do a geographical pattern analysis to find areas with high levels of game activity,” said Melisande. “Is the more time-consuming timeline pattern analysis necessary as well?”
“I believe so,” said Lucas. “Irresponsible Game Commanders normally push the limits on challenges from the very start of the game. The Game Commander of Blue Upway used to keep the player challenges within reasonable limits, but now novice players are being sent into dangerous maintenance areas.”
He shook his head. “My instincts are telling me that something is horribly wrong with Blue Upway. I need to understand exactly what has been happening inside that game, when it happened, and most importantly why it happened before taking action.”
“And Lottery has selected you as a Tactical Commander because your instincts can be trusted,” said Melisande briskly. “I accept you need both types of pattern analysis, and will ask all the other four Telepath Unit Tactical teams to assist you with the work. Do you have any preference on who should act as the central coordinator of the pattern analysis?”
“I’d like Beckett,” Lucas’s face took on a fond, reminiscent smile. “He’s the best pattern specialist in the Hive, and will handle the final integration better than anyone else.”
“Beckett may be the best choice to carry out the final integration,” said Melisande, “but his weakness is communicating his conclusions to other people.”
“There won’t be any communication difficulties between Beckett and me,” said Lucas confidently. “We came out of Lottery at the same time, and I spent three years working with him on Keith’s tactical team.”
Melisande nodded. “I shall make the arrangements at once.”
She ended the call, and Lucas came over to flop down on the couch next to me.
“Why does the newest Telepath Unit always get the job of dealing with Teen Games?” I asked.
“Because we have the youngest Strike team,” said Lucas. “The accepted method of shutting down a Teen Game is to send Strike team members undercover on Teen Level. Their job is to infiltrate the game, attract the curiosity of the Game Commander by their brilliance at game challenges, and try to lure them into arranging a meeting to give an award.”
I blinked. “Is arranging a meeting really necessary, or even possible?”
Lucas shrugged. “Whether it’s possible depends on the character of the Game Commander. The undercover Strike team members will also be talking to other players, and trying to find clues to the identity or location of the Game Commander. There are over five million teens living on Teen Level, and half a million of them in Blue Zone. You can’t scan that number of minds looking for the Game Commander, so we have to narrow down the area for you to check.”
“I suppose that’s true.”
“Even if our undercover men can tell us a specific area of Blue Zone for you to scan, it may not be easy for you to identify the Game Commander,” said Lucas. “He or she probably won’t have the same sort of distinctive mind as a wild bee. All teens indulge in a little rule-breaking. Game Commanders just break the rules in an unusual way.”
“I wouldn’t describe sending thirty thousand teens trespassing in maintenance areas as a little rule-breaking,” I said acidly. “Especially when those thirty thousand teens include my brother!”
“I agree that Blue Upway has gone well beyond the acceptable limits for a Teen Game,” said Lucas.
“Blue Upway hasn’t just gone beyond the acceptable limits,” I ranted. “I’ve just worked out that it caused all the problems with both Gregas and Tobias. Gregas got drawn into playing Blue Upway and going into the air vents. That game was the reason he met a wild bee, got triggered into being a borderline telepath, and then arrested by Mira’s Strike team.”
I paused for breath. “Tobias got left behind because a Blue Upway game group caused an emergency run. That game was the reason he was dropped from the Alpha team, lost his temper, and accidentally hit me.”
Lucas cowered. “Please don’t get angry with me about those things, Amber. I’ve been doing my best to help.”
For a moment, I thought this was Lucas’s standard comic routine of pretended fear, but then I realized he was genuinely scared that I was angry with him. We were getting close to the New Year festival, so Lucas was afraid of his own shadow.
I hastily forced my voice back under control. “I’m not angry with you, Lucas. I deeply appreciate how much you’ve helped. I’m just saying that Gold Commander Melisande is right. We have to shut down Blue Upway as fast as possible.”
