Mind Control: A Science Fiction Telepathy Thriller (Perceivers Book 2) (14 page)

He ended up in a ball at the bottom.

His hands slapped out in front of him and hit a wall. He kept slapping until he hit wood: the door.

Pulling himself to his feet, Michael found the handle and turned.

He stumbled out into the fresh, un-burning air, gasping at it. Coughing and wheezing and stumbling. But free.

Free and alive.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

MICHAEL CONCENTRATED ON
the tied laces of his training shoe, as it sat at the end of his bed. He willed them to untie. In his mind, the laces weaved around each other, unravelling the knot until they broke free of each other and each one lay separately on the duvet. In the real world, the laces didn’t move and remained steadfastly tied in a bow.

Michael propped himself up straighter against the pillow at his headboard and took a deep breath. He stared at the trainer again with all his strength: directing his brain power and commanding the laces to move.

The trainer sat there. The bow did nothing.

Michael let his breath go and his throat spasmed. He coughed and gasped as his lungs protested at having their regular oxygen intake disrupted. He reached for the box of tissues next to him on the bed and spat into it. His sputum was no longer black from the soot of the fire, but his lungs were still producing mucus as they tried to heal from their ordeal.

“My God, are you all right?” came a female voice from the doorway.

He had been concentrating so hard on trying to undo shoe laces that he hadn’t perceived her coming. It was Pauline. She wore the regulation grey T-shirt and trousers they all wore in the camp, but it didn’t suit her and the clothes sat on her body like they had been put on a manikin by a shop assistant. She still kept her individuality with the precise black lines of her eye make-up and her jet black hair, which she wore hanging loose, against regulations.

Michael nodded in answer to her question. Speaking would require air from his lungs and they were too busy trying to recover from holding his breath.

“Are you sure they should have let you out of hospital?” said Pauline.

“Doctor said—” he took a croaky breath “—it’s fine as long as I don’t exert myself.”

Pauline stepped inside and looked over to the chest of drawers where a jug of water sat next to an empty glass among a collection of half a dozen ‘get well’ cards. She poured him a glass and brought it over. Michael accepted it gratefully, took a sip like the nurse at the hospital had told him, and felt the lukewarm water soothe his throat.

“I see you got my card,” she said.

Michael looked over, and among the pictures of cute animals and pastel coloured flowers was a card with a picture of a killer whale on the front and the message, ‘get whale soon’. He smiled. “Yes.”

He reached down and put the glass on the floor by the bed. He still hadn’t got around to asking for a bedside table like Pauline had in her room. “I didn’t expect to see you,” he said. Not after their encounter last time.

“If I said I was just passing, would you perceive I was lying?” she said.

“I would,” said Michael.

“The truth is, Alex sent me.”

“Ah, Alex,” said Michael, nodding. He would have to have a word with his friend.

Pauline sat on the other end of the bed and yelped as her bum landed on top of the trainer. She reached underneath herself and pulled it out. “What’s that doing there?”

“Nothing,” said Michael. “Put it on the floor.”

She dropped the trainer to the ground where it tumbled until it hit the chest of drawers and came to a stop.

“How’s life in the army?” Michael asked her.

She rolled her eyes. “I thought I was here to use my mind, but they keep making me march up and down. What’s the point in that? And who cares that my step is one millisecond later than everyone else’s? I’m still getting there, aren’t I?”

Michael laughed. Then regretted it because it made him cough again.

“Do you want some more water?”

He waved her concern away and sat taking slow and steady breaths until the coughing subsided.

“It’s about discipline,” said Michael. “They want all their soldiers to be the same, to keep in step, so they follow orders.”

“I won’t be ordered about by anybody,” said Pauline.

“You’re wearing the uniform,” he noted.

She frowned and pulled at the neck of her T-shirt as if it were some distasteful scrap. She let go of it and allowed the T-shirt to drop back against her chest. “Grey marl!
Not
my colour. I only wear it to keep them off my back. It’s like school uniform, isn’t it? You hate it but you wear it on the outside because you know, on the inside, you are the same person.”

“At least the army pays you.”

She scoffed at that. “Not much.”

“It adds up over a few months,” he said. “Or you can do what Peter did, get credit on your salary and run up a massive debt.”

“Not sure it makes up for all the marching.”

“You get lessons on perception too, right?” said Michael.

“Yeah, mostly about focussing and stuff.”

“Not anything new?” he asked.

“What do you mean? You say it like there’s something new to teach.”

“I’ve been thinking,” said Michael. “Maybe there’s more to perception than sensing people’s thoughts and feelings.”

“Wouldn’t we know about it?” said Pauline.

“Not necessarily. I mean, you didn’t know there were adult perceivers or natural borns until I told you. It makes me wonder what other secrets they might be keeping from us.”

“If we were being told lies, then we would perceive it.”

“Not if the only people they allow close to us don’t know the truth.”

Pauline laughed like it was ridiculous. “What are you talking about?”

Michael returned the laugh, releasing his tension, but being careful not to engage his whole lungs. “I don’t know,” he said. “The smoke must have addled my brain.”

“Alex said …” She paused. “Alex said the fire was deliberate, that someone tried to kill you.”

“Alex should stop spreading gossip,” said Michael. He really would have to have a word with his friend when he next saw him.

“Is it true?” said Pauline.

“Yes and no.” James had meant for him to die, he was certain of that, but he didn’t think the other gang members had meant to hurt him. They were James’s puppets, following his orders without question, like soldiers running into battle to face death, just because someone more powerful than them told them to do so.

“You’re younger than me,” said Michael all of a sudden.

“I suppose,” she said, surprised.

“You would have gone through the perception screening programme. What happens, exactly?”

She blew out a mouthful of air as she remembered a tense time in her life only a few months ago, the strain still showing in her voice and the traces of emotion that escaped through her filters. “Someone comes to your school and takes over the head teacher’s office and they call you in, one by one, to speak to them. I remember thinking it was really stupid because all they do is ask you a bunch of questions and anyone trying to hide would just lie. But now I think the man who screened me was an adult perceiver and he must have known what I was the minute I walked into the room, so it didn’t matter what answers I gave him.”

“Wouldn’t you have sensed he was a perceiver at the time?” said Michael.

“Not if I wasn’t expecting it and not if he had his blocks up,” she said. “That’s something I’ve learnt in here. To be honest, I was so nervous that day, I daren’t perceive anything from the moment I got to school to the moment I got home.”

“They test everyone, right? No one could slip through the net?”

“Everyone,” said Pauline. “At our school, they came three years running, testing all the age groups where children were going through puberty. Anyone who didn’t come to school that day was sent an appointment to go to a special clinic, and if they didn’t turn up, they got a home visit. There was one boy in our class they had to physically drag out of his bedroom for the test while he was screaming about his human rights. It was stupid because it turned out he was a norm.”

“The reason I’m asking,” said Michael, thinking about James. “Is that I met this perceiver kid who said something odd. He said: ‘once they know what you are, they keep hounding you until their paperwork says you’ve been turned into a norm’.”

“What does that mean?” said Pauline.

“I think he meant the authorities believe he’s had the cure.”

“And he hasn’t?”

“No.”

“You’re talking about the perceiver kid who tried to kill you in the fire, aren’t you?” she said.

Michael smiled. “Alex talks too much.”

“Alex said he was really strong. Someone like that’s going to attract attention, get invited to join the Perceivers Corps or be pressured into taking the cure.”

“You think so?” said Michael.

“It’s what happened to me,” said Pauline. “I know you think the Perceivers’ Law protects people like us who opt to live on the outside, but I didn’t get the impression that was a choice I had. For perceivers with weak or average power, maybe, but for strong ones like us – and the kid who tried to kill you – no chance. When Agent Cooper knocked on my door after the screening, I got the impression that if I tried to live an ordinary life on the outside, they would always be watching me, afraid of what I might do with my power. I wasn’t told that in so many words, of course, but I perceived it in Agent Cooper’s thoughts – I’m sure he thought those things on purpose.”

Michael leant over the side of the bed and picked up his glass of water, using it as an excuse to look away from her. Maybe he had been naive to think society would turn their backs on prejudice against perceivers just because of a law.

“So you think,” said Pauline, “this perceiver kid somehow forged the records to show he’d been cured when he hadn’t, to keep the authorities off his back?”

“After what you’ve told me,” said Michael. “I think that’s exactly what he did.”

“Then there has be a record of it somewhere.”

“That’s what I was thinking.”

“So, where do we look?” said Pauline.

It was the question he’d been asking himself ever since he’d had time to think about what James had said in the derelict office. The only problem was, he didn’t like the answer. “I know someone who works in the cure programme, but I haven’t seen her for a couple of years, it might be a bit awkward …”

“Awkward?” she said. “Do you want to find out who tried to kill you or not?”

“Perhaps you could come with me.”

“I’d like that,” said Pauline. “Except, I’m not allowed out of the camp, I have some more stupid marching to do.”

“I can get you a pass,” said Michael. “We can say I need someone to look after me because of my—” he coughed a couple of times “—medical condition.”

“Like I’m some kind of nurse?” said Pauline, offended. “Bit of a gender stereotype!”

“Norm the Norm loves stereotypes, they fit nicely into his regimented view of the world. He’ll give you a pass for that, I bet you.”

~

DOCTOR RACHEL PAGE
wasn’t used to being around perceivers and her irritation at being disturbed in her office was obvious behind her smile as soon as Michael knocked and walked in. When she saw who it was, her surprise turned to delight and she stood from her desk to welcome him, taking off her reading glasses as she did so, laying them beside her computer as she stepped out to greet him.

“Michael,” she said, her smile becoming genuine. She walked towards him and they met in the middle of what was a small, but tidy and private office with a chill breeze that blew in from the window which was open a crack beside her desk. Michael perceived she wanted to hug him, but self-restraint and thinking better of it held her back. It was then she remembered Michael’s power and her standard blocks went up, dulling the emotions he was getting from her.

“Hello, Doctor Page,” said Michael.

“You’re virtually a man now,” she said.

Michael looked down at himself. He felt just the same as he had two years ago when they last saw each other. “Am I?”

Page, too, had changed. She was dressed for work in a smart navy trouser suit and her hair, once long, had been cut into a brown bob. It made her look a little younger.

Pauline entered through the open door, following Michael slowly and apprehensively.

“And who’s this?” said Page.

“I’m Pauline.”

Page turned back to Michael. “Girlfriend?”

“A friend,” said Michael. “Who is also a girl.”

Pauline looked at the woman they had come to see. “You’re a perceiver,” she said.

Page’s standard blocks weren’t enough to mask her discomfort at the word. “Come in, my dear, and close the door,” she said.

Pauline did as she was asked, still wary, but comforted by the fact that Michael was so at ease.

“Most people here don’t know that about me,” said Page. “I need to keep it that way. This building is full of people whose job it is to cure perceivers, after all.”

Her office was one of many in a small 1980s office block in the Docklands area of London, surrounded by banking and financial firms. There was no company name on the front of the building, just a plaque with the street name and number. It was probably by design that the administrative hub of the cure programme was secreted a distance from the centre of London where it would attract little attention.

“Doctor Page,” said Michael. “We’ve come to see if a perceiver – a
child
perceiver – could be recorded as having had the cure when they actually haven’t.”

“I see,” said Page. “Straight to business, is it?”

“Is it possible?” pressed Michael.

“Nothing is impossible, although it’s highly unlikely. But if you’ve come to ask me to fudge the records for a friend of yours, then the answer is no. With my history, it’s not a risk I can take.”

“No,” said Michael. “But I think someone might have already done it.”

Page became interested. “Who?”

“I don’t know who might have done the fudging, but the perceiver’s name is James. Is it possible to look him up?”