The Hunt for Pierre Jnr (44 page)

I believe he will free us all. Just like he has freed me. Don’t you want to be free, Pete? ... Together?

He’s controlling you.

They’re 
controlling you.

They know your disguise now. They’ll find you.

No, they won’t. I’m very good at hiding.

By now they could both hear the pounding of marauder footsteps.

Please let me go.
 Pete dropped the hold he had on her mind. She kissed him quickly on the lips. 
Take care of yourself.

Peter Lazarus lay very still in the slime, the cool tide pushing the water slowly up to his ears and then retreating again. The mud sucking at his clothes, drawing him deeper with every lap. He felt Tamsin and her psis pulling further away, pushing through the low water until it was deep enough for motors. He closed his eyes and felt the cool of the water as he slipped into unconsciousness, slipped into the pinpricks of pain and looked once more into the eyes of the child.

~ * ~

Pierre Jnr will

save us

~ * ~

The moon was only a half, and cut again horizontally by a single thin cloud. It was set in faded orange tonight, but glowing enough that only the brightest of stars could be seen. Centauri stood out clearest, its promise still potent after all this time and all this failure. The stars of the Chameleon constellation were just beginning to show.

He went through them one by one. By the time Ryu had named the visible stars the vapour of the clouds had diffused and the moon was an almost imperceptible smudge. Then it was gone.

The skyline was a line of lights stretching along the low horizon. Homes, turrets, cranes and hoists. Squibs paced the resting skyways, fluorescent.

The organism never sleeps
, he thought.

His mother was right. The family needed separation from the Prime. For just such reasons as this. On the other side of the world, clean-up squads were ferrying in Servicemen and ferrying out Citizens needing safe passage home. Negotiations with Atlantic had broken down.

From his needle Ryu could see Shima Palace and felt the pull of it upon his soul. He was glad that Takashi had agreed to join him in this artificial exile. So long as Ryu never demanded any changes in his behaviour or mode of living, he would be happy to stay and more than happy to get away from the guilt-inducing eyes of their parents. He was taking his time to arrive though. Insisting that none but he could touch his dolls; not even a surgical bot with rubberised hands would be gentle enough. He had spent the day carefully wrapping and boxing them.

Today was a catastrophe. A calamity that nearly equalled the manifestation. Services had been deliberately and openly attacked. Atlantic, that cesspool of atavistic fetishists, no longer had even a token presence of the WU. The Weave was livid.

There was no hiding the psi rebellion now. Not that he would want to. Their symbol was appearing in cities worldwide. Psi spotting and reporting was becoming an everyday activity that even children could play. The attack had escalated the fear amongst the general population. The manifestation was now assumed to be the work of the rebellion and the actions Services were taking to make the rest of the world safe were considered fair and justified.

All had played out as Pinter had predicted, which was only cold comfort under the heat of inquisition.

At least Ryu now had a small inner circle who knew his plans and could reassure the rest of the group in their own way. A small group but better than working alone. More of his mother’s advice he was following.

There would be fresh tumult in the civics balance, but his position seemed secure and the Prime had dedicated the entirety of the next cycle to making personal calls to new and current members of the Primacy to build rapport and spread the word that while this attack was ‘unprovoked’ and ‘violent’, it was not unexpected. Above all he needed them to know that he was prepared.

There was one call he was not looking forward to. He put her on the screens and paced slowly around the room.

‘Good evening, Prime.’

‘Representative Betts.’ For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. While the fear of the psi rebellion had increased the influence of Ryu and his immediates, so too had Charlotte Betts and her partner Max Angelo been reinforced. At the next count both the tolerants might be included in the Primacy council. ‘Congratulations on your rise.’

‘Thank you, Prime. I wish only that it was not a tragedy that contributed to it.’

‘It is the nature of the Will. Fear and crisis are key motivators.’

‘As are hope and opportunity — as I believe my constituency understands.’ The younger Betts was proving she had her mother’s tongue.

‘The reason for my contacting you is to pass on that while this violent attack was unprovoked, we have been preparing for such an event for a long time now.’

‘Unprovoked? Do you not consider the hunting and capture of every psionic you can detect to be provocation?’

‘We provide peaceful accommodations for those who are collected. Their lifestyle is maintained at an exceptionally high grade.’

‘An easy claim to make when access to the islands is so heavily restricted.’

‘It is for the people’s own safety. Both peoples.’

‘But you are breaking families apart. Taking children from parents. And then you don’t allow any access? I should be thankful your lack of basic decency is aiding our cause.’

‘I take it that this is the essence of your next campaign against our directives.’

‘You can be sure it will be.’

‘Then I thank you for the advance warning. I will make use of it. Now if you don’t mind, Representative Betts, I have many more calls to make.’

‘One more question if I may, Prime. When you have collected all the psis in the world, what will you do with them? Where will you put them?’

‘On the islands.’

‘And as more and more are born. You’ll put them on the islands too?’

‘Is this a question of capacity?’

‘This is about the long-term problem. If the world confines a continually growing population, then at some point the cost to resources will outweigh the benefits.’

‘I think that is a question that can wait.’

‘Is it? You and I may not be in power by then, but aren’t you creating the enemy you are now claiming to fight?’

‘Claim? Did you not see the damage that your friendly psionics did to two Services compounds? People died there, Representative Betts, and I’d expect someone in your position to be a bit more respectful of their sacrifice.’

‘That is not what I said.’

‘There are real threats at work here and you will forgive me if I work to defeat them. You may choose to create artificial problems to boost your standing, but don’t forget that by doing so you are also using fear as a tactic. That is all.’

Ryu cut the connection before she could say anything more. That woman and her strange way of thinking was infuriating. No, it was the way the Will was supporting her that was infuriating. At least when Takashi arrived they could start trialling the simulator he had programmed. Then he might never have to talk directly with her again.

~ * ~

Takashi took great care with his girls. He led them by the hand to flat boxes that were the length and width of a single bed, lined with satin, with horseshoe pillows for their heads and feet.

He kissed each of them in turn and wished them goodnight. ‘Go to sleep, Jasmin. Wake only when you hear me calling your name.’

‘Goodnight, Belle ... Poco ... Tiffani.’ The experience was too erotic for him and the packing was interrupted when he came to Sanchal, but went smoothly after that until all eighteen were stowed and the cases sealed so only he could open them.

The only thing left to do was christen the new doll he had ordered. He always acquired a new doll for landmark times in his life, as rewards. Mostly they had been for breaking down a wall that blocked his data mining, or when he had succeeded in blocking his parents from entering his level of the palace.

He was moving out from the family home and needed the distraction, or a motivator. And this one was special. It looked just like his sister Sato. He planned that she would walk with him all the way to his new home. Arm in arm they would stroll to Ryu’s needle and she would enter with him, never to leave.

It would drive the real Sato crazy. The Weave would figure it out quickly and forever remind her that her fat little brother kept a sexual surrogate in her form doing who knows what, who knew how often. But first things first.

Takashi had a ceremony for new dolls. A mesh tea ceremony. He took a long time brewing his mix. Turning the pot, adding ingredients, greedily breathing in the waft of the steam. He sweetened it with cardamom and lime. Then he sipped, sipped, sipped.

From the box stepped a woman that wasn’t what he ordered. She was tall and her hair was fair. 
There must be a mistake
, he thought — then thought again. She had a fierce body and surprise was a rare arousal for him to come by.

The doll pointed her finger at him, cocked like a pistol.

Don’t move, Takashi. I’m going to probe your mind.

~ * ~

Within five minutes Tamsin had everything she needed. It was more than she’d hoped for. Takashi had monitored the Prime’s communications, everything, including the hunt’s investigations. She had suspected the brothers were close, but the bounty of data was beyond her imagining. Of particular interest was the contagion projection from her former colleague Geof.

Ozenbach, you beautiful hairy man.

She stood and looked over the spread of the megapolis with a new feeling inside her. Through the bedroom window she saw everything. She saw the data that Geof had collected, the viral spread they were so afraid of. The difference for Tamsin was that she knew what they didn’t. She knew how many psis it would take to turn the Will.

All she had to do was get this information to La Grêle as soon as she could. Her network could use it. She took his now cold cup of tea and poured the contents over Takashi’s face. A man with mesh-induced memories was always an unreliable witness, even to himself.

Tamsin walked calmly to the elevators and headed down to the market level. There was never any trouble at the Shima market, only times when the throng became so thick they had to push the crowd back to keep the elevator clear. The area around the gate was kept restricted by a barrier and a line of armed men and women in armour, wearing the chameleon sigil. When she had come in, she kept their attention elsewhere. This time she let them see her and their weapons located her instantly.

The flies in the room gathered to watch what would happen next and Tamsin rolled back her second skin and changed her hair to the colour the records knew. When everyone was watching, she began kinetically carving her symbol into the doors behind her, deep gouges cutting through the filigree of family decoration. It didn’t take long to complete, but before she was finished the crowd had begun to babble and gasp.

Look at me, she said with her fighting stance. Camera flies buzzed above the heads of the crowd. The guards tried to turn to face her, but she collapsed them where they stood, bringing another gasp from the crowd.

‘Know this symbol,’ she spoke. ‘We will leave it wherever we pass. If you see it, it means we have been there. It means: Psi Freedom Now.

‘If you wear it, it means you support us and we will know you mean us no harm. Put it up in your workplaces. Put it on the windows of your homes. Tell the World Union that you don’t want this war.

‘We don’t want it either. The psionic people are just like you. We are human. We wish you no harm. But as humans, if the choice is put to us, then we will respond.’

There was too much noise from the crowd. Most seemed confused by what was happening, but so long as the cameras were getting her message then it didn’t matter. The Weave had to capture her declaration.

Services were coming closer, she knew. She didn’t have much time. The chatter she picked up from the connected crowd was that they were sending every squad they had against her.

‘To my fellow psis. We did not choose this division. Like you, I have tried to exist peacefully and in harmony with all around us. But we have been hunted and confined, like criminals. Like animals. Though we have done no wrong.

‘What you have seen in the Cape is the beginning. We have created a zone free of the Services dictatorship. The Cape is now rid of permanent Services interference. We do not know how long this will last.

‘If the Primacy allows us to remain in peace, then there will be no more need for conflict. But if they come to imprison any more of our people, then we will fight back.

‘Brothers and sisters. Those who have spent their lives pretending not to be special, to not have the gifts you have and to those who are still to discover them: you must take great care. Greater care than ever, for the Prime will not stop. He will not rest until every one of us is disabled.