The Mind's Eye, page 24
He winked at her. “Which is lucky for us. It gives us thousands of potential allies, if we can convince them that we are worth supporting,” he added. “They’ve been stung before, so they will be careful at first. We have to prove ourselves to them.”
“We don’t have to prove ourselves to anyone,” Leo snapped. He stroked his chin, where he was trying to grow a beard to fool the CCTV cameras that were already doubtless looking for them. It wasn’t working very well and Valentine had already been talking about obtaining a fake beard for him. “We’re telepaths! They should be coming to us and begging for support.”
“I’m afraid they don’t actually see it that way,” Valentine said. “They need proof before they risk exposing themselves and it has to be dramatic proof, the kind of proof the FBI would never sanction. We have to make our position clear in no uncertain terms.”
“You’re talking about carrying out a terrorist act,” Elizabeth said slowly. She still had nightmares about the minds she’d sensed snapping out of existence at the riot, killed by her – even if she hadn’t meant to do it. “How many people do you want us to kill to make the point clear?”
“Well, that’s rather up to you,” Valentine said. He grinned at her unpleasantly. “How much of a show of power do you want to make?”
“One that will make them back off and leave us alone,” Leo said. The icy determination – and hatred – in his mind shocked her. Elizabeth had known about his beliefs, but the new feelings washing through his mind were worse. “We could start by crashing a few aircraft and then perhaps picking off a political leader or two from a distance...”
“And that wouldn’t win us any friends,” Elizabeth snarled. She didn’t want to kill anyone again. “The mundane humans would be screaming for the government – and the Telepath Corps – to hunt us down as dangerously insane terrorists and they’d be right! We’ll just make them more scared of us, more determined to wipe telepathy out whatever the costs...if we are a separate race, we could be looking at extinction. They won’t let us set up home in Alaska after we have killed a few thousand people, will they? They’ll put us on Death Row and execute us.”
“We are the superior race,” Leo said, firmly. “We can win...”
“Oh, give it a break,” Elizabeth snapped. “You’re a telepath, not Superman. The last time I checked, a speeding bullet could catch us before we even turned to run and our skin isn’t exactly made of armour. Reading minds isn’t that great an advantage in a tactical situation – is it? Maybe we can send soldiers running away from us, or get them fighting each other, but we can’t influence robots or drones. They’ll send an unmanned aircraft overhead and drop a missile on our heads and that will be the end of us!”
She realised that she was shouting and lowered her voice. “We are not gods,” she said. “We cannot afford to provoke a war of extermination.”
Years ago, while she’d been in college – it felt like a lifetime ago – she’d studied the Perfect Heresy, the rise and destruction of the Cathar Religion in France. They’d struck her as wonderful people, far superior to the Catholic Church – particularly after all the priestly abuse scandals – and yet they’d been destroyed by the Christians. Having right on one’s side was no guarantee of victory. And there were plenty of other examples of a race being threatened with extermination by an outside force. Hitler and the Jews were merely the most prominent.
“We need to make it clear that we can live in peace with them,” she said, finally. “If we start by committing mass slaughter” – again, her mind whispered – “they will have no way out of the crisis, save by slaughtering each and every telepath down to the very last man, woman and child. You said it yourself” – nodding to Valentine – “that government show a much smarter and deadlier side of themselves when their power is seriously threatened. We are going to threaten both that power and their reason for existence, protecting the American population.”
Leo stared at her as if he had never seen her before. “And you suggest...what? We cannot stay here forever. Even if the rich bastard who owns the place stays away for a few more months, we are consuming more food than they would over the same period of time. Someone might notice and then realise where we are. What do you suggest we do?”
“We cannot stay hidden forever anyway,” Valentine added. “That redneck fool senator is already talking about mandatory telepathic testing and drugging for telepaths who refuse to join the Telepath Corps and be indoctrinated into service to the government. It won’t be long before they bring in ID cards and random sweeps for subversives and unregistered telepaths, including us. And then where will we be?”
He leaned forward. “There is an election coming up in a few months,” he reminded them. “The person who wins that election will be the person who shapes the government’s response to telepathy. Do we want to risk hiding until we discover that the next President is someone who intends to make such mandatory precautions real?”
Elizabeth stared down at her hands. She hadn’t realised, because they had all been so close back at the mansion, that Leo had brought his strongest supporters to Washington. She had wanted to go with him to keep an eye on him, but it suddenly crossed her mind that four telepaths on one would be quick and decisive. If Leo started to wonder about her loyalty, he might well kill her or try to rewrite her mind...
“We cannot start by killing people,” she said, trying to conceal her inner thoughts. Luckily, she would have known if anyone had actually been reading her mind. Being so exposed to one another had made them all more sensitive and more tolerant. “If we kill political leaders, it will turn them into martyrs rather than the criminal traitors they are. We need to embarrass them instead. That shouldn’t be too difficult. The way they have been pushing for controls on telepaths suggests that they all have their guilty secrets. We peek into their minds, discover their secrets and then expose them to the world.”
“We can hardly step forward and tell everyone without getting arrested,” Leo sneered. “That is an absurd idea and...”
“No, we can’t,” Valentine agreed. “On the other hand, we can definitely use one of the underground internet newspapers to spread the word. Quite a few of them have links to the more respected newspapers and television programs, so the word would spread quickly. If the political leader tried to sue, he’d discover that it would be impossible to save what remained of his reputation...”
He grinned. “Best of all, we wouldn’t have to show ourselves so openly,” he added. “They’d know what had happened, but the world wouldn’t know – which would make them wonder what else we might know that we have decided to keep to ourselves, so far. They’d be hit by their own inner demons...”
Leo laughed. “Anyone would think that they had something to hide,” he said. He grinned. Elizabeth blinked in alarm at the sudden burst of dark amusement that flickered through his mind. “I have a better idea. There are always political press conferences going on around Washington. Let’s crash one of them and make the bastard confess to his sins in public.”
He looked up at Valentine. “Wouldn’t that convince your contacts that we are to be trusted?”
“Probably,” Valentine said, slowly. “They’d certainly be delighted at embarrassing a politician. We’d have to check with them first, though; they might have particular targets in mind. I’ll see to that now. Everyone else can get a rest and we will move out tomorrow.”
Elizabeth frowned inwardly, pulling her own mental shields around her. She still didn’t trust Valentine, even though Leo seemed to trust him completely. It would have been easier if Valentine showed his emotions to the other telepaths, but his mental shields had strengthened in the last few minutes. She had the distant feeling that she understood – too late – how he was manipulating Leo. He showered Leo in tales of government misconduct and offered to help make his dreams real. Leo probably hadn’t needed much persuasion. He’d been convinced he was a superior form of life before the first telepaths had sprung into existence.
She shook her head at Eugene, who had sent her an unspoken invitation to share his bed, and walked into the room she’d claimed for herself. She hadn’t risked having sex as a telepath – indeed, she’d curtailed physical contact as much as possible, like almost every other telepath – after hearing about some telepaths who became so closely entwined in one another that it had proven impossible to separate them into two separate minds. They might have been the lucky ones. Other telepaths – or telepath-mundane pairings – had failed because they’d suddenly learned all of their partner’s innermost secrets. Eugene was a nice boy, in his way, but he was very definitely a loyalist. He would have told Leo if he knew about Elizabeth’s doubts.
The room she’d claimed for herself had clearly been designed for a pre-teen girl, or perhaps a very soppy teenage girl. It was covered in pink; pink wallpaper, pink furniture and a pink bed. Elizabeth had laughed when she’d seen it, but after two days of sleeping in it she’d decided that she positively hated the colour pink. The laptop on the desktop was useless. The room’s owner had put a password on and Elizabeth’s poor computer skills couldn’t unlock it. She shook her head, pulled back the sheets and settled down into bed. At least the pink mattress was comfortable. The maids had changed the linings for her on Elizabeth’s command, although they hadn’t been able to change the colour. Or perhaps there were simply no other colours.
She started to breathe deeply, focusing her mind. Professor Zeller’s old exercises – she wondered, briefly, what had happened to the Professor – still worked, allowing her to sleep in reasonable comfort. She hoped that her nightmares weren’t being broadcast to the others. There was no such thing as privacy at night any longer, not in a world that included telepaths. She closed her eyes and started to think...
Leo had gone off the deep end, aided and abetted by Valentine. It was clear, just from his mental tone, that he actually believed most of what he was saying. Elizabeth had hoped that she could talk him into settling for less than total victory or defeat, but that was looking increasingly unlikely. Quite apart from Valentine whispering poison into his ear, the government was looking for them and wouldn’t be too happy when they found them. It occurred to her that she could simply walk away and vanish into the shadows, relying on her own telepathy to keep her hidden, but Valentine was right. The government would be searching for them and, eventually, it would start mandatory testing for telepathy.
And Leo’s actions would probably make that inevitable.
Elizabeth’s thoughts chased themselves uselessly, around and around. If the telepaths frightened the normal humans enough, perhaps they would be left in peace – or perhaps it would be war to the knife. If two telepaths, linked together and panicking, had been able to wreak havoc in Harvard, she knew that thirteen would be able to cause vast damage, perhaps even break the telekinetic barrier. They could lay waste to an entire city...
No, she thought. That couldn’t be allowed. If the embarrassment campaign worked, there would be no need for mass slaughter, no need for a war that could only end in genocide. She had to believe that it was possible, because otherwise there would be no home for her. She wished Professor Zeller was with them. His wisdom might have helped them find a way out of their predicament. Slowly, unwillingly, she fell into a fitful sleep.
***
“There’s still no trace of them?”
“No, Mr President,” the FBI Director said. “They haven’t shown themselves at all. We have had no luck in tracing them to their final destination.”
The President scowled. There were thirteen rogue telepaths, among the most powerful in the world, loose in America. God alone knew what they were planning. The entire country had been placed on alert, watching for them. Once they were found, perhaps they could relax a little.
“And Professor Zeller?”
“Still no change,” the Director said. “His coma remains unbroken.”
The President nodded, reluctantly. He had hundreds of questions for Zeller.
And it looked as if they would never be answered.
Chapter Twenty-Six
The European Union today announced the development of a Euro Corps of Telepaths, who would be charged with supporting counter-terrorism activities and border security. Rumours have emerged from Brussels that the Euro Corps was brought into existence through the combined efforts of France, Germany and Britain – and over the objections of most of the European Parliament. Telepaths in France and Britain have helped expose and capture many terrorist cells in both countries...
...Russia accused the Chinese Government of allowing a telepath to peek into the mind of the Russian Ambassador to China, following a small border dispute two weeks ago. The Chinese denied the claim and accused Russia of attempting to undermine the Chinese Government...
-AP News Report, 2015
Senator Curtis Hughes was a beefy black man, elected twenty years ago to the Senate and, so far, hadn’t even been worried by the Tea Party Movement. Roger disliked him on sight, as did many others in the media, even though they knew that Hughes had been quite successful at pleasing his constituents. Rumours of scandals plagued his career, as they did to all political figures in the world, but somehow nothing had ever stuck to the man. He’d been quite willing to unleash an army of lawyers on anyone who dared to repeat some of the more outrageous rumours, including the one that linked him to organised crime and voting fraud.
He scowled as he stood in the press pit and watched as the Senator outlined his plans for the future, including a possible bid to become the Democratic Candidate for President. There were several other major figures in the party considering a run for President themselves, so it was clear that Hughes didn’t want to show his hand too soon. Roger had never quite understood the process, but he did understand that the prospective candidate had to bring in enough funds, without exposing himself to the media for too long. The longer his name was in the public eye, the greater the chance of some of the mud that would be thrown at him sticking It wouldn’t be the first time a seemingly inevitable victor had been derailed by the sudden discovery of an embarrassing fact.
The Senator was, of course, talking about telepaths. “I say to you all,” Hughes thundered, “that the use of telepaths in law enforcement is quite unacceptable! Can a telepath tell the difference between a fantasy and reality? How long will it be before the Telepath Corps becomes the Thought Police, poking into our minds and using whatever it finds as evidence against us?”
Roger shrugged, jotting down the high points in his little notepad. As he understood it, from his interviews with Professor Zeller’s pupils, a telepath could easily tell the difference between a false memory, one born from a fantasy, and a true memory. The false memory would lack the hundreds of tiny impressions that the true memory would have – everything from temperature to ambient feelings. But the Senator was speaking to men and women who were scared of telepaths, worried that their innermost thoughts and feelings would be brought out on display. They might have good reason to worry. Only five days ago, a telepath – a thirteen-year-old girl in school – had been exposed, using her powers to read minds for her own amusement. The courts were still arguing over what, if anything, she could actually be charged with. Could she be charged with invasion of privacy or worse?
“And I pledge that should I be elected, I will ensure that every known telepath is told to go to Alaska and live there, or take sleeper drugs to dampen their telepathic powers,” Hughes continued. Roger lifted an eyebrow, wondering if he’d misheard. No, the other reporters were reacting as well. It was rare for political candidates to make such blunt statements, if only because their rivals would have a field day making fun of it. A statement in favour of one issue would ensure that everyone who was not in favour of that issue would line up on the other side. But then, telepaths were only a tiny percentage of the population. Losing their votes wouldn’t matter a damn if the remainder of the population voted for him. “They will be taught to control themselves or be separated from normal people.”
Roger listened to the remainder of the speech, but there was little else of interest in it. As always, the Senator took questions from the media, carefully picking out the reporters who were sure to ask favourable questions. Roger rolled his eyes cynically; reporters always had their political favourites, the candidates they would root for, ignoring all traditions of journalistic neutrality. The first question was harmless, one about how the Senator treated his constituents; good for nothing more than a sound bite. The second was political dynamite.
“Senator,” a voice said, “is it true that you’re having a relationship with a woman called Yolanda who is not your wife.”
There was a stunned pause. A moment later, the Senator started to speak. “Yes,” he said. Roger stared in disbelief. By the look of him, the Senator couldn’t believe the words coming out of his mouth either. “I fell in love with Yolanda after my wife rejected my advances. I had tried to introduce her to some of my favourite sexual games, but she refused to play. Yolanda loved experimenting with me, although we sometimes went too far and I had to pay for her to get an abortion because an illegitimate child would have ruined my prospects of becoming President ...”
Roger – the entire press pool – just stared as Hughes destroyed his political career. The words just kept rolling out; he’d committed adultery on many occasions, he’d accepted bribes, he’d spread lies and nonsense about his rivals, he’d used blackmail and threats to ensure that his state got a large slice of the federal pie...there seemed to be no end to the confession. He was even talking about taking drugs as a young man and using prostitutes before he married his wife. The live feed from the event would be on CNN and Fox by now, he knew; none of the Senator’s army of lawyers or PR men would be able to stop it from going viral. The entire country would see it by afternoon.
