The Mind's Eye, page 26
Art allowed Alice to precede him into the briefing room, giving him a chance to catch his breath and focus his mind. Inside, the room had been equipped for video conferencing, with the three Senators who served as the Oversight Committee and the President himself displayed on the screens. Doctor Sampson, Agent Evens and a handful of people Art didn’t know made up the remainder of the conference. Agent Evens nodded to him, her thoughts agitated; her transfer to the Telepath Corps hadn’t been entirely willing. And she wasn’t a telepath herself.
“All links secure,” the technician stated. “You may speak freely.”
Art concealed a smile. The United States was good at creating secure communications networks, at least under normal circumstances. The NSA had designed powerful encryption programs that should have made it impossible for anyone to listen in to their conversation, at least under normal circumstances. What would happen if a telepath obtained the encryption algorithm or even managed to listen in telepathically? Professor Zeller had started out working with remote viewers after all and that part of the program had remained firmly with the CIA.
He looked up at the President, who looked pale and tired, and at the three Senators. Senator Walker – the blackmail victim – seemed deeply worried, leaving Art wondering if there was a connection between the blackmail attempt and the current crisis. Senator Wallis looked calm and composed, yet there was something in his face that Art didn’t like. He could tell, even without telepathy, that the Senator was trying to find a way to game the current crisis to his advantage. Senator Gillian Forrester, a woman Art had never met in person, just looked harassed. Her constituents would be demanding action.
The President opened the discussion. “Yesterday saw the first outbreak of what we have come to call telepathic terrorism,” he said. “I don’t think I need to remind anyone that this situation is already highly volatile and could become much worse. Agent Evens – the floor is yours.”
Agent Evens nodded. “Thank you, Mr President,” she said. If she was intimidated by suddenly finding herself speaking to people who were normally well above her pay grade, she didn’t show it. “The most notable event was the shock confession of Curtis Hughes. After he recovered from the shock, Hughes claimed that a telepath made him confess to his crimes and other...misdeeds. A telepath from the Telepath Corps was invited to peek into his mind and confirmed that he was pushed into admitting the truth. The telepath also discovered that what he admitted was the truth. He wasn’t forced into lying about imaginary misdeeds.”
Art frowned at the thought. Could Hughes claim to have been forced to lie? Perhaps not – even if a telepath’s report wasn’t considered legally admissible in court, the reporters were probably already trying to verify the story. His mistress would sell her story to the highest bidder and retire, once the quickie book and movie deals came through. She’d have to move fast, though; scandals didn’t have a long shelf life before they were replaced by the next set of scandals.
“The second attack, however, was considerably worse,” Agent Evens continued. “The telepaths obtained passwords and access codes for hundreds of secure databases and passed them over to a hacker from the online community, a young man the FBI’s Computer Crime Division has been struggling to build a case against. We have that case now, but too late; the information he retrieved has already been distributed onto the net and has spread abroad. The results have been...worrying.”
She nodded to one of the men Art didn’t know, who scowled. “The key to keeping our financial system working is public confidence,” he said, gruffly. “The public faith in banking has been low for the last few years, ever since the financial crisis in 2008. That has, in turn, hampered development, investment and future profit. Bankers are regarded as the lowest level of life form imaginable. We were working to attempt to rebuild trust, but the release of secure databases has shattered all of our work. The world now knows that parts of the banking system are still hollow.”
The President frowned. “Can’t we hold it together?”
“Not easily, Mr President,” the speaker said. Art winced at his mental tone. Deep inside, the man had already given up. “The problem lies in the public’s perception of the banks and their stability. If the public remains calm and refuses to panic, we can patch up the holes and keep the overall system going. The public, however, is not calm. The word is spreading that the banks are failing – each rumour only adds to the panic – and the public is trying to withdraw their money, which leads to others trying to withdraw their money as well...”
He shrugged. “The bottom line is that we may be looking at another financial slump, perhaps worse,” he concluded. “We do have emergency powers to try to slow the crisis, perhaps hold it back long enough to keep the system together, but they are unreliable. And then there is the effect of the attack in the first place. It made us look like fools.”
“True,” one of the other unnamed men said. Art realised that he was from the State Department. “The release of various secret documents from secure databases will have long-term implications for our security, as well as our relationships with other countries. Like Snowden, only worse.”
“That’s a long-term concern,” the President said. “Who is responsible for this?”
Agent Evens bowed her head. “It would seem that the attack was carried out by the telepaths who escaped from the Zeller Institute,” she said. “We captured the hacker and peeked into his mind, finding only vague and unhelpful memories caused by another telepath. However, we checked the entire apartment and found DNA evidence – the person who visited the hacker and convinced him to help was Elizabeth Tyler.”
Art winced. He’d known that Leo was capable of doing something stupid, just to prove his own belief that telepaths were superior to normal humans, but he’d thought better of Elizabeth. She had been reluctant to assert any superiority and had been traumatised by what had happened at Harvard. Indeed, the more he thought about it, the more he wondered if the whole idea had not been hers. She wouldn’t have wanted to kill anyone else. Leo, on the other hand, could blithely have killed thousands of people if it suited his aims...and he was allied with one of the most dangerous free agents in America.
“Which means that all thirteen of them have become terrorists,” Senator Wallis said. “Mr President, I don’t believe that we can delay any longer. We need to catch those...people before they get out of Washington, or before they cause even more havoc.”
“Yes,” the President said, dryly. “Now, where do you suggest we start looking for them?”
“We have a plan, of sorts,” Agent Evens said. “The problem, however, is that they may have left Washington. If so, the task of hunting them down becomes a great deal harder. They can interfere with the minds of non-telepaths and we don’t have that many telepaths in the Telepath Corps...”
“So we draft them,” Senator Wallis said, sharply. “We order all of the registered telepaths to join the Telepath Corps for the duration of the emergency. We give them some training and add them to hunter teams. They can tell if someone is attempting to manipulate their minds and call in back-up from the Telepath Corps.”
Art exchanged a glance with Alice. He had to admit that the plan was sound, at least in theory, although it might take weeks before the terrorists were hunted down. The anarchist they had with them would know all the tricks and where to hide, places that would be overlooked or ignored by the searchers. And telepathy gave them a major advantage, perhaps two; they would know where the searchers had been and slip into the cleared areas. Washington couldn’t be sealed off like a city in Iraq, not if the President wanted to remain in power. He had to admire whoever had come up with the plan. The chances were good that half of the American population would hail them as heroes.
The President looked over at Art. “Captain Russell,” he said, “is that plan workable?”
Art flushed. He had never imagined that he’d be in a position to advise the President, not after he’d developed telepathy and had been recalled to the United States. The vague dream of rising to the top of the Marine Corps had always been nothing more than a dream, but now...all of a sudden, he realised what that meant. The wrong advice could do more than merely end his career. It could get people killed.
“The plan is sound,” he said, reluctantly. “I think, however, that it will require considerable training before a civilian telepath is ready to join the hunt. We need to get started sooner rather than later.”
“See to it,” the President ordered. He stared down at his hands. “I will have to address the nation in an hour. It would be nice to give them some hope.”
***
“My fellow Americans,” the President said, an hour later. The cameras followed his every word. “We know now that the current economic crisis facing the country was caused by a group of rogue telepaths, who invaded minds and caused them to act in ways not suited to the country’s advantage. They have attacked our country and weakened the government.”
He paused. “After consultation with Congress and the Senate, in order to deal with this nightmare, I have ordered the drafting of every registered telepath into the Telepath Corps,” he continued. “All telepaths will be given training and then put to work to counter the terrorists and make our country safe again. I ask for all telepaths to respond to the call. Your country needs you. Your friends and families need you.
“This country has endured many a crisis,” he concluded. “We have survived them all and we will survive this one too. Goodnight – and God bless America.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The President’s decision to draft telepaths has been met by mixed responses from the public. Many have applauded the President’s decision, but both civil liberties and privacy advocates have questioned the use of the draft – the first since Vietnam – for recruiting telepaths to the government’s side. Public opinion is, in fact, divided on the so-called telepathic terrorists – they have a surprising level of support from many on the internet, including those who used to work for Curtis Hughes. Others say that forcing him to confess in public was cruel and a foretaste of what humanity might expect in a world dominated by terrorists...
-AP News Report, 2015
“Welcome to the lair of the revolution,” Valentine said, as he waved Leo and Elizabeth into the warehouse. “A third of the anti-government activity in Washington passes through this warehouse, from smuggled guns to propaganda leaflets that the feds would snatch and destroy if they got their hands on them. Your presence here is a sign of trust from the leadership.”
Elizabeth frowned. Valentine talked a good game, but the warehouse just wasn’t that impressive. On the outside, it looked as if it was permanently on the verge of falling down, with a handful of homeless people gathered around it. On the inside, it was dark and grimy, with hardly any lighting worth the name. It struck her as more of a hideout for junior criminals than the heart of the resistance that Valentine kept talking about.
“Of course it’s not that impressive,” Valentine said when her doubts began leaking out of her mind. “What were you expecting? Perhaps you wanted bright lights and a sign reading SECRET MEETING HERE?”
Elizabeth realised with a start that Valentine’s telepathy was growing stronger, but then they were all growing stronger. Being on the run forced them to develop stronger telepathy; God knew it was their only advantage. In the two days since they had launched their first offensive – as Leo had, rather grandly, called it – they had come alarmingly close to being captured twice. If the policemen had had a telepath with them, the game would have been up.
Elizabeth flushed at his tone. “The underground knows that the only way to remain alive and free is to keep operating on the down low,” Valentine added, dryly. “They cannot risk being detected by the feds, or they’d come down on their heads like a ton of bricks. They know what they’re doing.”
“Fine, good, glad to hear it,” Leo said, tartly. They stepped into the main warehouse and stopped. There was no one there. Elizabeth reached out with her mind and sensed nothing. “Why did we come here?”
“The feds have been desperate to locate us ever since we embarrassed them,” Valentine explained. “We’re here because they need us to check out the loyalty of some of their people. The government is offering ten million dollars for our heads – preferably without the bodies attached – and they are worried that some of their people will take the shot at instant wealth.”
“Oh,” Elizabeth said. “I thought you trusted these people?”
“I trust the leadership, even if we don’t always agree,” Valentine admitted, “but what about the others? The junior members, the ones who might only be playing at being rebels who want to smash the system; the ones who have questionable periods in their past; the ones who may have ulterior motives of their own...we cannot trust them all.”
He grinned. “There’s an old military saying that says the largest trustworthy group is around fifty men,” he added. “After that...there are going to be divided loyalties, whatever else happens. You don’t get old in this business by taking chances.”
Elizabeth frowned. “But how can they trust us?”
“The government has put a massive price on our heads,” Leo pointed out, sharply. He sounded tense and Elizabeth wondered if Valentine had told him something more about the meeting than he’d told her. “They can trust us not to want to betray ourselves to the government, not after they started drafting telepaths into their army...”
Valentine looked up as a noise echoed through the warehouse. “You two go into that room and get ready,” he said, pointing to a dusty door. Elizabeth stepped over to it and discovered that the room inside was surprisingly clean and untouched. It had no windows and so they could turn on the lights. The person who had originally owned the room had a fondness for an Indian model, one with long brown legs and dark eyes to die for. Elizabeth ripped the calendar down and dumped it in the waste bin.
Twenty minutes passed slowly. Elizabeth could hear chatter outside, but it was impossible to read thoughts at that distance, at least without being able to see the person. She strained her mind and caught flickers of emotion – nervous eagerness mixed with trepidation – but sensed nothing else. Leo took a chair and sat down on it, his mental shields drawn tightly around him. She couldn’t read anything from his mind at all.
The door finally opened and Valentine came in. “They have agreed to come in one at a time and be interviewed,” he said. “We didn’t tell them that they were having their minds read – it would only have upset them. If one of them is a bad apple, someone working for the feds, freeze them and hold them. We can deal with them in a manner that will terrify anyone else who is even thinking about infiltrating our organisation.”
“Of course,” Leo said, too loudly. “When do you want to start?”
Elizabeth took one of the other chairs as Valentine went back outside. A moment later, he came in with a young man who was clearly determined to shock. He had shaved all of his head, apart from a single shock of hair in the exact centre of his skull, which he had dyed bright green. He had so many rings on his fingers that Elizabeth shivered, knowing that she would have been nervous around him if she’d seen him before she became a telepath. The sudden flush of lust through his mind as he saw her shocked and repelled her, even though she had thought she was used to such involuntary male thoughts. Men, particularly young men, couldn’t help themselves when they saw a pretty girl.
Leo winked at her and reached out with his mind. Elizabeth followed him a second later, suddenly becoming aware of the young man’s puzzlement. He didn’t understand what was going on, or why he was there and part of him was worried about it. His memories rose up in front of them and they swam through them, realising how the boy had grown up with an abusive mother and no father. He had no idea who his father had actually been, something that had nagged at him as he grew older. He’d drifted into the movement by accident, but had been an enthusiastic participant, once he realised that he was allowed to cause as much trouble as possible. He’d thrown stones at policemen, turned protests into riots and much more. Darker memories flared around them and Elizabeth looked away. She didn’t want to probe too closely.
“Loyal,” Leo said, finally. He touched the young man’s mind, blurring it so that he wouldn’t recall what had happened. “Send in the next one.”
The second person was a girl who didn’t seem to have a single cell in her brain. Elizabeth had cracked jokes about dumb blondes before, but this one really was dumb – and, for some reason, she had dyed her hair blonde. She was possibly the stupidest person that Elizabeth had encountered, someone so caught up in the romance of being part of an underground movement that it honestly hadn’t occurred to her to question it – or, for that matter, to develop any politics of her own. She could have been a fascist or a communist, a socialist or a libertarian – she just didn’t have any convictions at all. Elizabeth rolled her eyes as other memories rose up and knew, somehow, that Cholula would burn herself out before too long.
But she was loyal, if only because she didn’t have the imagination to be anything else.
The night wore on as seven more people were paraded before the telepaths. Elizabeth had sometimes wondered what pushed a person into the underground; now she knew, in so many ways. Some had the conviction that they were doing the right thing and that they had to fight against the system; some believed that it was the gateway to future power and position for themselves. A handful just liked the free drugs and even freer love. The parts of the movement that connected to the colleges and college students encouraged throwing away old taboos, helping the ones who would become true anarchists to lose their inhibitions, just so they could rebel against society and strive to bring it down.
The eighth person was different. She looked like a teenager, complete with tight jeans, short top without a bra and a weird hairstyle, but her thoughts were too ordered to be real. Elizabeth and Leo shared a glance and then reached out, realising in a moment of shared horror that they were looking at an undercover police officer. The policewoman wasn’t a telepath – or else the game would have been over at once when she sent for help – but she recognised them. Elizabeth tore through her memories in a panic, feeling the cool contempt the policewoman felt for the people in the movement and her certainty that the movement was being exploited by enemies of America. Elizabeth saw the movement as the policewoman saw it and recoiled. It was nothing more than a group of silly children playing games.
