Deadly Relations: Bester Ascendant (2 page)

Brett sensed it, too, because as they came to the corner of one of the dorms, he suddenly changed course, ducking down stairs that went to the lower, back side of the building. From their hiding place, Brett glyphed an illusion that had them still running, and despite his suspicion, AI joined him. It worked. Azmun and the others whizzed past.

“Ha,” Brett said.

“Now…” But Al p-heard something Brett didn’t - the other three pursuers coming close behind. And Brett didn’t notice Al slipping into a recessed doorway. There, under cover, Al steeled himself, then closed his eyes tightly, calling up an image of Brett’s face.

He imagined himself as Brett. In his mind, he merged his own face and Brett’s into one, then changed Brett’s into his. It wasn’t easy, and he didn’t think it was working, until he suddenly heard Milla shout, “Hey! We’ve got Al!”

To clinch it, he blew sparks in Brett’s mind - not a nice thing to do, but then, Brett was a traitor. So instead of running, Brett just stood there stupidly, long enough for them to catch him. Then Al bolted, feeling their confusion paralyze them as they suddenly saw two Als. They were all behind him now No one stood between him and the statue of the Grabber.

All he had to do was run, and he could rim faster than any of them except Brett. But as he reached the statue, he slowed uncertainly. Standing nearby, looking up at it, was the normal he had noticed earlier, in the EarthFome uniform.

As Al approached, the man turned his gaze from the statue to him. There was something very unpleasant about that gaze - the man’s eyes were the color of pencil lead, his face very pale. When he saw Al, he seemed to not like what he saw. But when he spoke, his tone was mildly friendly.

“A little out of breath, young man?”

“Yessir.”

“You look like the devil’s chasing you.”

“Yessir.”

“Some kind of game, I hope?”

“Yessir - cops and blips.”

“Oh, very good - that’s one of the approved games, yes?”

“Yessir.”

“Is this statue your goal?”

“Yessir.”

“Better touch it, then.”

Al hesitated another instant, then did so. The uniformed man looked up at the statue again. It portrayed a man, leaping, with outstretched arms, a look of noble determination on his face.

“Tell me about this statue.”

“It’s the Gr… I mean, it’s William Karges. He was the bodyguard for-uh-President Robinson. Nobody knew he was a teep, but one day he p-heard… I mean heard with his mind - someone who wanted to kill the president, an’ he got shot warning her. Nobody liked teeps - I mean telepaths - back then, and they weren’t supposed to have jobs or rights or anything. But because of what Mr. Karges did, President Robinson made Psi Corps, to reward us, so teeps would have a place they could be safe and productive.” The man smiled gently.

“They taught you that in school?”

“Yessir. And we watch the movie every Birthday.”

“Did they also teach you that Washington chopped down the cherry tree?”

“Sir?”

“Never mind. Here come your friends. What’s your name, son?”

“Alfred Bester, sir.”

He nodded, then returned his gaze to the approaching mob of children, led by Brett. Al could feel the anger shimming from all of them. He had expected Brett to be angry, but why the rest?

“Looks like he won,” the normal remarked.

“Better congratulate him.” Brett hesitated an instant.

Al could tell that, if the normal weren’t around, they would all be shouting at him now. But no telepath was ever allowed to fight with another telepath around Normals. Never. So Brett held out his hand.

“Good going,” he mumbled.

But as their hands touched, he p-cast something very different.

We’re gonna get you, Alfie, you slug.

That was bad, but it wasn’t the worst thing. For a second, Al felt an intense flash of anger, hatred even. And it wasn’t coming from anyone in his cadre. It was coming from the normal.

Chapter 2

Teacher Hua was explaining that the Earth Alliance had been founded so there could never be a World War IV, and had just asked a question about the importance of the Psi Corps in the Alliance, when three Grins entered the room. Al knew with cold and immediate dread that they had come for him.

Despite their nickname, they weren’t grinning. Their masks were smooth plastic, with no visible openings for eyes, nose, or mouth-but like vid or AI units, they could be used to display images. The icons were usually simple - a bright yellow grin appeared when they brought awards, medals, or presents; a threatening, downtumed mouth when they came to correct or punish.

“It seems someone has been bad,” Teacher Hua said, noting the expressions on the “faces” of the three silent, grey-robed figures.

“Now who in my class might have been bad? Who has brought shame upon the Corps?”

Al sensed a mild wave of panic rippling around him. Most everyone in the room had been bad, of course, at one time or the other - but bad enough for this? The Grins gave no clue as to who they might have come for - they just stood there, while Teacher Hua surveyed the room with grim speculation. Al glanced at Brett, whose triumphant expression struck him like a snake. Brett had told. The Grins were after him. Knees shaking a little, Al rose from his seat.

“Alfred Bester,” Teacher Hua said, softly.

“And what do you think you might have done wrong, Mr. Bester?”

“I… I don’t know, sir. I mean I’m not sure. But I think it was me.”

In response to that, the three figures rustled toward him, hands lifting. As one, they stripped off their black gloves. The sight was worse, far worse, than seeing a nurse preparing a needle to take blood. His scalp tingled with a rush of terror. They laid their hands on him, and he tried not to block, he really did but it was like trying not to blink when someone swung at your face. And so it hurt even more as they tunneled into his mind found his sins, dragged them out in bright glyphs, mind-casting them for everyone to see.

When they finally let him go, he came to himself again, gasping, sweat pouring down his face. The whole class had witnessed his misery. They had to help him up because he was trembling too violently to walk. Tears welled behind his eyes, but he would not cry, could not, not on top of everything else. Their gloves were still off. They weren’t done yet. They took him, alone, to where he had done it, where the others had caught Brett. They stood him in the very spot, in the door frame, and stepped back to regard him. Their masks were unadorned now - blank ovals of plastic.

“What did you do?” The Grins had strange voices, inflectionless, like an Artificial Intelligence. Some thought that’s exactly what they were, robots, though robots were supposed to be illegal.

“I… I betrayed Brett.”

A sharp stab into his mind.

“You don’t believe that. Why?”

“He was playing dumb. He was going to get us caught. I wanted to win the game.”

“You betrayed a member of the Corps. You cannot win - not at that cost.”

“We were pretending to be Blips. Blips betray each other.”

They crowded nearer, and one pointed an ungloved hand at him.

“That is a lie. The others were pretending you two were rogues. You were not. You imagined yourself a Psi Cop, chased by rogues. But it runs deeper than that, Mr. Bester. No matter what any of you were pretending, you are all members of the Corps. Whatever you pretend in the course of constructive - or unconstructive - play, Brett is your brother. You share the same mother and father. Do you understand?”

“Yessir,” Al replied, bowing his head.

“The Corps is mother. The Corps is father.”

“You can’t forget that Brett is your brother without forgetting that the Corps is your mother and your father. Do you understand?”

“Yessir.”

“You won’t forget.”

It wasn’t a question, but a promise. The three stepped forward and laid hands on him again, one behind him and one to each side. For an instant, nothing happened, and then, suddenly, the world grew brighter. The steps where Brett had hidden suddenly came alive, each grain in the stone became a universe of significance. The buildings, the lawn, the trees - all burned into his mind with terrifying, hyper - real clarity. Shame shaped the light; fear framed the image, permeated it.

The Grins lowered their hands. They put their gloves on and led him back to class. The trek from the classroom door to his seat was one of the longest he had ever taken. He felt like the corpse of a cat they had once found. It had somehow fallen from one of the buildings. Splattered, guts hanging out, fascinating because it was so horrible.

He avoided the questioning glances of the students as the subject switched to math, kept his head down, trying to pretend nothing had happened. It was hard; the image of the place where he betrayed Brett lingered in his mind, like an afterimage of the sun on retinas. But he made it through the day and trudged back to the cadre house, wishing he didn’t share a room with Brett. At the meal in the common room, everyone avoided him. Probably worried that if they spoke to him the Grins would come for them next. When it was time for John Trakker, Psi Cop, he had no enthusiasm for watching it and quietly slipped off, seeking solitude.

He almost bumped into Ms. Chastain. The tall, thin brunette wore a dark brown skirt and turquoise blouse. She looked down at him over the tip of her rather pointy nose. He liked Ms. Chastain-maybe not as much as he liked Mr. King, who had been his house father at 3-5, but that might just be because he missed Mr. King.

“Al, did you have a bad day? You always watch John Trakker.”

He nodded, sullenly. She reached down and lifted his chin with her fingers.

“Grins came for you, didn’t they?”

“Yes, ma’am.” “Did you deserve it?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Well.”

She seemed to study him for a moment.

“I was just going to have some tea in the kitchen. Would you care to join me?”

Her voice was kind.

“Yes, ma’am”

“May I tell you a story AI?”

Ms. Chastain sipped her lemon tea and nudged the plate of gingersnaps toward him. He took one.

“Yes, please.”

“This is about my grandmother. She was a telepath, like me. Not as strong as me-she was maybe a P3 at best, though she was never rated.”

“What do you mean? Everyone is rated, except maybe Bli… He broke off, suddenly embarrassed. But Ms. Chastain smiled gently.

“No, Al, she wasn’t a Blip. She never got to join Psi Corps, you see. She was born in 2035. She never registered because she lived in New Zealand, and they didn’t require it there-it was before universal registration. She was a good person, though. She didn’t try to use her abilities for personal gain, but worked with the Catholic church, helping the needy.

But one day, when my mother was just five years old, some Normals came to the church and they burned it. And they took all of the priests who were teeps, and they took my grandmother, and they tied heavy weights on all of them and dropped them in the ocean. My mother was there, but she was hiding, and from where she was, she felt my grandmother drown.

She kept that feeling in her heart, and when I got old enough, she passed it on to me. It was awful, Alfred, but I know why she did it. She did it to remind me, always, that we aren’t like normal people. Even if we try to pretend we are, the Normals will remind us.”

She smiled, and then abruptly laid her hand on his and switched to p-casting…

We’re special, Al, all of us. The Normals know it, and they hate us for it. And there are so many more of them than there are of us, so many. If we don’t stand together, all of us - if we aren’t stronger and smarter and better than them - they’ll do it again, like they did to my grandmother. So when you think you’ve been treated harshly, remember that.

It’s to make you strong and good, to get you ready for the challenges that come later. Because even though many Normals hate us, it’s still our job to protect them, too. From themselves, from enemies out in the stars. And you, Al - you’re really strong you test P12, and if you train well you can live up to that potential. You will have to be more responsible than most. You’ll look back one day and understand everything that happened to you. You’ll see that it was for the greater good. Do you understand?

He managed a little smile.

Yes.

Good. How about another cookie?

That night, in his nightmares, he saw the steps again, and watched himself as he betrayed Brett. But when he woke up, heart pounding, he remembered Ms. Chastain’s words. I have to be better than I am, he thought to himself. I have to be the best, and I have to do it right.

But he had a hard time getting back to sleep. After a while he rose and went to the window. Their room was on the third floor, faced away from most of the city lights of Geneva, and he had a good view of the stars. He started picking out the ones he knew, trying to remember what he had heard about them, which were the homes of men. And in the corners of his eyes-where the stars were strangely brightest-he thought he saw the faces.

When he focused on them, they always went away, so he could never see them directly. He knew the woman had dark red hair, and the man had black hair. They were the faces of the Corps, the mother and father. Sometimes, when he was alone, he would talk to them, ask them questions, but they never answered. He heard their voices sometimes, when he was asleep, but when he woke up he was never sure what they had said. Only that they loved him. But of course they did. They were the Corps.

Sometimes he wondered what he would see if a Grin took off its mask. Would he see those faces, but clearly? Where were they. If not behind the Grins? Maybe in the big buildings. Maybe the director was his mother. A soft rustling behind him interrupted his thoughts.

“You okay, Alfie?” It was Brett.

“Yeah.”

“Alfie… Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t know it would be so bad. The way you looked when they brought you back - I’m sorry I told.”

“No,” Al replied.

“No, you did right. I shouldn’t have done that to you.”

There followed an awkward pause.