The Rainbow Maker's Tale (34 page)

That was impossible – we
couldn’t go back – not knowing what we did.

“No! What are we going back
to?”

Cassie didn’t answer me.

“If we honestly believe that
what you dreamed was – in any way real – that means our parents and
the other adults are forcing people to the Married Quarter! What
reason would they have for doing that?”

All Cassie offered me was
another shrug. It pushed me further, making me throw some of my own
questions back at her.

“On top of everything else, if
the ability to communicate through thoughts is as widespread
amongst the adult population of the space station as you seem to
think it is, why have they not told us about it?”

“Perhaps it’s something that’s
not supposed to mature until we’ve moved over to the Married
Quarter.”

“I don’t think so.”
And
neither do you…
Cassie’s voice sounded hollow, as if she didn’t
even believe her own words as she spoke them.

If Cassie hearing people’s
thoughts, was something that was meant to happen to all of us, they
would tell us if the skill emerged early. I was sure of it. The
brain scans I’d seen in Cassie’s record certainly showed they were
looking for it, but that only reinforced that it was not for our
benefit.

I counted off the examples
Cassie had given me. The woman in the street, Ami’s neighbour, my
mother and then her father: she’d felt them all try and tap into
her thoughts.

What connected them with each
other?

It took a moment, but then
something jumped out at me. Each attempt at intrusion coincided
with them questioning Cassie’s behaviour, or something she’d told
them. My thought processes leaped on further. Could there be a
connection between their interest in her behaviour, and The
Council’s preoccupation with moderating our behaviour with
chemicals and hormones…was hearing thoughts another, deeper means
of control?

That seemed plausible.

At school – even in our
training at the Clinic – this extra sense that the adults had was
never hinted at. Almost the opposite: they taught us that hearing
voices was a sign of mental illness in humans…

This new information just
didn’t fit with how The Council approached everything else in the
Family Quarter. Protecting us – ensuring we survived and became
adults – was the goal of
all
their other actions. If this
change happened to everyone, I was sure they would have a plan to
deal with anyone who
matured
early.

I shared my thoughts with
Cassie. “If this – what’s happening to you – was the
change
you’ve heard people mention, surely we’d know about it? We’d need
to understand that when it started to happen we needed to move
across to the Married Quarter. As far as we know, you’re the only
one who can do it.” I shook my head. “It doesn’t sound right.”

“So what is the
change
then?” She persisted, knocking us both back into wordless
contemplation.

Change
. Ami’s neighbour
had been the first adult Cassie had heard mention it. Then, there
was the conversation she found her parents having…did anything
connect them? I couldn’t think of anything.
What else was
missing?

“Maybe it’s something to do
with whatever The Collective is?” Cassie’s next suggestion jumped
us to a whole new area. “The way my parents talked about
The
Collective
made them sound different to The Council.”

“No.” That still didn’t sound
right. The Collective might be something else, but it wasn’t this –
I was sure. The only other change we knew about, besides Cassie’s
was Ami and Patrick’s mark. And hadn’t Cassie seen an image of a
red mark flash through the neighbour’s mind?

“The change has to do with our
marks.” I told her. “From everything you’ve said about your dream
and what you’ve seen in the adult’s minds, they are preoccupied
with them. It was Ami’s mark they checked before removing her,
remember?”

This was my best guess. My next
being, that whatever had caused Cassie to hear people was an
accident. Being able to do so was revealing another world to her:
one that we were deliberately excluded from.

“
There is more to this world
than we’re told.”

Words from my past ambushed me,
dropping another piece of the puzzle into place. Scarlett had told
me this, hadn’t she? I’d always thought she meant the secrets I’d
uncovered, but now I heard her words in a new way. Cassie was
feeling people inside her head. That had happened to me, just once
before, hadn’t it?

It wasn’t a complete answer –
Scarlett had been a child, but she had been able to speak inside my
head. She had also fallen to her death then I’d seen her walking
around, so I thought I could allow some leeway on the age
thing.

“
You will find the truth and
you will need Cassie to do it.”

Was all of this what Scarlett
had meant for me to find?

It
had
to be – the
similarities were too great. I had always wondered what made Cassie
special, if it wasn’t this, I couldn’t imagine what else it would
be...

Cassie’s head moved against
mine, as she fidgeted. It drew my attention back to her, just
before she spoke.

“Ami and Patrick’s marks
changed. I’ve never seen that happen before, have you?”

I looked down at my own wrist,
seeing the dark shape of my mark outlined by the dim light. I had
never seen, or heard, about them changing. Tilting mine towards the
viewing screen in the distance, I picked up a sliver of additional
light. Air stuck in my throat – I couldn’t answer her question, I
couldn’t breathe. In the shadowy light, I could see that the edges
of my mark had taken on a deep red tinge.

It’s a trick of the
light.
I had nothing in common with Ami and Patrick – how could
I have the same thing as them?

I didn’t. I couldn’t.

“No,” I told Cassie, finding my
voice.

There was a long pause, before
Cassie spoke again. I used the time to run through what I might be
able to find out tonight, to support my theory, once my parents
thought I was asleep. I couldn’t share it with Cassie until I was
sure.

“Do you think Ami’s OK?”

I sucked in a deep breath,
wishing that Cassie hadn’t asked me that. Any situation that hid
behind lies and secrets was never good.

“Ami was asleep when they came
for her and then sedated by the sounds of things. It seems they
don’t want us to be distressed by the removal to the Married
Quarter…But, for what reason, I really don’t know.”

“Patrick wasn’t sedated though.
He saw what was happening to Ami and when he struggled with them,
they hurt him.”

True.

“Do you think they killed him?”
I asked, before immediately regretting my unedited question, when I
saw the expression on Cassie’s face.

“Dead?”

I stayed quiet.

“DEAD?!” Cassie shouted, her
voice rising to near hysteria in a single word.

“It’s just a thought, Cassie, a
possibility – I didn’t mean – ”

“Just a thought? Why would you
say it if you didn’t mean it?”

It wasn’t that I didn’t mean
it, but that wasn’t the right thing to say. Through the darkness,
all I saw was fear in Cassie’s eyes. “I’m sorry Cassie. I shouldn’t
have said that. I have no idea what’s happening and it was wrong to
throw an idea like that out there. I’m sorry if it upset you.”

Cassie didn’t respond, although
her head drooped forward, in what I took to be a nod. I realised
that we had talked enough. To work out anything more at this point
I needed to get back to a viewing screen – maybe even The Clinic to
get supplies if I was going to test reactions on my own mark. (It
had occurred to me that the change might be related to hormones,
and I might understand more about why our marks might change, if I
knew what it was made of in the first place).

“We need to get back,” I told
Cassie. “But, before we leave I want you to take this.”

I let go of her hand and pulled
the wristband back out of my pocket. Cassie had given it me back
when we first sat down, but I had another, and something told me
that she might need it, if we didn’t figure out what was happening
quickly enough. Without knowing what was going on, I knew enough to
tell me that Cassie needed to be protected.

I pressed the cool square of
the metal band into Cassie’s palm and tried to ignore the awful
squirming in my stomach, that had begun with the thought of Cassie
being in danger.

“Why do you want me to have
this?” she sounded worried.

“Just in case.” I shrugged,
trying to downplay the significance of my gift. “And don’t worry –
I think I’ve been able to make another one for me – I had a rummage
through Father’s tools and came across some interesting
pieces.”

“You don’t think something will
happen do you?”

The truth was, I didn’t know. I
didn’t want to lie to Cassie, and so I didn’t. “I’m not sure of
anything any more, but I’ll be happier knowing you have that with
you.”

“We can’t go to anyone about
this, can we?”

“No,” I agreed, “It’s just me
and you now.”

Cassie pulled herself closer to
me and drew my face around to hers. In the shadows she looked
beautiful, but fragile – like she might break if I touched her. I
froze in place, my back remaining pressed up against the tree.

With her next movement, Cassie
appeared anything but fragile. She rotated on the ground, raising
her right leg over my hips, pulling herself into my lap. As her
eyes met mine, she looked inside me.

“You and me,” she said, echoing
my words.

“Always,” I confirmed, the word
swelling in my throat, so that I couldn’t speak. Cassie was so
close to me, anyway – I didn’t want more words – I just wanted her.
She leaned into the gap between us and brought her lips onto mine.
In desperation, I dragged her close and didn’t let go.

Cassie held on as if she would
never let go, barely breaking our kiss to breathe. When she did, I
couldn’t stop moving. My mouth moved over her cheeks to her neck,
and tilting her head back, I found the softest niches of her
throat. As my tongue brushed over them, Cassie pressed herself
tighter against me, and sent me charging on. Her throat curved into
her shoulder and I pulled the sleeve of her day-suit away as I
kissed her there. In the next instant my own suit was being pulled
aside, her hands on my skin like electric heat, and all I felt was
Cassie wrapped around me.

* * *

“I don’t want to go,” Cassie
murmured as we reached the Green Zone junction. The streets were
deserted, which wasn’t a surprise: the nearby viewing screen showed
it was nearly 11.30pm.

“Me either,” I agreed, stepping
into her and sliding my arms around her waist. Cassie shivered
against me, so I squeezed her closer

“Remember what I said about
your mother.”

I didn’t answer, but stroked my
finger over her cheek, marvelling at the light blush that seemed to
follow my touch. There had to be some way for us to move on from
here – away from the secrets and lies – I just needed to work out
how.

She pressed on. “You
have
to guard your thoughts when you’re around her –
especially since we’ve been talking about things I’ve never even
heard of before like The Collective – she’ll know there’s something
wrong if she picks that up from you.”

Cassie was right. I dropped my
hand, and focused instead on her eyes. They were bright and intent
on me, I could see she was being driven by fear.

“And what about you, how will
you keep your thoughts to yourself?”

“I’ll just keep you at the
front of my mind.” Cassie shrugged. “It seems to be what my parents
expect, and to be honest it’s not much of a change from normal
anyway.”

I smiled at the partial
compliment, and tried to hide my own fear that we were trapped
inside something much worse than I had ever imagined.

“I’m scared.” Cassie’s face
pressed into my shoulder, muffling her words.

“You don’t have to be scared –
you’ve got me. We’ll work this out together.” I promised, stroking
her hair. When the dark figures from Cassie’s dream stalked through
my own mind, my arms tightened around her. “I won’t let anyone hurt
you.”

“What are you going to do? Be a
hero and sit outside my apartment all night to keep watch over
me?”

Cassie was still squeezed into
my shoulder, and her warm breath seeped through the fabric of my
suit when she spoke. “Something like that,” I whispered back,
realising that it was actually a pretty good idea. I leaned in to
kiss her. “You’re my Achilles heel, you know.”

“Achilles shouldn’t have had a
weakness.”

I might have laughed at her
immediate, logical denial of the ancient myth. Except, there was no
laughter inside me. “All of us – heroes and gods, but especially
mere mortals – have a weakness,” I said, placing my lips onto
hers.

Chapter
17

The small clock on the screen
beside my apartment door told me it was 11.42pm. I was very late –
later than I’d ever been out before, to my parents’ knowledge – and
I wasn’t sure what I was about to walk in to.

The door whooshed open and I
stepped inside.

“Hello?” I asked
cautiously.

Mother appeared at the other
end of the hallway. “Balik – I’ve been waiting for you to get
back.”

I searched her face for any
indication of anger, or even reproach for my having stayed out so
late.

“I’m sorry it’s late, I was –
”

“With Cassie – I know.” She
replied, cutting off my excuse. “Your Father is out – there was an
emergency job he had to attend to.”

“An emergency in the Family
Quarter?” I asked, unable to help myself.