Telepath (Hive Mind Book 1) Read Online Free Page A

simply be told my assigned profession, and be
sent for imprinting with the appropriate information.
    I accepted there were good
reasons for those rules. It would be hard for someone to live with the
knowledge that scoring just a little better on a test could have made them twenty
levels higher. I still wished I understood what was happening.
    I turned, went out of the
door, and headed back to the hall. Everyone stared at me as I picked up my bag
and walked out. There were hundreds of eighteen-year-olds at this centre, and I
was the only one leaving. That had to mean either something very good or
something very bad, and I didn’t know which.

Chapter Three
     
     
    Once I was outside the centre, I
had a cowardly urge to run to my parents’ apartment and hide in what had once
been my bedroom. New arrivals on Teen Level sometimes ran away, returning to
the comforting familiarity of home and parents. Counsellors would follow and
coax them back, embarrassed and blushing, to face the ordeal of growing up and
being their own person. Running away from Teen Level made those who did it look
ridiculous. I’d look even more ridiculous if I tried running away from Lottery.
    I took a deep breath, and
headed for the new community centre. I had another long journey to reach it,
and of course it looked virtually identical to the last one. I put my new
assessment card into the door slot to gain entry.
    “Welcome, Amber, your
Lottery assessment registration transfer is now complete.”
    I noticed the different
message and was vaguely reassured. I’d never heard of people being transferred
during Lottery, but clearly the system was designed for it. I went inside and
found a deserted hall with a screen covered in names and room designations. Everyone
must have already left for the night, so I found my name on the list, made a
note of where I was supposed to be staying, turned round and went back out of
the centre.
    My designated room was
only a few corridors away. I walked there, still obsessing over why I’d been
transferred to a different centre. If it was true the old centre didn’t have
the facilities for my next test, that surely meant it was an unusual test for
an uncommon profession.
    Was something astonishingly
good happening to me or was this a disaster? Was I being tested for an
important, high level profession that would give me a glittering future, or for
some hideous work deep in the bowels of the Hive? I alternated between
excitement and depression, but depression was winning. Even if I was being
tested for something high level, I’d probably fail the test and be sent back to
my original assessment centre.
    I reached a door with the
right number on it, opened it, and took my bag and my uncertainty into an unwelcomingly
bare room. I set the wall display to show one of the standard pictures, and brilliant
blue cornflowers sprang into three dimensional life. The flowers made me feel a
bit more at home, but I still missed having all my old familiar clutter of possessions
around me.
    I’d lost my appetite, so I
didn’t bother getting any food from the tiny kitchen unit, just stripped off
and showered. It seemed a waste of effort to dress again afterwards, so I
activated the sleep field, and then dimmed the lighting. I lay enfolded in the
darkness and the cushion of warm air, watching the glowing flowers on the wall.
    A million other eighteen-year-olds
would be in bare rooms like this one, trying to relax after the strain of their
first day in Lottery. I briefly wondered who was in my old room now, then
drifted on to picturing my old friends. Margot frowning in disapproval of
something. Linnette daydreaming. Shanna anxiously studying her reflection in
the mirror. Forge …
    I pulled a face at the
thought of Forge. I’d been fixated on that boy from the first moment I saw him
on Teen Level. He’d looked straight past me at Shanna, never thought of me as more
than a random member of the group who trailed round in their wake, but